Reading time: I’m embarrassed to say. But too long.

Star Rating: 4 stars. I’m giving it four because I actually stopped reading and read another book in between it and that says a lot. I almost never do that. I was going to give it three, but the author in me just can’t.

Okay. okay. So the first two books in this series, Red Queen, and Glass Sword were really good and I enjoyed them. This one. Whew. Man. This one was really difficult for me to get through in the beginning honestly.

It started off so slow. I actually stopped reading at 80 pages in and read a different book in two days and finished another one I had been reading after that. Which is fine. But then, I literally had to force myself to go back to this book. I didn’t enjoy reading it as much as I hoped. I dragged myself through most of the book.

The main character, Mare. Where do I start? I really did like her in the first two and I wanted to like her in this one, truly, I did. But I could not stand her in this book. She was so whiny. And I don’t just mean whiny in the sense that she complained a little bit, I mean she was so down on herself and her situation that she whined constantly through this book. Every step of the way. And that made it really hard for me to enjoy reading it.

Another thing I wasn’t sure how to feel about is introducing two other points of view. It wasn’t done in the other books, but was done in this one for the sake of convenience. The beginning was boring enough, if the author didn’t add in a character, in this case, Cameron, a young girl Mare forced to join the rebel group, The Scarlet Guard, to tell what was going on within the rebel part of the story, it would have been a million times more boring. I didn’t like it at first, but I came around to it, when it helped me understand everything that was happening on the other side of the revolution.

With all that being said, after she *spoiler* FINALLY got rescued from the mad king, Maven, the book took off from there and I enjoyed it a lot more. But it did take a long time for it to get off the ground.

Reds and Silvers working together to overthrow a king whose mother basically tore apart his mind and changed the way he felt about people close to him.

I’m really looking forward to the next book in the series, War Storm, out in May.

If you are looking for a good dystopian series, I definitely recommend this one.

Warning: Language ahead.

Reading time: One week.

Rating: All the stars.

This book lives up to the title.

It’s great.

It’s stupid.

It’s confusing.

It’s a masterpiece.

There wasn’t a time in this book that I fully understood what was going on. Without spoiling anything, because I loathe spoilers, just do yourself a favor; go buy it; read it; enjoy the laughter and confusion.

It will make you think about things you probably didn’t want to think about in the first place. It will make you laugh at things you probably shouldn’t laugh at and make you think you’re a terrible person. You’re not; I laughed too. A lot.

The third in a trilogy, which I didn’t know when I bought it (but you can read them in any order), it follows David, John and Amy. Partners. Monster hunters. And most of the time, completely fucked.

It tells a story about a town dubbed as ‘Undisclosed’ and how there’s a lot of unexplained things going on. It documents events that are super vague and strange, but most likely didn’t happen. Even though they did?

Kidnapped “kids”, creatures making you hallucinate and believe things are real when they are, in fact, not real. “They” convince you something is a part of your world, when it never was. It implants memories of things that were never a part of your life. And there’s a different creature,dubbed BATMANTIS?? No, that’s not a typo. It’s literally what they call the other creature that is terrorizing the town. Or it may be the same creature, because at this point, who the hell knows.

The bottom line of this review is, if you want a good laugh along with a really stupid, well told story, read this book,because it’s worth it, even thoughall of the events that took place throughout the book most likely didn’t even happen.

If you aren’t sure what the hell you just read, it’s okay; I’m not really sure either.

Reading time: 3 days. 

Star Rating: 2 stars

I really wanted to like this book. I did. But it was rough. The plot sounded good enough and the small synopsis on the jacket made it mysterious enough that I wanted to know what happened. 

A Void the Size of the World is about a girl named Rhylee, who has lived her life in her sister, Abby's, shadow. Abby is a track star and basically the star of the town. And then she disappears, because of Rhylee.

Rhylee kissed her sister's boyfriend, Tommy, who is also Rhylee's childhood friend and she's been in love with him for most of their friendship. However, he dates her sister after Rhylee rejects him.

The high school is at this bonfire in the woods somewhere and Tommy and Rhylee end up kissing for the second time, but this time Abby catches them. After a short fight with them, she runs into the woods and disappears. 

That's basically the book right there. A girl disappears and never comes back. The biggest problem I had with this book, is there is absolutely no closure. Abby disappears, her family crumbles and loses who they are as they look for and mourn Abby. But, that's all. They never find out what exactly happened to Abby and why she never came back. 

The police find a sweatshirt in the woods she ran into, footprints by the side of the river that matched a shoe at the bottom of the lake they searched later. So, her family as well as the cops assume she fell and ended up in the lake? 

