The Probability of Miracles (Wendy Wunder)

Dry, sarcastic, sixteen-year-old Cam Cooper has spent the last seven years in and out hospitals. The last thing she wants to do in the short life she has left is move 1,500 miles away to Promise, Maine - a place known for the miraculous events that occur there. But it's undeniable that strange things happen in Promise: everlasting sunsets; purple dandelions; flamingos in the frigid Atlantic; an elusive boy named Asher; and finally, a mysterious envelope containing a list of things for Cam to do before she dies. As Cam checks each item off the list, she finally learns to believe - in love, in herself, and even in miracles. A debut novel from an immensely talented new writer, The Probability of Miracles crackles with wit, romance and humor and will leave readers laughing and crying with each turn of the page.

First off, yayyyy for a protagonist that's not white for once!

Or, at least not full white. Not to mention Cam's other culture (she's half Samoan) is completely embraced in this novel. There's even a scene where one of her friends tries to make a little joke about her Samoan side but she quickly sets them straight. You go, girl!

There are few books that make me want to reread them in physical form (versus in electronic form), but this is one of them. Despite the different plot points and characteristics that frequent most contemporary YA novels, this one managed to stay original...mostly.

Most importantly, Cam is dying of cancer. And Since her father died, Alicia (Cam's mom) has been with a bunch of different guys. Therefore Cam has learned true love=not real. Commitment=doesn't exist. People=are fickle. Also, Cam is a very sarcastic, I'm-not-a-typical-teenager teenager. The story isn't told through her point of view but third person, however the focus remains strictly on Cam. 

Cam has a best friend (who also has the same cancer) who is having an affair with another girl's boyfriend. I was really hoping this plot-line was going to be different. First the guy, Ryan, goes to youth group and his girlfriend won't have sex with him. Lily (the best friend) goes to youth group too but will have sex with him. When we first see Ryan and Lily interact he seems to go beyond the stereotypes the plot demands of him. He waits for Lily to eat before he does, he helps her when she has a remission-caused nosebleed and seems like he genuinely cares about her. But when Cam gets him alone and asks his intentions, Ryan basically states he doesn't see the point of dumping his girlfriend for him. I can't decide if he thinks this because she is dying or because he really doesn't want to be with her. It sucked.

Cam's best friend also ties in another plot device from other YA stories. When she and Cam were younger and were away at what seemed like a cancer camp, they each made bucket lists. However, to keep them from sounding so depressing they call them Flamingo lists. 

A lot of Cam's sarcasm and personality comes out in her penning of the list, which is a sad ode to the life of a teenager/teens in YA. (Is this really what we're like?)

FLAMINGO LIST (I rearranged them in the order they are achieved)

* Experiment with petty shoplifting.

* Have an awkward moment with my best friend’s boyfriend.

* Dabble in some innocent stalking behavior.

* Drink beer.

* Lose my virginity at a keg party.

* Have my heart broken by an asshole.

* Stay out all night.

* Wallow in misery, mope, pout, and sleep through Saturday.

* Get fired from a summer job.

* Go cow-tipping.

* Kill my little sister’s dreams.

Anyways, in the beginning of the novel Cam has just found out that she is in remission yet again but this time there is nothing the doctors can do for her. This flashback was really sad because Cam's doctor was upset and she was trying to make him feel better. So her mom is like, we're going to find a cure. She hears about this magical miracle town in Maine called Promise and whisks Cam and her little sister Perry away from their DisneyWorld life (they work/live at DisneyWorld, BTW) and leaves her current boyfriend behind.

Once in Promise, miracles ignite. Almost immediately in their entrance to the town Cam meets a boy named Asher. Asher is a bunch of cliches. He is a good-looking football player who has the cream of the crop (what the hell does that saying even mean?) to chose from with girls. However, in his spare time Asher enjoys getting hand jobs from older women. Also, Asher is afraid. He's afraid to leave Promise because his parents died when they left, so what if he does too?

In the beginning I liked Cam and Asher's relationship. Yes, she thought he was cute and engaged in some innocent stalking from her widows walk but he wasn't all that she was thinking about. Cam still had a personality past her crush on Asher. And their relationship seemed to progress at a good phase. That is, until Cam's new employer and Asher's aunt reveals his back story to her. I felt like this took the place of a actual intimate bonding moment between the two characters that could've furthur developed their relationship. Instead, it was still used as such. Soon a rift occurs between Cam, Asher, Perry and Alicia, they kiss and soon are all touchy-feely with each other.

