We're an Open Book
It’s time for another head to head book faceoff ! These two novels were ones I read months apart and just really didn’t have much to say about. I wasn’t even going to review them but, then I realized they dealt with the same issue; The After. What happens after a traumatic event that shakes not only our protagonist, but also a small town community.
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“Fame is people screaming your name, loving you, hating you, all on a whim”
–Tammara Webber, Between The Lines
- Release Date: November 15th, 2012
- Genre: Contemporary
- Hours: 8 hours 48 minutes
- Publisher: Brilliance Audio
Synopsis: Reid Alexander is used to getting what he wants – and what he wants next is his newest costar, Emma Pierce. The universe is lining up nicely to grant his wish, until he’s confronted with two unexpected obstacles on location: a bitter ex-girlfriend and a rival for Emma’s affections.
Emma Pierce just got her big break after years of filming commercials and made-for-TV movies. Winning the lead role in a wide-release film – opposite the very hot Reid Alexander – should be a dream come true. But Emma’s heart is hiding a secret fantasy: she wants to be a normal girl
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- Release Date: January 29, 2013
- Genre: Sci-Fi/Historical
- Pages: 432
- Publisher: Blazer + Bray (Harper Collins Children)
Synopsis : Inspired by H. G. Wells’s classic The Island of Dr. Moreau,The Madman’s Daughter is a dark and breathless Gothic thriller about the secrets we’ll do anything to know and the truths we’ll go to any lengths to protect. . . Sixteen-year-old Juliet Moreau has built a life for herself in London—working as a maid, attending church on Sundays, and trying not to think about the scandal that ruined her life. After all, no one ever proved the rumors about her father’s gruesome experiments. But when she learns he is alive and continuing his work on a remote tropical island, she is determined to find out if the accusations are true.
. . . and you thought you had father issues. Juliet Moreau’s life has been world of hardship since her disgraced father, the mad Dr. Moreau, abandoned her family leaving them to ruin. Years later a chance encounter leads Juliet to her father and his mysterious island inhabited by strange islanders.
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Books and Sensibility’s month long dedication to indie !
It’s hard to be in the YA book blogging world without noticing all the upcoming indie novels and novelists. So, to open myself up to more independent and self published authors, I am going Strictly Indie for the month of May. I will be focusing on reviewing, discussing and posting about indie novels and even have a few guest posts along the way.
- Release Date: December 24th 2011
- Pages: 256 pages
- Genre: Contemporary Romance
- Price: $2.99 ebook; 8.99 paperback
Callum and Harper is my first real look into the world of self-published novels. Now, to be honest, I am writing this review 6 months after reading this book and I don’t have many notes, so this review will focus more on my experience with the novel.
The titular Callum Tate and Harper Bailey are a pair of teens who recently aged out of the foster care system. They meet at the Social Services office and told their only option for housing is in one of New York City’s homeless shelters. The story follows the couple as they work, study and struggle to make a better life for themselves together.
Being my first indie, the writing in this book was better than I expected. Fisher seems to really know ins and outs of New York City and the music scene the characters spend a lot of time in.
The story is told in alternating first person POVs and as I was reading them I would often forget which POV I was reading. Callum and Harper didn’t have the voice distinction. The characters were strong as a couple, but couldn’t hold their own as individuals.
One of the plots in this novel involves a boy from Harper’s past who is a a psychotic killer and starts hunting her down. This plot line felt a little melodramatic at times and took the focus away from the main story. I wish Amelie had stuck to keeping the story based on the growth of a relationship, the plot that worked great for the first half of the book.
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Synopsis: Everything about Anna’s life is a secret. Her father works for the Branch at the helm of its latest project: monitoring and administering treatments to the four genetically altered boys in the lab below their farmhouse. There’s Nick, Cas, Trev . . . and Sam, who’s stolen Anna’s heart. When the Branch decides it’s time to take the boys, Sam stages an escape, killing the agents sent to retrieve them. Now on the run, Anna soon discovers that she and Sam are connected in more ways than either of them expected. And if they’re both going to survive, they must piece together the clues of their past before the Branch catches up to them and steals it all away
Altered isn’t a book I’d usually pick up since I’m more of a contemporary/dystopian reader, but when Jennifer Rush came to a signing near me, I went ahead and bought a copy. One of the first things Jennifer said was that she writes for the boys. And it’s pretty obvious what she means by this once you get into a book.
In the basement of Anna Mason and her father’s farmhouse, four boys suffering from amnesia are confined to glass cells. The boys are being held there by The Branch, the clandestine organization her father works for.
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Women’s Fiction Review
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- Release Date : May 29th, 2007
- Publisher : Bloomsbury
- Genre: Chicklit
- Page: 208
Synopsis :Jane Hayes is a seemingly normal young New Yorker, but she has a secret. Her obsession with Mr. Darcy, as played by Colin Firth in the BBC adaptation of Pride and Prejudice, is ruining her love life: no real man can compare. But when a wealthy relative bequeaths her a trip to an English resort catering to Austen-crazed women, Jane’s fantasies of meeting the perfect Regency-era gentleman suddenly become realer than she ever could have imagined. Decked out in empire-waist gowns, Jane struggles to master Regency etiquette and flirts with gardeners and gentlemen . . . the longer she stays, the more her insecurities seem to fall away, and the more she wonders: Is she about to kick the Austen obsession for good, or could all her dreams actually culminate in a Mr. Darcy of her own?
If you click around, you will notice that I read most of the historical fiction for this blog, so I was drawn to
Austenland when the e-book went on sale. The continuing fascination, adaptation and evocation of Jane Austen and her works appears to be endless, and I wanted to check it out for myself. I couldn’t wait to see if a modern girl in a seemingly romantic era would end up as a fairytale or a fluffy disaster.
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