BOOK REVIEW: You Before Anyone Else by Julie Cross and Mark Perini

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

The supportive friend, the reliable daughter, the doting big-sister: Finley is used to being the glue that holds everyone together. But while her sweet demeanor makes her the perfect confidant, her wholesome look isn't landing her the high paying modeling jobs, which are what Finley needs if she is going to reopen her mother's dance studio. Enter Eddie. He's intense and driven, not to mention the life of every party, and he completely charms Finley. The last thing she wants is another commitment to stand in the way of her dreams, but when she's with Eddie, their chemistry takes over and she can let go of her responsibilities and just be. After all, what's so wrong about putting herself first once and a while? Except Eddie is hiding a secret. A big secret. And when it surfaces, he and Finley are going to have to choose between their love for each other and everything else.

It's hard to review this one because I kind of felt blech about it. Is blech even a word? I'm going to say yes. I liked the book at first. Finley and Eddie are both models living in New York City (I'm trying to ignore the fact that modeling jobs seemed to come so easy to these people). They meet at a party and there is instant chemistry. Finley is trying to shed her cute girl image and Eddie is hiding something. I loved their rapport and it was kind of cute that Finley was so determined to not hook up with Eddie again because she is determined to "succeed" at a one night stand. I had no idea what that even meant, but I thought it was amusing. Of course, they see each other at modeling jobs and he moves into her same building, so they run into each other a lot, blah, blah, blah. The more the book went on though, the more I wondered what the heck was wrong with Finley. She was do adamant that she didn't want a relationship with Eddie and I had no clue why. They were both single, there was chemistry, they got along . . . I didn't get it. She kept saying she didn't want anyone she had to rescue, but Eddie seemed pretty self-sufficient to me.

I think I started to lose interest around the 60% mark, which is one Eddie's secret was revealed. I don't want to spoil anything, but the secret was almost too much. At that point, I stopped rooting for Eddie and Finley to be together because I didn't really think Finley needed that kind of drama in her life. I thought the conflict with Eddie was too much and I didn't think there was enough conflict with Finley, if that makes any sense. When it came to the ending for Eddie, it was more realistic than I thought it would be. The ending for Finley was wrapped up a little too neatly, in my opinion. This was an okay book. It just didn't evoke any really strong feelings on my end. 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.

BOOK REVIEW: The Last One by Alexandra Oliva

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

It begins with a reality TV show. Twelve contestants are sent into the woods to face challenges that will test the limits of their endurance. While they are out there, something terrible happens—but how widespread is the destruction, and has it occurred naturally or is it man-made? Cut off from society, the contestants know nothing of it. When one of them—a young woman the show’s producers call Zoo—stumbles across the devastation, she can imagine only that it is part of the game. Alone and disoriented, Zoo is heavy with doubt regarding the life—and husband—she left behind, but she refuses to quit. Staggering countless miles across unfamiliar territory, Zoo must summon all her survival skills—and learn new ones as she goes. But as her emotional and physical reserves dwindle, she grasps that the real world might have been altered in terrifying ways—and her ability to parse the charade will be either her triumph or her undoing.

I think the key to finding a great ARC on NetGalley is to lower my expectations. It does seem like every time I read an ARC that I am not super thrilled about, I end up loving it. That was the case for this one.

This book is about twelve contestants on a reality show. The reality show is basically like am extreme version of Survivor. The contestants face both team and solo challenges in the woods and the goal is to be the last one standing. The winner gets a million dollars and the only way out of the game is to say this latin phrase to the cameras. First of all, the people in this book are not given names. At first it bugged me, but then I liked it. Even the people working on the show were just called "the host" and "the editor" and "the camera man." The contestants are all given nicknames: Zoo, Black Doctor, Air Force, Waitress, Cheerleader Boy, Tracker. I can't remember all the nicknames. Occasionally, Zoo would mention the actual names of a couple of the contestants. But even though most of the book is told from Zoo's POV, we don't learn her name until the end. The chapters go back and forth between two time periods: the past when Zoo and the others first started the show and the present where Zoo is alone and trying to make her way through what she thinks is still part of the reality show. The chapters talking about the reality show are in third person, while the ones from Zoo's POV is told in first person. That is an interesting decision on the author's part. Reading the reality show sections, it was almost like we were watching everything from afar, like we were the viewers of this show. We saw what they wanted us to see and we found out things when the contestants did. But when Zoo is making her way through this destruction that she sees, we are able to tell exactly what she is thinking and why she is so determined to believe everything is still part of the game. 

