Book Review: Solitaire - Alice Oseman

Title: Solitaire

Author: Alice Oseman

Release Date: March 30th 2015

Publisher: HarperTeen

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: ARC from publisher

Goodreads

In case you're wondering, this is not a love story.

My name is Tori Spring. I like to sleep and I like to blog. Last year – before all that stuff with Charlie and before I had to face the harsh realities of A-Levels and university applications and the fact that one day I really will have to start talking to people – I had friends. Things were very different, I guess, but that's all over now.

Now there's Solitaire. And Michael Holden.

I don't know what Solitaire are trying to do, and I don't care about Michael Holden.

I really don't.

Solitaire is one of those books that just reeks "ominous". Everything from the cover to the summary and even the other reviews that I've read made me expect the emotional rollercoaster that this book is, but something about it just didn't work.

The book starts off slow as we are introduced to the characters. Tori, our main character, is the kind of teenager that I never enjoy reading about in fiction: angsty and demotivated. She has a lot of nothingness in her that seeped through the pages of the book, and at the same time it is her voice that will keep readers glued in. But although she had my attention, I had a hard time relating to her or any of the other characters, and I believe that is the reason why I failed to finish reading this the first time I picked it up: it was so damn slow and, in some parts, pointless.

We're so used to disaster that we accept it. We think we deserve it.

The story picks up when Solitaire, a prankster blog, starts wreaking havoc in Tori's school. At first the pranks are harmless and Tori, being as depressed about life as she is, could not care less about it. But as the pranks progress and people are harmed, Tori gets the resolve to find out who's behind the blog and put a stop to it. This is the part where I started rolling my eyes every few pages or so because it made no sense at all. I'm going to keep it at that before I spoil it for any of you guys.

It's so easy to assume you know everything about a person.

Although I have my reservations, Solitaire is one book that I will recommend to those looking for a read similar to The Perks of Being a Wallflower, but I would suggest picking it up with lowered expectations because I have never been this irritated by a happy ending.

RATING:

Book Review: Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

Title: Fangirl

Author: Rainbow Rowell
Release Date: September 10th 2013

Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: Bought
Goodreads

Cath and Wren are identical twins, and until recently they did absolutely everything together. Now they're off to university and Wren's decided she doesn't want to be one half of a pair any more - she wants to dance, meet boys, go to parties and let loose. It's not so easy for Cath. She's horribly shy and has always buried herself in the fan fiction she writes, where she always knows exactly what to say and can write a romance far more intense than anything she's experienced in real life.

Without Wren, Cath is completely on her own and totally outside her comfort zone. She's got a surly room-mate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can't stop worrying about her dad, who's loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

Now Cath has to decide whether she's ready to open her heart to new people and new experiences, and she's realizing that there's more to learn about love than she ever thought possible.

Fangirl was in my TBR list for a long time. It sounded like the story of my life, mainly because I've been referring to myself as a fangirl since I was thirteen, and it didn't hurt that it was written by Rainbow Rowell AKA the genius behind Eleanor & Park. Now that I've read this, I can say that I loved it... but it's not my favorite Rowell book.

The story introduces us to Cath, a girl who prefers staying in with her family and her fanfics because of her social anxiety, as she enters college without her dad and her twin sister Wren by her side. Wren has decided that college is the perfect time to meet new people and step away from Cath, so while she's busy getting shit-faced every weekend with her roommate - who is not her sister - Cath shuts out the world and keeps to her safe zone, full of Simon Snow fanfiction and solace.

Underneath this veneer of slightly crazy and mildly socially retarded, I'm a complete disaster.

A hundred pages in, I realized that this was going to be a long read, but a lovely one, like listening to a friend vent about her life for hours. Cath feels lost and alone in college, and at one point she even thinks of quitting and going home to attend community college, but soon her hard-edged roommate takes pity on her and said roommate's kind-of boyfriend befriends her, pestering her to unknowingly open herself up. 

Aside from her social (and romantic) growth, we also watch Cath grow as a writer. She learns that writing is not all fun and easy as with her fanfics, but that there are times when she will face a wall and have to write her way through it. She even learns, unfortunately, that not everyone who tries to get close to her truly wants to be friends with her.

Real life was something happening in her peripheral vision.

