Book Review: Open Road Summer by Emery Lord

16081202Genre: 

Young Adult, ask  Romance

Pages: 

342

Part of a Series?:

No

Release Date: 

May 6th, what is ed 2014

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

After breaking up with her bad-news boyfriend, page Reagan O’Neill is ready to leave her rebellious ways behind. . . and her best friend, country superstar Lilah Montgomery, is nursing a broken heart of her own. Fortunately, Lilah’s 24-city tour is about to kick off, offering a perfect opportunity for a girls-only summer of break-up ballads and healing hearts. But when Matt Finch joins the tour as its opening act, his boy-next-door charm proves difficult for Reagan to resist, despite her vow to live a drama-free existence. This summer, Reagan and Lilah will navigate the ups and downs of fame and friendship as they come to see that giving your heart to the right person is always a risk worth taking. A fresh new voice in contemporary romance, Emery Lord’s gorgeous writing hits all the right notes.

My Review:

The first time I had ever heard about this book was just about a month ago, while attending the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. Emery Lord was on panel with Stephanie Perkins and she was absolutely adorable. She made me laugh, talked about Sarah Dessen and had a really cute shirt on (don’t ask me how I remember that). She talked about her book and I immediately went home to add it to be “To Be Read” list. I kept seeing it at the bookstores, calling out my name and finally, I caved into the pressure and bought it.

And I am so incredibly glad that I did.

Emery Lord is absolutely fantastic at creating a super fun and addicting story. From the very first moment that I met Reagan, I knew that I’d want to be her best friend, even though she sounds like it would also be incredibly hard to be her best friend as well. She’s fun and full of life but also kind of wild and troublesome. Even though she’s kind of a messy character, I loved her from the very first moment that I met her and I was rooting for her the whole way, even though there were moments that I wanted to shake her so hard.

Plus, she’s best friends with a celebrity and this world of traveling in this epic tour bus and going to all these concerts where her best friend is headlining and listening to famous musicians make music…it sounds like worlds away from anything I’ve ever done and that’s another reason that I got hooked so fast. It was addicting and compelling and so easy to get through. I went through this book so fast, dreaming of living on a tour bus and watching someone I love rock out on stage every night and being the subject of a super cool song like “Open Road Summer.”

Oh, and thank you, Emery Lord, for introducing me to Matt Finch. Because, you know, I have a ridiculous weakness to musicians and what I really need in my life is yet another book boyfriend. Not. In all honesty though, Emery writes a beautiful boy character reminiscent of Dexter, Owen, Wes and all the other great boys of the Dessen novels. Any boy that can remind me of those boys is perfect in my book. Doesn’t every girl want a boy to write a song about her? Or two? Or three? ;)

All in all, I was so glad that I discovered Emery at the Festival of Books and that I convinced myself to buy the book. Its a great summer read. I can see myself reading this, curled up on a great summer day, reading about two best friends on an epic road trip, finding love and breaking hearts. Its fun and has a great love story, something that I’ve really been looking for lately. I recommend it highly and I honestly can’t wait to see what else Emery comes up with in the future!

Rating:

4.5 out of 5 Stars

Vlog: Ontario Teen Book Fest Authors!

So as some of you may have known, view this past weekend was the Ontario Teen Book Fest. You probably know because I promoted it like crazy and it was an event that I was SO highly looking forward to!

Sylvia from Fangirl Feeels and I were the official bloggers for the event which meant that we did a lot of promotion and really got to spend some awesome time with the authors.

We asked all fifteen awesome YA authors two questions and got it all on video for you guys. The answers were all super awesome, generic and we are so glad to share this vlog with you!

A recap video of the actual event is coming VERY soon, but for now, enjoy learning about all the authors from the Fest!

Book Review: Summer State of Mind by Jen Calonita

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Genre: 

Young Adult, medical Contemporary

Part of a Series?:

Technically, it is a sequel/companion novel to Sleepaway Girls but they can be read independently of each other.

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

Summer has finally arrived and fifteen-year-old Harper McCallister intends to spend her days at the mall shopping or by the pool at her country club. But after receiving her latest heart-stopping credit card bill, Harper’s parents makes other plans, and ship her off to camp.

Suddenly, the clueless yet ever-popular Harper is the new girl at the bottom of a social ladder she can’t climb in wedge sandals and expensive clothes. She seems to be winning over super-cute camp “Lifer” Ethan, though, and if she can manage to make a few friends–and stay out of trouble–she just might find a whole new summer state of mind.

