Book Review: The Boyfriend List

Title: The Boyfriend List
Author: E. Lockhart
Book in Series: 1 of 4
Genre: YA Contemporary
Released in: 2005
Pages: 229
My Rating: 3 stars

Synopsis: Ruby Oliver is a normal teenage girl…one who just broke up with her boyfriend. And lost all her friends. And has started having panic attacks. Her mom sends her to a therapist who tells her to write a list of names of all the boys she’s had any kind of relationship with at all. So she does. Starting from kindergarten, all the way up. And then she finds out that her therapist wants to know why each name is on that list. Ruby doesn’t understand what this has to do with right now. But in doing so, she learns a lot about herself, and realizes she has more thoughts and feelings about some of these boys than she remembers.

My Thoughts: I would have LOVED this if I were younger! It’s not usual for me to say that about YA books…but there just isn’t a whole lot of substance to this book. Still entertaining enough to finish it, but I am debating, yet, if I will continue on with the series (I also own books 2 and 3). There is a LOT of high school drama, and like, the dramy-est of the drama. lol But it does show how teenagers life is so wrapped up around themselves, and school, and I can see how it’s hard for them to break out of that mentality, and how it can totally affect their wellbeing. I remember things seeming so big and important, and now looking back, they weren’t. And so I can see how things Ruby goes through, in the long run of life, won’t be so big…but at the same time, they are still things that can shape her for the future too.

Book Review: HP & Prisoner of Azkaban

Title: Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
Author: J.K. Rowling
Book in Series: 3 of 7
Genre: Middlegrade Fantasy
Released in: 1999
Pages: 463
My Rating: 5 stars

Synopsis: Harry Potter continues into his third year of school at Hogwarts, the school of Witchcraft and Wizardry. This year he takes Divination and learns about Dark omens, and starts fearing there are signs of them following him, as well as an escaped convict named Sirious Black. There’s also time travel, magical maps, secret passageways, OWLs, and more.

My Thoughts: This is obviously a reread, but this time I read the British editions, which I’ve never read before. I’m obviously not going to say much about it, for fear of any spoilers (if you haven’t read this yet, what are you waiting for?!?) This used to top my list as favorite of the series, but I do believe that was before the last book was released. I’m looking forward to finishing reading through the rest of the series, yet again.

Graphic Novel Review: Click & Camp

Series: Click
Author: Kayla Miller
Titles: Click, Camp, Act
Genre: Middlegrade Realistic Fiction graphic novels
Released: 2019, 2019, 2020
Pages: 192, 224, ?
Ratings: 3.5 stars, 4 stars, TBR

Synopsis: This is about an 11 year old girl, named Olive. In Click, she struggles through middle school and making true friends, finding out where she fits in, and being herself. In Camp, she and a friend go to camp together, and both meet a lot of new friends, and find themselves dealing in different ways to the same situations.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed the 2 books published so far! This is another middle grade graphic novel series that is great for young girls to read. They deal with real life situations, with good resolutions. The girls in these books learn to be themselves and find where they fit in, and gives wholesome stories. I actually bought these 2 books for my younger daughters who are 9 and 10, and they loved them too! We are all looking forward to Act when it comes out, hopefully later this year!

Book Review: Replica

Title: Replica
Author: Lauren Oliver
Book in Series: 1 of 2
Genre: YA Science Fiction
Released in: 2016
Pages: 520
My Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: 2 separate girls, told in 2 different stories, each from their own perspective. Gemma is a normal high school girl, who deals with normal teenage problems: her weight, her friends, her enemies. Lyra is NOT a normal girl…she’s a replica. Created in a lab, born in a facility called Haven, she’s just a number. But when the lab is destroyed, and she escapes, her story merges with Gemma, and they find out that things are not what they seem, at all.

My Thoughts: I really enjoyed reading this, in the format it’s laid out. Lyra’s story is on one side, and you flip it around for Gemma’s story. Essentially 2 separate books, in one, that you can read however you want. You can read one whole story, then the other. Or one chapter of each, flipping back and forth.

