Review: Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella

Finding Audrey

Sophie Kinsella

Publication Date: June 9, 2015

Hardcover, 288 pages, Delacorte Books

Genres: YA, Contemporary

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Shopaholic series comes a terrific blend of comedy, romance, and psychological recovery in a contemporary YA novel sure to inspire and entertain.

An anxiety disorder disrupts fourteen-year-old Audrey’s daily life. She has been making slow but steady progress with Dr. Sarah, but when Audrey meets Linus, her brother’s gaming teammate, she is energized. She connects with him. Audrey can talk through her fears with Linus in a way she’s never been able to do with anyone before. As their friendship deepens and her recovery gains momentum, a sweet romantic connection develops, one that helps not just Audrey but also her entire family.

My Review

Oh, the cute! Oh, the fun! Oh, the laugh-out-louds! Basically, this book is a riot of jolly good times.

Audrey may be having a bad past few months or so, what with her anxiety order and all, but that won’t stop her family from being, well… her family. Her older brother, Frank, has managed to find himself addicted to videogames, which Audrey’s mother does not find acceptable. Her dad’s kind of oblivious to it all and her little brother just can’t stop being adorably weird. But once Frank’s friend Linus starts coming around, Audrey may find herself going from rock bottom to being the tip of an arrow that never stops pointing up.

In her sort of self-titled book, Audrey is probably portrayed as the most serious person in her family, and that’s saying a lot because she’s quite the comedian herself. And she’s kind of a celebrity, just ask her neighbor Oliver. However, the moments between Frank and his mother are just too hilarious to even compare. Plus, Audrey’s mysterious issue provided way too much false tension for a book that was wrapped up in so many giggles. Of course, Audrey’s newfound tendency to shut the world out is a great representation of just how poorly people look down on others with mental illnesses, but how did Audrey get like this? Readers need to know.

And if we mosey on over to the setting of this story, a reader might be a little baffled by the fact that about 90% of the plot takes place in Audrey’s home. The other 10% takes place at Starbucks. So all you Starbucks lovers, you’ll adore this cute contemporary read. Oh, and you’ll probably want a Caramel Frappuccino before, during, and after. Blend all this with a touch of UK and you get a unique setting within a not-so-unique setting.

And while the book does a great job telling a witty and charming story that portrays mental illness in a less serious manner, while still maintaining its overall seriousness, be prepared for an ending that may seem to come too soon and that’ll have you wishing you hadn’t found Audrey so the entertainment will never end.

**Note: I borrowed a copy of this book from the Book Review Board of Missouri.

A New Apartment Deserves a New Bookshelf

I got a new apartment! I’m living with one of my roommates from my previous apartment now and it’s fantastic! There’s less mess, less stress, and less noise. I’ll try and post some pics of the apartment later, once we’ve settled in and moved things around to our hearts' content, but for now, here’s some pics of my new bookshelf.

Here’s a pic of the box.

Yes, it came in a box, and yes, it is from Target. It was cheap—only $25.

Here’s a pic of us putting it together. 

Here’s a pic of the finished version. 

It’s not completely full yet. The bottom shelf needs something more and I haven’t packed all of my TBR books from home yet, but with one exception of a small nick, it looks pretty good. I'll have some better bookshelf pictures once I bring up the rest of the books.

Which Team Are You? : The Do-Over Frigid Series Edition

I basically just post a book series every week and have people vote on what team they are. I know the YA Sisterhood does the YA Crush Tournament, but I just want to find out how much you guys like one love interest over another, in one series.

Last week's poll was over the Frigid series by Jennifer L. Armentrout and nobody won because the poll didn’t work. Boo… So I’ll be reposting the same poll.

So for this edition of “Which Team Are You?” I’m going to ask you who your pick of hunky man-flesh is from J. Lynn’s Frigid series—again. 

You can choose from:

1) Kyler


or 2) Tanner

 
I haven’t read Scorched yet, so I can’t really vote.

