Genre: Romance

Rebound by Noelle August | Book Review + Giveaway

Posted February 26, 2015 by Jana in Blog Tour, Book Review, Giveaway, New Adult / 2 Comments

Rebound by Noelle August
Series: Boomerang #2
Also in this series: Boomerang
Published by William Morrow on February 10, 2015
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Pages: 288
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher (Edelweiss)
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Hooking up is only the beginning of the fun in this sexy and irresistible second installment of the thrilling New Adult series, Boomerang.

Adam Blackwood has it all. At twenty-two, he’s fabulously wealthy, Ryan Gosling-hot and at the top of the heap in the business world. His life is perfect, until a scandal from his past resurfaces and knocks the tech wunderkind down, throwing his company, Boomerang, a hook-up site for millennials, into chaos.

Three years ago, Adam married his high school love—and then lost her in a tragic accident. Now, the heartbreak and guilt he’s tried to bury with work and women begins to take over his life.

Alison Quick, the twenty-one-year-old daughter of a business tycoon—and the very ex-girlfriend of Boomerang’s former intern, Ethan—has a problem of her own. She’s got one chance to prove to her father that she deserves a place in his empire by grabbing control of Boomerang and taking Adam down.

But as Alison moves in on him, armed with a cadre of lawyers and accountants, she discovers there’s much more to Adam and Boomerang than meets the eye. Will earning her father’s approval come at the price of losing her first real love? It appears so, unless Adam can forgive her for wrecking his life and trying to steal his livelihood. But Alison hopes that old adage is right. Maybe love can conquer all.

I love Boomerang so much (see my review), and so I was very excited when I was approached to be a part of the blog tour for Rebound, the second book in the series. I’m pretty leery of new adult books because they tend to be all angsty, dramatic, and full of bad decisions and one-night stands. I absolutely love this series, though, so if you’re like me and avoid new adult as often as possible, give this series a shot! As always, my main points are bolded. :)

1. I know everyone knows this already, but Noelle August is a pen name for an author duo including VERONICA ROSSI. I love her! And I am seriously so happy that she was the one who made me decide to read these books and give new adult a chance.

2. Rebound is FUN. It’s all about being sexy and exciting without the focus falling on sex and lust. There’s a pretty adorable scuba diving scene that had me swooning. Rebound is steam, tension, humor, and serious issues. These people are real and flawed, which is what I want in my characters!

3. Adam. Blackwood. BOY does he have a story. He’s the creator of Boomerang, and I loved learning more about him and his secrets. He’s got a hard exterior, not letting anyone in since his ex died. He has his friends, and that’s that. Alison makes him want to change and let someone new in, but it’s hard. However, it’s fun for us! I love watching him trust Alison more and more, connecting with her in ways he’s scared to with anyone else. MAN is he swoony. And sexy. LOVE Adam.

4. Alison is given a chance to redeem herself in this book, as many people are unhappy with her for what she did to Ethan. And she does! I really liked Alison. She’s tender (she saves and rehabilitates horses!), caring, and trying to fit in to her jerky father’s huge shoes. She has her flaws and insecurities as well. She’s made mistakes and she owns them.

5. I loved seeing the rest of the gang at Boomerang again! Mia makes an unfortunate return to us, but I still adore her. I was even happy to see Cookie again, and I’m not her biggest fan. It was like catching up with old friends.

6. The story is told in alternating viewpoints, going back and forth between Alison and Adam. I love it when an author (or in this case, authors) does this, but is has to be done right or things feel redundant. This was done RIGHT, and added so much to the dynamism of the story.

All in all, I loved Rebound. I’m not sure I loved it as much as I did Boomerang because, as we all know, our first loves hit us the hardest. But I loved returning to Boomerang and these characters, I loved seeing Adam and Alison figure things out, and I can’t wait for the next book, Bounce, which is all about Adam’s hilarious younger brother.

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Find Noelle August on Facebook and Twitter!

And be sure to follow the rest of the Rebound blog tour!

