Review of The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan

Gabry lives a quiet life, secure in her town next to the sea and behind the Barrier. She's happy to let her friends dream of the Dark City up the coast. Home is all she's ever known, all she needs for happiness. But life after the Return is never safe and there are threats even the Barrier can't hold back.

It's the sequel to The Forest Of Hands And Teeth! Now with even more angst! Sigh. I was expecting this to be a continuation of Mary's story, so you can imagine my surprise when I read the blurb and saw the name "Gabry". My first guess was the Gabrielle we met in the first book but then I realised that this sequel is set a good 30 years after we met Mary, focusing instead on her daughter.

This should be quite an interesting book - it's set from the perspective of an outsider to The Forest, a girl who grew up in a village protected by the Protectorate, some sort of military types. Gabry lives in a lighthouse and every morning we go zombie bashing because they wash ashore. Bizarre but fun right? Somehow, no. This book dragged so, so much.

I may have sneaked a glance at the blurb for book three, so when something major went down at the funfair with Catcher, it was easy to guess where they were going with this. (view spoiler) Gabry runs away after the zombie attack at the fairground, leaving everyone to it and when they are caught and Catcher is missing, she goes to look for him. Of course, one missing boyfriend isn't quite enough angst, so cue Elias!

Elias is fecking annoying. Okay, so he does save her quite a few times but he sure as hell seems to fall in love with her quickly, despite it being plainly obvious that Catcher is her boyfriend or near as. And then when she doesn't reciprocate he gets irritated with her? What? Is this the behavior we really want to be displaying as normal in teen books? Of course he has a Tragic Backstory, all tied up with the Forest and Gabry because we need EVEN MORE ANGST.

One thing that could have saved this book but kind of fell apart was Catcher's sister, Gabry's best friend. With her sentence after the events at the fairground and believing her brother to be dead, it pushes her into depression to the point where she didn't want to live any more. However it devolved into a kinda sometimes she wanted to live sometimes she didn't situation and it didn't have the impact that it should have done.

This one does a little better at a plot twist but I didn't have that 'Woah' moment. It was just like... oh okay so that's a thing. I know our next character is Annah in the Dark City, a place that was frequently mentioned in this book. After going from village to other village, I'm really hoping the Dark City is just that - a city. It may just be interesting enough to make the series a complete disappointment.

Review of Wayfarer by Alexandra Bracken

All Etta Spencer wanted was to make her violin debut when she was thrust into a treacherous world where the struggle for power could alter history. After losing the one thing that would have allowed her to protect the Timeline, and the one person worth fighting for, Etta awakens alone in an unknown place and time, exposed to the threat of the two groups who would rather see her dead than succeed. When help arrives, it comes from the last person Etta ever expected—Julian Ironwood, the Grand Master’s heir who has long been presumed dead, and whose dangerous alliance with a man from Etta’s past could put them both at risk.

Meanwhile, Nicholas and Sophia are racing through time in order to locate Etta and the missing astrolabe with Ironwood travelers hot on their trail. They cross paths with a mercenary-for-hire, a cheeky girl named Li Min who quickly develops a flirtation with Sophia. But as the three of them attempt to evade their pursuers, Nicholas soon realizes that one of his companions may have ulterior motives.

As Etta and Nicholas fight to make their way back to one another, from Imperial Russia to the Vatican catacombs, time is rapidly shifting and changing into something unrecognizable… and might just run out on both of them.

It took 2 days and a mammoth 3 hour reading session tonight but I am FINISHED. I'd read a few reviews that discussed how slow going this book is, and that it literally took them months to finish it, so I was pretty determined not to get into that slump, especially with the amount of Bad Books I've read this month.

Wayfarer isn't as good as Passenger but it's not terrible. It's just okay, I wouldn't re-read it. While Passenger seemed to run through passages at breakneck speed, travelling to centuries and countries at the blink of an eye, Wayfarer seemed to content to sit down and have dinner for a while. Literally, in one case. Actually if I stretch the definition, a few cases.

This book introduces new characters which is a Very Good Thing because it's the best way to keep a book feeling fresh, in my humble opinion. However I do not like when a character is introduced only to disappear a few chapters later. Julian was my favourite new addition, he's about as useless as I would be and I could picture us together, casually leaving the rest of the family squabbling in favour of a nice bookstore and plenty of cake.

