I was really disappointed with this book. I know that she hit the jackpot with Beautiful Disaster and Travis Maddox. This was definitely a book that is trying to soak up all of us who loved the previous book. Lets face it, when she started writing novellas, it was over. A Beautiful Wedding was just bad.



One of the things that was really annoying, was the character overload. Sheesh! Her roommate and her triangle, off/on again, love/hate drama was just over the top. I know what she was doing. She was setting up for ANOTHER spin-off. It was just all wrong. I started to feel that Cami & Trent were just background characters. It made it hard to connect and learn anything real about them. I was so ready to just put this down so many times when Ray/Brazil started in with their bickering and drama. It was just too much.



Secondly, Cami's home life. I feel like Jamie McGuire just tried to make her previous series almost the same exact way. She introduces all this family trouble and then when things "hit the fan" nothing comes from it? She just misses the holidays with her family and that's it? Her brothers fight her boyfriend in a parking lot and that cools them off? Her mother totally let her husband attack their daughter with no consequences? Yeah, it was total crap for a plot line. I feel like it was a lot of fluff for her to pop out a few more books in the future.



Uggghhh. WHY, oh WHY, did she have to ruin Abby's intentions for their marriage in BD?! You definitely get that implication but it's not written in stone. So you can just pretend that it's all love and fairy tales. I know, I know. It never is but STILL this IS fiction! In a few paragraphs she completely shatters that with Abby's phone call to Trent. Just to tell him it was just for cover. She was so hesitant and I felt she was like 100% not wanting to do it from her free will.



Lastly, there was TOO much Travis/Abby in this book! They EACH got their own book! There really was no need to add all of their drama into this book. I just did not appreciate it. It was like she was trying to just suck every last bit out of their story. We get it, it was a huge hit but now let it go...

I will not even go into the whole T.J. thing.. Gross.


Well I will not be picking up the next book in this series. I think that Jamie McGuire has officially shot herself in the foot with this one. Everything you write cannot be about the same characters.

I really wasn't sure what to expect from this book. It was a very light read. Something that I would recommend for a beach read. This is a book about a recently widowed wife trying to heal and move on with her life. It was a good read but with that being said.. I didn't really connect to the characters.


I feel like there was just so much surface and not enough depth to these characters. The one character that I thought had the most depth, was Eby. I give her lots of props for standing up to her horrible family. I mean her sister just sounded awful! Then she makes a life for herself, even after the love of her life dies. That's something that would be very difficult for many people. To give away all the money and safety to keep the family off you. I couldn't imagine being from a family like that.


Even though, Kate finally stood up to her mother-in-law, she wasn't relatable to me. I mean it's barely a year after her husband has passed and she's in the arms of another man. I know for some that's a long time but for her it wasn't. She had no where to go in life and no plan. She was a mess. It almost felt like a safe rebound.


I loved Devin's spunk and personality. She definitely lived in her own world and there's nothing wrong with that. I found myself grinding my teeth when her grandmother tried to change her. I also really liked how Selma ended up finally figuring out what she wanted and making a big sacrifice to save the place she "hated" so much. To me, she has the most growth.


I did like the story for sure. There were just some things that fell a little flat for me. I have a couple of her other books and will be reading them. I will say that this cover is Beautiful! haha.

I wasn't quite sure what to expect from this series. Reading the premise, it sounded really interesting. Unfortunately, the book fell flat for me. It had a lot of potential but I felt it never picked up speed. It was pretty slow and I found myself being bored a lot. It is a pretty fast read.

I don't know why but I feel like a lot of this book took me nowhere. I think the most exciting and interesting part of the book was the last couple chapters. I get that they were on the run the whole book and trying to hide out but it was just so uneventful. I was getting a bit bored with all the magical stuff too.

The whole Yara and the reason that her clan is being chased, is interesting enough. I just kind of got bored with the repetitiveness of how she was trying to use it. I would have liked to know more about what is actually going on than how she tried to harness the power. Obviously, it's not what she thinks.

The romance that was so predictable felt forced. I didn't really get the chemistry between the characters and it was just so.. flat. I just didn't feel it and the way that the author described the moments felt so unnatural.

I don't know that I'll be picking up the next book. I'm sure that the next book will have more action and hopefully not be as boring but I don't know that it would matter. I just can't really jump on the relationship between these two. I don't like it.

I won this book from a Goodreads, first reads giveaway. It's also the first book that I've read by this author. I had no idea what to expect. It's one of the things that I love about the giveaways. I can read authors that I never would have before.

This was definitely a good story. I always love murder mystery books that are good and not predictable. As soon as, I started this book, I was interested. Jason's best friend disappeared the night of graduation over 20 years ago. They all just assumed he took off and started a new life of his own. Jason has a lot of trouble over the years, especially, since it happens after a big blow out.

