Two friends decided to share their love of books with the world, dedicating their summer to reading and reviewing various types of Young Adult lit. Armed with their love for bad puns and free time for reading, Cabookle was born. If you have any questions or professional inquiries, email [email protected].
Things Jolie Needs to Do Before She Bites It - Review
Grades:
Overall: A
Plot: A
Character Development: A
Romance: A
Cover: B
I received a copy of this title from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
I didn’t know what to expect from Things Jolie Needs to Do Before She Bites It. I was a little scared, to be honest, that it would have negative beauty stereotypes and bad reputation. But that is not what it had at all.
Jolie has an underbite that she’s self-conscious about. She thinks she needs to be ‘fixed’ with surgery so that she looks normal. It’s an internalized struggle – no matter how many people tell her she’s beautiful, she can’t believe it. The thing is: I got it. I felt Jolie’s pain and fear. She’s real. She’s raw. And she’s a teenage girl with a facial difference that makes her want to disappear, not shine.
Over the course of the book, Jolie has to learn about accepting herself. I loved that she realized that the surgery wasn’t about fixing her face and making her pretty. I loved that she realized she was already pretty, and would still be pretty post-surgery.
Aside from Jolie, I loved the representation. I’m always on the lookout for positive body rep, especially with plus-size characters. Jolie’s friend Evelyn is plus-sized and she loves her body, loves fashion, and is all around an awesome character. Healthy, body-positive characters are important and this book is full of them!
The romance is swoony, the relationships between friends and sisters are heartbreaking and real, and I cried so much my head hurts. Overall, this book is a win, and I’m so glad I read it.
Playing Her Secret Crush by Casey Griffin - Advance Review
Grades:
Overall - C
Plot - B
Development - C
Romance - B
Cover - B
This title will be released on July 2nd!
I received a free copy from NetGalley in exchange for this review.
Conceptually I really liked this book. Gamer girls aren't looked down on or shamed, which is more than I can say of a lot of nerd girl books I've read in the past. I loved that the main character, Katie, is unapologetically nerdy. She's trying to wear more make up and dress differently to catch the attention of guys, but she doesn't hide what she loves. When she starts dating a guy who could not care less about her love for gaming, she doesn't let it stop her from talking about it. Katie was the best part of the entire book because she felt real to me. An awesome representation for nerd girls everywhere.
What could have been a really great story, though, fell flat for me. The different plots were never fully developed so we didn't get to see the characters grow as much as I'd hoped. It felt like the author tried to cram too much into the book and ran out of space to really dig deep into the plots. For example, the main character Alex lost his brother a few years earlier. Since then, he's been trying to fulfill a promise to his brother: live life to the fullest. We get to see a little bit of Alex coming to understand what his brother meant when he asked for this promise, but it's not quite a full arc. This plot could be the premise for an entire book, not just a sub plot. That was disappointing to me.
Overall, it's not a bad book. It goes way in depth with the game they all love to play to the point where I felt like I was playing, too. The romance is cute. But it could have been better, which is why I'm only giving it three stars.
Just One of the Royals by Leah and Kate Rooper - Review
Grades:
Overall - C
Plot - C
Development - C
Romance - B
Cover - A
I received a free copy of this book in exchange for this honest review.
*** Review Contains Some Spoilers***
Hockey books are the perfect winter reads (and pretty much perfect year round). I read Leah and Kate's first book in the Chicago Falcons series, Just One of the Boys, and loved it. That one is kind of a Twelfth Night (or She's the Man if you're not familiar with the Shakespeare version) retelling with secrets and lies and easy to love/hate characters. Just One of the Royals picks up a little bit before Just One of the Boys left off which confused me a bit. Even after that, this book just never hooked me the way the first one did.
I liked that we got a different take on the secret royal trope. Madison, the female narrator, is dealing with a lot of non-Daniel related things outside of their relationship and plot which I thought added value to the story. Daniel struggles with knowing that he's the bastard son of a king, making him the rightful heir. Not exactly something a teen wants to deal with.
Daniel is to be king after his father died suddenly less than a year earlier. Daniel grew up in the US, barely knowing his father or his country, and everyone knows he's not fit to rule. But if Daniel doesn't take the throne, his younger sister has to get married to a creep. She can't become queen without a king, even though she loves her country and would be an awesome queen.
My biggest problem with the story, and here's where the spoilers come in, is that Daniel and Eva (his sister) talk extensively about how only a male can be the heir to the throne and only a king can change the laws. Yet neither of them ever thinks hey, why doesn't Daniel accept the throne and then change the law and give the throne to Eva? Problem solved! Of course, this is what happens eventually, but I couldn't possibly believe that they could be SO smart and talk SO much about how only kings can make new laws, yet never think to come up with this plot.
