Feature and Follow Friday!

Feature and Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by Parajunkee and Alison Can Read to help book bloggers get to know each other and spread the following love around.  Each week there's a question or activity.

Question of the Week: Before blogging (dark times people!) how would you find out about new books or did you?

Honestly?  I mostly just trawled my local library for books that they got in new.  They were pretty good at getting new ones in, at least from authors they already carried, and even if the book wasn't new (as in it came out within the last month) it was new to me.

Book review: The Rules of Regret by Megan Squires

“Life doesn’t come with a blueprint, which makes it hard to have any plans.”

Nineteen-year-old Darby Duncan is finally on her own. Her boyfriend of six years just left for a high-powered summer internship, though in reality he’s been absent for much longer than that. This newfound freedom wasn’t a part of Darby’s plans, but as she’s come to discover, plans only exist on paper, not in reality.

And guys like Torin Westbrook aren’t supposed to exist in reality, either. But he does, with his disheveled curly hair, irresistible dimples, and endearingly quirky habit of reciting quotes from classic movies and ancient thinkers. When Darby meets Torin as a fellow counselor at the survival camp she impulsively applies to, she’s certain his main goal is to turn her world upside-down. 

But Darby’s not sure she can adapt to Torin’s ways of viewing his past and the tragedies he's faced. Because she’s had her own share of heartache, too, and as much as she wants to believe that it’s all been for a purpose, her grief hasn’t allowed her to get to that point. Yet the more Darby is around Torin, the more she craves the freedom to break out of her carefully constructed routine and mindset and fall into something new. 

She’s just not sure that she should be falling for Torin along the way.

I read one of Squires’ books back in January, one that she wrote later.  The Rules of Regret was her second book, I believe, and I can confidently say that she improved between this one and Draw Me In.

The Rules of Regret is about Darby, who’s left alone for the first time in her life when her boyfriend of six years goes to an internship in Washington, DC.  Rather than moping around and letting the highlight of her summer be repainting her apartment, she decides to take a job at a summer camp so she can raise money and go see Lance as a surprise.

To Squires’ credit, the book does start out okay.  But by the time she gets to camp, I feel like she tried to fit too much in and ignored some things that she should’ve had in.  Suddenly Darby’s relationship has been on the rocks for years, Lance is a horrible cheater, and Darby is immediately attracted to Torin.  I found myself rolling my eyes at how fast she went from “He’s so annoying” to “OMG I want to sleep with him.” It just made Darby seem shallow to me.  Not to mention, the entire book is filled with heavy-handed scenes that just kind of made me roll my eyes.  For instance, on their overnighter, Torin mentions how religious he is.  I felt like it came straight out of left field, and it’s never even mentioned again, except for in passing by Darby, and not in reference to him.

I also really hated that Darby’s time at camp is treated with a time skip.  We never get to meet any of her cabin members or any other campers when, in my opinion, it could’ve been a much better way for Darby to come to terms with herself than what actually happened.  Instead we’re rushed right to her trip to DC to see Lance.  It just seems to me that Squires was focusing on the wrong way to tell the story.

There were certain passages and things I enjoyed about the book, but it wasn’t enough to really bring it up to average in my mind.  Which makes me glad that the author improved for her next book.

Book review: The Tyrant's Daughter by J.C. Carleson

When her father is killed in a coup, 15-year-old Laila flees from the war-torn middle east to a life of exile and anonymity in the U.S. Gradually she adjusts to a new school, new friends, and a new culture, but while Laila sees opportunity in her new life, her mother is focused on the past. She’s conspiring with CIA operatives and rebel factions to regain the throne their family lost. Laila can’t bear to stand still as an international crisis takes shape around her, but how can one girl stop a conflict that spans generations? 

Received from NetGalley in return for a review.

The Tyrant’s Daughter might seem like it’s trying to be an issue book at first, and I’d say that it is.  It’s a big issue book, dealing with a lot of different things at once.  There’s the big plot, of course, of the main character and her family escaping from their country in the midst of a rebellion, but then it gets down to the fact that their culture is nothing like ours.

They’re outsiders in a land that is so different from their own, and it’s a little uncomfortable reading it.  Not a bad uncomfortable, but I think it’s what the author was trying to accomplish with it: that even if someone is willing to learn and try to assimilate into a new culture, there’s always something about it that they just can’t get used to.  Laila protests fitting in at first, but when she realizes that she’s being just as judgmental of her possible friends as many people are of her, she relaxes.

Of course all of this is happening while Laila is slowly learning that her family’s position in their country wasn’t what she thought it was.  She had been brought up believing that they’re royalty, when it was really a dictatorship.  While some might say that it would be hard to believe that she had never even suspected it, it reads as pretty believable to me.  And the fact that she gets swept up in the affairs the government agent is trying to get her mother to be a part of just makes it easier to believe that Laila would be easily fooled.  She was brought up sheltered, even on those trips to France that she lovingly describes.

