Playlist for the Dead - Michelle Falkoff

Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff
Published by HarperTeen on January 27, 2014
Pages: 288
Genres: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Coming of Age
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss

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Part mystery, part love story, and part coming-of-age tale in the vein of The Perks of Being a Wallflower and The Spectacular Now.

There was a party. There was a fight. The next morning, Sam's best friend, Hayden, was dead. And all he left Sam was a playlist of songs and a suicide note: For Sam—listen and you'll understand. To figure out what happened, Sam has to rely on the playlist and his own memory. But the more he listens, the more he realizes that his memory isn't as reliable as he thought. And it might only be by taking out his earbuds and opening his eyes to the people around him that he'll finally be able to piece together his best friend's story. And maybe have a chance to change his own.

Playlist for the Dead is an honest and gut-wrenching first novel about loss, rage, what it feels like to outgrow a friendship that's always defined you—and the struggle to redefine yourself. But above all, it's about finding hope when hope seems like the hardest thing to find.

Playlist for the Dead has a story that has already been out there, a lonely kid whose friend commits suicide and now is stuck trying to figure out why but it still has something new to say about the topic and in a different way. The things that I liked more about this book are:
• The mystery: Sam, our main instead of locking himself on his room and crying forever and ever decides to find out why Hayden killed himself. Also some *things* start to happen making it even more urgent for Sam's to figure out what the hell happened and how does it influences on Hayden's death and what happened next. I have to say that this part was my favorite thing in the book, I always loved detective novels and while this one isn't exactly that the mystery does pick up around 60% into the book and I couldn't put it down trying to find out everything.
• The overall positive tone: I usually love books that make me ugly sob and make my heart hurt but I also like when books can passe a positive message, especially books that are for teenages -- suicide & depression is now (unfortunately) a common thing, I think most teens know someone who tried to kill themselves or committed suicide or suffer through depression or event them passed through theses things, so it's important to have books like this one out there, saying that it's going to get better even when it doesn't look like it right now.
• Mr. Beaumont: Can I get an amen with the last chapter when Sam says Mr. Beaumont has been helping him get through the year? Mr. Beaumont is the school therapist and I just found SO important that books about depression/suicide acknowledge the fact that it's more than okay to have a professional help when getting through hard times. I get really pissed when books with characters that clearly need professional help doesn't even make that as an option (and unfortunately is the case with about 90% of the books about depression that I already read on the young adult gender).
• The songs: THERE ARE SO MANY GOOD SONGS IN HERE! So many that I didn't know and so many that I already loved, definitely read this book with your spotify/iTunes library near you.

The things that I wasn't as head-over-heels:
• The romance: I never got Sam and Astrid's romance! It isn't instalove but there is a lot of "You get me like no one else" and "I never felt a connection like this before" and I never saw this deep connection, idk maybe it was because it was Sam's first crush but still every time they talked I rolled my eyes.
• The characters: This was my biggest issue, despite that we learn a lot of the personal lives of most of the characters that are related to Hayden's death I still never felt like they are fleshed out enough, the only character that felt real was Sam and this was probably because it was on first person. This turned the story more distancing than it had to be and made my attachment to it be less emotional - still, I recommend it to all readers who like realistic fiction, and specially for the ones that love geeky references and a good song taste.

Scarlet - A.C. Gaughen

Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen
Series: Scarlet #1
Published by Bloomsbury USA on February 14, 2012
Pages: 292
Genres: Historical Fiction, Retellings, Adventure
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased

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The people of Nottinghamshire know Will Scarlet as Robin Hood’s shadow, a slip of a boy who throws daggers with deadly accuracy and an accomplished thief with an unerring eye for treasure. A select few know that Will is actually Scarlet, a young woman “recruited” by Robin two years earlier as he wandered the alleys of London. But no one knows who the real Scarlet is, what she was doing in London, and how she got that scar on her cheek. That is, no one but Gisbourne, the ruthless thief-taker just hired by the sheriff to capture Robin and his band.

 I'm a strong mood reader, and being like this sometimes can be a pain in the ass because it makes you start about a thousand books and finish one. Well right now I'm in one of those phases and the one book that keep me reading was Scarlet, so let's see what this book has of special.

