Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Stranger than Fanfiction,” by Chris Colfer.

5/5 Stars.

This book was one of the most amazing reads I’ve read this year. The whole book is full of life, each character has its own world full of situations that are presented in the real one, in each one of our lives, and it’s so good to see yourself in each one of these characters. It’s hard to find a book where you can find a part of yourself in each one of them, but in this book, it was like so easy to identify with them.
Chris Colfer is an amazing author, and this book is written in the third person. It tells the story about four friends that are going on a road trip as a goodbye trip before they go to college, and as a joke, they invite one of their idols, from a tv show they all love, to join them on the trip. Big surprise happens when Cash Carter, tv star from the famous tv show “Wiz Kids,” decides to join them on their trip, and it will forever change their life.
Cash Carter is the superstar of the friend’s favorite show, they met because of this show, and now they are best friends because of it as well. However, when he joins the group of teenagers, they get the shock of their life when they realize he’s nothing like he is on tv. I mean, of course, they knew he was a character from tv, but the way he acted throughout the whole journey was so different from what they thought that it change their lives. He’s an interesting character fed up with all the “fame” and fortune of being an actor of a big show. He says that there are certain expectations with being an actor that people want him to follow, and he has for most of his life; however, he’s fed up with it, and decides to join four strangers in this random adventure.

I love that Chris gives us a famous person point of view. We get to see how Cash is tired of people every time they meet him, they don’t want to meet Cash Carter, they want to me the character that he plays on the show, and that bothers him a lot. Sometimes we don’t realize that famous people get tired of being behind the camera, and easy for us to judge because well they have everything we don’t, but if you are an actor who;s has grown up behind the lens of a camera, you get tired of it and, well, I imagine that this is how Daniel Radcliffe must’ve felt growing up with Harry Potter, he had gotten tired at some point, and the only thing we did was judge him because of it. I do love this perspective on the book, it most certainly changes our views on that industry.
Topher—the random guy that’s super tall but is not because he plays basketball. He was the mastermind behind the trip and their driving in his mom station wagon. He has a disabled brother, and well that impeding him from going to the school he wants to go, and he decides to stay to help his mom with his brother. I’m mentioning this because it’s a very important factor towards the development of the book, in his life. Oh, and he also has a crush on Sam.that bothers him a lot.
Next, there’s Sam—you see there’s something about her, and I don’t want to give anything away because her secret we don’t see it coming until she tells us what it is. Chris Colfer manages to implement real life situations to these characters, and well, Sam’s secret, is a situation that we see happening every day in our lives, and that many teens deal with what Sam is going through, and that before the YA books didn’t use to talk about. I love the way the author portrayed Sam, and there was a scene in this book where Sam and Cash are on top of a roof, and the way Sam explains her situation to Cash to me is just so amazing, and I wish that teens and people from around the world realized this too. Sam even though she’s afraid, she’s super strong, she’s full of fear, and she keeps going. So, to all the teens that are going through her situation, please understand that you are not alone and that there’s always someone out there who understands you.
Joey is the son of a pastor, a very well respected pastor, loved and adored by their community, and well, his father condemns everybody that doesn’t follow the rules of God. Joey has a secret that is not is as bad, but in his circumstances, he faces challenges because of it. He’s afraid of what his family might think, and he’s afraid that his friends won’t accept him. This, again, is a situation that we see happening a lot in the YA community, and thank God more authors are talking about on the books. Chris doesn’t sugar coat it, and that’s one of the things that I loved about this book, how real it is. Not everything in this book is all fun and games, and things don’t end up well for all of them, but yet somehow they managed to find each other and stick through their friendship despites the secrets and lies, and that’s what every squad should be about.
Mo is a really interesting character. Her secret is not as big the other ones but is a secret nonetheless, and once again, it has to do with a parent perspective. Her father wants Mo going to a school she doesn’t want to go, and she’s faced with the challenge of refusing him, and he refusing to pay for education, or accepting his decision and being miserable for the rest of her life. There’s a scene in this book where she and Cash are in a car together driving like crazy, and Mo tells Cash that she never wanted to go to that school, the only reason she’s doing it, is because her father wants her to, and Cash is like “you can’t live your life the way other are expecting, you are supposed to live your life the way you want,” he didn’t say those exact same words, but it was something similar. And well, that scene stocked to me and made me realized that not everyone is going to be happy on how you go in life, things will be different, but you got to make sure that is the way you want it to go, not to please others.
In the end, we get to see why Cash Carter is living the way he is and behaving like crazy in this trip, and it makes me sad, but what he does in the end for this group of strangers is stranger than fanfiction.

