Back to the Books Giveaway Hop

I am very excited to be participating in my very first Giveaway Hop! This is the Back to the Books Hop hosted by I Am A Reader, Not A Writer & Buried In Books.  There are over 240 blogs participating in this hop, so there are so many chances to win!

What can you win at this stop? You can win a book of your choice (valued up to $10 from The Book Depository.) This giveaway is open internationally provided TBD ships to you (Do they? Check here!)

Giveaway ends September 8th!

Make sure you stop by all the blogs on the hop!
Click here for the full list.

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Butter Review

TITLE Butter
AUTHOR Erin Jade Lange
PUBLICATION September 18, 2012 by Bloomsbury
READ August 25 - 26, 2012

A lonely obese boy everyone calls "Butter" is about to make history. He is going to eat himself to death-live on the Internet-and everyone is invited to watch. When he first makes the announcement online to his classmates, Butter expects pity, insults, and possibly sheer indifference. What he gets are morbid cheerleaders rallying around his deadly plan. Yet as their dark encouragement grows, it begins to feel a lot like popularity. And that feels good. But what happens when Butter reaches his suicide deadline? Can he live with the fallout if he doesn't go through with his plans? With a deft hand, E.J. Lange allows readers to identify with both the bullies and the bullied in this all-consuming look at one teen's battle with himself.

A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Butter was a book that I knew I had to read. As someone who has had eating disorders around her all her life I am always intrigued to see how an author handles the subject. Now, we get to read about anorexia and bulimia all the time, but I have never come across a book that tackles the other end of the eating disorder spectrum. That's right, we finally have a novel about obesity & compulsive/emotional eating and it really hits the nail on the head as to how you can be addicted to food, just as you can be addicted to drugs or alcohol. I walked away from this novel very impressed with how Erin Jade Lange tackled the multitude of emotions connected with a disorder such as this.

Butter was a character that I felt for, he was unhappy in his own skin and he had just given up on trying to get better. He felt that he had passed the point of no return and was wallowing in what could have been. I totally understood his helplessness, once you tip the scales at 423 lbs it's not exactly easy to lose it. While I of course didn't agree with where he decided to go with it, I at least understood his motives, and with a very over the top plot such as this, that's saying something. I've personally had people who suffer from both ends of this spectrum in my life and I thought the little things were handled perfectly; Butter's mothers attempts to appease him through food and the vicious cycle that creates is something that I have seen every day.

A complaint that I do have about the novel though is that at times I found myself being reminded by instances that the students were in high school and not junior high. The coddling the Butter receives at home as well as the reactions of the kids at his school felt quite juvenile to me, then they would hop in their cars, or have a drink, and I would think "Oh yeah, these guys are in high school." While there was some dissent among the students I do feel that it wouldn't have been swept under the rug quite as it was after the first night that the website went up. Especially in this day and age with suicide topping the headlines, but alas, this is a novel, a fiction novel at that.

Overall, I was very happy with the novel and it took me on a rollercoaster of emotions that I wasn't sure the subject matter would allow it too. Lang clearly did her research on the health issues at hand and it really showed in the execution of the plot. If you're looking for a contemporary read that is definitely different from the pack, then I would say Butter is for you.

Beautiful Disaster Review

TITLE Beautiful Disaster
AUTHOR Jamie McGuire
PUBLICATION August 14, 2012 by Atria Books
READ August 21 - 22, 2012

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University's Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

A copy was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

Once again I went into a novel not knowing what to expect. I had read a lot of reviews of Beautiful Disaster since starting my blog and it comes across as quite polarizing. The people who love it, love it dearly and the people who hate it, do so with quite a bit of passion. When I saw that this title was picked up my Simon & Schuster and made its way onto Netgalley, I knew that I had to read it with my own eyes to see for myself. I have to say that I fell smack dab in the middle of the spectrum. I was in love with it at the beginning, I couldn't put it down and I was emotionally invested in the story. Once I hit the 50% mark I felt like I had already read an entire novel and gone through all the ups & downs that I needed to and while there were elements of the second half that I did enjoy, it didn't work quite as well as the latter.

