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Sarah Dessen is a magician with beautiful, clean, innocent, but meaningful romances set in Colby, the calm, beach town that swells during tourist season. With The Moon and More she wrote a different kind of novel. All the components you love are there, but this story is about Emaline and Emaline only.
Emaline's family runs Colby realty, renting houses for the owners to pushy tourists hungry for some time at the beach. As her last summer before heading to college, Emaline should be hanging out with her boyfriend and friends, enjoying the freedom before she heads off for college. Unfortunately, her sister Margo has recently returned from business school and has taken the opportunity to transform their comfortable family business into a well-oiled machine. And Emaline's boyfriend Luke has recently been unhappy with the way their relationship is progressing, or rather, not progressing. But when a high roller rents the biggest house in Colby for two months, its occupants are about to change Emaline's life in a way she never would have expected.
Ivy and her assistant Theo are making a film about Clyde Conaway, the reclusive Colby native who also happened to be a world-renowned artist at one point. To everyone in Colby he is just Clyde, but to these ambitious New Yorkers he is much more: he is the ticket to fame. When Emaline's boyfriend turns out to not be the guy she thought he was, she finds herself in the arms of Theo, a somewhat dorky film student from New York who is more ambitious that even his boss understands. When Emaline's father (not her dad, but her biological father) comes to town to stay for the first time since getting her mother pregnant at the age of sixteen, she has more than just her romantic life and the rentals to deal with. He was the man who abandoned her mother, ignored her most of her life, and most recently, reneged on his offer to pay for Columbia, forcing her to go to East U in the fall. With her half-brother in tow, he spends the summer in Colby working to sell his aunt's house and adjusting his son to the separation of their family and the inevitability of his parents' divorce. What Emaline didn't expect was to really get to know Benji and to get to know the real man behind the fatherly emails. But even bigger was the opportunity Emaline had in one summer to truly and deeply get to know who She was.
Dessen usually writes these amazing romance novels, but this book was not a romance novel. Not because you aren't really invested in either Luke or Theo (who is a total tool, but every girl finds herself with a tool at least once in her life, right?!), but because they are not really the focus of the story. Instead, this is a coming of age story for a girl who has always approached life passively and agreeably who finally stands up for herself and goes for what she wants, not what someone else wants for her. I think if you go into this story thinking you are going to find a romance, you will undoubtedly be disappointed. In fact, the jacket blurb talks about Theo as though he is a cool, almost sheik film student who transforms town. Instead, he is a tool. A total tool. He starts off pretty dorky, a guy who never had a girlfriend, never went to prom, was generally miserable in high school. Now this alone doesn't make him a toolbox. I tend to like the dorky guy (brings me back to my love for Duckie, if you must know), but when he become an arrogant, pompous, over-ambitious jerk, I had had enough. And still she stayed with him for most of the novel. This annoyed me at first, but I realized, after a great deal of anger and confusion that I waited for so long for a Dessen romance and got THEO instead, that Emaline needed to date this tool. She dated Luke, not because she was madly in love with him, but because he was comfortable. He embodied all that was Colby, and for a girl who was abandoned by her father, who saw her stepdad as her real dad and his daughter's as her sisters, whose mother was duped and got pregnant in a typical summer romance that faded before she even reached her nine months, she needed her stable, loving family. Theo, on the other hand, was different. It didn't matter that he wasn't a good different (because lord know he wasn't), but just that he was different. But quickly, Emaline realized that she didn't want different. She loved Colby. She didn't want to be "stuck" there for life like so many others, but she didn't want to flee like the other half of its recently graduated population. Instead, she wanted choices while also having her roots. And that was what made me really love this novel.
Instead of your simple romance, this was a complex and emotional coming of age story. Emaline never knew how to define herself, but throughout this story, you watch her finally become comfortable in her own skin and her own desires. Sometimes it takes the exact wrong guy to help you realize what you really want, and Theo was certainly that guy (I can't stress enough how much I disliked him). So, don't go looking for a lovely Dessen romance. You won't find it and you will be disappointed (I know I was at first). But if you go into this thinking you are going to find one of Dessen's more serious novels hidden within a beachy, carefree cover, you will enjoy the book as much as I did. It isn't your typical Dessen, but that is what I love about her the most. She isn't predictable, and neither are her characters. I can't say I loved this story, but I really liked it in more ways than one. But more importantly, I came out the other end of the story loving Dessen more than ever before.
Being half-Syrena is a troublesome place. Emma feels out of place in both worlds, but in Anna Banks' Of Triton, she gets to know just how much of an outsider the Syrena really think she is.
