Review: Insomnia by J.R. Johansson

Book: Insomnia
Author: J.R. Johansson
Series: The Night Walkers
Publication Date: June 8th, 2013
Publisher: Flux
Rating: 2 Stars

It’s been four years since I slept, and I suspect it is killing me.
Instead of sleeping, Parker Chipp enters the dream of the last person he’s had eye contact with. He spends his nights crushed by other people’s fear and pain, by their disturbing secrets—and Parker can never have dreams of his own. The severe exhaustion is crippling him. If nothing changes, Parker could soon be facing psychosis and even death.
Then he meets Mia. Her dreams, calm and beautifully uncomplicated, allow him blissful rest that is utterly addictive. Parker starts going to bizarre lengths to catch Mia’s eye every day. Everyone at school thinks he’s gone over the edge, even his best friend. And when Mia is threatened by a true stalker, everyone thinks it’s Parker.
Suffering blackouts, Parker begins to wonder if he is turning into someone dangerous. What if the monster stalking Mia is him after all?

I, like everyone else, got pretty interested in the premise of this book. It's always interesting to see how authors twist the whole concept of dreams and how they influence reality. Insomnia reminded me of Wake in the way it makes dreaming a curse. The entire tone of Insomnia is creepy and dark, and it's easy to feel just as confused as the main character, Parker, about who the real victims and instigators are.

The beginning and end of the book were interesting, but I slogged through the middle. I didn't feel very invested in any of the characters, least of all Parker. Johansson was doing a balancing act with making the main character a possible antagonist, and in this case, I didn't think it was very well done. I never really empathized with Parker's situation or wanted to believe that he wasn't the one doing all the stalking and causing all the chaos. Most of the time, I was sick of him being melodramatic and creepin' on other people when I think there could have been more reasonable ways of dealing with his many situations. In addition, his whole issue with sleep isn't clarified enough for me to buy it completely. First of all, why is he still able to function like a normal person and play soccer (minus all the ogling of his co-captain's sister-in-law)? Second of all, how come he can take naps and not have dreams? Some of the stuff just doesn't add up. Or maybe I just missed stuff while being bored.

The other characters are equally flat. I do like the fact that Finn and Addie were so supportive of Parker, but they were just that. Neither of them did anything beyond that, and I just can't shake the feeling that they're nothing but two characters who will help Parker out of sucky situations. Mia, the girl that Parker thinks is his salvation, is nothing more than a girl who had a crappy past that she was trying to run from. In the end, I definitely felt like she didn't deserve any of the stuff that Parker or anyone else did to her, but is that all she is? The engineered subject of our pity? What happened to the spitfire in the beginning of the book, who did have a comeback or two to Parker's? That part of her seemed to disappear the moment a threat appeared.

I guess Insomnia is more contemporary and grittier than I expected, and I didn't really like that. I enjoyed Wake by Lisa McMann more, though, and it was still pretty firmly rooted in reality. Maybe my dislike has something to do with the main character, Parker, who doesn't seem to do much. There is an interesting idea that the next book will hopefully expand on more, but I don't think I'll continue with the series.

Thank you to Netgalley for giving me the chance to read and review this book.
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Review: Wait for You by J. Lynn

Book: Wait for You
Author: J. Lynn
Series: Wait for You
Publication Date: February 26th, 2013
Publisher: J. Lynn

Some things are worth waiting for…

Traveling thousands of miles from home to enter college is the only way nineteen-year-old Avery Morgansten can escape what happened at the Halloween party five years ago—an event that forever changed her life. All she needs to do is make it to her classes on time, make sure the bracelet on her left wrist stays in place, not draw any attention to herself, and maybe—please God—make a few friends, because surely that would be a nice change of pace. The one thing she didn’t need and never planned on was capturing the attention of the one guy who could shatter the precarious future she’s building for herself.

Some things are worth experiencing…

Cameron Hamilton is six feet and three inches of swoon-worthy hotness, complete with a pair of striking blue eyes and a remarkable ability to make her want things she believed were irrevocably stolen from her. She knows she needs to stay away from him, but Cam is freaking everywhere, with his charm, his witty banter, and that damn dimple that’s just so… so lickable. Getting involved with him is dangerous, but when ignoring the simmering tension that sparks whenever they are around each other becomes impossible, he brings out a side of her she never knew existed.

Some things should never be kept quiet…

But when Avery starts receiving threatening emails and phone calls forcing her to face a past she wants silenced, she’s has no other choice but to acknowledge that someone is refusing to allow her to let go of that night when everything changed. When the devastating truth comes out, will she resurface this time with one less scar? And can Cam be there to help her or will he be dragged down with her?

And some things are worth fighting for…

I can basically dumb this book down for everyone else who hasn't read it yet with 10 basic sentences.

