Posts Tagged: Review

Tuesday, December 23, 2014

Review: Because You Exist by Tiffany Truitt

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I received this book for free from The Author in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Review: Because You Exist by Tiffany TruittBecause You Exist by Tiffany Truitt
Series: Light in the Dark #1
Published by Limitless on November 11th 2014
Genres: Time-Travel, YA
Source: The Author
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three-half-stars

Life is good for LOGAN MIDDLETON. He’s quarterback of the Shepherd High football team, nephew of the town’s most successful lawyer, and boyfriend of Jenna Maples, a girl who has finally agreed to take their relationship to the next level. But nothing good lasts forever.

With only a few minutes of last period English left between him and a weekend alone with Jenna, Logan blacks out. When he awakens, he finds himself in a future where Shepherd High lies in ruins, nothing is what it seems, and everyone he loves is dead. Logan is a shifter. Chosen to travel through time, it’s up to him to figure out how to stop the terrible events that claimed his once perfect life.

Of course, all of this might be easier if he wasn’t paired with the one girl who’d rather see him dead than help him, JOSEPHINE. A girl he tormented during childhood. Strong-willed with biting wit, who lives in the shadows. Tough and dark, Jo is Shepherd High’s most notorious outcast and Logan’s opposite in every way. Together the two must overcome their many differences to figure out why they’ve been selected for such an overwhelming task, and who selected them in the first place.

Before it’s too late…

So this book was good, but a bit odd. I don’t mean that in a bad way though. The whole way the time travel happens is just weird with no real explanation about when or why. I get that there is some other entity or something that causes it, but it was not explained well. There is also a kind of typical people that hate each other, and now have to work with each other thing going on. And *gasp* they begin to care for each other. Really though, it was pretty enjoyable and I liked it.

Logan is a popular kid. On the football team, good looking, and has a super nice and hot girlfriend who happens to be a cheerleader. He also happens to be a “Shifter” which means he just kind of passes out and travels through time whenever the powers that be decide it to happen. Every moment that he travels to, Josephine also does. A girl who he had tormented and made her life pretty miserable for years. He’s kind of a jerk too, and even when he does actually have moments of true, unselfish feelings, I just didn’t really ever warm up to him much.

Josephine (otherwise known as Scary Carrie thanks to Logan) is a loner. She always wears a hoodie and kind of hides herself away. I liked her more than Logan, but I still didn’t really love her character either. A lot about her still remains quite a mystery. We do learn about her past which is pretty horrible, but we don’t learn about her present much. She acts like she doesn’t give a shit about what others think, but she does admit that of course she cares. She jut won’t let anyone know that. She is a very broken character. She loves the shifting, while Logan hates it. Even though it’s scary at times, it’s still an escape for her. She can be herself and not worry so much about what anyone thinks. She’s quite tough and resilient.

I likes how when they shift and travel to another time, it’s specifically to show them something important that has either happened, or will happen in their lives. The thing that I didn’t like was that sometimes it felt really boring. Sometimes they would just walk around for a while with nothing really happening. Other times there was plenty of action and it was exciting to read. We do learn about their pasts a bit and what their future will become if they don’t change something. We also meet a few other characters that happen to be in their normal time and conveniently live in the area as well. I also liked the concept of one of them being light and the other dark, with the dark shifter being the one who is in control of the shift in a way. Not that they can control when the shift happens or when they will go, but if they don’t shift, the other can’t either. Or the dark shifter can shift without the other one.

Overall it was an enjoyable read. I did like the story, but felt that there was a lot of boring spots. I also felt like the romance kind of took away from things, but it was also necessary since it is really something that Logan is passionate about. Pretty much everything is about his girlfriend. He is absolutely head over heels for her and he’s pretty sweet when it comes to her. Being that this is the first of a series, I am not too bothered about feeling that we needed to know more because I am sure the second book will answer a lot of questions. This was an interesting take on time travel and I am curious to see where it goes and get the answers to some of the things that are lingering in my mind. While it didn’t blow me away, I will continue the series to find out what comes next.

three-half-stars

3.5 Hot Espressos

Review: The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Segdwick

Review: The Ghosts of Heaven by Marcus Segdwick

Posted by on 12/15/2014 • 20 Comments

This is one of those books that I really have no clue how to review. The writing was beautiful and lyrical, and the stories were intriguing and kept me interested, but I feel like maybe I wasn’t smart enough for this book. Now, I’m not a stupid person (I don’t think anyways), but I just didn’t get it. I liked how we start way back in time with the first story, and progress through time and even into the future in the next three. I enjoyed seeing how each previous story tied into the next. I just didn’t quite get it all. I can’t really explain it. I understood what the spiral means and signifies, but how the stories were told had me scratching my head.

