Category Archives: Reviews

Read This!: HOW IT ENDS by Catherine Lo

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How It EndsHow It Ends by Catherine Lo

Summary: It’s friends-at-first-sight for Jessie and Annie, proving the old adage that opposites attract. Shy, anxious Jessie would give anything to have Annie’s beauty and confidence. And Annie thinks Jessie has the perfect life, with her close-knit family and killer grades. They’re BFFs…until suddenly they’re not. 

Any female can tell you that friendships – especially best friendships – during adolescence can be as full of drama as any romantic relationship. And it can hurt a lot more when they implode, too. Very rarely are the nuances of female friendship so well explored as they are in HOW IT ENDS, where we see the alternating points of view of Jessie and Annie as they meet, connect, become best friends, and fall apart. I went in expecting, based on the title, that this would be chronicle of Jessie and Annie’s friendship from beginning to end; as I neared the end of the book, I was dreading the idea, because both girls were such winning characters and watching their friendship fall apart was painful. I am happy to report that the title doesn’t refer to what you think it does, and the book ends exactly as it needs to. Both Jessie and Annie have complex family lives and personalities that both drive them together and try to tear them apart. They face very real challenges – mental illness, teen pregnancy, bullying, a parent’s remarriage – but these elements never feel tacked on or heavy-handed.

I admit that, as a bookish introvert, I identified far more with Jessie than with Annie. I especially appreciated the way the author explores the intricacies of girl bullying, with the character of Courtney picking on Jessie so subtly, maliciously, and chronically that Annie doesn’t even see it. This story felt both universal and extremely personal and specific – these girls aren’t anybody’s symbols, but fully realized people struggling to figure out what’s most important in life.

HOW IT ENDS is out now.

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Read This!: PLEASE DON’T TELL by Laura Tims

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Please Don't TellPlease Don’t Tell by Laura Tims

Summary: Joy killed Adam Gordon—at least, that’s what she thinks. The night of the party is hazy at best. But she knows what Adam did to her twin sister, Grace, and she knows he had to pay for it. What Joy doesn’t expect is that someone else saw what happened. And one night a note is shoved through her open window, threatening Joy that all will be revealed. Now the anonymous blackmailer starts using Joy to expose the secrets of their placid hometown. And as the demands escalate, Joy must somehow uncover the blackmailer’s identity before Joy is forced to make a terrible choice.

These characters! Joy and Grace are twins, both ripped apart and bound together by the secrets they keep for and from each other. Some of those secrets are dramatic (what really happened the night that Adam Gordon fell to his death?) and some are of the everyday variety (what if they never discover who they are without the context of each other?), but all of them weave into a story that will keep you up late turning the pages. The two girls alternate in their narration, with Joy telling about the aftermath of Adam’s death and Grace filling in the details of the months before. Some of my favorite characters were the girls’ friends, especially November, the bold high school newspaper editor who has more in common with the quiet Grace than she thinks, and kindhearted, self-deprecating, sweet, and funny Levi, half-brother of the dead boy (and OMG MY NEW BOOK BOOKFRIEND). With taut writing and characters you will want to spend time with, this is a compelling debut you won’t want to miss.

PLEASE DON’T TELL is out now.

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Read This!: A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT by Sandy Hall

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A Little Something DifferentA Little Something Different by Sandy Hall

Summary: The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out.  But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship.   Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together….

I usually only review recent releases on this blog, and this book came out in 2014, but it’s SO GOOD I HAD TO TELL EVERYONE ABOUT IT!   The concept – a love story told from fourteen points of view, none of which are the core couple’s – is just enchanting, and Hall populates the story with winning characters that show us many different angles. We come to adore Gabe and Lea after meeting them through the eyes of their friends, enemies, and acquaintances, and if you don’t want them to get together as much as the diner waitress, their creative writing professor, the Starbucks barista, and the squirrel on the green do, you might not have a heart. This book had me grinning from start to finish.

A LITTLE SOMETHING DIFFERENT is out now.

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Read This!: SUMMER OF SLOANE by Erin L. Schneider

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Summer of SloaneSummer of Sloane by Erin L. Schneider

Summary: Warm Hawaiian sun. Lazy beach days. Flirty texts with her boyfriend back in Seattle. These are the things seventeen-year-old Sloane McIntyre pictured when she imagined the summer she’d be spending at her mom’s home in Hawaii with her twin brother, Penn. Instead, after learning an unthinkable secret about her boyfriend, Tyler, and best friend, Mick, all she has is a fractured hand and a completely shattered heart. Once she arrives in Honolulu, though, Sloane hopes that Hawaii might just be the escape she needs. With beach bonfires, old friends, exotic food, and the wonders of a waterproof cast, there’s no reason Sloane shouldn’t enjoy her summer. And when she meets Finn McAllister, the handsome son of a hotel magnate who doesn’t always play by the rules, she knows he’s the perfect distraction from everything that’s so wrong back home. But it turns out a measly ocean isn’t nearly enough to stop all the emails, texts, and voicemails from her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend, desperate to explain away their betrayal. And as her casual connection with Finn grows deeper, Sloane’s carefree summer might not be as easy to find as she’d hoped. Weighing years of history with Mick and Tyler against their deception, and the delicate possibility of new love, Sloane must decide when to forgive, and when to live for herself.

Make room in your beach bag for this one! Sloane is devastated when her boyfriend cheats on her with her best friend; the only silver lining is that the news breaks (along with her boyfriend’s nose, and her hand when she punches him) just as Sloane and her twin brother are heading to Hawaii to stay with their mom for the summer. Sloane gets a summer job, a summer guy, and is determined to leave the past behind her – but the past has other ideas. Sloane is a tough yet vulnerable heroine trying to find the balance between protecting herself and hardening her heart. The characters around her come to vibrant life, from the immensely frustrating best friend/betrayer Mick, to the OMG-such-a-boy brother Penn, to the enigmatic hottie who might be the next to break Sloane’s heart, Finn. Prepare to be swept away.

SUMMER OF SLOANE is out now.

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Read This!: THE CROWN’S GAME by Evelyn Skye

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The Crown's Game (The Crown's Game, #1)The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye

Summary: Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are enchanters—the only two in Russia—and with the Ottoman Empire and the Kazakhs threatening, the Tsar needs a powerful enchanter by his side. And so he initiates the Crown’s Game, an ancient duel of magical skill—the greatest test an enchanter will ever know. The victor becomes the Imperial Enchanter and the Tsar’s most respected adviser. The defeated is sentenced to death.  As long-buried secrets emerge, threatening the future of the empire, it becomes dangerously clear… the Crown’s Game is not one to lose.

Like the enticing vapors around Nikolai’s enchanted benches, this story draws you in slowly. We are introduced to this magical 1820s Russia through several intriguing points of view, chief among them the impetuous Vika, the enchanter who has trained all her life with her father in a tiny village; the carefully pragmatic Nikolai, her rival enchanter in the titular game, who has kept his powers secret as a ward in the royal court; and the charismatic Pasha, the reluctant crown prince who slowly unravels the mystical secrets of the Russian court without realizing that his best friend Nikolai has been forced to participate in a magical fight to the death. As the three of them dance around one another (both literally and figuratively), the connections of magic, love, and friendship pull them closer together, and eventually strangle. The devastating choices all three must make will have you on tenterhooks for the conclusion to this enchanting duology.

THE CROWN’S GAME is out now.

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