There's a few tropes thrown in that I did not like - the big one is character separation for plot purposes. If you have to separate them, do not make me wait a good 400 pages for them to be reunited again. Especially after I just deal with The Exact Same Trope during multiple Maze Runner books. The whole Nicholas being a martyr thing got real old fast too.

An extra star for A Good Ending, without wrapping up everything in a perfect pretty bow. I appreciated that.

Review of The Scorch Trials by James Dashner

Solving the Maze was supposed to be the end.
 
Thomas was sure that escape from the Maze would mean freedom for him and the Gladers. But WICKED isn’t done yet. Phase Two has just begun. The Scorch.
 
There are no rules. There is no help. You either make it or you die.
 
The Gladers have two weeks to cross through the Scorch—the most burned-out section of the world. And WICKED has made sure to adjust the variables and stack the odds against them.
 
Friendships will be tested. Loyalties will be broken. All bets are off.
 
There are others now. Their survival depends on the Gladers’ destruction—and they’re determined to survive.

*Vee gets slammed with Second Book Syndrome*

Can you believe I originally rated this book a full five stars? I must have been less cynical as a reviewer or just completely ignored just how bad this book was because y'all, it was Bad.

I'm currently day 3 of a fever and sore throat so this won't be a full review as much as rambling sentences but I'm going to give it a good shucking go anyway because reasons.

Okay, so, the original book was so strong for me because I am a whole sucker for the gang+treasure hunt/end goal trope, see Hunger Games, Goonies, heck Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. So I loved the first book as it had defined characters with defined roles.

Which were promptly chucked out of the window between the end of the last book and the start of this one, as we kill off pretty much all of them leaving behind two major gladers, Frypan who is now only good for cooking and not saying anything, Teresa, Thomas and New Guy Aris. There is also a few more gladers that make up the bulk of the New Team and this book would be a great time to introduce them. But strangely, they're only there as a strange, ghostly presence, never named, never speaking. You only know they're there because Thomas mentions them as other Gladers. Honestly, it's bizarre.

The End Goal of this book is to walk across a desert for 100 miles, trying not to get murderised by Cranks who went mad from sun flares (just call it rabies already) and the whole book actually feels like you just plodded along for 100 miles. Honestly I gave it 3 stars only because there's something about The Maze Runner series I have a soft spot for.

Also, Teresa is annoying As Hell.

Review of All Fall Down by Sally Nicholls

A deadly contagion races through England...

Isabel and her family have nowhere to run from a disease that has killed half of Europe. When the world she knows and loves ends forever, her only weapon is courage.

The Black Death of 1349 was the deadliest plague in human history. All Fall Down is a powerful and inspiring story of survival in the face of real life horror.

I am a huge fan of history, as a kid I re-read Terry Deary's Horrible Histories so many times that the pages started falling out. It's always been an obsession of mine. However, when you go through my read shelf, you read don't see that many YA Historical books. Why is that?

Well, this book perfectly illustrates some the problems that historical novels seem to struggle with. While the first half of the book was a bleak picture of life in a village near York, during the Black Death of 1349, the latter half struggled to know where to go with this.

A big problem was the village being set near York, the author clearly felt that you couldn't have a whole book without actually going to York (which I have been to many times, it's lovely but don't go in August), so she had to find a way to shoehorn that in. Which just didn't work.

The character introduction of Thomas was too late in the book to make much sense and his entire storyline felt more like a strange Dickens story. Then the author realised that you can't just leave the village so had to find a way to go back to it within 50 pages. This left the ending feeling rushed, elements quickly shoved in to try and show off their knowledge of the plague and overall, I left feeling dissatisfied.

Review of The Thief by Megan Whalen Turner

The king's scholar, the magus, believes he knows the site of an ancient treasure. To attain it for his king, he needs a skillful thief, and he selects Gen from the king's prison. The magus is interested only in the thief's abilities.

What Gen is interested in is anyone's guess. Their journey toward the treasure is both dangerous and difficult, lightened only imperceptibly by the tales they tell of the old gods and goddesses. 

I have never once picked up a book and thought, man I hope this book has a main protagonist that spends 150 pages sitting on a horse, complaining about sitting on a horse. And complaining about being hungry, while sitting on a frickin horse. Unfortunately, that's exactly what I got with this book. Other reviewers have noted that the sequels are much stronger, which made me persevere.

