Word of the Week Wednesday[9]

 
Word of the Week - Ramekin - To All The Boys I Loved Before - pg 144
Meaning - A small, usually round bowl that has steep sides and is used for cooking and serving food for one person.

Mini Review Monday[19] The In-Between by Barbara Stewart

I bought The In Between because the synopsis made the book sound like a normal ghost book. And I like ghost books. Boy, gosh golly, was I wrong. Yeah, there is a ghostly aspect. But it is more of a psychological carousel ride straight to looney town. White jackets aren't optional.

Ellie is a weird girl. That is drilled into our heads within the first few pages. She is suicidal and depressed and doesn't fit in anywhere she goes. In my opinion, the fitting in is the least of her problems. Is she really seeing/feeling the ghost? Or is she bipolar? I still haven't figured that out yet.

After finishing the book and having some time to think on things, some stuff did become very clear to me. When her father tells her "You shouldn't even be here." and "Everything is temporary." it sort of clicked in my head that her father was actually a ghost. And the reason he breath smelled like ashes was because, well, he was a pile of ashes in the real world. Ellie was in some form of parallel universe where she was dead but when she was brought back to life the alternate place vanished, locking Madeline and her father over there. I think her father moved on but Madeline was spiteful and couldn't move on.

Do I think Ellie was bipolar? Not really. Do I think her consumed twin sisters ghost was trying to ruin her life? I'm not really sure about that either. All I know is that Ellie has issues and her mother didn't exactly help much.

One of the issues I had with the book is where are Ellies other relatives? Her grandparents? Aunts, uncles, cousins? No one else went to her fathers funeral and everything just seems a little undeveloped.

Autumn freaked me out a little big. She actually believed Ellie about the ghost crap. It's like Autumn was saying to herself "A friend that sees ghosts and beats the snot out of me with her backpack is better than no friend at all." She was a weird girl herself but she wasn't like Ellie. But then again, maybe she was and she hid it better. Who knows. Aside from the author, that is.

Overall, I gave the book 3.5/5 Mini Kitties.

Stacking the Shelves[22]

These are the books I have gotten in the past month. I got a bunch of books this week but I am waiting until they all show up to do a STS for them.

These are the books I found at the Delaware 2nd and Charles. I was sooo excited to find Ruin and Rising and Minders! 

 

The top 4 are from Paperbackswap.com and the bottom 3 are from BookOutlet.

REVIEW: Once We Were by Kat Zhang

It felt good to be back in the hybrid world. I have been wanting to read this since I read the arc of What's Left Of Me.

I love the whole concept of every human being born with two souls in one body. When they hit a certain age that they just become one soul, while others stay as two. 

Though I enjoyed this installment very much it was slow to me. It didn't go as fast as the first one did. That's the only bad thing about this one. 

Now onto the good. In What's Left Of Me Addie is the one that is controlling Addie and Eva's body. Soon Eva starts to get control over their body very slowly and with help. In this book Eva gets control of their body a lot more and I really liked that she did. Out of the two girls I like Eva more than Addie. Though I love how strong Addie is. We get to see how Eva grows throughout the book and see how she starts to make her own choices. She becomes a stronger character than she was in the beginning. 

We get introduced to new characters and a lot of them I didn't like. They had this air about them that didn't settle with me. The one character, Jackson, I did like. Though he made mistakes he did get Addie out of her shell more. At the end he does try and make things right. 

We also got to learn more about what hybrids can do. Such as, one soul can drift away for a while, so that the soul that is controlling the body has complete control. They don't have anyone in their head talking to them. Not only that, but we also got to experience how it is to wake up from drifting away and being disoriented and not knowing the other soul was doing while you were gone. 

We saw the struggles and help there is from having two souls share one body. This whole world is about how society fights against certain types. In this case the single souled are fighting against the doubled souled. Instead of everyone just getting along they rage war and want to control who the doubled souled are. They all start out the same way so why can't they all get along? 

Overall, I enjoyed the message and the characters. I can't wait for the final installment to see how this is all concludes.

 I gave the book 4/5 stars.

