Book Review: The Deal by Elle Kennedy

April 26, 2015April 24, 20153 Comments

Genre:

New Adult, information pills Contemporary, Romance

Pages:

358

Part of a Series?:

The first in the Off-Campus series

Release Date:

February 24th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

Check your local bookstore!

GoodReads

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

Hannah Wells has finally found someone who turns her on. But while she might be confident in every other area of her life, she’s carting around a full set of baggage when it comes to sex and seduction. If she wants to get her crush’s attention, she’ll have to step out of her comfort zone and make him take notice… even if it means tutoring the annoying, childish, cocky captain of the hockey team in exchange for a pretend date.

…and it’s going to be oh so good.

All Garrett Graham has ever wanted is to play professional hockey after graduation, but his plummeting GPA is threatening everything he’s worked so hard for. If helping a sarcastic brunette make another guy jealous will help him secure his position on the team, he’s all for it. But when one unexpected kiss leads to the wildest sex of both their lives, it doesn’t take long for Garrett to realize that pretend isn’t going to cut it. Now he just has to convince Hannah that the man she wants looks a lot like him.

My Review:

In my continued quest to find really good sports related NA romances, I found The Deal by Elle Kennedy, and I’m so incredibly glad that I did.

I’m becoming more of a hockey fan as I read more and more romances that take place along the hockey life. Seriously. I might watch more hockey.

I liked The Deal a lot because while it had some similarities to Sarina Bowen and her series, it really stood on its own. While there was a definite seriousness to The Deal, there’s also a lightheartedness too. It was awesome just to see these two characters come together, under the weirdest circumstances. Hannah enlists the help of Garrett to win the heart of another boy and instead falls for him. He’s sexy and impossible and I know he drives me crazy, but I’m with Hannah…he leaves me panting and wanting more too.

I love Hannah the most though. She’s so…real and she makes me laugh. I love that she falls madly in love with a boy she barely knows and enlists the help of Garrett to figure out how to get him. It’s absolutely fantastic and sounds like a romantic comedy where the plan is obviously doomed to fail but you enjoy the journey to the explosion any way. You know that Garrett helping Hannah is just going to lead to them falling in love but I loved every single minute of it.

Simply put, I enjoyed this book. I loved Garrett and Hannah and I loved their antics and their ups and downs and I loved the integration of hockey and I loved Logan too, who had a small part but will be in the next book and my god I can’t wait for that! Elle has a way of making you care not just for her main characters, but for all the people she introduces and I love that.

Rating:

4 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: The Ivy Years Series by Sarina Bowen

April 25, 2015April 24, 2015Leave a comment

Genre:

New Adult, viagra 100mg Contemporary, Romance

Pages:

A lot

Part of a Series?:

4 books + 1 Novella

The Year We Fell Down
The Year We Hid Away
Blonde Date
The Understatement of the Year
The Shameless Hour

Release Date:

N/A

You Can Find the Book At:

Check your local bookstore!

GoodReads

Barnes and Noble (You can get the full series PLUS novella for 6.99 on Nook!)

Book Depository

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

Life at the elite Harkness College is brought to you in four tales, each one sexier and more heartbreaking than the last. Contains: hockey hotties, snarky T-shirts, a slow-burn love affair, a liar (with reasons,) a virgin (with reasons,) and one adorkable basketball player.

Book 1: The Year We Fell Down
The sport she loves is out of reach. The boy she loves has someone else.
Corey was supposed to start college as a member of the women’s ice hockey team. Instead, she’ll spend it in a wheelchair. The only upside? Her too-delicious-to-be-real neighbor across the hall.

Book 2: The Year We Hid Away
She’s hiding something big. He’s hiding someone small.

Dorm rooms are supposed to be for sleeping, studying, and partying. Not for hiding your eight-year-old sister.

Novella: Blonde Date
A blind date. A nervous sorority girl. A mean-spirited fraternity prank. What could go wrong?

Book 3: The Understatement of the Year
What happened in high school stayed in high school. Until now.

Michael Graham will never tell anyone the truth about himself. Too bad his past walks right into the locker room on the first day of hockey practice.

Book 4: The Shameless Hour
For Bella, the sweet-talking, free-loving, hip-checking student manager of the Harkness men’s hockey team, sex is a second language. She’s used to being fluent where others stutter, and the things people say behind her back don’t (often) bother her. So she can’t understand why her smoking hot downstairs neighbor has so much trouble staying friends after their spontaneous night together. She knows better than to worry about it, but there’s something in those espresso eyes that makes her second guess herself.