Emma barely adjusted to the idea that she was half-Syrena (mermaid) before finding out her mother was a Syrena princess. In fact, she was THE Syrena princess who was thought to be dead and was the cause of the war between the two kingdoms. When Galen recognizes her, he immediately brings his brother Grom, to the surface to reunite with Nalia, his mate who he thought died in a mine explosion. This could have been a beautiful reunion if Nalia hadn't kidnapped Emma to escape the Syrena she was convinced would imprison her and murder her daughter.
When Nalia finally sees Grom with her own eyes and realizes she didn't cause his death all those decades ago, she can barely control her love for him. What she didn't expect was that Grom had already been bonded to Paca, the commoner claiming to have the Gift of Poseidon, the ability to communicate with all marine life. With Grom bonded, the next in line to marry Nalia, according to Syrena law, is Galen. Faced with the fact that her mother is supposed to marry Emma's boyfriend, she is desperate to find a way around the law. Unfortunately, that means Nalia and the other royals returning to the water to challenge Grom's bonding and reinstate Nalia as his queen. But the kingdom they return to isn't exactly the one they left, and no one is in more danger than Emma, the abomination in the eyes of all Syrena.
The first book in this series was seriously funny. I mean laugh out-loud like a fool kind of funny. That was part of the reason I loved it. While I really liked this story as well, it just wasn't as funny as the first book. I missed that. Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the back story into the Syrena and the action of everything, but I really missed the spunky, sassy characters and the silliness that made Of Poseidon so very funny.
Still, this was a good story and a great continuation of the series. This series would be great for low-skilled older students, but it is fairly clean and would be appropriate for younger, stronger readers. The books are pretty brief, so the stories fly by pretty quickly. I am looking forward to the third book, but I hope Anna Banks puts more of that snark I loved so much into this upcoming installment!
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!
Noah and Echo's relationship was so deep and so emotional in Katie McGarry's Pushing the Limits, that you can't imagine finding yourself just as invested in another relationship from McGarry, especially from a short story. However, in Crossing the Line, we see the budding love of Lila and Lincoln despite the fact that they have only met once. And it isn't a relationship to trifle with.
Lincoln's brother was killed in the same roadside bombing that took Echo's brother Aires. Lincoln's parents brought the whole family to Aires' funeral in an attempt to preserve a little bit of his life from the moments before he was killed, but Lincoln didn't expect to find answers at a stranger's funeral. He also didn't expect to find a girl he could fall in love with after only meeting once, either, but that didn't stop him from having hope once he met Lila.
Lila was confused about a lot of things, but after watching her best friend, Echo, lose her brother, she was even more confused than ever. But one thing made sense: Lincoln. After the funeral, they agreed to write each other real letters twice a week At first, it was something whimsical, but quickly it became more, much more. Soon it became the impossible feelings of love that you shouldn't feel for a person you only met once. But when Lincoln lies to her, it all falls apart. From 12 hours away (10 if you ignore the speed limits), two lives have connected in a way that no one understands, not even them.
Leave it to McGarry to sucker punch me with only a few short pages. This was a relatively short story that was loosely connected to Pushing the Limits, but it was still amazing. I really loved the long-distance connection they had through letters, real letters. It felt like those letter collections you read from famous authors where they spent years of correspondance getting to know the one person who knew who they truly were. It was beautiful, and this story was a modern version of the same. You don't have to see a person every day to let them into your life. And that comes from a few short pages of letting Lila and Lincoln into my life!
We all have a little bit of the dark side residing inside of us, but we know how to control it. Keep it down. But what if we were being controlled by the darkest power that was ever created? Could we still fight the dark side like we do every day? In Leigh Bardugo's Siege and Storm, Book Two of the Grisha Trilogy, Alina Starkov shouldn't be able to fight the Darkling, but love for Mal and for her country keep her resisting the darkness that threatens them all.
Alina is the Sun Summoner, the only Grisha with the power to bring light to the Fold and fight the monstrosities that reside within it. Now that the Darkling fitted her with the Amplifier made of the mythical stag, she can harness a power like none have seen before. But after learning the truth of the Darkling and his creation of the fold that threatens to take over the world, she narrowly escapes with Mal, her childhood friend and one true love, leaving her country and friends behind to suffer the Darkling's wrath. The problem is one cannot escape the Darkling for long, and with the help of a famous pirate, he finds Alina and Mal and drags them into the icy waters in search of the second mythical beast, an icy sea dragon. While legends has always told a Grisha cannot assume two amplifiers without suffering grave consequences, the Darkling believes otherwise, and he isn't above sacrificing Alina to find out.
