nobody here but us chickens

I feel like I would have really liked this book if the story hadn't moved so slowly. I just couldn't get into this book because it took so much time setting things up, and almost no time on the parts that could have been action filled and interesting. The story itself was good, but it came across as slow and boring, which made it really hard to keep my attention focused on reading it.

This book was the best of both magical novels and Southern fiction, and I loved every minute of it. Once I started reading it I couldn't put it down. The characters were believable, and even though some of them seemed too perfect in the beginning they eventually revealed their flaws, and by the end of the book they seemed like totally real high school kids. The magic wasn't your usual "I just learned I can do magic and everything is perfect" type either, which was fantastic. They had to actually work to use the spells, and they often didn't work out the way the girl intended. Overall, I would definitely recommend this book, and I'm absolutely going to go find the next one in the series as soon as possible.

Yet another book that appears to be afraid of actually using the word bisexual. This is a really frustrating trend and I wish it would stop. More to the point, the main character (Ava) seemed to be completely unaware of the existence of bisexuality. The entire book made it seem like she was the only person to ever have been attracted to girls and boys, and it was really irritating and slightly ridiculous. Do the characters in these kinds of books all live in some alternate universe where bisexuality doesn't exist? (or pansexuality, or polysexuality, or omnisexuality... seriously just give me SOMETHING)

I liked this book, but it would have been so much better if the author had decided to make Astrid bisexual. I actually thought that might have been what was going to happen. She spent the entire book being very unsure of her sexuality, and when people asked her if she was a lesbian she would tell them that she didn't know. That seemed like the perfect setup for her to be bisexual, but then (like most books with a lesbian character) she suddenly realized that yes, she was indeed a lesbian. I was actually really disappointed because I was really hoping for a good book with a bisexual main character, and once again I was let down.

I picked this up because I liked the first book in the series, and because it was bound to fill in some square on my YA book bingo board (book with a break-up). Overall, I actually did end up enjoying this book, but when it started talking about Cricket I thought he must have done something truly horrible to Lola in the past, based on the fact that even her parents were really concerned about her reaction to his family moving back in next door. And then when the big reveal came about, and we finally found out what terrible thing he did... I nearly peed myself laughing because it was so dumb. The story did redeem itself fairly quickly, and was essentially what I expected after that, but I just can't get over how much of a letdown his actual crime against Lola was.

I picked this up because it filled a spot on my YA book bingo card, and it didn’t sound totally horrifying. I wasn’t expecting to love it, but I really did.

I sometimes have issues with books about high school students, whether they’re popular or outcasts, since none of these books ever really resemble my high school experience at all, but this one was easy to relate to for the most part. Obviously I didn’t sneak out to secret underground warehouse clubs, and I wasn’t bullied, but I wasn’t super popular either so it was easy to relate to Elise’s confusion about how popularity worked. Her family life did seem a bit weird, but I suppose all families are weird in their own way so I’m willing to let that slide.

Mostly this was just a really enjoyable, quick read and I would definitely recommend it to people who like this type of book.

I got this from a Goodreads giveaway.

I was so into this book when I started reading it, but by the end I just didn't care anymore. I loved the beginning, when it was just a forensic mystery, and was really excited to keep reading. Then, suddenly, it became a ridiculous (and hard to follow) reincarnation/immortality/I-don't-even-know story. That's about when it stopped holding my interest. I just didn't care about any of the characters. I wanted to find out who the Lady was, and have it be over. Except the ending wasn't satisfying. At all. So now I'm just really disappointed.

This book was 100% not what I expected, and I don't mean that in a good way. When I read the summary I thought there was going to be some really great supernatural stuff going on, but then it was just some stupid girls going on spring break. Seriously, they got in a car with a strange old man (who turned out to not be creepy, but still), and then got in a car with strange college students. One of the girls then got roofied (big surprise, right?) and somehow got lost in the jungle for ten months. And as a bonus: they left their other friend back at the hotel all by herself the entire time. How dumb can you be? Plus there was some weird hallucination shit that made no sense at all, and that one story about the baby bird that was totally pointless.

 

Basically, this book might have been okay if I hadn't been expecting an X-Files episode, but all the characters were pretty unrelatable in their stupidity, or just entirely pointless.

I keep reading John Green's books, but I never really seem to enjoy them. Half the time I don't really understand what they're talking about, and the other half I don't actually enjoy what I'm reading. Every time I start a new one, I hope it'll be better than the rest, and every time I'm disappointed.

 

Anyway, this one pretty much fell squarely into the category of "exactly what I expected." It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. Once again I couldn't relate to a single character, and I felt a bit like each of them represented one particular high school stereotype. 

 

I repeatedly felt like I should be nearly done with the book, only to realize that I wasn't even halfway. It just sort of dragged on, and while it did get more interesting in some places, there were a lot of parts that seemed really unnecessary and boring. I don't feel like I totally wasted my time reading this, but I don't really feel like it was a good use of my time either.

 

I should probably just stop reading John Green books.

This book has been recommended to me so many times I can't even remember them all, so I finally decided to give it a go. I can see why people are so fond of this book, and why it's recommended as one of the best LGBTQ+ books out there, but I wasn't really a fan.

 

I found it pretty difficult to really care about the story at first, but it got better about halfway through. The ending was really unsatisfying, however, and I don't feel like anything was really resolved. I also found it really hard to relate to Cameron, which made it rather hard to care what was happening to her. 