Rafe is appalled with himself for losing his virginity in a drunken hookup. His strict Catholic upbringing always emphasized loving thy neighbor—but not with a bottle of wine and a box of condoms. The result is an Ivy League bout of awkwardness. But when Bella is leveled by a little bad luck and a downright sinister fraternity stunt, it’s Rafe who is there to pick up the pieces.

Bella doesn’t want Rafe’s help, and she’s through with men. Too bad the undeniable spark that crackles between the two of them just can’t be extinguished.

My Review:

I hadn’t planned on reviewing the entire series as once but I fell massively behind in reviews and need so desperately to catch up. Know this: I love every single book in this series, including the novella and these short reviews will not do this entire series justice like I had hoped to do!

The Year We Fell Down: I’m so glad, especially after reading the entire series, that this is the first one. Corey and Hartley have a beautiful friendship that expands into so much more and I enjoyed every single minute of it. But it’s more than that. I enjoyed this book because of Corey’s struggle. She cannot play the sport she loves the most in the world because of an injury she got while playing. And she falls for a boy who can’t play either…but only until he’s healed. And he’s taken too! It’s a lot of heartbreak for her, and it’s painful to watch her go through it and I want to hug her and be her best friend and cheer her on. I loved the first book because it was her story.

The Year We Hid Away: There are so many reasons that I loved this second book and it boils down to Bridger. I love Scarlet and her part in the story and what she does for Bridger and for the romance in the story but it’s Bridger that makes me care from beginning to end. He’s given up so much and taken on so much more in order to keep his sister taken care of and safe. It makes me fall in love with him, easily, because I know what it’s like to sacrifice your own cares and worries and life for the love of a sibling. I root for the two of them to end up together because of him, because from the beginning I want him to succeed and be happy.

The Understatement of the Year: I can’t even begin to explain how much I love this book. I have not had the chance to read a male to male romance novel like this before. Or really ever. And I loved every single bit of it and I need more. Now. Not only does Sarina tell a wonderful romantic story between the two main characters, it really captures the struggle to be gay, both as an out gay person and someone who is hiding. Rikker and Graham struggle but they have a great friendship and eventual relationship, and it’s incredibly sweet and over the top sexy as hell.

The Shameless Hour: I just read this recently because it just came out! And I can honestly say…it’s my favorite. I think it comes down to the fact that I just genuinely love Bella and Rafe so much. I feel a connection to both of them. I love Bella and everything she is. I love that she embraces who she is, but also she struggles with it when it’s blasted all over campus. It’s hard to deal with being a girl, open about her sexuality, when people tend to judge girls about their sex lives. It’s easy to feel familiar when reading Bella’s POV. And I love Rafe because he’s so genuine. He could come across in so many ways but he’s beautiful and charming and kind and I love every little bit of him. Their story is incredibly sweet and I love watching them fall in love.

———–

All in all, I think Sarina creates an incredible series with beautiful romances wrapped around the love of hockey. I’m not a huge hockey fan but I can totally get behind sexy hockey players, both girls and guys, and fun and deep and awesome romantic stories. Everything about it makes me so happy. I wish there were more in this series but I know that these are books that I will definitely revisit them in the future!

Rating:

4 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: Unchanged by Jessica Brody

March 11, 2015March 10, 2015Leave a comment

Genre:

Young Adult, viagra approved Contemporary, Romance

Pages:

432

Part of a Series?:

The finale in the Unremembered Trilogy

Release Date:

February 24th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

In this mesmerizing conclusion to the Unremembered trilogy, Sera will fight those who have broken her.

After returning to the Diotech compound and receiving a successful memory transplant, Seraphina is now living a happy life with another synthetically engineered human like herself, with whom she is deeply in love. She has no recollection of Zen. But the nagging feeling that something is missing from her life continues to plague her. Diotech’s newest product is about to be revealed—a line of genetic modifications that will allow people to live longer, fight disease, and change any unfavorable physical attribute they desire.

As more secrets are revealed, more enemies are uncovered, and the reality of a Diotech-controlled world grows closer every day, Sera and Zen must find a way to destroy the company that created her, or they’ll be separated forever.

My Review:

While this review will not contain spoilers for Unchanged, there will be spoilers for Unremembered and Unforgotten. Please click those titles to read those reviews.