A hearty novel chock full of sisterhood and friendship and going out of your comfort zone, Fangirl will keep you entertained for hours. It made me wish I could write like Cath does when she's in the zone, focused and unable to distract for hours on end. The romance between Cath and Levi made me squeal and giggle stupidly, and the Simon Snow snippets between every chapter make me need to buy a copy of Carry On some time soon.

RATING:

Mini-Reviews {5}

Title: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children: The Graphic Novel

Author: Ransom Riggs

Release Date: October 29th 2013

Publisher: Yen Press

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: Bought

Goodreads

When Jacob Portman was a boy, his grandfather regaled him with stories of his fantastic life at Miss Peregrine's home during the Second World War, even sharing photos of the remarkable children with whom he resided. As Jacob grew up, though, he decided that these photos were obvious fakes, simple forgeries designed to stir his youthful imagination. Or were they...?

Following his grandfather's death - a scene Jacob literally couldn't believe with his own eyes - the sixteen-year-old boy embarks on a mission to disentangle fact from fiction in his grandfather's tall tales. But even his grandfather's elaborate yarns couldn't prepare Jacob for the eccentricities he will discover at Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children!

Graphic novels are even worse than hardcovers: they're beautiful and I want to pet them and read them but they're so damn expensive! That's the reason why this one's the only graphic novel I currently own. I was actually talking myself out of buying it but I just had to get one signed by Ransom Riggs when he visited my country years back. (Because yes, I read this back in *looks at Goodreads* 2014?! o.o)

Anyway, as this is the only graphic novel I own, this is also the only one I've read. I knew it would be a quick read but I didn't anticipate that I could read it in less than an hour. Wow. I seriously felt like I threw my money away but who cares because books are worth it! Also, the illustrations are really beautiful, just what I expected from Cassandra Jean whom I've been following on Tumblr for a long time now. 

What I appreciated most about this graphic novel is how I could revisit the first novel in half the time, especially since Miss Peregrine's felt too dragged out for me. I remember reading this before Hollow City, and now I can't wait to get my hands on the graphic novel for that second book so I can read it before I pick up Library of Souls!

RATING:

Title: The Beginning of Everything
Author: Robyn Schneider
Release Date: August 27th 2013
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: Bought
Goodreads

Golden boy Ezra Faulkner believes everyone has a tragedy waiting for them—a single encounter after which everything that really matters will happen. His particular tragedy waited until he was primed to lose it all: in one spectacular night, a reckless driver shatters Ezra’s knee, his athletic career, and his social life. 

No longer a front-runner for Homecoming King, Ezra finds himself at the table of misfits, where he encounters new girl Cassidy Thorpe. Cassidy is unlike anyone Ezra’s ever met, achingly effortless, fiercely intelligent, and determined to bring Ezra along on her endless adventures. 

But as Ezra dives into his new studies, new friendships, and new love, he learns that some people, like books, are easy to misread. And now he must consider: if one’s singular tragedy has already hit and everything after it has mattered quite a bit, what happens when more misfortune strikes?

I'd probably get hate for what I'm about to say, but I'm going to say it anyway: I am in the opinion that this book is overhyped. I read this less than a year ago but I can't even remember much of what happens in the book, only that it reminded me so much of a John Green novel, particularly Looking for Alaska (which is my favorite JG novel, by the way). Even Cassidy Thorpe's first appearance was so much like Alaska Young's, the cool, smart, hipster dream girl with a long list of secrets.

According to my notes, though, I did like how Ezra coped with the accident. He was hopeless, often dreary, but he kept it to himself instead of running around moping and screaming how unfair life is. Ezra and Cassidy's love story is also very similar to 500 Days of Summer, with Ezra thinking of Cassidy as his savior and heroine and her being somewhat strangled because of his expectations.

Just because I think this book is overhyped doesn't mean I didn't enjoy it, because I did. In fact, I plan to read it again, give it another chance. I had a worse tragedy in mind for the ending but when everything was revealed, it all clicked into place. It's not what most people would ask for, but I believe it did the characters justice, and for me that's what's most important.

MY FAVORITE PART was the overnight debate tournament. Now that is how nerds have fun.