The characters in this novel are pretty well developed, they have their layers & secrets and they are most definitely flawed. Abby was someone I connected with in the beginning, she had her head on her shoulders about Travis and knew that she should stay away, but of course the allure of the bad boy kicks in and, not only that, Travis begins to change. What we have here is a girls dream, ladies and gentleman. The taming of the wild beast, being the one girl in a world of so many that would make a wild-child bad boy, want to settle down and reign it in. And that's precisely what happened, I was totally rooting for Abby and Travis and the build up to their inevitable romance had butterflies in my stomach as I read the pages with a smile on my face.

At about 50%, they've had their ups and downs and they are pretty damn happy so I thought, well where could this go from here? I really believe that the first half of this book could be fleshed out a bit and stand on its own two legs. But alas, there is more, and that's where the enjoyment went downhill for me. As I said, there were parts of the second half that I enjoyed, we find out who Abby really is and the story takes a bit of a turn to keep it fresh but that's all that stands out. I felt that as it wore on Abby's relentlessness to stay away from Travis and fight her true feelings started grating on me, and it made me essentially stop caring if they worked out or not. Also, Travis's psycho tendencies went a bit too far and started annoying me as well. I could handle his outbursts in the beginning, it's who he was, I have known some very angry and violent people in my life and I was bordering on OK with his drama.

So, I did enjoy Beautiful Disaster, and I am quite curious to read the follow up, Walking Disaster (which is BD from Travis's perspective.) I do think that it could be fine tuned a little bit, and the dramatics of it all could be better controlled. Never the less, I thoroughly enjoyed the novel (especially the first half) and would probably read it again, if only for the butterflies in my stomach, in a heartbeat.

Waiting on Wednesday (28)

Vengeance Bound
by Justina Ireland
to be published April 2, 2012 by Simon & Schuster

The Goddess Test meets Dexter in an edgy, compelling debut about one teen’s quest for revenge… no matter how far it takes her.

Cory Graff is not alone in her head. Bound to a deal of desperation made when she was a child, Cory’s mind houses the Furies—the hawk and the serpent—lingering always, waiting for her to satisfy their bloodlust. After escaping the asylum where she was trapped for years, Cory knows how to keep the Furies quiet. By day, she lives a normal life, but by night, she tracks down targets the Furies send her way. And she brings down Justice upon them.

Cory’s perfected her system of survival, but when she meets a mysterious boy named Niko at her new school, she can’t figure out how she feels about him. For the first time, the Furies are quiet in her head around a guy. But does this mean that Cory’s finally found someone who she can trust, or are there greater factors at work? As Cory’s mind becomes a battlefield, with the Furies fighting for control, Cory will have to put everything on the line to hold on to what she’s worked so hard to build.

I did the cover reveal for this one yesterday and I can't get the gorgeous cover or how awesome it sounds out of my mind! It had me at Furies... oh and the fact that she escapes an asylum!

What are you waiting on this week? Link me up! 

Vote Alluring Reads!

Hi everybody!

I just wanted to do up a post on the blog and let you know that Alluring Reads was nominated for Best Breakout Blog in the Bloggy Awards! Right now we are in the lead, but not by much.  If you haven't voted, here is the link where you can VOTE HERE.  All you have to do is click the link and scroll to the bottom and vote! I appreciate everybody's vote!

Side note... Looking at the sidebar it seems we've almost hit the milestone 1000 followers, time to plan something special, me thinks! Any ideas? Something that starts with a G and ends with a Y, maybe?

Vengeance Bound Cover Reveal

Vengeance Bound
by Justina Ireland
to be published April 2, 2012 by Simon & Schuster

The Goddess Test meets Dexter in an edgy, compelling debut about one teen’s quest for revenge…no matter how far it takes her.

Cory Graff is not alone in her head. Bound to a deal of desperation made when she was a child, Cory’s mind houses the Furies—the hawk and the serpent—lingering always, waiting for her to satisfy their bloodlust. After escaping the asylum where she was trapped for years, Cory knows how to keep the Furies quiet. By day, she lives a normal life, but by night, she tracks down targets the Furies send her way. And she brings down Justice upon them.