The first story…

Review: Can’t Look Away by Donna Cooner

Review: Can’t Look Away by Donna Cooner

Posted by on 07/24/2014 • 10 Comments

What an interesting book this was to read for someone who has an online presence. Granted, my online presence is nothing compared to the thousands upon thousands of fans beauty vlogger Torrey Grey had in this book, but I do put myself out there for the public just as she did in the novel. Can’t Look Away was a pitch perfect contemporary that features a lot of honesty, a sweet romance and just enough heartbreak to really pull at your heartstrings.

We meet Torrey Grey right after her family moves from Colorado to Texas. They decide to make the move shortly after Torrey’s younger sister, Miranda, is hit and killed by a drunk driver. From the very first pages of this book I knew that it was going to be…

Tour: Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally

Tour: Breathe, Annie, Breathe by Miranda Kenneally

Posted by on 07/14/2014 • 23 Comments

Miranda Kenneally has done it again folks! I always know that when I pick up a book by Kenneally that I am in for a fair amount of swooning, but I have to say that with Breathe, Annie, Breathe I got even more than I could have expected. Full of wonderful characters, a swoon-inducing romance and a full range of emotion, I think this is the best in the Hundred Oaks series yet!

In the fifth instalment in the series we are introduced to Annie who has recently lost her long term boyfriend and is now training to run a marathon in his honour. What I’m sure you can gather from this already is: SPORTS! Yes, while previous books featured football, baseball and even horseback riding this book tackles running….

Review: All Four Stars by Tara Dairman

Review: All Four Stars by Tara Dairman

Posted by on 07/10/2014 • 10 Comments

After reading serious book after serious book and then topping it off with a gore-filled horrorfest novel, I didn’t think there could be a better cleanse for my palate than a sweet MG read. I was wrong, there was something better, a sweet MG read that is full of the most luscious, tasty food descriptions that I have ever come across! All Four Stars by Tara Dairman is a wonderful middle grade read that makes you fall for it’s voracious MC and also leaves your mouth watering like no book I have read before.

This book along with my last read are leaving me thinking that I am warming up to third person perspective. Of course I know that in these two instances it’s just cases of the POV being…

Review: The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

Review: The Girl With All The Gifts by M.R. Carey

Posted by on 07/08/2014 • 21 Comments

*slow clap* I don’t even know where to begin reviewing this book. It was a book that I didn’t plan to read, I heard from my co-blogger it was a split POV story told in the third person and I thought “Rubbish! I don’t want that in my life.” Then a little birdie came along, one by the name of Christina of A Reader of Fictions and she said “Look, you need this book in your life. Total Jenni bait.” So I gave it a go and wow. I’m at a loss for words (which, if you know me, NEVER happens) because this book was just… everything.

We are introduced to the world through the eyes of a little girl named Melanie who spends her time in a cell and…

Review: We Are The Goldens by Dana Reinhardt

Review: We Are The Goldens by Dana Reinhardt

Posted by on 06/18/2014 • 12 Comments

As someone who is always looking for unique reads I am quick to jump on novels written in the second person. I didn’t originally know that this is how We Are The Goldens was written but once I found out that little tidbit of info I was quick to scoop it up and get going on it. For those of you that are wary of the novel for this very reason I say “Do not fear!” This is a very successful use of this mode of story telling and even though there wasn’t as much substance to the story as I would have liked, I think it was a very well done novel.

Nell and Layla are sisters who are best friends, thick as thieves. When Nell was a little…

Review: 17 First Kisses by Rachael Allen

Review: 17 First Kisses by Rachael Allen

Posted by on 06/13/2014 • 25 Comments

The fact that I even read 17 First Kisses at all is a testament to what book bloggers can accomplish. I had written this one off and didn’t think it was going to be for me at all until I saw Blythe’s (Finding Bliss In Books) review. As soon as I saw that she recommended it for fans of Courtney Summers I knew that it was going to be so much more than the blurb let on. And it was, this one has become close to, if not my favourite contemporary read of 2014 so far.

What I loved so much about this book is that it was so much more than a romance. There were friendships here that were so interesting, secondary characters that were perfectly fleshed out and…