RATING:

Title: An Abundance of Katherines

Author: John Green

Release Date: September 21st 2006

Publisher: Dutton Books
Age Group: Young Adult

Source: Bought

Goodreads

When it comes to relationships, Colin Singleton's type happens to be girls named Katherine. And when it comes to girls named Katherine, Colin is always getting dumped. Nineteen times, to be exact. 

On a road trip miles from home, this anagram-happy, washed-up child prodigy has ten thousand dollars in his pocket, a bloodthirsty feral hog on his trail, and an overweight, Judge Judy-loving best friend riding shotgun - but no Katherines. Colin is on a mission to prove The Theorem of Underlying Katherine Predictability, which he hopes will predict the future of any relationship, avenge Dumpees everywhere, and finally win him the girl. 

Love, friendship, and a dead Austro-Hungarian archduke add up to surprising and heart-changing conclusions in this ingeniously layered comic novel about reinventing oneself.

At first I was only interested in reading this book because I loved Looking for Alaska, but then the cover got a redesign and I just had to own it in hardcover and naturally, I had to read it. I remember feeling up to something quirky when I picked this up, and boy, quirky was exactly what I got. 

Math is my biggest enemy. Like, I obviously love English (I love reading, duh), and Science is not so bad, but Math? Integral Calculus is what got me kicked out of two engineering programs, and although I totally - and finally - kicked the crap out of it last year, I still hate it. So to read a book that was filled with Math? My mind ran around in circles a few times while reading this.

Still, I really enjoyed it because it has John Green's signature wit, humor, and sarcasm that I will always love. No matter how inane their problems may be, his characters are always a redeeming factor in his books, and they sure are hilarious. This book made me want to go on a road trip, and I'm really looking forward to reading Paper Towns soon!

RATING:

Book Review: A Drop of Night - Stefan Bachmann

Title: A Drop of Night

Author: Stefan Bachmann
Release Date: March 15th 2016

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: ARC from publisher

Goodreads

Seventeen-year-old Anouk has finally caught the break she’s been looking for—she's been selected out of hundreds of other candidates to fly to France and help with the excavation of a vast, underground palace buried a hundred feet below the suburbs of Paris. Built in the 1780's to hide an aristocratic family and a mad duke during the French Revolution, the palace has lain hidden and forgotten ever since. Anouk, along with several other gifted teenagers, will be the first to set foot in it in over two centuries.

Or so she thought.

But nothing is as it seems, and the teens soon find themselves embroiled in a game far more sinister, and dangerous, than they could possibly have imagined. An evil spanning centuries is waiting for them in the depths...

I picked up this book in my attempts to lessen the unread ARCs in my bookshelf, and man, I sure wasn't prepared for this. A Drop of Night had me at "underground palace" - just how were they able to build one back in the days when technology wasn't as advanced as it is now? And for what reason? 

I don't believe in the whole "people are basically good deep down" notion. I think deep down is where people are the worst.

The story starts by introducing us to Anouk, our rude and angsty main character, who seems to think her life is the worst even when she's surrounded by opportunities to do whatever she wants. I think this is the one thing I dislike about her; sure, her parents regretted adopting her the moment her baby sister was born, but to take out that frustration on basically everybody else, even those who were trying to be friendly and helpful, was immature and wasteful, especially for someone supposedly as smart as she is. But moving on.

The all-expenses-paid trip to Paris is her way out of that life. Although she has taken many such trips to different parts of the world before, she thought this one would finally allow her to leave her dysfunctional family once and for all. She is joined by four other gifted kids who have no idea just how they were chosen or what the criteria were, but soon, the trip turns into a deadly nightmare that they have to escape.

This book is told in two ways: by Anouk, and by flashbacks to medieval France when the palace was in construction. The flashbacks built up a good amount of suspense that had me pulling at my hair, thinking just what in the world these aristocrats were doing - and hiding - under there. But while the flashbacks cooked up the mystery, the story as told by Anouk in the present provided the action. I don't want to go into much detail in order to avoid spoiling this for anyone, but believe me when I tell you that this book is not what you're expecting it to be.

Overall, A Drop of Night is an action-packed book, some happening so fast I had to reread for me to understand what happened which may have actually watered down the excitement quite a bit. Still, it kept me on the edge of my seat, feeling like I was one of the kids they sent into the palace, avoiding traps and hiding in panic rooms. This is one book I would love to see on the big screen.