This book felt like a set up for a bigger story, which proved correct. So you don't get infodumped by the history of this fantasy land, Gen's accompanied by Magus, Sophos, Pol and Ambiades, who are basically there to cook food, stab things and learn from the Magus. It's the latter where the story gently nudges you in the ribs with enough force to leave a bruise, but you come away getting the history.

I had this crazy theory all the way through the book that Gen was going to turn out to be a girl, and I was wrong. So that was disappointing. The ending did have an interesting payoff, explaining Gen's actions throughout but I'm not quite sure it made up for just how freaking boring the story was for the most part. It took me a full freaking weekend to finish this less than 300 page book.

Passenger - Alexandra Bracken

Series: Passenger #1
Genres: Time Travel, Romance
Pages: 496
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Release Date: 05/01/2016
Find The Author: (Website / Twitter)
Find The Book: Book Depository / AbeBooks UK / US
Add To Your Goodreads Shelf

In one devastating night, violin prodigy Etta Spencer loses everything she knows and loves. Thrust into an unfamiliar world by a stranger with a dangerous agenda, Etta is certain of only one thing: she has traveled not just miles but years from home. And she’s inherited a legacy she knows nothing about from a family whose existence she’s never heard of. Until now.

Nicholas Carter is content with his life at sea, free from the Ironwoods—a powerful family in the colonies—and the servitude he’s known at their hands. But with the arrival of an unusual passenger on his ship comes the insistent pull of the past that he can’t escape and the family that won’t let him go so easily. Now the Ironwoods are searching for a stolen object of untold value, one they believe only Etta, Nicholas’ passenger, can find. In order to protect her, he must ensure she brings it back to them—whether she wants to or not.

Together, Etta and Nicholas embark on a perilous journey across centuries and continents, piecing together clues left behind by the traveler who will do anything to keep the object out of the Ironwoods’ grasp. But as they get closer to the truth of their search, and the deadly game the Ironwoods are playing, treacherous forces threaten to separate Etta not only from Nicholas but from her path home... forever.

You really have to be in the mood for a tome when reading this book, because it doesn't really start going until 200 pages in. I'd be unsurprised to see this on many DNF shelves. Once it does get going though, it's a pretty fun ride, hopping between cities and centuries as Etta and Nicholas try desperately to find her mother's Astrolabe while on the run from the Ironwoods and Thorns.

I'm gonna say the word and you're not going to quickly close the tab, okay? You ready? Insta....love. This isn't quite as full on as other examples of insta-love but I absolutely feel it fits in the category. Your mother has been kidnapped, you're trying to find this stupid relic before idk the universe collapses or something and what are you doing? Mooning over Nicholas when he's shirtless.

Overall if you're not invested in the treasure hunt / time travel aspect I would just give this one a miss. There seems to be a lot of repeated words and sentences, the book takes FOREVER to get going, the chapters are kinda weird cos they'll go from really short to a solid 30 minutes long and you're gonna need to read the sequel to get any form of closure. I'll definitely be reading the sequel which I just ordered cheap off Abe Books (minor plug because I just love me some cheap af second hand books) but I'm not sure you'll be seeing this duology on my shelves in the future.

Review of Kat Wolfe Investigates by Lauren St John

 

Genres: Children's, Mystery

Pages: 352

Publisher: Macmillan

Release Date: 17/05/2018

Find The Author: Website / Twitter

Find The Book: Book Depository

Add To Your Goodreads Shelf

(Received free from NetGalley for review)

After a break-in at their London home, Kat Wolfe and her veterinary-surgeon mum decide it’s time to move to the country. Dr Wolfe’s new job in idyllic Bluebell Bay on Dorset’s Jurassic Coast comes with a condition: they have to adopt Tiny, a huge, near-wild Savannah, who resists Kat’s best attempts at cat whispering. 

 When she starts a pet-sitting agency to make pocket money, her troubles escalate. The owner of her first client, an Amazon parrot, vanishes from his fortified, gadget-filled mansion, leaving a half-packed suitcase and a mysterious parcel. The only person who shares Kat’s conviction that he’s the victim of foul play is Harper Lamb, the American daughter of a palaeontology professor. A language and coding whizz, Harper is laid up with two broken legs thanks to her racehorse, the ‘Pocket Rocket’ – Kat’s newest client. What starts out as mystery-solving holiday fun quickly turns deadly for Wolfe and Lamb. When all clues point to an army base, can they count on their unruly animal friends to save the day – and their lives?