Cam soon gets a lot of her list done. In one night and the fallout that follows, she manages to knock a good three or four off her list. Perry insists that she goes to a island rager which you have to zip-line to get too. Once there Cam actually makes some friends her age like this girl named Sunny and starts hula dancing. She also drinks a little and manages to catch a drunkie. The guy's name is Alec and he is a French exchange student. He leads Cam to this boat where they start making out. She tries to tell him no, but he's all:

and takes her virginity even though she didn't say yes. In fact, she specifically said no. So it was non-consensual sex. I know she didn't fight and later said that it actually started feeling good...until it didn't but still. If someone says no, it means:

I didn't even really process what the fuck had happened until later when I re-read that scene. Ugh, what a fucking loser. Then on top of that, (of course) Alec has a girlfriend. A girlfriend that Cam sorta-kinda-but-not-really be friends as time passes. I know she had given up on finding love before she died but I really wish that she could've had a different first time.

This book brought up some good points. Like Perry goes off on Cam once for not recognizing that as young as she is, she's had to make sacrifices for Cam's illness too. Cam isn't the only one being effected by her cancer. So is her mom and her sister. I think it's fairly easy in books like these for the authors and main characters to get lost in their struggle and seeing the grief in the people around them that they forget this aspect. The loved ones of someone with cancer aren't just mourning, they are making sacrifices for the cancer patient whether they are dying and trying to find a cure. It was so sad though to hear Perry have to tell Cam this. 
One of the main issues in the story is that Cam refuses to believe in miracles. She refuses to believe that the town was magical. She even gets into a fight with her mom and sister about this. They beg her to believe and she refuses. Trying to help them, she tries to make her mom's garden magically grow overnight and makes a donkey into a unicorn for her sister. However, she fails miserably.

At this point Cam hits the lowest of low points. Desperately needing someone to talk to, she tries to call Lily but her mother informs her that Lily actually died three days ago and they had forgotten to call Cam and let her know. Finally Cam is done.

She decides that she's tired of living and takes a bunch of pills and tries to drive her car off a cliff. But the pills kick in too soon and she crashes into a bouncy house and Asher manages to find her (after his dick's happy time) and forces her to throw up the pills. After this, she manages to work everything out with her family and Asher. This actually leads to Asher cutting off the older girl and he and Cam eventually start dating.

Everything seems good for a while. Somehow Lily managed to send Cam a couple of gifts beyond the grave. The first is the now-bedazzled picture of them that Cam stole from her house. She also actually made a real version of that book thing they were writing together. She also sent Cam her own Flamingo list. The only thing that wasn't checked (I was soooooo sad. I had hoped things would change for her) was "find true love" but Cam decided that she, herself had. The last thing Lily arranged was a Make a Wish gift that ironically sent Cam back home to DisneyWorld with her friends.

Just as she prepares to take Asher and her friends to DisneyWorld, Asher notices a blue spot (a symptom of her disease) on her, but she blows it off. Her focus is getting him and her friends outside of Promise to show them what the world is like. Her mother kept refusing to let her go because she was scared that leaving Promise would send Cam in remission. She's partly right, but the new blue spot appears right before they even leave. Anyway, the trip is nice, she and Asher have sex (although they've had sex before this and are dating now, hence the touch-feely period) and they bring back Alicia's left behind boyfriend because Cam realizes now that her sister and mother love him more then just temporarily. The boyfriend proposes to the mom and they get married in Promise.

This is where the next couple of chapters keep having the perfect endings for the novel, but they aren't the endings. It'll just be another chapter. Cam starts semi-dreaming of the future. She's been accepted into Harvard and Asher is semi-considering leaving Promise. However, Cam can feel death coming for her. The symptoms started just before she left Promise and are only getting worse. But then the two of them get into a  huge fight as Cam tries to push Asher to leave Promise. It almost sounds like a last wish. Angry, Asher goes out in the sea and a huge storm appears.