Daniel's story is the primary plot in the book so it overshadows Madison's dreams a bit. What she wants is to be an actress, but her parents want her to be a doctor. Helping Daniel as the crown prince in Eldonia could secure her an audition thanks to Daniel's sister, but at what cost?
Madison wasn't a likable character for me. She overhears Daniel's royal status and immediately spread it around to their friends - so not cool. At that point she became irredeemable and then it just kept getting worse.
Overall an interesting read, but not one I would readily recommend. If you like the surprise royalty tropes, go for it, but if you're looking for an interesting story with great characters, stick with the first book in this series. Much better than this one!
Spies, Lies, and Allies: A Love Story by Lisa Brown Roberts - Review
Grades:
Overall - A
Development - B
Romance - A
Plot - A
Cover - B
I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for this honest review.
Mystery and romance are my two favorite things, and they collide beautifully in Lisa Brown Roberts' sweet, funny, and easy-to-read contemporary YA!
Laurel isn't too keen on working for her dad over the summer. Even less so when she finds out she'll have to vote on the winner of her dad's scholarship contest. There's another company kid in the group, but she's not exactly an ally from the beginning. Seeing Laurel struggle with her place among the teens and learning how to be friends with Trish is really interesting. Lisa delves a lot into the friendship dynamics between Laurel, Trish, and the kids who are actually vying for the scholarship, including love interest Carlos. I loved seeing the different characters interact in this space because there's a lot of pressure on all of them to get the scholarship and the closer Laurel becomes to the group, the less sure she is that she'll be able to pick just one in the end.
Then there's the mystery. Someone at Laurel's dad's company is spreading company secrets on social media. Laurel is determined to figure out who it is because no matter what, she doesn't want her dad's business to fail. I think the mystery added depth to the already intricate social plot. Figuring out who was sabotaging Laurel's dad - and one of the interns - brought the kids closer together and threatened to tear them apart. It was a great balance that kept me on the edge of my seat the whole time!
Laurel's romantic escapades are secondary to the rest of the story, but as the title says, it's still a love story. You won't be disappointed with who she ends up with and how cute their relationship is as it unfolds. There are bumps in the road, but they handle them well and make it to an awesome ending you're sure to love!
I highly recommend this book. It's a quick read, but it has deep story lines that keep it interesting and exciting!
Overall – B
Character Development – A
Romance – A
Plot – B
Cover – A
*** This book will be published on June 19, 2018***
I received a free copy of this title in exchange for my honest review. Thank you Netgalley, Nicole Williams, and Random House Children’s for the opportunity.
Jade wants to give up her nomadic lifestyle for a summer so she can see what it’s like to be a Regular Teenager. Leaving behind the only person who has ever been there for her, her Rockstar mother, Jade spends the summer with her aunt and uncle in California. Of course, there’s more to it than normalcy. Jade has a secret reason for spending her summer in California, and when it comes time to fulfill her plan, Jade gets less than she bargained for.
I felt like I really got Jade. She grew up on the road with her mom, who had her as a teenager, and she valued the traveling life she lived. However, she wanted the chance to spend time learning what it was like to be normal. Jade’s aunt is stifling but she means well, and she lets Jade get a job where she meets love interest Quentin. Jade grows as a person from start to finish, and she made for a great story.
I started to feel hesitant about this book when I figured out the Twist. Quentin has a secret that changes literally everything. I didn’t think enough time was given to fully evaluate this twist. I don’t want to give too much away, but Quentin’s secret is way too big to resolve in like forty pages. I think the book was coming from a good place, but this secret didn’t get the chance to bloom fully.
I also felt like the ending was abrupt. We don’t really get to see the resolutions, we just hear about them. I wish we’d seen more of the conversations rather than just getting told what happened. And I really wanted Jade’s aunt and her mom to come to blows because Jade’s aunt was a jerk who said toxic, mean things about Jade’s mom TO JADE. Not okay, and I wanted to see this fight. But I didn’t get that.
Despite my hesitations, I liked the book overall. The plot could have used more time but it worked. It’s a good read that makes you think, so I recommend it!
Overall - A
Plot - A
Character Development - A
Romance - C (appropriately so)
Cover - A
The Hate U Give is a New York Times Bestseller for a reason. A refreshing, honest take on race-prompted police brutality, Angie Thomas gives you the story of Starr Carter: a black teenage girl who attends a fancy suburban prep school (a girl of two worlds) and witnesses the death of her childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer, despite being unarmed. This tale hits close to home - mostly because it is happening much too frequently. A great book for ALL audiences to pick up, I highly recommend you add it to your list immediately.
