Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Warcross,” by Mary Lu

4.5 Stars

This is was an amazing new story, it was so refreshing to read, it was like opening myself to a new world, and it felt wonderful.  This story involves hackers, video games, and a whole new developed world, where is not too far from our future.

Marie Lu, takes us to a couple of years in the future where everyone in the world is using these glasses that project a virtual reality world. Some people play for real, others just live in it.It is honestly amazing to read about, and I don’t know how to explain it to you, so you have to read the book to actually understand the story. Emika is a bounty hunter, she catches people that cheat and do illegal things in the games. She loves the game and everything there’s is to it. She enjoys being part of it. She also lives in New York City, and you know how expensive it is to live in the city–and she’s getting evicted from her apartment, so in a desperate attempt to save her life and still have somewhere to live, she commits a mistake.

Then she’s just introduced to this whole new world that she knows very well, but that now she gets to see from behind the scenes. Honestly, I really recommend this book, it’s an amazing story and anyone from 15 years and up can read it. I do wish that Lu would focus more on the development of the world and the games than some other stuff she was paid attention too, she was very redundant in some cases but other than that it was a very great story.

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Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Shuffle, Repeat,” by Jen Klein

4/5 stars

This was a beautiful book with an amazing story. I think it has DUFF and Easy A vibes. I enjoyed reading this book a lot, more than I expected, and this is my first book by this author and I’m very satisfied with it.

This book follows the story of June and Oliver. June’s mom and Oliver’s mom arrange for both of them to ride together to school. June doesn’t like this arrangement, but there’s nothing she can do about it. June and Oliver know each other, or knew each other–but then they grew up, and high school happened. June believes that High School traditions are stupid and can’t wait to go to college to leave all of that stupidity behind. Oliver, on the other hand, believes that high school is all there is and that you need to make your high school years the best because you will remember them forever.

Since they have different opinions about high school, they argue most of the time, and to pass the time they listen to music on their way over to the school, hence the title. This story is full of fun, humor, lies, friendship, and future. I would recommend this story to anyone who’s having conflicting feelings about high school or college, and how two strangers can overcome anything, and find the truth in their hearts. 14 and up could read this. Enjoy!

 

 

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Eliza and Her Monsters,” By Francesca Zappia

4/5 stars

I really enjoyed reading this book. The last book that I read by this author was “Made you up,” about a year ago, and I really did love it. This one did not disappoint. Francesca’s writing is beautiful and consistent, and I’m very curious as to see if she was the one who drew the art for her book because it is seriously amazing.

Eliza is the creator of a very popular web comic, and when I mean popular, I mean really popular. Like people have tattoos over her webcomic popular. Millions of people read her comic. But no one knows who she is in real life.

In school, she’s treated as a dork and a freak, and one day she decides to stand up for this kid, Wallace, because he was being bullied, or well, pressured is the most correct term. Anyways, he discovers that she likes Monstrous Sea, which is the web comic that she creates. Some pages fall out of the sketchbook she always has in hand and he sees them, but he doesn’t think that she’s the creator. I mean why would he. Anywho, they form a connection over the web comic, which in terms turns into romance, and I like it because Eliza is getting out of her comfort zone, and is the cutest thing to see her get all flustered when he directs any of the attention to her.

This story is about, love, trust, depression, because Jesus, Eliza is always depressed or in a mood. But it is also about friendship and losing people who are very close to you. Would recommend if you’ve read anything by Jennifer Niven, Jandy Nelson, Nicola Yoon, or Ned Vizzini.

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Flame in the Mist,” by Renée Ahdieh

4.5/5 Stars

I’m really impressed by how this book turned out to be. I put it off for a while because I was afraid it would not meet my expectations. But who was I kidding? Renee is one of the best of authors when it comes to YA fantasy. The amount of research and love she puts into her books shows throughout her story, and it is so impressive to read. This is a Mulan retelling, and our main character, Mariko, is such a strong resemblance in terms of personality. She’s stubborn, loyal, witty and opinionated. Okami is stubborn as well, and If I’m being honest, both of them were alike, in a lot of ways.

Yes, many of the names are confusing AF, (she does have a glossary at the end of the book though), and half of the time I didn’t know what the hell what’s going on–but pay attention to the little details because they might surprise you in the end. The book was written in the third person and there are many points of view that might seem insignificant to you, but that will make sense in the end.

I loved this story, Renee is such an amazing author, and the story line and plot twist and character development were so good. I never once got bored reading this story. Well, everyone once in a while I would because of the little snippets of other characters POV, which I didn’t realize its importance until the end of the book, hence me warning you above to pay attention to the minor details so they don’t surprise you.

 

 

 

 

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Alex, Approximately,” by Jenn Bennett

5/5 stars

Uhh! I loved this book so much. Like, I can’t get over how good this book was. This is my first book ever that I’ve read from this author, and I honestly don’t know if this is her first one, but she did a damn great job. She’s such an amazing writer, and I’m proud of her for writing this book. The story line was amazing, the characters were super strong in terms of personality and character development, and the plot twist was different than what I was expecting but in a good way.