And Rhylee basically lies her way through the whole. damn. book. Neither she or Tommy told the cops about why Abby ran off into the woods. Even when Tommy is blamed for what happened to Abby and the whole school turns against him, Rhylee says nothing. She keeps lying and feeling sorry for herself, because she blames herself for what happened to her sister. It's hard to root for her when she just keeps on lying to literally everyone she knows and shuts them all out, even Tommy. And then when he wants to leave to get away from it all, she has the audacity to beg him to stay. 

And then there's crop circles that show up, making it seem that something paranormal happened to Abby, which later you find out was just her cross-country team trying to make some kind of tribute to her. But, after they show up, weird things happen to Rhylee where she's chasing figures in the dark and posters from her wall are torn down that are again, unexplained and completely unresolved. 

I kept reading this book because I just wanted to find out what the hell happened to Abby and in hope she would make it home, but no. No closure. No happy ending. Absolutely no satisfaction. Nothing. Just a completely open ending where Abby's family all of the sudden turns everything around in the last chapter and accepts the fact that she's not coming back after 83 chapters of denial.

That's the other thing I will vent about. There's 84 chapters in this book. There's not even 400 pages, and there's 84 chapters. I just thought that it was so excessive and the chapters were so short, it became annoying. At first, I liked the fact the chapters were short, because I felt like I was making my way through the book pretty quickly, but it got old fast. Some chapters were literally a paragraph and a lot of them were choppy. 

There was a lot of repetitiveness to the writing as well, which I did not take into consideration for the rating, but I will still talk about it. Lots of scenes were repeated where Rhylee felt sorry for herself and wouldn't stop blaming herself for what happened to her sister. Scenes and lines were repeated throughout the whole book. There were sentences almost word for word that were repeated. It would have been a little better if they were a few chapters apart (which, in this case, could have been like five pages), but they were two pages apart, the exact same sentence and phrasing, word for word. I know it's difficult to write, but that shouldn't happen with any book. That's just my opinion though, which is why I didn't reflect it in my rating, just my review. 

Anyway, if you want to be frustrated, annoyed and completely unsatisfied, this is the book for you.

Reading Time: About a month (Only cause I read other books at the same time)
Genre: Classic Literature
Rating: Five Stars

Anyone who knows me knows that I didn’t particularly enjoy classic literature when I was in school and more likely than not, depended on SparkNotes to fill me in on the book I couldn’t read because it was super boring. Or because the language baffled me.

It’s so different now and I don’t know if it’s my age or how much my brain can actually comprehend now? Whatever it is, I have been thoroughly enjoying my journey into the world of classic literature and let me tell you, this one has beat all the others I have read, I think. (All the others meaning the whopping two other classics I have had the privilege to read).

Jane Eyre is the role model every little girl should look up to; one that I wish I would have read when I was younger, because this woman is a badass. That’s the best way I know how to put it.

She is so strong, despite her childhood experience. With her parents gone and no one to care for her, she ends up in the house of her aunt (by marriage). Mrs. Reed hates Jane and doesn’t treat her well as Jane grows. Jane suffers physical and mental abuse throughout her childhood, but somehow makes it through okay. Later, she is sent to boarding school where she again has experiences no child should go through. She also goes through the death of a friend and has to learn to deal with that.

After 8 years at the school as both a student and later a teacher, she seeks a position elsewhere and lands in the home of Mr. Rochester. She becomes a governess to young Adele and soon starts noticing strange things at the home. Strange things, in this instance being creepy laughs throughout the night, arson, people being stabbed, etc.; it’s crazy. The servants in the house know something is up, but they don’t know exactly what, only that Rochester is harboring some kind of deep, dark secret. And Jane discovers her feelings for Mr. Rochester growing, despite the goings-on in the household.

This novel will probably remain at the top of my list, because instead of the female character being the damsel in distress, she is the savior. She actually saves Rochester’s life once, and continues to do things for him without question, coming to his aid multiple times, and that’s one thing that I love about her character. She doesn’t have to think twice about going into a room on fire; she just goes in and puts it out without a second of hesitation.

Jane also sticks to who she is. She never falters from herself nor her convictions and I absolutely love that aspect of her character. She doesn’t care what others may think of her, she only wants to be herself and does not want to change nor will she allow others to change her.

I could honestly go on and on and on about this book, but this review would be more annoyingly long than it is already.

All I can say is, if you have ever considered getting yourself into classic literature, read Jane Eyre. The language may be difficult at first, but this one is easier than other classics. You won’t regret reading it, I promise.

