Emergency Contact – Mary H.K. Choi

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: Borrowed
Published: March 27th, 2018
Publisher: Simon & Schuster BFYR
Recommended Age: 13+
Pacing: Normal
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Romance, College, Friendship, Immature, Offensive

---

BLURB: 

For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind. Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him. When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

White Rabbit – Caleb Roehrig

White Rabbit by Caleb Roehrig

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: Publisher
Published: April 24th, 2018
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Recommended Age: 12+
Pacing: Normal
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Mystery, LGBT, Drama

---

BLURB:

Rufus Holt is having the worst night of his life. It begins with the reappearance of his ex-boyfriend, Sebastian—the guy who stomped his heart out like a spent cigarette. Just as Rufus is getting ready to move on, Sebastian turns up out of the blue, saying they need to “talk.” Things couldn’t get much worse, right. But then Rufus gets a call from his sister April, begging for help. And then he and Sebastian find her, drenched in blood and holding a knife, beside the dead body of her boyfriend, Fox Whitney. April swears she didn’t kill Fox—but Rufus knows her too well to believe she’s telling him the whole truth. April has something he needs, though, and her price is his help. Now, with no one to trust but the boy he wants to hate yet can’t stop loving, Rufus has one night to prove his sister’s innocence…or die trying.

Summer Constellations – Alisha Sevigny

Summer Constellations by Alisha Sevigny

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Received: Publisher
First Published: May 1st, 2018
Publisher: KCP Loft
Recommended Age: 12+
Pacing: Slow
Genres & Themes: Young Adult, Summer, Contemporary Romance, Family

---

BLURB:

Julia Ducharme is ready for a fresh start. Her little brother has finally recovered from a serious illness, and now she just wants to enjoy peak season at the campground her family owns. Maybe this will be the year her annual summer fling with Dan Schaeffer becomes something more. But her summer dreams are quickly shattered. First, Dan arrives for vacation with a new girlfriend in tow, and then Julia discovers this may be her last summer in the only home she’s ever known. Crushing medical bills have brought her single mom to the brink of bankruptcy, and a wealthy developer is sniffing around the campground. He sees what Julia sees: lush woods, a pristine lake, miles of trails for adventure. Unlike Julia, he thinks this is the perfect spot for a casino resort.

Ultra Negative Review: Nevernight (The Nevernight Chronicle #1) by Jay Kristoff

Nevernight by Jay Kristoff

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: NetGalley
Publication Date: August 9th, 2016
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Point of View: 3rd Person & Feminine
Recommended Age: 14+
Pacing: Slow ”Kill Me Now” Paced
Genres &  Themes: Young Adult, Fantasy, Dark

---

BLURB:

In a land where three suns almost never set, a fledgling killer joins a school of assassins, seeking vengeance against the powers who destroyed her family.

Daughter of an executed traitor, Mia Corvere is barely able to escape her father’s failed rebellion with her life. Alone and friendless, she hides in a city built from the bones of a dead god, hunted by the Senate and her father’s former comrades. But her gift for speaking with the shadows leads her to the door of a retired killer, and a future she never imagined.

Now, Mia is apprenticed to the deadliest flock of assassins in the entire Republic—the Red Church. If she bests her fellow students in contests of steel, poison and the subtle arts, she’ll be inducted among the Blades of the Lady of Blessed Murder, and one step closer to the vengeance she desires. But a killer is loose within the Church’s halls, the bloody secrets of Mia’s past return to haunt her, and a plot to bring down the entire congregation is unfolding in the shadows she so loves.

Will she even survive to initiation, let alone have her revenge?

Ultra Negative Review: Summer of Supernovas by Darcy Woods

Summer of Supernovas by Darcy Woods

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: Borrowed
Publication Date: May 10th 2016
Publisher: Crown Books for Young Readers
Point of View: 1st Person & Feminine
Recommended Age: 13+
Pacing: Fast
Genres &  Themes: Young Adult, Contemporary, Humor, Romance

BLURB:

When zodiac-obsessed teen Wilamena Carlisle discovers a planetary alignment that won’t repeat for a decade, she’s forced to tackle her greatest astrological fear: The Fifth House—relationships and love.

