A knockout all around. A wonderfully tight premise (food as memory and story-driving force) AND glorious art that is simple yet makes you ready to eat. I've been meaning to read this for quite awhile, and I am so happy I finally did. I would buy this in a heartbeat for any young foodie.

Actual rating is 3.5 stars, but this was charming enough to round-up.

Imagine a hyrbrid of Blair Waldorf/Southern Belle/Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and you'll get Harper Jane Price. Harper stumbles into the role of Paladin one fateful night in the bathroom of her High School and completely misses her Homecoming Queen coronation. To top it off, she is charged with protecting her arch-nemesis. Fate and Cotillion will collide.

I enjoyed the premise, and it was fun seeing a different sort of leading lady. Harper loves makeup, clothes, fashion, and academic success, but also takes on the tough jobs as needed. Hawkins does a great job of making a girl who most would see as a popular bitch be well-rounded and actually a lot of fun. The fact she is also more than a little anal and uptight is also endearing.

What kept this from being great for me is that everything else was shallow and came together a little too conveniently. Plus, there was way to much explaining instead of showing.

However, I would definitely read the other books in this series, so yay.

Again, actually more of a 3.5 star for me, but rounding up because I think this is a great book for Young Adults.

Not yet openly gay, theatre geek Simon’s steamy emails with pen pal “Blue” are discovered by fellow classmate Martin when Simon forgets to close his email on a school computer. Simon must decide if he’ll let Martin’s discovery out him or if he’ll take control of his own destiny in this funny, poignant, and heartwarming coming of age tale.

My quibbles included the very "right now" pop culture references that will age long before the relevance of this book. Also, I've never heard anyone reference Tumblr as "the Tumblr" in casual conversation. Every time I read it (which was too often), it took me out of the story. The ending is a little too "perfect," but overall I enjoyed this sweet tale.

I really enjoyed this! I think many may be turned off by the very realistic tone of this novel, but I found it refreshing, heart breaking, and liberating.

Molly Barlow ditched town after her mother turned her biggest secret into a best selling novel. The novel tore apart Molly's relationship with basically everyone in Star Lake, especially the three siblings Julia, Gabe, and Molly's once boyfriend, Patrick. After a year at boarding school Molly has to spend 99 days back in Star Lake, counting the minutes to college and a new start. Forced back into a life where everyone blames her for what happened, can Molly find forgiveness, move on, or even start something new with Gabe? Or start something back up with Patrick?

Spoilers ahead - so please stop reading now if you don't want to know!

That is basically the premise, but this novel takes on a lot more. Molly's big secret is that she hooked up with her long time boyfriend Patrick's brother Gabe. She confessed only to her mother, who then turned it into a novel that everyone read. The thing I loved about 99 Days is Cotugno's confrontation of the huge double standard of slut shaming on girls. Everyone is mad at MOLLY, not Gabe. Only Molly gets chased out of town, only Molly gets her car keyed, her house egged. And shoot, Molly did do wrong, but she isn't the only one to blame here.

Molly is also not a very likeable character all of the time. She makes big, huge mistakes and gets right smack dab back into a triangle with the two brothers, but this is what I loved about this book. This felt real. Life isn't all soul mates and butterflies. High school relationships get ugly, and this book showed that to its max. Molly is really torn between two people, and yes, she is being selfish and full of hormones, but again that is how it goes sometimes.

The ending of this book was just perfect. No fairy tale, not happily ever after. Just a girl finally being done playing in a zero sum game with two boys who didn't have her best interest at heart. Bravo.

While this really awesome squad of trained women fighters did exist in 19th century India, this historical fiction take was actually quite boring. A lot of telling instead of showing, with much of the action taking place off the page. A love story between the main character and a guard is fairly lackluster and not really necessary. I wish this was better. However, it did check off the "Book set in Asia" square on my 2015 Book Riot Read Harder Challenge.

Bee's mother ran away. Through a series of emails, letters, reports, and other miscellanea, 8th grader Bee pieces together why Bernadette ran, and where she might be.

I read this to get inspired for my library's first ever Book to Art Club, and I am happy I finally checked this one off my back list. I had a blast reading this darkly humorous novel about one woman's complete unwillingness to behave or do anything she doesn't want to do. I found Bernadette's character to be oddly compelling, despite her darker tendencies. Tons of fun, and I'm going to look forward to leading our discussion and make handmade post cards.

BTW - Bernadette is a great name (I have one, my daughter).

This is simply adorable. Rice captures dorky romance at it's best (but not always cutest) moments. Really sweet. I loved the simple drawings and black, red, and white color scheme.

I tackled this Lord John Grey novel because I feared I may miss out if I did not. However, all this really did was demonstrate how Grey and Jamie became friends despite Grey's feelings towards Jamie.

I liked the alternating POVs, and obviously liked Jamie's the best. The mystery in the book wasn't all that thrilling, but the character work is worth the read.

A historical fiction tale about Beryl Markham who grew up in Africa, trained and raced horses, and flew airplanes. She was a woman who bucked society's norms, but this account left me a little cold.

I will say it did inspire me to read her own memoir, West With the Night. I hope Hemingway glowing review holds true upon reading.

Love and Death play an eternal game, selecting different players throughout time. Love never wins. Until now? Henry is a white orphan, the ward of a wealthy family who dreams of playing the bass professionally. Flora is a black jazz singer and aviator, and dreams of owning her own plane and flying it around the world. They are both pawns in the game of Love and Death, chosen at birth. They fall in love, but will they both choose each other despite all the obstacles in their lives? If they don't choose each other, Death will claim Flora's life.

I'm giving this four stars because of uniqueness of the plot, the diversity of the characters, and the loveliness of the prose. That said, there was so much going on here that I felt I needed a few hundred more pages to really sink into everything. Love and Death were my favorite characters, but I didn't quite buy the love between Henry and Flora (despite the story resting on this premise).