What the Darkling didn't expect was that the pirate might have different loyalties than just those of a common mercenary. Sturmhond has his own secrets he hasn't shared with the Darkling, and those secrets run deep. He also has plans for the Sun Summoner and how she can help him get his country back. Whether Alina trusts Sturmhond or not, she can't deny he is the better option when caught between him and the Darkling. Together, they embark on a dangerous and determined path that will bring together mortal and Grisha, the First Army and the Second Army, powered and determined, to save the future of Ravka and all the people she holds. The only thing standing in their way is the Darkling and his frightening new power- the ability to create the shadow monsters out of thin air. How can a handful of Grisha and a mass of half-starved, fanatical countrymen fight the most powerful Grisha who ever lived?
OK. Any of you out there need a lesson on how to write a sequel that not only knocks your socks off, but also makes your already brilliant first novel pale in comparison? I would like to introduce you to the amazing Leigh Bardugo. The first novel of this trilogy was brilliant. This sequel is something so much more that it defies my current dumbfounded language. I don't even know how to tell you how incredible it is because I am still reeling after flipping that final page! This was beyond just some great sequel. This is a masterpiece all on its own!
High fantasy is tricky, but Bardugo knows how to build a world like you have never seen before and still connect you to every bit of it. How does she do that?! How can I feel like I know the people of Ravka when it is so wildly different from everything I have ever known? I don't really know, but by golly! It was AMAZING! The whole world she created is so fascinating and so real, you would think those terrifying volcra were right behind you. And there are layers and layers of history and mythology and culture that every page brings you deeper and deeper into. The whole idea behind the stag and the dragon and the firebird could have been another entire series in and of themselves, but they were intertwined beautifully within the world of powerful Grisha and terrifying monsters. But the beauty behind it all was the love for one's people and one's country. Together, Grisha or civilian, they all want to save Ravka from the Fold and the terrors it contains. It was a really beautiful and fascinating examination of the human psyche and what kind of creature we want to be.
But this story is more than just broad, sweeping theories and examinations. The specific characters are so deep and real, you would feel like you had known them all your life. But Alina is the reason I can't stay away from this series. As a teacher of young women, I love to see a young female character who isn't afraid to stand up for what she believes in. When the prince misleads her and traps her in a position she wasn't expecting, what does she do? She punches him right in the nose! This is one girl you can be proud of and it lets you totally understand why the people of her country view her as a saint despite the fact that she is just a poor orphan thrust into a situation she wasn't ready for. Alina doesn't care who is her "superior". She knows what is right and is determined to sacrifice her own life to save the lives of others. And THAT is what I loved the most about this story. Of course snarky, pompous, but humble, Nikolai was just as wonderful. I have been searching YA lit for just this kind of young man- snarky on the outside and a truly good man on the inside- and imagine my pure joy to find him inside this book I already loved! Sure, he was a wise-crackin', infuriating putz sometimes, but that just made you love him all the more when you found out his true love for his country and everyone in it. He was just as determined to save Ravka as Alina, and together they made a fabulous team.
This is a series for everyone, young adult or not-so-young adult. You like fantasy? Pick this series up! You not really interested in fantasy, but love a great story? Pick this series up! Like to read? Here you go! Don't read much? Look no further! This is the series that will make a reader out of you! Truthfully, this is a series for anyone, and it has the potential to turn non-readers into readers, it is genuinely that powerful. I love this series and the only thing that is going to disappoint me is when Bardugo finally concludes it.
In a land with a caste system that keeps people stationary and desperate to survive, what better way to calm tensions than have a Selection: a contest for girls of all castes to compete for their chance to win the heart of the Prince. In Kiera Cass's sequel The Elite, the competition has gotten stiffer and the world has gotten more dangerous.
America isn't sure what to do anymore. She was finally admitting her feelings for Maxon before Aspen arrived at the palace as one of the guards. Seeing Aspen changed everything. All those feelings she had thought she left behind came rushing forward and she struggled with the conflicting feelings building up inside her. Meanwhile, the competition was down to only a handful of girls, and with America liked some of them, there were others she downright despised, like Celeste. Celeste knew how to push American's buttons, but more importantly, she wanted America to remember her place in the world: as a Five. As the lowest caste girl left in the competition, she wasn't the country's popular choice, but she seemed to be Maxon's.
Then something happened. When one of America's dearest friends among the selection is caught with a guard, punished severely, and banished to live life as an Eight, the lowest caste, America can't imagine how Maxon could stand by and allow a young girl to be treated like that. She begins to see the true nature of the monarchy and everything it entails. Where America once thought she could change the country from the top, now she has begun to realize there might not be any chance to change anything. The people with control might have such a dangerous and all-powerful grip on the country that a girl like America doesn't have a chance. Especially as rebels from their own country continue to break into the palace in an effort to destroy the Selection and wars across oceans threaten their very existence.