The plot picks up pretty quickly, mostly because it needs to get through the tragic events the propel the story. However, the focus of the story moves more towards the trial, the media reflection, and the aftermath of her testimony. The story itself is written realistically, using the vernacular and slang for all characters without sugarcoating the tragedy. Angie covers ideas of racism, of ‘I’m not racist but’, of brutality, of talking to the police, of having an Uncle as a police officer, and of being black both in a black world and in a white world too. There is SO much going on in this text that it would take me weeks to write an appropriately balanced review. As a book I read in my graduate college class with other wannabe teachers, I can honestly say we had too much to talk about. For any teachers out there, this could be a fantastic addiction to your classroom library - or as the book for a human rights unit! Really, I don’t want to go into too much detail about what she does over the course of the novel, but Starr deals with a lot from all angles of her life - from her friends back home to her friends at school; to her family’s reaction and their feelings of betrayal; of the danger she faces for speaking out publicly, both from media and from her own neighbors. It is a dangerous world - and Angie picked an appropriate narrator: a girl who could be anyone we know, yet still has so much occurring. A girl we want to root for - we want to care for - even if we have to overcome some of our own racist understandings to get there.
Obviously character development happens. Starr is NOT the same girl she was before - and nor are half the characters in the text. Her challenging of others - of their racism, of their stereotyping, of their inability to act - it all pushes them to grow, too. Some do; some don’t. All in all, the development within this book is excellent.
The romance was sub-par, but appropriately so. If we put romance at the forefront of the text, it would not do justice to the injustices of the story - to the injustices that occur all around us. She still has a relationship - she is a teen after all - but her relationship is not the most important element in her life. No, there is so much more than that. I am not upset by Angie’s lack of inclusion of romance because it was not appropriate; not for the story we are reading. But it is there in some quantities - and when it is there, it is pretty good.
Again, this book is a must-read for anyone who is remotely human. It is a great role taking experience because not only does she have to switch roles every day, but she has to come to terms with how her Uncle is associated with police officers; that not all officers are bad, but there are still too many unarmed black men dying. It is a book I will reread again and again. Read it. You will NOT regret it.
Grades:
Overall - A
Plot - A
Character Development - B
Romance - B
Cover - A
One Of Us Is Lying has been on my radar since I first heard it was going to be published. Just the premise of it - a murder mystery version of the Breakfast Club - sounds pretty cool. Picture it now: five students - the brain, the beauty, the criminal, the athlete, and the outcast - are sitting in detention. Only partway through, the outcast dies - and it wasn’t an accident. The outcast Simon is the creator of the high school’s notorious gossip app and he was set to release terrible secrets about all four of his fellow detention-mates. Now they’re all suspects in his murder.
The plot is very interesting. At first, I honestly had no idea ‘whodunit’. As the book switches perspectives between all the characters, you have no idea which narrator to trust - and who isn’t being completely honest. The twists and turns within the chapters were refreshing and confusing in the best way a murder mystery could be. Plus, all of it was very approachable and realistic for a group of four high school students! As they try to solve his murder themselves, so much is uncovered and I couldn’t help but enjoy every second. The only downside was that about three quarters into the book I figured out who the murderer was - and they just couldn’t see it. And even when they did, it got dragged on a little too long. I still gave the plot an A for its originality and entertaining value, but I hope that Karen’s next book will hold on to its secret for a little longer.
The character development was honestly the book’s best quality. Each one of the leads goes through some dramatic reveal because of the juicy secrets, and they are forced to change their lives. However, each one changes for the better - they become more honest with themselves, more secure in their individuality, and thus better adults. On a realistic note, the book doesn’t have some happy fairy tale ending for all of them - life moves on, but things aren’t pretty and perfect, which I absolutely adore. The characters change and grow, but there is still opportunity for more growth past the ending - which is A LOT to do in a three hundred page book. Kudos to her!
The romance department was pretty good, but a little...typical. Out of all the parts of the book, I would say it was its weakness. While I appreciated the romance and her ability to draw out a feeling of intimacy in just two people watching a movie, the set ups were obvious and underwhelming. Compared to the rest of the book, this was probably its weakest point. I still enjoyed it - I love me some bad romance - but it could have been a little less predictable. The ending was probably the BEST part of the entire romance plot - but mostly because it isn’t typical for YA books.
Overall, I think this is a great novel and for her debut book, Karen has done a fantastic job. I am looking forward to seeing what else she puts out there. Between her ability to switch protagonists, keep the plot rolling, AND the clear voices between them all, I’d say she’s an author to keep an eye on.
