REVIEW: Internet Famous by Danika Stone - Valeria

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Goodreads Description:

High school senior and internet sensation Madison Nakama seems to have it all: a happy family, good grades, and a massive online following for her pop-culture blog. But when her mother suddenly abandons the family, Madi finds herself struggling to keep up with all of her commitments.

Fandom to the rescue! As her online fans band together to help, an online/offline flirtation sparks with Laurent, a French exchange student. Their internet romance—played out in the comments section of her MadLibs blog—attracts the attention of an internet troll who threatens the separation of Madi’s real and online personas. With her carefully constructed life unraveling, Madi must uncover the hacker’s identity before he can do any more damage, or risk losing the people she loves the most… Laurent included.

I read the first half of the book in a single sitting... I literally just sat there and read for HOURS and the only reason I left the book was because I needed to go fetch breakfast... And thennnnnnn life got in the way and I was unable to continue reading the book for a while but holy shit was I itching to get back to it and when I DIDDDD... JESUS CHRIST I HATED MRS. P ! WHAT A BIOTCH!

ANYWAYS!

Haters going to freaking HATE!

Stone has done it yet again with another love story that it effortless and not too cheesy to the point where you want to shake the characters and scream at them "YOURE FAKE AS SHIT!"

Madi was lovable, with emotions that were all too relatable and the whole book had an 80s movie feel. But you know. With modern technology.

The book was totally goals for me even though I could never be able to reach that goal because I have always been like STRANGER DANGER when it comes to actually talking to people online. I DO have online friends.

Ange, Jo, Mads, Jenny, Pam

And I do wonder how I let them into my life without freaking out, I guess sometimes you just click. Just like Madi did with Laurent. If you have an online best friend, then you yourself know that exact feeling. I mean, the hour long seminars that they would give us in schools about strangers online are kind of hard to not think about at first. 

This book made me happy, im sure im not the only one who has ever wished their life was an 80s movie, my personal favorite, Can't Buy me Love and Back to the Future. This book however, has proved something to those readers that we all want to hear. You dont need to live in the 80s to live your 80s romance.

And that, makes me happy... Even after having an hour long calc test, not having had enough time to finish it and failing it... So... You know... This book achieved the impossible

Note: Keep a look out for my upcoming interview with the author right here on my blog in May, just a month before the book releases :)

Recommend it?

Freaking yes. Just like All the Feels, all fans of anything, need to read this, its almost like fanception.

BUY/PRE-ORDER THE BOOK
Amazon- Its crazy stupid cheap right now
Book Depository for you international folks
Barnes and Nobles, crazy cheap here as well

REVIEW: Caraval by Stephanie Garber - 5 stars

Title: Caraval

Genre: Young Adult Historical Fantasy

Author: Stephanie Garber

Publisher: Flatiron

Publication: January 31st 2017

Cover Rating: 100/5

Goodreads | Amazon

I keep telling myself, Jenn, you need to sit your ass down and form coherent thoughts so that you can write a review for Caraval. But all I hear is, 'You should barricade yourself in the house and read Caraval over and over'. Oh, I'm sorry, what was I saying? Ah, yes, this book is set in a world that feels like The Wizard of Oz Mixed with Alice in Wonderland but a little darker. So, basically, if Marissa Meyer were to write a retelling mixing the two worlds, that is what this book feels like to me. 

We start off on this little island where our main characters, Scarlett and Tella, reside. Scarlett is the protagonist and we experience this book through her eyes. I disliked Scarlett for most of the book. As soon as you get to Caraval, the contestants are told that everything is only a game. Don't believe what you see. Scarlett does exactly the opposite. She takes everything at face value but I would have loved to see Scarlett be a bit more laid back and involved in the game. If there was a picture next to the word RESERVED in the dictionary, there would be a big old picture of Scarlett.

Where Scarlett is super reserved and indecisive, her sister, Tella, is her opposite, almost to the extreme. Tella wants to run around with guys and defy her tyrant of a father. That's all fine and dandy but for every horrible choice Tella makes, her sister will always be the one who suffers a punishment. Tella knows this, but she still continues to be the way she is. I don't think she realized that she doesn't deserve a sister like Scarlett. 

After some events take place the sisters find themselves on the island of Caraval. It is 'owned' by Legend, the master of Caraval. Throughout the book, we get thrown back a few times to when the girls were younger and it is in these flashbacks that we learn a little back story about Legend. It was meant to be this sad story that tied Scarlett to Legends past, to make us understand why Legend is the way he is. I did not pity him, at all.

Julian gave me whiplash! Oh man, it was bad. I mean, yeah, Scarlett did it too, but she had every reason to not trust anyone. Julian, on the other hand, was always a changing story and very unpredictable. One moment I was swooning and the next I was like oh hell no you are a bad guy, aren't you? It was one hell of a roller-coaster.

So let's touch on the Circus subject. There is a lot of hype surrounding this book about it being a circus or carnival or what-have-you. While the title of the book leans more towards carnival, the book is on the circus side. With that being said, if you are reading Caraval for the circus atmosphere or thinking about picking it for that appeal on its own, I would advice you to either turn away or pick the book up without high hopes for that heavy circus theme. 

Scarlett's father also played a big roll in this book. He was abusive and controlling but after something that happened towards the end of the book I was actually starting to wonder what his true motives for his actions were. Along with the father, Scarlett had a fiance that her dad set her up with. He didn't seem like such a bad guy but I can't really know that for sure because we didn't get very much of him in the story. I honestly think these two characters could have been omitted and the book would have been the same. The author could have just given a brief history of the abusive father and that could have been it.

