After Review

Author: Amy Efaw

Pages: 350

Rating: 4 Waffles

Excerpt: 

The microwave beeps. Devon flinches. She hears the door to the microwave open then, hears it shut. Hears her mom stir in the Ovaltine, a spoon clinking against the sides of a mug. 

"You won't believe this, Devon."

Devon thinks of the swirling brown milk. Swirling... swirling... a vortex of brown, swirling milk. She fights the dizziness... closes her eyes.

"You just won't believe what they found in the trash."

Trash. Devon feels a vague anxiety slice through her mind. Trash... something about that word... And the thought seeps away.

Summary: Devon was perfect. Grades, friends, activities, a future, all in pecking order, nice and neat.  Until she did the unthinkable, the inhumane, the worst crime a person can commit. Suddenly she's thrown into the unfamiliar world of the juvenile detention center, for committing such a horrible crime that she can't even admit to herself what she's done. If she can't even reconcile with her conscience, how will she evade the life sentence being thrown at her? 

What’s Up: At first, this book was a little difficult to get into. I felt like I was getting no where with Devon's story, I was like a lost puppy, because the author left out a lot of detail to lead the reader on and get her interested. I typically don't like this approach to getting a reader's attention, I like the details straight up. But after I got into it and understood what was going on, I was happy with what I read. I wouldn't say it was a page-turner, but at times it was pretty hard to put down. I, yet again, was not too pleased when it came to the ending. Then again, I judge book endings very harshly. It has to be perfect and even then I still might want more. Anyways, like most books I read, I felt the ending wasn't enough, like there was so much more to tell. The way the book was written was a bit difficult to understand at times, but I kind of liked it that way. The style really helped out with the story. Another thing that bothered me was (at least I thought) a lack of detail. It just felt like there were time breaks where there shouldn't have been, leaving me wondering what happened. Overall, After was a book on the deeper side, and even though it was confusing and missing some details, I was pleased and enjoyed reading the book.

Do I recommend it? Yes. After was deeper level thinking book, not like the typical YA fiction book about a girl messing up her life. It's not a light read, not one you can just breeze through. So there you have it, the rest is up to you.

Catching Up, A Giveaway and What's To Come

Hey there followers, sorry I haven't posted in a while, still struggling on the review for After. I'll try my best to have it done this weekend. In other things, I NEED to get out! All I've done for the past weeks is practice and school. I am just itching to go out on a shopping spree. And I am so incredibly done with winter. Don't know about you guys, but I kinda need summer to be here now! So, I bet you're wanting to know about this giveaway, eh?

Well, again, it's not my giveaway, but it's still pretty awesome. So run on over to Kimberly's Bloomin' Corner to enter to win a $50 for Amazon.com! I mean come on! That's not only money for books, but other stuff as well. Ah, who am I kidding, I would totally spend it all on books. So go enter, and good luck!

So, what's coming up? I do really need to jump start this blog! I'm hoping to have some giveaways soon (hooray)! And I'm going to really try to have book reviews up faster, because right now I'm reading books like two times faster than I'm reviewing them, which needs to change. I also need to start requesting books from publishers, but first I gotta get some more followers. Any tips on that are much appreciated! :)

I suppose that's it for now! :)

Before I Fall

Author: Lauren Oliver

Pages: 470

Rating: Four Waffles

Excerpt:
The thing is, you don't get to know. It's not like you wake up with a bad feeling in your stomach. You don't see shadows where there shouldn't be any. You don't remember to tell your parents that you love them or--in may case--remember to say good-bye to them at all.
If you're like me, you wake up with seven minutes and forty-seven seconds before your best friend is supposed to be picking you up. You're too busy worrying about how many roses you'll going to get on Cupid Day to do anything more than throw on your clothes, brush your teeth, and pray to God that you left your makeup in the bottom of your messenger bag so you can do it in the car.

Summary: Samantha's Kingston's got it all; money, friends, popularity, a cute boyfriend and an overall perfect teenage life. She thinks that today will be just like any other day, filled with fun, mischief and a good party to start off the weekend. Instead, it ends up being her last. When Sam dies in car crash, she wakes up only to find herself reliving February 12th over and over...and over. What does it mean? Follow Sam through the last seven days (well rather one day) of her life, as she struggles to find out what the meaning of living really is.