RATING:

Book Review: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist - Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Title: Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist

Author: Rachel Cohn & David Levithan
Release Date: May 23rd 2006

Publisher: Alfred F. Knopf Books for Young Readers

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: Bought
Goodreads

"I know this is going to sound strange, but would you mind being my girlfriend for the next five minutes?"

Nick frequents New York's indie rock scene nursing a broken heart.

Norah is questioning all of her assumptions about the world.

They have nothing in common except for killer taste in music, but one awkward chance encounter turns into an all-night quest to find a legendary band's secret show in the mystic maze of Manhattan - and a first date full of falling in and out (and in and out, and maybe in and maybe out) of love.

I had one rule when it comes to book-to-movie adaptations: if I haven't read it, then I have no right to watch it. But a little before 2015 ended last week, I decided to break that rule and watched Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist, and although I eventually found out that it's almost a complete one-eighty from the book, it did have me running to the bookstore as soon as I could. Good job, movie!

No, bitch, I mean you intimidate guys with a look or a comment before they can decide if they want a chance with you. You're so judgmental. Along with frigid.

Unlike the simple, whimsical tone of the movie, the book is filled to the brim with teenage punk and emotions that poured out of the page, and because I saw the movie first, it was like the book took the plot of the movie, laid it on paper, and colored it with crayons such as "Sweaty Club" and "Can't Get Over My Ex". Or to put it simply, the book is more emotionally complex than the movie, but that's definitely not to say it was a bad movie. I actually really enjoyed it, and Michael Cera with a bass guitar is surprisingly hot, and the soundtrack is amazing.

Feminism should be all-inclusive - it should be about sexual liberation, equal pay for equal work, and the fundamental girl right of boy2boy appreciation.

Just like Dash & Lily's Book of Dares, Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist (I seriously have a love-hate relationship with these titles, ugh) is the kind of book that you can start and finish in one sitting because reading it is so easy, so comforting to read, like you're chatting with a long-time friend or curling up in bed with your headphones on on a rainy day. And I love how the authors made all of their characters, not just the main ones, jump out of the page, each of them unique and equally interesting.

I shouldn't want the song to end. I always think of each night as a song. Or each moment as a song. But now I'm seeing we don't live in a single song. We move from song to song, from lyric to lyric, from chord to chord. There is no ending here. It's an infinite playlist.

Perhaps the only thing I disliked about this book is how similar Nick and Norah sounded, so much so that most of the time I had no idea whose perspective I was reading - but maybe that's only another indication of how in sync they were, because I honestly believe your musical soulmate is one of the few - if not the One - for you, and believe me when I say that this book, even if punk music grates on your ears, is going to be your musical soulmate.

MY FAVORITE PART was the Marriott. Good heavens.

RATING:

Mini-Reviews: We Were Liars; The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Title: We Were Liars

Author: E. Lockhart

Release Date: May 13th 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Press

Age Group: Young Adult

Goodreads | The Book Depository

A beautiful and distinguished family.

A private island.

A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.

A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.

A revolution. An accident. A secret.

Lies upon lies.

True love.

The truth.

I knew only one thing about We Were Liars before I read it: it wouldn't disappoint, and it truly did not. One is better off going into this book without knowledge of anything that happens in it, because it is a book meant to be experienced with an untainted mind. All you need to know is that it involves four brilliant kids who have their entire lives ahead of them, and they also happen to spend their summers in a private island.

We Were Liars is, quite frankly, a slow book. It is lyrical and confusing, and the easily-bored may even have a hard time finishing it. It's not for everyone, and even the author herself knew that readers would either love it or hate it; there is no middle ground. But if you do start reading it, I highly suggest just going with the flow, because you are in for a shock, I promise you that. 

I honestly have no idea what more to say about this book, so I'll end this by sharing that I finished reading this in the employee's lounge of my office, and that wasn't one of my best ideas because there were tears involved.

MY FAVORITE PART is that chapter. If you've read this, you know what I mean.

P.S. I'm giving away a signed copy of this book here! ;D

RATING:

Title: The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks

Author: E. Lockhart
Release Date: March 25th 2008
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Age Group: Young Adult

Goodreads | The Book Depository

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.