1. Girl with dark, secret past that she's ashamed of telling to anyone because it'll make people see her differently moves to a new place.
2. Girl tries to avoid deep connections with other people, especially attractive males who seem to be potential boyfriend material.
3. Girl runs into Boy on first day of class (literally). Boy is attractive (surprise!).
4. Boy is very interested in Girl even though Girl turns down his every advance (actually, maybe that's exactly why he's interested...).
5. Girl finally lets Boy in. They do lots of fun things, like going to a drive-in theater, meeting parents, feeding each other eggs...
6. Girl finds out that Boy is definitely worth it, and so she pushes him away.
7. Boy and Girl fight because Girl is still insecure even though Boy has made it completely clear that he would do anything for her.
8. Boy and Girl get back together because they're both masochists (especially Boy).
9. Boy and Girl fight again because Girl can't get over anything and would rather cry.
10. Boy and Girl get back together and Girl suddenly decides to forget her past and move on.
11. SEX. Or, as Avery words it, "swesomely amazing sex."

I definitely was reminded of Beautiful Disaster while reading this. It's the exact same formula, with less throwing things and abuse on the male's part. Actually, I think Avery is pretty much guilty of all abuse in this book. I must say that if there's one thing that Armentrout is good at, it's her male leads. Despite all their moments of douchiness, they turn out to be upstanding men, and that's what Cam was. He had astonishingly good moments. There was this one part when Avery says, "Cam, you're a good guy" and he replies with, "I'm only good with you." Pretty heart-melting stuff. His biggest character flaw was getting involved with the hot mess that was Avery. I don't know what to think about the way sexual abuse is addressed in this book. I thought it was overdone in that it was mentioned too much without any details, and it told me nothing new. In a way, it was more a device to further the plot than anything else. In addition, there was an explosion of spelling/grammatical mistakes, and some of the characters have the tendency to speak like middle schoolers who still have to put quarters in the swear jar.

Overall, I didn't really enjoy this. Unlike a lot of people, I actually like the tired, trite formula, just because I'm a sucker for the cliche. But I guess this moment was bound to happen sometime. Now I'm going to expect to bump into a hot guy my first day at college, and what a disappointment that will be.

P.S. WHY IS THIS BEING MADE INTO A SERIES?
P.P.S. Still don't get the title. It was like it was drawn out of a hat marked "Typical YA Romance Titles," and then J. Lynn forced it to relate to the plot.  

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Review: Such a Rush by Jennifer Echols

Book: Such a Rush
Author: Jennifer Echols
Publication Date: July 10th, 2012
Publisher: MTV Books
Rating: 2 Stars

A sexy and poignant romantic tale of a young daredevil pilot caught between two brothers.

When I was fourteen, I made a decision. If I was doomed to live in a trailer park next to an airport, I could complain about the smell of the jet fuel like my mom, I could drink myself to death over the noise like everybody else, or I could learn to fly.

Heaven Beach, South Carolina, is anything but, if you live at the low-rent end of town. All her life, Leah Jones has been the grown-up in her family, while her mother moves from boyfriend to boyfriend, letting any available money slip out of her hands. At school, they may diss Leah as trash, but she’s the one who negotiates with the landlord when the rent’s not paid. At fourteen, she’s the one who gets a job at the nearby airstrip.

But there’s one way Leah can escape reality. Saving every penny she can, she begs quiet Mr. Hall, who runs an aerial banner-advertising business at the airstrip and also offers flight lessons, to take her up just once. Leaving the trailer park far beneath her and swooping out over the sea is a rush greater than anything she’s ever experienced, and when Mr. Hall offers to give her cut-rate flight lessons, she feels ready to touch the sky.

By the time she’s a high school senior, Leah has become a good enough pilot that Mr. Hall offers her a job flying a banner plane. It seems like a dream come true . . . but turns out to be just as fleeting as any dream. Mr. Hall dies suddenly, leaving everything he owned in the hands of his teenage sons: golden boy Alec and adrenaline junkie Grayson. And they’re determined to keep the banner planes flying.

Though Leah has crushed on Grayson for years, she’s leery of getting involved in what now seems like a doomed business—until Grayson betrays her by digging up her most damning secret. Holding it over her head, he forces her to fly for secret reasons of his own, reasons involving Alec. Now Leah finds herself drawn into a battle between brothers—and the consequences could be deadly.

I like all the different ways you can spin a contemporary novel. You can focus on only characters, and the setting doesn't matter. You can focus on an idea, like a girl pretending to date someone else, and that idea is the overriding aspect of a story. Or you can focus on the way characters travel through a setting. I especially like ones that incorporate something new, be it a traveling circus, a different country, or a high school with strange traditions. The novelty always gives me a rush (haha). And I thought I'd find the same thing with Such a Rush. Sadly, that didn't happen.

