Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Nara's Review: Dirty Red by Tarryn Fisher

Title: Dirty Red (Love Me With Lies #2)
Author: Tarryn Fisher
Genre: Mature Young Adult, Chick-lit
Goodreads









Dear Opportunist,

You thought you could take him from me, but you lost. Now that he's mine I'll do anything to keep him. Do you doubt me? I have everything that was supposed to be yours. In case you were wondering; he doesn't ever think about you anymore. I won't let him go...ever.

Dirty Red
Review by Nara


Tuesday, January 29, 2013

Review: Blood-Kissed Sky by J.A. London

Title: Blood-Kissed Sky (Darkness Before Dawn Trilogy #2)
Author: J.A. London
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy
Goodreads



There's nowhere left to hide.

I thought vampires were our enemies- they controlled our lives, isolated our cities, and demanded our blood- until I met Victor. With Victor taking over as the new Lord Valentine, things were supposed to get better. Instead, they're worse than ever.

Day Walkers, a new breed of vampires who can walk in the sun, are terrorizing the city. Blood supplies are low, and if Victor's vampires don't get enough, they will become infected with the Thirst- a disease that will turn them into mindless killers.

To stop it, I must journey across the desolate wasteland to the very place where the sickness began. I can only hope that the answers that await me are enough to save us all...before it's too late. 
Review by Nara

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Review: Slated by Teri Terry

Title: Slated (Slated #1)
Author: Teri Terry
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian Thriller

Goodreads rating: 4.10 out of 5.00 (1, 100+ ratings)
Goodreads link



Kyla’s memory has been erased,
her personality wiped blank,
her memories lost for ever.

She’s been Slated.

The government claims she was a terrorist, and that they are giving her a second chance - as long as she plays by their rules. But echoes of the past whisper in Kyla’s mind. Someone is lying to her, and nothing is as it seems. Who can she trust in her search for the truth?







Review by Chantelle


Wednesday, January 23, 2013

Review: Splintered by A.G. Howard

Title: Splintered
Author: A.G. Howard
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Goodreads



This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical underland, as well as a girl's pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers- precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother's mental heath takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based n terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice's mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.
Review by Nara

Sunday, January 20, 2013

Review: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks By E. Lockhart


Title: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks
Author: E. Lockhart
Genre: Young Adult

Goodreads rating: 3.84 out of 5.00 (15, 300+ ratings)
Goodreads link

Frankie Landau-Banks at age 14:Debate Club.Her father’s “bunny rabbit.”A mildly geeky girl attending a highly competitive boarding school. 
Frankie Landau-Banks at age 15:A knockout figure.A sharp tongue.A chip on her shoulder.And a gorgeous new senior boyfriend: the supremely goofy, word-obsessed Matthew Livingston. 
Frankie Laundau-Banks.No longer the kind of girl to take “no” for an answer.Especially when “no” means she’s excluded from her boyfriend’s all-male secret society.Not when her ex boyfriend shows up in the strangest of places.Not when she knows she’s smarter than any of them.When she knows Matthew’s lying to her.And when there are so many, many pranks to be done. 
Frankie Landau-Banks, at age 16:Possibly a criminal mastermind. 
This is the story of how she got that way.

Review by Chantelle


Thursday, January 17, 2013

Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Title: Anna and the French Kiss
Author: Stephanie Perkins
Genre: Young Adult, Chick-lit
Goodreads








Anna is looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris- until she meets Etienne St. Clair: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home. As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near-misses end with the French kiss Anna- and readers- have long awaited?
Review by Nara

Monday, January 7, 2013

Review: The Edge of Never by J.A. Redmerski

Title: The Edge of Never
Author: J.A. Redmerski
Genre: Young Adult, Chick-lit
Goodreads



Twenty-year-old Camryn Bennett had always been one to think out-of-the-box, who knew she wanted more in life than following the same repetitive patterns and growing old with the same repetitive life story. And she thought that her life was going in the  right direction until everything fell apart.

Determined not to dwell on the negative and push forward, Camryn is set to move in with her best friend and plans to start a new job. But after an unexpected night at the hottest club in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina, she makes the ultimate decision to leave the only life she's ever known, far behind.

With a purse, a cell phone and a small bag with a few necessities, Camryn, with absolutely no direction or purpose boards a Greyhound bus alone and sets out to find herself. What she finds is a guy names Andrew Parrish, someone not so very different from her and who harbors his own dark secrets. But Camryn swore never to let down her walls again. And she vowed never to fall in love.

But with Andrew, Camryn finds herself doing a lot of things she never thought she'd do. He shows her what it's really like to live out-of-the-box and to give in to her deepest, darkest desires. On their sporadic road-trip he becomes the center of her exciting and daring new life, pulling love and lust and emotion out of her in ways she never imagined possible. But will Andrew's dark secret push them inseparably together, or tear them completely apart?
Review by Nara

Sunday, January 6, 2013

Review: If I Were You By Lisa Renee Jones

Title: If I Were You (Inside Out Trilogy #1)
Author: Lisa Renee Jones
Genre: Adult Contemporary Fiction

Goodreads rating: 4.36 out of 5.00 (3, 500+ ratings)
Goodreads link
 

When Sara McMillan finds a stack of journals in a storage unit, she’s shocked and enthralled by the erotic life the writer led. Unable to stop reading, she vicariously lives out dark fantasies through Rebecca, the writer—until the terrifying final entry.