Disreputable History was in my TBR list for a long time, but I only got around to reading it when #ELockhartinPH was announced. Having read We Were Liars first, I thought this one sounded lighter than my first Lockhart read, and it sure was, but it actually has its own dark tone - it's very subtle, but it's there. 

But if you don't want to get too critical, then it's enough to know that this book is another brilliant contemporary from E. Lockhart. The lady sure knows how to go deep into her characters' heads, and reading this as easy as sharing stories with a friend. This is the story of a bright girl blossoming into one hell of a woman, but it also shows that just because someone's whip smart doesn't mean she has it easy. An over-active brain can just as easily be a crowded prison, and Frankie, model student and, for the most part, a good daughter though she may be, isn't quite satisfied with how her friends and family treat her. She thinks they see her as fragile and predictable, and this book is basically her going to great lengths to prove to them that she's not.

Overall, Frankie's story is entertaining and imaginative, and aside from the protagonist, we get to know a lot of delightful characters through her eyes. The ending isn't what I'd imagined it would be at all, but it wouldn't be a Lockhart book if it were.

MY FAVORITE PART is

"It is better to be alone, she figures, than to be with someone who can't see who you are."

RATING:

{Blog Tour} Book Review: The Girl from the Well - Rin Chupeco

Title: Girl from the Well

Author: Rin Chupeco
Release Date: August 5th 2014

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Age Group: Young Adult
Source: NetGalley
Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret - one that would just kill to get out.

Three things made this book go straight to my TBR list: first is the perfect, creeptastic cover; second is the fact that the author is a fellow Filipina; and lastly, the title which reminds me of The Ring, AKA my favorite Japanese horror movie. The eerie atmosphere is set right off of page one, and even with the summary, I had little idea of what to expect from this story. It took its unexpected turns that kept me engrossed right until the last page.

On the onset of the book we are introduced to our quite-morally-confused ghost narrator who will later be known as Okiku. She is very much like the well-known Sadako, with the long black hair and creepy preferred haunting position, but instead of releasing a killer video unto humanity, Okiku hunts those who have murdered children to make up for her own death hundreds of years ago. Unfortunately, her avenging nature, although unique, takes the creepies down a notch.

Okiku has always distanced her ghostly emotions from the killers she hunts and even from the lost spirits that she helps, but something about fifteen-year-old Tark draws her to him. But before you think this is another case of  "ooh he looks so shiny and mesmerizing", this is actually "ooh he looks like he's got a demon riding on his back". (Not a spoiler, I swear.) Tark has carried a dark, heavy burden in him his entire life, but not even him knows exactly what it is. Having a deranged mother who's tried to kill him a handful of times certainly doesn't help, either. But when he and his workaholic father move into the same town as his cousin, Callie, the darkness making the boy suffer is no longer unnoticeable, and with unexpected help from Okiku, their journey to help Tark takes them to Japan, the place where it all started.

Although it failed to give me the number of chills I'd expected it to provide, that doesn't mean The Girl from the Well isn't easy to read in one sitting, because that's exactly what I did. It wasn't as scary as I would have liked but nonetheless, I can still recommend it to everyone looking for a different kind of read.

MY FAVORTIE PART is the unconventional and satisfying ending.

RATING:

Book Review: Perfected - Kate Jarvik Birch

Title: Perfected

Author: Kate Jarvik Birch

Release Date: July 1st 2014

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: eARC from publisher

Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble

Perfection comes at a price.

As soon as the government passed legislation allowing humans to be genetically engineered and sold as pets, the rich and powerful rushed to own beautiful girls like Ella. Trained from birth to be graceful, demure, and above all, perfect, these “family companions” enter their masters’ homes prepared to live a life of idle luxury.

Ella is happy with her new role as playmate for a congressman’s bubbly young daughter, but she doesn’t expect Penn, the congressman’s handsome and rebellious son. He’s the only person who sees beyond the perfect exterior to the girl within. Falling for him goes against every rule she knows… and the freedom she finds with him is intoxicating.

But when Ella is kidnapped and thrust into the dark underworld lurking beneath her pampered life, she’s faced with an unthinkable choice. Because the only thing more dangerous than staying with Penn’s family is leaving… and if she’s unsuccessful, she’ll face a fate far worse than death.