I don't have much experience with Jennifer Echols's writing; this is my first glimpse at one of her books. However, I do compartmentalize her with the period of life that I spent reading about melodramatic relationships and sex between teenagers that seemed too fake and too fast. I'm talking books like The Other Boy by Hailey Abbott and The Au Pairs. I didn't read many of those kinds of books, just because I found the material extremely repetitive and shallow. Such a Rush didn't seem like that kind of book, and I found the concept of a girl learning to be a pilot really interesting. It's definitely something you don't regularly see in a book. Also, I can't say no to a sexy bad boy, which is what Grayson is, supposedly.

In the beginning, I got into this book with all the excitement that Leah has on her first flying lesson. I've never read anything that depicted life in a trailer park to the extent that this book did, so it was a harsh glimpse into the way life is for people. However, I did feel that sometimes it was portrayed to the point of overkill because of the number of times Leah mentions the "whores on the beach" or the pitbull. Although Leah says time and time again that she isn't bitter about people having more than she does, the way she flies off the handle every time somebody questions her about her life makes those statements hypocritical. I can't hate her entirely, though; she takes what she has and runs with it. She's exceptionally driven, and I never wanted to strangle her at any time through the book, except maybe when she did that cutting at the throat motion, just because it seemed like a rude and random thing to do.

Now, the other characters. Grayson is a bipolar douchebag. He keeps assuming Leah is a whore, blackmails her into dating his brother for his own purposes, and despite all his sweet words, he still wants her to continue doing what he tells her to do. Alright, he's muscular, has curly blond hair, and always wears aviators and a cowboy hat. That's all really great, but not exactly a good reason for a person to fall in love with him. There is some depth to him, considering how he changes after he almost crashes his plane and after his father's death, but that could have been explored further instead of just being used as an excuse for his assholery. Alec and Molly are equally infuriating. I probably hated Molly most because she dragged Leah to a party even when Leah explicitly did not want to go. Molly is selfish and bitchy, a classic rich girl who puts herself first. Alec is one-dimensional and vindictive. The conflict in the book wasn't much of a conflict, since everybody seemed to already know what the problem was.

My greatest problem with this book is that it seemed supremely unrealistic, both in the way the plot unfolds and in the way the characters treat each other. Sure, Leah might be desperate, but it doesn't make sense that she would befriend people who treat her like trash and rub their richness in her face. There were also periods that Grayson or Leah would say something that was supposedly profound but sounded more like a preachy let-me-rub-a-moral-lesson-in-your-face line. I couldn't connect to any of the characters because I didn't find any of them that likable, and none of them possessed much depth. Also, why is the cover (gorgeous as it is) of a girl with straight hair when Leah harps so much over her curly hair?
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Review: Broken by A.E. Rought

Book: Broken
Author: A.E. Rought
Publication Date: January 8th, 2013
Publisher: Strange Chemistry
Rating: 2 Stars

Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.

A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry's boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.

When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He's an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely... familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel's.

The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

Alex FRANKS goes to SHELLEY High. Oh my, could this possibly be a FRANKENSTEIN retelling? Except now the monster has become a hot seventeen year old boy?!?!?

 

Joker approves.

This would've been a great book if it hadn't been so reminiscent of Twilight horrified. Rought had a lot of things going for her. She had a strong main character, a successfully enigmatic male lead, and a plot that any classic/YA lover would be drawn to. I love retellings, and this is the first retelling of Frankenstein that I've seen. In the first couple pages, I rushed through this book. It was exciting, exhilarating, and I wanted to know more about Daniel and Alex and Em. Even though the GR blurb pretty much ruined the big secret for me, I still wanted to get to the bottom of everything and understand it completely. Also, Rought's writing style? Gorgeous. Sometimes it seems to go into the realm of too dramatic, but most of the time, it contributed just the right amount of haunting beauty and really added to the dark tone that existed throughout the book.

 There didn't seem to be much going wrong in the first, oh, 100 pages. And I thought this book would be great, but as is the case with my crappy badness-radar, I turned out to be wrong.

Alex Franks was great for five pages. Then his whole mysterious, hood-over-face thing got old fast. It's been done so many times before, and besides his apparent good looks (in which case, why would he need the hood? And if the hood was to hide himself and people had already seen his face, what was the point?), there wasn't really much else he had going for him. I know, I know, he's related to Em's old boyfriend, but despite that, I still felt like she was cheating on Daniel. And this sort of bothered me. Also, what was the deal with Josh? He seemed like such a comical mustache-twirling villain that I couldn't take him seriously. On top of all that, he was a ginger. Figures.

The beginning and end were pretty interesting. There's some action and guts in the last couple pages. But the middle is just mind-numbing backwards and forwards lovin' between Em and Alex, with a couple memories of Daniel scattered in to make her feel guilty. I was never sold on the love. Isn't Rought essentially showing that Em only loves Alex because Daniel's in him? That's messed up, man.  What guy wants to be loved because he reminds his girlfriend of her old boyfriend? No one, unless he couldn't get a girl any other way. And given Alex's supposed good looks, I think he'd be able to get someone.