Certain something sinister has happened, Sara sets out to discover the facts, immersing herself in Rebecca’s life. Soon she’s working at the art gallery Rebecca worked at and meeting Rebecca’s friends. Finding herself drawn to two dangerously sexy men, the manager of the gallery and a famed artist, Sara realizes she’s going down the same path Rebecca took. But with the promise of her dark needs being met by a man with confident good looks and a desire for control, she’s not sure anything else matters. Just the burn for more.




Review by Chantelle


Friday, January 4, 2013

Chantelle's Review: Prince Of Wolves By Quinn Loftis


Title: Prince Of Wolves (The Grey Wolves #1)
Author: Quinn Loftis
Genre: I suppose paranormal, didn't really get very far in...

Goodreads rating: 4.14 out of 5.00 (5, 000+ ratings)
Goodreads link

This is a newly revised and edited version of Prince of Wolves.
 
Jaque Pierce was just an ordinary 17 year old girl getting ready to start her senior year in high school in Coldspring, Texas. When a mysterious foreign exchange student from Romania moves in across the street, Jacque and her two best friends, Sally and Jen, don't realize the last two weeks of their summer was going to get a lot more interesting. From the moment Jacque sets eyes on Fane she feels an instant connection, a pull like a moth to a flame. Little does she know that the flame she is drawn to is actually a Canis lupis, werewolf, and she just happens to be his mate; the other half of his soul. The problem is Fane is not the only wolf in Coldspring, Texas. Just as Fane and Jacque are getting to know each other, another wolf steps out to try and claim Jacque as his mate. Fane will now have to fight for the right to complete the mating bond, something that is his right by birth but is being denied him by a crazed Alpha. Will the love Fane has for Jacque be enough to give him the strength to defeat his enemy, will Jacque accept that she is Fane's mate and complete the bond between them?

Review by Chantelle

Nara's Review: The Sea of Tranquility by Katja Millay

Title: The Sea of Tranquility
Author: Katja Millay
Genre: Young Adult, Chick-lit
Goodreads




I live in a world without magic or miracles. A place where there are no clairvoyants or shapeshifters, no angels or superhuman boys to save you. A place where people die and music disintegrates and things suck. I am pressed so hard against the earth by the weight of reality that some days I wonder how I am still able to lift my feet to walk.

Full of rage and without a purpose, former pianist Nastya Kashnikov wants two things: to get through high school and without anyone discovering her past and to make the boy who took everything from her pay.

All 17 year-old Josh Bennett wants is to build furniture and be left alone, and everyone allows it because it's easier to pretend he doesn't exist. When your name is synonymous with death, everyone tends to give you your space.

Everyone except Nastya, a hot mess of a girl who starts showing up and won't go away until she's insinuated herself into every aspect of his life. The more he gets to know her, the more of a mystery she becomes. As their relationship intensifies and the unanswered questions begin to pile up, he starts to wonder if he may ever learn the secrets she's been hiding or if he even wants to.

The Sea of Tranquility is a slow-building, character-driven romance about a lonely boy, an emotionally fragile girl, and the miracle of second chances.

Please note: this book contains mature content including profanity, drug/alcohol use, and sexual situations/language.
Review by Nara

Thursday, January 3, 2013

Review: Flat-Out Love By Jessica Park


Title: Flat-Out Love
Author: Jessica Park
Genre: Young Adult, College

Goodreads rating: 4.08 out of 5.00 (12, 000+ ratings)
Goodreads link

Something is seriously off in the Watkins home. And Julie Seagle, college freshman, small-town Ohio transplant, and the newest resident of this Boston house, is determined to get to the bottom of it. 
When Julie's off-campus housing falls through, her mother's old college roommate, Erin Watkins, invites her to move in. The parents, Erin and Roger, are welcoming, but emotionally distant and academically driven to eccentric extremes. The middle child, Matt, is an MIT tech geek with a sweet side ... and the social skills of a spool of USB cable. The youngest, Celeste, is a frighteningly bright but freakishly fastidious 13-year-old who hauls around a life-sized cardboard cutout of her oldest brother almost everywhere she goes. 
And there's that oldest brother, Finn: funny, gorgeous, smart, sensitive, almost emotionally available. Geographically? Definitely unavailable. That's because Finn is traveling the world and surfacing only for random Facebook chats, e-mails, and status updates. Before long, through late-night exchanges of disembodied text, he begins to stir something tender and silly and maybe even a little bit sexy in Julie's suddenly lonesome soul. 
To Julie, the emotionally scrambled members of the Watkins family add up to something that ... well ... doesn't quite add up. Not until she forces a buried secret to the surface, eliciting a dramatic confrontation that threatens to tear the fragile Watkins family apart, does she get her answer.

Review by Chantelle