Imagine a world where girls are genetically engineered and raised to become a perfect pet. Once they are of age, they are sold to the highest bidders, brought home, and treated like a labradoodle or what have you, pampered like a princess and displayed like a gold bar. The girls are expected to obey every single one of their masters' whims because if they don't, they will be put down like a useless K9 (a practice that I absolutely abhor, by the way). There. See it in your head? If you can't, you need not worry because that's exactly what Perfected is about.

Your sole purpose is to enrich the lives of your new owners. 

This book ended up being different from what I'd expected. Instead of a full-blown action-packed sci-fi/dystopian, I feel like I read a contemporary with a side of action, so don't go into this expecting the former. That said, I can say that the premise made Perfected nothing like anything I've read before. The idea of breeding girls to be sold and used in whatever way was just sick and disgusting, and the need to know the reason behind the practice made this book a must-read for me.

Maybe freedom wasn't a state of being. Maybe it was an act of courage. Maybe freedom was defiance and sacrifice and pain, something that couldn't be won without giving up something else in return.

Ella - as she's named by her owner - knows only a life of refinement and obedience, and as a pet, she's perfectly alright with that. Her owners are kind enough, and she's well-fed and more than well-dressed; she doesn't have reason to want for more. But soon she learns how it is to be treated like property, and although most readers will find her helpless - which she was, indeed - that didn't irritate me at all because she was raised to be like that, like a damsel in distress. It was hard to relate to her, but it was easy to understand her.

The romance aspect was sweet enough, but to be honest, I could have done without it. It didn't distract from the story, but aside from being a major motivating factor for Ella, it didn't add much more to it; actually, I think it's the reason why this book, though unpredictable and intense, dragged in the middle. Good thing it picked up towards the end, but the ending? Let's just say it made me go "Wait. What? That's it?", and not in a good way.

MY FAVORITE PART is Penn playing for Ella :3

RATING:

{Blog Tour} Book Review: Say Her Name - James Dawson

Follow the tour here!

Title: Say Her Name

Author: James Dawson

Release Date: June 5th 2014

Publisher: Hot Key Books

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: ARC borrowed for blog tour

Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

Roberta 'Bobbie' Rowe is not the kind of person who believes in ghosts. A Halloween dare at her ridiculously spooky boarding school is no big deal, especially when her best friend Naya and cute local boy Caine agree to join in too. They are ordered to summon the legendary ghost of 'Bloody Mary': say her name five times in front of a candlelit mirror, and she shall appear... But, surprise surprise, nothing happens. Or does it?

Next morning, Bobbie finds a message on her bathroom mirror... five days... but what does it mean? And who left it there? Things get increasingly weird and more terrifying for Bobbie and Naya, until it becomes all too clear that Bloody Mary was indeed called from the afterlife that night, and she is definitely not a friendly ghost. Bobbie, Naya and Caine are now in a race against time before their five days are up and Mary comes for them, as she has come for countless others before...

There are months to go before Halloween, but I have already found (and read) the Halloween book. Perfectly set and creepy right off the bat, Say Her Name had my attention from start to finish, and I was raving so much while reading it that my horror-movie-loving sister also got intrigued. Too bad she doesn't read.

Bloody Mary has always terrified me, and even in my dreams, I've never been brave enough to dare summoning the legendary ghost, so I couldn't keep myself from shaking my head as Bobbie Rowe and her friends stood in front of that bathroom mirror and completed the dare. And so begins the eerie events that escalate as the days go by, and before their five days are up, they have to learn the truth behind the legend before they become part of the paranormal statistic.

Reading Say Her Name was like watching a horror movie, but better - and believe me because I've watched my fair share, thanks to the aforementioned sister. I kept on squealing and screeching, particularly as I read the scary scenes because I couldn't close my eyes the way I do when watching said horror movies (which is probably why they don't scare me much anymore). And that's another reason why books > movies, friends.

And you know how characters in horror movies just have to act stupid, like split up inside a freaking haunted house? When I go into anything horror, I always dread experiencing another batch of irritation because of that kind of idiocy, but there is none of that in this book. The author knew how to move a horror story forward without the facepalm becoming necessary, so more props to him for that.

"Some people just shine a bit brighter than others and it's got nothing to do with what they look like."