It took me awhile to review this book only because it took so long for me to recover from this series. I’ve been enjoying it from the very beginning and I’ve enjoyed becoming friends with Jessica, because this is just such a great series and who wouldn’t be stoked to be friends with a cool author? PLUS this series has been inspirational in my own science fiction writing.

Moving on.

I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to buy this book because I’m kind of broke right now and I can’t afford books right now (I know, it sucks). Luckily, on release day, I got a gift card to Barnes and Noble for my birthday and I knew exactly what I wanted to buy. I bought it, came home and proceeded to read it in about 3 hours.

Zen – I loved the person he’s become. He’s still Zen. He’s still the boy that we’ve fallen in love with from the first two books. But he’s changed a lot, and we see a different side of him because the Sera we get to know in this book is not the Sera of the first two books. She is massively confused by Zen. She’s told to hate him, that he manipulated her, all those sorts of things but she remembers him and their moments and its incredibly confusing for her. And Zen has hardened, and he’s focused and its more than just his love for Sera at this moment. I really like what he’s become in this book.

Sera – When we meet up with Sera again in the novel, she’s been wiped again, so she’s massively in love with Kaelen and completely on the side of Diotech. And you’d think you would be frustrated with her, and that you would just be counting down the minutes until she wasn’t like that anymore. But the more you read it, the depth that you have in her mind, the way they’ve changed her since she left Zen, even her interactions with Zen and Kaelen…I get it. I get it from the beginning to end. Sera is a complicated character. I can’t go more into that without spoilers but she’s complicated. She loves Zen and Kaelen but there’s so much more to that…

Which leaves me to the OMG moment that Jessica does in the book. I honestly didn’t know how this was going to end, or what Sera was going to uncover or anything but when you hit that a-ha moment and everything comes to light, I was just floored. I didn’t see that coming. It made so much sense but it just BLEW my mind. Especially with the end. Its not the end I expected. It certainly wasn’t the end that I was hoping for, or that I think a lot of readers would hope for. But its also the exact ending that makes sense and is so perfect. I had to reread the last twenty pages because it was a whirlwind but I loved every single bit of it. It was so unexpected but I just loved it. I loved that I was able to be SO surprised at the end.

In the past year or so, I’ve read a LOT of series enders. A lot of series have ended, and some of them have ended really well and some have been really disappointing. Reading this book made me incredibly happy. Not only did it wrap up everything that we had been reading in the first two books, but it presented new problems and new information, but it tied it all together in one incredible end. Jessica’s world building is on point, her writing is beautiful and addicting and her story is one that I won’t forget any time soon. Its unique and engaging and absolutely beautiful and it left me breathless and unable to do anything else but sit and my head and just go, “WHOA!” at the end.

Keep writing Jessica, and I’ll keep reading :)

Rating:

5 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: Kissing Ted Callahan (And Other Guys) ARC by Amy Spalding

March 3, 2015March 1, 2015Leave a comment

This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy of the novel obtained through Edelweiss at the permission of Poppy. This is in no way had an effect on the integrity of my review. Please note that published novel will differ from this ARC.

Genre:

Young Adult, viagra 60mg Contemporary, Romance

Pages:

320

Part of a Series?:

Standalone Novel

Release Date:

April 14th, 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist meets Easy A in this hilariously realistic story of sneaking out, making out, and playing in a band.

After catching their bandmates in a compromising position, sixteen-year-old Los Angelenos Riley and Reid become painfully aware of the romance missing from their own lives. And so a pact is formed: they’ll both try to make something happen with their respective crushes and document the experiences in a shared notebook.

While Reid struggles with the moral dilemma of adopting a dog to win over someone’s heart, Riley tries to make progress with Ted Callahan, who she’s been obsessed with forever-His floppy hair! His undeniable intelligence! But suddenly cute guys are popping up everywhere. How did she never notice them before?! With their love lives going from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye, Riley and Reid realize the results of their pact may be more than they bargained for.

My Review:

Its going to sound pretty silly but when I read this book, and finished it, I stopped and thought, its like Amy knows me or something.

Riley and her friend Reid make a pact to expand their love lives after catching their friends together, and realizing how alone both of them are. So they decide to do something about it. While Reid focuses on one girl, Riley kind of spreads herself around. She has a massive crush on Ted Callahan but she can barely speak in front of him and she doesn’t really know if she likes him. So she meets other guys, who are interested and that feels nice so she goes for it. And its so me, I can’t handle it. Because its always a mess! Its like, she’s unsure if Ted likes her, so she doesn’t want to put all of her eggs in one basket, so to speak, and miss out on other guys that might like her, so she kisses and dates other boys, but really, its just a mess.