Mini Review Monday[18] First Love by James Patterson and Emily Raymond

Before I write this review I just have one question. What is up with all the cancer books? I understand that John Green is making a lot of money and getting fame from his book but why do people feel the need to copy that? Do they think they are going to get noticed too? I am just really sick of the same books over and over again by different authors.

With that said, First Love is the first EVER James Patterson book I have read. And I am not impressed. I know that he wrote the book with someone else but her name is so tiny on the cover that it kind of makes it seem like she was just there cheering him on.

The characters are very one dimensional. They don't seem like they would actually exist in the world and if they did no one would notice them.

Axi is supposed to be this "good girl" with a bad life. Alcoholic father, run away mother and dead sister. If she really had a life like that then there is no way she would be a "good girl" and she probably wouldn't have waited this long to get away.

Robinson is a "bad boy." Oh this story just keeps getting more cliche. He isn't a bad boy at all. I think he was just trying to keep Axi from falling for him because he knew he was sick. The stealing cars thing could also be a bucket list kind of thing because he knew he was sick. I truly didn't see and redeeming qualities in Robinson and I don't know what Axi saw.

The whole story felt like Axi already knew that Robinson was sick. She took him to all these places and she was ALL ABOUT HIM. But she apparently didn't know and I am having a hard time believing that with how the book was written.

This book should have just been a short story or something. Everything was drawn out and the book was STILL over very quickly. I think this book could have been summed up in less than fifty pages.

Needless to say, this "epic" love story fell so short that it didn't even make it to the window to start the jump.

Overall, I have the book 1/5 mini kitties.

Mini Review Monday[17] This Star Won't Go Out by Esther Earl and John Green

There were so many tears. A lot of them were sad tears, but there were also many happy tears. I'm so glad that I read this book.

 I'm glad I got to see how strong, beautiful and loving girl that was Esther. I had to put this book down many times because of how much it got to me. I really wish I could have been part of Esther's life. Seeing how she was while she was alive and fighting a hard battle inspired me so much to keep living.

She means so much to so many people because of the kind of girl she was. I loved being able to see her passion for the things she loved and the love she had for her family and for her friends. I loved seeing how she cared for anyone and everybody. 

She continues to inspire so many people around the world with her story. I know she has definitely inspired me. 

I do not have the words to explain anymore than what I have said, because there just aren't the words to explain how much of a special girl Esther was.

Overall, I gave the book 5/5 stars.

Stacking The Shelves[21]

This weeks STS is going to be the books I have gotten in the past week plus some other items I picked up! I hope you enjoy and feel free to comment down below with a link to your STS post!

These are the amazing finds from 2nd and Charles. I can't believe I found the top 4. some of them are very recent releases.

I already own a copy of Allegiant by my copy is unique and has 40 extra pages that don't belong in the book. They are throw in at the wrong place so it makes the book hard to read because they pages aren't in order. So I found a new copy at Goodwill. I will keep my special copy but I want a copy I can read easily.

These are a result of my Target trip. I have been seeing Yoobi pens all over Instagram so I wanted to check them out for myself.

And then there is these babies. I went to Hot Topic to look for Frozen Funko figures but left with these. They were clearanced and then Buy one Get one free. So I bought the ones with the ears and just picked out a second pair for my laptop. Aren't they cute?

I hope everyone had an amazing week! Cya next time!

Mortal Danger short story available!

I have known about this for a little while now. I was about to start reading Mortal Danger when I came across this link on Facebook, FierceReads to be exact. I forgot about it because I was out shopping when I saw it So I read Mortal Danger and did my review and tonight I came across the short story again. Well, I read it and I loved it. It's from Kian's point of view and it meant to be a prequel to Mortal Danger. So you can either read it before or after I would probably say after because then you get to see just how far downhill Kian went in Mortal Danger His personality and stuff really changed once he was actually able to talk to Edie. Below is a picture and if you click on it it will take you to the short story I hope you enjoy the book and story as much as I did.

Word of the Week Wednesday[8]

Word of the Week - Svelte - To All The Boys I Loved Before AND Mortal Danger

Meaning - Slender and Elegant

Publication Day Review: Mortal Danger by Ann Aquirre

Title: Mortal Danger

Author: Ann Aquirre

Format: eBook and ARC paperback
Source: NetGalley & Trade

Publisher: Fiewel And Friends

Mortal Danger was a nice surprise. I was expecting a fantasy novel with all sorts of things I wouldn't understand but, instead, I got a private school type setting with fantasy and romance all jumbled together.