For starters this book doesn't have a single dull time, seriously this is action packed at it most, we have so much action sequences with Scarlet and her band - the general plot is that the city of Nottinghamshire has a terrible sheriff who will do basically anything to get his taxes, including kill the town people, so is on the hands of the band to steal enough money to pay everyone taxes on time - this ends up giving a lot of room for action, because they are running out of time and need to go stealing a lot and well, they can get caught and things can get ugly. One little complaint is the plot of the series isn't all that clear until the very ending of the book, I mean you can always guess but it's never really defined and it still can not be what I'm guessing it is, so yeah it can be kind of a bump not known where this is going.

But it wasn't all action and kicking ass there was also romance, which I'm torn. Let me explain, there is a love triangle, but it seemed like such an unnecessary love triangle seriously is so obvious for who Scarlet has true feelings that every time the other dude made a move (for more sweet that it was) I would just roll my eyes and pray to this end quickly - gladly (I think) this was resolved by the end of this book, now I hope Scarlet will have eyes only for her one true love and give me lot of swoon scenes on the next installment. Also, it would have been a lot less awkward if the other dude didn't had feelings for Scarlet at all - I mean image he seeing Scarlet kissing and making heart eyes for her actual love #awkward.

Me when my OTP declares their eternal love for each other

Other nitpick about this one is the language because it's writing in a dialect, it was kind of hard to get into it first but the action keep me entertained and when I saw I was totally into the story and without any problem understanding what the hell was going on. The setting too could have been more fleshed out, I guess the language is this way because of the time but taking this from this book it could have taken place anywhere on England, I wish  there was more descriptions of the village and that I could have a felt of this place that Scarlet and the others fight so hard to keep.

But still this one was definitely a winner, I ready it super fast each time I had a chance to pick it up and I can see myself wanting to re-read it over and over. I super recommend this book to everyone but specially for readers who want something fast paced, doesn't mind a little bit of cliche on their romances and love original retellings.

Love, Lucy - April Lindner

Love, Lucy by April Lindner
Published by Poppy on January 27, 2015
Pages: 304
Genres: Contemporary, Coming of Age, Romance
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss

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While backpacking through Florence, Italy, during the summer before she heads off to college, Lucy Sommersworth finds herself falling in love with the culture, the architecture, the food...and Jesse Palladino, a handsome street musician. After a whirlwind romance, Lucy returns home, determined to move on from her "vacation flirtation." But just because summer is over doesn't mean Lucy and Jesse are over, too.

In this coming-of-age romance, April Lindner perfectly captures the highs and lows of a summer love that might just be meant to last beyond the season.

Oh boy, this book is hard to review because it's so hard to put my thoughts on order, I really liked all the aspects of this book but at the same time I also felt like there was something lacking all the time, I don't know if was the length of the book that made this happen (the e-arc was just 201 pages, and okay the editing is different for the final edition but still, it was so small!). Anyway, my likes and dislikes were:

• Lucy: she was definitely my favorite part of the story, which is great since it’s told on first person. I started this book a little skeptical about her character, she seemed to be a little too much of a common ground, you know the girl who is traveling through Europe that finds a boy that is so-not-the-right-type but end up challenging her to find her happiness and bla-bla-bla but still I managed to grow out of my first doubts and really identified myself with her. I’m kind of in the same stage in life than Lucy, starting college, fighting to find out what I really want and not what other people – especially parents – want for me, I think this is something that it will hit home to everyone because is a natural transition to adulthood. A big part of Lucy’s decision to what to do for the rest of her life was because of her doubts if she was good enough to pursuit a actress career or even just get up on the stage again, I really liked the development on this, she started with a lot of insecurities but through all the novel she started to grow out of it and at the end she was owning her talented – it was a great message!

• The romance: I have to say that the romance was hard to get at first, I just didn’t get why Lucy and Jesse had connected so hard in just over a week, yes they talks were sweet and they talked about important things so there was a connection, yes they had chemistry but still there was something missing. I just wish the Italy part was like 50 pages bigger. More about Italy latter. I feel like I should warm people, there kind of is a love triangle, but it isn’t really a love triangle (in my opinion) since we all know where Lucy’s hearth is, still the two boys DO overlap at some point and I know this can be a downside for some readers, for me it wasn’t, I think it was necessary to Lucy’s growth and helped her decide what she really wanted not just romance wise but in life.

