Top Ten Tuesday: Ten Books On My Fall TBR List

 

You know the drill by now. Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly feature hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. The theme this week is top books on your TBR list for this fall. 

1. A Step Toward Falling

Release date: October 6th

 

I haven't read Cammie McGovern's debut novel "Say What You Will," but I'm looking forward to reading this one! Side note: I also really love this cover. 

2. Future Perfect

Release date: October 6th 

 

I'm looking forward to this one because it has a lot of positive things to say about body image. That is a tremendously important topic, so I automatically want to read it! 

3. A Thousand Nights

Release date: October 6th 

 

There's a lot of hype following this book because it's a retelling of 1,001 Nights and so was The Wrath and The Dawn, a popular book published earlier this year. Regardless, I'm looking forward to reading this one because I think it has quite a bit of potential. 

4. What's Broken Between Us 

Release date: December 29th 

 

This one sort of reminds me of Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen, but it still sounds like an incredibly emotional and beautiful book. I'm looking forward to it! 

5. Velvet Undercover

Release date: October 20th 

 

I'm typically not so big on historical fiction books. However, this one looks like something I might really enjoy. It has a total BA main character and a teen spy doesn't sound like the most boring plot I've ever heard. I feel like this is going to be a great read! 

6. My Secret to Tell

Release date: October 6th 

 

Okay, I'm not going to lie, I totally requested this one on Netgalley because I thought the cover was cute, (I obviously didn't read the writing on the cover) but it still looks like a good book. Despite the fact that I'm not huge on suspense YA books, I have high hopes for this one! 

7. Need

Release date: November 3rd

 

The plot alone is equally terrifying and fascinating. I truthfully have never really read a YA horror book, so I'm looking forward to this one because it just seems so scary since it's something that I could see happening! 

8. The Finn Factor 

Release date: September 28th

 

I've been reading a lot of New Adult books here recently. I'm excited to read this one because it looks like a fun and romantic read! 

9. This Ordinary Life

Release date: October 1st 

 

Pretty much any book that has anything related to music on the cover is something I'm bound to pick up. 

10. Just Visiting 

Released date: November 17th 

 

I'm looking forward to this one because it seems to have a lovely focus on female friendship. I enjoy YA books that have a decent portrayal of this. Can it be November already? 

Okay, I know that I'm cutting it close with the whole fall thing with some of these! However, I was really dying to include some of those that are published later in November and December. So forgive me with the cheating that I did here. What about you guys? Are you guys looking forward to any of these?

Boomerang Review

Boomerang

Noelle August

William Morrow

July 2014

 

Goodreads description: 

 Welcome to Boomerang.com, the dating site for the millennial gen with its no-fuss, no-commitments matchups, and where work is steamier than any random hook-up

Mia Galliano is an aspiring filmmaker. Ethan Vance has just played his last game as a collegiate soccer star. They’re sharp, hungry for success, and they share a secret.

Last night, Ethan and Mia met at a bar, and, well . . . one thing led to another, which led to them waking up the next morning—together. Things turned awkward in a hurry when they found themselves sharing a post hookup taxi . . . to the same place: Boomerang headquarters.

What began as a powerful connection between them is treated to a cold shower courtesy of two major complications. First, Boomerang has a strict policy against co-worker dating. And second, they’re now competitors for only one job at the end of summer.

As their internships come to an end, will they manage to keep their eyes on the future and their hands off each other, or will the pull of attraction put them right back where they started?

As I'm sure you've already heard, Noelle August is a pen name for Veronica Rossi and Lorin Oberweger. Rossi has received lots of attention for her popular Under The Never Sky trilogy. I've read two of those books so far and really enjoyed them, so I was curious to read this one. Honestly, this one was nothing like her YA series so it's pretty pointless to even try to put the two up against each other. It's not a bad thing at all, she is able to find her own voice here with a New Adult romance book. This is a light and heartwarming read that I truly enjoyed. 

