dbguide2's Reviews (863)

Loved this extremely short novella! I don't often read these type of stories and I quickly read this one. It's a short read, so you can't really say much of it, other than it's amazing.

A copy of this book was e-mailed to me in exchange for an honest review.

Okay, before I start the actual review, let me just fangirl for a moment.

*cue fangirling

Oh my days, this is an absolutely amazing book! I hope the author writes a thousand books akin to this, because I’ll read the heck out of all of them. And of course, what would a fangirl moment be without this: asdfghjkl I just can’t even! Scance/Vacar (ship names for the two main characters-don’t judge me, those are the best I could come up with-I like Scance the best) are OTP and I hope this book becomes a movie so I can see some Scance action on the screens! EEP

*cease fangirling

Are you looking for a New Adult novel that once you start reading, you physically cannot stop until your eyes feel like they’re in hell? Well, look no further! Get off your horse, make camp and get ready to read a fantabulous book!

No, but like seriously, the amount of times I swooned in this book is more than when I read All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven (if you haven’t read it, you’re wasting your time!). By the time you’re onto the second chapter of Use Somebody, you’ll want to stay home and do nothing until you’ve finished the book (I was contemplating not going to work).

The story is that Scar (full name Scarlett Rossi-thumbs up for the Italian surname) moves back to her hometown after a traumatic experience at college (which you, the reader, can read it and cry for yourself). She begins at an ice cream shop (a place I should never work at, because all the ice cream would be eaten on the first day, more like in the first hour.) Her co-worker is Vance Holloway, an adorable little s**t who loves pancakes, has great taste in music and somebody I would love to go out, mostly for his enthusiasm.

Along with adorable moments, like the inevitable thinking of the pair’s friends that the two are together (because, of course, a guy and a girl can never be simply friends-*eye roll), this novel is so adorably heartbreaking, you’ll find yourself reaching for a tissue and wanting to work at an ice cream shop.

Final Verdict: An undoubtedly wondrous well-written novel that reaches into your heart and squeezes it so hard that you won’t be able to breathe for a few days.

Would I recommend this novel to anyone?: Abso-flogin’-lutely.

A copy of this book was sent to me in exchange for an honest review.

This novel is a paranormal romance that captured my heart from the beginning with its gorgeous style of writing. And then it went on and introduced its characters and adorable moments; and by then I was ready to perform outrageous dance moves to read more of the series.

Iona is a college freshman on an island that seems to be perfect, but is it? Iona is one of the best characters I’ve read-because she’s someone I’ll love to be

Then there’s Ariston, a handsome neighbouring prince who sets his eyes on Iona. He captures Iona’s (and mine-easily) with his just-glorious personality.

Yes, it is a slow book and there isn’t a lot of action, but there will be more action in the 2nd book (I know this because I’ve already read most of the 2nd book’s chapters-perks of being an editor/beta reader).

Would I recommend it: Yes, I would. I’ve known this novel for a while and would love to see it become famous. And you should definitely read My Deadly Prince Charming, because it is a beautifully written novel.

Technically it's 3-and-a-half but they don't give half stars *cue sobbing and rage and angry emails.

Received this book in exchange for an honest review. I actually read it a few days after I received the finished book, wrote a review for it and promised myself I would put it on Goodreads. Obviously that did not happen. But here is the review.

IT’S SET IN SOUTH AFRICA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH. Sorry, it’s just that there are heaps and heaps of books set in America and wherever else in the world and then you get South Africa with it’s extremely stupid stereotypes. Like please come and tell me your stereotypes and let me laugh at them and tell you why you are wrong and why that stereotype was created. Anyway, so I went and read everyone else’s reviews to see if they said anything about SA. One reviewer said she went and YouTubed our accents to hear how it sounded and then she said that it takes a while getting used to. Which is kinda calling the kettle black. And also a Durbanite’s accent is miles different from a Cape Tonian’s and everything.

So I was trying to figure out what year the novel is set in – as they don’t really give a specific year or any indication. So I went and looked at the whole slang and tried to figure out from there. And so I was thinking that this has to be set a few years back because we don’t use those swear words anymore. But then I remembered that I live in a different part of South Africa than the book and thus my regional dialect is different than the book’s. Though it is interesting to see that the author made the characters use many Afrikaans slang. Now I’m all for that because representation and all that but Durban and Toti are more known for being English. But I’d still like to know what time this book is set in.

I love the different relationships between Wayne and Travis and Jess. Obviously the two relationships are different but the both are equally important and Wayne knows that they are both important – which he does.

The narration of the book is very good. It makes the reader want to carry on reading.

I love how Wayne’s anxiety and depression or whatever is shown. It shows that teenagers feel very deeply and it shows a side of him that many readers could probably identify with.

I expected the ending to be different and to have an actual ending and then the ending just kind of made me confused but I suppose I’ll have to wait for the next book to read it.

Technically it's 3-and-a-half, but Goodreads doesn't know how to play nicely.