It turns out that there's a lot more going on and many more people involved than he could ever imagine. I think that the author does a great job keeping the book surprising. I never quite figured out what happened and who was responsible. Every time that I thought I had the person figured out, I was wrong.

This book flowed really well and made it easy for me to get through it quickly. There was always something going on and I never got bored. I was a bit annoyed with the Jason and Regan. I felt like at some points they were crossing that line you don't cross. Mostly, because they would keep their meetings a secret. Also, because she would call the house and act so scandalous about it. "Is it okay that I'm calling." and so on... they acted like their was friendship was something they should be feel guilty about.

A theme about this book is that you just never know a person. Jason idolizes Logan and they were best friends for so long. Turns out that Jason didn't know his best friend at all. He doesn't know many of the people in his life until now. There's so many secrets that come to light.

I received an ebook copy of this book through netgalley. I was pretty excited to read this because it sounded so interesting. I gave this book 3/5 stars because there were some things that didn't make it great.

For instance, it just started off so slow. I started to get a little bored with it. There were just some places it was to drawn out. For example, their travels to the King. I just had to put the book down and do something else. I started to feel like I was forcing myself to read it, which is not a good feeling.

I did enjoy Bree. She was feisty and strong-willed. She didn't let anyone intimidate her and she didn't let them push her around. I did think it took a lot longer than it should have to figure out what was going on. She had so many clues and she never got it.

I liked the supporting characters a lot. I think that they added a lot to this story. I totally loved Aleta. A perfect example of not judging a book by it's cover. I think that Caden and his father's relationship remind me of the Prince and King in the Kiera Cass, Selection series. It was very similar.

Besides not having much going on plot-wise, I feel like it was a lost opportunity to give background information. There wasn't much about the world itself, or the actual magic. We know some about the Elementals, but not how it works. I think maybe it will come out more in the second book, hopefully.

Overall, I did like this book. I will be reading the next book because I just have to know what happens. I loved the characters and I think that now everything is in the open the plot will thicken. I also think it will help the pace and it will have a better pace.

This is my first book by Lauren Oliver. I have heard a lot of conflicting reviews of her other series. I haven't read it but it is on my TBR list. I was just enticed by a stand alone book. It's so rare these days to get a stand alone teen book. I thought this book was just okay and on the fence of dislike.

I feel like the moral of this story is, do what you want, and you get everything you want. There were really no consequences for these characters after putting their lives on the line several times. I don't know about you but I would not want my kid reading this. I was left with a bad taste after reading this. There were so many ways she could have taken this story and she didn't do it right. I really thought she was going to redeem herself at the end. I really thought she was going to go ...there. She didn't though. There was absolutely no negatives to almost killing yourself for a game. All for money. I feel like the author just really liked that show, Fear Factor. It's an interesting concept but this book was too heavy for teens.

I never connected with the characters and I really disliked Natalie. She was so shallow and she was a horrible friend. I didn't like that Heather put up with it and that Dodge was so in love with her. He didn't even know her! I think I liked Bishop the most but he was just a small character. I loved the way that Heather took charge and put her sister first. She didn't take crap from her mom anymore and took her sister out of there. It was hard and took a lot of courage.

In the end, everything works out just peachy. I think that's what annoys me the most about this. It makes me all the more hesitant to read her other books.

The cover is just Gorgeous!! I got sucked in right away. When I saw this on netgalley, I requested it right away. I want to thank them and the publisher for providing me a copy of the ebook.

You know how sometimes you get lucky enough to start a book and instantly get sucked in? That's exactly what happened with this. I knew right away, I was going to love this book. It actually reminded me of a really, REALLY watered down Game of Thrones. The characters had some similarities.

From the moment you meet, Sophie, you just love her character. She's not your typical princess. She likes to hunt, can fight off thieves and basically save your life. Of course, she's being forced into something she doesn't want to save her family. She does have to beat out some competition. You just hope that she will meet Peter and fall in love. That's not exactly what happens. I knew there was going to be a love triangle but I was not expecting a love square(?). I can't really blame her. Peter was just awful. I couldn't stand him from the beginning and I really can't wait to see how this plays out.

The ending was just beautifully done! Wow, the deception was done by a master. Go Sophie! The tables surely have turned.

I wish there would have been more information on the backgrounds of the

countries and their Empires. We don't really get much of that or who is falling into what line. For example, how is Sophie a princess? Why is her family about to lose everything? Also, some back story on any of the other characters would have added so much more to this book. I wonder if the author will have more character development in the next book. I sure do hope so.

Something that really bugged me was that the copy I received was really bad. There was a lot of grammar and formatting errors. I had many black squares and random sentences on pages. It made it hard to read at times and really slowed down my flow. I'm sure this had more to do with the copy than the author, so I can't fault the book too much.

I can't wait to see where Ficklin takes Sophie's story. I'll be looking forward to the next book!