If you had to choose one, who would it be, and why? If you haven’t read the books (And why not!?), who do you think sounds more appealing from the Frigid summary (which favors Kyler, oops) below:

 
For twenty-one-year-old Sydney, being in love with Kyler isn't anything new. They'd been best friends ever since he pushed her down on the playground and she made him eat a mud pie. Somewhere over the years, she fell for him and fell hard. The big problem with that? Kyler puts the 'man' in man-whore. He's never stayed with a girl longer than a few nights, and with it being their last year in college, Syd doesn't want to risk their friendship by declaring her love.

Kyler has always put Syd on a pedestal that was too high for him to reach. To him, she's perfect and she's everything. But the feelings he has for her, he's always hidden away or focused on any other female. After all, Kyler will always be the poor boy from the wrong side of tracks, and Syd will always be the one girl he can never have.

But when they're stranded together at a posh ski resort due to a massive Nor'easter, there's nothing stopping their red-hot feelings for each other from coming to the surface. Can their friendship survive the attraction? Better yet, can they survive at all? Because as the snow falls, someone is stalking them, and this ski trip may be a life-changer in more ways than one.

Which Team Are You?

	Team Kyler
	Team Tanner

abcpoll.com free polls

***Please note that I stop checking the poll the Friday before the new poll comes out (on Sunday). Also, please only vote once so everyone’s vote counts, unless you need to vote for both guys. I give you permission to do that because sometimes choosing is tough.***

**Also note that these are not my images. I found them online.

Stacking the Shelves: The Beautiful Edition (Haha)

"Stacking the Shelves" is a weekly haul meme that is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It allows book buyers to share their accumulation of books with the online book-loving community.

I bought some books from Book Outlet! Basically because I wanted the signed copy of Blacklisted and there was only ONE copy in stock. I also pre-ordered Every Last Breath.

Every Last Breath by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Beautiful Disaster and Beautiful Oblivion by Jamie McGuire

Blacklisted by Gena Showalter (signed)

Compulsion by Martine Boone

Winterspell by Claire Legrand

I’ve already ordered books two and three in the Maddox Brothers series. I didn’t think I’d like the spin-off book, but I really did.

What books have you bought/received lately?

Dean Winchester Friday

Dean Winchester (or sometimes Jensen Ackles) Fridays make me a very happy fangirl. You'll see why when you watch this video.

I shared a peek of it last week, but nothing can compare to watching the whole thing. 

(Btw, this is not my video. I believe it was actually posted by Misha Collins, but I'm not sure.)

Review: Splintered by A.G. Howard

Splintered

A.G. Howard

(Splintered #1)

Publication Date: January 1, 2013

Hardcover, 371 pages, Amulet Books

Genres: YA, Fantasy, Fairytale Retelling

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads

This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence.

Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.

My Review

Alice in Wonderland is a fantastic background for any modern-day fairytale retelling, so it’s not a huge surprise that the world in this book was rich with detailed descriptions and lovely language. I felt like every word Howard wrote belonged to a deep and meaningful piece, hidden beneath the original book.

Despite my fascination with the way the book was written, I wasn’t all that fond of this book. It had a good storyline to set it up, so that coupled with the vivid language should have immediately made the book a hit, right? Wrong. The characters in this book and the way they talked, as well as some of the actions they took just didn’t jive with me.

Okay, let me back up to what I thought about the characters. Alyssa at first was a unique young adult character. She had some weird hobbies and she wasn’t your typical YA main character, but at some point, her weirdness just got boring and odd. I guess I didn’t really see the connection between her in the regular world versus her in the Wonderland world and how her two sides panned out. I also didn’t really like the two main boy characters: Jeb and Morpheus. I’ve never been a fan of the boy-best-friend-who-wants-something-more-at-just-the-perfect-moment storyline, so Jeb automatically was a no-no for me, but I thought I’d like Morpheus. I mean, I kind of liked him, but who he’s supposed to be is just weird. I thought he was going to be the son of the Mad Hatter or something, but that is NOT who he is. I did enjoy the side characters, though. They were a perfect blend of weird and fun to read about.

Now, on to how the characters talked. I could rarely understand the logic of the flow of conversation whenever Alyssa made her way to Wonderland. I was confused about 90% of the time. I think the book just needed to slow down and explain things better, this could have helped some of the too-quick action scenes too (there were quite a few of these). I also sometimes couldn’t understand Alyssa’s own conversations in her head. She just made decisions that, while I know they’re supposed to be illogical because it’s Wonderland, I still couldn’t really wrap my head around.

