Review to come!

This book felt like it was written in two distinct halves, possibly by two different people, the characters were so different in each half. This book had the potential to be really good, but the writing, to me, just didn't let it go where it needed to. The ghosts of the house were never addressed, Emiline and John just magically fixed their problems with sex. Great.

What happens when you are followed by millions . . . and loved by none? Twenty-seven-year-old Logan Wade is trying to build a life for herself far from her unhappy childhood in Oklahoma. Until she gets the call that her famous cousin needs a new assistant— an offer she can’t refuse.

Logan hasn’t seen Kelsey in person since their parents separated them as kids; in the meantime, Kelsey Wade has grown into Fortune Magazine’s most powerful celebrity. But their reunion is quickly overshadowed by the toxic dynamic between Kelsey and her parents as Logan discovers that, beneath the glossy façade, the wounds that caused them to be wrenched apart so many years ago have insidiously warped into a show-stopping family business.

As Kelsey tries desperately to break away and grasp at a “real” life, beyond the influence of her parents and managers, she makes one catastrophic misstep after another, and Logan must question if their childhood has left them both too broken to succeed. Logan risks everything to hold on, but when Kelsey unravels in the most horribly public way, Logan finds that she will ultimately have to choose between rescuing the girl she has always protected . . . and saving herself.

I liked this book conceptually. The way the authors went about it didn’t entirely work for me, though. It felt like it was based off of Britney Spears’ life, except with a cousin thrown in.

I felt that Logan, the main character, was incredibly one-dimensional, and I simply couldn’t get into her head. I felt like chunks of the book had been cut out. Where was any relationship development between Logan and Finn? Or Kelsey and Aaron, for that matter. Why was Kelsey’s father allowed anywhere near his family again?

There were just too many holes in this book for me to truly enjoy it. I needed a whole lot more. I would have rated it three stars, but the ending was absolute crap. How could Logan just leave her there with them? How is that doing the right thing, even if it was what Kelsey asked her to do? It was irresponsible in the highest degree.

I read this as an ARC and that was basically the only reason I finished it. I was bored to death through this entire book, which is saying something. There was nothing absolutely horrible in it, I just didn't care about anything that happened to anyone, which is why I gave it two stars.

I received this as an ARC from Netgalley for free in exchange for an honest review.
Meet the Bird family. They live in a honey-colored house in a picture-perfect Cotswolds village, with rambling, unkempt gardens stretching beyond. Pragmatic Meg, dreamy Beth, and tow-headed twins Rory and Rhys all attend the village school and eat home-cooked meals together every night. Their father is a sweet gangly man named Colin, who still looks like a teenager with floppy hair and owlish, round-framed glasses. Their mother is a beautiful hippy named Lorelei, who exists entirely in the moment. And she makes every moment sparkle in her children's lives.
Then one Easter weekend, tragedy comes to call. The event is so devastating that, almost imperceptibly, it begins to tear the family apart. Years pass as the children become adults, find new relationships, and develop their own separate lives. Soon it seems as though they've never been a family at all. But then something happens that calls them back to the house they grew up in -- and to what really happened that Easter weekend so many years ago.
Told in gorgeous, insightful prose that delves deeply into the hearts and minds of its characters, The House We Grew Up In is the captivating story of one family's desire to restore long-forgotten peace and to unearth the many secrets hidden within the nooks and crannies of home.

I'm really not sure how I felt about this novel. It tells the story of the Bird family whose matriarch is a hoarder, but the time swaps were all really weird, and the family was so dysfunctional that it was almost comical, especially with the way that the tragedy that unfolds is handled by all of the characters. The characters were wonderfully written, but this makes me want to throw away more than half of what I own and to go hunt down an actual timeline to go along with it, because the three timelines that were show in the story were very oddly put together in a way that didn't really work for me.

Legend by Marie Lu was recommended to me by so many people, but when I finally sat down to read this dystopian novel, I was honestly disappointed.

Goodreads summarizes it, saying,
"What was once the western United States is now home to the Republic, a nation perpetually at war with its neighbors. Born into an elite family in one of the Republic's wealthiest districts, fifteen-year-old June is a prodigy being groomed for success in the Republic's highest military circles. Born into the slums, fifteen-year-old Day is the country's most wanted criminal. But his motives may not be as malicious as they seem.

From very different worlds, June and Day have no reason to cross paths—until the day June's brother, Metias, is murdered and Day becomes the prime suspect. Caught in the ultimate game of cat and mouse, Day is in a race for his family's survival, while June seeks to avenge Metias's death. But in a shocking turn of events, the two uncover the truth of what has really brought them together, and the sinister lengths their country will go to keep its secrets."

My biggest issue with was the difference in typeface and color for the two perspectives, and the lack of difference between the characters' point of views. The visual change pulled me out of the story every time we changed perspective, which is really annoying. I understand that it was meant to show a distinct difference between the two characters, but that should have been obvious from being two different people.

Unfortunately, without the typeface changes, it would have been easy to forget which perspective I was reading in. Despite the huge differences in the way they grew up, June' and Day's voices were incredibly similar, from the way they acted to the way that they thought. I understand that there is one big similarity between the characters, which I won't spoil for those who still want to read this, but there should have been a much larger difference in the way they acted.

That being said, the plot was interesting and there was a very strong theme of familial loyalty throughout the novel that I really liked. However, it wasn't anything that I haven't read before and enjoyed a lot more, which is the reason that I've rated this novel 3 stars. I don't think I'll be reading the rest of the series.

Goodreads summarizes How to Say I Love You Out Loud by Karole Cozzoe as:

“Words are strong. Love is stronger.