A ghost ancestor of his appears to Cam and tells her that yes, she will be dying soon but she has to call him back. Cam holds on for as long as she can before she passes out. Her family has to leave Promise to get her to a real hospital. Cam says goodbye to her family and luckily Asher appears and they say their goodbyes.

And then she dies. My first thought was: What? WHAT? She dies? She dies? What the hell kind of book is called The Probability of Miracles and she actually dies!!?! Was that the point? So we could calculate the chances of the things that Cam did experience in Promise were actually miracles? Or were they just a bunch of coincidences? Was it a coincidence that the flamingos came there or were they really for her? Was it a coincidence that she was getting better before she died or was it really the works of a miracle that didn't work?

But maybe the miracle wasn't that Cam was supposed to live. Maybe the miracle was that she actually saw and experienced love and died with it. I know when she died she was surprised she still felt the love of all her loved ones. Maybe the miracle was Asher. Maybe the miracle was finding friends, a family. Maybe the miracle was seeing that true love and commitment were real despite her past and people like Alec probing her wrong. Maybe the miracle was the love Cam actually had to earn from Asher and Sunny and the others and the love she witnessed between Perry, her mother and her boyfriend. Maybe that's the miracle: love.

Anyway, despite my spoiling of the plot you should definitely read this book. I loved the writing and some of the characters. This book is underrated on Goodreads and should definitely be read more.

The One [The Selection #3]

The Selection changed the lives of thirty-five girls forever. And now, the time has come for one winner to be chosen. America never dreamed she would find herself anywhere close to the crown—or to Prince Maxon's heart. But as the competition approaches its end and the threats outside the palace walls grow more vicious, America realizes just how much she stands to lose—and how hard she'll have to fight for the future she wants. From the very first page of The Selection, this #1 New York Times bestselling series has captured readers' hearts and swept them away on a captivating journey... Now, in The One, Kiera Cass delivers a satisfying and unforgettable conclusion that will keep readers sighing over this electrifying fairy-tale long after the final page is turned.

I don't know what it was about this book. But it pissed me off so much. And it's not like the author did some huge plot twist or something and I was completely taken off guard. Nope, the book pretty much went the way I thought it would-but more about that later.

Actually, maybe the problem is me. I'm a sophomore-going-on-junior in college; I just declared English as my second major and started studying literature. But the writing in this book pissed me offfff. It was atrocious. When I was reading, I suddenly couldn't remember why I feel in love with the first book of this series anymore. Like I said, maybe it was me. I think I had just graduated high school or was a college freshman when I read The Selection. But either way, I forced myself to power through this book just to close a chapter in my reading.

The book starts off with America trying to seduce Maxon after a rebel attack...literally. Haha, but that is an epic fail. America's is like:

Which Maxon responds to by leaving but not before he's all:

The plot is all bland and stupid. The king is like, "No, Maxon. America=bad." And the Queen's all, "I love all of you girls. I can't get close to you because only one of you will stay. This is just so hard on me." (Um, lady what about your son?). And Aspen's all, "Mer, 

But she doesn't want him anymore. The other four girls fight about Maxon, then decide no matter what happens they will be friends. Interestingly enough, they learn that they all want to marry Maxon for different reasons. As a  model Celeste fears that as she ages, she'll leave the spotlight unless she marries Maxon. Elise (or whatever her name is) was raised to be a perfectionist and if she doesn't win the best hand in marriage her family will consider her a failure. Although Kriss doesn't tell them (but we eventually discover), she is a Northern Rebel and was added to the thrown shamble of a contest to be undercover. 

But during the time America lost Maxon (it's been a while since I read The Selection so I don't remember exactly what she's referring to here) Kriss actually came to love Maxon. I can't decide if this is a cliche or sweet... 

Also, America and Maxon meet two Northern rebel leaders. One is a direct descendant of the first king of...what's the name of this place again? I forget. They tell Maxon to chose America (or Kriss) and he throws a temper tantrum.  Then he and America get into another of their 1,0001 fights in the book.

These two are idiots. They sneak off of castle grounds to the outside world where she picks up a hooker after she has just been shot. I don't know if I should blame America or her creator for this nonsense. First, the way that America handles her gunshot wound is poorly handled. Her shock and surprise make sense in the beginning, but she is still too clear-headed and able-bodied for me. A person who just got shot would not act the way America was. It does not take a genius to know that. 