Both Ethan and Mia were two of my favorite NA characters to date. I was such a fan of these two specifically because I felt like they were extremely easy to understand. Most of all, they felt real. Both of them reminded me of several of my own friends, and that makes me like them even more. I loved the distinctive, sarcastic, and witty narrative that both of them had. They had their own respective quirks that became more obvious as the chapters go back and forth between them both, and it was so obvious that they complemented each other well. The supporting characters were nice as well. I was a little disappointed since this is a series where there the supporting guys are going to get their own story in the following books, and I wasn't all that invested in Adam. Knowing that his is the next story told makes me not all that excited to read it. Maybe it'll be different seeing things from his point of view, but I wasn't all that connected to him in this one.

I hated it when Ethan and Mia were on dates (spoiler alert) with anyone else. Basically, they are forced to go dates with other people since they work for a dating website and are required to try it out for themselves. Anyway, the pair is also trying to fight the feelings that they have for each other while this goes on. Obviously, it all backfires in the end. Even though I had a pretty sure feeling that everything would work out in the end for the couple, I still felt the need to skip through it because I just wanted them to actually be together already. All in all, this was a relationship that I really and truly believed from the beginning to the end of the story. 

Boomerang is different from a lot of the New Adult books that I've read (only Flat-Out Love was more creative and also had better supporting characters, in my opinion) here recently. It didn't have heavy subject matter or tons and tons of drama, but that's what made it special for me. It was light, fun, and mostly happy. Did it have drama? Well of course it did, but not overwhelmingly so. I still really enjoyed reading Mia and Ethan's story and would read it again in a heartbeat.

ARC Review: Very in Pieces

Very in Pieces by Megan Frazer Blakemore

Published by Harper Teen

Expected publication: September 29th

Source: Edelweiss

Goodreads Description:

Very Sales-Woodruff is done being a good girl. Done being the only responsible one in a family that’s unraveling. Done being the obliging girlfriend in a relationship that’s sinking. Done saying no to what she wants—like Dominic, her rebellious classmate.

With her mom’s drinking, her dad’s extended absences from home, and her younger sister, Ramona, running wild, the path Very has always seen for herself doesn’t seem to matter anymore. At the same time, Very’s grandmother, a poet known less for her work and more for her exploits with the likes of Andy Warhol and Arthur Miller, is slipping away.

If everything else can fall to pieces, why can’t she?

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

This book felt like it was missing something. I don't think it was bad or anything, but I felt like it needed more growth from the characters. I wanted to know more about Very's sister, and it seemed to not be explored in great depth. This was still an entertaining YA read that I did like, just not love. The plot wasn't anything overly unique, but it still had a few creative characters. It just needed MORE for it to be an amazing and memorable book.

Very was a character who I didn't connect with in the way that I have with other YA main female characters lately. I'm not sure what it was exactly, I found her to be a little on the boring side. It did bother me how she automatically did what was expected of her, but I still understand why, and I liked that she gradually came out of her shell. Ramona is Very's little sister who I didn't really get. I felt like the author didn't resolve this character the way that she should have. The supporting characters also lacked character development, which I felt like was desperately needed. However, I did enjoy Very's Grandma, specifically, I enjoyed the relationship that her Grandma had with Very. I felt like it was a the perfect combination of both sad and sweet. All of Very's friends were forgettable and her boyfriend at the beginning of the book was so boring. I got that she was with him because he was a safety net for her, but come on! Even her parents (and especially her grandmother) could see that he wasn't the right guy for her. I didn't exactly get why he was included at all, but he did help Very to grow and see that a guy like Dominic is more of what she needs.

I'd like to forget completely about the relationship between Very and Christian since it was so dull and predictable. Which means I'm going to focus more on what happened between Dominic and Very. Dominic has a reputation at her high school for being a rebel and also a drug dealer. Regardless of what he is, Very is automatically drawn to him, and he starts appearing everywhere once she starts her senior year. I liked the romance between them because it built in a slow and real way. Yes, parts of it still moved kind of fast, but it still felt realistic to me. One thing I did dislike was how the relationship wasn't really resolved. Very was still hesitant to be with Dominic which rubbed me the wrong way. I felt like she cared too much about what other people thought, and that bothered me.

I liked the family dynamics in Very in Pieces. Some of the book wasn't so great for me, but it still was a fast paced read. I was just waiting for more of my questions to be answered, and it was disappointing for me when they weren't. Anyway, I think some YA fans will enjoy this one. It has it's positive and negative moments, but it is still an okay read.

