Review: Our Chemical Hearts (ARC)

TITLE: Our Chemical Hearts

AUTHOR: Krystal Sutherland 

PUBLISHER: G.P. Putnam's Sons

PUBLICATION DATE: 10/4/2016

FORMAT: ARC

PAGES: 320

SOURCE:Amazon Vine 

MY RATING: 🦄🦄🦄 + 1/2

SUMMARY (FROM GOODREADS): Henry Page has never been in love. He fancies himself a hopeless romantic, but the slo-mo, heart palpitating, can't-eat-can't-sleep kind of love that he's been hoping for just hasn't been in the cards for him--at least not yet. Instead, he's been happy to focus on his grades, on getting into a semi-decent college and finally becoming editor of his school newspaper. Then Grace Town walks into his first period class on the third Tuesday of senior year and he knows everything's about to change.

Grace isn't who Henry pictured as his dream girl--she walks with a cane, wears oversized boys' clothes, and rarely seems to shower. But when Grace and Henry are both chosen to edit the school paper, he quickly finds himself falling for her. It's obvious there's something broken about Grace, but it seems to make her even more beautiful to Henry, and he wants nothing more than to help her put the pieces back together again. And yet, this isn't your average story of boy meets girl. Krystal Sutherland's brilliant debut is equal parts with and heartbreak, a potent reminder of the bittersweet bliss that is first love.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: This book had been on my radar for a while, so I was excited to jump right in. I love all of the relevant references throughout the book -- Facebook, Spotify, Mad-eye Moody, etc. I wonder if those things will change in the future or if people who read this book in the future will wonder what the author was talking about.

This story is gutwrenchingly (is that a word?) heartbreaking. I went back and forth between being so angry at Grace for the way she treats Henry and then filled with sympathy for her situation.

CHARACTERS: As I mentioned above, Grace makes me angry with the way that she treats Henry, but at the same time I just felt so much sympathy for her and what she was dealing with that I would almost forgive her, then she would do something else to make me angry at her again.

COVER: Obsessed with the cover. The color of those fish is gorgeous!

**I received an ARC of this book for my honest review. All opinions are my own and have not been influenced in any way.

The Secret Hum of a Daisy Review

Goodreads

TITLE: The Secret Hum of a Daisy

AUTHOR: Tracy Holczer

PUBLISHER: G.P. Putnam's Sons

PUBLICATION DATE: 5/1/2014

PAGES: 320

SOURCE: ARC copy from Amazon Vine/Publisher

MY RATING: 

BACK COVER SUMMARY: Grace and her mother are their own family, traveling from place to place like gypsies. But Grace is tired and wants to finally have a home all to her own. She thinks she's found it with Mrs. Greene and her daughter, Lacey, so when her mother tells her it's time to move on again, Grace summons the courage to tell her mother how she really feels. She'll always regret that her last words to her mother were angry ones.

When Grace's mother dies suddenly, she's thrust into a world she doesn't understand and didn't expect--the town her mother grew up in and fled when she was just seventeen and pregnant with Grace. Now faced with making a home with a grandmother she's never met (and who, according to Grace's mother, never wanted her in the first place), Grace is desperate to be sent back to Mrs. Greene and her best friend, Lacey. A mysterious treasure hunt, just like the ones her mother used to send her on, may just be the key. It all begins with a crane. And Grace is sure it's her mother showing her the way home.

OVERALL IMPRESSION: For the first third of so of the book, I was having a hard time making myself pick up the book to read even though I was enjoying it, but that may have just been because there were so many other books that I wanted to read at the time. I got a lot more interested in the book and I wanted to see where the cranes were going to take Grace and how the relationship with her grandmother would progress.

CHARACTERS: I found myself really attached to the main character Grace. I felt almost like she was a younger family member of mine, and I wanted to make sure that she was okay and taken care of. 

COVER: The cover is nice. I like the blue to green gradient with the white graphics on top, it gives it a nice contrast.