There was more stuff that pissed me off. America's father dies. (Apparently he has health issues that is never brought up. Oh, and he's a Northern Rebel too. That explains the history book.). And this pissed me off even more. The only reason the author has for killing off America's dad is for a plot device. America goes home which disrupts the king's ultimatum proposal (the king tries to force America to do a propaganda proposal to promote the caste system. If she doesn't do it, the king will kick her out of the competition. At first America refused and she and Maxon got into the fight because if she had said yes to that-or when his dad asked if she loved him-he would've ended the competition. America has until Christmas Day to reconsider.) and forces Maxon and America to spend time apart. But other then that, America doesn't really mourn. She never cries while she's back at home or even throughout the rest of the book.

When she returns to castle, Maxon reveals his love for her and they spend the night together. 

    

However, another reason America's father died comes to play. While America was back home, her stupid brother called Aspen and America out for having a thing. America didn't realize her maid, Lucy had overheard the entire conversation (and was looking mighty-butt-hurt about being the last to know) and decided she needed to tell Maxon. But when she returns Maxon's Declaration of Love distracts her and she forgets. Maxon says that he's ending the competition in the morning and they will elope. That night Maxon sleeps in her room but literally the next morning everything's gone to hell. Maxon leaves and comes back just when America has placed her hand on Aspen's chest.

 I wasn't sure how I felt about this. Sure, the book danced around Maxon's unawareness of their past relationship to lead to this moment, but a hand on the chest should not have resulted in that reaction. Obviously Maxon is insecure. He throws a fit and claims Aspen and America have been having a affair around his back the whole time. He then takes his proposal back from America and gives it to Kriss (lol, who witnesses everything. Haha, she got leftovers!)

The giant "climax" of the book is so stupid. During Maxon's wedding to Kriss (ahahaha, I was dying that he made America still go and smile while she was at it. Hilarious!) the rebels attack. 

Of course it's not the Nice Rebels but the bad ones. They kill Celeste and nearly killed America but in a sequence that still confuses me, Maxon and Aspen saved the day. Yayyy.... 

Also, the king and queen were conveniently killed off during this attack. So America doesn't have to worry about the king thwarting her relationship with Maxon or him beating his ass any anymore. This also allows the kingdom to be saved. Yayyy....

In the crossfire of the battle, Maxon got shot and did a predictable 360 and told America he loved her (who didn't know that?!?). Then he forced Aspen to get her to a safe room where she boo-hooed and cried about Maxon, Maxon, Maxon. Lol, this idiot thought the boy had actually died. 

The best part during the attack was when Aspen bitch-slapped some sense into Kriss. I died!

Stupid-ass America walked around for I don't know how long crying about how Maxon was dead until Aspen got some sense into her. She left him making out with Lucy, one of her maids. It was really weird and random. I don't know where that came from. Apparently, they are in love. Okay...?

In the end, North rebels saved the day. They were all:

to the Southern Rebels and they listened. Lol, just kidding. Okay, what really happened is the Northern Rebels kicked all their asses. And the key to their success? As Apsen put it "They fight differently. They knew what to do."  

Haha, I can't. 

I really can't. 

In result, Maxon becomes king and is all, fuck this bitch, to the caste system and dissolves it. Next, America and Maxon have the Important Declaration of their Love (this always happens after a couple has bypassed the obstacles of the plot) and get married. I actually felt bad for Kriss. She really did care about Maxon and she was sooooo close to actually getting to be with him. I would not have stayed for that wedding if I was her. We get a flash to Maxon and America's wedding day where the author decides to randomly switch into present tense. There really isn't an update on what's been going on in the kingdom, the rebels or the dissolution of the caste system. Obviously, the important part is that Maxon and America did get married. 

Ugh. At least I'm done now. I was really hoping that the author was going to shake things up. She definitely would have surprised a bunch of people if Maxon really had married someone else. And all the plot resolutions were too simply tied up for me. They were literally being held together with a string. I'm not sure if I'll read something else from Kiera Cass. I think my tastes in writing are evolving and her writing style is a little too juvenile for me.