• Italy: ugh, this part really should have like 50 pages more, as well as the romance the scenarios never really satisfied me, it never felt as fleshed out as in “Wish You Were Italian” and a lot of scenes seemed rushed and without enough descriptions.

• The friendships & parents: I really loved this aspect, it was so good to Lucy to have such a big range of friends, from her suitemates to her fellow stage colleagues to her partner on the backpacking, I wish (as well as much of the things on this book) that we had more interactions between them but still I was feelings very satisfied with the ones we did had, they are a very diverse cast and none one time there was judgments on their personalities (which can be hard to find on books sometimes), and yet there are a lot of good times I liked how it showed Lucy and Charlotte - her friend who backpacked through Europe with her for a month - did fight on the end of the trip, I mean IT IS so hard to withstand a friend for an entire month, just on hostels and lots of airport/road/train trips and tourists long lines on tourist-y places, it was so natural that they would disagree at some point but I really liked that they did come around to talk about it later on, it was all so true to what real friendships really are. Also Lucy’s parents are present on the book, not all that much, but still very present since her father’s insistence for her to drop out of plays, it was really good to see their relationship so present, I felt it was so real her father’s concern about her future despite his not so great approach, the ending also was very HEA but I found her father’s decision realistic and understandable.

Overall this was a really good quickly read, perfect for a trip (as I was in one while reading it and the lightness and overall good feel to it, while still caring good messages was just exactly what I look forward in a trip book), I think everyone that loves coming of age tales that are center around traveling will found a sweet spot for this book.

Oh, also, for the time-frame of Lucy and its characters this book is supposed to be "New adult" (in my opinion) but I think is being market as young adult because it reads like young adult, in the meanings that nobody has a hard deep past or has sexy scenes here like graphic ones, but still I do think this book will apeal more to people that are on this time of their lives between getting out of high school and starting college/deciding their majors.

Other thing, this is a retelling of "A Room With a View" which there is a movie and a book, but I never saw or reade it so it can't say how it does justice to both of them. If you want to read a review  that does compares this book and (especially) the movie you can read this one wrote by Christina on A Reader of Fictions.

A Little Something Different - Sandy Hall

A Little Something Different by Sandy Hall
Published by Swoon Reads on August 26, 2014 
Pages: 272
Genres: Romance, Contemporary, New Adult
Format: eBook
Source: Purchased

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The creative writing teacher, the delivery guy, the local Starbucks baristas, his best friend, her roommate, and the squirrel in the park all have one thing in common—they believe that Gabe and Lea should get together. Lea and Gabe are in the same creative writing class. They get the same pop culture references, order the same Chinese food, and hang out in the same places. Unfortunately, Lea is reserved, Gabe has issues, and despite their initial mutual crush, it looks like they are never going to work things out. But somehow even when nothing is going on, something is happening between them, and everyone can see it. Their creative writing teacher pushes them together. The baristas at Starbucks watch their relationship like a TV show. Their bus driver tells his wife about them. The waitress at the diner automatically seats them together. Even the squirrel who lives on the college green believes in their relationship.

Surely Gabe and Lea will figure out that they are meant to be together....

This book came to me at the exactly right time, I was in the need for a very light after finishing a very... Not wrecking, but very emotional book (The Start of Me and You, which the review will be coming in the end of march), so I needed fluffy, I needed to have a brain candy kind of read you know. And this book delivered exactly it.

The plot of this book is literally find out if Gabe and Lea will get together. And that's it. Since it's never told from the perspective of the two main characters we don't really have the layers (family, difficulties with college, friends, insecurities) so on spot as it usually is with contemporary books, this did took a little of my affection towards the book because we did get to know Lea and Gabe, but it was like... You know when you hear a lot of stories about someone, like a friend of a friend of yours but that you never actually meet but you do have a mental picture of their personality but still you never meet them. That's how I felt about these two, it was a fun and different way to write a novel and I'm glad Sandy took the risk and I liked it, but it lacked a more deep emotional connection.

