In October I read a total of 10 books bringing my total books read for the year to 84. Of these books, 9 were "real" books bringing my total books for the "Real" Book Challenge to 66 books.
"Real" Books
Ebooks
Monday, November 3, 2014
Saturday, November 1, 2014
The Boy Recession Review
TITLE: The Boy Recession
AUTHOR: Flynn Meaney
PUBLISHER: Poppy
PUBLICATION DATE: 8/7/2012
FORMAT: Hardcover
PAGES: 246
SOURCE: Bought (Book Outlet)
MY RATING:
INSIDE COVER SUMMARY: The population of Whitefish Bay, Wisconsin, is shrinking as families move to cities and towns with greener pastures, and the local high school is hurting: Nearly all of the area's most eligible guys have moved or transferred schools.
With little competition, the remaining boys find their stocks on the rise, and even the most unlikely candidates have a good chance of making the team and getting the girl. Guitar-strumming slacker Hunter Fahrenbach has made an art of blending into the background, but now desperate coaches are recruiting him and popular girls are noticing his scruffy good looks. With a little help, Hunter might even be boyfriend material...
Down-to-earth Kelly Robbins has a simple wish for her junior year: "one normal, nice boy to crush on." Kelly and Hunter have always been friends, but is there something more to their platonic relationship? And can Kelly overcome the odds? After all, dating is hard enough without a four-to-one ratio.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: I don't like to read book synopses as I don't want to be spoiled on anything, so I didn't know what this was about when I bought it. I was hoping this was going to have more of a sci-fi spin on it where the boys were actually disappearing, not just moving out of town.
I think a 7th or 8th grader might enjoy this story, but it wasn't for me. It did get better as it went on, but I'm still not that impressed with it. It wasn't terrible, it just wasn't memorable and it's one of those books that I'll probably never pick up again.
CHARACTERS: I liked both of the main characters, Hunter and Kelly. They were cute together and I enjoyed watching the progression of their relationship.
COVER: I adore the cover, and it's honestly a big reason that I picked this book up in the first place. I love the color scheme and the little boy and girl figures on it.
Thursday, October 30, 2014
Cinder & Ella Review
TITLE: Cinder & Ella
AUTHOR: Kelly Oram
PUBLISHER: Bluefields
PUBLICATION DATE: 10/1/2014
PAGES: 269
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: Kathy @ I Am A Reader/Publisher
MY RATING:
SUMMARY (FROM GOODREADS): It's been almost a year since eighteen-year-old Ella Rodriguez was in a car accident that left her crippled, scarred, and without a mother. After a very difficult recovery, she's been uprooted across the country and forced into the custody of a father that abandoned her when she was a young child. If Ella wants to escape her father's home and her awful new stepfamily, she must convince her doctors that she's capable, both physically and emotionally, of living on her own. The problem is, she's not ready yet. The only way she can think of to start healing is by reconnecting with the one person left in the world who's ever meant anything to her--her anonymous Internet best friend, Cinder.
Hollywood sensation Brian Oliver has a reputation for being trouble. There's major buzz around his performance in his upcoming film The Druid Prince, but his management team says he won't make the transition from teen heartthrob to serious A-list actor unless he can prove he's left his wild days behind and become a mature adult. In order to douse the flames on Brian's bad-boy reputation, his management stages a fake engagement for him to his co-star Kaylee. Brian is thrilled with the arrangement--or his fake finance--but decides he'll suffer through it if it means he'll get an Oscar nomination. Then a surprise email from an old Internet friend changes everything.
Hollywood sensation Brian Oliver has a reputation for being trouble. There's major buzz around his performance in his upcoming film The Druid Prince, but his management team says he won't make the transition from teen heartthrob to serious A-list actor unless he can prove he's left his wild days behind and become a mature adult. In order to douse the flames on Brian's bad-boy reputation, his management stages a fake engagement for him to his co-star Kaylee. Brian is thrilled with the arrangement--or his fake finance--but decides he'll suffer through it if it means he'll get an Oscar nomination. Then a surprise email from an old Internet friend changes everything.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: The first thing that I fell in love with this book for was the fact that the main character Ella has a book blog. It's so neat reading about people who have the same interests as me. About 10% of the way through the book, I was absolutely hooked and didn't want to put it down.
My heart breaks for Ella when I see the way her step-family, and especially her dad, treats her.
I wanted to scream at Cinder every time that he was talking to Ella to just tell her who he was. And then I was so giddy during the scene where they meet for the first time. It was so well done and I loved the way it played out. The ending of this book was just perfect also.
My heart breaks for Ella when I see the way her step-family, and especially her dad, treats her.
I wanted to scream at Cinder every time that he was talking to Ella to just tell her who he was. And then I was so giddy during the scene where they meet for the first time. It was so well done and I loved the way it played out. The ending of this book was just perfect also.
CHARACTERS: I adore the relationship between Cinder and Ella. They are so playful and fun together.
COVER: The cover is okay.I like the fact that the cell phones are on the cover, but I wish they had different images in them instead of people's faces.
*I received an ebook copy of this book for my honest review.
*I received an ebook copy of this book for my honest review.
Sunday, October 19, 2014
100 Sideways Miles Review
TITLE: 100 Sideways Miles
AUTHOR: Andrew Smith
PUBLISHER: Simon and Schuster Books For Young Readers
PUBLICATION DATE: 9/2/2014
PAGES: 288
FORMAT: ARC
SOURCE: Amazon Vine/Publisher
MY RATING:
BACK COVER SUMMARY: Finn Easton sees the world through miles instead of minutes. It's how he makes sense of the world, and how he tries to convince himself that he's a real boy and not just a character in his father's bestselling cult-classic book. Finn has two things going for him: his best friend, the possibly-insane-but-definitely-excellent Cade Hernandez, and Julia Bishop, the first girl he's ever loved.
Then Julia moves away, and Finn is heartbroken. Feeling restless and trapped in the book, Finn embarks on a road trip with Cade to visit their college of choice in Oklahoma. When an unexpected accident happens and the boys become unlikely heroes, they take an eye-opening detour away from everything they thought they had planned--and learn how to write their own destiny.
OVERALL IMPRESSION: I've wanted to read an Andrew Smith book for quite a while. Everyone seems to rave about his books and I was curious to see what all the fuss was about. I was pretty disappointed with this one. About a third of the way through the book, I started to loose interest. Not much was going on and I was quite bored. I was prepared to give this book a 2.5 star rating, but in the last fourth or so of the book there was an event that happened that brought quite a bit of excitement to the story and I decided to bump it up to 3 stars.
CHARACTERS: The characters were okay, but not my favorite. I did enjoy reading about Finn's epileptic episodes, but other than that I didn't really feel myself connecting with anybody.
COVER: I like the cover a lot after learning what the significance of the horse means.
Friday, October 10, 2014
September Wrap-Up
In September I read a total of 8 books bringing my total books for the year to 77. Of these books, 3 of them were "real" books bringing my total books for the challenge to 57 books.
"Real Books"
Audio Books:
EBooks:
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