This is a wholesome enough children's story about a girl and her mum, who move to Devon after a break in at their London home. Kat's mum gets a job there with free housing on top, with just one catch - they have to look after the pet cat. Simple enough! If it wasn't a savannah. Kat takes on a pet sitting job for the summer, thinking it will be fun to look after the neighbourhood pets - until one of the residents goes missing.

 I liked this story in places but I thought that there was just too much of everything - the conspiracy surrounding the missing bird owner was too big, there were too many characters and the book was just too long overall. I pretty bored in some places and pretty confused in others. It wasn't a simple person-goes-missing story so much as a someone-goes-missing-also-there's-a-pumpkin-and-then-there's-the-pet-sitting-and-an-old-lady-might-get-thrown-out-of-her-home-story. Oh and then there's Kat's mysterious grandfather.

"'Lots of parcels have "Private & Confidential" written on them, especially business ones,' said Kat. 'Doesn't mean that they're suspicious.' 'Yes, but they're not all addressed to people who've vanished leaving their special security door unlocked and their luggage scattered across the bedroom floor,' said Harper." 

One aspect I really liked was the relationship between Kat and her new friend, Harper. Harper helps Kat investigate the missing person mystery and she's an amazing hacker, even if she can't get out bed due to the broken legs situation. She's a bit of a rich snob but around Kat she's lovely and I really wish that friendship had been explored more, as it felt like Kat only visited when there was something else to investigate.

 I don't mind stories about kids who save the day, as that's the target audience and which kid wouldn't want to save the day? I did find it completely unbelievable though. Yet again, it was just too big and elaborate when it should have been kept simpler, perhaps to match the setting. I live close to Devon and I got the feeling that the author did not, as the world of the village felt very excluded from the outside world, almost as if it were a cBeebies show like Balamory.

Review of Everlife by Gena Showalter

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

Review of The Shadow Cabinet by Maureen Johnson

Series: Shades Of London #3
Genres: Paranormal, Mystery
Pages: 374
Publisher: Hot Key Books
Release Date: 05/02/2018
Find The Author: (Website/Twitter)
Find The Book: Book Depository/AbeBooks UK/US
Add To Your Goodreads Shelf

Grieving, shaken, and feeling very much alone, Rory's life as a member of the Shades of London has changed irrevocably. It's only been a matter of hours since Stephen was taken from her, possibly for ever. Her classmate Charlotte is still missing, kidnapped by the same people who tried to take Rory. Rory is no longer a schoolgirl haplessly involved in the dealings of a secret government unit. She is their weapon in a matter of life and death. 

With hardly a moment to think for herself, Rory is back to work. Charlotte must be found - as must Stephen, if he is even out there. Lines must be drawn and forces rallied. Something is brewing under London, something bigger and much more dangerous than what has come before. The Shadow Cabinet holds the key to everything, and it is up to Rory to unravel its mysteries before time runs out...

I've just finished watching American Horror Story: Cult. I hate American Horror Story but I watch it anyway, even though the plot is always stupid, predictable and feels a lot like the writer was sucking themselves off. But anyway that is important because I really really hated AHS: Cult, I can't stand reading or watching stuff about cults. So I was in luck when I picked this book up, because it was all about cults too! RIP my sanity.

The original book held so much promise about what the story could become, without feeling cheesy. I thought it was going to be like Life On Mars (you should watch that), where they investigate weird crimes involving ghosts. Well book two destroyed all hopes of that and all I could hope for for book three was that it wouldn't be as bad. It's not, but the cheese fest is upped so painfully that at one point my ears actually started leaking cheese (trufacts).

The general idea is to quickly clean up the mess that was book two by linking it to book 3 as much as possible and just in case you don't remember it, Rory spends the majority of her time rehashing every event, which is my number 1 most hated trope. I hate it more than insta-love. I do love Rory's thoughts about England but her stories about her famly started to be repetative, as in, she literally told the same stories from previous books. I have a relative that does that. It's annoying as hell.

I'd write more about the story but... I'm struggling to work out if there is one. There's a mysterious cult, Charlotte's gone missing, there's a couple of blonde twins I don't care about and this whole thing about shiny Egyptian rocks. Without spoilers that's literally the whole book. There's a mild cliffhanger and no book 4 but I'm not even sure if I would choose to pick up book four at this point, as there's no redeeming this series.