Love Beyond Opposites by Molly E. Lee - Advance Review
Grades:
Overall – C
Plot – C
Character Development – C
Character Romance – B
Cover – B
*** This title will be released on May 7th, 2018***
I received a free copy of Love Beyond Opposites from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review. Thank you Netgalley, Molly E. Lee, and Entangled Teen for this opportunity!
Love Beyond Opposites is book three in Molly E. Lee’s Grad Night Series. This book follows Rockstar Lennon and mathlete Jade over the course of their graduation night. The two characters have to come to terms with what it means to follow their dreams, and whether or not there is room for love while they pursue their passions.
While I loved the other two books in Molly’s series, this one fell flat for me. Lennon and Jade were interesting characters, but the plot felt better suited for a novella than the full length novel we got. The story was too slow for me, which was surprising considering we only had one night to follow.
Like I said, Lennon and Jade themselves were great. Their experiences paralleled each other and they had to work together to come to terms with their feelings about their futures. Lennon wants to be a rock star and he’s going to do whatever it takes to make that happen. He’s on his way, though. His band is opening for a huge group over the summer, and Lennon’s graduation party is setting the stage for an audition with a record executive that could extend the tour and land his band a deal. Lennon’s parents are supportive of his music career, but they want him to go to college. It takes Jade’s help to get his parents on board, plus Lennon realizes education is important too, and he comes up with a compromise in the end.
Jade’s mother is completely unsupportive of her true passion, which is drawing. Jade is also an amazing math student with a genius level brain, and her mom wants her to be practical and use her math skills to get a degree and join her at her lab. Jade wants to write and draw a graphic novel, though, much to her mother’s chagrin. For Jade, college is an escape. With Lennon’s help, Jade is able to convince her mom that drawing is an important and valuable degree for her to pursue. Unfortunately, this conversation takes place off the page, which added to what I didn’t like about the book.
Despite the characters being awesome, I felt like the book could have been so much better. The plot was flat and easily resolved. The book was extremely repetitive, especially in Lennon’s POV. He’d been in love with Jade forever but couldn’t act on it because of his dad and because he was about to go on tour. The reader gets this explanation so many times I wanted to stop reading the book. We get it! The repetitiveness and the boring plot made me not like this book as much as I wanted to.
Love Beyond Opposites is a quick read with great characters, but because of the boring plot it was hard to really get into the story as much as I’d wanted to. Still, worth a read to see how these two characters handle grad night, especially if you liked the other two books in the series!
Overall – A
Character Development – A
Romance – A
Plot – B
Cover – B
I received a free copy of Rules of Rebellion from NetGalley in exchange for this review. Thank you NetGalley, Entangled, and Amity Hope for the opportunity!
Kylie has never done anything that wasn’t expected of her. The candy making queen is every parents’ dream, much to Kylie’s younger sister’s chagrin. With her sister’s berating comments and her own interests in a certain boy, Kylie knows she has to change her ways. She comes up with a list of ways to rebel against her parents’ strict rules. Her friend Leo, who has been into her forever, is more than happy to help with her list.
I loved Leo and Kylie as friends, and even more as their relationship bloomed into romance. Leo was crushing hard on Kylie, which made their romance even better. The fact that Leo brought Kylie out of her bubble and Kylie encouraged Leo’s dreams was perfect. I loved these two together!
The twist was pretty obvious once Leo and Kylie started discussing their siblings. When it all came to fruition, I was heartbroken for both of them. I felt Kylie’s pain and confusion. I felt Leo’s sorrow and how apologetic he was. And I really liked how the parents dealt with what they found out.
The book could have used a bit more character development, but overall I felt like it was a strong plot with two characters I wanted to love and root for. I definitely recommend this book!
Overall – C
Plot – D
Character Development – A
Romance – B
Cover – B
I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review. Thank you Netgalley, Entangled, and Chris Cannon for this opportunity.
The Dating Debate is about next door neighbors Nina and West who end up dating mostly because West wanted to get his ex girlfriend off his back and Nina wanted the guy her brother tried to set her up with off of her back. It was entirely a relationship of convenience, but it turns into a strong and powerful relationship between two people who needed love in their lives.
What this book did well: living with someone (or two people) with mental health issues. West’s mom is a hoarder and his dad isn’t outright diagnosed but he has asocial behaviors and obsessive compulsive tendencies. Living in his house is hard for West. He can’t invite people over and he can’t fix his mother’s problem. He tries to empty out their trash filled home a little at a time, but he barely makes a dent in the “collections” all over their house.