I highly recommend reading the first half of one side, the first half of the other side, then flipping back and forth. We read this for my IRL book club, and I read Lyra’s side first, the  first 8 chapters. Then I flipped and read Gemma’s story, the first 9 or 10 chapters, then went back to Lyra. I pretty much read one chapter back and forth, but really flipped whenever the stories overlapped (there was one place, where I read a couple chapters from one, then a couple from the other, then went back to chapter by chapter). My friend read Gemma’s side first, the first 9 chapters, and then flipped to Lyra’s first 9 chapters, then back to Gemma and flipped chapter by chapter. I liked reading Lyra’s story first, knowing she was a replica, and then Gemma, wondering how her story played into the book. But my friend liked having read Gemma first, a normal girl’s story, then building the suspense reading Lyra’s chapter next.

As for the actual story, I was hooked in right away, having started with Lyra’s story first). There’s a lot of mystery around the facility, Haven, where she is housed, and it hits you a little in the feels, seeing the things these replicas go through and feel…despite being told they shouldn’t care or feel anything, not being real people. Reading Lyra first, Gemma’s side was kind of slow at first…but I just don’t get how she is treated so meanly. She talks a lot about her body size, and how overweight she is…but there’s also other mentions throughout the book that makes me think it’s all in her head, and that she’s really not that heavy. I’m not really sure. Nothing comes of that talk either…no revelation on her part, or anything, which I wish there had been.

The story really picks up once the 2 girls’ stories merge, and they really start to figure out the mysteries of Haven. This is my first Lauren Oliver book, and her writing style is very fluid and flowing, easy to read. I can’t wait to pick up Ringer!!

Book Review: How to Hang a Witch

Title: How to Hang a Witch
Author: Adriana Mather
Book in Series: 1 of 2
Genre: YA Paranormal
Released in: 2016
Pages: 358
My Rating: 4.5 stars

Synopsis: Sam Mather has never been to Salem, despite her lineage to the historic Salem Witch Trials, and her father having grown up there. But her father is in the hospital in a coma, and to save money, her stepmother moves them to her late-grandmother’s house in Salem. Mather is well known in Salem for it’s historic comdemning of witches back in the 1600s, and she’s not the popular new kid at school for it. Weird things start happening, people are dying, and the Salem Witch trial’s descendent teenagers think it’s all her fault. Samantha finds that being the unpopular kid, and bullying, are actually quite similar to the trials on witches way when….only this time, the tables are turned on her.

My Thoughts: I loved this book. I’ve always had an interest in the Salem Witch Trials, since I was young, and this really throws you into that history. The author writes a super engaging read, backed by real historical details. I especially like how she related the history of what happened to a big concern that we have today: bullying, especially in a school setting. She points out that even to be silent about a situation is to excuse the actions, and even support those wrongdoing, which can be harmful and detrimental to others. I can’t read her next book, with history about the Titanic!

Series Review: Sunny Graphic Novels

Series: Sunny
Author: Jennifer L. Holm
Titles: Sunny Side Up, Swing It Sunny, Sunny Rolls the Dice
Genre: Middlegrade Historical Fiction graphic novels
Released: 2015, 2017, 2019
Pages: 224, 224, 226
My Overall Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: This is about a young girl named Sunshine, nickname Sunny, who grows up in the 70s in Pennsylvania. She just goes through life trying to see the sunny side of everything, but not always accomplishing it. Big things are happening around her, which affects her and disposition, but in the end, she always comes back around to her sunny side.

My Thoughts: This is one graphic novel series that I actually enjoy!! I am not big into graphic novels, but I hope there will be more to see from Sunny. I love her. These are sweet stories about a sweet girl, who has to learn to navigate the cloudy world around her. We learn about Sunny initially during a rough time for her family. Her idolized older brother is getting into trouble, and she doesn’t understand, or how to deal with it. The second book is my least favorite, it was fine, but felt more of a connector/filler book between the first and the third. We start to see how Sunny is becoming her own person, but still wanting to follow her best friend. In the last book, this is intensified. She really starts to see how she has changed, and how the interests of her friends she always has had are different now, and how she now has interests similar to some new friends. She tries to balance it all, but ultimately she learns she needs to be who she is. I loved this last book! I reread the first 2 books to refresh, and I’d been waiting for this one to release. I think the series overall is so cute, and sends a great message for kids.

