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3.5 Stars

Our Dark Duet by Victoria Schwab (Monsters of Verity #2)

August 29, 2017      Leave a Comment

Release Date: 06/13/17 | Urban Fantasy (Horror?) | 10 hours 32 minutes | Harper Audio

Trigger Warning: Violence 

I’m going to warn right at the top that this book is violent AF. While violence is a central theme in the first book, it is relentless and borderline disturbing in this sequel. Sexual violence or anything never comes up in this series but there is just like a lot of throat ripping. Like a lot.

On Twitter Victoria Schwab described Our Dark Duet as being the second half of a whole but this duology felt like it was missing a book to explain how our characters went from high school students on the run to rough and tumble monster fighters. Especially concerning August Flynn who goes from bright-eyedWoobie who wants to be human to a stoic badass. It was like watching the original The Fast and The Furious movie and then immediately watching Furious 7 when they were all suddenly jumping cars through skyscrapers.

Speaking of The Fast and The Furious franchise that is exactly what this book felt like. The plot was muddled, a lot of characters carry Idiot Balls and the whole thing probably could have been solved with a text message chain but all that said… I was just swept away in Schwab’s cinematic storytelling, breakneck action sequences and creative set pieces. Look, I’m not sure why characters are suddenly using call signs and August is getting around by jumping from skyscrapers but you know…Rule of Cool.

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Audiobook Review: Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner

August 24, 2017      Leave a Comment

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 3.5 out of 5.

Release Date: 03/03/17 | Contemporary | 10 hours 45 minutes 

17-year-old writer Carver Briggs believes in the power of words, but he never imagined a few words, written in a text, would kill his three best friends.

Goodbye Days opens with Caver at the last funeral for Sauce Crew–the nickname for his friend group. From there the book is almost a little too prescriptive as Carver has a final day with each of Sauce Crew’s family members sharing and learning about the sides of his friends he never knew. The time between the goodbye days is punctuated with some mini-plots plot about Carter facing possible manslaughter charges, therapy session  and his budding relationship with, Jesmyn, a Sauce Crew member’s girlfriend.

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A Silent Voice by Yoshitoki Oima

May 7, 2017      Leave a Comment

 

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Only Daughter by Anna Snoekstra

November 7, 2016      Leave a Comment

  • Release Date: September 20th 2016
  • Pages: 288
  • Genre: Psychological Thriller/Grip-lit
  • Publisher: Mira (Harlequin)

After going missing for 12 years the Winters’ family only daughter, Rebecca, is back. Rebecca doesn’t remember where she’s been and her memories are fleeting mostly because the girl who returned isn’t Rebecca Winters. She’s an impostor simply looking to hide out. But somebody from the shadows is on to the deception and before this impostor is found out she will discover that Rebecca’s perfect suburban life was lie.

This  Aussie thriller moves between time, following the exploits of the impostor in 2014 and the uneasy life of the real teenage Rebecca Winters a decade previous. Snoekstra sets the scene of an idyllic life with a disturbing underbelly and while the novel doesn’t have the same eerie pathos of a Gillian Flynn novel, you will find yourself flipping the pages to find out how this ends.

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Spontaneous by Aaron Starmer

September 11, 2016      Leave a Comment

  • Release Date: August 23, 2016
  • Pages:368
  • Genre: Contemporary-ish
  • Publisher: Dutton Books for Young Readers (Penguin)

This book probably had the easiest elevator pitch ever; students at a New Jersey high school start spontaneously combusting. The entire town, and eventually the entire world starts looking for answers including senior class member Mara Carlyle, the snarky, foul-mouthed, irreverent narrator who takes us through this story.

I have read a lot of weird YA. I’m talking giant man-eating grasshopper YAand girls-drink-bat-and-sees-future-anti-feminist hellscape weird. But this book takes the Kafkaesque cake.

I was so morbidly curious about this book after hearing about it a BEA because I wanted to see how they handled the combustion. Do the students go poof gone or it is something more gruesome? Well, let me put it this way, when it first happens people assume it was a suicide bomb. So, it mentions blood but it never gets too gross. Starmer focuses more on how students react to what is…leftover.

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Room by Emma Donahuge

July 30, 2016      Leave a Comment

 Since Brie Larson took home an Academy Award for the film adaptation of this book,  I finally decided to give it a read on audio. Room is told from the point of view of 5-year-old Jack, a boy who has lived his entire life in captivity with his mom in a shed.

I did this on audio and at first I was like nope, nope, nope when I heard  narrator Michal Friedman’s 5-year-old boy voice. But once you settle into the story– it works. I think the little boy voice is close to her speaking voice because she has also done some chicklit with a similar tone. She did a great job and her voice is so unique. I was sad to see she died a year after this came out

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