Cory’s perfected her system of survival, but when she meets a mysterious boy named Niko at her new school, she can’t figure out how she feels about him. For the first time, the Furies are quiet in her head around a guy. But does this mean that Cory’s finally found someone who she can trust, or are there greater factors at work?

As Cory’s mind becomes a battlefield, with the Furies fighting for control, Cory will have to put everything on the line to hold on to what she’s worked so hard to build.

I LOVE this cover! The columns behind her with the serpents, and how much she pops with the all white background.  This is going to be an epic novel for sure! What do YOU think?

Justina's Website / Twitter / Facebook

I write. My first YA book, Vengeance Bound, is forthcoming from Simon and Schuster. I don't take anything all that seriously, except for cake. Oh, and I'm awesome. What else do you need to know?

Some Girls Are Review

TITLE Some Girls Are
AUTHOR Courtney Summers
PUBLICATION January 5th 2010 by St. Martin's Griffin
READ August 19 - 21, 2012

Climbing to the top of the social ladder is hard--falling from it is even harder. Regina Afton used to be a member of the Fearsome Fivesome, an all-girl clique both feared and revered by the students at Hallowell High... until vicious rumors about her and her best friend's boyfriend start going around. Now Regina's been "frozen out" and her ex-best friends are out for revenge. If Regina was guilty, it would be one thing, but the rumors are far from the terrifying truth and the bullying is getting more intense by the day. She takes solace in the company of Michael Hayden, a misfit with a tragic past who she herself used to bully. Friendship doesn't come easily for these onetime enemies, and as Regina works hard to make amends for her past, she realizes Michael could be more than just a friend... if threats from the Fearsome Foursome don't break them both first.

Tensions grow and the abuse worsens as the final days of senior year march toward an explosive conclusion in this dark new tale from the author of Cracked Up To Be.

"You're Anna Morrison's right hand. That's the lowest form of life on the highest part of the social ladder. There's not much to you."

I sent out a tweet one afternoon looking for recommendations for a book that was gritty & raw, one that would make me uncomfortable while reading it because it was just so real. One of the first answers was Some Girls Are, so I got it for my Kindle and dug right in. I got what I wanted. This novel felt like a punch in the gut, upon finishing it I felt like I needed a stiff drink and a nap. Some Girls Are isn't pretty, it isn't sweet, what it is, is so real that it almost hurts to read it. It's the story of Regina, who is a part of the Fearsome Fivesome, she is among the queen bees of her school, the mean girls if you will. Now, these are not nice girls and Regina relishes being in with the "in-crowd", they make people's lives hell and feel damn good about it. One night Regina finds herself almost raped by Anna Morrison's boyfriend, and with no one to turn to in a house full of drunk & high teenagers, she runs and finds solace in the wrong place. In Kara, a girl who Regina has ruined. Kara seizes the opportunity to ruin Regina and tells Anna that Regina slept with her boyfriend. Low and behold, Regina finds herself turned into the in-crowds latest victim, and they won't stop until they've ruined her.

Regina, our MC, was not a nice person. Through her memories we see that her past is full of black marks and they are slowly revealed as the story goes on. At the beginning I was certain that there was no way I would have any empathy for her, I was disgusted by what she had done. But something changes throughout the novel, we get to see her fall apart, hit rock bottom, and attempt to pick up the pieces. I truly felt that, in the end, she was remorseful and I actually ended up rooting for her. She finally finds something good in her life in Micheal, whom she had previously ruined. Micheal was a GREAT character, he was sweet and funny in a very dry way. He didn't make things easy on Regina, and rightfully so. But Micheal is not the only person Regina has wronged in her past, there's Liz & Kara, they are all characters with immense layers that I found myself feeling terrible for.

"In high school, you don't get to change. You only get to walk variations of the same lines everyone has already drawn for you."

There is a lot to make you feel uncomfortable in this novel. These people are mean, they are jaw droppingly vicious to one another but it was so real. It didn't gloss over the fighting with fakeness and teachers getting involved. And that's precisely how it was in high school, I sometimes look back and wonder if the teachers thought that if they just ignored it, it would go away. The physical, online and emotional abuse in this novel is treacherous. If you are looking for a book that is going to make you sit there with a disgusted look on your face as you think to yourself "man I really want to punch this person in the face" then this is for you. It is an emotionally charged, incredibly well written tale that showcases the darkest parts of high school.

