Tag: young adult

Book Review: In the Penalty Box by Lynn Rush and Kelly Anne Blount

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Rating: ☆☆☆
Audience: YA Contemporary romance
Length: 364 pages
Author: Lynn Rush & Kelly Anne Blount
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: January 5th, 2021
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

The Cutting Edge meets Friday Night Lights in a sizzling new hockey romance from bestselling authors Kelly Anne Blount and Lynn Rush.

Willow
Figure skating was supposed to be my whole world. But one unlucky injury and now I’m down…but I’m definitely not out. I just need to rehab—a boatload of rehab—and who’d have thought I could do it on the boys’ hockey team?

Of course, the infuriatingly hot captain of the team seems to think I’m nothing but sequins and twirls. What’s a girl to do but put him in his place? Game on.

Brodie
Hockey is my whole world. I’ve worked my tail off getting my team in a position to win the championships—hopefully in front of major college scouts, too—so what’s a guy to do when a figure skater ends up as our new goalie?

Of course, the distractingly sexy skater thinks I’m nothing but a testosterone-laced competitive streak. And surely she’s only biding her time to heal, then she’s gone. Game over.

ALERT: RAGING TEEN HORMONES

That’s about the only major thought that kept going through my head. This was a book that couldn’t decide what age group it actually wanted to be apart of. The dialogue, conversations, and inner monologues swayed from young YA and towards NA (new adult). It was weird. Really weird.

What I did like was the hockey story. I love a good sports novel and I LOVE that Willow got be the goalie for the boy’s team. That was awesome and really neat to see. I liked reading about the games and wondering who was going to win.

I also did enjoy Willow’s character progression. Ridiculous thoughts about Brodie aside, she made some great strides in figuring out what was best for her. I think she made the best decisions with the information she could and picked what she truly felt was going to make her happy in the long run.

The wild drama all over the place took me out of the story. I don’t mind a bit of drama, but sometimes it hits a line. This one rolled way past that point. Everything felt amped to try and create an emotional side, and I didn’t feel much of that. I wish I could have felt drawn to some of the inner story more, but it’s fine. This was a quick YA romance that had some good, some bad.

Overall audience notes:

  • Young adult sports romance
  • Language: some
  • Romance: kisses/make-outs
  • Violence: physical altercations
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: difficult sports injuries, sexism, misogyny, loss of a parent through car wreck, parent abandonment, parent incarceration, alcoholism

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Book Review: Calamity (Reckoners #3) by Brandon Sanderson

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Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: YA Dystopian / Sci-fi
Length: 424 pages
Author: Brandon Sanderson
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Release Date: February 16th, 2016
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

When Calamity lit up the sky, the Epics were born. David’s fate has been tied to their villainy ever since that historic night. Steelheart killed his father. Firefight stole his heart. And now Regalia has turned his closest ally into a dangerous enemy.

David knew Prof’s secret, and kept it even when the Reckoners’ leader struggled to control the effects of his Epic powers. But facing Obliteration in Babilar was too much. Prof has now embraced his Epic destiny. He’s disappeared into those murky shadows of menace Epics are infamous for the world over, and everyone knows there’s no turning back. . . .

But everyone is wrong. Redemption is possible for Epics—Megan proved it. They’re not lost. Not completely. And David is just about crazy enough to face down the most powerful High Epic of all to get his friend back. Or die trying.

GOOD ENDING.

Only Sanderson could convince me to read a dystopian novel. And I’m glad I finished up this series. It was a pretty solid read, great for a younger audience, and were fast paced.

As usual there were some wild twists and turns that kept me on my toes. I liked the set-up of this final showdown and between the Reckoners and Epics. A few of the lasting surprises all clicked into place as they usually do when reading a Sanderson novel.

I liked the exploration of parallel versions of their world. Since it had been built up, it didn’t feel like a cop out to the original plot, but rather the final missing puzzle piece to solve the mystery of Calamity.

David is a favorite character of mine and I love his utter inability to make a simile, and his unfailing faith in something good. He was the perfectly flawed guy to lead the Reckoners to finish the job. I always enjoyed this world with all of the different powers and seeing the evolution of cities and society. Kind of trippy, but intriguing.

Another Sanderson series complete!

Overall audience notes:

  • Young adult dystopia/sci-fi
  • Language: none
  • Romance: kisses
  • Violence: physical altercations, magical powers, gun violence

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ARC Book Review: Between You, Me, and the Honeybees by Amelia Diane Coombs

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Rating: ☆☆☆☆
Audience: YA Contemporary Romance
Length: 368 pages
Author: Amelia Diane Coombs
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Release Date: June 22nd, 2021
Image & Other Reviews on: Goodreads

BOOK SUMMARY:

Perfect for fans of Jenn Bennett and Sarah Dessen, this swoon-worthy novel follows a teen girl during her California summer of beekeeping, secrets, and stolen kisses.

Josie Hazeldine has just graduated from high school, and she’s ready for a summer full of sunshine, beekeeping, and…lying to her mom.

Josie’s mom couldn’t be more proud of her daughter going to college, something she never got to do. But Josie wants to stay in her California hometown and take over the family business, Hazeldine Honey. So that college acceptance her mom is thrilled about? Yeah, Josie turned it down. But she’s going to come clean—just not yet.