My Review:

I’m just going to say this out, first and foremost: I ADORE Jen Calonita. Her books are more geared toward a younger YA audience but I think that’s why I love her so much. I love that her books are lighthearted and that they make me laugh and they make me feel…carefree. The sort of problems that her characters go through are all important but they aren’t ginormous in nature and I appreciate that.

This is a sequel/companion novel to her standalone, Sleepaway Girls. Brand new characters but there is a lot of throw back to the characters that you grew to love in SG. I would recommend reading Sleepaway Girls first, I think, but its totally not necessary at all. The two stories coincide but exist independently of each other.

That being said, I loved returning to camp Whispering Pines. All these characters in the first book kept talking about waiting all year to get back to camp and I honestly couldn’t understand that. I was never able to go to camp as a kid because camp is SUPER expensive and there are six of us and there’s just no way. But as soon as I started reading Summer State of Mind, when Harper arrives at camp, I was SO stoked. I was so happy to be back at that camp! I had a lot of fun and a lot of laughs when I read Sleepaway Girls and I was really looking forward to doing that again.

The thing that really makes this different from Sleepaway Girls is that you’re rooting for Sam from the very beginning. I loved Sam right away. She reminded me of myself in some way so it was easy to be caught up in her story and to love her. Harper, on the other hand, drives me insane and it took me awhile to get on her side. But I liked that about the book. Harper isn’t an easier character to love, but once you love her, that’s easy.

And its just a quintessential Jen Calonita book. Its lighthearted and fun and it made me laugh. I read it super quickly and that’s what I love about Jen’s books. I don’t always have to read these books with war and epic tragedies and questions about the big morals of life and stuff like that. I love those, obviously, but its fun to just read a book that makes you laugh and Jen has always managed to do that.

So if you’re looking for something fun, with a cute romance, a few pranks and just a down right good time, then this is a book for you. And with summer just around the corner (or you live in California, where its been in the 100s in MAY!), its the perfect book to bring to the beach with you.

Rating:

4 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: The One by Kiera Cass

15844362Genre: 

Young Adult, order Dystopian, cialis 40mg Romance

Pages: 

323

Part of a Series?:

The final book in The Selection Trilogy

Release Date: 

May 6th, 2014

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Book Depository

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

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.

My Review:

Please be aware that while there will be no spoilers in this review for The One, there will be spoilers for The Selection and The Elite. You can read their respective reviews by clicking on their titles. 

Two books came out on May 6th that I needed to read: Morgan Matson’s Since You’ve Been Gone and this novel. I picked them both up that day, but got caught up in going to Jamie Campbell Bower’s acoustic show in Venice Beach and a book event at Barnes and Noble to meet Tammara Webber and Abbi Glines. I wasn’t able to start until the next day.

As soon as I finished Morgan’s book, I immediately had to read The One. What is really powerful about this is that I barely read The Selection back in early January and immediately read The Elite after. The fact that I was dying to dive into this book on release day, merely four months after getting into the series is incredible.

And I definitely think that this book delivered. Finales to a series can be sort of nerve wracking and you want it to end well, but you also know that the right ending might not always be the ending that you want it to be. What is so great about The One, at least in this reader/blogger’s opinion is that it had both. I felt like the ending was incredibly right and it was the ending that I was so hoping for.

What I think really jumped out at me with this book was that it was a love story, more than anything. The book starts with the idea of the prince trying to choose a wife out of a pool of a couple dozen girls. America goes reluctantly, torn between her love for Aspen and her desire to help out her family. Meeting Maxon only makes her that much more confused, and its not too much of a surprise that a love triangle ensues.

BUT this is what makes me love this story so much. Kiera approaches a love triangle in the most real and beautiful way possible. I can’t really say much more than that because its sort of spoiler-ish and I don’t want to spoil the book for anyone who has yet to read it. But I really think that she approaches the idea of loving two people very well and I love the way it turns out.

In the end, Kiera Cass has told a fantastic love story and it made me incredibly happy, the way it ended. There were doubts, times where I wanted to cry and shout and throw my book across the room and there were times where I was jumping up for joy and laughing and loving it all. I’ve been in a very romantic kind of mood and this book was absolutely perfect for that.

Rating:

4.5 out of 5 Stars

Book Review: Ink is Thicker than Water by Amy Spalding

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You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

For Kellie Brooks, decease family has always been a tough word to define. Combine her hippie mom and tattooist stepdad, clinic her adopted overachieving sister, health her younger half brother, and her tough-love dad, and average Kellie’s the one stuck in the middle, overlooked and impermanent. When Kellie’s sister finally meets her birth mother and her best friend starts hanging with a cooler crowd, the feeling only grows stronger.