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Goodbye Days,” By Jeff Zetner.

This book is highly underrated and I feel like the story line is needed to be read everyone, not just teens, adults should read this book too. I gave this book 4 stars out of 5 just because it was a little slow to start. This is the first book I read from Jeff, and I have to say I’m really impressed.
Goodbye Days follows the story of Carver, who sends a text that kills his three best friends in a car accident. Apparently, he was waiting for them, and they were driving to meet him, and he sent the text to see where they were, and well, texting and driving is not a good thing. I felt bad for Carver throughout this whole book because the people blamed him for the deaths of his friends, even himself, and he suffers so much. They are taking him to trial because of it, looking to press criminal charges against him. And need I remind you that he’s only 17, so the stress level that he’s feeling is so overwhelming that he starts having panic attacks. I think that the only thing that helps him get through his depression are Jesmyn, one of the best friends widowed-girlfriend, his sister Grace, and his therapist Dr. Mendez.
His sister acted the way I would have if my brother was going through a situation like this, God forbids, she’s the older sister that every kid should have. She was the one who recommended the therapist, and I believe that kids should realize this, that if you have a problem going on in your life, and it’s best if you talk it out with someone, don’t be afraid of getting help, it would make you feel so much better, you just gotta give a chance.
In the midst of losing his three best friends, one of the fathers of the friends is a Judge, he’s the one pressing charges to Carver. The sister of one of his best friends hates him to death because she blames him for the death of her brother. And not to mention that he just keeps remembering his friends on the different stages of his life.
He decides is a good idea to have some sort of goodbye days to his best friends, a sort of way of letting go, and he does so with each of the families. This book is incredibly sad, I cried like a baby, please be careful when you are driving out there, DO NOT TEXT AND DRIVE, because I would hate for something to happen to you over negligence just like it happened to Carver.
This book teaches us a lesson, and I just hope that we learn it before it’s too late.

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “Traitor to the Throne” by Alwyn Hamilton.

Wow!, I don’t know what to tell you about this book. It was amazing. I just can’t believe it finished and I still have to wait another year to read the next one. Like the Alwyn doesn’t have anything else to do rather than torture us! I gave this book 4.5 stars out of 5.
This book picks up right where Rebel of the Sands ended, and on this one, we see Amani become more powerful than ever, she’s strong, she suffers, she makes tough decisions–but that’s one of the things that I love about this book. That even though this a whole new universe presenting a situation where none of us would ever imagine being in, Amani still gets to be a teenager and learn from her mistakes.
Also, I felt like Jin and Amani didn’t get much quality time, the time that they got to see each other was either through stolen time or very little time because of everything that was going on around them. In the end, I felt bad for them.
The other characters in this story are so full of life. The author introduces us to a couple of new characters that are joining the rebellion, and we lose a couple more to it as well, but the book never stops having a life. Also like that even though, as I mentioned earlier, this book presents the world where we could never imagine our generation in, there are a lot of real world situations going on in this book, and I love how the character incorporated them to this modern and twisted tale. Something that she doesn’t let us forget, is that the rebellion is formed by a bunch of teenagers, and these teenagers even though they have super powers, they face the same problems that we do on a daily basis. They are filled with anxiety, they deal with a lot of stress, they have to make tough decisions, and they suffer because of them, but yet, they keep fighting, they don’t let anything bring them down, not even at the brink of desperation. These kids are super strong, and they think of each other as a family, I can’t wait for the next book in this series because I know that they are going to come back more badass than ever.
A new dawn. A new desert.

If you guys want to catch up and refresh your memory, here’s the link for my review of the Rebel of the Sands book.

Non-Spoiler Book Review |”What I Need” by J. Daniels.