But when Wil falls for a sensitive guitar player hailing from the wrong side of the astrology chart, she must decide whether a cosmically doomed love is worth rejecting her dead mother’s legacy and the very system she’s faithfully followed through a lifetime of unfailing belief.

Series I Will Never Finish

I was thinking about books I read when I was younger and then decided to come up with this list to let all of my frustration out! 😉

Ultra Negative Review: The Crown’s Game (The Crown’s Game, #1) by Evelyn Skye

The Crown’s Game by Evelyn Skye

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: Borrowed
Publication Date: May 17th, 2016
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Point of View: 3rd Person & Alternative
Recommended Age: 13+
Genres &  Themes: Young Adult, Fantasy, Historical Fiction, Competition, Magic, Romance

BLURB:

Vika Andreyeva can summon the snow and turn ash into gold. Nikolai Karimov can see through walls and conjure bridges out of thin air. They are enchanters—the only two in Russia—and with the Ottoman Empire and the Kazakhs threatening, the Tsar needs a powerful enchanter by his side.

And so he initiates the Crown’s Game, an ancient duel of magical skill—the greatest test an enchanter will ever know. The victor becomes the Imperial Enchanter and the Tsar’s most respected adviser. The defeated is sentenced to death.

Negative Review: Frannie and Tru by Karen Hattrup

Frannie and Tru by Karen Hattrup

My rating: 2 of 5 stars
Received: Edelweiss
Publicatio Date: May 31st 2016
Publisher: HarperTeen
Point of View: 1st Person Feminine
Recommended Age: 13+
Genres &  Themes: Young Adult Contemporary, LGBT

BLURB:

When Frannie Little eavesdrops on her parents fighting she discovers that her cousin Truman is gay, and his parents are so upset they are sending him to live with her family for the summer. At least, that’s what she thinks the story is. . . When he arrives, shy Frannie befriends this older boy, who is everything that she’s not–rich, confident, cynical, sophisticated. Together, they embark on a magical summer marked by slowly unraveling secrets.

DNF Review: Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

Tell Me Three Things by Julie Buxbaum

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: Borrowed
Publicatio Date: April 5th, 2016
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Point of View: 1st Person Feminine
Recommended Age: 13+
Genres &  Themes: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary, High School, Death, Humor

BLURB:

Everything about Jessie is wrong. At least, that’s what it feels like during her first week of junior year at her new ultra-intimidating prep school in Los Angeles. Just when she’s thinking about hightailing it back to Chicago, she gets an email from a person calling themselves Somebody/Nobody (SN for short), offering to help her navigate the wilds of Wood Valley High School. Is it an elaborate hoax? Or can she rely on SN for some much-needed help?

It’s been barely two years since her mother’s death, and because her father eloped with a woman he met online, Jessie has been forced to move across the country to live with her stepmonster and her pretentious teenage son.

In a leap of faith—or an act of complete desperation—Jessie begins to rely on SN, and SN quickly becomes her lifeline and closest ally. Jessie can’t help wanting to meet SN in person. But are some mysteries better left unsolved?

Julie Buxbaum mixes comedy and tragedy, love and loss, pain and elation, in her debut YA novel filled with characters who will come to feel like friends.

DNF Review: A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry

A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
Received: Publisher
Publication Date: April 12th 2016
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
Point of View: 1st Person & Masculine
Recommended Age: 13+
Genres &  Themes: Young Adult, Magical Realism, Diversity, Romance

BLURB:

Everyone knows the legends about the cursed girl–Isabel, the one the señoras whisper about. They say she has green skin and grass for hair, and she feeds on the poisonous plants that fill her family’s Caribbean island garden. Some say she can grant wishes; some say her touch can kill.

Seventeen-year-old Lucas lives on the mainland most of the year but spends summers with his hotel-developer father in Puerto Rico. He’s grown up hearing stories about the cursed girl, and he wants to believe in Isabel and her magic. When letters from Isabel begin mysteriously appearing in his room the same day his new girlfriend disappears, Lucas turns to Isabel for answers–and finds himself lured into her strange and enchanted world. But time is running out for the girl filled with poison, and the more entangled Lucas becomes with Isabel, the less certain he is of escaping with his own life.