In the end, I kind of did expect everything that happened would happen. I don't like how things with Julian ended up. I felt like Scarlett was kind of pushed into keeping her feelings about certain things even though the reasons she loved someone or something were entirely changed now. I wish I could elaborate more on this without giving away any spoilers. But when you love someone, you love their quirks or the things they do. Maybe even a nickname that person gives you. Imagine if that person you loved just stopped all of those things and changed but you were still expected to love them. It was almost like Scarlett was handed a shell of the person she loved and was told to figure out how to love that person again because she isn't allowed to not love them. 

Aside from the Scarlett situation, the book ended on a cliffhanger from hell. the worst part for the cliffhanger was that I expected it. So, with expecting it, now I get to sit here and make up all these theories in my head until the second book comes out. Ahhh!!

Overall, I gave the book 5/5 stars.

There is one more thing I want to touch on for this book and all other books ever written. You know how someone will say oh I hated this character, blah blah blah, and they give the book a low rating because of that? It has me really confused because characters are written with all sorts of personalities and quirks, we are meant to hate certain characters because that is how the author wrote that specific character. I do not understand why this warrants someone giving a book a low rating. What the book written badly? Did it have shitty romance and too many plot twists? You telling me a character sucked means nothing to me because they were probably written that was on purpose. Malfoy was a complete dick yet everyone still swooned over Harry Potter. So why are other authors and their books so much different that they end up getting a low rating? Character development is a good reason to give a book a lower rating but if that character does something you don't personally like or is a total bitch, that is not a reason for a low rating, regardless if that character was a bitch or not, you still felt strongly enough about her/him that you reacted negatively towards them. To me, this entire subject is like sitting down to watch a horror movie and giving it a low rating because it scared you. 

Author Spotlight: Please Don't Tell by Laura Tims

Laura Tims is the author of PLEASE DON'T TELL, coming Fall 2015 from HarperCollins.

She's a mental health advocate, a cancer, and a reasonably cute organism. She likes Tumblr, anime, Neko Atsume, Homestuck, Steven Universe, and Undertale. She likes you even more.

She writes books about strange relationships, pain, and people who are scared but good. She loves to talk and if you also love to talk, find her on Twitter @laura_tims

Title: Please Don't Tell

Genre: YA Mystery

Author: Laura Tims

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication: May 24th 2016

Cover Rating: 4/5 

Goodreads | Amazon

Please Don't Tell is a very fast paced mystery type novel with a trigger warning for sexual assault. With that being said, if you would rather not read books with that subject then please do not pick this book up. If you are okay with reading about that subject then please DO pick this book up as it was a very quick read for me and I enjoyed trying to figure out who did what and why.

Joy is one of the twins. Joy really doesn't have a personality or anything outside of being a twin. She is kind of dull. She wants to be like her sister, smart, studious and whatever else she can think up. While reading the book I kept thinking to myself that Joy really needs to find out who she is apart from her twin sister. But towards the end of the book I found myself wondering which twin was the leader and which one was the follower.

Grace is a timid, annoying little girl. She has a lot of OCD type quirks. Her quirks work like this: If I do this a certain number of times or in a certain time frame then this will happen as a result. At first I found it a bit amusing but after a while I realized that Grace needed help. Lots of help. And I have no idea how she fooled everyone into believing that she was even remotely okay. 

I know I shouldn't, but... I actually liked Adam. Aside from what he did, he spoke the truth. He was harsh and he was tired of the bullshit life had to offer. And, honestly, the crap that happened with Grace... I am honestly not even sure it happened. This book made it hard to trust what anyone had to say. I think that is what made me like Adam. He was straight forward. But the crap with his grandfather being famous for writing a "love" song about the quarry being his house was a bit weird. Adam didn't seem like he wanted to become the music legend everything thought he would become. I would how different things would have been if his grandfather never wrote that song.

I didn't like Cassius. He was too timid and too weird and wayyyy too whipped for his own good. I mean, Jesus, he witnesses a crime and a girl got him to promise not to say anything. He was supposed to be the good guy out of his friendship with Adam but I really don't think he was much of anything. 

I almost forgot a pretty big part of the book. Levi. The step brother. I think he was hiding crap. Nothing that really had to do with Adam but still sketchy and always talk talk talking. Maybe he was making up for something or maybe he was staying with his dad for selfish reasons but in the end I didn't like him. He seemed sweet and shy and flirted a lot but he just didn't feel like he had anything going for him. I did feel bad for him with his mother being sick and his father.. well... his father being the way he was. I wouldn't have stuck around for that man. But if Levi didn't have any other motive for staying around then my next thought was he was very pliable. He was a sucker for punishment and way too soft.

I enjoyed the mystery of this book. It was a easy read and flowed very well. The author gave each character very in depth personalities and it felt like I was actually meeting the characters in person. The world was just a simple high school type setting but those are always fun books to read. The best drama happens in high school. Don't you agree?

At the end of the book I was kind of sitting here just staring at the pages. I honestly wasn't expecting it to end with this one person being the bad guy. I also kind of didn't like the end because I still have SO many questions. What happened to Adam's murderer? What happened with Levi? I am glad that Grace ended up where she did. Hopefully the rest of her life won't be so horrible now.

Overall, I gave the book 4/5 stars.