 I feel like if you start a book series around the theme of Jack The Ripper with bloody, gory murder you kinda have to follow on from that with a similar theme? Throwing a cult into the mix was uexpected and not at all welcome, and it was even worse that it went on for two books and now four, as this is definitely continuing into the next book. I've stopped caring about any of the characters as most of them have become cardboard background characters anyway.

Review of Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Series: Illuminae #3

Genres: Sci-Fi, Horror

Pages: 615

Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books

Release Date: 13/03/2018

Find The Author (AK): (Website/Twitter)

Find The Author (JK): (Website/Twitter)
Find The Book: Book Depository/AbeBooks UK/US

Add To Your Goodreads Shelf

Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they'll find seven months after the invasion?

Meanwhile, Kady's cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza's ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha's past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict.

With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.

Whelp, I think I strapped myself onto a hype trebuchet and threw myself at the castle, only to smash into the walls with this one. I was so sure that this would be amazing after reading Illuminae and Gemina that I never considered that it might not be. It's a fantastic end to the series but really had a lot of problems.

I never connected with or cared for Rhys and Asha. Introducing characters in a final book is never a good idea and these characters were supposed to be the main characters of the book. Asha had this whole thing going on with a kid she was looking after and being part of the resistance movement against Bei-Tech, while Rhys was working for them. They spilt up a long time ago and never expected to see each other again etc.

Asha really confused me because I was convinced she had this huge traumatic backstory she was going to spill at any moment but that never happened. She just wasn't a well developed character and neither was Rhys, I couldn't tell ypu anything about their previous home life or their likes or dislikes and if I was told anything about their parents I'm sorry but I completely forgot.

I really enjoyed the reintroduction of the old team - Kady, Ezra, Hanna, Nik and Emma and AIDAN. It was fun to see them all in action and working together as a team, while facing impossible odds. Both couples had a chance to reflect on their relationships, especially after major deaths in previous books. I was really rooting for Emma to get a girlfriend though, cutting Rhys out completely and making Asha a gay character would have been a better idea for tying the spaceship with the colony.

Overall while this had it's problems (and I got really sick of translating swear words), this was a pretty great ending to the series (if I ignore Rhys and Asha) and I loved the final chapter. It really added to the story without feeling forced, or leaving room for yet another book which wasn't needed, so I really appreciated that. I left the final page on a high note but still a little sad to leave my favourite characters behind.

Review of People Like Us by Dana Mele

Genres: Contemporary, Mystery

Pages: 384

Publisher: G. P. Putnam's Sons

Release Date: 27/02/2018

Find The Author: Website / Twitter

Find The Book: Book Depository/AbeBooks UK/US

Add To Your Goodreads Shelf

Kay Donovan may have skeletons in her closet, but the past is past, and she's reinvented herself entirely. Now she's a star soccer player whose group of gorgeous friends run their private school with effortless popularity and acerbic wit. But when a girl's body is found in the lake, Kay's carefully constructed life begins to topple. 

The dead girl has left Kay a computer-coded scavenger hunt, which, as it unravels, begins to implicate suspect after suspect, until Kay herself is in the crosshairs of a murder investigation. But if Kay's finally backed into a corner, she'll do what it takes to survive. Because at Bates Academy, the truth is something you make...not something that happened.

Our main character Kat is spending her final school year at Bates Academy, a boarding school for the upper class. She seems to fit in pretty well with the other students, considering she got in on an athletics scholarship, mostly by stealing everyone else's clothes which is certainly a trait to be admired. It's pretty clear from the start of the book that she has a dark past that she's trying hard to put behind her.

 The other characters in this are sort of interesting, particularly Brie, Kat's friend who she's clearly in love with and Nola (all of the characters in this book have weird names idk why), the weird goth girl who writes on her walls and dances instead of walking. The rest of the characters though, did blend together quite a bit for me and I had difficulty even telling Greg and Kat's ex boyfriend apart (I forgot his name, sue me).

"When all is quiet, she begins to hum under her breath, and now I have to shush her once or twice, because if I don't, her voice will gradually rise until she is singing out loud, and eventually we'll be caught traipsing through the woods with a sack full of cat bones, merrily belting out show tunes."

Being hella gay or bisexual is completely normal in this book and it's glorious. Gay characters in books can quickly turn into a plot device but I never felt that that happened, Kat goes through a few relationships throughout the book but none of them felt like they were there to move the story along. Having casually gay characters is a new thing for YA and it is absolutely glorious to see it so normalised.

