Categories
Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

Sunkissed – Book Review

Summary

Title: Sunkissed

Author: Kasie West

Pages: 320

Genre: Contemporary, YA

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Pub Date: May 4, 2021

After being betrayed by her best friend, Avery is hoping for a picture-perfect summer. Too bad her parents have dragged her and her sister to a remote family camp for the entire summer. And that’s not even the worst part. Avery also has to deal with no internet, a cute but off-limits staff member, and an always-in-her-face sister.

But what starts as a disaster turns into a whirlwind summer romance as Avery embarks on an unexpected journey to figure out what she truly wants and who she wants to be.

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Review

Summer camp: the perfect way to spend a summer break. Except when summer camp involves your annoying little sister who refuses to put down her phone for one second, and your parents lurking around every corner. But when Avery sets off on her summer adventure, these aren’t the things that are bothering her most; her best friend kissed her boyfriend just before school was out.

Avery is understandably upset. And just as she’s about to respond to her friend’s endless apology texts, she loses cell service. It turns out the camp she and her family will be spending their summer at has ZERO cell service. If only she had read the information her mom sent beforehand… Perhaps a summer with no connection to the drama of her life is just what Avery needs.

Things get off to a rocky start as soon as Avery gets to camp, and some unfortunate circumstances lead to her meeting a very cute boy, who happens to think she will be working at the camp for the summer.

Throughout the summer Avery learns about what she truly wants for her future after high school. She also comes to realize that her sister isn’t the vapid, phone obsessed teen she always perceived her to be. She makes great friends along the way to self discovery, and finds her voice to stand up for herself.

Kasie West rarely disappoints, and Sunkissed is a perfect novel to escape from the crazy world we’ve been living in. I flew through this book, and can’t wait to revisit it in the future. I give Sunkissed 5/5 stars.

*I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.*

Categories
Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary ya fiction

When Life Gives You Lemons Instead of Lattes – Book Review and Giveaway

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Summary

Title: When Life Gives You Lemons Instead of Lattes

Author: Rayna York

Pages: 316

Genre: Contemporary, YA

Publisher: Toad Tree Press

Pub Date: July 2, 2020

What if losing everything you have is exactly what you need?

Kylie’s summer after high school graduation was supposed to be celebrated in Europe, not some podunk town in Ohio. But when the FBI shows up at her parents’ California beach house looking for her father, the life she’s known, suddenly disintegrates.

With the family assets frozen and her father on the run, the only place left to go is a dilapidated house that once belonged to her great-grandmother. Now her family is broke, her social status is in ruins, and the only internet access is at a café where a nerdy barista boy wants to be her new best friend.

But life has a funny way of teaching its lessons, and being catapulted into this new reality might be the help she needs to learn that sometimes you have to let go of everything you know to discover what is real.

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Categories
Book Reviews contemporary

Rules for Being a Girl – Book Review

Summary

Title: Rules for Being a Girl

Author: Candace Bushnell and Katie Cotugno

Pages: 304

Genre: Contemporary, YA

Publisher: HarperTeen

Pub Date: April 7, 2020

It starts before you can even remember: You learn the rules for being a girl. . . .

Marin has always been good at navigating these unspoken guidelines. A star student and editor of the school paper, she dreams of getting into Brown University. Marin’s future seems bright―and her young, charismatic English teacher, Mr. Beckett, is always quick to admire her writing and talk books with her.

But when “Bex” takes things too far and comes on to Marin, she’s shocked and horrified. Had she somehow led him on? Was it her fault?

When Marin works up the courage to tell the administration what happened, no one believes her. She’s forced to face Bex in class every day. Except now, he has an ax to grind.

But Marin isn’t about to back down. She uses the school newspaper to fight back and she starts a feminist book club at school. She finds allies in the most unexpected people, like “slutty” Gray Kendall, who she’d always dismissed as just another lacrosse bro. As things heat up at school and in her personal life, Marin must figure out how to take back the power and write her own rules.

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Review

Take two of my favorite authors, team them up for a novel together and what do you get? An amazing, thought provoking, rage inducing book, that’s what! Add the cherry on top that our main character is a student journalist, and they’ve created the perfect novel for me. It’s like they’ve written a cooler version of me from high school.

