Disclaimer: I received this book from Algonquin Young Readers. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3.5/5

Publication Date: May 21, 2019

Genre: YA Contemporary

Recommended Age: 18+ (TWs for: eating disorder, body dysmorphia, mental illness, mention of suicide, attempted suicide, substance abuse, abortion, unhealthy coping techniques, emotional abuse, toxic environments, and toxic friends. Also: sex, disturbing romantic portrayals, and dreams that might not be all they’re worth.)

Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers

Pages: 304

Amazon Link

Synopsis: Best friends Marine Duval and Kate Sanders have trained at the Paris Opera Ballet School since childhood, where they’ve formed an inseparable bond forged by respective family tragedies and a fierce love for dance. When the body of a student is found in the dorms just before the start of their final year, Marine and Kate begin to ask themselves what they would do to win the ultimate prize: to be the one girl selected to join the Opera’s prestigious corps de ballet. Would they die? Cheat? Seduce the most talented boy in the school, dubbed the Demigod, hoping his magic would make them shine, too? Neither girl is sure.

But then Kate gets closer to the Demigod, even as Marine has begun to capture his heart. And as selection day draws near, the competition—for the prize, for the Demigod—becomes fiercer, and Marine and Kate realize they have everything to lose, including each other.

Review: Okay so I loved how this book was so bold to discuss some really deep and dark topics, especially from what I assume would be presumed to be a safe place. The writing was excellent and the plot was great. The book had some great, realistic main characters and the book did well with the duel POV.

However, this book was SO HEAVY. Like, it’s an advanced YA and I think it would probably be better suited as an NA book or adult. The amount of TWs I had to put at the top were ridiculous and while I understand that all of those can happen and a person can suffer from a multiple number of issues, but this felt more like two teens lying about all the shit they’ve done. And then at the end of the book… it was a letdown. I don’t think it sent a good message to girls and I think while it was good to showcase heavy topics, the book missed the mark in the end. I can see how the ending can be interpreted a certain way, but for me it just created a bigger mess.

Verdict: It’s heavy, but magnificent.

Disclaimer: I received this book from a management company, but I’m assuming the publishing company/author was involved in this so thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Publication Date: February 26, 2019

Genre: Romance

Recommended Age: 18+ (romance, comedy, and love)

Publisher: Red Adept Publishing

Pages: 344

Amazon Link

Synopsis: What if you could find the love of your life just by reading between the lines?

Single mom Fordham Price is juggling her job at a small publisher, her precocious ten-year-old daughter, and her feisty mother. She wants to find time for men, but after a series of dating disasters, her relationship status is still stuck at single.

As if her macchiato lite wasn’t already overflowing, a co-worker gets pregnant, and Fordham is expected to step in and deliver the company’s latest reality read from the Flowers from the Heart series. She must now supplement her own romantic misadventures with tales of cynical cat-ladies, identical-twin husbands, spunky monks, and countless other web-crawlers.
As she wades through the submissions, she finds one from a widower whose story gives her tingles in all the places she forgot existed. His words draw her in until she finds herself daydreaming about him more than she’d care to admit.

Could she have a love like that, or will her romantic fate be forever bound to her philandering ex-husband?

Review: I felt like this book was pretty good. The plot was intriguing and I loved how strong and independent our main character was. The character development was well done and I thought that the book did really good at being funny and romantic at the same time.

However, I did find the pacing a bit too slow for my tastes and sometimes the writing got a bit confusing. The book takes a bit to get into as well. For the most part I feel like I didn’t connect with the main character, so I feel like I’m not

Verdict: A rom-com for you, perfect for summer!

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: The Spectral Inspector Book 1

Rating: 3/5

Publication Date: April 5, 2019

Genre: Mystery/Paranormal

Recommended Age: 18+ (sex, sexual references, mature topics)

Publisher: Horror & Carnage Press

Pages: 354

Amazon Link

Synopsis: Once an exciting up-and-coming star of the burgeoning paranormal investigation TV genre, now Prudence Osgood finds herself as a barely functioning alcoholic living in daily pain, both physical, from a car accident nearly twenty years ago, and emotional, from the loss of Audrey Frost, her partner and best friend, over an ill-advised hoax. When a random and cryptic email shows up in her inbox, she must begin an investigation that is far more sinister than it initially seems, and far more connected to the last two decades of her own life than she could ever imagine.

Osgood As Gone cuts a trail from a lonely rest stop papered in missing posters, to a notebook full of symbols and sigils, to a band that could outsell The Beatles that vanished almost overnight. Can our intrepid hero Osgood follow the breadcrumbs, avoid texts from her one-night-stand Nora, make amends for the past, and still have a future? Find out in Osgood As Gone.

