brittmariasbooks's Reviews (1.45k)

I feel a bit conflicted.
I loved Miles's chapter. Those were bordering on poetic by the way it was written and visualized. Then you have Tate's chapters... I enjoyed those too however

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I just don't like the message this book is sending. As in if you fall in love with someone who is unable to love you back and you just keep giving them what they want and you keep selling yourself short, they will eventually come around and fall in love with you too.

I did like Tate's friendship with Cap though.

I think as for now this is my least favourite Kody Keplinger book which is fine though I wished I had enjoyed it more.
Like most of Keplinger's books, it has (multiple) good messages for the young adult audience. The one on the forefront of this book - as the title would let you assume - lying. But it also touches on the problems concerned with putting people on pedestals.

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My main problem is with that I think that Sonny just did not learn from her mistakes until she was so stuck that she had to tell the truth. I do believe it fitted the character since lying was basically Sonny's survival mechanism through middle and high school because of her problematic parents (dad in prison, absent mom). However, I had hoped to see more growth than I did.

That brings me to the way too open-ended ending for my taste. I had liked to at least hear the end of Ryder's and Sonny's conversation but alas...

Lastly, I just did not swoon over the romance as much as I did with Keplinger's previous books.

I loved Abbreviations & Alliterations. It is just a cute small story about the hardships of dating. Casey and Toby were very cute together. It was just the short story I needed right now during my semi-book hangover of Obsidio.
People Worth Knowing was also great. I feel like Kody Keplinger's thing is "a nice romance with good lessons to live by" and that was very much present in Bailey's story.

3 stars
When I picked this book up, I expected the gladiator fights to come much earlier than it did.
However, I do think everything in the first half of the book was necessary to set up a story. Without it, the friendship between Fallon and Elka would not have come off the ground, and in my opinion, that friendship is one of the best things in this book.

Furthermore, the struggles of slavery came through, but Fallon is very lucky. One thing that intrigued me was if you are a slave but you have it good or better than others should you consider yourself lucky? Should you even be happy about it even though you still are a slave? It is an interesting struggle you go through together with Fallon as she ponders over the same thing.

One thing that really threw me off, was that Lesley Livingston used the Greek names for the gods sometimes instead of the Roman names. For example, "What the Hades?". I understand that What the Hades sounds more fun than What the Pluto, however, this story is set in Rome during Julius Caesar's reign so the Greek gods have been gone for a while by then.

Thus, if you like historical fiction in Rome, female friendships, bloody gladiator fights and a bit of romance, I would recommend this book to you.

4.5 stars

I had planned to read this book before YALfestNL 2017 because Donna Freitas was attending. Now I am really regretting not reading this book before the event because I really liked it.

The Survival Kit is the story of Rose who lost her mother, Ellie, recently to cancer. However, her mother left her a survival kit. Throughout the story, you see Rose get through her grieving process with the help of the items in the survival kit. There is also a nice (!) romance but it is mostly a subplot.
I feel this proudness for Rose because of how she gets through it and how she grows so much. She stops avoiding so situations which were really hard for her.

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She starts taking these small steps and she gets help from her friends and it was really nice to read about.

Rose's family is also very likeable although her father and her brother, Jim, have (of course) their own struggles with Ellie's death. It makes it even sweeter to see them have good family moments. Rose's friends are so good. When

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her father was in the hospital

they were there for Rose every day to help her get through it.

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Will is such a sweetheart. Something I also really liked was the talk Rose and Will had at his house after her father got back from the hospital. Will had (sort of) broken up with her because when her father had hit a tree while driving drunk (again) and gotten into the hospital, he froze because of his father. It was understandable yet he did let Rose down. The biggest reason was that he never really explained why he shut down. And they talk about it. Rose told him, yes you did let me down, but I miss and I forgive you because I understand it now.

The full circle with the playlist was so nice, too. I love when things come full circle, but I hadn't expected this so that made it even more lovely.

I really recommend this book to you if you like to read about family, friends and romance.

3.5 stars
the idea of humans knowing for sure that there is life after death and how that affects society is fascinating. Ten was a really cool character and I liked most of the book. However, some characters were bleak and underdeveloped, same with the romance.
I'm not sure if I will continue with this series. so I will see.