And that’s what makes this book SO good. Amy has a way of capturing characters in such a REAL way, even in the ways that can make us kind of silly, immature and even just plain stupid. Riley makes a TON of mistakes in this book: pushing away her best friend, not being honest with the boys she dates, writing down all the details of said love life, etc, and it all sort of blows up in her face, and as weird as it sounds, its kind of fun to watch. Its real and familiar and its nice to see that you’re not the only one that does stupid things like that.

But what I really like is the relationship that builds between Ted and Riley. It has bumps (mountains?) and its so uncertain and scary for both Riley and the reader but that is what makes it so real. They don’t automatically fall in love and have this tragic beautiful romance. There are awkward moments and they both make mistakes and have insecurities and it takes a bit for them to get on the same page and come together, and I think that happens a lot in real life and that’s what makes it such a great story.

Plus Riley is a drummer and is massively obsessed with music and I think that’s totally cool. It really makes her such a fun character to read, besides just the stuff that she goes through. I love characters that have passions and that sort of thing. Makes them more real, makes them fun and memorable.

Also, I love that it takes place in Southern California, around things that are super familiar. I loved the different venues and places they went because I know them and now they feel a little different, in a good way, because I know the things that Riley and the rest experienced while at these places and that’s really awesome.

Rating:

Book Review: From the Notebooks of a Middle School Princess (ARC) by Meg Cabot

February 22, 2015February 18, 20153 Comments

This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy of the novel obtained through snail mail at the permission of Feiwel and Friends. This is in no way had an effect on the integrity of my review. Please note that published novel will differ from this ARC.

Genre:

Middle Grade, tadalafil Contemporary

Pages:

192

Part of a Series?:

First in a Planned Series

Release Date:

May 19th, what is ed 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

In FROM THE NOTEBOOKS OF A MIDDLE SCHOOL PRINCESS a new middle grade series, viagra readers will see Genovia, this time through the illustrated diaries of a spunky new heroine, 12 year old Olivia Grace, who happens to be the long lost half-sister of Princess Mia Thermopolis.

My Review:

I don’t often read middle grade novels, I tend to focus more on YA and NA but there was NO way at all I was going to turn down the chance to read the newest novel by Meg Cabot in one of my favorite fictional worlds, The Princess Diaries series. Without getting too spoiler-y, we’re introduced to Olivia, who is a somewhat awkward, but totally adorable 12 year old girl who somehow gets into a load of trouble with the most popular girl in school, who wants to beat her up after school. That is, until she finds out that her father, a mysterious man who has sent her letters and presents for years, is actually a crown prince, and her sister, a princess, THE Princess Amelia of Genovia. Enter a whirlwind of changes for the girl as she steps into her new role as Princess Olivia.

There was SO much I liked about this book.

One, the fact that Olivia is biracial. We need more and more diversity in our books and this is just plain beautiful. I love every bit of this completely.

Two, I love that Olivia is writing in a journal the way Mia did. It feels so familiar. It feels familiar to get to know this character in such a similar way that you got to know Mia when she learned that she was a princess.

Three, I love that Olivia is younger than Mia, and I love that she has had different reactions, and a different exposure to this news. True, she’s younger than Mia was in that first novel, and this book is geared toward a different age group but I love that we get a sort of familiar story but with a brand new character.

Four, Olivia is just SO incredibly fun. She’s spunky and honest and fun. She kind of takes things as they came to her. She’s a princess? Cool. She gets a new dog? Awesome. She has the weirdest grandmere on the planet? All right. She has to move to Genovia to learn how to be a princess? Why not?

Five, I like that even though this is a middle grade novel…it hints at some deeper things as well. First off, that even though she’s with her family now, her real family hasn’t been there for quite some time, even though her father knew she existed. Sure, there’s more to that and Olivia’s mom wanted her away from that, that sort of thing but it opens up a larger question of whether she would have ever gained a relationship with her father.

And it also shows the family that she had already, a family that treated her kind of terribly actually. Her adopted family was kind of neglecting, even in their attempts to protect her so that’s kind of interesting as well.

