Tag Archives: young adult

Book Title:
Emerge: The Awakening (The Awakening #1)
Book Author:
Melissa A. Craven
Book Series:
The Awakening
Publishing Date:
April 1, 2015
Publisher:
Midnight Hour Studio
Date Read:
August 13, 2015

Synopsis

Allie Carmichael has always believed life is simple.

You’re born.

You live.

You die.

She has no cause to believe that equation works differently for her, but there has to be a reason the world treats her like a pariah.

When an unexpected move to Kelleys Island brings Aidan McBrien crashing into her life, Allie is thrown by his reaction. He doesn’t shrink from her touch. He doesn’t stutter or make a quick exit. He smiles and welcomes her into his circle of friends, who aren’t exactly comfortable with Allie, but they seem to get her in a way most people don’t.

Finally, Allie has a real shot at normal and rides that high right up to her sixteenth birthday when she wakes in agony—an experience Aidan insists they have all faced. She struggles in ignorance, uncertain of what is real and what isn’t. When she emerges, Allie is different. She has always been different, but even among her extraordinary friends, she and Aidan are special.

As Allie struggles to maintain her tenuous grasp on the power that threatens to overwhelm her, she worries she will lose herself in this strange new world. A dangerous world where she will have to fight tooth and nail to defend the power and freedom that is her birthright.

…only Allie hates to fight.

My Review

This book was not what I was expecting at all.  I honestly don’t know what I was expecting, but I didn’t think it would be this good…I was completely blown away by the amount of action and the brilliant plot … Continue reading

4 stars
2 Comments
Book Title:
A Long, Long Sleep
Book Author:
Anna Sheehan
Publishing Date:
January 22, 2013
Publisher:
Candlewick Press
Date Read:
August 18, 2015
Source:
I received a copy from the publisher - Thank you!

Synopsis

It should have been a short suspended-animation sleep. But this time Rose wakes up to find her past is long gone-- and her future full of peril.

Rosalinda Fitzroy has been asleep for sixty-two years when she is woken by a kiss. Locked away in the chemically induced slumber of a stasis tube in a forgotten subbasement, sixteen-year-old Rose slept straight through the Dark Times that killed millions and utterly changed the world she knew. Now, her parents and her first love are long gone, and Rose-- hailed upon her awakening as the long-lost heir to an interplanetary empire-- is thrust alone into a future in which she is viewed as either a freak or a threat. Desperate to put the past behind her and adapt to her new world, Rose finds herself drawn to the boy who kissed her awake, hoping that he can help her to start fresh. But when a deadly danger jeopardizes her fragile new existence, Rose must face the ghosts of her past with open eyes-- or be left without any future at all.

My Review

A Long, Long Sleep is a futuristic sci-fi take on Sleeping Beauty. Rosalinda is a sixteen year old girl who is much older than sixteen.  The book begins with Rosalinda being woken from her stasis tube by a kiss from … Continue reading

4 stars
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Book Title:
Playing the Player
Book Author:
Lisa Brown Roberts
Publishing Date:
September 14, 2015
Publisher:
Entangled Teen
Date Read:
July 31, 2015

Synopsis

The Good Girl Vs. The Player

Round one begins…

Trina Clemons needed the money. Why else would she – the most organized, prepared student in school – spend the summer as a nanny and partner with the biggest slacker ever? Now she’s ready to tackle nannyhood with her big binder of research and schedules. Just don’t ask her about the secret job of “fixing” the bad habits of a certain high school player…

Slade Edmunds prefers easy hook-ups, and Trina is definitely not his type. She’s all structure and rules, while Slade wants to just have fun. Fortunately, Trina has no idea about the bet Slade made with his best friend that he can totally get her to unwind by the end of summer…

Then the weirdest thing happens. There’s chemistry. A lot of it.

But nothing gets between a boy and a girl like a big, fat secret…

My Review

This book was really cute.  While I’m not always one to go right for cute, fluffy YA romances, I absolutely adored this one.  It was fun, it was interesting, and it was heartwarming. The book starts off with Trina making … Continue reading

4.5 stars
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Book Title:
Dead Upon A Time
Book Author:
Elizabeth Paulson
Publishing Date:
August 25, 2015
Publisher:
Scholastic
Date Read:
August 8, 2015

Synopsis

It's a fairy-tale nightmare . . .

One girl is kept in a room where every day the only food she's given is a poisoned apple. Another is kept in a room covered in needles -- and if she pricks her finger, she'll die. Then there are the brother and sister kept in a cell that keeps getting hotter and hotter. . .

A sinister kidnapper is on the loose in Kate's world. She's not involved until one day she heads to her grandmother's house in the woods -- and finds her grandmother has also been taken. Already an outcast, Kate can't get any help from the villagers who hate her. Only Jack, another outsider, will listen to what's happened.

Then a princess is taken, and suddenly the king is paying attention -- even though the girl's stepmother would rather he didn't. It's up to Kate and Jack to track down the victims before an ever after arrives that's far from happy.

My Review

“Over the river and through the woods, to a killer’s house we go.”   The synopsis and the blurb make this book sound like any fairy tale lover’s dream (or nightmare, in this case) come true, right? Imagine that you’re … Continue reading

4 stars
4 Comments
Book Tour

Playing the Player Author: Lisa Brown Roberts Publication Date: September 14, 2015 Publisher: Entangled Teen Summary from Goodreads: The Good Girl Vs. The Player Round one begins… Trina Clemons needed the money. Why else would she – the most organized, … Continue reading

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Book Title:
Vengeance Road
Book Author:
Erin Bowman
Publishing Date:
September 1, 2015
Publisher:
HMH Books for Young Readers
Date Read:
August 10, 2015

Synopsis

When Kate Thompson’s father is killed by the notorious Rose Riders for a mysterious journal that reveals the secret location of a gold mine, the eighteen-year-old disguises herself as a boy and takes to the gritty plains looking for answers and justice. What she finds are devious strangers, dust storms, and a pair of brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, she gets closer to the truth about herself and must decide if there's room for love in a heart so full of hate.