Gone Pecan 2/26/2015
Travels n Reads 2/26/2015
GenGen’s Book Blog 2/26/2015
Lustful Literature 2/26/2015
That Artsy Reader Girl 2/26/2015
Hiver & Cafe 2/26/2015
Reese’s Reviews 2/26/2015
Seeing Night Book Reviews 2/26/2015
Curling Up With a Good Book 2/26/2015
Avid Reader Musings 2/26/2015
Making it Happen 2/26/2015
FicWishes 2/26/2015
Book Angel Booktopia 2/27/2015
Cere’s Books World 2/27/2015
Chaotic Reader 2/27/2015
Milky Way of Books 2/28/2015

The Fault in Our Stars by John Green | Book Review

Posted February 16, 2015 by Jana in Book Review, Young Adult Fiction / 5 Comments

The Fault In Our Stars by John Green
Published by Dutton Juvenile on January 10, 2012
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Realistic Fiction, Romance
Pages: 286
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased
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Despite the tumor-shrinking medical miracle that has bought her a few years, Hazel has never been anything but terminal, her final chapter inscribed upon diagnosis. But when a gorgeous plot twist named Augustus Waters suddenly appears at Cancer Kid Support Group, Hazel's story is about to be completely rewritten.

Insightful, bold, irreverent, and raw, The Fault in Our Stars is award-winning author John Green's most ambitious and heartbreaking work yet, brilliantly exploring the funny, thrilling, and tragic business of being alive and in love.

I can’t believe I read this. I can’t BELIEVE I read this. I had vowed to never, ever read The Fault in our Stars because I hate crying and being sad and cancer. And being the perfectionist, type-A student I am, I finally did. If the love of my life had asked me to read TFioS, I would have said no. But when my grade’s on the line I’ll pretty much do anything that isn’t illegal and/or against my moral code. Haha. So yay! Now I’m cool and I’ve read the book, and I only cried a little (but that’s because I read the spoilers because I’M SORRY, but in addition to being a perfectionist I’m also a planner. So sue me.). Anyway, so much has been said and re-said about TFioS so I’m not going to do a full review like I usually do. Here are my thoughts!

– I think The Fault in Our Stars‘s biggest selling point (aside from the sweeping romance) is that suffering is a part of life sometimes, and people go through things that are not fair. It’s part of life. We all go through a lot of suffering, and while it might not be as huge as cancer, loves are lost and devastating things happen (big or small). I remember times where I felt convinced that my life was over for one reason or another. The Fault in our Stars really puts everything into perspective and gives readers a chance to think about their own lives. I thought a lot about what I would do if I knew I was terminal. I wondered how I would change or how I would re-prioritize my life.

– The story is unique because the romance feels so realistic and true. Hazel and Gus are dying, so they have risen above time just to be in the moment. I love their story, and I love how they fell deeply for one another. And, oh, Augustus. I love his personality.

– Hazel’s voice is so poignant and strong, even though she’s scared. Her maturity matches that of someone who has had to grow up faster than average in order to live her entire life in a too-short period of time.

– Hazel’s thoughts about love and life are so real, especially for someone that is dealing with something horrible. I identified with her in many ways because I have debilitating diseases that have altered my life. I’m not terminal, and I’m not in danger of becoming so, but I understood her reflections. It’s unbelievably scary and confusing to live in pain, and John Green writes like he has been through it. He writes Hazel and Gus like he knows what it’s like to be them. He conveys such perfect emotion.

– The romance is so sweet. I had a perfect fairy-tale love story as a teen (obviously it was far from perfect and we went our separate ways), and I was told all the time that I couldn’t possibly know what love is like. I appreciate that John Green understands that teens can know. And they can have a deep love story. I love it when an author respects their audience like that, and does not put characters in their book that tell teens how wrong they are, and how their feelings aren’t true.

– The book gave me hope. The jokes and the sarcasm and the funny jabs are a reminder that you can always have hope, even in dire circumstances. I loved that message.

All in all, The Fault in Our Stars really spoke to me. Readers do not have to be suffering from cancer or even know someone who has/had cancer in order to relate. The book is about living and loving and enjoying the time you have. It’s about hope. I think everyone should read this book because the messages of the necessity for suffering, the realities of cancer, living in the moment, hope, and love are so strong and beautifully delivered.

Love, Lucy by April Lindner | Book Review

Posted January 23, 2015 by Jana in Book Review, Young Adult Fiction / 6 Comments

Love, Lucy by April Lindner
Published by Poppy on January 27, 2015
Genres: Contemporary Romance, Romance
Pages: 304
Format: ARC
Source: Publisher (ALA)
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While backpacking through Florence, Italy, during the summer before she heads off to college, Lucy Sommersworth finds herself falling in love with the culture, the architecture, the food...and Jesse Palladino, a handsome street musician. After a whirlwind romance, Lucy returns home, determined to move on from her "vacation flirtation." But just because summer is over doesn't mean Lucy and Jesse are over, too.

In this coming-of-age romance, April Lindner perfectly captures the highs and lows of a summer love that might just be meant to last beyond the season.