Em is a badass in the first couple pages when she punches people and throws insults, but she softens too much. Sadly, she follows the trend and starts crying a lot. Not that she doesn't have reason to, but sometimes the tears were just unnecessary. I appreciated Rought's integration of Em's mom and dad instead of making her some poor orphan, but I think she really could've done a better job with her characters. None of them really made sense to me.

I recommend giving this book a try, even if it does get redundant in the middle. The end is pretty cliche, but you should just stick with it for the writing style. I think that was my favorite part.

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Review: Underworld by Meg Cabot

Book: Underworld
Author: Meg Cabot
Series: Abandon Trilogy
Publication Date: May 8th, 2012
Publisher: Point
Rating: 2 Stars

Escape from the realm of the dead is impossible when someone there wants you back.

Seventeen-year-old Pierce Oliviera isn’t dead.

Not this time.

But she is being held against her will in the dim, twilit world between heaven and hell, where the spirits of the deceased wait before embarking upon their final journey.

Her captor, John Hayden, claims it’s for her own safety. Because not all the departed are dear. Some are so unhappy with where they ended up after leaving the Underworld, they’ve come back as Furies, intent on vengeance…on the one who sent them there and on the one whom he loves.

But while Pierce might be safe from the Furies in the Underworld, far worse dangers could be lurking for her there…and they might have more to do with its ruler than with his enemies.

And unless Pierce is careful, this time there’ll be no escape.

I remember the days when I just discovered Meg Cabot, reading all her Princess Diaries books in one day and waiting on tenterhooks for the next installment of the Airhead series, screaming and clutching one of the Mediator books to my chest as I cried for Jesse, or making inhuman squeals as I read 1800-Where-R-U. Those were the days.

But the Meg Cabot who caught my heart with these heartwarming novels? She's either not here, or I'm just way more mature than I was. However, considering that I still giggle at "that's what she said" jokes, I don't think that's the case. So maybe the problem really is that Meg Cabot's writing has deteriorated to the point that I find it annoying and whiny instead of endearing.

I don't want to accept that, so I'll just say this: maybe, finally, Meg Cabot has bit off more than she could chew by undertaking a series about the underworld, just like she did with Insatiable. I know she's trying to take these cliches (the vampire, the bad boy death deity) and turn them into something new and revolutionary, but maybe she should stick with what she does better: taking outrageous ideas and turning them into something heartwarming and sweet.

Underworld really bothered me, and I think Pierce is a big factor in that. Unlike Cabot's earlier characters, she's disgustingly subservient and inept, especially when it comes to making decisions. For some unfathomable reason, she's enamored with John and the size of his muscles (they're as big as melons, apparently), and though she cares about her family, she has no qualms about running amok causing trouble for everyone in Isla Huesos. Also, I never would've thought Cabot capable of making such an elementary mistake, but Pierce's eyes fill with tears way too much.

Are crybaby heroines the new black now? I don't understand this waterworks trend right now.

Pierce cries over everything, and despite my love for Meg Cabot, even the little side quips didn't make me crack a smile. Don't even get me started on John Hayden. He was nowhere as attractive as Michael, or Jesse, or Mitch (from the Boy series; I really loved Girl Meets Boy, for some reason). Probably because he does nothing redeeming, besides that tiny part where he takes Pierce's advice and makes some of the accommodations in the Underworld better. That was it. Elsewhere, he's this domineering jackass who manipulates and lies to Pierce, striking her dumb with the size of his roided up muscles.

Yeeah. Never thought the day would come where I didn't like a Cabot male main character, but here it is. Actually, I didn't like Alaric much either... Uh-oh.

The plot is a bit all over the place, with Pierce rushing around and getting nothing done, then meeting other people. It actually seemed really filler. The real problem wasn't really a problem at all; rather, Pierce makes it into a problem. I didn't like Alex that much because he was an idiot and a dork, but I liked him much more than Pierce and John. I didn't even like Hope that much. She seemed so pretentious.

God, you know things are bad when you don't even like the damned bird.

Whatever, hopefully the next book is better, though judging by the blurb, it seems like same ol' same ol' "lose life or lose love of my life" stuff.
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Review: Rapture by Lauren Kate

Book: Rapture
Author: Lauren Kate
Series: Fallen
Publication Date: June 12th, 2012
Publisher: Delacorte Press
My rating: 2 Stars

The sky is dark with wings....

Like sand through an hourglass, time is running out for Luce and Daniel. To stop Lucifer from erasing the past, they must find the place where the angels fell to earth.

Dark forces are after them, and Daniel doesn’t know if he can do this — live only to lose Luce again and again. Yet together they face an epic battle that will end with lifeless bodies...and angel dust. Great sacrifices are made. Hearts are destroyed.