I did like the idea that Kat and her friends find a body, then Kat is emailed with a website that reveals ugly secrets about her friends is pretty interesting if you enjoy 90s slasher flicks like Scream as much as I do. However every clue was in verse or poem and I have zero clue what they meant, as I wasn't meant to - it was then explained by Kat what it meant. This did really take the fun out of it for me. 

"Todd took Megan away. My Megan. The trivia champ of John Butler Junior High, a cookie connoisseur, and a champion snuggler. We had, between us, seven secret identities, and we could communicate in Sindarin, one of J. R. R. Tolkein's elven languages. And Todd destroyed her. And I still loved him."

The big problem I had with People Like Us is that I was strongly reminded of a book series - Nightmare Hall from the Point Horror collection. If it was shrunk down to half of the amount of pages it would fit in with the series perfectly, it was just TOO much like those books. Except, I did think that those books packed a better punch when the killer was revealed.

 The killer is, unfortunately, blindingly obvious. I did really enjoy the cat and mouse chase of it but I certainly didn't gasp in horror once the killer was revealed. What I did take away from this book though was that this story was more about the relationships you have with different people and how sometimes, you don't know them at all. With that angle this does read more like a contemporary than a thriller.

Review of One Of Us Is Lying by Karen M. McManus

Genres: Mystery, Contemporary

Pages: 361

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Release Date: 30/05/2017

Find The Author: Website/Twitter

Find The Book: Book Depository/AbeBooks UK/US

Add To Your Goodreads Shelf

On Monday afternoon, five students at Bayview High walk into detention. Bronwyn, the brain, is Yale-bound and never breaks a rule. Addy, the beauty, is the picture-perfect homecoming princess. Nate, the criminal, is already on probation for dealing. Cooper, the athlete, is the all-star baseball pitcher. And Simon, the outcast, is the creator of Bayview High's notorious gossip app.

Only, Simon never makes it out of that classroom. Before the end of detention, Simon's dead. And according to investigators, his death wasn't an accident. On Monday, he died. But on Tuesday, he'd planned to post juicy reveals about all four of his high-profile classmates, which makes all four of them suspects in his murder. Or are they the perfect patsies for a killer who's still on the loose?

Everyone has secrets, right? What really matters is how far you would go to protect them.

I promised myself that I wouldn't get hit by the hype train ever again and unfortunately, after seeing this book mentioned so much when I was reading the reviews of People Like Us, I strapped myself to the train tracks and got smashed with a 185.6 ton British Rail Class 220. It wasn't that this was a bad book, it just wasn't that fantastic either.

The thing that drew me to the story initially was that this is literally The Breakfast Club, with a couple of gender swaps. You have the athlete, the brain, the outcast, the princess and the criminal. The brain is swapped to female, Bronwyn and the outcast is swapped to Male, Simon. We know from the blurb that Simon dies by end of detention, so the question is simply - who did it?

“She's a princess and you're a jock," he says. He thrusts his chin toward Bronwyn, then at Nate. "And you're a brain. And you're a criminal. You're all walking teen-movie stereotypes.”

A big problem I had with this was the pacing, I did find myself frequently checking what my percentage was on my Kindle. The detention scene was over so fast that I never got a moment to connect with Simon, or care about his death. If that had been dragged out two or three chapters to set up the characters that would have really helped.

I liked the exploration of the character stereotypes and how they revealed their secrets. Cooper's surprised me the most, while Bronwyn and Addy's were a little obvious. The character development was lacking somewhat, but I loved how Addy went from being a very weak, passive character to a fully developed character.

"Instead of looking though, I kick it. Which is pretty satisfying, so I do it another five or ten times, harder and harder until the cheap wood splinters and cracks. I'm panting, breathing in lungfuls of puke infested air, and I'm so fucking sick of it all, I could kill somebody. Some people are too toxic to live. They just are."

Nate was easily the strongest character, with the best developed back story. The other 3 came from privileged backgrounds and not much was mentioned about them, whereas we know that Nate lives in a broken down home with his drunken father, selling drugs just to put food on the table. He was obviously written to be John from The Breakfast Club, but with a softer side to him.

I didn't guess what had happened / who did it until the very end. My initial guess was that it was Bronwyn, then Addy, briefly Cooper, the teacher and then I started questioning everyone around them as well. It was a great idea but poorly executed - it was revealed too fast without any sort of big HOORAH, which was what I was expecting.