Oh, and can I just mention the romance? Because normally, in horror movies, this is another thing that ends up being 'meh', but again, not here. Bobbie and Caine, the outsider boy who is also being haunted by Bloody Mary, were so swoony with their awkwardness and cuteness, and knowing if they would both make it through the five days alive and together was another reason why I couldn't put this book down.

A gripping, hair-raising horror mystery, the only problem I had with Say Her Name was the very horror-movie-cliche ending. If my sisters and I were reading this together, that ending would have been the point where we'd sigh and roll our eyes in unison. But! This book was still very scary, and I recommend reading it at night for full creeptastic effect.

MY FAVORITE PART is Mary manifesting. I had to put the book down and breathe for a while.

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{Blog Tour} Book Review: Plus One - Elizabeth Fama

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Title: Plus One

Author: Elizabeth Fama
Release Date: April 8th 2014

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Age Group: Young Adult

Source: ARC borrowed for blog tour

Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

It takes guts to deliberately mutilate your hand while operating a blister-pack sealing machine, but all I had going for me was guts.

Sol Le Coeur is a Smudge—a night dweller in an America rigidly divided between people who wake, live, and work during the hours of darkness and those known as Rays who live and work during daylight. Impulsive, passionate, and brave, Sol deliberately injures herself in order to gain admission to a hospital, where she plans to kidnap her newborn niece—a Ray—in order to bring the baby to visit her dying grandfather. By violating the day-night curfew, Sol is committing a serious crime, and when the kidnap attempt goes awry it starts a chain of events that will put Sol in mortal danger, uncover a government conspiracy to manipulate the Smudge population, and throw her together with D'Arcy Benoît, the Ray medical apprentice who first treats her, then helps her outrun the authorities—and with whom she is fated to fall impossibly and irrevocably in love.

Set in a vivid alternate reality and peopled with complex, deeply human characters on both sides of the day-night divide, Plus One is a brilliantly imagined drama of individual liberty and civil rights—and a compelling, rapid-fire romantic adventure story.

Plus One started out as a two-star book for me. The first hundred pages were a struggle to get past because I failed to connect with the main character, Sol, before she started running all over town and because the world-building was kind of inadequate at first, confusing me. Why is this society divided into Night and Day? What the heck does Plus One mean? And, worst of all, I don't understand French - please translate?! This book requires a lot of patience because - take my word for it - it gets infinitely better; five-star better, even, in my case.

The story is set in an alternate universe where, in order to maximize the diminishing work force in the face of the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, the government divided society into two: Day and Night, and people in each can only go out of their homes on the duration of their namesake. Sol, a Smudge, plans to kidnap her newborn niece from the hospital for her dying grandfather to meet, but that plan soon goes awry.

A French-speaking, blackmailing, curfew-breaking monster. And he didn't know the half of it: he didn't know I was an aspiring kidnapper.

Sol was a hard character to like. She whole-heartedly believed that D'Arcy was a selfish, privileged Day when in fact she was the selfish one who wanted everyone to drop what they were doing and risk their lives to help her kidnap her niece, like the world owed her that for everything she'd been through. But lucky her because despite the trouble she brought, D'Arcy still helped her, risking the bright future that he'd worked so hard for.

The blurb has made it no secret that this partnership would turn into a romance, but despite that I seriously had my doubts because it was difficult to imagine love blooming between these two very different people, but it happens, and good gravy. The history! The chemistry! The kissing! Theirs truly is one epic romance. It's not the kind of romance that makes you squeal and blush; it's the kind of romance that makes your heart soar.

Four hundred billion suns spiraling through space together. Our solar system just one grain on that galactic carousel. The carousel itself a speck in the cosmos. And here I am in this small clearing, on the surface of the earth, as transient and unnoticed to the universe as the dry blades of grass that are poking into my shirt. It’s too much to comprehend up there, too enormous, and I’m so small when it’s on top of me. It frightens me, like I’m being crushed.

Filled with exquisite prose and a variety of characters who only made the story more unique and unpredictable, Plus One is not a book to be devoured; it's a book that has to be savored. To be honest, I could have done with at least a hundred more pages as nothing much was resolved with regards to the dystopian aspect of the story, so sequel, please!

MY FAVORITE PART is D'Arcy topping Sol's Milky Way ♥

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