Rules for Being a Girl touches on all of the things that bothered me about the school system when I was in high school. Sexist dress codes, incompetent school officials, double standards, etc. Marin is a bright young girl, with dreams of going to Brown University upon graduation.

Things get challenging for Marin when her favorite teacher, the one most of the female students have a crush on, Bex, kisses Marin. Granted, some sketchy things happened leading up to this, i.e. Marin lets Bex drive her home, Marin hangs out with Bex at a coffee shop, but all of that aside, Marin is clearly not okay with what happened. Bex lets it go, but starts being extremely antagonistic towards Marin, causing a whole lot of drama at school.

The rage Marin feels at being treated this way causes her to see many things in a new light, including how all of the school’s reading list is written by men. She starts a feminist book club, and is surprised by some of the people who join—and by those who don’t.

Rules for Being a Girl is absolutely one of my favorite books I’ve read this year. Marin goes through many challenges and has a lot of ups and downs, which she doesn’t always handle gracefully. Her emotions and actions feel authentic, and she will not sit by while people tell her how a girl should behave. I give it 5/5 stars.

Categories
Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary

Foul is Fair – Book Review

Summary

Title: Foul is Fair

Author: Hannah Capin

Pages: 336

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Publisher: Wednesday Books

Pub Date: February 18, 2020

Jade and her friends Jenny, Mads, and Summer rule their glittering LA circle. Untouchable, they have the kind of power other girls only dream of. Every party is theirs and the world is at their feet. Until the night of Jade’s sweet sixteen, when they crash a St. Andrew’s Prep party. The night the golden boys choose Jade as their next target.

They picked the wrong girl.

Sworn to vengeance, Jade transfers to St. Andrew’s Prep. She plots to destroy each boy, one by one. She’ll take their power, their lives, and their control of the prep school’s hierarchy. And she and her coven have the perfect way in: a boy named Mack, whose ambition could turn deadly.

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Categories
Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary mystery ya fiction

Deadly Little Scandals – Book Review and Giveaway

Summary

Title: Deadly Little Scandals

Author: Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Pages: 352

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Mystery

Publisher: Freeform

Pub Date: Nov. 5, 2019

“Think of the White Gloves like the Junior League-by way of Skull and Bones?”

Reluctant debutante Sawyer Taft joined Southern high society for one reason and one reason alone: to identify and locate her biological father. But the answers Sawyer found during her debutante year only left her with more questions and one potentially life-ruining secret. When her cousin Lily ropes her into pledging a mysterious, elite, and all-female secret society called the White Gloves, Sawyer soon discovers that someone in the group’s ranks may have the answers she’s looking for. Things are looking up… until Sawyer and the White Gloves make a disturbing discover near the family’s summer home–and uncover a twisted secret, decades in the making.


No one is quite who they seem to be in this twisty, soapy, gasp-inducing sequel to Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ unputdownable Little White Lies. 

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Categories
Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary ya fiction

Scars Like Wings – Book Review and Giveaway

Summary

Title: Scars Like Wings

Author: Erin Stewart

Pages: 352

Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary

Publisher: Delacorte Press

Pub. Date: October 1, 2019

Before, I was a million things. Now I’m only one. The Burned Girl.

Ava Lee has lost everything there is to lose: Her parents. Her best friend. Her home. Even her face. She doesn’t need a mirror to know what she looks like–she can see her reflection in the eyes of everyone around her. 

A year after the fire that destroyed her world, her aunt and uncle have decided she should go back to high school. Be “normal” again. Whatever that is. Ava knows better. There is no normal for someone like her. And forget making friends–no one wants to be seen with the Burned Girl, now or ever. 

But when Ava meets a fellow survivor named Piper, she begins to feel like maybe she doesn’t have to face the nightmare alone. Sarcastic and blunt, Piper isn’t afraid to push Ava out of her comfort zone. Piper introduces Ava to Asad, a boy who loves theater just as much as she does, and slowly, Ava tries to create a life again. Yet Piper is fighting her own battle, and soon Ava must decide if she’s going to fade back into her scars . . . or let the people by her side help her fly.