Reading time: Two days

Star rating: Four Stars

Matt and his best friend, John, only came out to Montauk for the summer to make a little extra cash and then head back home. A seemingly basic plan for two guys from Queens. And then Matt meets Driana. The girl leads to a party, the party leads to a boat, which leads to being adrift at sea with three rich kids who have no clue about how to navigate a boat, let alone actually survive.

I really enjoyed this book. It did take me a little bit to distinguish the characters, but that was probably because I was listening to the audio book.

The story was really intriguing to begin with. It’s a typical survivor story, and it was suspenseful and it was hard to stop listening to it. There were times I cringed at the descriptions because they were very accurate and gruesome.

Two teenagers, John and Matt meet Jojo, Dri, and Stephfrom Rio,. Dri invites them to a party that night. After being there for a while, the teens discover that Steph was no where to be found and had in fact gone windsurfing at night.

Them being teenagers, decided to all get in a boat to go after her and bring her back, because she was most likely drunk and they didn’t want her to get hurt.

Circumstances as they were, they are met by a dolphin that ends up breaking Steph’s arm. (I’m not too clear on how exactly this happens. It could have been because I was listening and just didn’t catch it, but I think it was something to the effect of wanting to give it a hug goodbye? I could be wrong, but that’s what I remember and I guess that could be something a really stupid, drunk teenager would do).

So all five of them end up being carried out to sea, Steph with a broken, bleeding arm, Jojo, we later find out is usually on medication and doesn’t fair well without it, Dri and Matt pretty much freak out, and John pretty much stays calm the whole time. 

They have to make difficult decisions at sea as they wait for about three weeks to be rescued. They are faced with death, storms, starvation, and desperation in a story filled with twists in every chapter.

Stories of their past come to life, some difficult, some not, as they all (sorta) grow closer. This is definitely a good read for teenagers/young adults.

Reading Time: About a week

Star Rating: Three Stars

I’m not sure how to feel about this book. The description of it was really intriguing, but it was also wildly misleading. And because of that, it made the book confusing, or in this case, the audio book.

Basically the book is supposed to be about these two sisters, Nick and Dara who are inseparable until some mysterious accident that happened a few months ago, leaving Dara’s face scarred and their relationship broken.

The story goes back and forth between before the accident and after.

There is also a nine-year-old girl who goes missing, Madeline Snow, that is kind of in the background of the story, but comes up every once and awhile. Then Dara disappears on her birthday, and Nick becomes convinced that the two are connected.

The description makes it seem like the disappearance of her sister and the little girl will be the focus of the book, but Dara doesn’t even disappear until near the end of the book, which at first doesn’t make much sense.

But the twist at the ending, I guess puts it all into perspective. *SPOILER it’s some Sixth Sense shit, and her sister has actually been dead the whole time. Which, looking back at certain scenes and certain chapters, makes it all a little less confusing than when I was reading.

I did enjoy the audio book, but the story was drawn on, and it wasn’t a page turner for me.

This is definitely a book for teens/young adults. I've always enjoyed Sarah Dessen and this book didn't disappoint.

Two friends, Scarlett and Halley, inseparable, best friends making their way through the dread of high school now as Juniors.

However, their Junior year begins with the death of a classmate in a motorcycle accident, Micheal, who also happened to be Scarlett's boyfriend.

While Halley didn't know Michael very well, she helps Scarlett deal with and understand the sudden loss of someone close to her. Scarlet and Michael had only been seeing each other for the summer, but that's all it took for her life to change.

Scarlett later finds out she's pregnant with Michael's baby (it only takes one time ya'll) and despite her mother's wishes, decides to keep the baby. 

The story follows Halley helping her friend as well as falling in love with Michael's friend Macon, who in my opinion is the typical teenage douchebag who literally constantly pressure Halley for sex when she tells him no soooo many times. 

Dessen covers a lot of stereotypical high school kids in this book. There's the pregnant girl, the girl falling in love with the bad kid, the bad kid who pressures the good girl into sex, but really does love her? The new kid who moves into a new town (who actually ends up befriending Scarlett and helps her deal with her pregnancy), the typical mom, who tries to control her daughter's life, etc. Anyway, she completely encompasses what it's like being a teenager in that situation (not that I would know personally, but I've seen it). 

Dessen is so good at stories like these though and I think she makes it all so relevant to the time we live in today. This was another good story told by her and I think it will relate to teenagers alike.  

If you're looking for a quick, but really good YA read, this one is for you.