There’s this powerful moment where West is having dinner with his parents and he finally admits, in an intense outburst, that his entire life revolves around protecting his family. He broke up with Nina for the sake of his family, losing the one thing that made him forget how things were at home and make him believe in moving forward. In a future outside of his suffocating house. This outburst was especially important because it didn’t fix things. It didn’t even make things better, really. But it gave West a voice when he felt hopeless and his father finally acknowledged the sacrifices that West has made to keep everything balanced in their home life.
Where this book lacked: Nina. I loved Nina at first. She’s a debater and that’s awesome. She loves to argue and be logical. Healthy arguments are great, and Nina was great at having them. Until she and West disagreed over what should happen to the library that was falling apart. West was getting extra credit to help turn the old library into a recycling center. Nina wanted to protect the library and keep it open until the new library was built. Nina thought that her way was the right way and the “better option” and got angry with West for not seeing that. I got angry with Nina for being a selfish brat.
It’s fine to have an opinion. It’s great, even. But an important part of any debate is seeing both sides clearly. Yeah, you have to argue your side and you want your side to “win” in a debate setting, but you have to acknowledge the other argument too. Nina acted like turning the library into a recycling center was the most ridiculous thing and wouldn’t listen to any of the reasons that maybe it wasn’t so bad. Her I’m right and you’re wrong attitude had me obsessed with Nina’s character up until the library debate began. I wanted to grab her by the shoulders and tell her that just because it’s her opinion doesn’t make it the better option. It wasn’t like a new library wasn’t coming! It was just going to be a little while before it opened. So Nina lost my love when it turned out she refused to listen to both sides of an argument and debate it openly. She only cared about her side.
The other problem I had was the basic lack of a major plot. Nina and West’s relationship had a nice arc as did West’s home life, but I felt like the main storyline never really came through. The library debate was pretty anticlimactic, but the ending revolves around that so I guess it’s the main plot. It all felt too subdued, though, like a series of events rather than a major story. I was disappointed in that sense.
Overall, though, this was still a good read. If not for anything else, for its portrayal of West’s home life and the way he develops throughout the book. Nina may not have become the character she could have been, but West got his full arc and that made me glad to have finished the book.
Overall – B
Plot – A
Character Development – A
Romance – B
Cover – B
I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review. Thank you Netgalley, Entangled, and Molly E. Lee for this opportunity.
Love Between Enemies is the follow up to Molly’s Love in the Friend Zone. The books take place over the course of the same night, grad night, but follow two different couples. In Love Between Enemies, Zoey is pissed at Gordon. And rightfully so. He totally messed up her valedictorian speech, her big moment, by making his own speech as jerky as possible. Gordon had a reason, of course – he thought Zoey betrayed him on purpose. Basically the entire book happens because of a misunderstanding that made a competitive streak between two students into a full on rivalry.
Zoey wants payback and in order to do it, she lures Gordon into being her friend and then sabotages his chances at an internship they’re both going for. She doesn’t expect to fall in love with him along the way. And of course her best friend is too busy with her own problems (see Love in the Friend Zone) to help, so Zoey ends up digging herself into a hole she has to struggle to climb out of.
I was surprised by how real this book was. Zoey is a spoiled rich girl with daddy’s money backing up any decision she makes. But she doesn’t want her dad’s company to be all she’s known for. She wants to make her own name in the world, and that’s highly respectable. Zoey may have been a spoiled rich girl, but she never acted that way and she worked hard to get to where she was. Zoey is a character to admire and look up to, even though she makes a lot of mistakes in the book.
Gordon isn’t a spoiled rich kid. He’s actually the opposite, and he’s got a lot on his place. His mother died and his father may lose the business that Gordon loves. He finds out about the possible closing of the restaurant the morning of graduation, and then he finds out he lost a scholarship to Zoey. Like I said, his speech, while extremely cruel to Zoey, had a lot of emotional baggage behind it. I’m not saying what he did was right, but I’m glad that he was a redeemable character. It was nice that he wasn’t a jerk to be a jerk and that Gordon was deeply examined as a character.
Together, Gordon and Zoey are not surprising at all. They’re fiercely motivated and competitive. They make perfect sense together. They’ve spent so much time competing that they’ve only succeeded in making each other better as people and as students. What was surprising was that Zoey would try to seduce Gordon only to tear him down. After what he did to Zoey during graduation, payback was inevitable. Ruining Gordon’s entire future? Probably not the most redeemable quality in Zoey. She did make everything better in the end, though, which is why I still support Zoey.
This book isn’t as quick to read as some of Entangled’s other books because of the emotional depth of both characters and the ultimate betrayal committed by (and fixed by) Zoey in the final third of the book. It’s still a one sitting kind of book, but it did take me a bit longer than even Love in the Friend Zone did. I’m not complaining – it’s great to see emotional complexity in seemingly childish books. Way to go, Molly!