I loved the commentary with this book on how much reality TV can alter our perception of things. We were also able to see a little behind the scenes stuff with how certain characters were portrayed and how certain things were edited out to create the story that the producers wanted to tell. Throughout most of the book, you know something is wrong and that Zoo's perceptions are way off. And it isn't until the full picture of the reality show is told that we can understand just why Zoo thinks the way she thinks. And there is also the whole psychological aspect that Zoo doesn't want to realize that what she is going through is real. Honestly, there were times when even I wasn't sure what was real and what wasn't. This whole book was so suspenseful and dark and so good. I do think the ending could have been handled just a little bit better. I feel like there were still a few unanswered questions. All in all though, this was a very impressive debut. 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one. Worth the read!

Top Ten Tuesday - Gift Card Wish List

This is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. They feature a different top ten list every week. This week's topic is top books I would buy with a fully loaded gift card. If I were to get a gift card, my first choices would be to buy the books that are the most expensive. Those are the ones I am least likely to buy with my own money. And apparently, I have more nonfiction on my wish list than I realized.

1. Before The Fall by Noah Hawley

2. A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara (I was FINALLY able to purchase this one yesterday because the price dropped from $12.99 to $4.99. YAY!!)

3. A Darker Shade of Magic by V.E. Schwab 

4. The Bone Clocks by David Mitchell

5. I Am An Emotional Creature: The Secret Life of Girls Around The World by Eve Ensler

6. Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

7. Love Wins: The Lovers And Lawyers Who Fought The Landmark Case For Marriage Equality by Debbie Cenziper and Jim Obergefell

8. In Order To Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey To Freedom by Yeonmi Park

9. My Mother's Secret: A Novel Based On A True Holocaust Story by J.L. Witterick

10. The Siren by Kiera Cass

11. The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller

12. The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler

13. She's Not There: A Life In Two Genders by Jennifer Finney Boylan

Have you guys read any of these books? Are there any that I should read ASAP? What books would you buy with a fully loaded gift card? 

July Wrap-Up

I am linking up to both the Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer and the Sunday Post @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction.

Another month has come and gone. We are more than halfway through the year! Unbelievable. This has been a very good, but very busy, month. I came back to Italy after visiting my family in the States a couple of weeks ago. It has taken me a while to get back in the swing of things when it comes to blogging. A couple of months ago, I started beta reading for people. Basically, I read people's unpublished manuscripts and provide feedback. It's been good to earn money while reading. That's the dream! This month was busier than it has been. This month alone, I read six unpublished manuscripts. Four of those were just in the past week. So this week I didn't really do a lot of reading for pleasure. Oh well, love the work. It keeps me busy!

Including the number of unpublished manuscripts, I have read 27 books this month. It has been a GREAT month in terms of quality of books read. I read several five stars and most of my books were four stars. I only had a few disappointing reads.

Favorite book(s) of the month:

There is no way I could choose. These are my favorites and I refuse to pick sides. #thesearemybabies

Most disappointing book of the month:

There are no words for how mad this book made. You can read my review here if you would like. 

Reviews Posted

Red Queen (The Chronicles of Alice #2) by Christina Henry
The Siege (The Six #2) by Mark Alpert
Defending Taylor by Miranda Kenneally
All Is Not Forgotten by Wendy Walker
Signs of You by Emily France
Black River Falls by Jeff Hirsch
Gemini by Sonya Mukherjee
Girl In The Shadows (Girl On A Wire #2) by Gwenda Bond
All We Have Left by Wendy Mills
All The Ugly And Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood
Nice Girls Endure by Chris Struyk-Bonn

Top Ten Tuesday Posts

Top Underrated Books
Top Books Set Outside the U.S.

Other Posts

The Totally Should've Book Tag
DISCUSSION: Why do I feel the need to apologize?
DISCUSSION: What does the term "diverse" mean to you?

How has your month been? Are you having a great summer (or in the case of Australia, a great winter)? What was your favorite book read this month?

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BOOK REVIEW: Nice Girls Endure by Chris Struyk-Bonn

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is August 1, 2016.

Chelsea Duvay is so many things. She's an avid musical lover, she s a gifted singer, and she has the most perfect, beautiful feet. But no one ever notices that. All they notice is Chelsea s weight. Daily, Chelsea endures endless comments about her appearance from well-meaning adults and cruel classmates. So she keeps to herself and just tries to make it through. Don't make waves. Don't draw attention. That's how life is for Chelsea until a special class project pushes the energetic and incessantly social Melody into Chelsea's world. As their unlikely friendship grows, Chelsea emerges from her isolated existence, and she begins to find the confidence to enjoy life. But bullies are bullies, and they remain as vicious as ever. One terrible encounter threatens to destroy everything Chelsea has worked so hard to achieve. Readers will be captivated by Chelsea s journey as she discovers the courage to declare her own beauty and self-worth, no matter what others might think.

