Book Review | To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han

Format: Kindle
Source: Purchased
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: April 15, 2014
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister's ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all

 

My Thoughts:

I must admit that from the beginning of this book up until about 15% in, I really didn't think I was going to like it. It just started out a little too slow for my taste. BUT, I'm so glad that I stuck with it because it is such a wonderful story and I absolutely adored these characters.

Lara Jean has written 'goodbye' letters to any boy that she's every loved as a way to wipe her hands clean and move on. These were letters that were meant solely for her and no one else was ever supposed to read them, especially the ones that were written for. So when Peter K. comes up to her one day at school holding a letter that she had written to him years ago she is stunned. However, it turns out that her letters getting sent out may be one of the best things that could have happened.

I really liked the fact that this book isn't just about the romance either, it also has such a strong family dynamic and I love that. It's not often that we see books that have such a strong family bond in YA so I'm always excited when I finally come across one.

I really liked Lara Jean as the MC, she felt really genuine and it was extremly easy to connect with her. There's also a very complicated love triangle, well I guess square would be more appropriate (read it and you'll see what I mean) so I don't really want to give anything away about the love interest. Let's just say that I really liked one at the beginning of this book and not so much the other and by the end it was kind of vice versa.

And Kitty! She was absolutely adorable, I wish that I had a younger sister like her (I'm an only child :( ) to keep things interesting. I didn't really connect to much with Margot, Lara Jeans older sister and the oldest of the Song girls. I don't know what it was about her that I didn't click with, but it just wasn't there.

Overall, To All the Boys I've Loved Before is an cute and intriguing contemporary that will leave you wanting more. While it did take a while to warm up once the story got going, I couldn't have put it down even if I wanted to. I look forward to see what happens next with Lara Jean.

----Christy

Deal Discoveries

 

I love finding good deals on Kindle and I figured that I'm not the only one so Deal Discoveries is a way for me to share the awesome deals that I found!

 

I'm not sure how long these will last so snatch them up while you can!

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Happy Reading!

 

 

Sunday Showdown (12) July 2014

 

Since it's almost July, I figured it would be fitting to put a few of July covers against each other!

 

Here's the Contenders

 

 

Let the Showdown begin!!

 

 

 

Which cover is your favorite?
	Coral & Bone
	The Kiss Of Deception
	Unravel
	Defiant
	The Vanishing Season
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Book Review | Things I Can't Forget by Miranda Kenneally

Series: Hundred Oaks # 3

Format: Paperback

 Source: Traded

Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

Publication Date: March 1, 2013

Goodreads | Amazon

  

 Companion to Catching Jordan and Stealing Parker.

Kate has always been the good girl. Too good, according to some people at school—although they have no idea the guilty secret she carries. But this summer, everything is different…

This summer she’s a counselor at Cumberland Creek summer camp, and she wants to put the past behind her. This summer Matt is back as a counselor too. He’s the first guy she ever kissed, and he’s gone from a geeky songwriter who loved The Hardy Boys to a buff lifeguard who loves to flirt--with her.

Kate used to think the world was black and white, right and wrong. Turns out, life isn’t that easy…

Read an excerpt here.

Note: Mature themes, sexual situations, religious discussions.

My Thoughts

After reading and loving both Catching Jordan and Stealing Parker, I couldn’t wait to get my hands on Things I Can’t Forget because I just knew that it was going to be amazing and that I would fall in love with it just as I had the previous books in the series.  Sadly, I didn’t love it as much as I did the other books in this series.

Honestly, I really struggled with this book in the beginning and I almost put it down a few times.  The reason why I had such a hard time with this book at first was mostly because Kate.  She was such a judgmental bitch that I was constantly wanting to slap her and tell her to grow up and mind her own business. 

Kate is feeling a ton of guilt over something that she helped her best friend do.  And in my opinion, she should because what she helped Emily do was horrendous and awful and I, personally, will never understand how someone could do that. 

Even though this book starts off slow, it picks up around page 100 or so and Kate seems to chill out a little bit. 

I really liked Parker and Will in Stealing Parker so I was very happy to see that they both are very present in this book and we also get to see a little of Jordan near the end.

I also really liked Matt.  He was friendly, sweet and he was also very charming.  I can see why Kate fell for him.  I also think that he was exactly what Kate needed in order to come out of her shell and realize that it’s ok to make mistakes.

Overall, Things I Can’t’ Forget was a good read that I would have probably enjoyed more if it wasn’t for the terrible thing at the beginning. 