Book Review: Insurgent

Title: Insurgent
Author: Veronica Roth
Book in Series: 2 of 3
Genre: YA Dystopian
Released in: 2012
Pages: 525
My Rating: 3.5 stars

Synopsis: Picking up directly after Divergent ends, Tris continues fighting against the factions that are trying to control their world.

My Thoughts: Well, it’s kind of hard to come up with a general synopsis of this book. lol Especially because I felt it was a little bit disjointed from the first book. It felt like different characters and a different story completely. This may have been in part that it took me a good week and a half to finish, though. The first half felt long, but it picked up in the second half and I’m looking forward to finding out how it all ends in the last book. I’m not quite sure why people hate this book so much, but from my understanding, it’s the last book that really gets to some. I’m kind of nervous to find out what could happen!

Book Review: Divergent

Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Book in Series: 1 of 3
Genre: YA Dystopian
Released in: 2011
Pages: 387
My Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: A future Chicago is divided into 5 factions. 16 year old Beatrice has the chance to become someone new, to choose a new faction, or forever think of everyone else before herself, in Abnegation. Choosing, and initiating into, a new faction proves to be difficult. It’s a difficult choice, leaving a life she’s always known, choosing a new way of life, and learning all there needs to be learned of her new faction. What she didn’t know is that her new faction is out to rid all those in her old faction, especially her family. Who can she trust? …her new faction friends? …her new faction instructors? …her new faction leaders? Nothing is as it seems….

My Thoughts: Soooo…I had friends and family, 15 years ago, trying to get me to read this book. I never did, and I even somehow totally avoided spoilers for the entire series (thank goodness). I know many do not like the next books, but I am looking forward to seeing what happens. I am not over the whole dystopian thing that was so popular a few years back…I came back into reading at the very end of that. So I loved this! Gripping, sucked me in and I loved the characters. I loved the character growth our main character progresses through, and the romance, and I can’t wait to see where they take us. PLEASE do not spoil me!!

Book Review: The Kiss Quotient

Title: The Kiss Quotient
Author: Helen Hoang
Book in Series: 1 of 3
Genre: Adult Romance
Released in: 2008
Pages: 333
My Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: A woman with Asperger’s Syndrome has grown up with ways to manage certain things in her life, but one thing she never figured out was relationships, especially personal relationships….like with the opposite sex. Her experience with men has been abysmal, so she decides to hire a male escort to teach her how to interact with men, in and out of bed.

My Thoughts: I came across this on overdrive, and because so many people have raved about it, and I needed a super quick read, something to pull me out of a massive reading slump, I decided to try it. And it totally worked. Super fast, easy read…it was slightly frustrating with the 2 main characters continuing to think a certain way, despite how they each felt, but it wasn’t overly drawn out, too badly. Looking forward to the next book, even though I just realized it’s actually about side characters from this book, and not the main characters.

Book Review: Swing It, Sunny

Title: Swing It, Sunny
Author: Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm
Book in Series: 2 of 3
Genre: Middle Grade Realistic Fiction Graphic Novel
Released in: 2017
Pages: 224
My Rating: 4 stars

Synopsis: The next school year, after the summer visiting her grandfather, Sunny finds out why she was sent to stay with him. Her brother Dale is now sent away, too, to a special school, and he’s not happy about it. He shows it, by not being happy about anything else, either, including Sunny. Sunny feels pretty lonely, but a new family moves in next door, and between new and old friends, she still is able to have some fun.

My Thoughts: I didn’t like this one quite as much as the first, but it’s still good. It has a little bit of a weird time jump, back and forth, from past and present, that makes it a little bit hard to follow (and it’s a little hard to look back to make sure you know where you are, when reading this as an ebook). I liked that the girl next door, despite being older, still engages and befriends Sunny. This story brings back memories of my time in school, as well.