The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

"Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along" - Goodreads

THE STORY:
This was such a cute and fun book, and I really enjoyed the story. I loved following Belly through her summer with the Beck Boys, and watching her grow throughout the story. The whole book was super light hearted, until the last few chapters, where it then decided to hit me with feels. I can't believe it took me this long to read this book, and I can't wait to follow Belly and the boys on more of their adventures.

THE CHARACTERS:
I absolutely adored all of the characters in this book. I loved Belly (even though I did find her annoying at times), I liked Conrad, and I absolutely adore Jeremiah. I even loved Laurel and Suzannah, which is something that I didn't really expect to happen in a YA book. All of the characters were really well developed and had their own personalities, which allowed them to all stand out from each other. I think this book probably has one of my favorite casts of characters in a YA book!

MY THOUGHTS:
I really enjoyed this book, even though I did have some minor problems with Belly.  I own the rest of the series, and I plan on picking up the second book as soon as I finish writing this. I can't believe how short this review is, but it is all I can really think of to say. Jenny Han did an amazing job with this book, and I will definitely be picking up more of her books in the future.

STAR RATING: ★★★★1/2

Tilt by Ellen Hopkins

"Love—good and bad—forces three teens’ worlds to tilt in a riveting novel from New York Times bestselling author Ellen Hopkins.

Three teens, three stories—all interconnected through their parents’ family relationships. As the adults pull away, caught up in their own dilemmas, the lives of the teens begin to tilt….

Mikayla, almost eighteen, is over-the-top in love with Dylan, who loves her back jealously. But what happens to that love when Mikayla gets pregnant the summer before their senior year—and decides to keep the baby?

Shane turns sixteen that same summer and falls hard in love with his first boyfriend, Alex, who happens to be HIV positive. Shane has lived for four years with his little sister’s impending death. Can he accept Alex’s love, knowing that his life, too, will be shortened?
Harley is fourteen—a good girl searching for new experiences, especially love from an older boy. She never expects to hurdle toward self-destructive extremes in order to define who she is and who she wants to be." - Goodreads

THE STORY:
I feel as if this book is filled with really important things that people need to know, especially young people. The three main characters are all dealing with such important and terrible things, and all of them deal with their own dilemmas in totally different ways. This was my first book that was written in verse, and I was a bit surprised by how much I enjoyed the structure. It made the story quick to read, it was still easy to follow, and it was very clever how certain things fit together throughout the pages. 

THE CHARACTERS:
 I ended up really liking all three of the main characters and quite a few of the side characters (aside from the ones who were total douche bags *cough* Lucas *cough*). At first, Mikayla really bothered me because of her co-dependence on Dylan, as well as how her entire relationship seemed to revolve around their sex life. However, I loved watching her grow and become stronger as the story moved forward.

I absolutely adored Shane, as well as his boyfriend, Alex. I thought that they were adorable and that Shane was potentially the most sane out of all three of the main characters. Even though he did some questionable things after what happened to Shelby. I think that he was truly a good guy, and I hope that he and Alex would have a long and happy life together.

Harley, who initially started out as my favorite of the main characters, was my least favorite through most of the book. I hated that she was literally changing everything about herself for some older boys to like her, especially as she is only 13-14 years old throughout the course of the book. She has so much time to find someone who is going to like her for who she is that changing herself for her first boyfriend at such a young age is just terrible. However, I did feel absolutely terrible for her at the end, but I don't understand how she could have possibly been surprised, especially with some of the things that Lucas pulled on her before it happened. 

MY THOUGHTS:
This book was so, so good! I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it, and I will definitely be reading more Ellen Hopkins in the future. I think I need to read the adult companion type novel to this book, Triangles, and see the story from the parent's perspectives. I think that would be really interesting. Over all I really enjoyed this book and would definitely recommend it to readers who are okay with some mature content.

STAR RATING:  ★★★★

Beauty Queens by Libba Bray

"The fifty contestants in the Miss Teen Dream pageant thought this was going to be a fun trip to the beach, where they could parade in their state-appropriate costumes and compete in front of the cameras. But sadly, their airplane had another idea, crashing on a desert island and leaving the survivors stranded with little food, little water, and practically no eyeliner.

What's a beauty queen to do? Continue to practice for the talent portion of the program - or wrestle snakes to the ground? Get a perfect tan - or learn to run wild? And what should happen when the sexy pirates show up?" -Goodreads

THE STORY:

I have heard some very mixed things about this book, and so I was a little weary going into it, however I do have to say that I enjoyed it. I love Libba Bray's funny and witty storytelling, and how all of the main girls (and there were many of them) all had different personalities and struggles that they were going through. The only criticism I have towards the plot and the story in general is that the beginning was a little slow, and rather repetitive. I feel as if the story didn't truly start until almost two hundred pages in. That being said, the things that happen within those first two hundred pages were still funny and kept me interested enough to want to keep reading.

