Category: Reviews by Bee

Review: Night School by C. J. Daugherty

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12576579Night School by C. J. Daugherty
Genre: Contemporary, Boarding School
Published by: Atom
Pages: 454
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★

First of all I should mention, that I really wanted to LOVE this book. I met C.J.Daugherty a few weeks ago and what she was saying about the progression of her characters got me so PUMPED to read it. Even though I already knew that the biggest complaint about Night School was the amount of times that Allie gets saved by one of the male protagonists – which is a lot – I was still surprised by it. C. J. said that Allie realising that she could be the one to save herself became one of the biggest internal arcs of the story and I thought that sounded exactly like something I would enjoy. That, and it’s a boarding school setting. I love those! Unfortunately, every time I cringed or eye-rolled I had to knock off a point from each star, so my overall rating is lowlowlow.

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Review: The Lost and the Found

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20685157The Lost and the Found by Cat Clarke
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery, Crime (?)
Published by: Quercus
Pages: 441
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★

The Lost and the Found has been on my radar for a while. It follows Faith thirteen years after her adopted sister Laurel was abducted and suddenly reappears. Laurel is thrust back into her family life and it’s a lot to adjust to. Meanwhile, Faith is struggling with her older sister’s return as what little attention she got from her parents before is completely non-existent now that Laurel’s back. Last year I read If You Find Me by Emily Murdoch, which is about sisters who are returned to civilisation after growing up in the woods. It has a similar tone and the same mysterious and volatile tone that I really loved from Murdoch’s book and overall, I’m pleased I was immersed in the harrowing tale of the Logan family.

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Review: Paperweight by Meg Haston

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24917415Paperweight by Meg Haston
Genre: Contemporary with Mental Illness
Published by: Hot Key Books
Pages: 287
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★★

Paperweight follows Stevie who is admitted to a rehab centre for eating disorders. Twenty seven days after she arrives it will be the first anniversary of her brother’s death, and to honour his memory, because she feels entirely responsible, she wants to kills herself. Heavy stuff, right? (Trigger warnings: self-harm, eating disorders, volatile relationships, manic-pixie-dream-girl.)

I’ve never read anything about eating disorders before and, if I’m being 100% honest, the topic scares me. I had the opportunity to review Paperweight when it first came out, but I declines thinking that because the subject matter wasn’t for me, I wouldn’t enjoy the story. I WAS WRONG. So wrong that it needs to be capitalised, underlined, and in a different colour.   Continue reading “Review: Paperweight by Meg Haston” →

Review: The List by Siobhan Vivian

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10866233The List by Siobhan Vivian
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Harlequin
Pages: 336
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★

We were really looking forward to reading this book because it deals with eight different perspectives, much like our beloved Clearwater Crossing. Also Siobhan Vivian has co-authored the Burn For Burn trilogy with Jenny Han and I liked Siobhan’s character a lot more than Jenny Han’s. Basically, the book had a lot of promise.

Unfortunately, dealing with multiple perspectives can have it’s down side, mostly that one character can become more prominent, or all characters could be underdeveloped. While the characters themselves weren’t under developed – they all had their own issues! – their storylines came to an abrupt end. A lot of the conflicts were left unresolved, and we found ourselves waiting the whole time for that ‘something bug’ to happen.

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Review: What I Thought Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick

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28756160What I Though Was True by Huntley Fitzpatrick
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Electric Monkey
Pages: 418
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★
Note: This book was given to us by the publisher in exchange for our honest review. 

I read My Life Next Door in 2014 and wasn’t blow away because I’d heard a lot of over-hyped reviews. With What I Though Was True there seemed to be a lot more mixed reviews, so I felt a lot more prepared. I was pumped to be reading something contemporary with lots of summery feelings, and I wanted to give Huntley Fitzpatrick a second chance. The first half was SO GOOD but the second half, well…

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Review: Demon Road by Derek Landy

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23253921Demon Road by Derek Landy
Genre: Supernatural
Published by: HarperCollins
Pages: 507
Format: e-book
Rating: ★★.5
Note: I received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

I really appreciate this book in terms of it’s genre. I think if you’re looking for the perfect mix of Percy Jackson and the TV show ‘Supernatural’ then you’ll probably love this book! It’s pacy and a little gory, but if you’re up for that, then I would definitely give it a go. However, I don’t think Demon Road was my cup of tea. I like a lot of the elements individually, but putting them all together didn’t suit my tastes.

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Review: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

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25494343Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare
Genre: Paranormal, Romance (kind of?)
Published by: Simon and Schuster
Pages: 669
Format: Paperback
Series: The Dark Artifices
Rating: ★★

Since hearing about Lady Midnight, we haven’t been as excited as a lot of people. The Mortal Instruments series was the best thing, and after Bee didn’t enjoy The Infernal Devices trilogy, we wondered how we’d get on with this sequel series. When we read City of Heavenly Fire,  getting chapters about Emma and Julian was just distracting us from the baes we really cared about. But, we’d already read about them, so why not get their story, five years on?

Maybe we should have trusted our instincts on this one… Continue reading “Review: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare” →

Review: Dreaming of Antigone by Robin Bridges

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dreamingofantigoneDreaming of Antigone by Robin Bridges
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Kensington
Pages: 304
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★.5
Note: We received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

I waned to read this book mostly because of the beautiful cover, but also in hope that it would help me understand the Antigone story a lot more. Dreaming of Antigone follows Andria and her heart-broken family. Her sister, Iris committed suicide six months before the events of the novel and Andria suffers from seizures resulting in an overly protective mother. The premise sounded really intriguing and I was looking forward to that “heartfelt and emotional” journey promised by the blurb on the front, but I don’t think it lived up to my expectations. Luckily, unlike like the Greek tragedy that Andria relates her life to, there is a happy ending, otherwise it would’ve been too depressing!

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Review: Head Over Heels by Holly Smale

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26094860Head Over Heels (Geek Girl #5) by Holly Smale
Genre: Contemporary, FUN
Published by: HarperCollins
Pages: 416
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★★★
Series: All That Glitters (Geek Girl #4)
Note: We received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

Head Over Heels is one of our most anticipated releases of 2016, and if you known us, even just a little bit, you know we LOVE the Geek Girl series. It’s one of the best things to come into existence because I think there’s a Harriet Manners in all of us. She’s such a relatable and funny character, you can’t help but fall head over heels for her. SO, we had great expectations for the fifth book, and BOY were they met! Let’s fangirl about it! Continue reading “Review: Head Over Heels by Holly Smale” →

Review: Red Witch by Anna McKerrow

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26200465Red Witch by Anna McKerrow
Genre: Supernatural
Published by: Quercus Books
Pages: 416
Format: ARC e-book
Series: Crow Moon (#1)
Rating: ★★★
Note: We received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

I jumped straight into Red Witch after finishing Crow Moon. Once again, I knew practically nothing about the sequel and was pleasantly surprised to find it was from Demelza’s point of view. I thought she was an under appreciated character in the first book, but her POV meant that I lost the small connection I had with the characters from Crow Moon. I’ve just read 400 pages of Danny, at least tell me what happens to him and Saba! Red Witch did pretty much everything I felt was lacking for the first book, so now we have a pretty interesting climax ready for the third and final book in the series, which I will definitely be reading! There will be spoilers of Crow Moon in order to talk about the events of the second book, so if you haven’t finished Crow Moon, I highly suggest you do that first.

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