Six, we get to see Mia again, and see the beginnings of her preparations for her wedding to Michael (which, like, ohmygod, I’m fangirling so hard over this! I’ve been waiting…let’s see, I was 12 when I read the first book…so 14 years, 15 years for this?). And Olivia is going to be a junior bridesmaid. We get to see Prince Philipe and Grandmere and it just feels good to see those characters again. I LOVED it.

Straight up, its a great book for those who are already fans of The Princess Diaries and would like a dose of nostalgia and I think it’ll be great for those who haven’t been introduced. They can meet Olivia and perhaps go back and read Mia’s story and that’s just fabulous!

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars

Book Review: Salt and Stone (ARC) by Victoria Scott

February 20, 2015February 18, 20151 Comment

This review is based on an advanced reader’s copy of the novel obtained through snail mail at the permission of Scholastic Press. This is in no way had an effect on the integrity of my review. Please note that published novel will differ from this ARC.

Genre:

Young Adult, buy information pills Dystopian/Science Fiction

Pages:

320

Part of a Series?:

2nd Novel of the Fire and Flood Series

Release Date:

February 24th, more about 2015

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads Summary:

In Fire & Flood, this site Tella Holloway faced a dangerous trek through the jungle and across the desert, all to remain a Contender in the Brimstone Bleed for a chance at obtaining the Cure for her brother. She can’t quit–she has to win the race, save Cody, and then fight to make sure the race stops before it can claim any more lives. In the next legs of the race, across the ocean and over mountains, Tella will face frostbite, sharks, avalanche, and twisted new rules in the race.

But what if the danger is deeper than that? How do you know who to trust when everyone’s keeping secrets? What do you do when the person you’d relied on most suddenly isn’t there for support? How do you weigh one life against another?

The race is coming to an end, and Tella is running out of time, resources, and strength. At the start of the race there were one hundred twenty-two Contenders. As Tella and her remaining friends start the final part of the race, just forty-one are left–and only one can win.

My Review:

Please be advised that while there will be no spoilers for Salt and Stone, there will be spoilers for Fire and Flood. You can read my review for that book here.

When I first read Fire and Flood, I was blown away by it. I had heard some comparisons to other books, in particular, The Hunger Games. And while I can see those comparisons, Victoria’s story and characters stand on their own and I became a staunch supporter of her right away. I’m proud to say I’m part of the V Mafia and I’m eagerly counting down the days (not many of them left) until this book releases and all of you can enjoy it. Fire and Flood was absolutely fantastic and I wasn’t quite sure where the rest of the story was going to take us so when I managed to get my hands on Salt and Stone, I was ready for an adventure of a novel and I was granted just exactly that.

What really gets me about this book, besides the fact that it COMPLETELY TORE OUT MY HEART AND MADE ME SOB INTO MY PILLOW (ahem, ahem), is that she’s not afraid to take it just one more step further, one more step further, one step further. Its incredible. The basis of this series is this: how far are you willing to go in order to save someone you love? How far are you willing to take it? Are you willing to kill? Are you willing to let others be killed? Are you willing to maybe die yourself? Its incredible. Every single person taking part in this…”game” of sorts has volunteered. They weren’t forced. Every action taken, its a choice they made, and its crazy. Some of those choices didn’t feel like choices because they want this cure and they want to win the game and they want all of that, and it feels like they have no choice, and this is getting a little tangent-y but it all boils down to…every single person in this game makes the choices they feel necessary to get them where they need to go.

Which is why this book is so good. Fire and Flood was brutal but when compared to this novel, its child’s play. Tella and the rest of her gang are faced with worse obstacles than they were before, including each other. They are pit against each other over and over again, struggling with the feelings that they have each other, whether its friendship or just plain straight out love, which is something that’s hard to feel when you’re all battling for the same thing, something that you can’t all win. But its also the struggle for Tella and Guy at the same time. Victoria creates such real characters and even when they’re in this completely incredible world…they still feel real to us. You don’t know if you would do any different if it was yours.

The best part of this book is the end. I can’t go into too much detail because spoilers and all that. But she pushes it to the limit at the end, that last sort of thing she makes the contestants go through just…oh my god, it kills me. It breaks my heart. I literally was clutching the pages, wanting to scream at her, how could you do this? It was really pushing the limits. She really takes it to the very tip…really, how much are you really willing to sacrifice in order to get what you want? Its incredible. And the ending just makes me want the next book. The book is brutal and harsh and incredible but I just love it. And I can’t wait for more.