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Categories
Book Reviews

American Royals – Book Review

Summary

Title: American Royals

Author: Katharine McGee

Pages: 448

Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers

Pub. Date: Sept. 3, 2019

Two princesses vying for the ultimate crown. 
Two girls vying for the prince’s heart. 
This is the story of the American royals.

When America won the Revolutionary War, its people offered General George Washington a crown. Two and a half centuries later, the House of Washington still sits on the throne. Like most royal families, the Washingtons have an heir and a spare. A future monarch and a backup battery. Each child knows exactly what is expected of them. But these aren’t just any royals. They’re American. And their country was born of rebellion.

As Princess Beatrice gets closer to becoming America’s first queen regnant, the duty she has embraced her entire life suddenly feels stifling. Nobody cares about the spare except when she’s breaking the rules, so Princess Samantha doesn’t care much about anything, either . . . except the one boy who is distinctly off-limits to her. And then there’s Samantha’s twin, Prince Jefferson. If he’d been born a generation earlier, he would have stood first in line for the throne, but the new laws of succession make him third. Most of America adores their devastatingly handsome prince . . . but two very different girls are vying to capture his heart.

The duty. The intrigue. The Crown. New York Times bestselling author Katharine McGee imagines an alternate version of the modern world, one where the glittering age of monarchies has not yet faded–and where love is still powerful enough to change the course of history.

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Categories
Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

Maybe This Time – Book Review

Summary

Title: Maybe This Time

Author: Kasie West

Pages: 368

Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult

Publisher: Point

Pub. Date: July 9, 2019

One year. Nine events. Nine chances to . . . fall in love?

Weddings. Funerals. Barbecues. New Year’s Eve parties. Name the occasion, and Sophie Evans will be there. Well, she has to be there. Sophie works for the local florist, so she can be found at every big event in her small hometown, arranging bouquets and managing family dramas.

Enter Andrew Hart. The son of the fancy new chef in town, Andrew is suddenly required to attend all the same events as Sophie. Entitled, arrogant, preppy Andrew. Sophie just wants to get her job done and finish up her sketches so she can apply to design school. But every time she turns around, there is Andrew, getting in her way and making her life more complicated. Until one day she wonders if maybe complicated isn’t so bad after all . . .

Told over the course of one year and following Sophie from event to event, this delightful novel from master of romantic comedy Kasie West shows how love can blossom in unexpected places.

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Categories
Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary romance ya fiction

Hot Dog Girl – Book Review

Summary

Title: Hot Dog Girl

Author: Jennifer Dugan

Pages: 320

Genre: YA, Contemporary, LGBT

Publisher: Putnam

Pub Date: April 30, 2019

Elouise (Lou) Parker is determined to have the absolute best, most impossibly epic summer of her life. There are just a few things standing in her way:

* She’s landed a job at Magic Castle Playland . . . as a giant dancing hot dog.
* Her crush, the dreamy Diving Pirate Nick, already has a girlfriend, who is literally the Princess of the park. But Lou’s never liked anyone, guy or otherwise, this much before, and now she wants a chance at her own happily ever after.
* Her best friend, Seeley, the carousel operator, who’s always been up for anything, suddenly isn’t when it comes to Lou’s quest to set her up with the perfect girl or Lou’s scheme to get close to Nick.
* And it turns out that this will be their last summer at Magic Castle Playland—ever—unless she can find a way to stop it from closing.

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Categories
#OwnVoices Blog Tours Book Reviews contemporary ya fiction

When the Ground is Hard – Book Review

Summary

Title: When the Ground is Hard

Author: Malla Nunn

Pages: 256

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Publisher: G.P. Putnam

Pub Date: June 4, 2019

Adele Joubert loves being one of the popular girls at Keziah Christian Academy. She knows the upcoming semester at school is going to be great with her best friend Delia at her side. Then Delia dumps her for a new girl with more money, and Adele is forced to share a room with Lottie, the school pariah, who doesn’t pray and defies teachers’ orders. 

     But as they share a copy of Jane Eyre, Lottie’s gruff exterior and honesty grow on Adele, and Lottie learns to be a little sweeter. Together, they take on bullies and protect each other from the vindictive and prejudiced teachers. Then a boy goes missing on campus and Adele and Lottie must rely on each other to solve the mystery and maybe learn the true meaning of friendship.

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