But then she reconnects with Oliver, the sweet and sensitive college guy she had a near hookup with last year. Oliver is intense and attractive, and she’s sure he’s totally out of her league. But as she discovers that maybe intensity isn’t always a good thing, it’s yet another relationship she feels is spiraling out of her control.

It’ll take a new role on the school newspaper and a new job at her mom’s tattoo shop for Kellie to realize that defining herself both outside and within her family is what can finally allow her to feel permanent, just like a tattoo.

My Review:

I’m just going to say one thing to start off: I absolutely love the way Amy Spalding writes her novels. Maybe because she has a similar voice to me and I’m completely biased and all of that fun stuff. But I do. I absolutely love the way she writes. She writes casual, she tells, she doesn’t show and this is how I write. I love that it feels like I’m reading a journal from my  best friend. Its wonderful.

That being said, this story was incredibly fun and awesome to read. Its a family story. I love family stories. I have five brothers and sisters and I love them all so I absolutely family stories. This definitely is that. While there is the love story between Kellie and Oliver, the story really centers on the family. I love that Amy really knew the dynamics of a family, no matter how the family is broken down. I think that’s beautiful. So much of the story felt so incredibly familiar to me. While I have never had a sibling that was adopted or found their birth mother, I definitely have had siblings pull away, discover their own path, that sort of thing, so I felt so close to Kellie. When Sara starts to pull away, and feel close to her birth mother, and Kellie starts to miss her…that hurt my heart. It felt so incredibly familiar to me.

I also felt so close to Kellie because of her differences between herself and her siblings. As much as your parents tell you again and again and again, that they love you equally, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that. It feels like a parent approves of one child more than the other. That’s the way Kellie feels with Sara and her father. Its the way I felt when I was younger and my brother got all of the attention. He was the sports star, and sports have always been SO huge in my family, and I was the geeky girl, with very little friends and my nose stuck in a book, and my fingers on the keyboard as I wrote. My brother was always the star, even though he is younger, and when he moved out and my whole family went into a frenzy, it was rough for awhile, so this part of the story felt so familiar to me.

Lastly, without spoiling the book, because I work so hard to not do that, I felt a connection with the relationship between Kellie and Oliver because it felt so real. I feel like so many relationships in books tend to be glamorized and that sort of thing but this one felt real, every bit of it and I think that’s why I enjoyed reading about it so much. It felt like a relationship that any one of us could have, and so it felt familiar and relatable and you sort of enjoy going on those roller coaster of emotions with Kellie.

In conclusion (I feel like I’m writing a really bad high school essay now…), I really love this book. I love the way Amy writes, I love that I feel like I’m curled up in bed, reading a note from my best friend and I love that she has a really good way of capturing emotions and feelings. She captures friendship and family and love so well and it all felt incredibly familiar which made for a very quick and a very fun read.

Rating:

4 out of 5 Stars

Breakable Blog Tour: Interview with Tammara Webber and Book Review!

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I am SO pleased and excited to be a part of the official Breakable blog tour. Tammara Webber is one of my absolute favorite authors, story since the first time I purchased Between the Lines, pills and I’m so excited to be sharing this with you all. I’ll be talking all about Tammara, her new book, Breakable, and we’ll have an awesome interview at the end.

First, let’s talk about Tammara herself! 

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Tammara Webber is author of the New York Times bestselling New Adult novel Easy, the first novel in her Contours of the Heart series, and the Between the Lines series.  She is a hopeful romantic who adores novels with happy endings, because there are enough sad endings in real life.  Before writing full-time, she was an undergraduate academic advisor, economics tutor, planetarium office manager, radiology call center rep, and the palest person to ever work at a tanning salon.  She married her high school sweetheart, and is a mom to three adult kids and four very immature cats.

You Can Find Her At:

Her Site / Her Twitter / Her Instagram / Her Facebook

About Breakable

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In Tammara’s novel Easy, we meet Jacqueline Wallace, a girl trying to survive in college, after an acquaintance tries to rape her after a party, and her relationship with her savior, Lucas. You can find Easy at GoodReads here.

In BREAKABLE, readers are introduced to teenage Landon on the worst day of his life, the day is family is ripped apart by the death of his beloved mother.  Webber flashes from the present to the past, young capturing Landon as he deals with the stark and painful changes in his life following his mother’s death, and present-day Lucas as he reacts to meeting Jacqueline Wallace, the young woman whose appearance changes his life for the better.  Loving Jacqueline is so easy, but Lucas knows just how breakable the soul is and that giving himself wholly to another person is the most frightening thing he’ll ever do.