The Spectacular Now (Tim Tharp)

Summary: 
SUTTER KEELY. HE’S the guy you want at your party. He’ll get everyone dancing. He’ ll get everyone in your parents’ pool. Okay, so he’s not exactly a shining academic star. He has no plans for college and will probably end up folding men’s shirts for a living. But there are plenty of ladies in town, and with the help of Dean Martin and Seagram’s V.O., life’s pretty fabuloso, actually. Until the morning he wakes up on a random front lawn, and he meets Aimee. Aimee’s clueless. Aimee is a social disaster. Aimee needs help, and it’s up to the Sutterman to show Aimee a splendiferous time and then let her go forth and prosper. But Aimee’s not like other girls, and before long he’s in way over his head. For the first time in his life, he has the power to make a difference in someone else’s life—or ruin it forever.

What I Thought:
When I first finished reading this book, I couldn't believe that was the end. I literally kept flipping back in forth on my e-reader, sure that I must've lost or missed a chapter or something. Because that couldn't be the end. Sutter leaves Aimee and gets drunk before asking a bunch of other old drunkards if he did the right thing and they agree with him. "He's a hero!" they proclaim. It's kind of sad, really. It's like we saw a glimpse of Sutter's future when he was in that bar. He's going to become one of those drunken losers.

But after a little more time processing, the ending began to make sense. After I finished reading it, I went online to read other people's reviews to see if they were as confused as I felt. But two embodied it the best:
"The book ended with the main character just as he was in the beginning."

After thinking about this, I admit I can't help but disagree. I see how someone may think this. Sutter obviously is an alcoholic. Everyone knows it but no one actually says it to his face, but I'm sure everyone is saying it behind his back.

However, in the beginning of the novel. Cassidy, Sutter's soon-to-be-ex-girlfriend asks him to "for once, put someone else's feelings before your own." By the end of the novel, Sutter actually does do this. He puts Aimee's feelings before his own but it takes a lot for him to get there. It takes Cassidy, the guy she starts dating, Marcus and Sutter's best friend, Ricky, trying to give him an "Aimee intervention" where they point out his negative influence in her life. And it's definitely obvious. This girl goes off on her only friend, starts doing shots at different points in the day just because she can and getting sloppy drunk at a party that causes the intervention in the first place.

But Aimee isn't hopeless. She has this dream of her and Sutter starting a new life together in Saint Louis with her sister. They'll get a apartment in her sister's complex there and she'll start attending WashU and he'll go to community college there and they'll be happy. Sutter's never had someone whose happiness that is effected so much by himself until Aimee. Which is why he can't let her down and goes along with her plan. The ending of the book is so sad; Sutter ends up telling her to go ahead without him and after he finishes summer school and get money for their apartment, but he has no true intention of following her, he just wants her to go so that once she's begun her new life it'll be easier for her to let him go.

"This book is just like Sutter. It only cares about now. It doesn't think about solutions, resolutions, or even conclusions. Just the now."

What I will say is the book is properly named. Sutter lives in the now and remains to do so even when the book ends. I both agree and disagree with this idea. On my disagreement side, the book has plenty of endings and beginnings. The ending of Sutter's relationship with Cassidy, the beginning and end of his relationship with Aimee, the ending of his idolization of his father, the self-recognition of Sutter about some of his character flaws. Sure, he never addresses his alcohol issues but he comes to terms that he refuses to believe that he can't be loved and that he's selfish. There is no true resolutions but I think that that's what makes it realistic. If anything Sutter giving up Aimee when he doesn't want to is unrealistic. He could've very easily kept her in a long and eventually unhappy relationship, but he chose to let her go.

Compared to the Movie:
I will admit that I saw the movie only a few days before I actually decided to read the book. And in some ways I did enjoy the movie more because it was more hopeful. Aimee was perfectly chosen in Shailene Woodley. She really embodied the innocence and vulnerability of the character and especially how highly influenced she is by Sutter. She is so hopeful, I was actually glad that the part when Aimee reveals that a guy had taken advantage of her before was taken out. But in a way it made her even more vulnerable to Sutter so maybe it should've been included.

Anyway, I loved the movie more because it gave Sutter and Aimee a Romeo-and-Juliet feel. You want to be hopeful that their relationship will survive but you know if nothing changes, they are doomed from the start.

There are some scenes that are word for word came from the book.

I definitely recommend the movie, but I'm not entirely sure how I feel about the book yet. The two scenes that happened in both, I loved far more in the movie.