Overall – B
Plot – B
Character Development – B
Romance – B
Cover – B
I received an advance copy of this book from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review. Thank you Netgalley, Entangled, and Amanda Ashby for this opportunity.
The Heartbreak Cure is a traditional take on the fake boyfriend turned real trope, but I can’t get enough of books like this. Cat’s boyfriend destroys her heart over the summer so she enlists the help of her super-hot friend/former neighbor to be her fake boyfriend in order to protect her spot on the school newspaper. She doesn’t expect it to turn into a real relationship but readers are well aware that’s where it’s going. Still, it’s a fun read!
What I loved most was Alex’s relationship with his grandmother. They’re super tight and it helps the reader to see the side of Alex that his peers don’t always get to see. Alex is a well rounded character who puts on a face for different people and has made mistakes in the past, but when it all comes down to it, he’s just a guy who loves Birdie and cares about his best friend enough to offer to help bury the body, just in case.
I did find the stakes to be a little hard to believe. It was clear that Cat’s position on the paper was important to her, but it seemed strange that her position was in jeopardy at all. The drama there felt forced but I appreciated the attempt at spinning the fake relationship story in a new way.
Overall, it’s a good book. Another one of those quick reads that you can get through in one sitting, but it’ll definitely make you think. Cat’s character is a little blah, but Alex’s depth makes up for that in a huge way. His character alone is enough to make reading the book worth it.
Just one of the Boys by Leah and Kate Rooper - Review
Grades:
Overall – B
Plot – B
Character Development – B
Romance – A
Cover – B
I received a copy of Just One of the Boys from NetGalley in exchange for this honest review. Thank you NetGalley, Entangled, and Leah and Kate Rooper for this opportunity!
Alice and her twin brother Xander are new to Chicago and dreaming of playing hockey for the Chicago Falcons. Tryouts go well and Alice makes the team – until coach realizes she’s a girl and gives her spot to her twin brother, even though Xander didn’t exactly nail the tryout. Conveniently enough, Xander gets injured and needs a stand in until he’s cleared to play. Enter Alice, as a boy, and you get a Comedy of Errors playing out on the ice.
I think the girl-pretending-to-be-a-boy storyline here was nicely played out. Alice, however, is a very unlikeable character. She’s a selfish brat throughout, though she does see some development that made her somewhat redeemable. The fact that she was blind to Xander’s struggles when he cared so much for her made me want to scream. Honestly, how could she not know Xander’s “big” secret? It was obvious to me from the beginning.
Which, of course, is due to the authors’ use of stereotypes when creating Xander’s character. (spoiler alert!) Xander feels more at home on stage with his theater group than on the ice, where he doesn’t exactly excel. Good at theater and not so great at sports? Must be gay! I saw that plot twist coming from the moment we met Xander and I wasn’t a fan. It was especially annoying that Alice could be so oblivious when he brother was going through a rough time. Alice’s (ex) boyfriend threatening to out him? Not cool. But Alice thought it was all about her. Also not cool.
Hayden was a cool character, though. The usual frustration that he didn’t realize Al was Alice was there, but I liked that they built a strong friendship. It was a rocky start with Hayden despising Al, but they patched things up and Hayden’s character development was incredible. It was nice to see him figuring out his emotions and working through his problems. I wish Alice had done more of that.
The best thing about Alice is that she’s a fighter, and I don’t mean physically. She wanted to be on the hockey team so she figured out a way to do it. And then when her charade was up, Alice got herself a spot on the team as herself, not as her twin brother. That made her a character to admire, despite her other shortcomings.
Overall, this book is a great take on Shakespeare’s Comedy of Errors (which predates She’s the Man, obviously) and is a perfect read as the weather cools down and hockey season is in full swing.
Suggested Reading: Cate Cameron’s Corrigan Falls Raiders series. I especially like Winging It, but they’re all great!
Plot – C
Character Development – B
Romance – A
Overall – B
Cover – A
I received a copy of Approximately Yours by Julie Hammerle in exchange for this review. Thank you Julie, Entangled, and Netgalley for this opportunity!
Approximately Yours is told in alternating third person POV and follows Danny and Holly as they navigate love and a gingerbread house competition. Danny, recently cheated on by his girlfriend of a million years, is convinced he’s terrible at relationships. Holly has self-conscious issues up the wazoo and after a moons ago failed attempt with a friend she had a crush on, she hasn’t put herself out there and has settled for assuming no one will ever fall in love with her. Enter Elda, Holly’s way cool older cousin who is beautiful and has men flocking to her from all sides, and Holly is convinced she has to step even further into the shadows in order to survive their brief trip to North Pole.