CHARACTERS: Boom! Elizabeth is damn right awesome and yass!! Female character!!! Elizabeth comes so prepared I should ask her to summarise my college subjects. Wowee, Elizabeth figures things out so wonderfully I want to ask her to figure out why data is so expensive in South Africa (no really, tell me how much you guys have to pay for 1GB) and why the hell Donald Trump is still running, much less alive.
Received a copy of this eBook as a thank you for beta reading it. Then proceeded to promptly forget about it until I saw it a few days ago. Managed to find time amongst all my crying and stressing about college to read this.
One can never have enough Sherlock Holmes inspired books. I mean, sure, you can say no, but you know you’ll be reading it.
Who stops while running from a murderer/downright weirdo to write down a few paragraphs of your thoughts? Unless she was using a text-to-speech app (if you have one that doesn’t need constant data to work, please message me), which would actually prove to be harmful, as the weirdo can hear you and kill you. But I do like the fact that she’s recording everything.
ACDH – I’ll try not to call it ACDC
What kind of gym class do you have if they teach you archery? We had a basic of swimming and running (though sometime we did ‘rounders’) and weird summery games (hoops, bok in die hok – a type of dodgeball – and in the winter, P.E/P.T was inside, and we mostly did Aerobics or something like that. I would have given my left arm to learn archery (though I’d probably hurt a few people in the process).
People in American get detentions for the weirdest things. I mean, what Cassy said wouldn’t bet worth a detention in my high school (it’s not even that bad, that’s something I would tell my friend in the hallway even with teachers around me and they would probably just laugh.
If Elizabeth doesn’t think the police chief doesn’t have the skills, how would she have them? I mean, I’m sure people would raise an eyebrow if you buy the same equipment police stuff.
The writing is at times boring, but stilly good.
Elizabeth has a very good and realistic relationship with her father. It’s actually interesting because if this book were a YA, you’d see a case of absent parents and odd relationships with the protagonist’s parents. Perhaps it’s changed because it’s an MG novel? Or maybe it’s just the author’ doing? So well done on this. Half a star added for the whole parent-daughter relationship and it feeling real.
Professor Martin sighed. He looked like someone about to do something he knew he would hate. “The whole building is encased in a powerful lockdown spell. There’s no way to get out without breaking through the spell and I need some time to sit and study it carefully. If I’m not careful, the person who put it there will know.” Seeing Elizabeth’s mouth start to open, he cut her off, “I know you have questions; I talked to Albert, and we’ll give you a history lesson after we get out of here. For now, let’s get dessert and I’ll do my best.”
: Oh yeah sure. Let’s just go from not wanting to tell them things to let’s just tell them everything. I’m sure if Professor Martin just said, “Some security problems” it would be okay, but let’s go with it for plot and exposition.
So if the runes were enchantment runes and not locking runes, hence the reason why everyone’s so calm, why is Elizabeth so against it and awake/aware? Did she not drink from the Kool-Aid as it passed through the crowd? Is she more aware of magic than others? And if she is, then why does she still ‘drink the Kool-Aid’?
Even though the action’s good, there are times when there’s a sentence of action and then that’s it. Like a character does something that’ll usually be an entire paragraph worth of imagery, is only one or two sentences. It’s not much of an annoyance, but I’m pretty sure you want your readers to imagine a lot of the world.
So yes, this book is good. It’s interesting and it’s about magic and mystery and female characters doing things. Add it to your list for a good, quick read.

Read in high school in Drama class and reading it again for college. Home field advantage? Of course. Had it for Waiting For Godot and will have it for The Great Gatsby.

Fantastic. Absolutely wonderful.

*Received from Netgalley.

So this my first graphic novel and may I just say that it is absolutely wonderful. Very dark and fantastically written. The fact that it's gruesome just makes it all the more better and the writer even made the teenagers speak how they would normally.

It was a great read. It was great to see a book about ADD/ADHD that uses words and explanations that are on the same level as the teenagers who would read the novel - as they would be able to understand how their brain works and how to help it. Teenagers would definitely liked to write in the spaces provided about how they felt about themselves and their disorder.

So this was sort of a retelling of Rumpelstiltskin (whom I love, thanks, Robert). Add gif of Robert. And it had some Cinderella elements to it too, so that was cool.

It was a quick read (I first thought it was a full-length novel and was disappointed when I saw it was actually a novella. But then I realized that if it were a full-length novel, I would probably lose interest along the way.

It was a cute read, yes. But that was all it was. The characters, as adorable as they were, lacked that certain thing about them that made me want to care about them.

The main character (Pip) is cute and I did like him, but I found him to be spineless – he didn’t really stand up for himself and there was a definite theme of instalove with the prince – Ren, and really, can’t we get away from the idea of instalove?

The descriptions and the setting were done rather well. I can tell the author spent time on that and crafted the world rather well. If only she spent more time on the characters, they too would be as good as the description.