When Jordyn Michaelson’s autistic brother joins her at her elite school, she’s determined not to let anyone know they're related. Even if that means closing herself off to all her closest friends, including charming football stud Alex Colby. But despite her best intentions, she just can't shake the memory of kissing Alex last summer, and the desire to do it again.

Can Jordyn find the courage to tell Alex how she really feels—and the truth about her family—before he slips away forever?”

I received this novel as an ARC from Netgalley.

I find this to be a terrible description of the novel for several reasons, but my largest issue is with the first sentence of this description, because one of the most important themes of this novel is the power of speech.

Her brother Phillip has trouble with speech due to his autism, and Jordyn refuses to tell people about him because of a traumatic experience in third grade, and because of her embarrassment about his problems. And when I say she doesn’t tell people about him, she doesn’t tell anyone. This becomes a problem when Phillip has to come to the same school as Jordyn when his specialized school is shut down due to lack of funding.

Unfortunately, Jordyn’s reaction to Phillip is not an uncommon one within families that have a member with autism. I could not like Jordyn for it, even with all of the changes she made throughout the novel that led up to her speech at the end. In addition to her way of handling her brother’s disability, Jordyn was a very boring protagonist. I found her mother to be a more interesting and sympathetic character, and I wished we’d gotten more of her.

Because I didn’t like Jordyn or her handling of the situations she got herself into, I really didn’t find myself caring for this novel at all. It also felt incredibly short. I also felt no attraction to Alex because literally all of the romantic things happened before the novel started, and the flashbacks were handled poorly. If I had maybe gotten more of his character earlier on, I might have been able to enjoy the book a lot more. That being said, the cover is cute. However, that wasn’t enough to bring this book review above 2 stars for me.

Once a month, seven very different women come together to discuss books. They all love a happy ending, but have lost sight of how to get their own. Paige misses glimpsing the magic in the world. Sadie doesn't see the beauty inside people. Amanda wonders what she ever saw in her ex husband. Tilda literally can't see herself. Michi can't bear looking at her family, while Clementine is blind to what's right in front of her. And Eva looks for romance in all the wrong places.
But things are about to change ...
Meet the women of the Happy Endings Book Club as they celebrate Christmas, and themselves, in London, Paris, Vienna, New York, Sydney … and in love.

This book is basically the equivalent of the “Valentine’s Day” and “New Year’s Day” movies that have come out in the last few years – really cheesy, with plots that are all over the place, but really not that good.
This novel had little to no resolution, and the fairy plotline made absolutely no sense. The length of the novel didn’t let you get involved with any of the characters – or, if it did, it was over as soon as you did.
This would have worked much better as a series of novels, tied together with the book club pulling old and new characters together. As it was, I wouldn’t read this again, nor would I recommend it to anyone, but the writing was good aside from length, so two stars.

Once home to the illustrious Order of the Crane -- guardians of the world's myths and legends -- Stauros Island, now in the hands of the Order of the Shrike, is an elite university whose students are guaranteed positions of power upon graduating.
However, a dark curse hangs over the island: students are disappearing. The school officials declare it the work of a demon, and blame Hugh Fogg -- a young monk of the Order of the Crane who died 400 years earlier.
Could the spirit of a young man who died in 1615 come back to haunt an island and terrorize its students? If so, for what purpose? A Myth to the Night is Hugh's story and his struggle to see his mission complete.

I read the entire set through an ARC from Netgalley, so read the rest at your own risk.

I wanted to like this book a lot more than I actually liked it. The cover is absolutely lovely, and the premise is pretty interesting. The writing was good, but not great. There were a lot of opportunities for some really amazing things throughout the books, but I found that Choi preferred to have the characters tell us what was going on, instead of showing us.
For as long as the book was, I really wanted it to have more development of both the characters and the world. The world had bits and pieces that were developed, but we didn’t get to actually see any of the evil that the Order of the Shrike caused with their leadership. We never get anything past what Drev told us originally. I felt like I was being told to believe something when I’d been given no reason to believe. I didn’t care about any of the characters because I was never given any reason to. I also totally called both of Drev’s big plot twists, which was really disappointing because they were the main ones in the novel.
I love the idea of the phantoms living on the island and being visible and audible at night. It’s spooky and super nifty. The idea of the storybook characters coming to life because their books had been burned is amazing. The phantom monk being the main character was awesome – except that he was a very blah person who made no progress throughout the novel.
Basically, I was really disappointed because this book could have been much better than it was, with just some simple changes. I wanted to know what actually happened on the island in the end. I think it would have made more sense to have Hugh stick around to help teach about the Order of the Crane, since the entire order had been killed off 400 years previously.

Things Mary doesn’t want to fall into: the river, high school, her mother’s life.

Things Mary does kind of want to fall into: love, the sky.

This is the story of a girl who sees a boy float away one fine day. This is the story of the girl who reaches up for that boy with her hand and with her heart. This is the story of a girl who takes on the army to save a town, who goes toe-to-toe with a mad scientist, who has to fight a plague to save her family. This is the story of a girl who would give anything to get to babysit her baby brother one more time. If she could just find him.

It’s all up in the air for now, though, and falling fast. . . .

Fun, breathlessly exciting, and full of heart, Floating Boy and the Girl Who Couldn’t Fly is an unforgettable ride.

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I did not particularly enjoy this book. I thought the idea of the floating boy was cool, and this book had the chance to be really really good, and it just really fell flat. I didn’t care about any of the characters except the brother, and there was absolutely no explanation of the science behind the floating. It was really frustrating to read, especially when Mary texted. I’m 20 years old, and half the time I had to really think about what the texts were supposed to say.
I wouldn’t recommend this book to just about anybody. The protagonist was boring, her friends were really weird, and the story really just didn’t work.