Elda sets her sights on Danny but she’s not great at the whole talking to guys thing. So Holly does all the talking for her, including over texts when Danny thinks he’s texting with Elda. That goes as well as you might imagine.
The thing is, I’m so used to the best friend being the toxic one in the relationship. But that’s not the case here! It’s Holly! And I get that she has body and self-conscious issues (trust me, I do). It’s no excuse to force her cousin to be with Danny even when Elda admits she’s not really feeling it. It’s just nerves or anxiety or whatever, she says. You belong together!
Holly is transmitting her own emotional connection to Danny onto Elda because she assumes Danny is only into girls who look like Elda. Of course, Danny was head over heels for Holly the first time they met. As guys are in books (less so in reality).
Unfortunately, Holly’s toxicity is never really addressed in a positive way. No one calls her out for pushing Elda into a relationship she didn’t want to be in, even after Elda falls for a guy she actually does like. Without Holly’s help, no less!
Despite Holly being a wholly unlikable character for me, I did love Danny. He had a lot going for him and a leg injury forced him to stand back and evaluate his position with his team, his (ex) girlfriend, and his future. Being injured was the push he needed to get into engineering, a passion he let go when basketball picked up. Danny was the redeeming factor in this book because his character did develop. He carried the story, in my opinion, and so I had to grade accordingly.
What almost ruined the entire thing: the ending. Wow. (Spoiler ahead, skip to next paragraph). Elda and Dinesh are engaged? And they bought Elda and Holly’s grandmother’s house? You’ve got to be kidding me. Elda spends weeks humoring her cousin and “dating” Danny even though there’s zero chemistry there. She’s with Dinesh all of a couple of days when he proposes and then all of a sudden they bought a house? They’re college age students! Ridiculous. I get wanting to give Elda a “happy ending” after everything Holly put her through, but wow. Are we really supposed to believe a strong, healthy relationship could have been built between two people in that amount of time? I don’t think so.
Truthfully, if you want something fast and Christmas-y, give this one a shot. Otherwise, you can go ahead and skip it. I don’t feel strongly either way, which probably says a lot about the quality of this book.
Suggested Reading: Any Boy But You by Julie Hammerle. This is another book in the North Pole standalone series, but it’s a lot better!
Breaking the Rules of Revenge by Samantha Bohrman - Review
Grades:
Plot – B
Character Development – C
Romance – B
Overall – B
Cover – A
I received a copy of Breaking the Rules of Revenge by Samantha Bohrman in exchange for this honest review. Thank you Sarah, NetGalley, and Entangled for this opportunity!
Breaking the Rules of Revenge is your typical Parent Trap story. Twin sisters Mallory and Blake trade places when Blake is sentenced to summer camp rather than prison for her most recent prank. All Blake has to do is pass math for Mallory and Mallory will spend her summer doing arts and crafts and going on long hikes. It seems like the perfect plan until Blake’s arch nemesis turns up at camp as well. The story is told in alternating POV’s, Mallory and Ben.
Let’s start with what works: Summer Camp as a setting. This book is a part of the Endless Summer standalone series by Entangled, so frequent visitors to the Crush shelves will notice the camp and a couple characters seem pretty familiar. I am obsessed with using camp as a setting in YA. Partly because I never went to summer camp as a teen (I did, however, attend girl scout camp when I was in elementary school) and partly because it’s so much more fun than being in high school. With a few exceptions, these are summer friends! The stakes are entirely different. Love it.
Also, the dynamic between Mallory and Ben. Despite their prank filled rocky beginning, there’s a connection between our two main characters that builds to a climax and then builds again. While lacking on character development in a lot of ways, these two do have a lot of chemistry built into the novel and I can appreciate that.
What didn’t work: Mallory and Blake’s relationship. Blake is a terrible sister. She walks all over Mallory and doesn’t care, even when she realizes she’s doing it in the end. I wanted a fight! A huge blowout! One that ended in a mutual understanding but not a tearful hug and a promise to be better. I have a sister and I know any promise of the sort would be a blatant lie. But sisters fight even if Mallory seems pretty level headed (with a few exceptions). A major screaming match between the twins would have given this novel a level it is currently missing.
And, as I mentioned before, this book is seriously lacking in the character development department. Mallory feels one dimensional to me despite a ton of opportunities for improvement. She’s pretending to be her outgoing sister for the summer! That has to make a girl realize a thing or two about herself. And yeah, in a small way she does, but just like the sister fight this was a missed opportunity that would have made the novel even better than it already is.
Like all Entangled Crush books, this is a fun, quick read. If you’re as sad as I am about summer ending and you’re not quite ready to embrace the pumpkin spice lattes quite yet, immerse yourself in summer camp for a few hundred pages. You won’t regret it.