Also about the way this story was told, we have 14 different POV's and, as usual when a book there is a lot of POV's, some I liked, some I loved, some I just didn't know why they were there. I liked almost all of the POV's, they are very unique I never had to come back and see who was on that chapter (section? it was divided by month not by chapter, but maybe the months are the chapters? that had a lot of different POV stitching during it? Ugh) but there was some that I just didn't really felt like they were relevante to the plot and character/couple development at all. One thing that was strange to me was that, despite I always knowing which POV, I still confused the "I" and thought it was Gabe thinking (or Lea on feminine POV's, but it happened more with Gabe) and I had to remember that Gabe was the "he" not the "I" on the story, it was just because of the unusualness of the way this story was told but yeah, it took a while to get used to.

Another thing that was really strange was the way people described Gabe and Lea, but specially Gabe, like when they are describing him they would use the word "cute" a lot, and when I mean a lot, I mean A LOT REALLY. Every single person thinks he's is the cutest puppy on the world, and he isn't even a puppy! It was kind of weird after sometime (I mean does people really describe other people as cute?).

But thumbs up for the diversity on this book and for making it low key (the diversity, and not announce as a diverse book). And also the squirrel, so much love for the squirrel, it was so saaaaaaaaad on the winter when he was hungry, and skinny and really let's just all feed the squirrels on winter. This really wasn't a bad book, I'm feeling like this a much more negative review but really, I was smiling the whole way while reading it, it was sweet and fun and cute and adorable and perfect for romance fans or someone on the need for a brain candy.

Seasonal Recommendations | Fall 2014

 Okay, so I should probably just quit this because I always put this list late when it's already mid-whatever-other-season-is so yeah, but I will probably keep trying for a few more seasons and see if I some day get it at the right time ;) These are my favorite books from Fall of 2014 (September 23 to December 21). 

Paranormal/Sci-Fi/Fantasy:

1. Miss Mayhem, by Rachel Hawkins: this is the sequel to Rebel Belle and to say I was excited to it is a understatement, I was so excited that end up reading it back on September right when I was accepted for the eARC, let's just say it's good like REALLY good and I need the third book like yesterday. Review will be up on April 5. 

2. The Young Elites, by Marie Lu: when I read this I had never read anything by Marie Lu (now I already read Legend, and also loved) and it got me by surprise how dark these characters were and the fantasy was just amazing. My review. 

3. Stitching Snow, by R.C.Lewis: This book was so what I was needing when I read it, it was a plot point after another never letting me bored, it had a very cool space kind of fantasy setting, a very kick ass heroine and a adorable love interest. I should probably write a review for it soon.

4. Blue Lily, Lily Blue, by Maggie Stiefvater: IF YOU HAVEN'T READ THIS SERIES YET WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH YOUR LIFE, START MAKING GOOD DECISIONS AND GO READ THIS SERIES GO, IT'S NOT TO LATE!!!!111!!! 

5. Unspoken, by Sarah Rees Brennan: I decided to marathon this series because I had an eARC for the last one and oh boy it was the best decision I ever made, it's perfect banter-fluffy but it's also SO MANY FEELS and romance full of angst and so many good characters, but specially Kami, KAMI 4 QUEEN. I tried to do a series review, idk if it worked. 

Contemporary:

6. All Fall Down, by Ally Carter: this book was so GOOD! It has that kind of writing that is just the right tipe for me, it's light and just suck you right in and I wasn't planning on staying up until 3AM to finish this but I didn't had a choice. Review will be up on January 29.

7. The Rosie Project, by Graeme Simsion: I have been hearing great things about this book for years so I finally got around to read and OH MY GOD WHY DID I WAITED SO LONG, it's funny and quirk and super nerdiness heaven and the romance is beyond cute and Don is being cute when he's trying to interact with humans. I should probably try to do a series review soon. 

8. Angus, Thongs and Full-Frontal Snogging, by Louise Rennison: I had never finished reading this series when I was a teenager so when I got the audios from the library it was about damn time for me to re-read and them finish it and I ABSOLUTELY LOVED DOING IT! Georgia remain as funny as I remembered and yeah, I will maybe to a series review to try to convince you of reading this series.

9. When Joss Met Matt, by Ellie Cahill: This book guys, it's New Adult but it's written by Liz Czukas (which if you have read it you should, she wrote Ask Again Later & Top Ten Clues You're Clueless) and it's basically perfection, it has some sexy times but nothing too graphic (which will probably disappoint some NA readers but for it was fine), it's also funny and there is a perfect romance, seriously. My review will be up at some point on February. 

