McGarry ROCKS!

So much divides us. When something brings together two people from such different worlds, its hard to remember all that keeps us apart. In Katie McGarry's romance short, a girl from the wrong side of town meets a boy of privilege who is struggling to find his place in the world. 

Stella has purple hair and is generally ignored by her classmates, when they aren't humiliating her and calling her Trash Can Girl. Jonah is a kid born into every privilege, but he would give it all away to change the events of that fateful car accident. He is called a hero, but the death of the man he couldn't save haunts him. Both are drawn to the cemetery for different reasons, but neither expected to find solace in another person while they were there... especially another person who is from a totally different world. 

OK. Let's be honest. I would read a grocery list if Katie McGarry wrote it. I just love her no-nonsense, incredibly candid, real romances. They are amazing. And this e-short is no difference. Yes, the "wrong side of the tracks" love story screams "Pretty in Pink", but Katie McGarry can make everything fresh and new. There was a deep sorrow in Jonah that made you want to protect him, and Stella's history was hard to read about because it was so sad and yet so real. My only complaint is that there wasn't more! I wanted a full book about these two!

Beneath a Meth Moon

Crystal meth has become a scourge upon our young people. But do you really understand why? I can't say I do, but in Jacqueline Woodson's heartbreaking tale, Beneath a Meth Moon, I feel like I witnessed the devastation first-hand. 

Laurel's mama packed her and her baby brother up to go with their father north, away from the hurricane, away from the water. She said it would only be a few days and that she couldn't leave Laurel's grandmother M'Lady behind, but she lied. It was forever. As they turned and drove away, they never thought that would be the last time she would see or speak to her mother. But the water came. And the water couldn't be stopped. And the water took everything away.

At first they lived with Laurel's aunt, but in search of more work, they headed to a new town with new people and new opportunities. Laurel meets Kaylee and starts cheering. Everything finally seems like it might be a life worth living again. Until Laurel meets T-Boom, the co-captain of the team. It is T-Boom who introduces Laurel to the moon. And once she starts the moon, it isn't so easy to stop. Especially when it takes away all the memories, all the pain, and all the emotions. 

This is a short, quick story, but it is devastating, both in the poetic beauty with which it is written, and the haunting devastation of the content. You see this innocent 15 year old girl who lost her mother and her grandmother, and even having a loving father and a little brother who needs her can't make her stop using. She knows it is killing her, she sees herself in the store windows, but when the itch starts, all she can think about is the moon (meth). 

I have read a number of addiction YA stories in the past, but there is something so melodic and poetic about the way this story was written that it makes you almost feel guilty in finding beauty in a story of such devastation. That conflict of emotions may be what made me like this story so much. It is written in simple language with large type and is a fast story, so this would be a very good story for an older student who struggles with reading. They won't be bogged down by the heavy content because the writing style is so smooth and easy to read. This story makes me want to explore more from Woodson. I am very impressed by my first story from her!

Mexican Hat Dance on My Heart

A good book makes you love the supporting characters as much as the main characters, so when Katie McGarry announced Dare to You, the story of Beth from Pushing the Limits, I was so excited I yelled loud enough to wake my husband and scare my dogs. And lucky for me, McGarry didn't disappoint.

Beth has always taken care of her mother. She buys food, pays the bills, and even collects her when the local bar owner wants her out. Beth has never known what it meant to be a carefree child, but at least she has a family with Noah and Isaiah. When a confrontation with Trent, her mother's abusive, drug-dealing boyfriend, leaves Beth in jail, her aunt calls the one person who can help them: Beth's uncle, the famous baseball player, Scott Risk. Scott is willing to help her, in fact, he insists on it, but he has some conditions. In fact, he tells Beth that if she doesn't live with him, go to school, stay out of trouble, and abandon everything about her former life, he will tell the police exactly what Beth's mom has hidden in her apartment. 

Beth can't imagine life in the sticks with prom queens and baseball games, but she will do it to protect her mother. What she didn't expect was to come face to face with the jerk who asked her out last week. Ryan has some demons of his own, but they are well-hidden inside the school's star baseball player. Never one to lose a bet, he continues to try his luck with Beth now that she is permanently in Groveton.  His friends bet him he couldn't land a date with her, and lord knows she has made it perfectly clear she would rather stab him that go on a date with him, but Ryan doesn't give up on anything. Especially a girl who seems like a nightmare on the outside, but turns into a whole different person when you get to know her. 

I don't think my description of this book can really do it justice. It sounds like a typical romance, but there is so much more to this book and this series. In fact, the romance is hidden within a dark, sad tale about a girl who had never had a stable life. Sure, Isaiah and Noah loved her unconditionally, but she never had real parents. In fact, Beth had to parent her own mother. And because of everything she dealt with growing up, Beth was a hard, angry young woman who was the antithesis of the suburbs her uncle transplanted her to. And who can blame her? Anyone growing up around abusive boyfriends and drug addicts would have to develop a wall around themselves just to survive. But I loved that there was so much more to Beth. She wanted to love and be loved, but she never fully believed she deserved it. Even with Isaiah's undeniable love for her, she never felt she was worthy. 

And her relationship with Isaiah was hard for me to accept. In Pushing the Limits, I wanted her to finally realize he was in love with her, so seeing this book wasn't about the two of them devastated me. But once I saw the story play out, I could see how Isaiah would have been wrong for Beth and she for him. She needed something different, someone new, someone whose romance didn't threaten one of the few friendships Beth had. And Isaiah could never be that for her. And trust me, it was heartbreaking. Watching her come to that realization and Isaiah, wonderful, tattooed, devoted Isaiah, come to that conclusion had to be one of the hardest things for me to read as a person who just loves these characters. 