Stacking the Shelves (18)

Books mentioned (click the title for Goodreads):
Breathe (Breathe #1) by Sarah Crossan
Speechless by Hannah Harrington
House at the End of the Street by Lily Blake (Review)
Between by Jessica Warman
Darkfever (Fever #1) by Karen Marie Moning
Easy by Tammara Weber
Unlovable by Sherry Gamon
Cold Kiss (Cold Kiss #1) by Amy Garvey
Some Girls Are by Courtney Summers

DVD mentioned:
The Hunger Games

Bloggers mentioned:
Giselle from Xpresso Reads
Kat from Cuddlebuggery Book Blog
Kara from Great Imaginations

A big thank you to HarperCollins Canada and Giselle this week!!

Thank you for stopping by, if you enjoy my blog I would love you forever if you would pop by the Bloggy Awards page and vote for me for Best Breakout Blog.  Like seriously, love.. LOVE you forever! http://thebloggyawards.blogspot.ca/2012/08/best-breakout-blog-nominee.html

So what did you get this week? Leave a link so I can stop by :-)

Don't Turn Around Review

TITLE Don't Turn Around  (PERSEFoNE Trilogy #1)
AUTHOR Michelle Gagnon
PUBLICATION August 28, 2012 by HarperCollins
READ August 18 - 19, 2012

Sixteen-year-old Noa has been a victim of the system ever since her parents died. Now living off the grid and trusting no one, she uses her computer-hacking skills to stay safely anonymous and alone. But when she wakes up on a table in an empty warehouse with an IV in her arm and no memory of how she got there, Noa starts to wish she had someone on her side.

Enter Peter Gregory. A rich kid and the leader of a hacker alliance, Peter needs people with Noa’s talents on his team. Especially after a shady corporation threatens his life. But what Noa and Peter don’t realize is that Noa holds the key to a terrible secret, and there are those who’d stop at nothing to silence her for good.

Filled with action, suspense, and romance, this first book in a new trilogy offers readers nonstop thrills.

 A copy was provided by HarperCollins Canada in exchange for an honest review.

If you're looking for an action packed thrill ride, Don't Turn Around is for you! I wasn't too sure what to expect going into this novel but the cover really sucked me in from the first moment I saw it. What I got was a mix of the movie Hackers and the Jason Bourne series, which was a very welcome blend. With that said, if you are looking for a story that will touch you emotionally, this one isn't for you. While I appreciated the pulse pounding action, it did feel like there was a bit too much adrenaline and not enough substance.

First, I'll start with what I feel could use some work in this novel. The character development felt like it was put on the back burner and the focus left solely on the action. Noa was quite one dimensional to me . I understand that she had been through a lot and that resulted in her being quite reclusive but there were plenty of opportunities for us to have gotten a bit more emotion from her even if it was only when she was alone through her inner dialogue. Feeling the way I did about Noa I had thought that maybe I would be able to form a better bond with Peter, but he didn't merit any emotional connection from me either.

Now for what I did like. There isn't really a romance to be had here, I had expected Noa and Peter to fall madly in love through their adventure, but surprisingly that did not happen. This was a welcome surprise for me! In YA it seems it is a must to have a romance in the story, but Michelle Gagnon has weaved a story that stands on its own two legs without angst or mushiness. I have read quite a few books lately where the love story has felt forced and out of place, it's quite rare to see an author in this genre basically leave it out.

Where romance is lacking, mystery is there to take its place, and does it ever! I had so many questions throughout the book and while we didn't get all of the answers we were looking for in the end I still put the book down feeling completely satisfied. There are just enough loose ends to leave my mouth watering for the follow up in the series. I will definitely be looking for more character development and longing for more answers to my lingering questions. I highly recommend Don't Turn Around for anyone looking for a fast paced story chalk full of action.