The first was the first time Aimee and Sutter had sex was sooo sweet and funny all at once. But at the same time it wasn't romanticized. It had enough raw and genuine moments that kept it from turning into one of those unrealistic, too romantic and perfect Hollywood-first-time-having-sex scenes. Haha, I'll admit that I watched this scene over and over. It was soooo well done.

There was also the scene when Aimee gets hit by that car after Sutter throws her out of his car on the highway. The book definitely doesn't do this scene justice but it's hard to do a scene like this with the right amount of words and description while pulling you into it at the same time. Anyway, go see this movie. I loved it so much it actually became one of my favorites. Go see it! Go read it! Just do it!

Choker (Elizabeth Woods)

SUMMARY:  

Sixteen-year-old Cara Lange has been a loner ever since she moved away from her best and only friend, Zoe, years ago. She eats lunch with the other girls from the track team, but they're not really her friends. Mostly she spends her time watching Ethan Gray from a distance, wishing he would finally notice her, and avoiding the popular girls who call her "Choker" after a humiliating incident in the cafeteria. 

Then one day Cara comes home to find Zoe waiting for her. Zoe's on the run from problems at home, and Cara agrees to help her hide. With her best friend back, Cara's life changes overnight. Zoe gives her a new look and new confidence, and next thing she knows, she's getting invited to parties and flirting with Ethan. Best of all, she has her BFF there to confide in. But just as quickly as Cara's life came together, it starts to unravel. A girl goes missing in her town, and everyone is a suspect—including Ethan. Worse still, Zoe starts behaving strangely, and Cara begins to wonder what exactly her friend does all day when she's at school. You're supposed to trust your best friend no matter what, but what if she turns into a total stranger?

MY THOUGHTS:


This book was ugh. It was predictable and anti-climatic and unsuspenseful. I wanted to be creeped out and the mystery really be to a mystery but it wasn't. This book was a teen boring version of that movie with Johnny Depp, the Secret Window.

Very early on I figured out what was going on. It just seemed too predictable although the author was trying to make it a twist. At first I thought that Zoe was real but then I started thinking.

It's absolutely too much of a coincidence that crazy-Zoe just happened to show up the day that Cara is humiliated at school and gains the nickname "Choker".

Then after thinking about it I thought it was also too coincidental that Sydney dies after making fun of Cara. Of course it made sense if Zoe was really a crazed friend and everything but I started thinking it was all weird.

Then I remembered something that Cara had mentioned in the beginning about her parents hanging around everything when they first moved. Maybe she was crazy or something and her parents started hanging around more.

And it was weird that Cara kept talking to herself mentally about the murders/kidnapping and talking about Zoe. Then when she started smelling stinkiness and...by the time Ethan said that there was no one there when Zoe and Cara were fighting in the barn, I knew it.

But what the heck? What kind of cops let anyone on a crime scene anyway?

This book could've been so much more but it wasn't.

Gorgeous [Avery Sisters #2]

SUMMARY: She's looking good...but Allison Avery can't believe it. Growing up with beautiful, blond sisters, Allison has always been the dark-haired, "interesting-looking" Avery. So when the devil shows up and offers to make her gorgeous, Allison jumps at the chance to finally get noticed. But there's one tiny catch, and it's not her soul: The devil wants her cell phone.

Though her deal with the devil seems like a good idea at the time, Allison soon realizes that being gorgeous isn't as easy as it looks. Are her new friends and boyfriend for real, or do they just like her pretty face? Allison can't trust anyone anymore, and her possessed phone and her family's financial crisis aren't making things any easier. Plus when she finds out that she might be America's next teen model, all hell breaks loose. Allison may be losing control, but how far is she willing to go to stay gorgeous forever

MY THOUGHTS:
Okay, this book is very bad, forget “ehh”. It doesn't really take itself seriously.

There’s the cliche girl who is the middle child and feels like her family treats her older sister and the baby of the family way better than her. And she is a MAJOR pushover. Her so-called best friend Jade basically judges any and every one from the amount of make-up they were to their grades and how many extracurriculars they're involved in. I especially don’t like Jade because she tells Allison that by skipping ONE DAY OF HIGH SCHOOL IN THE 9TH GRADE colleges weren't going to accept her.

Um, okay because that’s not a strict exaggeration.