 

That said, this book was well written and neither over nor underestimated the reader's intelligence. It was fairly easy to read, but not so easy that I found myself completely zoning out. Overall it was a quick, interesting read. 

 

Basically: I'm glad I read it, but I probably won't read it again.

I keep reading John Green's books, but I never really seem to enjoy them. Half the time I don't really understand what they're talking about, and the other half I don't actually enjoy what I'm reading. Every time I start a new one, I hope it'll be better than the rest, and every time I'm disappointed.

Anyway, this one pretty much fell squarely into the category of "exactly what I expected." It wasn't bad, but it wasn't good either. Once again I couldn't relate to a single character, and I felt a bit like each of them represented one particular high school stereotype.

I repeatedly felt like I should be nearly done with the book, only to realize that I wasn't even halfway. It just sort of dragged on, and while it did get more interesting in some places, there were a lot of parts that seemed really unnecessary and boring. I don't feel like I totally wasted my time reading this, but I don't really feel like it was a good use of my time either.

I should probably just stop reading John Green books.

This book has been recommended to me so many times I can't even remember them all, so I finally decided to give it a go. I can see why people are so fond of this book, and why it's recommended as one of the best LGBTQ+ books out there, but I wasn't really a fan.

I found it pretty difficult to really care about the story at first, but it got better about halfway through. The ending was really unsatisfying, however, and I don't feel like anything was really resolved. I also found it really hard to relate to Cameron, which made it rather hard to care what was happening to her.

That said, this book was well written and neither over nor underestimated the reader's intelligence. It was fairly easy to read, but not so easy that I found myself completely zoning out. Overall it was a quick, interesting read.

Basically: I'm glad I read it, but I probably won't read it again.

I got this from a first reads giveaway on Goodreads, and was ridiculously excited. I haven’t actually read the first three books in the series, so I was somewhat confused at first. Eventually all of my questions were answered, however, and then it was just a really fun read. I feel like I probably would have been more into the story if I’d read the rest of the series and gotten more attached to the characters, but I really enjoyed it regardless.

 

There weren’t any characters that I found annoying (unless I was supposed to), or unnecessary, and I really loved the “pack” dynamic between them. The story was well written (of course), and didn’t have a lot of superfluous details, or anything that was confusing. Plus, and I have to admit this was surprising, I didn’t manage to solve the mystery way before the characters. Which is pretty unusual, so it was a nice change. Basically this was a really good, fun book, and I would definitely recommend it to people. Also, I’m definitely going to go back and read the rest of the series.

I really, really love Sue Monk Kidd's novels. They're some of my absolute favorites, and I reread them constantly, but I was a little wary of this one at first, but it was actually just as fantastic as I'd hoped it would be. I tend to really dislike books that alternate whose point of view they're from, since it's usually annoying. This one, however, actually did a really good job with the changing points of view, and it made way more sense that way, than it would have from just one person's point of view.

If you like books set in the South, or set in the 1800s, or just really good books that make you think, you should definitely give this one a try.

It took me some time to get into this book because I had trouble caring about any of the characters, but once I got a couple chapters in they became more interesting. Unfortunately that led to an inability to stop reading the book long enough to do other things.

Overall, I thought that all of the characters were relatable and interesting in some way. None of them seemed unbelievable, and all of them were just trying to do what they thought was best, even though sometimes it seemed wrong.

Basically, I just really enjoyed this book, and loved both Sarah and Handful.

This is the sequel to Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children, which I really really loved, but this one just wasn’t as good. Maybe it was because I hadn’t read the first one in so long that I’d forgotten some details, but I had a lot of trouble getting into the story. Overall, though, I would definitely say that if you liked Miss Peregrine’s this one is worth reading.

This book picks up where the last one left off; with the children all crammed into boats, and trying to cross the water to safety. After some trouble, they finally manage to get to land, but almost immediately have to run from the wights/soldiers that are hunting them. They find another loop, a menagerie, and meet some other peculiars who tell them that only another ymbryne can help Miss Peregrine, unfortunately, they have to go to London to find another ymbryne, so off they go. Along the way they meet more peculiars, run into a few hollows, and essentially just have a lot of trouble getting to London. Once there they do manage to find the ymbryne, Ms. Wren, and she assures them that she can help Miss Peregine. Naturally things aren’t that simple, and nothing turns out the way the children were expecting. Also, there was a nice setup for the third book in the series.

Despite my vague disappointment with this book, I did actually end up enjoying it (the pictures were fantastic, as expected) and I’ll almost definitely read the third one when it comes out.

This is actually two books in one, so this review might be a bit long. Or not.

When I first saw this book I thought it looked like a rip off of Glee, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. I wasn’t really expecting much, so I was pleasantly surprised when I actually like it.

I sort of figured that the characters would be thinly veiled Glee character clones, but that was most definitely not true. (Full disclosure: I watch Glee, but mostly because it’s so bad that I can’t stop. Like watching a train wreck.) Anyway, I actually really liked Bryan, and found him surprisingly easy to relate to. The writing was from his point of view, and the way it was written was pretty much the way my brain works, so it was really fun to read. I pretty much read both of these books (which actually only totaled 489 pages) in like 2 days.

Despite what could have been some really mediocre plot lines, I found myself laughing nearly the entire time I was reading these. My personal favorite line?

"Pinocchio gets a tiny cricket as his conscience. Me? I warrant a two-hundred-fifty-pound bald black man."

I’m not really sure why I found this so funny, but it really just set me off. Maybe it was because I was overtired?