10. Wonder, by R.J. Palacio: This book totally took me by surprise, I had heard good things of course but I wasn't sure if it was for me, but I bought it on a sale and OH BOY DID I LOVED IT. It touched me and it also made me laugh and just so good, it deserves all the hype it gets. My review.

I hope you guys find this usefull and that you can find some off your next reads here. 

P.S.: I swear it wasn't 10 on purpose, I just had 10 books with 5-to-4 stars rating these last season

We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Story - Josh Sundquist

We Should Hang Out Sometime: Embarrassingly, a True Story by Josh Sundquist
Published by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers on December 23, 2014 
Pages: 336
Genres: Memoir, Non-Fiction, Humor
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley

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"When I was twenty-five years old, it came to my attention that I had never had a girlfriend. At the time, I was actually under the impression that I was in a relationship, so this bit of news came as something of a shock." Why was Josh still single? To find out, he tracked down each of the girls he had tried to date since middle school and asked them straight up: What went wrong?
The results of Josh's semiscientific investigation are in your hands. From a disastrous Putt-Putt date involving a backward prosthetic foot, to his introduction to CFD (Close Fast Dancing), and a misguided "grand gesture" at a Miss America pageant, this story is about looking for love-or at least a girlfriend-in all the wrong places. Poignant, relatable, and totally hilarious, this memoir is for anyone who has ever wondered, "Is there something wrong with me?"
(Spoiler Alert: the answer is no.)

I have never read a non-fiction book before but when I saw that this book was written by Josh Sundquist (a motivational speaker who has a very funny channel on Youtube) AND it was about his "failings" on the romantic life it was a no-brainer that I wanted to read this. This book was funny, full of fun charts and totally relatable to anyone that has dated already.

What I liked the most on this one was definitely to see how much Josh freak out over dates, as a girl on her 20's and single is pretty amazing to read from a point of view of a guy and see that they too have fears of putting themselves out there - rom-com always tell the story from the girl's perspective and the guys always look completely comfortable and cool with the date, yeah real life isn't like this.

Josh's voice translated really good to paper, it was funny and (having seeing some of his videos) very close to his videos, there was a lot of graphics (which is common on his videos). What I especially liked was the way Josh talked about "issues topics" like the lost of his leg and dealing with that and religion, I never felt like he was... Like, preaching his ideas on the readers, he just stated them - particularly on the religion thing, I never read books too focused on it and this one wasn't but his church is a big part of Josh's life and I was surprised that it never bothered me, never, probably because the way it was told it was just something intricate with Josh.

I would have liked more from the last chapter when he finally meet his girlfriend, also the realization of why he never has had a girlfriend it was so damn cliche. A little more from his family and friends wouldn't have hurt either, it was really focused just on the girlfriends and their dates and stuff, I would have liked I little bit more of Josh without the girlfriends involved.

Recommended to lovers of romantic comedies, contemporary romances and people trying their first memoir who want something that reads like fiction.

January: Paranormal

Hey guys, so I'm always trying to make TBR's (and I DO try to stick with them, despite what may seem like) but you know what they say trying and failing is how we learn and all that jazz so I realized that I DID managed to stick to books on my TBR's that are on audio format more easily - probably because they're such a practical way of reading - so now on I'm gonna do TBR's on long term (monthly term actually) only for my audio reads. So yeah, this is an audio TBR post. 

Also, I thought it would be fun to make each month a themed month sort of thing, which means each month I will pick a *thing* (a gender like paranormal, fantasy, contemporary but also sometimes I can pick like creatures like mermaids or another month a author like Meg Cabot) to 

be the theme of the said month TBR. This month as the title and banner said is all about PARANORMAL.

I chose this primarily because I was doing a binge series read of "The Mediator" by Meg Cabot since the end of december and had already checked out some other paranormal series from the library so it was the obvious choice. But I do love this gender, it was what get me into the YA gender with Twilight and I missed so much good series on the last years that I just need this month to catch up on what I missed.

Some of the books that I hope to get to this month:

1. Hex Hall trilogy by Rachel Hawkins 

2. The Croak trilogy by Gina Damico 

3. Everneath trilogy by Brodi Ashton

4. The Sweet Trilogy by Wendy Higgins

Hopefully I will get to at least all of these but we will see, so did you guys already read these series? Are they any good? Which ones are the ones that I NEED to get to this month?