Reading Goals This Week

This week I'm going to try and get through as many of the duologies that I have bought and are sitting on my shelf (or Kindle).  I've read the first book for all of these but I haven't read the second (and final) book yet.  The main reason I haven't is because I need to reread the first book and I'm just not excited to do that.  But I decided that instead of starting a new series (I LOVE starting new series for some reason) I really want to finish these.

Dissonance and Resonance by Erica O'Rourke

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea and Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke

Avalon and Polaris by Mindee Arnett

Starglass and Starbreak by Pheobe North

Have any of you read these duologies?  

Posted by:  Pam

Stacking the Shelves (103)

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!  It is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

Bought:

The Golden Specific by S.E. Grove

Maybe in Another Life by Taylor Jenkins Reid

From the library:

Miss Mayhem by Rachel Hawkins

The Alloy of Law by Brandon Sanderson

After I Do by Taylor Jenkins Reid

From NetGalley:
The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

Posted by:  Pam

Book Review: No Kissing Allowed by Melissa West

No Kissing Allowed
Author:  Melissa West
Publisher:  Entangled Embrace
Expected Publication Date:  July 28, 2015
*ARC received from publisher via NetGalley

From Goodreads:
No kissing. No touching. And definitely no falling in love...

Armed with her besties, an embarrassing number of shots, and her list of 10 Wild Things To Do Before Adulthood, recent grad Cameron Lawson is partying it up before she starts her dream job at New York's biggest ad agency. Her last task? Hook up with a random guy. And while it's so not her style, the super-sexy guy sitting next to her is definitely game. No names. No details.

At least, that was the plan.

On her first day of work, Cameron discovers her hook-up is none other than Aidan Truitt—her new boss's boss. Talk about failing the “no fraternizing with coworkers” policy on an epic level. Especially when Aidan makes it clear their one night was only the beginning. Falling for him could cost her everything, but sometimes the only way to get what you want is by breaking a few rules…

Review:

Cute, feel good book with a fairly low level of angst.  I liked that Cameron knows who she is when it comes to relationships.  She's not a causal relationship type of person and she's honest about that.  In fact, Cameron doesn't play games and she talks with Aidan about what she wants and how she feels.  That was a breath of fresh air.  I also liked how important family was to Cameron.  She's close with her family and she likes to spend time with them.  

Aidan…I liked him, he's a good guy, but for some reason I wasn't head over heels for him.  His issues, having a jerky dad who left his mom and therefore he never wants to get married or have children…I didn't exactly buy it, but I guess it doesn't have to take much to make a guy commitment shy.  :)

No Kissing Allowed definitely made me smile.

Posted by:  Pam

Book Review: The Carnival at Bray by Jessie Ann Foley

The Carnival at Bray
Author:  Jessie Ann Foley
Publisher:  Elephant Rock Productions, Inc., 256 pages
Publication Date:  October 1, 2014

From Goodreads:
It's 1993, and Generation X pulses to the beat of Kurt Cobain and the grunge movement. Sixteen-year-old Maggie Lynch is uprooted from big-city Chicago to a windswept town on the Irish Sea. Surviving on care packages of Spin magazine and Twizzlers from her rocker uncle Kevin, she wonders if she'll ever find her place in this new world. When first love and sudden death simultaneously strike, a naive but determined Maggie embarks on a forbidden pilgrimage that will take her to a seedy part of Dublin and on to a life- altering night in Rome to fulfill a dying wish. Through it all, Maggie discovers an untapped inner strength to do the most difficult but rewarding thing of all, live.

Review:
I wanted to love this one, but I didn't.  It had a lot of the elements that I like: complicated family dynamics, American girl in a foreign country, cute foreign guy, road trip.  Add to that a 1990s setting with music and specifically Nirvana playing an important part of the story, and I thought I was going to love it.  But I never felt that connection that I wanted to feel. Also, it's not a good thing when you're wondering what in the world the guy sees in the main character.  

The book is written in limited 3rd person POV, but there's one critical scene where the author chose to tell it from an outsider's perspective and so the reader is watching and not even getting any dialogue.  I have no idea why the author chose to do that, but it just made me feel even less connected to the characters.  So while I liked this one, I didn't love it.

Posted by:  Pam

Book Review: Spark by Rachael Craw

Spark (Spark #1)
Author:  Rachael Craw
Publisher:  Walker Books Australia, 464 pages
Publication Date:  July 1, 2014

From Goodreads:
Evie doesn’t have a choice.

One day she’s an ordinary seventeen year old, grieving for her mother. The next, she’s a Shield, the result of a decades-old experiment gone wrong, bound by DNA to defend her best friend from an unknown killer.

The threat could come at home, at school, anywhere. All Evie knows is that it will be a fight to the death.

And then there’s Jamie. irresistible. off-limits.

Review:

I liked the concept, genetically modified people who are either protectors (Shields) and tethered to a Spark (someone who needs to be protected) until the Shield has killed the Stray (someone just as strong as a Shield but who is activated and is compelled to kill the Spark).  However, there was SO MUCH INFO DUMPING.  When Evie first finds out who (or what) she is, there are pages and pages of it.  Too much information, too many acronyms.  

After that it got better, but I still have so many questions that weren't answered. Things that didn't make sense that continued to bother me the whole book.  For example, if two Shields are genetically perfect for each other, being together increases their power individually.  So why wouldn't the corporation that created them want them to be together?  No, instead, the corporation picks other people for them and even may pick someone who dampens the Shield and actually deactivates them.  What????  Um…the corporation would want to use its assets, not let them go, and would also want its assets to be as strong as possible.  That made no sense. Also, something happened between Jamie and Evie when they were fourteen, some sort of humiliating experience and it's never explained.  It's danced around, alluded to, but never explained.  