And she expects everyone to abide by her rules. And if they don’t, she gives them the silent treatment. It’s like her go-to solution. For example: Allison laughs too loudly at a joke Jade makes in the cafeteria and Jade and their other friend (basically Jade’s lackey) Serena just follows her example.

And then the boy of the story, Ty/Tyler is ugh. He’s fickle. He flirts with Allison’s new friend Roxie and then her best friend Jade (another reason I don’t like her because she knows that Allison has had a crush on him for forever and she just disregards that) and then starts going after Allison when she gets pretty. And then the author tries to make him seem like a good guy by humanizing him and throwing in that he has a brother with Down Syndrome and he is his hero.

I’m confused. Is he good or bad?

And Allison is kind of naive too. Like when Tyler admits to her that he only/started liking her because she got hot, she seems surprised.

And don’t even get me started on the devil part.

This really makes no sense. It’s used as a plot device to get the actions of the book started but it's not properly executed at all. Like when the devil first shows up, Allison doesn't freak out. She just goes pee and keeps herself covered because she doesn't want to expose herself to him. And then they haggle over a deal that makes no sense. He tries to offer Allison her sisters metabolism in exchange for her soul (but apparently she doesn't have one? I didn't understand this part) but she asks to be gorgeous instead...in exchange for her CELL PHONE! And the devil takes it.

What does he need a cell phone for???? He doesn't even take it away. Instead, he merely “possesses it” which means it basically does whatever it wants, whenever it wants. Making weird sounds, playing the music randomly and loudly. And he allows her to keep it...um, okay?  Then the devil turns out to be the editor-in-chief of the magazine Allison is a finalist in. And he expects her to tell all about her family's financial problems and her trouble with Jade and Roxie and Ty and her stuff with her sisters. Which I guess is the author's way of saying something about beauty and culture and magazines and the people behind them.

And it ends the way it began, Allison rips up a photo of her looking gorgeous and walks out choosing to be noble and to keep her family's secrets out of the spotlight at the expense of herself. Which is kind of a predictable ending. And with that she decides she's good enough to date Ty and they start dating.

The end.

Talk about time waster reading this book was.

Another Little Piece (Kate Karyus Quinn)

Another Little Piece is about the return of a girl named Annaliese to her hometown after disappearing a little under a year ago after trading her soul for the lust of her crush, Logan, the running back on her school football team. However, what she didn't realize is that she got cheated in more ways then one. As soon as she gives it up to Logan in the woods, she tells him he loves her and he pretends not to hear as he goes back to the party they're at. 

But it sucks for Annaliese because now she's lost everything and she's given up her soul for a boy who has what he wanted. Anna, the name of the one Annaliese gives her soul too, tells Annaliese she has to pay now. So Annaliese cuts Anna's heart out of her current body and then eats it, not realizing that in doing so she has given Anna control of her body. 

However, something goes wrong when the body Anna-is-currently-in's mother shows up and messes up the ceremony spiraling into a series of events that leads to Anna's memory loss and the beginning of the novel.

When Anna-as-Annaliese returns she runs into every love interest she's going to have in a record amount of time. Lucky for us though, it's never any contest who she has feelings for or any kind of love triangle. 

Eric/Franky is the creepy loser who manipulated Anna into her more than nine-lives years ago who insists that he loves her and she'll give in to moving onto the next body when the hunger for a new body takes over her. Apparently, the first time she switched bodies, it took over her and she killed her original family. 

There's Logan, whose role in the climax I should've seen coming but missed. I think that the lust may have evolved into something else because the first time Anna-as-Annaliese runs into him, he drunkingly reveals his guilt of taking her virginity and leaving her in the woods in front of the whole school turning her from a poor-victim into a home-wrecking whore.

Eventually, Logan becomes prey to Eric/Franky when he wants Annaliese's love and gives up his body and soul for it. 

And then there's Dex, the boy next door who's not as normal as you might think. Dex can see people's deaths and saw Annaliese's years ago, therefore recognizing that she is someone else not that that stops him from developing feelings for her.

I liked this book for a number of reasons.  I enjoyed how the author took a step away from the Twilight formula. I loved the romance factor. Anna and her love interest, Dex never say "I love you" to each other in the book. They never become creepily obsessed with each other or even get anywhere close to having those I-love-you feelings. And there's something about Dex that makes him so much more compelling then most YA love interests especially the paranormal versions. 