What redeemed this book enough for me to give it three stars instead of say, two or just one, was the ending. I had no idea what was going to happen at the end and I was surprised and intrigued for the last 75 pages. However, considering the book is more than 300 pages, it should have had me captivated from at least page 100.

All in all, Splintered is a book I wouldn’t really recommend unless you’re an Alice in Wonderland fanatic. It takes way too long to get into the storyline and too much time to try to understand everything.

P.S. The book itself is gorgeous, though.

**Note: I purchased a copy of this book for myself.

Waiting on Wednesday: The Harder You Fall by Gena Showalter

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly event, hosted over at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.

This week, what's really got my pages in a twist is...

The Harder You Fall

Gena Showalter

(The Original Heartbreakers #3)

Publication Date:  November 24, 2015

MMP, 384 pages, HQN Books

Genres: Adult, Contemporary

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads

From New York Times bestselling author Gena Showalter comes another scorching Original Heartbreakers tale featuring an aloof bad boy and the rowdy Southern belle who rocks his world…

Millionaire video-game creator Lincoln West has a dark and tragic past. The sought-after bachelor lives by a rigid schedule and a single rule—one relationship per year, lasting no more than two months. No exceptions. He moved to small town Strawberry Valley, Oklahoma, with his brothers-by-circumstance hoping to escape the worst of his memories—until a brash beauty dredges up long-buried emotions.

A reformed party girl, Jessie Kay Dillon is determined to walk the straight and narrow. But her love-hate sizzle with West is just too irresistible. They can't be near each other without tearing off their clothes, but the last thing she needs is to be his next two-month dump. Can she be the one exception? Because as any former girl-gone-wild knows: rules are made to be broken.

My Thoughts

I haven’t read the first two books because I want to read all three of them at the same time, but I just have to say that Gena Showalter is one of my favorite authors. Lately though, I haven’t been a huge fan of her adult stuff, so we’ll see.

What book are you waiting for this Wednesday?

Attention Reviewers! I Have a Question for You!

So, as you can probably tell from the title of this post, I have a question for all of you reviewers and review readers out there. How do you respond to negative comments on your reviews? Do you attack back? Do you stress that it’s your opinion you’re trying to convey? What do you do?

The reason I’m asking is because I received my first negative comment over a review. I was kind of expecting some backlash, but not to this extent. (This review I’m going to mention has yet to be posted on my blog. It’s over More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera and it will be up soon.) I took a screenshot of the info and posted it below:

I think I responded with a level-head, if I do say so myself. However, I now realized that I should have stressed some issues more. Like, how people are allowed to react happily to a book and share their opinions over how joyful a book made them, but according to this customer, I am not allowed to express how sad a book made me. I also should have explained that if I were severely depressed—I explained in my review that I was feeling extremely down and useless—his/her comments could have been even more devastating than they already are on my psyche. Thankfully, I’m back to “normal” now, but this comment could have caused me some major problems.

Basically, I am posting this because I want to see what you guys would have done if you were me. How would you have reacted to a negative comment, or how have you reacted to a negative comment in the past? Do you still think about the comment today? Please let me know.

Review: Killer Frost by Jennifer Estep

Killer Frost

Jennifer Estep

(Mythos Academy #6)

Publication Date: February 25, 2014

Paperback, 354 pages, K-Teen

Genres: YA, Paranormal

Barnes & Noble | Amazon | Goodreads

I’ve battled the Reapers of Chaos before–and survived. But this time I have a Bad, Bad Feeling it’s going to be a fight to the death … most likely mine.

Yeah, I’ve got my psychometry magic, my talking sword, Vic–and even the most dangerous Spartan on campus at my side, in Logan freaking Quinn, but I’m no match for Loki, the evil Norse god of chaos. I may be Nike’s Champion, but at heart, I’m still just Gwen Frost, that weird Gypsy girl everyone at school loves to gossip about.

Then someone I love is put in more danger than ever before, and something inside me snaps. This time, Loki and his Reapers are going down for good … or I am.