House At The End of the Street Review

TITLE House at the End of the Street
AUTHOR Lily Blake
PUBLICATION August 21, 2012 by Poppy
READ August 17-18, 2012

Seeking a fresh start, newly divorced Sarah and her daughter Elissa find the house of their dreams in a small, upscale, rural town. But when startling and unexplainable events begin to happen, Sarah and Elissa learn the town is in the shadows of a chilling secret. Years earlier, in the house next door, a daughter killed her parents in their beds, and disappeared - leaving only a brother, Ryan, as the sole survivor. Against Sarah's wishes, Elissa begins a relationship with the reclusive Ryan - and the closer they get, the deeper they're all pulled into a mystery more dangerous than they ever imagined.

This novel includes a fold-out poster!

While perusing Chapters this past weekend I came across House At The End of the Street, and seeing Katniss on the cover, I was immediately sold. I had never heard of the movie before but upon seeing the perfect horror movie cover and the eerie premise I knew this book was right up my alley. Now, one thing that did deceive me a tad was the "Now A Major Motion Picture" on the cover, I figured that this was a novel that was made into a movie after publication but instead it is actually a novel based off of the screenplay of the movie. It's a very quick read at only 188 pages, so it's not the most developed tale I have ever read but it plays out exactly as you would imagine the movie and kept me entertained the whole way.

This is a horror/mystery through and through, from the very beginning when we hear about what happened in Jacobsen home I was strapped in for the ride. We have all the elements to make for a good scare, a single mother moves into a upper class neighborhood with her daughter and hears all about their deep dark secrets. After Carrie-Anne Jacobsen fell off the swing and suffered head trauma she was never the same, she was unruly and she had to be strapped down for her own safety. One night she takes a hammer to her parents head and escapes out into the woods, legend has it that she died, but her body was never found. Now Carrie-Anne's brother, Ryan, lives in the very house that the tragedy happened in and is outcast from the whole neighborhood.

As I said, this novel is short so we don't have the most developed characters ever but the glimpses that we get into Elissa's past really makes her stand out and lets us understand her motivations as much as possible. I liked her, she was into music and didn't have the easiest life ever. It made sense to me why she was so empathetic to Ryan and didn't seem off kilter to me. We also have Tyler, the snobby rich kid who we are supposed to hate, and he came across perfectly too. For the small amount of pages I was really pleased with how much I came to understand the characters.

The mystery is what really drives this story throughout we know that something is amiss but I could not pinpoint it for the life of me. Once the truth came out I will say that I was suitably surprised and my mind had not once strayed that way in the duration of the novel. I would probably recommend seeing the movie before reading the book, because I do still want to see the movie and now I know how it ends. But none the less, it was an enjoyable, quick read that took me by surprise.

Waiting on Wednesday (27)

Taken (Taken #1)
by Erin Bowman
expected publication April 16th 2013 by HarperTeen

There are no men in Claysoot. There are boys—but every one of them vanishes at midnight on his eighteenth birthday. The ground shakes, the wind howls, a blinding light descends...and he’s gone.

They call it the Heist.

Gray Weathersby’s eighteenth birthday is mere months away, and he’s prepared to meet his fate–until he finds a strange note from his mother and starts to question everything he’s been raised to accept: the Council leaders and their obvious secrets. The Heist itself. And what lies beyond the Wall that surrounds Claysoot–a structure that no one can cross and survive.

Climbing the Wall is suicide, but what comes after the Heist could be worse. Should he sit back and wait to be taken–or risk everything on the hope of the other side?

Okay, first of all look at that epic cover! It is freaking GORGEOUS.  A random kidnapping every time a boy turns 18? How eerie is that, I don't see how you can't want to know what's going on behind it all!

What are you waiting on this week? Link me up!

Onyx Review

TITLE Onyx (Lux #2)

AUTHOR Jennifer L. Armentrout

PUBLICATION August 14, 2012 by Entangled Teen

READ August 15 - 17, 2012

Being connected to Daemon Black sucks…

Thanks to his alien mojo, Daemon’s determined to prove what he feels for me is more than a product of our bizarro connection. So I’ve sworn him off, even though he’s running more hot than cold these days. But we’ve got bigger problems.

Something worse than the Arum has come to town…

The Department of Defense are here. If they ever find out what Daemon can do and that we're linked, I’m a goner. So is he. And there's this new boy in school who’s got a secret of his own. He knows what’s happened to me and he can help, but to do so, I have to lie to Daemon and stay away from him. Like that's possible. Against all common sense, I'm falling for Daemon. Hard.