What’s Up: I have been wanting to read this book for the longest time, and I was very happy that I got it for Christmas. And I was not disappointed. At first I was rather taken aback by Sam and her friends's views in the beginning of the book, I mean, talk about trashy. So I started out pretty much hating them, and then as I read through the book, I grew to like Sam more an more for reasons I will not disclose. One thing I don't really get is, on Sam's seventh day reliving February 12, how did she know it was her last? Just a hunch? So I am a little iffy on that part. Everything else I was pretty happy with. I enjoyed living all those seven days with Sam, she did something different everyday and I was always looking forward to seeing what she would be up to the next day. Not to mention the book was very good at pulling me in. I mean this in not only in the way that it was a page turner, but it was also very good at pulling me into Sam's life. At one point when I was reading late at night, I had to set the book down because Sam was in a rather scary situation and I was getting too freaked out! Although the plot wasn't very original--girl dies and relives her last day over and over to make things right--but I did like the story. Characters weren't really easy to sympathize with, but more like the reader can easily associate with them, as in they have that sort of a figure in their life that they are familiar with so they can apply the characters to their life. Does that make any sense? In conclusion, this book is one I would not mind reading again.

Do I recommend it? Yes :) I was very pleased with this book. It was not go-out-and-buy-now good, but reserve-from-your-library-now good, I suppose. But if I made a list of 50 books you should read before you die, I would say that Before I Fall would make that list.

Jumping Off Swings Review

Author: Jo Knowles

Pages: 230

Rating: 3 1/2 Waffles

Excerpt: Corinne said she would go with me to buy a test. To be sure. But I told her I am sure. She said she'll help me find a place to take care of it. That we can take a bus to the city if we have to. She says her sister will help us. Ava knows what to do. And she thinks Josh will pay. But I don't want Ava to know. I don't want Josh to know. No one can know.
I brush my teeth and go back to my room. I shut the door. Shut out the smells and my mother's happy breakfast noises as she gets ready to fill us up on scrambled eggs and whole-wheat toast with jam. All our lives, she's tried to stuff us with her goodness. So why do I feel so empty?

Summary: Ellie has had her fair share of hooking up. Each time she think he'll be different, that maybe they really do love her, but they're all the same; it's just a hit and run. When Josh sleeps with her and leaves, Ellie is devastated yet again, just like every other time. Yet this time, something's different. Ellie's pregnant.  Will Ellie keep the baby? Kill it? Give it up? Follow Ellie, Josh, and Ellie's two friends, Corinne and Caleb though the ups and downs.

What’s Up: Not too bad. I liked how the POV switched from Ellie, Corinne, Caleb and Josh, not necessarily in that order, but just when the character had something important to say. I liked yet didn't like how it was spaced out in chunks of three months. I'm not really sure what I have to say about this book. It wasn't really one way or the other. It didn't have me glued to the book and reading furiously, but I wasn't bored by it either. It was an emotional book, and maybe if I was a more emotional person, I might have shed a tear or two. Not the most in depth about the matter at hand, but definitely enough to get the point across and tell a good story. I don't regret reading it, the story, characters, and writing was all very lovely. It's just... there isn't a whole lot to comment on, I feel like. In the end, it was just a so-so book.

Do I recommend it? Sure. It wasn't anything you need to go out and buy right this minute, but if you're just strolling around the library, and you see it, yeah, you could pick it up for a nice read.

Lost It Review

Author: Kristen Tracy

Pages: 276

Rating: 2 Waffles

Excerpt:
I started the first day of my junior year of high school zitless and basically happy. I was sixteen and feeling good. I didn't have any major issues. Okay, that's not entirely true. For weeks I'd been growing increasingly concerned about Zena Crow, my overly dramatic best friend. She'd been going through  rocky stretch and had been talking incessantly about building a bomb. Not a big bomb. Just one that was big enough to blow up a poodle.

Summary: Tess Whistle's got a pretty average life, right? Well, not exactly. You see, her best friend is building a bomb to annihilate a poodle, her parents run away to a lifestlye camp in Utah, and her crazy, millionaire Grandmother moves in. But, she has a boyfriend, and is still feeling pretty alright. But along the way, there's a car wreck, nasty turkey dinners, sexy underwear, lost keys, and exploding shoes. This is the story of Tess Whistle, and average girl, with an interestingly not so average life.