And that is the thing about McGarry. She can make you fall in love with even the toughest and hardest characters. I mean, Beth?! She was the last character you would find yourself siding with in Pushing the Limits, but you always knew there was more to her than just the black hair and nose ring. And McGarry gave you more. And she gave it to you in a way that is absolutely heart-wrenching. I felt such an emotional attachment to these characters that even now, I am looking at this book thinking, "How can it be over?!" These are phenomenal books and I don't think anyone out there could read them and not feel a connection to the characters, even if they could never empathize with them. McGarry has a gift, and I am going to be waiting, very, very impatiently waiting, for Isaiah's story, because he has some unfinished business. I love this series, and I Dare You to read it and not love it too!

Falling for the Final Angel

Only true love could survive everything Nora and Patch have been through, but they are still standing on the edge of a cliff looking into the face of a war Nora is supposed to lead against the fallen angels like Patch. In Finale, Becca Fitzpatrick concludes the fallen angel story, not with a whimper, but with a bang.

Nora has inherited the Black Hand's army when she killed the Black Hand himself, who also happened to be her father. Becoming the leader of the army, however, means she is now responsible for continuing their cause: stopping the fallen angels from possessing the bodies of the Nephilim during the holy month of Cheshvan. The angels have always taken advantage of this time to use the Nephilim's bodies, which is the only time they can feel human emotions, but their forceful possession and reckless use of the bodies is a time that is feared by all Nephilim. Now the Nephilim want to end Cheshvan, but they need someone to lead them.

Nora is torn between being a newly created Nephilim and understanding the terror involved with the angel's possession, but she also loves her boyfriend Patch, who is a fallen angel. If she doesn't lead the army, she will break her oath and be killed. But how can she, not even as strong as the natural born Nephilim, stop the angels? And it doesn't help that she doesn't even know who to trust as the Nephilim and angels around her are all working for their own personal desires. They have even created a synthetic devilcraft, which is a substance that can enhance a Nephilim's abilities, but different prototypes also have severe consequences and side-effects. Nora learns about them first hand and her addiction to the substance may keep her from finding a peaceful way out of this war. But if there is one thing Nora won't do, it is sacrifice her love for Patch.

I have had an up and down relationship with this series, but I have to say, I am so glad I hung in there. It turned out to be a really big upswing and left me very happy I didn't give up on it. Each book got better and better and the conclusion of the series was exciting and interesting. At times I was annoyed with either Patch or Nora for different reasons (in this one I was annoyed with her stupid addiction to the devilcraft- c'mon!), but something kept me going to the conclusion, which was really well crafted.

My favorite part of this series were the supporting characters like Vee and Scott, but also mean Marcie and others. I think this is a common finding in all stories these days where the main characters can frustrated you, but the supporting characters are more dynamic, funnier, and easier to root for than the main characters. Maybe there isn't as much at stake for a supporting character, but I hope authors in the future consider making their main characters as endearing as their supporting characters. Either way, though, the story was definitely the best in the series and made me feel good about the end!

No Fevered Excitement Here

Ah, the sad middle book. Just like the middle child, it suffers from identity crisis. Neither the attention grabbing first book or the long-awaited, cathartic conclusion, the middle book is bound by the desperation to live up to the first book without all the excitement of the final book. So, it makes sense that Lauren DeStefano's Fever would have a lot of work to do to make Wither fans happy. But could it pull itself out of the middle child lot in life?


Rhine and Gabriel ran for their lives, but the life they find outside the estate's walls where Rhine's husband, sister wife, and evil father-in-law live is not the freedom they imagined it would be. Almost immediately after escaping, they find themselves held captive again. This time, the captor might not be performing horrific experiments, but she isn't exactly warm and cuddly either. 


Sucked into a brothel where the girls are ranked according to color by their level of worth, Rhine finds herself trapped and Gabriel is being kept drugged so he can't help her. Lilac, another trapped girl, helps Rhine through this terrifying experience, and finds a way to get Rhine and Gabriel to safety outside the brothel's electrified walls, but she wants to come with them and she doesn't plan on leaving her blind, malformed daughter behind. Their escape brings them closer to finding Rhine's brother, but in a world where mother's don't grow old enough to see their children become adults, another mother is separated from her daughter. Is finding Rhine's brother Rowan worth everything she and Gabriel have suffered through.


Sadly, this book did not live up to Wither for me. I thought it was kind of forced with no real purpose and while the outcome was incredibly interesting, the almost 300 pages that came before it were bland and lost. The exploits of Rhine and Gabriel could have been exciting, but instead they rambled around in a drug and illness induced haze that just seemed unnecessary. I found myself hoping the book would end quickly so I could move on to something more interesting, but feeling obligated to stick with it out of love for the first book.


When all was said and done, I am glad I slogged through this book because the final 40 pages or so were reminiscent of the Wither I love. It was creepy and exciting and terrifying all at once, and I couldn't stop reading once I hit that point. Unfortunately, a struggling reader might never make it to that point. I am sad to see this series stray in the middle, but I am hopeful it will triumph in the end. So fingers crossed that the final book will live up to the first book and not be stained with the memory of the sad middle child!