The neighbor’s artsy, adorable grandson who’s in town for the summer makes Josie’s web of lies even more tangled. He’s into Josie and the feeling is very mutual, but he’s a Blumstein—the sworn enemy of the Hazeldines and their number one competition in the annual Honey Show at the end of July. As their secret fling goes on, Josie knows she’s getting in way too deep to leave him behind when summer’s over.

Can Josie keep the boy she can’t stop thinking about without the secrets she’s juggling crashing down around her?

Thank you to the publisher and Netgalley for an eARC.

IT WAS CUTE.

I feel like what I got most out of this was a lot of honeybee knowledge. Which I’m not complaining about at all because I really loved that aspect. I love when contemporaries have a new to me vibe and this one did with all of the apiary facts I learned.

Onto the romance side of things, it’s a quick/insta-ish romance. I didn’t find myself upset with that though (and usually I am). It was rooted in a summer style relationship and I liked how things flowed between Ezra and Joie. They were pretty dang cute and all of the honest and meaningful conversations between them was a really nice point.

Josie working through and with her anxiety hit home a lot for me. I loved this mental health rep and how it was portrayed. The addition of complex friendship was great too. While it made me irrationally angry, it went down exactly like I hoped. A lot of growth for Josie and committing to her passion and owning her truth by finally telling others. I love that she left people go and found her niche.

The story moved well. At times faster than I loved, and at times, slower than I loved. Yet I didn’t have a hard time picking this up to continue. I wanted to see where these characters were going and am grateful that they did indeed, go places! I love the pursuit of dreams with a long lasting summer romance to boot.

Overall audience notes:

  • YA Contemporary Romance
  • Language: some
  • Romance: kisses and brief open door scenes
  • Trigger/Content Warnings: anxiety, panic attacks, a loved one with Parkinson’s disease

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Monthly Reading Wrap-Up: March 2020

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Another month in the year finished!

I had a streak of four, five star books in a row and absolutely loved it.

Favorite this month: The Heiress Gets a Duke, THE SPANISH LOVE DECEPTION (GO READ IT PLEASE), Legendborn, Better Than the Movies, Written in My Own Heart’s Blood, Glimpsed, The Songbook of Benny Lament, The Mask Falling, and People We Meet on Vacation
(like I said, many many good ones!!)

Least favorites: Sovereign Sacrifice, Home is Where You Are

  • Manor for Sale, Baron Included by Esther Hatch – (☆☆☆☆)
  • The Lost Hero (The Heroes of Olympus #1) by Rick Riordan – (☆☆☆☆)
  • On Thin Icing (A Bakeshop Mystery #3) by Ellie Alexander – (☆☆☆)
  • Calamity (The Reckoners #3) by Brandon Sanderson – (☆☆☆☆)
  • 11 Paper Hearts by Kelsey Hartwell – (☆☆☆☆)
  • [ARC] The Most Beautiful Girl in Cuba (The Cuba Saga #4) by Chanel Cleeton – (☆☆☆ 1/2)
  • How to Fail at Flirting by Denise Williams – (☆☆☆☆)
  • Red Tigress (Blood Heir Trilogy #2) by Amelie Wen Zhao – (☆☆☆ 1/2)
  • The Heiress Gets a Duke (The Gilded Age Heiresses #1) by Harper St.George – (☆☆☆☆)
  • [ARC] It’s Just Business (The Wedding Business #2) by Summer Dowell – (☆☆☆ 1/2)
  • Chain of Iron (The Last Hours #2) by Cassandra Calre – (☆☆☆ 1/2)
  • A Hand Me Down Heart (Texas General Cases of Romance #1) by Becki Willis – (☆☆☆)
  • The Spanish Love Deception by Elena Armas – (☆☆☆☆☆)
  • Legendborn (Legendborn #1) by Tracy Deonn – (☆☆☆☆☆)
  • [ARC] Better Than the Movies by Lynn Painter – (☆☆☆☆☆)
  • Written in My Own Heart’s Blood (Outlander #8) by Diana Gabaldon – (☆☆☆☆☆)
  • Namesake (Fable #2) by Adrienne Young – (☆☆☆☆)
  • Sovereign Sacrifice (Air Awakens: Vortex Chronicles #4) by Elise Kova – (☆☆☆)
  • Blood Sworn (Ashlords #2) by Scott Reingten – (☆☆☆☆)
  • Glimpsed by G.F. Miller – (☆☆☆☆)
  • The Songbook of Benny Lament by Amy Harmon – (☆☆☆☆☆)
  • The Mask Falling (The Bone Season #4) by Samantha Shannon – (☆☆☆☆ 1/2)
  • Dark of the West (Glass Alliance #1) by Joana Hathaway – (☆☆☆☆)
  • Home is Where You Are by Melissa Grace – (☆☆)
  • [ARC] People We Meet on Vacation by Emily Henry – (☆☆☆☆☆)
  • [Novella] How the King of Elfhame Learned to Hate Stories (The Folk of the Air #3.5) by Holly Black – (☆☆☆☆)

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