So for the first part of this book, I wasn't sure I liked it. I thought it was going to be a two or three star book. The plot started out as kind of blah and I didn't necessarily like Chelsea at first. For the first part of the book, Chelsea basically spent the entire time complaining about her weight. I don't know why this irritated me so much because I do the same thing. Maybe I just related to her too much. Her mom insists on putting her on diet after diet and everyone in her family and everyone at her school seems to love calling Chelsea names and telling her how fat she is. It's heartbreaking and kind of uncomfortable to read about. I also hated how Chelsea just smiled through all the bullying. I just wanted her to DO SOMETHING. But that's easier said than done because I was bullied in high school and said nothing. Apparently, I have higher expectations for fictional characters than myself. Take from that what you will. Now as much as I love fat representation in books and as important as I think it is, I wasn't really sure what the plot was and I guess I was anxious for something to happen. I was also afraid that this would be one of those books where the girl meets a guy and loves herself when a guy starts to or maybe she would only love herself once she started losing weight. I didn't want either of those things to happen.

But then something started happening about midway through the book and I slowly started to fall in love with Chelsea. I felt so bad for everything that she was going through and I hated that everyone in her life (except her wonderful father) was determined to make Chelsea feel bad for who she was. Chelsea always had perfect feet and she adored musicals and she was such a sweet girl. So why wasn't that enough for people? One thing that did help propel Chelsea's character development was the friendship of a wonderfully eclectic girl named Melody. Melody was hyper and intense and so wonderful to Chelsea. She really encouraged her to come out of her shell and develop some more confidence. And for the first time ever, there was someone who needed Chelsea as much as she needed them. I absolutely loved their friendship. There need to be more books with great friendships like that. Yeah, there was a guy that Chelsea was crushing on but he wasn't the one who inspired change and there wasn't a focus on romance at all. I loved that.

This is a very empowering story and is worth the read.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Borrow this one. Not sure if it's worth the money, but I would still recommend reading it.

BOOK REVIEW: All The Ugly And Wonderful Things by Bryn Greenwood

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is August 9, 2016.

As the daughter of a drug dealer, Wavy knows not to trust people, not even her own parents. It's safer to keep her mouth shut and stay out of sight. Struggling to raise her little brother, Donal, eight-year-old Wavy is the only responsible adult around. Obsessed with the constellations, she finds peace in the starry night sky above the fields behind her house, until one night her star gazing causes an accident. After witnessing his motorcycle wreck, she forms an unusual friendship with one of her father's thugs, Kellen, a tattooed ex-con with a heart of gold. By the time Wavy is a teenager, her relationship with Kellen is the only tender thing in a brutal world of addicts and debauchery. When tragedy rips Wavy's family apart, a well-meaning aunt steps in, and what is beautiful to Wavy looks ugly under the scrutiny of the outside world. Kellen may not be innocent, but he is the fixed point in Wavy and Donal's chaotic universe. Instead of playing it safe, Wavy has to learn to fight for Kellen, for her brother, and for herself.

If you were to go by the other reviews, you would probably think this was a good book. Most of the other reviews give it four or five stars. 

I just have one thing to say to that.

Let's start with Wavy. Wavy's life is heartbreaking. She is bounced around between family members who can't deal with her and she works hard to take care of her baby brother, Donal. Wavy doesn't talk, she hates to be touched and she doesn't eat in front of people. Her mom has OCD and her stepfather is a meth drug dealer. Her mom's OCD has caused Wavy to think that she is dirty and she shouldn't speak or touch or be touched. It's so sad just how many issues she had thanks to her mom. 

Then she meets Kellen. She is eight years old when she meets him. She immediately develops a crush on him and at first, their relationship is very sweet. He is the only one who can touch her, he takes her to school every day and registers her when her mom can't be bothered, he feeds her, he doesn't pressure her to talk. He just lets Wavy be Wavy and I loved that. The premise was kind of vague, so I didn't think that there would be anything between them, other than a father/daughter type relationship. That's where I was hoping it would stay. And again, Wavy was EIGHT when she met him. Kellen was somewhere in his mid-twenties (24, I think). I totally get why Wavy had a crush on him. She is a child and Kellen was the first person to take care of her and since Wavy had always had to take care of herself, she loved that. And Kellen was the first person she could trust. But no, the author didn't stop there. Wavy is twelve the first time they kiss and when he gives her an engagement ring and she is thirteen when they start doing other stuff. I can't really talk much about Kellen. I thought his feelings for Wavy were sweet at first, but then I just thought he was dirty. 

I just have to say that when other reviewers say you have to be open-minded to read this book, I call bullshit on that one. 

I have counseled sex offenders before. Do you know how hard it is to convince those men they did something wrong when the eight year old or ten year old actually says yes? They don't understand that they are CHILDREN and are not capable of understanding what is happening. And of course these victims are manipulated so much that they feel like THEY did something wrong. So when there are people who look at this story and see a beautiful love story between two broken souls, it makes me mad. Really mad. I did not root for this couple. I rooted for Wavy to grow up and get a more appropriate relationship. I rooted for Kellen to be the adult he was supposed to be and take responsibility for his actions. I guess even worse than the "relationship" (and I use that term loosely) was the reaction of every single adult around them. 