Suggested Reading: the other Entangled Crush Endless Summer books, including Keeping Her Secret which I haven’t read yet but am dying to!
Overall – A
Plot – A
Character Development – B
Character Romance – A
Cover – A
I received a free copy of Tied Up in You from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review. Thank you Netgalley, Entangled, and Erin Fletcher for this opportunity!
What do you do when you accidentally kiss your best friend?
You pretend it never happened and then pine over them, obviously.
At least that’s how Jackson and Malina handle it when a spooky sound during a scary movie leads to a steamy kitchen kiss when Jackson first gets back from an away trip for hockey. Of course, the fact that Malina jumped back and made Jackson promise never to kiss her again probably didn’t help their budding relationship. Nor did Jackson’s teammate falling for Malina.
As in all good friends to more than friends stories, Malina and Jackson are pulled together and thrown apart by forces they can and cannot control. Beneath the romance, though, lies some deeper parental stress and general teenage problems that make the book even more interesting to read.
I loved Jackson. We knew him briefly from Erin’s other book and it was nice to see him get his own story line this time around. He was just jerky enough to be believable but also a genuinely nice guy when it all came down to it. Malina was likable enough, but she didn’t strike my fancy as much as Jackson did.
What bothered me about this book was the science project. I think there was a little more interference than there should have been here and it frustrated me because of the integrity of a science project. I understand Jackson wanting to help Malina, but I felt he might have gone a little too far with it. At least he didn’t actually finish it for her – that would’ve been a deal breaker for me.
I know that this was Malina and Jackson’s story, but I would have loved to see more of their double dates, Krista and Troy (maybe in a future book?!). It would have made for an excellent sub plot that would have added some depth to this story that I think was needed. I liked the drama that Troy added to Malina and Jackson’s lives but Krista definitely deserved more screen time for being so cool.
That post double date make out scene, though? I had to fan myself it was so hot.
If you’re into steamy kisses, hockey players, and bffs turned bfs, this book is definitely for you. It’s quick, it’s fun, and it’s super cute. Definitely on my recommend list!
Suggested Reading: All Laced Up also by Erin Fletcher. It’s sort of book one in this standalone series, so you’ll meet Jackson and some of the other characters in Tied Up in You.
The Perfectly Imperfect Match by Julie Hammerle - Review
Grades:
Overall – B
Plot – B
Character Development – B
Character Romance – A
Cover – B
I received a copy of The Perfectly Imperfect Match from Netgalley in exchange for this honest review. Thank you Entangled, Kendra C. Highley, and Netgalley for this opportunity!
Lucy and Dylan each have a plan and those plans definitely don’t include white hot chemistry bubbling up between them. Dylan has big league dreams and doesn’t think he should have to bother with college. He’d rather be drafted right into the minors. And Lucy loves her cross stitching and has her life mapped out – college, business degree, open a store just like the one her mom runs so she can sell her crafts.
Of course, nothing can go as planned for our main characters or we wouldn’t have a book. We follow along as Dylan and Lucy fight their attraction, and then give in to it, only to have a bad tryout threaten to destroy everything they’ve built together.
I did like this book. It was a great addition to the Suttonville Sentinels series. And I liked that Dylan got to have his own romance in this book after striking out in Swinging At Love. Lucy is a great character who is quirky enough to be awesome but not annoying, which is a difficult thing to master I think.
The subplot with the chickens honestly broke my heart, and I don’t want to spoil it because it was beautiful, but just know that chickens are awesome and I am all for fighting for them.
What I didn’t like about this book was the ending. Not only was it way too neat and tidy for my liking, but it just didn’t make sense. I’m going to spoil it for you so skip to the next paragraph if you don’t want to be spoiled: Dylan and Lucy go to college together. For real? No! I like that Dylan decides to go to college because as much as I love baseball players, going straight into the minors from high school is hard and dangerous. Better to hone your craft first. The problem is that Lucy knew where she wanted to go and changed her mind so she could be with Dylan, her boyfriend of a few months. Ugh. Yes, at least Lucy found her major at Dylan’s school, but honestly I was so frustrated that it almost ruined the book for me. But it didn’t, because aside from the unfortunate ending, Dylan and Lucy were really great characters that made me love them.
I think if you love baseball (I know I do) and are looking for a nice spring/summer read, The Perfectly Imperfect Match is a good choice (side note: I don’t grade titles but if I did, this one would get an F).
Suggested Reading: Swinging at Love by Kendra C. Highley. It’s technically book 2 in the series (all of the books are standalones but do share characters), but I didn’t really like the first one and the cover of this one is SO CUTE.
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