But then everything changes…

I’ve seen someone who shouldn’t be alive. And I have to tell Daemon, even though I know he’s never going to stop searching until he gets the truth. What happened to his brother? Who betrayed him? And what does the DOD want from them—from me?

No one is who they seem. And not everyone will survive the lies…

Onyx was one of my most highly anticipated books of this year. I remember when I first started my blog it was one of my very first WoW's but for some reason I had it ingrained in my head that it came out in November. When I realized that I was wrong and it was actually coming out in a week, I was quick to preorder as I had to get my fill of Daemon Black!

From the moment I dug into this novel I knew I was in for an enjoyable read full of action, angst and side splitting sarcasm. Armentrout writes her action scenes in a very exciting way, and though our characters have powers that are out of this world, she paints a very vivid picture in your mind. One part that did grate on me quite a bit throughout the novel was the angst though, as the story wore on I felt like it was wearing on me and I was actually starting to lose interest in the relationship because Katy's relentless second guessing was so annoying. But never fear, Daemon was always there to provide comic relief with his dirty jokes and great nicknames for the new male character.

The new male character, Blake, frightened me at first, I'll be honest. As soon as he walked into the classroom I could just feel the dreaded love triangle rearing its ugly head. Luckily, although hinted at, it definitely didn't become a huge part of the story. The best part of Blake being in the novel were Daemon's nicknames for him; Bart, Bilbo Baggins, Bartholomew. Every time he threw out one of these gems in a conversation I laughed out loud.

The plot for Onyx carries on very well where Obsidian left off and though I did find it to be quite predictable, I was still along for the ride in every way. I also do feel the need to point out that where Obsidian had me feeling like I was gliding through it at a lightning fast pace (probably due to it's awesomeness) this one had me feeling like I was barely making any progress, I'm not too sure why, maybe it was too long, maybe the pacing was off, but in the end it felt quite... long.

Now, reading through this review I do realize that it comes across as quite ranty and I want to point out that although I did have my issues, I still really enjoyed reading this novel. I knew as soon as I flipped the last page that this would come out as a more negative sounding review because of those issues, but please know that I in no way shape or form disliked this novel. I do have hopes for a more.. pulled together third installment but I will be preordering it just as I did this one.

Bitter End Review

TITLE Bitter End
AUTHOR Jennifer Brown
PUBLICATION May 10, 2011 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
READ August 15, 2012

When Alex falls for the charming new boy at school, Cole -- a handsome, funny, sports star who adores her -- she can't believe she's finally found her soul mate . . . someone who truly loves and understands her.

At first, Alex is blissfully happy. Sure, Cole seems a little jealous of her relationship with her close friend Zack, but what guy would want his girlfriend spending all her time with another boy? As the months pass, though, Alex can no longer ignore Cole's small put-downs, pinches, or increasingly violent threats.

As Alex struggles to come to terms with the sweet boyfriend she fell in love with and the boyfriend whose "love" she no longer recognizes, she is forced to choose -- between her "true love" and herself.

After reading Brown's Hate List and seeing how she tackled tough issues in a very realistic, head on manner I was quick to pick up everything I could by her and knew that I had to read them all. I went into Bitter End with mixed emotions as I had high hopes due to the author's previous work but I often find myself struggling to connect to abused women in books. Yes, I am that girl, I read through the pages and roll my eyes at the characters inability to just walk away from the situation and come out having had a less than enjoyable experience. Bitter End changed that, I literally could not put this book down. I read it on a sunny afternoon and found myself unable to walk away from it. I went and made the kids breakfast and raced back outside to pick up where I left off in Alex's story.

What this novel did for me, I haven't come across before. I connected with Alex and I completely understood her reasoning for sticking around in a toxic situation. She had found love and was feeling it in a way that she had never felt before. Her inner dialogue takes the reader through the thought patterns of being abused so perfectly; pain, anger, betrayal, and ultimately regret. Bitter End is written so perfectly in every way I can think of that I connected to it having never been abused myself. The progressions were spot on, whether it was the abusive relationship, Alex's friendship with Zack and Bethany or her home life with her family.

