Saturday, December 29, 2012

Burger Wuss by M.T Anderson

Summary: (from goodreads)  Anthony has never been able to stand up for himself —- that is, not until his girlfriend is in someone else’s arms. Then Anthony vows revenge and devises the Plan. It begins with getting a job at the fast-food restaurant where his nemesis happens to be a star employee. But when the Plan is finally in place, will Anthony’s hunger for revenge be satisfied? Will he prove he’s not a wuss? 
Review: This was a pretty lighthearted and funny read. It is a humorous look at revenge and working in the fast food industry. Although I did enjoy it I found it a little bit hard to connect to the characters. The situations they found themselves in were a little bit hard to relate to. This book is pretty short as well which although it didn't need to be any longer, probably added to the lack of character development. Although this wasn't my favorite I would reccomend it to anyone who is looking for something mindless and funny. It was still a good read.  This is going to be a really short review because I don't relly have much esle to say about this book.

Sunday, December 23, 2012

Confessions of an Angry Girl by Louise Rozett

Summary:(from goodreads) Rose Zarelli, self-proclaimed word geek and angry girl, has some confessions to make…1. I'm livid all the time. Why? My dad died. My mom barely talks. My brother abandoned us. I think I'm allowed to be irate, don't you?2. I make people furious regularly. Want an example? I kissed Jamie Forta, a badass guy who might be dating a cheerleader. She is now enraged and out for blood. Mine.3. High school might as well be Mars. My best friend has been replaced by an alien, and I see red all the time. (Mars is red and "seeing red" means being angry—get it?)Here are some other vocab words that describe my life: Inadequate. Insufferable. Intolerable.(Don't know what they mean? Look them up yourself.)(Sorry. That was rude.)
Review: I honestly wasn't sure what to expect when I started reading this and found myself pleasantly surprised. Something about the story just completely sucked me in right from the beginning. I think what I really was able to connect with was how honest this story was. it wasn't dark or overly dramatic or scary and paranormal. It was just a story about a teenage girl and the struggles of high school and I really felt that. I think Rose is a character that everyone can relate to. Everyone has had some experience with at least one of the things that she is going through. She also starts to change a little bit by the end of the book and although I don't think this book really needs a sequel I am glad there is going to be one because I am excited to see where Rose's story goes next. Any fans of YA contemporary should give this one a try.

Tuesday, December 18, 2012

Flat Out Love by Jessica Park

Summary:(from goodreads) Flat-Out Love is a warm and witty novel of family love and dysfunction, deep heartache and raw vulnerability, with a bit of mystery and one whopping, knock-you-to-your-knees romance.
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: I liked this books so much more than I thought I would. When I started reading it, I didn't have that high of expectations for it. However, the plot quickly became really intriguing. This is definitely a character driven story and the plot isn't particularly action packed, but I quickly became sucked into the story. The best part about it though, was the fact that I quickly fell in love with the entire Watkins family. Erin, Roger, Matt, Celeste, even Finn were all so awesome. I also really like Julie. All the characters were fun and unique, they all had their own little quirks that made them who they are. It's obvious that this family has their fair share of issues, but it took me a long time for me to figure out what was really going on. Looking back, I almost feel like i should have known sooner.  I really loved the way the book ended. I thought it was really sweet. I am honestly going to miss all these characters. I will definitely be checking out Jessica Parks' other books.

Sunday, December 9, 2012

Between Here and Forever by Elizabeth Scott

Summary:(from goodreads) Abby accepted that she can’t measure up to her beautiful, magnetic sister Tess a long time ago, and knows exactly what she is: Second best. Invisible.Until the accident.Now Tess is in a coma, and Abby’s life is on hold. It may have been hard living with Tess, but it's nothing compared to living without her.She's got a plan to bring Tess back though, involving the gorgeous and mysterious Eli, but then Abby learns something about Tess, something that was always there, but that she’d never seen.Abby is about to find out that truth isn't always what you think it is, and that life holds more than she ever thought it could.
Review: I am big fan of Elizabeth Scott's books and this was was pretty good as well. The plot was interesting and there was one plot twist that I was really surprised by. I thought the surprises in the plot added another layer of depth to the story and kept things interesting. There were some parts that were pretty predictable, especially where the romance is involved. I liked the way that everyone slowly starts to change and learn how to live with what has happened, especially Abby. There were a few parts where i wanted to yell at her for the way she was acting about Tess and Eli. I almost had a hard time believing that she was that clueless. I can only take so much self pity. Other than that, I thought this book was a really good look at how what you see in a person is only a little part of who they really are. The exploration and character development made me really like it and I am looking forward to reading more of Scott's books.

Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Never Enough by Denise Jaden

Summary:(from goodreads) Loann’s always wanted to be popular and pretty like her sister, Claire. So when Claire’s ex-boyfriend starts flirting with her, Loann is willing to do whatever it takes to feel special… even if that means betraying her sister.But as Loann slips inside Claire’s world, she discovers that everything is not as it seems. Claire’s quest for perfection is all-consuming, and comes at a dangerous price. As Claire increasingly withdraws from friends and family, Loann struggles to understand her and make amends. Can she heal their relationship —and her sister—before it’s too late.
Review: I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. Although, the plot is a little bit slow in the beginning, things start to pick up as things start to steadily get worse. This is definitely a character driven plot that explores the sibling relationship really well, while also delving into some serious issues. I also appreciated that the romance of this book was really slow paced and took the whole length of the book to develop. I thought it was a nice change from the books that make the romance the center of the plot. The characters in this book were very well written. I really Liked Loann and Claire. They were both very complicated characters and the exploration of their relationship and their issues really made the book great. I liked Marcus as well, even though his story didn't get quite as much face time I thought he was a really awesome guy. Overall, I liked this book a lot more than i was expecting to and would recommend it to fans of contemporary books like this. review

Saturday, December 1, 2012

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

Summary:(from goodreads) Three teens, three stories—all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year—and decides to keep the baby?Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive. Shane has lived for four years with his little sister’s impending death. Can he accept Alex’s love, knowing that his life, too, will be shortened?Harley is fourteen—a good girl searching for new experiences, especially love from an older boy. She never expects to hurdle toward self-destructive extremes in order to define who she is and who she wants to be.Love, in all its forms, has crucial consequences in this standalone novel.
Review: I don't even really know what to say about this book. I really loved this story. This story is focused on the teens from her adult novel Triangles which I haven't read and it didn't affect my enjoyment of this one at all. The plot was really well paced and although this book is 600 hundred pages I couldn't put it down until I was done. I really liked the characters as well. They were all so easy to connect with and i couldn't help but feel bad for them as things spiraled out of control. I liked how all the characters were so connected, it added a lot to the depth. I also enjoyed the brief Perspectives from all of the minor characters as well. It really made the story more enjoyable to get brief glimpses into all their lives. This is such a heartbreaking story in many ways, but it is also a story of hope and love. I don't really have much else to say except that fans of Hopkins's other books will not be disappointed with this one.