Okay, I’ve been waiting for this particular book to come out for a while now. It was a great book, a nice romance before I jump back out to my normal fluffy teen reads. This book follows the story of CJ and Riley. We know CJ from the previous book as one of the guy’s partners. Riley is Reed’s baby sister. In this story, CJ gets injured and Riley agrees to help him.
The only problem I had with this book was how disgustingly sweet it was. Between CJ or Riley, I don’t know which one was more cheesy. OMG, there was so much cheesiness in this book to drive me crazy–how many eye rolls I did while reading the book. But besides that, I feel like it was a great story. Riley frustrated me at some point because of her efforts of trying to keep their relationship a secret, which I understand because I had to keep secrets like this from my family before, but she was committed to her belief–I felt bad for CJ. J. Daniels writing style is amazing, I love her writing, 5 stars for that. I gave this whole book 4.5 stars and the only reason is because of too much sweetness between the characters. Don’t get me wrong, they were so cute, but it got overwhelming at some point.
I mean, I wish you could see their “ultimate fight,” I was like, “wait? that was it?” and it happened in the end, and she gave us such a prompt end too, I feel like she could’ve prolonged the conclusion a little bit more, or include an epilogue. But oh well, until the next one Daniels.
xoxo, Martinez.

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “The Hate U Give” by Angie Thomas

Well, this book is exactly what you expect it to be like. It talks about a situation that is very real in our lives and therefore needed addressing. And I love how this Angie Thomas used a situation and made a book for teens to be aware of what’s going on around them.
This book is about black lives matter movement. The main character is black and goes to an all-white-people school. Now, it is intriguing to see Starr going through all the changes that happened since the incident. I don’t know if revealing the incident is a spoiler, so I just won’t say it. However, throughout this whole book, you see her struggling, her family, her friends, her other friends–everything is falling apart for her, and you see that she suffers a lot because of it. But also, I believe is really important to that Angie showed the two sides of the perspective because you get to see the struggling cop as well, and how it affects her life–since her uncle is a cop.
This book is super important for today’s society, and I believe everyone should read it. It is a complete work of fiction, but I felt like every part of it was real.

By the way, it would mean a lot to me if you could watch my recent youtube video it talks about our most anticipated reads for the month of March, 2017. Thank you!

Non-Spoiler Book Review | “The Star-Touched Queen” by Roshani Chokshi

This book was a challenge for me, it was a slow read for me, and considering on how I can read a book in two days or less, this one took me a while. Princess Mayavati is a really a complicated character, the story line is so complicated, and I didn’t understand most of it. It took me three days to get through the first 100 pages. But after that, the book did pick up, and honestly enough, it has sort of the same story line as “WiNTERSONG,” by S. Jae-Jones, where the main character gets married and then the rest of the story is a fight for her marriage.
I gave this book 3.5 stars. Amar was a distant character as well, I’m telling you strong Wintersong vibes. Throughout the whole book, I couldn’t get to actually know him. Was he, in the end, a demon or not? No wonder Maya did what she did to him in the almost end of the story, he wasn’t honest with her. After she gets her memories back, things become more complicated, and then Nritti was a complicated af character. I didn’t understand her at all. Now, Gauri is interesting, I want to see her in the next book, I feel that she’s going to end up with the kid that turned out to be king, and that excites me.

Non-Spoiler Book Review – “Wintersong” by S. Jae-Jones

3.5/5 stars.

I don’t know, I found this book a little bit boring. I believe that the author prolonged the book too much. This is what I think about when I say that authors overwrite. However, other than that, I think that the story was nice, although a little bit longer than it needed to be, and sometimes downright boring, I did enjoy bits and pieces.
As you guys know, this book is a retelling of the labyrinth movie, back in the 1980s. Yes, there’s a goblin king, yes, there’s little goblins–there’s everything in here. I really liked Elisabeth as a character, I did believe she was selfless, and not even once thought about her throughout this book. Her love for her family was what kept her alive in the end.
I didn’t like how we didn’t get to meet the Goblin King very much, I mean it was just bits and pieces of him, and well, I couldn’t actually get to know him well enough. He was very kind towards Elisabeth, once the mini-game was over, and he always seems to be gentle with her. Until he wasn’t ;). I meant that in a good way, btw.
Personally, I haven’t watched the movie “Labyrinth” myself, so maybe that’s why I didn’t find the story interesting.
I did enjoy the author’s writing, S. Jae-Jones, wrote so beautifully, and just like this story was focused on music, her writing was as well. Did anyone else notice?
Like her writing was so beautiful and lyrical, it was like reading a song the whole time. And is funny, because of the whole book centers around music.
Besides that, I believe that this book is good if you want to relax and enjoy a story that doesn’t make any sense at all in the real world, but if you give it a try you might find yourself headed to the underground.