Alex was a complex character, who even though she was an abused person staying in the relationship, she had her head on her shoulders. I have never been able to understand the mentality that would make someone stay in an abusive relationship, but I think Alex made me understand. She had a crappy home life, didn't get along with her sisters and her father has been absent since her mother's death but she had the kind of friendships anyone would hope for. The scenes with Alex, Bethany and Zack were hilarious and oftentimes I found myself laughing out loud at their jabs toward one another. Even though she had such strong friendships she longed for a love and understanding that you can't find in friends and when she found it in the, seemingly, perfect Cole she thought she had it all.

Cole was bang on your typical abuser. He was sweet as pie at first but as their relationship went on and he became jealous his dark side began to push through the surface. He would hurt Alex and then say all the right things to get her back into the relationship. I was heartbroken watching him play her emotions and make all the false promises he could. There is a scene with him that involves drunk driving that probably should have been at least addressed in the story and wasn't but with so much going on I can see why it would have been glossed over in the expanse of things.

This is by no means a happy story with a happily ever after. It is gritty and does not shy away from the issue at hand, but it is real and I think that is needed to make a good, memorable story. I'm not a believer in thinking the bad parts of our society should be avoided in novels, because it's out there and it's reality, and Jennifer Brown knows how to write about them in the most perfect way I can possibly imagine.

Read. This. Book. NOW.

Stacking the Shelves (17)

Books mentioned (click title for Goodreads):
Beta (Beta #1) by Rachel Cohn
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Onyx (Lux #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Jenny Pox ( The Paranormals #1) by J.L. Bryan
Undeadly (The Reaper Diaries #1) by Michele Vail

Bloggers mentioned:
Giselle from Xpresso Reads

A big thank you to Giselle for giving me her cast offs! >.<

What goodies did you get this week? Leave a link!

Angelfall Review

TITLE Angelfall (Penryn & The End of Days #1)
AUTHOR Susan Ee
PUBLICATION May 21, 2011 by Feral Dream
READ August 12 - 14, 2012

It’s been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels’ stronghold in San Francisco where she’ll risk everything to rescue her sister and he’ll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

Angelfall by Susan Ee is a book that came so highly recommended to me from so many different sources that, I'll admit, I went into it with a very skeptical approach. Too often I have picked up a book that is widely raved about by my peers and found myself scratching my head at the end wondering what everyone else saw that I didn't. Well I can happily report to you, dear reader, that was not the case here. From page one of this novel I was sucked into the vivid dystopian setting and throughout I found myself sitting back and being so thankful that it felt completely fresh and new. I have not read anything like this book, and I doubt that I will ever again.

We are introduced to Penryn, our MC, as she is lugging her handicapped sister down the stairs of the apartment and waiting for her seemingly mentally ill mother to join them. They go out into a world that is in ruin, street gangs are taking over buildings and it is never safe to be out and about. As soon as they head on their way they see a simple, seemingly innocent feather fall from the sky. Penryn and her sister, Paige, go into panic mode and hide as best they can. What follows is an angel attack, a group of angels is fighting with another angel and they cut off his wings and cast him off, but before they fly off they find Penryn and Paige and proceed to take Paige on their way. This is the story of a human joining forces with an angel to find her sister and get her back safely. Susan Ee has created a setting in which angels are not sweet cherubs flying around, watching over humans shoulders. Angels are vicious, and they are to be feared. They came down and they wiped out the world, they killed millions of people and sent it into disarray. I'll admit I was worried that religion would be a big part of the story and ruin the darkness of it for me, but it is not at all. It is so unique in every way and it really is written beautifully.

Our characters are what drives us in this one. Penryn is so strong and has her head firmly on her shoulders. I really admired her courage and it was a great to see a female character who did not back down from a fight, and even went as far as to start them. Teaming up with Raffe creates an intense inner struggle within her as she tries to do what she can to get her sister back, but at the same time feels as if she is working with the enemy. Her inner dialogue conveys all of these emotions perfectly and fully understood her thought patterns. Of course, this is a YA novel so there has to be a little romance for our dear MC right? Yes, but it is not at the forefront of this novel, it is hinted at throughout and you get some sparks here and there but this reads more like a survivalist dystopian tale and it is not washed away with cheesy romance.