Love, Lucy is a glorious, wonderful, perfectly fabulous book. I seriously read this book in August, and I have not been able to figure out how to explain my love for it, but I have to!! There was not one thing I didn’t love, so I’m just going to make a little fangirl list of the best things about Love, Lucy before I push you off to buy yourself a copy.

– Love, Lucy took me right back to the magical city of Florence, Italy. Florence is one of my favorite places in the world, and April did it right. She made me want to go back again right now.

– Travel. Come on. Everyone knows that traveling makes you fall in love with the person that you are, and Love, Lucy had everything I could have ever wanted in a travel book.

– Not only is the book about travel, but it encourages travel. It’s an inspiring story that makes you want to make your traveling dreams come true, not to mention it makes you feel like you can do it. Lucy is just a young high school grad, but she did it. And you can too.

– In that same vein, this book is about a girl discovering who she is. I love those kinds of books.

– Lucy happens upon Jesse, a sexy street performer (a musician, holy swoon), and a flirtatious little love-ish thing starts. It’s a perfect romance. Jesse is perfection.

– Love, Lucy is happy. It made me happy. This is what books are supposed to do.

– I was so sad when it was over.

– I might love this more than I love Just One Day, which is a lot, so that’s saying something.

Basically, you need to read this. You need to, your mom needs to (my mom LOVED it), your best friend needs to. And then you all need to go to Florence together so you can see that the magic April Lindner speaks of is real. You need to meet and fall in love with Jesse, and you need to explore the city on the back of his moped. I wish I could go back and read it again for the first time.

The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall | 2015 Debut Book Review

Posted January 12, 2015 by Jana in Book Review, Young Adult Fiction / 9 Comments

The Conspiracy of Us by Maggie Hall
Published by Putnam Juvenile on January 13, 2015
Genres: Mystery, Romance, Thriller
Pages: 336
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher (Mail)
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To fight her destiny as the missing heir to a powerful and dangerous secret society, sixteen-year-old Avery West must solve an ancient puzzle in a deadly race across Europe. Forbidden love and code-breaking, masked balls and explosions, destiny and dark secrets collide in this romantic thriller, in the vein of a YA DaVinci Code.

Avery West's newfound family can shut down Prada at the Champs-Elysees when they want to shop in peace, and can just as easily order a bombing when they want to start a war.

They are part of a powerful and dangerous secret society called the Circle of Twelve, and Avery is their missing heir. If they discover who she is, some of them will want to use her as a pawn. Some will want her dead.

To thwart their plans, Avery must follow a trail of clues from the landmarks of Paris to the back alleys of Istanbul and through a web of ancient legends and lies. And unless she can stay one step ahead of beautiful, volatile Stellan, who knows she’s more than she seems, and can decide whether to trust mysterious, magnetic Jack, she may be doomed after all.

I’ve always had this weird interest in conspiracy theories. Now, I’m not some paranoid theorist, but I find these theories very entertaining to read about. So naturally, The Conspiracy of Us had me very intrigued from the get go. And when I read that is was being compared to The Da Vinci Code, I was even more excited! I ended up LOVING this book, and am so excited to read more from debut author, Maggie Hall! As always, my main points are bolded. :)

1. I learned very quickly that I would need to suspend a little disbelief in order to immerse myself in the story. Avery is 16 years old, so I found it to be a little unbelievable that she was so valuable and in so much danger, with so many people out to kill her. We’re not given a ton of details in the beginning, so just roll with it and Maggie Hall will convince you. The story ended up being pretty fantastic, and I believed all of it.

2. The world in this story is amazingly secretive and interesting. The Conspiracy of Us is contemporary, but with this underlying mystery that is believable and unbelievable at the same time. Basically, The Circle of Twelve is a group of twelve families who rule the world. They have family members in every government system, in every country, and in pretty much every facet of life. You think you know why WWI happened, but you’re wrong. It was because of dueling families. And these families go all the way back to Alexander the Great and Napoleon. I loved learning about all these secrets and mysteries of the world. Everything fits together in a really complicated puzzle that was so much fun to try and put together.

3. The Conspiracy of Us is FILLED with action and excitement. I flew through this book because there was never a good stopping point! Crazy things happen back to back to back, and I barely had time to catch my breath.

4. I loved the travel aspect. We bounce around Paris and Istanbul, and I loved it! Things happen in Notre Dame and at the Hagia Sophia. I’ve been to Paris, so I loved revisiting, and now I want to go to Istanbul super bad.

5. The romance is pretty perfect. Jack is so swoony and perfect. Plus, he has a British accent. I mean, really. There is the one chapter that just had me melting. It was the sexiest, most tender, most romantic moment that I’ve ever read in young adult fiction.