Interesting sci-fi but it could have been executed better.  And honestly, the writing was awkward.  I know it sounds like I didn't like it, I did, but from the reviews I read, I was expecting so much more.  

Posted by:  Pam

Stacking the Shelves (102)

Stacking The Shelves is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!  It is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

Bought:

Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine

Burn by Paula Weston

Forbidden by Kimberley Griffiths Little

From NetGalley:
No Kissing Allowed by Melissa West
These Shallow Graves by Jennifer Donnelly

What books did you add to your shelves this week?

Posted by:  Pam

Book Review: Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid

Never Always Sometimes
Author:  Adi Alsaid
Publisher:  Harlequin Teen, 320 pages
Expected Publication Date:  August 4, 2015
*ARC received from publisher via NetGalley

From Goodreads:
Best friends Dave and Julia were determined to never be cliché high school kids—the ones who sit at the same lunch table every day, dissecting the drama from homeroom and plotting their campaigns for prom king and queen. They even wrote their own Never List of everything they vowed they'd never, ever do in high school.

Some of the rules have been easy to follow, like #5, never die your hair a color of the rainbow, or #7, never hook up with a teacher. But Dave has a secret: he's broken rule #8, never pine silently after someone for the entirety of high school. It's either that or break rule #10, never date your best friend. Dave has loved Julia for as long as he can remember.

Julia is beautiful, wild and impetuous. So when she suggests they do every Never on the list, Dave is happy to play along. He even dyes his hair an unfortunate shade of green. It starts as a joke, but then a funny thing happens: Dave and Julia discover that by skipping the clichés, they've actually been missing out on high school. And maybe even on love.

Review:

I'm torn about this book.  The first half of the book is told from Dave's POV and I really liked Dave.  He's smart, a good guy, and he's in love with his best friend Julia. For some reason they've created a bubble around themselves, never really getting to know the rest of the people in their high school.  Everyone else is a cliche, and they're above that.  But Dave starts realizing that he's been missing out and people he assumed were one way are actually more complex than their stereotype.  I loved that.  

But then the POV shifts to Julia after a certain event and then I just didn't like Dave. At all.  Sure, he was confused and he didn't know what to do, but I just didn't like how he handled things.  It made me so sad and maybe it was realistic, but I hated it.  I'm not saying that I wanted things to end differently, I think it ended the way it should have, but I hated HOW it happened.  I know this is really vague, but I don't want to spoil it.

The other thing that bothered me about the book is the dialogue between Dave and Julia.  It didn't ring true.  It's like they were always on, trying to be smart, witty, etc. and it didn't seem to fit two people who had been best friends for five years.  It read more like dialogue between two people who were being filmed, trying to be interesting and fun.  

Don't get me wrong, I did like the book, but I'm a little heartbroken by what happened.  Maybe that's a good thing, that I can feel so strongly?

Posted by:  Pam

Book Review: Mosquitoland by David Arnold

Mosquitoland
Author:  David Arnold
Publisher:  Viking Children's, 336 pages
Publication Date:  March 3, 2015

From Goodreads:
I am a collection of oddities, a circus of neurons and electrons: my heart is the ringmaster, my soul is the trapeze artist, and the world is my audience. It sounds strange because it is, and it is, because I am strange."

After the sudden collapse of her family, Mim Malone is dragged from her home in northern Ohio to the "wastelands" of Mississippi, where she lives in a medicated milieu with her dad and new stepmom. Before the dust has a chance to settle, she learns her mother is sick back in Cleveland.
So she ditches her new life and hops aboard a northbound Greyhound bus to her real home and her real mother, meeting a quirky cast of fellow travelers along the way. But when her thousand-mile journey takes a few turns she could never see coming, Mim must confront her own demons, redefining her notions of love, loyalty, and what it means to be sane.

Review:

Roadtrip, quirky characters, gorgeous writing…Mosquitoland was a pleasure to read.

Mim is wise beyond her years, incredibly smart, sarcastic, with perhaps some sort of mental illness, and dealing with family who apparently do not tell her anything. Slowly the back story is told, although there were still many questions I had that were never answered.

Alternately funny and sad, I enjoyed this one.  I would have liked an epilogue, but the ending fit.

Posted by:  Pam

Book Review: Happiness for Beginners by Katherine Center

Happiness for Beginners
Author:  Katherine Center
Publisher:  St. Martin's Griffin, 320 pages
Publication Date:  March 24, 2015

From Goodreads:
A year after getting divorced, Helen Carpenter, thirty-two, lets her annoying, ten years younger brother talk her into signing up for a wilderness survival course. It's supposed to be a chance for her to pull herself together again, but when she discovers that her brother's even-more-annoying best friend is also coming on the trip, she can't imagine how it will be anything other than a disaster. Thus begins the strangest adventure of Helen's well-behaved life: three weeks in the remotest wilderness of a mountain range in Wyoming where she will survive mosquito infestations, a surprise summer blizzard, and a group of sorority girls.

Yet, despite everything, the vast wilderness has a way of making Helen's own little life seem bigger, too. And, somehow the people who annoy her the most start teaching her the very things she needs to learn. Like how to stand up for herself. And how being scared can make you brave. And how sometimes you just have to get really, really lost before you can even have a hope of being found. 

Review:
All. The. Stars.  

All. The. Feels.

I fell in love with this book.  Happiness for Beginners is the perfect combination of romance, humor, and finding yourself. Helen is HILARIOUS and so relatable.  

And Jake.  Move over, top book boyfriend, Jake has taken your spot.

After reading it, I went out and bought every single book this author has written.

READ IT!!!!

Posted by:  Pam