Kellen and Wavy spent so much time together and everyone knew that they "loved" each other and yet, no one tried to stop it. Wavy's mom and her stepdad didn't care. Then again, her stepdad (Liam) slept with every woman who crossed his path and made meth at home so I guess he wasn't the best judge of what was appropriate. The only person who tried to stop this "relationship" was Wavy's Aunt Brenda and the author totally vilified her. Yeah, she tries to stop a relationship between her twelve year old niece and a grown man, but she was the villain.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Please skip this one. Don't read this book unless you are "open-minded" enough to read about a child molester and the victim who loves him.

BOOK REVIEW: All We Have Left by Wendy Mills

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is August 9, 2016.

Now:
Sixteen-year-old Jesse is used to living with the echoes of the past. Her older brother died in the September 11th attacks, and her dad since has filled their home with anger and grief. When Jesse gets caught up with the wrong crowd, one momentary hate-fueled decision turns her life upside down. The only way to make amends is to face the past, starting Jesse on a journey that will reveal the truth about how her brother died. 

Then:
In 2001, sixteen-year-old Alia is proud to be Muslim . . . it's being a teenager that she finds difficult. After being grounded for a stupid mistake, Alia decides to confront her father at his Manhattan office, putting her in danger she never could have imagined. When the planes collide into the Twin Towers, Alia is trapped inside one of the buildings. In the final hours, she meets a boy who will change everything for her as the flames rage around them . . . 

Interweaving stories from past and present, All We Have Left brings one of the most important days in our recent history to life, showing that love and hope will always triumph.

This book was such an amazing and emotional and thought provoking book about one of the biggest events in our history. This book blew me away. I finished it almost a week ago and I am still thinking about it.

I was in college when the Towers fell. I admit that I was kind of naive about just how big this event was and how much all of our lives would be shaped by it. There is "before 9/11" and "after 9/11."

This book alternates between two characters and two different timelines. It would seem like this would be confusing, but it's not. In the year 2001 we meet Alia, a Muslim who is struggling with her parents' expectations and her faith with who she wants to be. The morning the towers fall, she decides to wear her hijab for the first time, gets in a horrible fight with her mom and then goes to the World Trade Center to talk with her father. In the year 2016 we meet Jesse, a girl struggling with her parents' neglect and her father's hatred towards Muslims, both of which started after her brother Travis died in the Towers fifteen years earlier.

Alia was so interesting and I just loved her character. Her parents wanted her to be a lawyer or a doctor. She wanted to write comic books. She even had a comic strip about a Muslim superhero she named Lia. Awesome, right? When she decides to wear the hijab for the first time, I could see how big of a deal that was and how much her faith meant to her. When she goes to the World Trade Center, I wanted to shout at her, "DON'T DO IT!" 

I knew what was coming and reading her chapters was so hard. When the planes hit, there was panic and smoke and confusion and no one really knew what happened or why it happened. There were so many heroes in that building and so many people who helped perfect strangers. I think I cried every time I read her chapters. I am tearing up now just thinking about it. I can't imagine what it must have been like to be in the World Trade Center on that day. One thing I didn't realize until reading the author's note was just how many people survived on that day. I guess I thought that most of the people in the Towers died. There was so much suspense around Alia's chapters because I had no idea if she was getting out or not. I wanted her to so badly, especially because her last words to her mom were, "I hate you." I'm not going to give away the ending. I will just say that I don't think I stopped crying for the last 10% of the book.

It took some time before I was as invested in Jesse's chapters. I guess she was just kind of a blah character at first, but she did grow on me. I hated her family and I hated the things her dad would say about Muslims. More than that, I hated that she was absorbing some of that hate. She had so much anger inside of her and I could see her going down the wrong path. Even though the Towers fell when she was only three years old, she felt the effects of her brother's death every single day. I can see why she took on some hate for Muslims, even though I didn't like it. Her parents refused to talk about her brother AT ALL and the only time her dad acknowledged her was when he was yelling about Muslims at the TV. 

This author did a good job of showing how much prejudice Muslims went through (and continue to go through) since 9/11 and sometimes those things were so hard to read about. Maybe that's a bigger reason why it took me a bit to invest in her: the anger that her and her father showed just made me uncomfortable. There was so much incredible character development and growth and I loved it. I also thought the romance was slow burn and it was sweet, even though it was incredibly complicated.

It's hard to tell too much without giving things away. But I will say that there were so many ways that this book made you think . . . about religion and race and death and even new ways of thinking about this incredibly tragic event. This book is a must read!! 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one for sure!!