My Review

This is it. The last book in the Mythos Academy series. I feel like I’ve been reading this series for my entire book-blogging career. I don’t know what I’ll do with myself after I’m officially done writing and posting this review. I guess I’ll just have to find another mythological type of series to tide me over. It would help if it had Logan Quinn in it, though…

So Gwen’s getting ready for the final showdown between her and Loki and I was definitely ready to read about it. I just didn’t expect everything to happen so quickly. While the beginning was a little slow and predictable, the ending seemed like it rushed by way too fast. Maybe my brain wasn’t mentally prepared for the series to come to an end, so I just determined that the last 150 pages felt more like just 25 pages. Stupid brain.

The characters of this series are much the same as they always are, with one exception: Gwen was a little annoying during the first part of this book. I couldn’t understand some of the selfish choices she was making, especially since Gwen had always seemed like a rather selfless character. But other than this issue, the characters didn’t change. I still wanted to see waaaaaaaaaay more Logan than was present, and Daphne, Carson, and Oliver and company (Ha, see what I did there?) kept up their banter and kick-butt-ery. I still must continue to complain about the lack of more Logan sexy-times, though. Logan is such a great character and his background as a Spartan warrior is so freakin’ cool! But Estep constantly has him either absent from the fight scenes or injured and bleeding somewhere. Boo…

All in all, this book was a good ending to a good series and I wish I could have some more—more Logan, more cool ninjas, more Spartans, more Greek god descendants, and more talking weapons!

**Note: I won a copy of this book in a contest. This in no way altered my opinion/review.

Which Team Are You? : The Frigid Series Edition

I basically just post a book series every week and have people vote on what team they are. I know the YA Sisterhood does the YA Crush Tournament, but I just want to find out how much you guys like one love interest over another, in one series.

Last week's poll was over Gena Showalter’s White Rabbit Chronicles. Team Cole won! (I’m not counting the vote that I submitted to see if the poll was working.)

So for this edition of “Which Team Are You?” I’m going to ask you who your pick of hunky man-flesh is from J. Lynn’s Frigid series. 

You can choose from:

1) Kyler

or 2) Tanner

I haven’t read Scorched yet, so I can’t really vote.

If you had to choose one, who would it be, and why? If you haven’t read the books (And why not!?), who do you think sounds more appealing from the Frigid summary (which favors Kyler, oops) below:

For twenty-one-year-old Sydney, being in love with Kyler isn't anything new. They'd been best friends ever since he pushed her down on the playground and she made him eat a mud pie. Somewhere over the years, she fell for him and fell hard. The big problem with that? Kyler puts the 'man' in man-whore. He's never stayed with a girl longer than a few nights, and with it being their last year in college, Syd doesn't want to risk their friendship by declaring her love.

Kyler has always put Syd on a pedestal that was too high for him to reach. To him, she's perfect and she's everything. But the feelings he has for her, he's always hidden away or focused on any other female. After all, Kyler will always be the poor boy from the wrong side of tracks, and Syd will always be the one girl he can never have.

But when they're stranded together at a posh ski resort due to a massive Nor'easter, there's nothing stopping their red-hot feelings for each other from coming to the surface. Can their friendship survive the attraction? Better yet, can they survive at all? Because as the snow falls, someone is stalking them, and this ski trip may be a life-changer in more ways than one.

Which Team Are You?

Team Kyler

Team Tanner

pollcode.com free polls

***Please note that I stop checking the poll the Friday before the new poll comes out (on Sunday). Also, please only vote once so everyone’s vote counts, unless you need to vote for both guys. I give you permission to do that because sometimes choosing is tough.***

**Also note that these are not my images. I found them online.

Stacking the Shelves: The Library Book Haul That I Didn't Need Edition

"Stacking the Shelves" is a weekly haul meme that is hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It allows book buyers to share their accumulation of books with the online book-loving community.

I went to the library. When I already have a bajillion books to read of my own. I’m such a bad person. But I don’t regret it. At least not yet. I’m going to shut up now.

The Book of Ivy by Amy Engel

Things We Know by Heart by Jessi Kirby

More Happy Than Not by Adam Silvera

I’ve already read two of these books and so far I haven’t been wowed.

What books have you bought/received lately?