What's Up: Lost It, I must admit, wasn't that great. Althought I should have seen it coming based off of the stereotypical teen cover and pitch. But again,  I'm not one to judge a book by it's cover. Despite a few interesting events, the book was almost boring, and very much the plain ole stereotypical YA book I had suspected it to be. Girl meets boy. Girl falls hopelessly in "love" with boy. They have sex. They break up. Life goes on. Nothing new there, nothing to pull me in really. A few twists- the bomb-building best friend, runaway parents and an kooky grandmother -were interesting enough, but I also felt like a lot of them were pretty unrealistic. It made it harder for me to relate to and enjoy the book because I was constantly going "But wait...!" because of how naive all the adults were, for one thing. And the one thing that really bugs me is the cover. The cover, you know, is pretty nice, but boy is it false! The scene depicted on the cover was in reality, quite false. (Now excuse my frankness here) In the sex scene shown here, it was winter and Tess complained profusely about this fact. So why is the grass all green and healthy-looking, and why are they wearing capris? Another thing, how do you have sex with pants on? I mean I know you can't just fling two naked kids on a book cover, but maybe show just some feet sticking out from under the canoe? Or maybe just show another scene all together? Now that I've ranted about atrocious cover, I should probably get back to reviewing the actual book. Like I said before, Lost It was pretty disappointing. The author is a good writer, I'll give her that; she does a good job telling the story. But the story itself was rather lame. I guess that's about all I have to say, anything beyond it would just be redundant.

Do I recommend it? Yeah, you could. I guess I just like a little more interesting and challenging reads, and Lost It just wasn't up to par with my standards. It's an easy read, so if you're looking for a quick, simple book, this one would do. It's not really my type of book, but everyone's different, so I'll let you be the judge.

What Alice Forgot Review

Author: Liane Moriarty

Page Count: 423

Rating: 5 Waffles

Excerpt:

People kept asking her questions, in voices that were too loud, as if she were asleep, even though she was looking right at them. Did she remember falling over? Did she remember the trip in the ambulance? Did she know what day of the week it was? Did she know what date it was?

“Nineteen ninety-eight?” A harried-looking doctor peered down at her through glasses with red plastic rims. “Are you quite sure about that?”

“Yes,” said Alice. “I know its 1998 because my baby is due on August eight, 1999. Eighth of the eighth, ninety-nine. Easy to remember.”

“Because, you see, it’s actually 2008,” said the doctor.

Summary: Alice and her beloved, Nick, are expecting their first child. They have a ramshackle house that they’re fixing up together. Life couldn’t be more perfect for twenty-nine year-old Alice. Until she wakes up in a gym after misplacing the last ten years of her memory. Why are she and Nick splitting up? Why is Alice’s mother married to her horrid father-in-law? Who is Gina? How did Alice turn into a Super-Mom? And what exactly happened in those ten years that made her family fall apart?

What’s Up: First off, this is a little out of my range of YA books; What Alice Forgot is adult fiction. In fact, I snagged it from my mother’s bookshelf (so sorry Mummy dearest, I simply couldn’t pass it up). None the less, I was practically in love with the book before I even read the first page. I know, I know, it’s wrong to judge a book by its cover, but the summary on the inside cover pulled me right in. Now, about the actual story. The plot/storyline itself was phenomenal. The book certainly kept me coming back for more; I just could not put it down. Maybe it was just the topic of romance, or the uniqueness of Alice herself, but I am in love. Another thing I like was that there is not one story here, but three. There are two other points of view, as told by Alice’s sister, Elisabeth, and their “grandmother,” Frannie. Each character has her own individual struggles, yet they all work together wonderfully to fabricate one very, interesting story. In conclusion, I’m pretty sure I just found a new favorite book. J

Do I recommend it? Heck yes!! Even if adult fiction is out of your comfort zone, I still highly recommend it! In fact, I recommend you head straight to the nearest bookstore or library and pick up a copy for yourself. As in right now. So hurry up and go read this page-turning, romantic and funny book!