This is a fantastic novel that has a vivid setting and perfectly developed characters. Even the supporting characters were written in a way that you fully knew who they were and they felt like really important parts of the story. The ending scene of this novel is so stunning and written so beautifully that when I turned the page and saw that it was indeed finished I was angry. Very angry. The wait for the follow-up will be grueling, but if it is anything like Angelfall, it will be well worth the wait.

The Duff: Designated Ugly Fat Friend Review

TITLE The Duff: Designated Ugly Fat Friend
AUTHOR Kody Keplinger
PUBLICATION September 7, 2011 by Poppy
READ August 5 - 6, 2012

Seventeen-year-old Bianca Piper is cynical and loyal, and she doesn’t think she’s the prettiest of her friends by a long shot. She’s also way too smart to fall for the charms of man-slut and slimy school hottie Wesley Rush. In fact, Bianca hates him. And when he nicknames her “the Duff,” she throws her Coke in his face.

But things aren’t so great at home right now, and Bianca is desperate for a distraction. She ends up kissing Wesley. Worse, she likes it. Eager for escape, Bianca throws herself into a closeted enemies-with-benefits relationship with him.
Until it all goes horribly awry. It turns out Wesley isn’t such a bad listener, and his life is pretty screwed up, too. Suddenly Bianca realizes with absolute horror that she’s falling for the guy she thought she hated more than anyone.

The Duff is a very strange beast for me. I easily devoured it in two quick sittings and it was enjoyable as I was engrossed in the story and enjoyed the snarky tone of it. But that's about all the nice things I have to say about it. This is most definitely not a story I would ever want my teenage daughter to read, sure there is the moment of earth shattering realization in the end in which we get out moral of the story. But no. JUST NO.

Bianca is a straight A student in high school with some great, close friends. Casey and Jessica were great, supportive characters and I loved the friendship that the girls had. I felt that was very realistic in the way that they were so open and sarcastic with one another. It really reminded me of the types of friendships I had and still do have in my life. My problem with the three best friends was Bianca. She is supposed to be this intelligent girl, yet all she does throughout the novel is make blatantly terrible decisions. She sees that her father is taking the divorce hard and is relapsing after 18 years of sobriety, does she do anything about it? No, she cleans up his messes for him and helps him hide it. Then there is the issue that grated on me the most throughout the novel, her and Wesley's relationship. Come on Bianca, Wesley is the guy who created the term DUFF (Designated Ugly Fat Friend.) He came up to you at the Nest one night and attempted to carry on a conversation with you under this pretense:

"The point is, scientists have proven that every group of friends has a weak link. a Duff. And girls respond well to guys who associate with their Duffs."-page 6

He didn't even try to hide the fact that he was a complete douche bag, he just came right out with it, laid it all on the table. He only wanted to talk to Bianca because she was the Duff in her group of hot friends, and if the hot friends saw him associating with their Duff they would be all over him. Yes, I completely stood behind Bianca's first knee-jerk reaction of throwing her cherry coke on him but I just can't grasp where the story went from there. They began to have a tryst of sorts, Bianca needed an escape from her life so they started sleeping together on the down-low. Now ok, maybe he was hot and really good in bed and he made her melt into putty in his hands, but I cannot deal with the fact that the whole time he called her Duffy, like it was some term of endearment. No. Just no. No intelligent girl would EVER be OK with that. NEVER.

So why I ask, could I not put this book down? I'll say that it is probably due to the fast pace and easy flow of the story. Everything felt like it was happening in quick succession and while I didn't really like everything that was going on, there is no denying that I was entertained by the series of events. In the end I hadn't really bought into Wesley being a sweet guy all that much and Toby Tucker (the guy Bianca had been crushing on for years) was annoyingly perfect and a very flat character. Like pancake flat. There was no substance there at all.

There is no denying that Kody Keplinger knows how to put together a great teen, coming of age story filled with witty, realistic dialogue. After reading A Midsummer's Nightmare and loving it I was quick to run out and grab this one, but it just didn't hit the mark for me. There was so much wrong with it in my eyes that I found myself being annoyed through the majority of it.