THE CHARACTERS:

This is normally where I would discuss my feelings about the main characters of a book, however this book has far too many main characters for me to do that properly, so I am just going to talk about them as a whole. As I already mentioned, I was very happy to see that all of the girls had different personalities and struggles to go with them. I also enjoyed the variety of girls that we were presented with. We had a military trained, religious girl from texas, a feminist, a nerdy lesbian, a transgender, a girl who was hearing impaired, someone who was planning to be a doctor, and even a complete and utter ditz. These aren't even all of the girls that are in here! I found them all to be entertaining in their own way, and loved watching them become more comfortable with themselves during their time on the island. 

I also found myself to really enjoy the pirates when they came into play. I thought that they were funny and witty, and that they added something fun to the story. 

MY THOUGHTS:

Over all, I was pleasantly surprised by this book. I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought that I would, and even found myself laughing out loud sometimes. While I don't think I will be reading it again any time soon, I definitely enjoyed my time reading it now. Again, Libba Bray has impressed me, and I look forward to reading more of her books.

STAR RATING: ★★★★

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

""Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . " 

From the award-winning author of Eleanor & Park and Fangirl comes a hilarious and heartfelt novel about love in the workplace.

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.
What would he say . . . ?" -Goodreads

THE STORY:

How does Rainbow Rowell manage to make me turn into a giant pile of melty-heart goo every time I read one of her books? The entire idea of this novel made me happy, and reading it was even better than I could have imagined. I adored learning about Beth and Jennifer through their emails, and I absolutely adored following Lincoln through his life. I loved seeing how both of them were struggling, and even though we only learned about Beth through her emails, we got so much information from them, and we got to know who she was as a person. Every time that she and Lincoln almost met or when she would talk about him as Her Cute Guy in her emails, I would just gush so much. Basically I shipped them ridiculously hard.

THE CHARACTERS:

First of all, Lincoln is my kind of man. He is tall, handsome (in a very strangely specific way), and an absolute nerd. I loved that he was a D & D player, and that his favorite quote came from Lord of the Rings. I loved that he was kind of awkward, like he didn't know that he could get the girl if he simply tried. I absolutely adored him.

I also really enjoyed Beth. I loved how quick witted she was, but she also knew when to stop. She is one of the kindest friends I think I have ever read in a book, and I don't think she even realizes it? Like Lincoln, she doesn't seem to grasp how amazing she is, and how worthy of having the perfect kind of love she is. She seems to know that something is off with her relationship with Chris, but she doesn't do anything about it for such a long time because she honestly believes that is what love is supposed to be like. 

MY THOUGHTS:

Rainbow Rowell was already on my list of favorite authors, but this just cemented it. I adore her writing style, and how she manages to make realistic characters and adorable plots that just make me melt with happiness. I would love to read more about these characters, maybe in something like a novella, or even just a short story? I would really enjoy that, but I am also completely satisfied with this novel and the way it ended. I basically just need more Rainbow Rowell in my life.

STAR RATING:  ★★★★★

Cress by Marissa Meyer

"In this third book in the Lunar Chronicles, Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they’re plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and her army. 

Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl imprisoned on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she’s just received orders from Levana to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice. 
When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is separated. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a high price. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has."
 - Goodreads

THE STORY:
First of all, I would like to start by saying that Rapunzel is potentially my favorite fairy tale ever, so I was ridiculously excited for this book, and it definitely didn't disappoint. Obviously I won't dive into too many details so that I won't spoil anybody, but I think this is my favorite book out of the series so far. I loved getting to see more of the characters, and I loved having Cress introduced, and seeing how she saw the world. My love affair with this series is only growing stronger.

THE CHARACTERS:
We had two new characters who were REALLY introduced in this book, and those were Cress and Jacin, and of course we had the whole cast of previous characters, who are all fabulous. I think it is only fitting to start with the title character. Cress is incredible. She is relatively sane considering her time spent alone in her satellite, but still just ever so slightly aligned with crazy. I loved that she was such a fangirl, even if it did get a little bit annoying in the beginning of the book, because it just showed even more of her character. I also loved seeing her grow throughout the book. She goes from being completely obsessive and scared of everything to being rather calm, and willing to put up a fight to save herself, as well as her new found friends.

With Jacin, I still don't really know how I feel. He is a servant of Winter, and he joins the crew for a while as their pilot. We don't really get into his mind much, or see what he is thinking, or even whose side he is really on, but he was an intriguing character that kept me on my toes while reading.

I absolutely loved how big of a part that Thorne played in this book, and I am officially in love with him. Favorite character by far, and he is worthy of many pterodactyl screeches. I can't wait to read even more about him in Winter, and hopefully I can trust Marissa Meyer with the life of my favorite character. I am leaving my heart in her hands. Of course I enjoyed the return of Cinder and Kai, especially seeing them around each other again, and seeing how they act around each other, which has always been one of my favorite things about this series. I adored Iko in this, and loved that she got to play a bigger part again in this book compared to Scarlet. 

MY THOUGHTS:
Basically, if you couldn't already tell, I absolutely adored this book. The Lunar Chronicles are probably going to end up being included in my favorite series of all time, and I am just ridiculously excited for Winter to come out next year. The love affair shall continue, and I don't think that it will be stopping any time soon. 

STAR RATING:  ★★★★★