Review: The plot of this book sounds so interesting and it is for the most part! It’s like an adult version of Scooby Doo. It’s unique and there’s LGBT representation in this book. The book also has good pacing and it covers some topics that I don’t normally read in mysteries.

However, there was a problem with repetition. The writing was really confusing and the constant repeating was very stressing. It felt like the author wanted to include a lot of things in this book and while they did it felt like it was too much for one book.

Verdict: Good book for the most part, but a lot to weed through.

Disclaimer: I received an e-arc and a physical copy from Knopf Books. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: The Aurora Cycle #1

Rating: 5/5

Publication Date: May 7, 2019

Genre: YA Sci-Fi

Recommended Age: 15+ (slight romance scene, some language, little gore, death)

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Pages: 473

Amazon Link

Synopsis: The year is 2380, and the graduating cadets of Aurora Academy are being assigned their first missions. Star pupil Tyler Jones is ready to recruit the squad of his dreams, but his own boneheaded heroism sees him stuck with the dregs nobody else in the Academy would touch…

A cocky diplomat with a black belt in sarcasm
A sociopath scientist with a fondness for shooting her bunkmates
A smart-ass techwiz with the galaxy’s biggest chip on his shoulder
An alien warrior with anger management issues
A tomboy pilot who’s totally not into him, in case you were wondering

And Ty’s squad isn’t even his biggest problem—that’d be Aurora Jie-Lin O’Malley, the girl he’s just rescued from interdimensional space. Trapped in cryo-sleep for two centuries, Auri is a girl out of time and out of her depth. But she could be the catalyst that starts a war millions of years in the making, and Tyler’s squad of losers, discipline-cases and misfits might just be the last hope for the entire galaxy.

They're not the heroes we deserve. They're just the ones we could find. Nobody panic.

Review: Holy cow! I think I have found my next sci-fi addiction post-Illuminae! I feel in love with this book! I quickly bonded with Aurora and I love how Amie and Jay wrote this book. The multiple POVs don’t feel disjointed or messy. The story is compelling and the plot is interesting. I absolutely loved this novel with all of my heart.

If I had to choose one thing to complain about is that it felt like it should have ended sooner (but I’m absolutely not complaining that it kept going lol).

Verdict: Read this nowwwww.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Rockstar Book Tours. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 4/5

Publication Date: May 22, 2019

Genre: YA Contemporary

Recommended Age: 15+ (terrorism, terroristic activity, death, grief, mental illness, dementia, anxiety, depression, thoughts of suicide)

Publisher: Gatekeeper Press

Pages: 310

Amazon Link

Synopsis: Emma Loukas had a typical teenage life. Until she didn’t. After choosing to stay home instead of accompanying her family to a minor league baseball game, Emma is not present when a suicide bomber detonates an explosive device at the entrance to the stadium just as her family arrives. In the months that follow, grief therapy and the gloomy looks from friends and her extended family do nothing but drag Emma further down into the rubble left behind by that deadly April afternoon.

To escape the sad reality of her new life, Emma heads across the country to California to spend her senior year with her grandmother. Getting away from her former life is the only way to survive. It doesn’t take long, though, for Emma to experience Grandma Connie’s dementia, and it’s more than a seventeen-year-old is capable of handling on her own. Now, Emma fears she has just made her bad situation worse, and she begins to wonder if it’s even worth trying to survive.

But when the family mementos on the dresser catch her eye, Emma feels a bit of light flicker inside her. Maybe the way to make sense of her new life is to live the lives her mom, dad, and brother no longer can. So she sets out to achieve each of their dreams. It won’t be easy, but it’s all Emma has left, and in the process, she just may find out who she’s supposed to be.

Review: Well, don't make the mistake I did and read this book without tissues. This book was very moving and very beautiful. The connections in this book are natural and the book has a very relaxed and natural flow to it. The development was good and the writing was great!

My only complaint is that it felt a bit slow and I felt that this book, while beautiful, doesn't really stand out amongst others like this book. It's great, don't get me wrong, but it's predictable. Predictable isn't necessarily bad though and having something familiar can be what you need occasionally.

Verdict: You're gonna wanna read this if you love your grandma and family.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the publisher. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 4/5

Publication Date: June 4, 2019

Genre: MG Contemporary

Recommended Age: 13+ (depression, starvation, neglect, and some criminal activity)

Publisher: Viking

Pages: 320

Amazon Link

Synopsis: SoHo, 1981. Twelve-year-old Olympia is an artist—and in her neighborhood, that's normal. Her dad and his business partner Apollo bring antique paintings back to life, while her mother makes intricate sculptures in a corner of their loft, leaving Ollie to roam the streets of New York with her best friends Richard and Alex, drawing everything that catches her eye.