Enter Baily, aka Mink. She’s been talking to this guy, Alex, for a while online about movies and stuff, and he’s been inviting her to go to this film festival that happens in his town in California. They don’t know each other outside of the online chat, they don’t know their real names, nor where they live or none of that. The only that Bailey knows is that the town he lives in is where her dad lives and that she’s moving in with him. They have a great connection online, and Baily likes him a lot.

Bailey is sort of paranoid because of something that happened to her in the past, and that’s why she doesn’t tell Alex that she recently moved to his hometown, so instead she’s decided to find him on her own with the couple of clues and information he’s provided her over the time they’ve been talking.

Now, in the midst of finding Alex, Bailey gets a job and meets this guy named Porter, and OMG, Porter is sooooo sexy! Like I have him on my top 20 fav book boyfriend list. He’s a real jerk to her on the beginning, which immediately told me that he liked her. But, of course, Bailey can’t stand him. Uhhh! Did I mention that he was a surfer?

Anyways, that’s the line of the story and you have to read to find out about everything else. But I really did enjoy this cute story. It’s the perfect summer read! It talks about a summer romance, movies, surfing in Californian beaches, and more! BTW, the romance in this book is hot! The author doesn’t go into specific detail about what the characters do but she does make it happen. Anyone, 16 years and older can read! Would most certainly recommend!

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “When It’s Real,” by Erin Watt

3.5/5 stars

I did not like this story as much as I thought I was going to. First of all, the plot and story line are all wrong. The author decided to focus on the least important thing to develop the story. Second, the language of the book, the way the author wrote the characters was awful. I don’t know how old she is, but I don’t think she’s young enough to understand teen’s lingo these days. The way she wrote this story made it seem like she has two teenage children and she overheard them talk and then copied their conversation into the pages. I’m not even joking, some of the conversation between characters are so bad, that they made me cringe, and not in a good way.

She also writes without sentiment, which can be a good thing or a bad thing. But in this case, it felt like a bad thing. When you read her books, she doesn’t compare the characters emotion with anything. When she’s having the characters talk to each other, you don’t feel like their genuine because she focuses more on the physical part of the conversation instead of the emotional. When I’m reading a book, I want to make sure I feel what the character is saying and thinking. It’s a book, it’s supposed to make me feel their emotions. I don’t want to know that someone turns barely to the side, and she was talking. If I wanted that I would watch a movie.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think is bad that she went this route with her book, and I know some of you even appreciate it because she doesn’t get as poetical as the other authors. But when you read this book, you learn to appreciate the second-hand opinion that characters when describing things, people, or feelings–because you have a base of comparison, and as readers, it helps us a lot to understand what the character is going through.

I felt like there were so many things that she could have addressed in this, and others that honestly, she did not need to mention. Like, for example, Erin did not fully develop the actual emotions that Vaughn could have been feeling towards her parents. She could have gotten more into depth for that aspect. Also, she could have addressed Oakley’s relationship with his parents a little bit better. Oak has a strained relationship with his parents but it was also a great point to focus on for part of the story, instead of him going to stupid clubs for stupid reasons. Like, that was not as important as to solve his parents’ mystery.

The story itself had a lot of potentials, and if she would have gotten a different route with her plot twist, the book could have been way better. Something else that I didn’t like was how stupid the plot line was, I don’t want to give anything away, but I felt like there were more things that she could have made their “breaking point.” And she should have brought that plot twist part, (you know, the part where-everything-goes-wrong-before-it-gets-right part), sooner. She literally did it at the end, and not the middle end, but like a few pages from the end, giving us little to no space to wonder for the what if, or even the epilogue.

 

 

 

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Lucky In Love,” by Kasie West

4.5/5  stars

Kasie never disappoints! Another adorable read in check for her! I always love reading her books because I know what I’m getting into and I love her so much because of it! When you read books by Kasie West your heart gets all fluffy and your cheeks grow warm, and your life feels lighter. Everything changes for you!

For this particular book, West brings the narrated story of Madeleine and how her life changes when she wins the lottery. I’m not going to lie though, I love West, but this book wasn’t as good as I was expecting. And it pains me to say this because I do love her as an author, and don’t get me wrong I still enjoyed the book, (I mean I finished this story in 4 hours, her book are always super easy to read), but there was something about Madeleine that bothered me a lot.

She is a very smart girl, she knows that the only way she can get into college is if she works her butt off at school so that she can get a full scholarship. However, things start changing once she won the lottery. She herself, didn’t start changing, but all of the sudden she started gaining attention, and well, she did make super stupid decisions that made me think if indeed she was smart, albeit her 4.25 GPA. I have to agree with what her friend said about her being too trusting. She was incredibly too trusting, and that’s what bothered me the most.

Her parents also kept fighting between them, instead of being there for their daughter, helping her figure out what to do with all this money. She had one friend wink who was super sweet and treated her like normal. And I guess she always could count on him for her problems, which was adorable!

Kasie does know what she’s writing about though because even though Madeleine’s naivety did annoy me, West managed to keep my interest. I would definitely recommend if you’ve read books by Morgan Matson, Jennifer E. Smith, or Jenna Evans Welch.