Flat-Out Love Review

Flat-Out Love

Jessica Park

April 2011

 Goodreads description:

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.Flat-Out Love comes complete with emails, Facebook status updates, and instant messages.

I'm not going to say much about this book for fear of ruining it, but let's just say that this is one worth reading. By now, I'm sure plenty of you have already read this book. I've seen it on many different New Adult lists and lots of my Goodreads friends have given it tremendous ratings/reviews. It didn't surprise me that this book was just amazing as everyone said, but I'm still really glad that I loved it anyway. You won't regret this one! (or at least I don't think you will)

Julie was an amazing character. I loved how sarcastic and genuinely snarky she was about everything. Her sense of humor and pop culture references made me instantly love her. While she was pretty feisty, she also had a sweet side, especially when it comes to 13-year-old Celeste. I loved the scenes that those two shared, and watching them bond as Julie gets the younger girl out of her shell just a little bit more. Matt was a geek, but in the most endearing since of the word. In spite of his geekiness, (or maybe because of it) I thought he was a brilliant and charming love interest. His behavior towards Julie was strange and off-putting initially, but he gradually became a character that I warmed up too. Like Julie, his love for Celeste is very obvious. I just loved his character all around.

The romance part of this book is a little bit complicated and I don't want to spill too much for anyway that has yet to read the story. I'll just say that there isn't all that many REALLY romantic scenes in the book, but the few that are? Let's just say that those are brilliantly written by Park and they are steamy but in the most tasteful and refined way possible. Julie doesn't go further than kissing in this book, but the scenes still have really great romance in the pages regardless.

I predicted the secret pretty early on in the book. However, a part of me was just not wanting it to be true since I was so invested in the characters. Park really has such descriptive and real characters that you can't help but love. This was a story that really got to me. I have a huge thing for books that have incredibly romantic main male characters and this one certainly covers that with ease. My boy Matt has the most geeky and hilarious shirts, he also is a serious computer geek, and I just loved him. Did anyone else who read this book absolutely adore Matty?

What We Saw Review

What We Saw

Aaron Hartzler

Harper Teen

September 22nd, 2015

Source: Edelweiss

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

"Nothing is exactly as it appears. The closer you look, the more you see."

The Steubenville rape case hit home for me. My grandma lives just across the bridge from the town. I remember when the case happened, all I could feel was sadness for the girl involved because her life had to be changed forever from this. It also felt personal to me because this is something that could easily happen at my own high school. It made me ask myself if I would be one of the few who spoke up on behalf of the victim.

Kate was at the star basketball players party the night that something happened to Stacey. Kate knows that she drank more than she probably should have that night, but she was lucky enough to have gotten home safely while Stacey wasn't so lucky. The school is flipped upside down when Stacey presses charges against four of the basketball players and suddenly the whole school automatically jumps to blame her. The events that happened that night can all be seen on social media sites. Kate is one of the only people who sees things from Stacey's point of view. What if she really is telling the truth and everyone is choosing not to believe her?

Kate was an extremely strong character and I adored her. I loved that she didn't back down from figuring out the truth about what happened that night. She could have taken the easy way out like Ben and all her friends by just letting the situation go, but she looked at from a different angle. She knew that she easily could have been in the same position as Stacey because Kate was drinking too. [ Yes, she was a little bit blinded by Ben at times but she also had no problem distinguishing between what was wrong and what was right. (hide spoiler)] Kate's friends were absolutely unbelievable. I hated that they instantly took the star basketball players side and rushed to judge Stacey because basically, "she asked for it." However, that way of thinking is very similar to how the Steubenville students (and any others when these types of cases happen) responded. I remember how angry I was when the verdict for Steubenville was reached and CNN had a whole story dedicated to how tragic it was that these boys with such a bright future were going to have their lives forever changed. All I could think of was what about the victim? The boys being put away for a couple of years and maybe registering as sex offenders doesn't make up for all the horrible things that she had to hear.