6. Maggie’s writing is beautiful, and I just know she is going to become a strong facet of the young adult community. I was truly intoxicated by some of her passages, not to mention her vivid imagination.

7. I loved the characters, but Jack has stolen my heart. Holy swoonfest.

8. The Conspiracy of Us is fun and light, but also has some serious elements. The characters are flawed, and we get to learn about those flaws. I tend to love and connect with characters for their flaws because it makes them more real.

All in all, The Conspiracy of Us was my perfect book. I love the secrets, the mystery, the puzzle, the romance, the travel, the characters, the writing. I really can’t come up with a complaint, except that it’s not a standalone and I’m DYING for the next book! I recommend this to all fans of YA. There’s a little something for everyone. I’m so excited for Maggie, and hope she plans to stick around the YA scene for a long time.

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray | Book Review + Giveaway

Posted January 5, 2015 by Jana in Book Review, Giveaway, Young Adult Fiction / 38 Comments

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
Series: Firebird #1
Published by HarperTEEN on November 4, 2014
Genres: Romance, Science Fiction, Time Travel
Pages: 368
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher (Mail)
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Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their radical scientific achievements. Their most astonishing invention: the Firebird, which allows users to jump into parallel universes, some vastly altered from our own. But when Marguerite’s father is murdered, the killer—her parent’s handsome and enigmatic assistant Paul—escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.

Marguerite can’t let the man who destroyed her family go free, and she races after Paul through different universes, where their lives entangle in increasingly familiar ways. With each encounter she begins to question Paul’s guilt—and her own heart. Soon she discovers the truth behind her father’s death is more sinister than she ever could have imagined.

A Thousand Pieces of You explores a reality where we witness the countless other lives we might lead in an amazingly intricate multiverse, and ask whether, amid infinite possibilities, one love can endure.

This book sounded amazing before the cover image released, but once the cover was revealed I was even more excited about it! For once, the book lived up to its beautiful cover. As always, my main points are bolded. :)

1. As much as I loved this book, I had a very hard time getting started. The pacing across the first 100 pages or so is very slow and cumbersome. I actually set this book down back in November because I just could not hang in there, and I was so sad it would end up being a DNF. I’m so glad I gave it another chance, though, because it ended up becoming a new favorite!

2. I’m not usually a fan of parallel universes or alternate dimensions because books that contain them are usually repetitive and the differences between those worlds are never exciting or unique enough to hold my attention. In this case, however, I could not wait to see where Marguerite and Theo traveled to next.

3. My favorite parallel universe was Russia, and is where the bulk of this book takes place. Even though the characters never change time periods, this particular universe feels like it’s a couple hundred years behind ours. Marguerite is the daughter of the tsar, and lives in a candlelit castle. Lieutenant Markov (a.k.a. Paul Markov, suspected murderer of Marguerite’s father) is Marguerite’s personal body guard, and oh wow is he swoony! I loved getting to see so many sides of Paul, but this one was my favorite.

4. I really liked Marguerite. I liked that she was willing to take the less popular road and give Paul a chance to prove that he did not kill her father. I liked her tenacity and her crusade for truth. And I loved her relationship with her dad. So sweet.

5. I’m not going to try and explain the ins and outs of how they travel between dimensions and everything because that’s for you to discover as you read, but I found the “science” fascinating.

6. The focus in this story is primarily on romance, but there’s also this quest to find out if Paul killed Marguerite’s dad or not, a battle against an evil corporation looking to use the Firebird for evil, and the fight to stay alive and return home. There’s a lot going on, and there’s so many twists and turns and revelations. What you think is going on is not what’s going on.

7. The romance is super unique. You’ve got Theo and Paul. They make up the love triangle. But then there’s Lieutenant Markov, who is Paul but not really Paul. He’s Paul from Russia. And Marguerite loves Lieutenant Markov, but maybe not Paul. So basically it’s a love square with Theo and Paul from two different dimensions. By loving Paul is she cheating on Lieutenant Markov? So yeah. Complicated.

8. I could have done with fewer flashbacks to what happened before Paul supposedly betrayed Marguerite’s family. Those were kind of boring and took me out of the suspense of what was going on then.

9. There were some pretty romantic quotes. I just loved the romance!

All in all, I really enjoyed A Thousand Pieces of You and can’t wait for the next book in the series!

Somehow I ended up with an extra hardback from the publisher, so I’m giving it away to someone who thinks they might love it as much as I did! I’m feeling generous so I’m willing to ship internationally, and I’m currently publicizing the Debut Author Challenge so you get extra entries if you sign up!

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