Then everything falls apart. Ollie's dad disappears in the middle of the night, leaving her only a cryptic note and instructions to destroy it. Her mom has gone to bed, and she's not getting up. Apollo is hiding something, Alex is acting strange, and Richard has questions about the mysterious stranger he saw outside. And someone keeps calling, looking for a missing piece of art. . . .

Olympia knows her dad is the key--but first, she has to find him, and time is running out.

Review: I thought this book was pretty cool. I loved the art mystery and the book is full of twist and turns. The characters are well developed and fun. The writing is spectacular. And I really loved how the author put a note in the back about mental illness and really broke it down and explained it to young readers. The author also provided phone numbers for the readers to call if needed.

However, I felt that the book was longer than it needed to be? Like it could have definitely ended earlier in my opinion. I felt that the pacing was a bit wonky, it was slow but fast then slow again. And overall I felt this book, while a cool art mystery, had some very concerning elements. The characters mother is suffering from depression and can't get out of bed. The father has run away to another country for a spoiler reason. The main characters teachers and adult friends do not realize the main character is wasting away (to quote "'you don't see the way she looks? Silent and starving, like something out of Dickens'... 'like a street urchin, totally neglected'"), the only character to do so is a random side character who's the mother of one of her friends. I don't know, I feel that this character was so neglected, which I bet was the intention of the book, but she should have been taken better care of. I feel angry that this child was neglected by basically everyone in the book and I feel that a teacher or that friends mother should have contacted child services to help the family and child. I feel that when the main character went to the hospital that if the main character was really wasting away as it was put in the book the doctors would have called social services. And at the end the book gives this sense of hope but from my experience and knowledge this child, if this was real, would have a lot of issues later in her life and would probably have some health issues from "silent and starving" as one adult put it in the book. I don't know, it just felt like the main character was secondary in her own book and I fear it might send a message that they're not worthy of receiving help if young readers don't read the back of the book.

Verdict: a really cool art mystery but maybe some adult guidance on the tougher subjects.

Disclaimer: I received this book from Book Sparks. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 4/5

Publication Date: May 21, 2019

Genre: Contemporary

Recommended Age: 17+ (dementia, illness, love, and hope in the face of death)

Publisher: She Writes Press

Pages: 288

Amazon Link

Synopsis: Sixty-three-year-old Dart Sommers―a professor of psychology and the founder of The Raindrop Institute (TRI), a think tank dedicated to eradicating poverty―is intelligent, resourceful, and ambitious. She has always considered her brain to be the best part of her. When she finds herself reacting inappropriately to situations at work and forgetting pieces of her day, she realizes that her mind is betraying her. Before she gets confirmation from a doctor, she knows her diagnosis: she has frontotemporal dementia (FTD). And whatever symptoms she’s experiencing now, they’re only going to get worse.

As she struggles with the reality of her illness, Dart finds herself falling for her friend Ash―who is her boss and the still-grieving widower whose wife died of FTD. As Dart’s health deteriorates and she faces conflict at work with a colleague who wants to take over TRI, she pushes Ash away, determined to spare him from more heartache. But he refuses to give up on her―and as events unfold, Dart begins to suspect that love, not decisions based on logic, might change everything.

Review: I thought the story was very interesting. I loved reading about the human brain and I love seeing how things work. I think the book is thought provoking and the story is very well written. The plot is also intriguing! The book isn’t very complex either, it’s an easy read, even though some of the things are a bit hard to understand.

However, I do think that the pacing is a bit off and the narration is a bit dry in places. But overall I really enjoyed this!


Verdict: Brains are fascinating!

Disclaimer: I received this book from Sparks Press. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Publication Date: April 23, 2019

Genre: Contemporary

Recommended Age: 17+ (love, loss, career vs family, and feeling inadequate)

Publisher: She Writes Press

Pages: 144

Amazon Link

Synopsis: After escaping an abusive relationship, Elizabeth finds herself struggling with immense feelings of inadequacy. Stuck in a small-town, eight to five job, she dreams of characters and plot lines―when she’s not thinking about babies. She wants another. Gabe, her love, does not. When her writing coach praises her talent and encourages her to write, Elizabeth dives in, resolved to pursue her dream of publishing once again and put her ideas about pregnancy on the back burner. But then everyone around her, from her cousin to the couple-that-never-would, starts announcing their own pregnancies, and her baby obsession comes rushing back―accompanied by a deep depression.