And suddenly Luce knows what must happen. For she was meant to be with someone other than Daniel. The curse they’ve borne has always and only been about her — and the love she cast aside. The choice she makes now is the only one that truly matters.

In the fight for Luce, who will win?

Rapture is the astonishing conclusion to the FALLEN series. Heaven can’t wait any longer.

Not quite as bad as I expected. I'm disappointed, though. Let me tell you why.

If you're given this awesome pitch about this love that transcends time and space, that has happened over and over again and fallen apart the same way, wouldn't you be interested? I know the sappy romantic me would be. I'd heard about Fallen and its bad ratings before I read it, but there was that doubt in my mind. How bad could it be? With a plot like that...

After I read the first and second books, I got my answer.

Really, REALLY bad.

It's just... I began these books expecting this beautiful love that would make me cry, that would make me hold onto Daniel and Luce and never want them to go and always want them together and want to buy some Superglue so I could just stick them together forever.

Instead, I got a useless wimp and an emasculated, chauvinistic (how oxymoronic!) idiot.

So you can see how I'd be disappointed.

I think this could contend with Romeo & Juliet over Most Tragic Love Story That Actually Sucks.

Now, let's bring ourselves away from the series and focus on Rapture specifically.

It was actually halfway decent. I was surprised that Kate managed to tie up the loose ends that she apparently couldn't do in the third book. The third book was basically mindless fluff. I loved the time traveling, but it was pointless and didn't do anything else except further give examples of Daniel's and Luce's baseless love.

Anyway, there is stuff that happens. Angels die and there's this huge climactic moment (which isn't that climactic, really. We were all expecting it), and also a couple "big" reveals. You might be surprised, you might not. Kate has really amped up the description. I mean, she's never been that bad at it, but I really noticed it in this book. I actually quite enjoyed it, except for the parts where it got all weepy and melodramatic. I never really liked Dee. She just seemed a bit too deux ex machina for my tastes, and her dialogue was really awkward. I guess she was supposed to be a wise old owl among the little winged birdies, but she just sounded like she was pulling shit out of her ass.

I guess where this book really fails is the characterization part. Luce is as useless as ever, and I found her general limp noodle-ness, as well as her whole caring about others as an obvious attempt to cull readers' sympathy, extremely grating on my nerves.

 

Daniel, of course, it as emasculated as ever. He doesn't do anything besides fluttering around and going "Shh" whenever Luce tries to ask a question. I just don't understand why it took so long for her to figure out the truth about herself. Sure, in her past lives, she wasn't allowed, but why couldn't she know in her human one? This self-awareness thing sounds really phony to me.

Lucifer is... I don't even. Kate manages to make him sound not like the lonely, complex figure from Paradise Lost, but rather a really arrogant and hateful teenage boy. He actually says things like "Baby, that's your Achilles' heel."

What kind of evil mastermind calls people "baby"?! Or maybe they do, but they sound really sleazy and laughable in the process.

So, there's Lucifer. Then there's God. Or should I say GodDESS.

That's right. God is a woman. Kate is really having fun with this, isn't she? First Gabbe, and now God, of all people.

Let me be honest. I don't think anyone should try to portray God in a book. I'm not Christian or religious or anything, but I just find it difficult to be able to use the right words to capture the inspiration of so many religions of the world. Most authors will mess it up, and that's what happened here. Maybe it was an attempt to buoy the feminists, or she was just trying to twist things a bit, but it did nothing, especially since God didn't seem that frightening or like someone who created the universe. It just... didn't make sense. Also, there were these fluctuations in capitalization. Like sometimes God would be called You, then other times just "she" or "you." So the religious/angelology/demonology part of this book is still called into question. I guess my gif doesn't have much oomph now, if God is really the person who's portrayed in this book.

The ending was blah. It's been done before. If you've read Reincarnation by Suzanne Weyn, you'd know what I'm talking about. Astonishing conclusion my ass. I care about Cam, too. What the hell happened to him? At least he had some spice to him. He appeared approximately two times before being overshadowed by Daniel again.

Ugh, Daniel. You ruin everything.

Anyhow. This series is finally over. Hopefully, Kate has learned some things.

Also, I think it would've been really funny if Luce's roommate Nora was Nora Grey from Hush, Hush. They could've shared all their issues with overprotective boyfriends and dysfunctional lives and cried together.

YAY FALLEN IS OVER LET'S ALL REJOICE.

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Review: Catching Jordan by Miranda Kenneally

Book: Catching Jordan
Author: Miranda Kenneally 
Publication Date: December 1st, 2011
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Pages: 281
Rating: 2 Stars

What girl doesn't want to be surrounded by gorgeous jocks day in and day out? Jordan Woods isn't just surrounded by hot guys, though-she leads them as the captain and quarterback of her high school football team. They all see her as one of the guys and that's just fine. As long as she gets her athletic scholarship to a powerhouse university.