The ending, while I won’t give spoilers, is bittersweet and fits, I think.  The entire book is a pretty interesting ride, and I believe Carleson succeeded in showing us a story about a displaced girl trying to find her way.  So, happy reading!

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!

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!

Book review: Diamonds Are a Teen's Best Friend (Living Blond #1) by Allison Rushby

Nessa Joanne Mulholland, aka Marilyn Monroe's No. 1 teenage fan, is used to moving house. This time, however, she's relocating in movie-star style - crossing the Atlantic on board the Majestic, headed for Paris from New York City. And it really would be in movie-star style if it wasn't for the fact that she's bringing her cringe-fest professor dad along for the ride. (Dad's specialisation: human mating rituals - need Nessa say more?) Oh yeah, and sharing a cabin that's five decks below sea level and next to the engine room. Still, at least Holly Isles is on board. Yes, really, that Holly Isles - star of stage, screen and – DVD. Suddenly, things are looking up. Looking a little Marilyn, in fact, because events are strangely mirroring Nessa's favourite movie of all time, Gentlemen Prefer Blondes.

Watch!

As Holly Isles, world-famous actress, confides in Nessa over mocktails.

Listen!

As Nessa coaches Holly in the amazing 'Nessa's Lessons in Love' - the ultimate man-catching rules to finding true and lasting lurv.

See!

Nessa fall for Holly's too-cute nephew, Marc.

And – cover your eyes!

As it all goes terribly, horribly, embarrassingly wrong.

There's no doubting it. This is going to be one pitchy crossing.

Received as a free ARC from NetGalley.

Diamonds Are a Teen’s Best Friend is one of those books that seems like it should be for younger people (maybe classified as a middle-grade book instead of young adult) but it’s really not.  I mean it could be, but it’s not dumbed-down like a lot of middle-grade books tend to be when dealing with some of the issues this one does.

There are a lot of clever things about this book.  Of course there’s the whole thing with Nessa’s obsession with Marilyn Monroe, and the acknowledgement that it might be that she just wants a ‘friend’ who can stay with her while she and her father travel around the world so much.  And Nessa’s point of view was, for the most part, pretty entertaining.  She’s overly-naïve, though, and it becomes irritating when she misses obvious things that the reader got a long time ago.

There are also things here and there that the author seems to just skip over.  For instance, when the book says Nessa and Marc had become friends, I’m just sitting here thinking “When?” It’s not even that anything was skipped over; because the cruise is several days, rather than the book taking place over the span of a few months for instance, the time skips aren’t that long.  And it’s not even that Nessa just assumes they’re friends; Marc is really disappointed in her when he finds out about the whole Nessa’s Lessons in Love thing and says he thought she was better than that.  It’s a weakness in the book that tugs it away from being as good as it might have been.

Despite that the book is pretty good, something I’d recommend to others without hesitation.  So happy reading!

Book review: Disconnected by Lisa Cronkhite

Seventeen-year-old Milly has a huge problem on her hands.  She is being bullied by Amelia Norris. Day in and day out, Amelia torments Milly and even threatens to hurt her, but she can’t tell anyone—not a soul.  Milly’s reasoning—she does not want anyone to know where her tormentor lives.  They only share one thing in common.  Both co-exist as one in the same body. Milly is so disconnected from her past that she feels compelled to find out what truly happened to her when her parents were still alive.  After a mysterious fire, she and Grandpa George move into Aunt Rachel's Victorian home where Milly then begins to unravel puzzling clues to her family history. Through dreams and scattered memories, Milly journals her breaking story, trying to cope by putting the shattered pieces back together, all the while resisting with her inner demon.  Amelia is determined to cut Milly out of the real world—literally. Milly starts to wonder who her real family is after stumbling across Aunt Rachel’s notebook—having the intuitive sense that something terribly awful is missing.  All she had thought to be true now seems like one big lie.

Disconnected follows the trend that started showing up in YA a while ago of rather introspective books that are more about the main character and how his or her mind works with the mental illness they have than really have a plot.  In this way it’s kind of iffy, because the writing is unclear in a way that has nothing to do with Millie’s confusion over who she is and how Amelia is actually a part of her, not a separate person.  The writing is murky and doesn’t feel complete in the way that a rough draft would, not because it’s told from the point of view of someone whose mind isn’t “right.”

This book differs from others of its kind because it does attempt to have a plot outside of Millie’s mental illness, but it’s a little… bizarre.  It feels more like a soap opera than a YA book, but I suppose that that’s where the genre is sometimes heading, with its flare for dramatics and such.  I will give the author credit and say she manages to do some foreshadowing that isn’t ‘drop it right in your face’ obvious, though, so she at least tried to connect the plot throughout the book instead of having it dropped on us at the end.

I really have nothing else to say, though.  The book wasn’t necessarily BAD but most of it was unremarkable and didn’t stand out that much to me.  So an eh book.