Let me first say that I love private school type books. I eat them up. And when I read a blurb for Mortal Danger I saw they it mentioned Blackbriar Academy so obviously I was interested. After the initial interest I also read that the book seemed to have a Deal With The Devil type aspect to it and that mixed with a private school had to be interesting, right?

Right! I will tell you that the first two chapters are kind of your average Joe Schmo chapters. But once I got through the beginning, which was the deal making scenes, I started flying through the book. Edie, Edith, is such an interesting character. It makes me very sad that she wasn't strong enough to stand up to the bullies at Blackbriar. But without her being so weak we never would have met Kian and thus resulting in no story at all.

Edie has essentially hit rock bottom. Or so she was about to before Kian showed up and saved her life. But he had ulterior motives. She had to basically make a deal with the devil in order to exact her revenge in the bullies who treated her like a dog... If you have read the book you should understand that pun.

Kian seems like a very lost and sad soul. He gave up his freedom in order to get a car, a new face, and to make some random girl fall in love with him. If you had three wishes that you gave up your freedom for what would they be? I know mine wouldn't be so frivolous. But desperation causes people to do terrible things. And Kian is now regretting his decisions both with his life and the life he has just given Edie.

I suspected Kian wasn't exactly on Edie's side entirely. I mean the people she wanted revenge on started ending up dead even though she rejected Wedderburn's offer. Kian was the only one around when she said horrible things she wanted to do to both Brittany and Russ and then they magically happened. So I was definitely weary of him.

I think it was beautiful of Edit to tell Kian she would have dated him before he wished to be beautiful. It just shows that someone will love you no matter what you look like. You just have to have the strength to get through the milestones in life that take you to where you belong. I also think it was heroic of Edie to use one of her wishes to keep Vi safe. I know that is exactly what Wedderburn wanted but Edie couldn't sit there and watch Vi go insane.

The fact that Edie's friendships with both Jen and Davina were based off of looks is entirely wrong. You shouldn't be friends with someone based on their looks. There are so many lessons to be learned from reading this book. I don't think real high school experiences are quite as terrible, at least mine wasn't, but being friends with someone due to looks, money, etc is fairly common.

In the end Edie didn't exactly "win" per say. She got out with her's and Kian's lives still intact but she will be hunted and have to live a harder life because of the path she took. I think it was really cool that she was so important in the future though. She followed in her parents footsteps and took their dreams a little bit further.

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.

Mini Review Monday[16] Don't Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout

 Title: Don't Look Back
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Don't Look Back was the first Jennifer L. Armentrout book I have ever actually read. I was looking for a standalone book and I am glad I picked this one up. With all the Dystopian, contemporary romance and fantasy YA books out there, this was a lovely change of pace. There aren't enough thriller YA books out there and Don't Look Back was done right.

Sam was a bitch. There is no light way to put it. But after her "accident" she turned into someone completely different. Her old self, some might say. And she actually wants to stay like that. Even as she starts to remember bits and pieces of her past she remains the Nice Sam and I really liked that. I kind of expected her to gain her memories back and instantly go back into bitch mode. 

 

Sam is seriously a strong character. She is smart and funny and I think the memory loss was a good thing for her. The events surround it weren't pleasant in the least but they turned her into a better person.

Carson.. Oh dear Carson. I could have sworn on my soul that he was the bad guy. Turns out he was just trying to get good grades. And then we have Del The Dick. The crap he pulls by telling Sam that they have the perfect relationship and using her amnesia to repair what he broke was extremely low. After finding out about Del and Cassie I had a feeling that he was the bad guy. But once again, I was wrong.

I will definitely say that this book had me thinking everyone was the killer except the actual killer. I really didn't see the end coming and I LOVED that. Being able to predict a book gets really old. It's a shame what happened to Cassie. It just shows that money can rule people. Sam's father didn't want to lose everything and sadly his need to keep his wife and money resulted in tragedy.

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 Mini Kitties.