I also liked that it was a standalone novel instead of the author being greedy and trying to bank off of a series of books. And I also enjoyed that not every mystery of the book was wrapped up at the end. We didn't really learn about why the Physician was who he was and did what he did or about his sisters. But I'm glad we didn't because not everything had to be wrapped up at the end although I am curious but I feel like the explanation concocted wouldn't live up to the standards of the mystery.

This book was nothing like I thought it was going to be. But that is a good thing. I thought it was a realistic, suspenseful mystery and while it was two-thirds of those things, it also had supernatural tones too. And not the supernatural tones most books have. This book was actually dark and that was part of the reason I enjoyed it. Now-and-days most paranormal, supernatural books try to follow the success that Stephenie Meyer discovered with a Twilight-esque formula and everything but switch the new girl for the boy boy or the supernatural entity being the girl instead of the boy and blah-blah-blah. This novel was far from Twilight and I loved that about it.

Parallel

I loved this book. And it wasn't because of the writing or the plot. Now that I think about it, I'm not sure entirely why I loved this book. It kind of reminded me of Gimme a Call, but instead of the Abby's being apart of the same time stream, in this one the girls live in two different dimensions. I think one of the reasons I loved this book is because one of the themes was how choices can define your life and you as a person. And if someone is different, who's to say that the people they choose to love and love them aren't so different either? Abby-from-Here (the true main character) starts dating this guy named Michael while she's attending Yale. Which she is absolutely beguiled about because she wanted to study journalism at Northwestern (this was a flaw for me in the novel because Yale doesn't have journalism, yet we never learn Abby's major or if she even has one) and in her world she's currently staring in a movie that she was forced to give up college for. That is until her world collides with a parallel Earth (let's call it Earth 2)and her life starts being dictated by Abby-from-There's (Abby 2's) choices because her world takes place a whole year later.

I've been searching all over for novels about situations similar to the premise of this book. Just the other day I finally got a hold of one called Don't You Wish but could barely get through it because of how boring and superficial it was. Sure, this book had it's bad points but another reason I loved it, was that it made me think. People always wonder how different choices could have determined their lives or themselves as a person and in this novel we really got to see that. I understood Abby-from-Here's fear about waking up and being in a whole new place with a new history every night. I understood her confusion about Josh although that could've been emphasized. And I definitely understood her wish to get her best friends, Caitlyn and Tyler together and it soooo sucked that that backfired. I especially understood her anger and anguish when Abby-from-There (2) caused the car accident that could've killed Ilana (the mean girl) in her quest to get her friends together and how it nearly killed all her friendships.

But I mostly loved the ending. Although I had a few problems with it. We got introduced to all this scientific theory in the beginning, I expected that in the end, this would be the savior. But it also makes sense about why that didn't end the book. I guess I just felt like it was rushed. Abby-from-Here and Abby-from-There chose the boys that we didn't actually get to see them dating in the novel. Instead we got brief moments with them before Abby-from-Here chose to be with Josh and Abby-from-There chose to be with Michael (ha! I caught onto them being brothers only paragraphs before it was revealed). But looking back, it kind of made sense for Michael and Abby-from-There to be together. He loved/wanted/liked the Abby who was a rowing/boating team member. Haha, that's my only clue but still. However, I didn't like we were kind of pushed into that direction. Both Abby's had a flash of the future in which their "soul-mates" starred and from there, realized who they should be with.

Abby-from-Here took this widely romantic gesture after breaking up with Michael on a whim to be with Josh, who she barely knows. However, luckily she doesn't have to be with a Josh who already knows how to be with her. In the end, the earth's separate (or that's my theory) and each Abby's life is her own. Abby-from-Here's life reverts back to the beginning of the novel where she is starring in a movie. Only luckily as fate has it, she was supposed to be with Josh after all and ends up meeting him for the first time at the baseball game she Choose him at. So now, she has the chance to be with Josh and it's assumed after main Abby declares it, that Abby-from-There chose to be with Michael and go to Yale and be on the rowing team. I kind of wished we had gotten to see more about that but this book wasn't about Abby-from-There but Abby-from-Here. Overall, though I enjoyed it.