Frustrated with Gabe’s refusal to give her another child―as well as his questioning of her motives―Elizabeth finds herself considering a separation. Writing, meanwhile, becomes a tool for beating herself up over her inability to find her voice. Ultimately, she must face an abusive past to answer a complex question: Is having babies the answer, or simply a distraction from her immense feelings of inadequacy and fear―an elegant out? If she fails to uncover her truth, Elizabeth fears she might remain strangled, her voice squelched forever.

Review: I thought this story was pretty good. The writing does well to give voice to a woman who is confused and scared. The plot was intriguing and the characters were fairly well developed.

However, I found that the book was really unevenly paced. It felt choppy and disjointed, like walking on an uneven sidewalk. I couldn’t find my stride with this book and I struggled to connect with it. I think that was the point of the book, but it just didn’t convey well to me. And, at the end of my day, this just wasn’t the type of book I would normally read.

Verdict: It wasn’t for me, but it was a fairly good book! Go check it out!

Disclaimer: I received this book from Netgalley. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: Standalone

Rating: 3/5

Publication Date: September 26, 2017

Genre: Contemporary

Recommended Age: 17+ (self hate, abuse, victim blaming, and finding yourself)

Publisher: Simon Pulse

Pages: 353

Amazon Link

Synopsis: A half-Japanese teen grapples with social anxiety and her narcissist mother in the wake of a crushing rejection from art school in this debut novel.

Kiko Himura has always had a hard time saying exactly what she’s thinking. With a mother who makes her feel unremarkable and a half-Japanese heritage she doesn’t quite understand, Kiko prefers to keep her head down, certain that once she makes it into her dream art school, Prism, her real life will begin.

But then Kiko doesn’t get into Prism, at the same time her abusive uncle moves back in with her family. So when she receives an invitation from her childhood friend to leave her small town and tour art schools on the west coast, Kiko jumps at the opportunity in spite of the anxieties and fears that attempt to hold her back. And now that she is finally free to be her own person outside the constricting walls of her home life, Kiko learns life-changing truths about herself, her past, and how to be brave.

From debut author Akemi Dawn Bowman comes a luminous, heartbreaking story of identity, family, and the beauty that emerges when we embrace our true selves.

A William C. Morris Award Finalist; A New York Public Library Best Book for Teens of 2017; A Junior Library Guild Selection

Review: For the most part I really liked this book. I enjoyed the art connections and the writing was amazing. I loved the dualness presented between the “what I want to say” and the “what I actually said”. The character development is good and the story, the setting, and the writing is so vivid that it bounces off screen. I feel that the book does good at describing the more intense scenes in a brutal, honest fashion too. The book is also diverse and I love how the main character tries to learn more about her Japanese side and the traditions and culture.

However, I thought there were some very unsettling things in this book. There was a passage in the book where the main character is victim blaming herself, which I feel can give a very bad impression to.. .well anyone. Victim blaming shouldn’t even be a thing, but unfortunately it is and I don’t like seeing it in books, especially ones where I feel younger audiences can get the wrong impression. The main characters development feels very dependent on the romance of the book and the mother’s development is sorely lacking. But generally I feel that this book is and can be very triggering to people who have experienced or are experiencing abuse. I had a hard time reading the book personally.

Verdict: It’s a hard read, but it could be worth it to someone.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author. Thanks! All opinions are my own.

Book Series: I believe this will a standalone, but it might be a new series?

Rating: 4/5

Publication Date: May 21, 2019

Genre: Romance

Recommended Age: 18+ (mature love scene, language)

Publisher: n/a

Pages: 359

Amazon Link

Synopsis: Ambitious graduate Marin Collins accepts a four-month internship at a prestigious public relations firm to work on a tech account, but her plans are derailed when she’s assigned to go on the road with touring rock band Kings Quarters, hailed by Rolling Stone as the next big thing.

Enter Brad Osterhauser, the reluctant rock star who would rather be coding computer games than penning Grammy-nominated songs.

Traveling by bus, city to city with a group of practical joking bandmates and a greedy manager, Marin and Brad forge a friendship and forbidden romance over a shared love of Seinfeld episodes, stolen moments and Red Vines.

But when Marin’s accused of betraying her company and the band, will Brad come to her defense or believe she was disloyal to him for the sake of her career?

Told in alternating perspectives of Marin and Brad, Starfish is a contemporary romance of unexpected love, the redemptive power of music and hogging the bed.

Review: I thought this book was beautifully written. Lisa has a talent for writing and she can really pull at your heart strings. I was hooked quickly on this book and I loved the romance and I loved how she built the tension. The world building was also really well done.

I thought the pacing was a bit slow for me, but it really helped with the tension of the romance. I also felt that some of the side characters could have been a bit more developed, but overall I liked this book!

Verdict: A book for the music lovers.