Waiting on Wednesday | The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco

 

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine.

 

My Pick

 

The Girl From the Well by Rin Chupeco

Expected Publication Date: August 5, 2014 by Sourcebooks Fire

 

 

 

You may think me biased, being murdered myself. But my state of being has nothing to do with the curiosity toward my own species, if we can be called such. We do not go gentle, as your poet encourages, into that good night.

A dead girl walks the streets.

She hunts murderers. Child killers, much like the man who threw her body down a well three hundred years ago.

And when a strange boy bearing stranger tattoos moves into the neighborhood so, she discovers, does something else. And soon both will be drawn into the world of eerie doll rituals and dark Shinto exorcisms that will take them from American suburbia to the remote valleys and shrines of Aomori, Japan.

Because the boy has a terrifying secret - one that would just kill to get out.

The Girl from the Well is A YA Horror novel pitched as "Dexter" meets "The Grudge", based on a well-loved Japanese ghost story.

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ARC Book Review | My Soon To Be Sex Life by Judith Tewes

Format: e-ARC
Source: Publisher via Netgalley
Publisher: Bloomsbury Spark
Publication Date: June 24, 2014
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Charlie is down to her absolute. Total. Last. Resort.


Despite a thoroughly comprehensive list of potential cherry poppers, er…suitors, and careful plotting, Charlie is three weeks into her devirginization campaign, still untouched, and getting desperate. In the movie of her life, this aspiring screenwriter is giving herself a PG, for please, get some.

Her project goes into freeze frame when her mom checks herself into rehab and packs Charlie off to live with her estranged, or just plain strange, grandfather, Monty. How is she supposed to get a date when she has to go pick up his Depends?

Enter Eric, a hot rehab grad on the road to redemption, and the only one who can make Charlie rethink her strategy. The more she gets to know him, the more convinced she becomes that is the one, and not just another to add to the list of people who will abandon her.

In this hilarious and heartbreaking story of one girl’s detoured road to womanhood, Charlie’s list develops a life of its own – right when she realizes there’s so much more to lose.

My Thoughts

When I first read the summary for this book, I was immediately intrigued. I was expecting a book filled with a ton of misadventures and exploits. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case AT ALL.

Charlotte Webb is on a mission to lose her virginity and with the help of her best friend Rachel, or Roach as Charlie calls her, she has come up with a list of devirginizers’ to choose from. However, the list is dwindling fast and Charlie is no closer to having her cherry popped.

While I think this book had everything to make it a fun and quirky read, for me, it feel flat. While I really enjoyed Charlie as a character, I absolutely loved her snarky and sarcastic attitude, and while I hate to say this, she is really the only thing that saved this book for me. Like I said above, I was expecting misadventures but really the only time we actually see Charlie working on her ‘mission’ is in the first few pages and then it just stops. I think if this book would have been more focused on Charlie’s mission mishaps, I would have enjoyed it more.

Another character I liked was Grace, Charlie’s mother’s best friend, although we didn’t get to see a lot of her, she could make me laugh when she did appear in the story. Eric, was just very ‘ehhhh’ for me, I guess I could see the appeal, but to me he didn’t stand out that much.

Overall, My Soon to be Sex Life was a book that I had high hopes for but unfortunately wasn’t what I was hoping for.

--- Christy

Sunday Showdown (11)

 

Check out the contenders for today's Showdown!!

 

 

 

Let the Showdown begin!

 

 

 

 

Which cover is your favorite?
	All These Broken Angels
	The Vanishing Season
	A Thousand Pieces of You
	Anatomy of a Misfit
	Beware the Wild
pollcode.com free polls

Stacking the Shelves (48) HUGE haul!

 

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews.

 

I haven't done one of these since April so I've got quite a bit of books since then!

 

 

 

 

Don't Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout

 

The Treatment by Suzanne Young

 

The One by Kiera Cass

 

Take Me On by Katie McGarry

 

I Want It That Way by Ann Aguirre *Signed (For Review)

 

Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles

 

The Taking by Kimberly Derting (Traded)

 

What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick

 

The Summer I Wasn't Me by Jessica Verdi *Signed (Won)

 

Sweet Reckoning by Wendy Higgins

 

Far From You by Tess Sharpe

 

Since You've Been Gone by Morgan Matson

 

In The Shadows of Blackbirds by Cat Winters

 

The Merciless by Danielle Vega

 

Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Paige

 

 

For Review from Netgalley/Edelweiss

 

 

 

Until next time.......

 

 

 

---- Christy