In the spirit of True Grit, the cutthroat days of the Wild West come to life for a new generation.

My Review

I’m going to start off by saying that I’m really not one for westerns.  Be it books, movies, or anything else in the western genre, they just really aren’t my thing. So when I heard about this book, I really … Continue reading

5 stars
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Book Title:
The Dead Girls of Hysteria Hall
Book Author:
Katie Alender
Publishing Date:
August 25, 2015
Publisher:
Point
Date Read:
July 29, 2015

Synopsis

Asylum meets Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, in this riveting tale of ghosts, secrets, and family, from master of suspense Katie Alender.

Delia's new house isn't just a house. It used to be an insane asylum, a place to lock up "troubled" young women long ago. And a restless, wicked spirit is still at play--and it doesn't want defiant girls like Delia to go anywhere.

So the house kills her.

Now Delia is a ghost, trapped in her creepy home forever. As she meets the other ghost girls who haunt the narrow hallways, as well as the handsome ghost boy on the grounds, she learns shocking truths about the house's history. Delia also realizes that her alive and grieving sister might be the house's next target. Can Delia unlock the mystery of the old asylum, save her sister, and free herself?

My Review

The moment I heard about this book, I was so excited to read it. I absolutely love horror, especially ghost stories, or stories involving any kind of haunting or ghosts.  So when I came across this book, I was pretty … Continue reading

5 stars
1 Comment
Book Title:
Gathering Frost (Once Upon A Curse #1)
Book Author:
Kaitlyn Davis
Book Series:
Once Upon A Curse
Publishing Date:
February 4, 2015
Publisher:
CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Date Read:
April 13, 2015

Synopsis

Will his kiss be enough to revive her frozen heart?

Once Upon A Time meets La Femme Nikita in GATHERING FROST, a dystopian romance from bestselling author Kaitlyn Davis that reimagines the classic fairy tale of Sleeping Beauty.

Jade was only a little girl when the earthquake struck. Before her eyes, half of New York City disappeared, replaced by a village that seemed torn out of a storybook. Horses and carriages. Cobblestone streets. A towering castle. And, above all, a queen with the magical ability to strip emotions away. Ten years later and Jade has forgotten what it is to feel, to care...even to love. Working as a member of the queen's guard, she spends most of her time on the city wall staring at the crumbling skyscrapers of old New York. But everything changes when the queen's runaway son, Prince Asher, returns. Jade is tasked with an unusual mission--to let the Prince capture her, to make him trust her, and then to betray his secrets to the crown. In return, she'll earn her freedom. But life outside the queen's realm is more than Jade bargained for. Under Asher's relentless taunts, her blood begins to boil. Under his piercing gaze, her heart begins to flutter. And the more her icy soul begins to thaw, the more Jade comes to question everything she's ever known--and, more importantly, whose side she's really on.

My Review

I read this book a few months ago, back before I started Here’s to Happy Endings and only did my reviews on Goodreads and Amazon, and I thought that it definitely deserved a place here on the blog itself, because … Continue reading

4.5 stars
2 Comments
Book Title:
Castle in the Air
Book Author:
Jennifer Tressen
Publishing Date:
July 25, 2015
Date Read:
August 4, 2015

Synopsis

The Crescent Hotel in Eureka Springs, Arkansas has been called "America's Most Haunted Hotel" largely because of the events of the 1930s when Dr. Norman Baker ran a "cancer treatment hospital" which he called his "Castle in the Air." Follow the fictionalized story of Clara, the young, unwed pregnant niece of Dr. Baker who comes to help at the cancer center in exchange for room and board and finds things aren't quite what they appear to be. Caring for an ill young boy at the center she feels her maternal instincts kick in - something is definitely not right at her uncle's hospital. But what? Will she be able to piece together the clues in time to save herself and the boy? Or will she be forever doomed to reside in the Castle in the Air, where once you check in...you never leave.

My Review

Let me start off by saying that I am a huge sucker for the horror genre, especially ghost stories and stories involving haunted houses.  I just can’t get enough of them, even though the good ones scare me to the … Continue reading

3.5 stars
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Book Title:
Read Between the Lines
Book Author:
Jo Knowles
Publishing Date:
March 10, 2015
Publisher:
Candlewick Press
Date Read:
July 30, 2015

Synopsis

Does anyone ever see us for who we really are? Jo Knowles’s revelatory novel of interlocking stories peers behind the scrim as it follows nine teens and one teacher through a seemingly ordinary day.

Thanks to a bully in gym class, unpopular Nate suffers a broken finger—the middle one, splinted to flip off the world. It won’t be the last time a middle finger is raised on this day. Dreamer Claire envisions herself sitting in an artsy café, filling a journal, but fate has other plans. One cheerleader dates a closeted basketball star; another questions just how, as a "big girl," she fits in. A group of boys scam drivers for beer money without remorse—or so it seems. Over the course of a single day, these voices and others speak loud and clear about the complex dance that is life in a small town. They resonate in a gritty and unflinching portrayal of a day like any other, with ordinary traumas, heartbreak, and revenge. But on any given day, the line where presentation and perception meet is a tenuous one, so hard to discern. Unless, of course, one looks a little closer—and reads between the lines.

My Review

I absolutely adored this book.  The characters, their stories, the settings…everything about this book was so well written and captivating, it made me want to read the entire book without taking a break (and with this one, that’s pretty much … Continue reading

4.5 stars
2 Comments