But everything she's ever worked for is threatened when Ty Greeen moves to her school. Not only is he an amazing QB, but he's also amazingly hot. And for the first time, Jordan's feeling vulnerable. Can she keep her head in the game while her heart's on the line?

This may just be a coincidence, but now I get why they didn't show the people's heads on the character! Oh, that little plot twist in the middle. I don't know why I didn't see it. Of course Jordan couldn't just be a badass tomboy; she had to regress to being a whinging teenage girl at some point!

Cons: 
The crying.
Jordan acting like a total girl, and mentioning that Ty is "hot" as an excuse for why she's dating him when she obviously has feelings for someone else. 
The crying.
Tyler being a crybaby...?
Mediocre writing that's very choppy at times (One phrase where the coach "stares into" Jordan's eyes, which is a bit weird.)
The crying.
The fact that Jordan uses Sam's last name, Henry, so much that I completely couldn't connect him to the his first name. And I happen to like the name Sam very much.
Lots of welling eyes and pooling tears and however different ways to describe crying.
I'm beginning to sense a pattern here, are you?

Pros:
Sam and Jordan's friendship. Very sweet, and I especially liked the part with the football charm and how he picked wildflowers for her.
Brief moments of hilarity, like when Jordan cries into Luigi's face (what?).
The happy ending.

In conclusion: 
Feelings towards this book are lukewarm at best. All the crying just didn't do it for me. It actually angered me to the point of writing a post ranting about it, which can be found here. Liked the football and the fact that it was contemporary, but I didn't like Ty at all, and I had no idea what was going on with him. He was just there as a catalyst for Jordan's realization that she loved someone else, and after that, he pretty much disappeared. It was all HenryHenrySamHenry after that. And tears, of course. Let's not forget that.

I'm sad. I need something good to read.
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Review: For Darkness Shows the Stars by Diana Peterfreund

Book: For Darkness Shows the Stars
Author: Diana Peterfreund
Publication Date: June 12th, 2012
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Pages: 398
Rating: 2 Stars

It's been several generations since a genetic experiment gone wrong caused the Reduction, decimating humanity and giving rise to a Luddite nobility who outlawed most technology.

Elliot North has always known her place in this world. Four years ago Elliot refused to run away with her childhood sweetheart, the servant Kai, choosing duty to her family's estate over love. Since then the world has changed: a new class of Post-Reductionists is jumpstarting the wheel of progress, and Elliot's estate is foundering, forcing her to rent land to the mysterious Cloud Fleet, a group of shipbuilders that includes renowned explorer Captain Malakai Wentforth--an almost unrecognizable Kai. And while Elliot wonders if this could be their second chance, Kai seems determined to show Elliot exactly what she gave up when she let him go.

But Elliot soon discovers her old friend carries a secret--one that could change their society . . . or bring it to its knees. And again, she's faced with a choice: cling to what she's been raised to believe, or cast her lot with the only boy she's ever loved, even if she's lost him forever.

Inspired by Jane Austen's "Persuasion", "For Darkness Shows the Stars" is a breathtaking romance about opening your mind to the future and your heart to the one person you know can break it.

NO KISS? I went through this many pages of what-the-fappery and there was NO KISS? Jane Austen or no, I am angry.

Edit:
The blurb proclaims that this book is inspired by Jane Austen's Persuasion. When I think Austen, I think of witty repartee, handsome gentlemen, and annoying sisters. The third is not necessary, but funnily enough, is the only aspect of this book that comes even close to Austen's writing.

For Darkness Shows the Stars is a dystopian retelling of Austen's Persuasion, but it failed on both parts. I haven't read much Austen, but I did enjoy Pride and Prejudice, and I definitely do not think this book does her any justice at all. It's about a girl, Elliot (had to think for five minutes before I remembered her name), who is left behind taking care of a crumbling estate because her useless father and sister can't do it themselves. While she takes care of the people and dabbles secretly in genetically engineered plants, she also pines after her childhood best friend.

Problem #1: The main character's personality (or lack of one). Elliot was pathetic. Completely pathetic. Most of the book, she's miserable but does nothing about it. She takes all the crap that her father and sister put her through and walks away with her tail between her legs whenever she's snubbed by Kai. She grows some balls about 300 pages in and talks back to him, but then she cries. And cries some more. Elizabeth Bennet would have said something smooth and appropriately cunning. Elliot just runs away with her eyes burning.

