Monday, May 12, 2014

Book review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer Smith


Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row.

A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Quirks of timing play out in this romantic and cinematic novel about family connections, second chances, and first loves. Set over a twenty-four-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it. 


Received a free copy from Netgalley.

This book… where do I begin?  I loved it.  And I’d recommend it to anyone who asks, and even people who don’t.  I found it clever and light, with just enough conflict to keep things tied together and not make it one of those random, light novels about, essentially, nothing.  I loved the idea of ‘would this have happened if xyz?’ because it’s something people think about quite a lot.  So I loved the love story part of it, as well as the twists associated with it.

What brought this book down a bit was Hadley herself.  Well one I was never big on ‘unique’ names for protags because more often than not, it makes it look like the author is trying too hard.  Another thing is that, while it’s completely understandable that Hadley is torn up about her father leaving, especially under the circumstances he did, it seems to me that she spends way too much time just being whiney about it.  Teenagers aren’t expected to be reasonable, but I had a hard time feeling anything but annoyance towards her when she went into another ‘my dad is so horrible for leaving ugh why do I have to do this it’s so unfair’ tirade.


Still, it’s a good book and a fast read so it’s up there on my good books to rec list.  So happy reading!

Friday, May 9, 2014

Book review: Fable (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #3) by Chanda Hahn


All that glitters is not gold.

When something precious is stolen from sixteen-year-old Mina Grime, she will do anything in her power to get it back, even if it means traveling to the dangerous Fae plane and battling one of the strongest fairy-tale villains yet.

However, nothing can prepare Mina for the dangerous obstacles she will face in the Fae world, or the choices she must make when love and life are on the line.


And here we have the third book in the Unfortunate Fairy Tale series.  I read reviews for it after I finished it, mostly because I was curious what people would say, but didn’t want it ruined for me (I do this for a lot of books I’ve just finished reading, actually).  Anyway, it seems that a lot of people didn’t like this entry in the series.  But you know what I also noticed?  People who didn’t like this one liked the previous books.  And as you’ll know if you’ve read my previous reviews for the books, they aren’t that great, as far as I’m concerned.

This time the action really gets started.  Mina experiences a tragedy very early in the book in the form of a fire in the building she lives in, which everyone believes claimed her younger brother.  Pretty early on she finds out that he’s in fact been kidnapped, orchestrating another tale after she was avoiding them on purpose all summer.  The book isn’t perfect, I don’t think, but it definitely shows leaps and bounds of improvement for Hahn and her writing.  I actually enjoyed a good majority of it, especially near the end when everything starts being revealed and the stakes for the final book are set.  It’s different from the last two books, and that’s probably why reviewers who enjoyed the first two don’t like it, but I personally think it’s much, much better.


I just wish that Hahn had started off this strong.  When the final book comes out I’ll probably be looking for it, though.  So, happy reading!