You Can Find/Purchase the Book At:

Good Reads / Amazon / Barnes and Noble / Book Depository

Quick Book Review

I don’t want to sit and talk forever about this book because this will be the longest post in the entire world and I don’t want to do that to you. Here’s the small gist of it: I loved Easy. Easy tackles the idea of rape in such a beautiful way, in an honest and raw way. Jacqueline is nearly raped but she’s afraid to say anything because of the rape culture that we live in, and the only person that knows is her attacker and Lucas. Tammara builds a beautiful love story between Jacqueline and Lucas and its a beautiful book. Breakable continues it, and I honestly had to admit that I was worried. I love Tammara and think she’s an absolutely amazing author but the idea of a companion…I wasn’t 100% sold. Until I got the book. Until I stayed up all night reading it. Breakable gives us even more depth to the person that Lucas (Landon) is, and his story is just as beautiful, just as heartbreaking and just as hopefully as Jacqueline’s was in the first novel. It is a must-read, both of these books, and I encourage you all to pick them up!

The Interview!

Nerd Girl: Why was it important to you to tell Lucas’ side of the story in Breakable? 

Tammara: It was Landon’s story that convinced me to write Breakable. I knew his story was heartbreaking, of course, but there was so much more to it. Once he started telling me about it, I had to write it.

Nerd Girl: Was it difficult to return to the same story, but in a different voice? 

Tammara: Lucas’ perspective of their relationship was different from Jacqueline’s. The overlapping parts (which one comprise a third of the book) were only difficult in that the conversations and outcomes were already there and set — I couldn’t change them. I enjoyed adding scenes that didn’t occur in Easy – some that included Jacqueline, some that didn’t.

Nerd Girl: Did Jacqueline’s story still have an influence over Lucas’ voice? 

Tammara: Over his voice? No. Over his story-yes.

Nerd Girl: There is so much going on within the story of Breakable: abuse, neglect, loss, grief, self-discovery, rebellion, love, etc. What do you hope your readers come out of this novel with? 

Tammara: I don’t. I write in hopes of readers to connecting with the story, going on a journey with the characters and finding entertainment and escape along the way. Easy is the only book I’ve written with a clear message in mind — and that message, it wasn’t your fault, was unhidden and meant for a particular reader. In Breakable, I had the added desire of giving readers who loved Easy an in-depth view of Lucas.

Nerd Girl: Now that you’ve wrapped up the Between the Lines series, and now have finished both sides of the story with Jacqueline and Lucas, what can you tell us about what you’re working on next? 

Tammara: I can’t reveal much just yet. I have a couple of storylines in mind, but I’ve got my usual brainstorming to do, and meetings with me agents and editors, before I settle down and write.

Nerd Girl: Did you always picture yourself as an author or did you have other career aspirations, and what is the best part of being an author? 

Tammara: I didn’t even start calling myself a writer, let alone an author, to real-life people until after I’d published Easy — my fourth book. Writing fiction for a living is literally all I’ve ever wanted to do. When I couldn’t find an agent for Between the Lines, I honestly thought it was never going to happen. I’d already written a second BTL by the time I self-published the first. I never thought it would sell — or that people would want sequels.

The only job I had before writing full-time that I enjoyed was academic advising. I loved helping people one-on-on. As much as I loved it, though, it was secondary to writing.

Nerd Girl: You’ve written all of your novels in the young adult/new adult contemporary genre. Do you see yourself continuing in that trend or maybe branching out to any other genres? 

Tammara: I started writing Between the Lines in 2009, with MCs aged 17-20. I called it “Mature YA” and hoped to sell it to a YA publisher, because there was no such thing as NA. Publishers (and therefore agents) have been saying for years, “No one wants to read stories about college students”. I was shooting myself in the foot, writing about characters in that age range — but it’s all I wanted to write. And also, I’m really stubborn. I figured I would find a niche market, perhaps. All I can say is…I found it!

Nerd Girl: Most of your readers definitely have developed book crushes on Lucas. Who is YOUR book crush?

Tammara: Darcy. Always Darcy. :)

*     *     *     *     *     *

Thanks Tammara for stopping by What A Nerd Girl Says, for the second time! You can check out my interview with Tammara from June 2013 here.

And don’t forget to hit your local bookstore and pick up a copy of Breakable (and Easy if you haven’t read that), now!

Tammara Webber and I at her book launch event with Abbi Glines in Los Angeles, CA!

Tammara Webber and I at her Breakable book launch event with Abbi Glines in Los Angeles, CA!

Oh, and I still totally fancast Reid Alexander from Between the Lines as Jace Wayland in The Mortal Instruments ;)

Happy Reading Everyone!