Tag: romance

Review: Something In Between by Melissa de la Cruz

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28688476Something In Between by Melissa de la Cruz
Genre: Contemporary
Published by: Mira Ink
Pages: 432
Format: e-book
Rating: ★★
Note: We received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

I was really excited to read Something in Between because of the subject matter. It’s a shame that I read this one so soon after The Sun is Also a Star, though, as I couldn’t help but draw comparisons between the portrayal of illegal immigrants. Both authors took the same stance: that it’s unjust and an ugly term to describe people that have only done what was best for their families, and I think that message was the most powerful, but I wholeheartedly preferred Nicola Yoon’s take because it felt less romanticised. Let’s discuss… Continue reading “Review: Something In Between by Melissa de la Cruz” →

Review: Twelve Days of Dash and Lily

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31368214Twelve Days of Dash and Lily by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Electric Monkey
Pages: 240
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: 2.5 stars 
Note: We received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Twelve Days of Dash and Lily is an unexpected sequel to Dash and Lily’s Book of Dares, one of the first books I remember reading when I first joined BookTube. In a way, I loved this book as just a nod to the nostalgic days of 2013, and when I was still in the habit of reading seasonal books in their appropriate season. (Will this finally be the year that My True Love Gave to Me is appreciated?) But what else did I enjoy…? Continue reading “Review: Twelve Days of Dash and Lily” →

Review: The Form of Thing Unknown by Robin Bridges

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cover93174-mediumThe Form of Things Unknown by Robin Bridges
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, (Re-telling)
Published by: Kensington Books
Pages: 304
Format: e-book
Rating: ★★.5
Note: I received this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review!

Natalie is suffering from some strange hallucinations while on the set for her school’s production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. With questions of ‘who’s dating who’ and ‘we’re all crazy here’ the characters’ lives somewhat mimic those in the story they’re retelling. It’s an interesting concept, similar to Robin Bridges’ other novel Dreaming of Antigone where the protagonists are both aware of the text they’re retelling whilst retelling it. I’m not sure if it’s a style that completely works for me, but I’ve never been a fan of really meta fiction. But I think The Form of Things Unknown does a good job of blurring the lines between the original text and the new characters’ lives.

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Review: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

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28763485The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon
Genre: Romance, Contemporary
Published by: Penguin Random House
Pages: 384
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★★
Note: We received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

It seems that all my favourite authors of last year are coming out with their next books around this time of year and I couldn’t be happier, because it means the last reading quarter is guaranteed to be a good one! Nicola Yoon’s The Sun is Also a Star is no exception. After giving her debut, Everything, Everything 5 stars, I had high hopes for this book and it didn’t let me down. In fact, let’s talk about why this cosmic romance was so wonderful… Continue reading “Review: The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon” →

Review:The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles

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31170713The Edge of Everything by Jeff Giles
Genre: Supernatural, Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Bloomsbury Children’s
Pages: 400
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★
Note: I received a copy of this book from the publishers in exchange for an honest review. 

Okay, so this book has a lot of hype. And by a lot, I mean A LOT. Seriously, scroll down the Goodreads page and all you’ll see is five star reviews! People are getting excited about this, so why didn’t I feel the magic? Maybe partly because I was switching from reading an e-book copy and listening to it on the text-to-speech function, but that doesn’t sound quite right. The Edge of Everything covers a great deal of things. If you didn’t think that a supernatural boyfriend was enough, then you have a girl’s quest to recover her father’s body, a boy’s struggle to get out of a binding service, and a family dealing with a shady past. And the best bit is they all link together!

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Review: And I Darken by Kiersten White

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cover86746-mediumAnd I Darken by Kiersten White
Genre: Fantasy, Re-telling (Alternate History?), Romance
Published by: Corgi Children’s
Pages: 484
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★
Note: We received this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

So far my experience of Kiersten White’s writing has been the Mind Games duology, which I enjoyed but didn’t think it did a very good job of explaining itself, but she’s a pretty prolific writer and there had been a bit of hype going around about this Vlad the Impaler-as-a-girl retelling and I admit, I got swept along with it too. And I Darken, if you didn’t already know, is the story of Lada (who I guess will grow up to become Lada the Impaler?) and her brother Radu moving from their home town to become part of the Ottoman empire. It’s a fantasy story with a strong emphasis or politics, religion and sexuality, all of which are seamlessly weaved into this bad-ass girl’s life story.

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Review: Marly’s Ghost by David Levithan

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23898966Marly’s Ghost by David Levithan
Genre: Contemporary, Retelling, Romance
Published by: Electric Monkey
Pages: 166
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★
Other: Two Boys Kissing | Every Day

Marly’s Ghost is what David Levithan calls a ‘remix’ of Charles’ Dickens ‘A Christmas Carol’, except at Valentine’s Day instead of Christmas. The basic premise is that Ben’s girlfriend Marly died and now he can’t connect to the celebrations and feels he’ll never love again. So Marly’s ghost visits him in the middle of the night, and tells him he’ll be visited by three ghosts. Can you guess who? That’s right! The ghosts of Valentine’s Past, Present and Future.

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Review: Cell 7 by Kerry Drewery

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29864658Cell 7 by Kerry Drewery
Genre: Dystopian
Published by: Hot Key Books
Pages: 400
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★★

I absolutely adore the tagline, ‘Behind bars. For your entertainment.’ It’s such an exciting premise! (Here’s a plot summary: Martha has killed a high profile celebrity, and she will be tried in the Cells, where the public will vote over seven days whether or not they think she’s ‘guilty’ or ‘innocent.’ But there’s something she isn’t mentioning and the people that love her and getting increasingly more concerned as it looks like the vote isn’t going to save Martha. It’s going to kill her.) This book has received quite a lot of hype already and it comes highly recommended by a few blogger friends. So, let’s get onto what I made of it!

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Review: How To Keep A Boy From Kissing You by Tara Eglington

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28220759How To Keep A Boy From Kissing You by Tara Eglington
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Published by: St. Martin’s Griffin
Pages: 320
Format: ARC e-book
Rating: ★★

From the title I thought this was going to be a little silly, but it sounded like the Australian version of Kisses For Lula by Samantha Mackintosh – one of my favourite duologies! And I’ve come to the conclusion that I would’ve probably liked this a lot more when I was 14 and was oblivious to things like the Bechdel Test.

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Review: Scarlett by Cathy Cassidy

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1239697Scarlett by Cathy Cassidy
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Family
Published by: Puffin
Pages: 240
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★.5

Maddie and I have wanted to start reading more Middle Grade recently, so we decided to start with some of our favourite books from when we were tweens! Cathy Cassidy was a complete staple in my reading life when I was 11-14. I loved her(!) and Scarlett was the first of her books that I read, so I decided to start here.

Scarlett follows an angry girl who is misunderstood. She’s been booted from one school to the next and lives with her single mother who’s a little tired of Scarlett’s antics, so she sends her to live with her dad. But Scarlett’s dad started a new family…in Ireland.

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