One thing I wanted more of in The Selection was world-building. I can't say I got as much as I wanted from this sequel, but I definitely got some more background than the little amount in the first book gave me. We learned a lot about the creation of the new monarchy from generations ago and how the caste system was created, but we still don't know much about the different kinds of rebels and what they were up to. Since this books is a dystopia, it seems strange we would be able to get through two whole books without real answers about the world the story is set in. Still, I focused more on the relationships between the girls, America and Maxon, America and Aspen, and the rest of the cast. And that kept me happy throughout the book.
And usually I despise love triangles, but this one doesn't bother me, mostly because I still really, really like Maxon and don't have much interest in Aspen. You see a lot more of Aspen in this story, and you are supposed to question Maxon's position and choices in a few places, but I still really liked Maxon. Only once did I want to slap him around a little bit, but if you consider all the mixed signals America sent him and her lack of real interest in the competition, I am not sure you can completely blame the guy for trying to find a back-up plan to the princess problem. I think if things were different and he just pined after American with all her indecisiveness and wavering nonsense, he would be completely unrealistic! In fact, had I been Maxon, I would have given up on her LONG before he actually started to.
I started reading this story during the busiest time of our school year, the bitter end. It meant I fought to find time to read, and the book took me an unusual 7-8 days to finish. Usually this destroys a book for me, but The Elite still held my attention even with the gaps in my chances to read it. I think that is a sign of a pretty good story, and I am really looking forward to the next one. I just hope we get the full story behind the world they live in because it has the potential to be incredibly interesting!
When a devastating consequence of trying to cure diseases leaves all new generations with an early expiration date (20 yrs for women and 25 for men), the generations left will try anything to find a cure. There are no boundaries to how far they will go, including unthinkable experiments. In the conclusion to Lauren DeStefano's Sever, we see the true devastation of the virus and the unflappable hope of a few that might just turn the tide against complete destruction.
Rhine has survived her murderous father-in-law before, but she never thought she would find herself back in his grasp so soon. Vaughn will go to great lengths to conduct his experiments, but his daughter-in-law's unusual eyes are the source of his intrigue. This time, however, Rhine's husband Linden is actually listening to Rhine's concerns. He agrees to take Rhine and his son and other wife, Cecily, to his reclusive uncle's house instead of keeping them under Vaughn's watchful eye. But Vaughn isn't so easily deterred.
He quickly finds them and through blackmail and threats, he convinces Linden and Cecily to return home. Meanwhile, Rhine's only concern is finding her brother. Rowan has become the leader of the resistance, blown up laboratories trying to develop a cure, and is the source of a great deal of terror in the world, all because he believes the hunt for the cure is what killed his sister. After Cecily loses her baby and realizes Vaughn's connection to her pregnancy so soon after the difficult birth of her first son, she convinces Linden to go with Rhine in her search. They may soon find Rowan, but the answers they find along the way in their search may not be the answers they were expecting to find.
Hmmmm. Well, I am not sure where to begin with this book, this series. I loved Wither, but Sever not only suffered from the sophomore slump, it made me wonder if it was even written by the same woman. Where was the magic? Where was the beautiful, haunting intrigue the first book was so full of? SO I really wanted this final book to pick up that beauty and recover from the confusion of the second book. Sadly, it failed on that front for me. There wasn't anything of importance for the vast majority of the book, and then the bitter end was solid, albeit rushed.
*Spoiler Alert* The entire plot of the story consisted of run away from Vaughn, Vaughn finds them. Run away again, Vaughn finds them again. Run away again, agree to return with Vaughn. Find out Vaughn is hiding and experimenting on your one true love, leave him there while you dither and fritter your time away so sad that he is in the basement in an induced coma. bad vaughn. We hate Vaughn. Grrrr. And that was about it. I did indeed like the way the story ended, but our journey to get to those last 20 pages was a bit ridiculous. No, actually, it was more than that. It was really ridiculous. If an evil, mad scientist had your love in the basement withering away and doped up, wouldn't you find a way to break him free and escape? Yeah, me too. Not Rhine! She goes to tea. And argues with Vaughn. And does as she is told. Ugh. As if our young adults need anything more to pull them into the dark side of passivity. *End Spoiler*
So I have to say this series started out fabulously and ended with my complete confusion for the way the author took the story. it felt as though she had a good book idea that a publisher convinced her to make into a trilogy, because that is what sells these days, and so she stretched everything and added some whining and pining, and POOF you have yourself a trilogy. And thanks to Wither, we know DeStefano can WRITE! So what happened here? I am not sure, but it makes me sad to think this happened to a really promising author who had a lot to offer. I am not sure I would recommend this series to someone, because it just did not do anything for me by the end. The conclusion is good, but that doesn't make up for the crap that came before it. I hope DeStefano manages to come back from this series and get back to the beautiful, haunting writing she showed us in Wither. Those are books I would definitely buy.