Of course, things happen in this book, as they happen in any novel. Though in this one, they happen excruciatingly boringly and slowly. Which brings us to

Problem #2: The nonexistent plot. What was it? Actually, scratch that. I hardly care right now. Who was the bad guy? The father and sister? But no, they suddenly stopped posing any threat at all at one point. The Posts and technological advancement? No, Elliot supports them even though they do experiments on children. Even though she is shocked and disgusted by the fact that Kai has, essentially, been injected with chemicals and become a sort of alien, she still goes abroad with him. So...was the enemy the Luddites and their views against advancement? But Elliot mentions that many of them are becoming okay with technology and wearing the garish clothes of the Posts. They rather reminded me of the Amish, though I'm sure the Amish are lovely people. They definitely aren't hypocritical concerning their beliefs. So...I didn't get what the conflict was. If there's any enemy in this book, that enemy would be Kai.

Problem #3: The male lead's completely unsexy personality. Kai, there are so many things I could say about you. But the main point is that you're a total douchebag. If one of my friends ever had the stupidity to fall for someone like you, I would slap her in the face a couple times for being such a blithering moron. Which is what Elliot is, in all matters that relate to Kai. There is absolutely nothing attractive about Kai. He badmouths Elliot to his friends so that everyone he's acquainted with hates her without knowing her, he insults her in public, and he even goes as far to pretend to be courting and even lay his head in her lap. It's only when he realizes his actions could potentially kill someone does he stop. After all the shit he puts Elliot through, all he has to do is write her some disgustingly gushy and cliche letter, and she goes running back to him.

*cue me sticking finger down throat*

The love story in this book is absolutely despicable. The book is basically just Elliot wearing ugly clothes, Elliot pining for Kai, Kai being a douchebag, Elliot pining some more, Kai being more of a douchebag, Elliot still pining, then BOOM happily ever after and everything magically becomes better. Also, a bunch of yawn-worthy info-dump letters that I skimmed.

Why did we need 400 pages for this redundant bullshit?!

Also, remember, there wasn't even a damned kiss.

The only consolation (and the only reason i gave this 2 stars) is that Peterfreund had the decency to write this one book and not extend it into a miserable series. Which she should be commended on, because not all authors have that sort of foresight (The Selection, cough.) 
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Review: The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter

Book: The Goddess Test
Series: Goddess Test
Author: Aimee Carter
Release Date: April 19th, 2011
Publisher: Harlequin
Source: Owned
Pages: 293
My Rating: 2 Stars

Goodreads Summary:
EVERY GIRL WHO HAS TAKEN THE TEST HAS DIED.

NOW IT'S KATE'S TURN.

It's always been just Kate and her mom--and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear that her mother won't live past the fall.

Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld--and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.

Kate is sure he's crazy--until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she suceeds, she'll become Henry's future bride and a goddess.

IF SHE FAILS...

When I was in seventh grade, we had a project where we had to choose some facet of history and do a speech on it. Being the morbid little middle schooler I was, I was totally gunning for the Black Plague. I mean, festering sores and blood tainted pus? Who wouldn't want to jump on that? Alas, it was not meant to be. A twerp of a kid named Ryan took the topic, and I was stuck with castles. Which are cool, but not as cool as the Bubonic Plague.

Come speech day, I waited on tenterhooks for Ryan's speech because despite the fact that I didn't get the Black Plague, it was an awesome topic, so of course the speech would be equally awesome. Ryan began to speak, and I waited to be overwhelmed by awesomeness. And waited. It shouldn't have been possible to make the plague that decimated half of Europe's population boring, but that day, Ryan accomplished the impossible. He made the Black Plague boring. When I gave my speech, people actually stayed awake. I was very angry. Angry because I could have done the Plague justice, unlike Ryan, who completely turned something amazing into utter sleep-inducing crap.

This is what The Goddess Test reminded me of. You have the fascinating premise of a girl passing a test in order to gain immortality, along the way falling for the god of the dead. Who isn't a sucker for Greek mythology? Yet Carter somehow manages to compress it into some run-of-the-mill young adult romance. Basically, like Ryan's lame presentation, it failed to live up to its potential.

We have Kate, our Mary-Sue heroine who relies on goodness of heart and blah, blah, blah, and her whole world comes crashing down because after a month of knowing some guy, there's the possibility he might not love her (but he does, obviously). The entire time, Carter gave me the distinct impression that she had bitten off way more than she could chew. The plot in the first half seemed completely different from the second half, and wholly unrealistic. How does Ava go from hating Kate with a burning passion to being her best friend? And how does Henry, who seems to be completely in love with Persephone, go to loving Kate in such a short amount of time?

I get that the mythology aspect and setting might not be realistic, but the relationships between the characters should be. And they are not. The tests are boring, lame, and unoriginal. The plot is a mess and pointless. I disliked Ava a lot (this begs repeating). I had no idea why Kate seemed to love her so much, besides the fact that the way she dies in the beginning is completely pathetic. I liked the risk and implied consequences of Kate's mother dying, but Carter managed to ruin that for me too. I thought Henry had loads of potential. Contrary to popular belief, there is nothing sexier than a dude who rules over the dead, except Henry does nothing of that sort. He's just there to look pretty and make out with Kate. Honestly. He did nothing fitting his role as ruler of the Underworld besides speaking archaically--which was awkward, since all of the others had no problem using contractions--and for some weird reason he could bring Ava back alive but couldn't bring her back a second time but then he did and this is really confusing, okay? Nobody dies in this book, despite the fact that it revolves around the dead. Which is annoying and a total copout.