The book has such beautiful writing that unapologetically hits you right in the gut. It flowed in such a poetic way and I felt like the voice of Kate couldn't have been better. I'm beyond glad that I read this one and recommend it for absolutely everyone. It's about a topic that needs to be talked about and this was handled in such a sensitive way. It's an important read for high schoolers, parents, and everyone in between. While I know that different books appeal to different people for whatever reason, but I feel like this one is a book that anyone of any age should read. It's one that I won't be forgetting for a long time.

Feature and Follow Friday #4

This is a weekly feature hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee. Each of the hosts also have a featured blog each week. The featured blog this week is I Heart Reading.

The question this week is: Help us give our Feature Interview Questions a fresh look! What questions do you think we should ask our weekly features?

Here are some questions that I suggest for the hosts to use:

1. If you could choose one book to recommend to the readers, which would it be and why?

2. Top five favorite authors?

3. Who are some book bloggers that inspire you?

4. What literature tropes do you dislike and why? You can make it genre specific if you want or you can just do it in general.

5. What other topics would you blog about if you no longer wanted to blog about books?

Thanks for reading! You can follow me on Bloglovin.

Finding Perfect Review

Finding Perfect

Kendra C. Highley 

Entangled Crush

September 14th, 2015

Source: Netgalley

Goodreads Description:

How far will you go for perfection?

For “Perfect Paige” Westfield, today is “D” Day. As in, she just got one on her calculus test. With her dreams of Stanford, her reputation, and her parents’ expectations at stake, Paige needs to find a way to save face before everything she’s worked for goes up in flames.

Ben Franklin (yes, he’s related) is from the wrong side of town, with the wrong clothes and the wrong kind of life. He also knows an opportunity when he sees one, and he’ll be happy to tutor Paige—if she makes him into the kind of guy her best friend, the hottest girl in school, will date.

It’s the perfect arrangement. And Paige is determined not even the inconvenient—and utterly imperfect—attraction simmering between her and Ben will ruin it…

Disclaimer: I received this book for free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

I wasn't sure how the author was going to pull off a story about a boy agreeing to tutor a girl in order to get a date with her best friend. Somehow, it truly did work in a surprising way. I loved the characters and felt like each one, even the supporting characters, developed throughout the book. This is one that I recommend for people who love YA romance and are looking for a story that is just a little bit different from the others.

Paige was a very realistic high schooler who also happened to be a serious overachiever. She wants to please her parents and follow in her fathers footsteps to become a doctor. She's extremely stressed due to her calculus class and knows that if she fails it, it'll ruin everything for her. I liked Paige because she was a relatable character and sometimes I can't always relate with main characters in YA books. I've read a lot of books recently that are similar in the respect that the girl seems uptight and perfect, but Paige was more than what appeared on the surface. Ben was also a lot different than what he seemed to be. He was also serious about grades but for reasons both similar and different from Paige's. The similarity being that they both want to please their parents and get into school, different because Ben feels the pressure of providing for his mom and taking care of her. I liked how the book explored social class, it never seemed out of place or unrealistic, it was fitting in the story. Even the adults in the story were well developed and seemed to grow along with the main characters. I loved Ben's mom and felt like she was a sweet and supportive adult character. In contrast, Paige's parents weren't as warm and fuzzy in the beginning. However, I did like how the book wrapped things up involving their relationship.

The chemistry between Paige and Ben becomes obvious early on in the book. During only like the second time they hangout, they get pretty close to kissing. My point is, I like that the adult has them build up from just helping one another out, to becoming aware of their attractions and not knowing what to do with it. It drove me a little crazy how they both seemed to beat around the bush and focus on him getting a date with Zoey, even though it was obvious that he would be a better match for Paige. Zoey's role in getting the pair together was one of my favorite parts. It just wasn't what I was expecting to happen in the best way. Paige and Ben make a fabulous pair that never was boring to read about and I really loved the unique element to the love story.

I'm beyond glad that I read this book. It exceeded all of my prior expectations of it. This was a book that I believed, and I was invested in each and everyone of the characters. I was even wanting to know more about Zoey and wanted her to find her own love story. The ending made me hopeful that maybe we'll get to see a book with Zoey as our main character that follows her college years, but who knows! Regardless of whether or not this is the last we'll see of Ben and Paige, this was a book that was a quick read and one that made me really happy.