Review of The Truth About Alice by Jennifer Mathieu

Genres: Contemporary

Pages: 336

Publisher: Hodder Children's Books

Release Date: 08/03/2018

Find The Author: Website / Twitter

Find The Book: Book Depository / Amazon UK/US

Add To Your Goodreads Shelf
(Received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review)

"Everyone knows Alice slept with two guys at one party.

But did you know Alice was sexting Brandon when he crashed his car?

It's true. Ask ANYBODY."

Rumour has it that Alice Franklin is a slut. It's written all over the 'slut stall' in the girls' bathroom at Healy High for everyone to see. And after star quarterback Brandon Fitzsimmons dies in a car accident, the rumours start to spiral out of control.

In this remarkable novel, four Healy High students - the party girl, the car accident survivor, the ex best friend and the boy next door - tell all they know. 

But exactly what is the truth about Alice? In the end there's only one person to ask: Alice herself.

The clear purpose of this book was to explore stereotypes - the slut, the popular girl, the girl who wants to fit in and the nerd. It's done pretty well but I did find myself wishing that we'd have had the whole book from Alice and Kurt, while the rest just really lived up to their stereotypes. I often found myself getting Elaine and Kelsie mixed up, to be honest.

Alice and Kurt's relationship was lovely and if the author had chosen to stick with these two characters I genuinely think this story could have been Anna And The French Kiss levels of amazing. It was a really simple, high school relationship, starting off with him teaching her math, finding her a rare Christmas present that he knew she would love, getting drunk with her when she was upset. I really needed more of it.

The Truth About Alice was a completely new experience for me because I've never read an entire book only to come away with zero feelings about it, aside from Alice and Kurt's relationship. I should've cared about Brandon's death but I didn't come away feeling like he was a huge loss to the world. I spent most of my time stuck on why Alice had chosen to suddenly start wearing this huge jumper everyone was talking about.

Maybe I'm just too old for this book. I am ten years older than it's audience and maybe American teenagers can really relate to this story. The themes in the story didn't go too over the top like other books like 13 Reasons Why did, which was a welcome change and themes like abortion and death were handled pretty well too.

One reason why I may have had trouble connecting was the choice to tell instead of show. Every character just told us what happened from their perspective, so at no point did I feel like I was there, feeling the same things. I do feel somewhat comforted that I wasn't the only reviewer to experience this problem.

Book received free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Review of The One by Kiera Cass

Series: The Selection #3

Genres: Dystopia, Romance

Pages: 323

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: 23/04/2013

Find The Author: Website / Twitter

Find The Book: BookDepository/AbeBooks UK/US

Add To Your Goodreads Shelf

The Selection changed America Singer's life in ways she never could have imagined. Since she entered the competition to become the next princess of Illéa, America has struggled with her feelings for her first love, Aspen—and her growing attraction to Prince Maxon. Now she's made her choice... and she's prepared to fight for the future she wants.

This is a hard one to review and I'm not sure if it's because I'm really ill right now or simply because I didn't have too many thoughts about it. As with the previous books it's a fluff read so I'm not going to knock points off for being cliched but I did feel like a lot of the events were used purely for shock value and to move the story on as fast as possible.

I stated in a previous review of this that I had wished that Maxon would have chosen his wife in The Elite and then this book could have focussed on the rebels and changing the country for the better. I stand by that, as this book was pretty much filler and the last 30% rushed the plot to the point where I felt like I was being personally attacked by everything going on.

I was really confused with the sudden change of heart from Celeste. It was like the author had decided that everything she did was just petty and nothing to worry about - as if we hadn't been previously told that one of the girls had ended up in the hospital wing after Celeste put broken glass in her shoes, and the maids frequented too after she attacked them.

America continues to be strong willed as usual, getting injured in the process. Also at one point she literally embodied Jean Valjean from Les Miserables after vaulting over a wall and I'm pretty sure she saved Celeste in the process, which was a weird moment. On the other hand, we saw a side to Maxon that I really didn't like.

It's a good end to the story and of course, isn't truly the end. There's two other books in the series about Maxon's daughter who I vaguely remember as being a Huge Brat, so I'm looking forward to reading that but I'm still pretty apprehensive about them. Still, I want to see what my favourite characters have done with their lives.