Overall, a tasteless book that could have been so much better. Just like Ryan's presentation (not that I'm bitter or anything).

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Review: Timepiece by Myra McEntire

Book: Timepiece
Series: Hourglass
Author: Myra McEntire
Release Date: June 12th 2012
Publisher: Egmont USA
Source: NetGalley
Pages: 336
My Rating: 2 stars

My only reaction to this book: meh.

I think I couldn't enjoy this book partly because I remember next to nothing from Hourglass and didn't have the time or patience to reread it again, and partly because I didn't much care for Kaleb's character.

Too many rules. There are way too many rules about time traveling, and I couldn't keep all of them straight. For the first half of the book, I was just wondering, Who's Dune? Who's Nathan (actually, I still am not too sure who Nathan is). What's duronium? When did Michael and Em get their rings? Who the hell is Poe? Too many characters, too much going on. Too much of everything, with the exception of an engaging plot. It's a cheap trick, I'm starting to think, to take away lives easily by changing time. It's redundant, and frankly, boring. The same problem can't keep popping up every ten pages; the point of a story is for the people to hurdle barriers and meet new ones. Also, the way McEntire tells the story wasn't particularly interesting, either. The "climax" at the end lasted about five pages, while there were about a couple hundred pages of Kaleb and Lily running around from place to place discovering new things in massive info dumps. Seriously, this is how the climax went down:

Kaleb: He has my girlfriend! I'll kill him!
Lily: Aahhh I'm scared.
Kaleb: He has my girlfriend! I can actually see it happening now! I'll kill him!
Jack: *evil laughter*
Kaleb: Ohmygod where did you come from! What do I do now!?
Lily: I was too stupid to lie before, but I am now because my boyfriend told me to!
Jack: *more evil laughter*
Teague: The answer to all your problems--me--is here!
Lily: *suddenly gets smart and strikes deal with Teague that Teague is too stupid to see through*
Kaleb: We're safe! But Em and Michael are gone :(
Em and Michael: We're here!
Everyone: Yaaaay!

If you do not have the reaction of "wtf" to my summary of the last part of this book, I beg you to explain it to me. Because I fail to understand what the big deal was, if everyone was just going to magically appear (not kidding, they really do). There is no thought-out resolution. Everyone. Just. Appears. And the cliffhanger? Come on. It's so soap opera-like that I cringed. Jack is a failure of a villain. I mean, "rotten to his core?" Come on. The explanation of why he was doing everything was rushed, so I came away going, okaaaaaaay, and I should care about this why?

Kaleb seemed to be a shortcut of explaining all the emotions of the characters so McEntire wouldn't have to actually describe them. Maybe if she'd bothered to write more according to how the others interacted with Kaleb instead of how Kaleb was feeling what they were feeling (mega-confusion, right?), I would've felt more connected to the story. I didn't like the main character of this story. Not at all. He is, of course, the reformed bad boy with a drinking problem, tats, and piercings all over the place, as well as an unhealthy libido that is what attracts him to Emerson's best friend, Lily, in the first place. He also is so full of rage and desperation that it blocks out anything interesting about him. Half the time, he's ranting about his anger and sadness, and the other half he's waxing poetic about Lily. In other words, he seems like your average teenage girl (minus the lusting after Lily thing).

Don't even get me started on their relationship. Three quarters of it was comprised of Kaleb talking about Lily's smell or how she looked. Their more emotional reasons for liking each other were painfully shallow. Just because a guy is desperate and self-destructive does not make him attractive! If I met a guy like Kaleb who tried to cop a feel when I was clearly uninterested, in addition to his constant rage over everything, I would scream and run. Really. So no points to Lily, even though she was clearly McEntire's attempt at a kickass female character. I totally rooted for her in the beginning, but when she started showing off that lacy camisole and touching Kaleb's face (lots of face-touching), I was out of there.

There's more I could say about this book, but that's it for now. I don't think I really like much about it, although I did enjoy the descriptions of the rips. I love the concept of time travel, especially when the characters go to different centuries or places, but and the series in general has none of that appeal. However, I will say that the characters aren't as stupid as some of the ones I've read. Which is why I gave the book 2 stars. I may also have been so confused by information overload and all the different places they were running to that I might not have even realized they were being stupid.

I think I've given up on this series, but that's no reason for you to! I'm sure if you've read Hourglass recently, this book will be much more enjoyable.

I do love this cover very much, despite the fact that it's very deceiving. It should show Kaleb punching through a door instead.

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