In Which I Review... Also Known As by Robin Benway

Being a 16-year-old safecracker and active-duty daughter of international spies has its moments, good andbad. Pros: Seeing the world one crime-solving adventure at a time. Having parents with super cool jobs. Cons: Never staying in one place long enough to have friends or a boyfriend. But for Maggie Silver, the biggest perk of all has been avoiding high school and the accompanying cliques, bad lunches, and frustratingly simple locker combinations.

Then Maggie and her parents are sent to New York for her first solo assignment, and all of that changes. She'll need to attend a private school, avoid the temptation to hack the school's security system, and befriend one aggravatingly cute Jesse Oliver to gain the essential information she needs to crack the case . . . all while trying not to blow her cover.

Hardcover, 320 pages

Published February 26th 2013 by Bloomsbury Juvenile US
ISBN -0802733905
Received for review via NetGalley
     

more details...

 

My Review:

Also Known As was a delightful YA reads, packed with witty dialogue and sneakery. No, that is not a word but it should be. I love a good YA spy novel and this one is a jewel amongst the bunch. Reminiscent of books like Ally Carter's Gallagher Girls series, Also Known As packs a vibrant main character, the safecracking spy, Maggie into an unknown territory- high school.
Watching her navigate through school and befriend the genuinely sweet Jessie is a fun journey. The main characters and the immediate secondary characters are all fun, unique characters with whom the reader will be sure to fall in love with.
I think my favorite thing about this book was that it was classically YA. It reminded me of the YA I grew up loving and because of that it is a title I will remember.
I give this a high 4 stars and I would definitely recommend it to YA lovers of all ages.

Read More

Kids Book Fair Stuff

So many of you may know that I spent my morning yesterday volunteering at the Scholastic Book Fair at my  local elementary school. I like volunteering and added bonus, I got to help kids pick out books. It had nightmare potential especially with the younger kids but I made it out alive and not without a few books for my 5 year old sister.

Anyway, I though I'd show you all some books I was surprised to see, some of the ones that sold out, and what my sister ended up getting.

The Lost Hero among a bunch of other Riordan novels surprised me. I didn't expect to see them since they are more along the lines of middle graders but they sold good.





Monster High- When I read this, I was fresh out of high shcool so it surprised me that this was here (but then, with the appeal of the dolls and accessories I shouldn't have been so surprised). Another surprising thing about it- we sold out ... quick. In fact, several students paid for the book anyway to have it shipped to the school by next week from Scholastic. One parent even ordered the entire series to be delivered to the school. (I would have just went to the store for a sale, but hey, all of the money helps the school.)


Pete the Cat: I'm the oldest of 6 children and I've seen kids books galore but I have never even heard of Pete the Cat. However, James Dean seems to be doing pretty good with these books because we sold out of these too.




Flipped: I loved this movie! I think I was most surprised because the book was published so long ago. I wish I would have bought it but I was there to get books for my sister and to volunteer and I went over my book budget already anyway, lol. If you read the book, I'd love to know what you thought of it.



Now onto what my sister got. Beware: It's all very typical of a 5 year old girl.

Read More

In Which I Review... True by Erin McCarthy

BTW - THIS BOOK IS NA. BE AWARE AS YOU READ THE REVIEW.

Print Length: 235 pages

Publisher: InterMix (May 7, 2013)

Sold by: Penguin Publishing
Received for review via Netgalley

SYNOPSIS:

When Rory Macintosh’s roommates find out that their studious and shy friend has never been with a guy, they decide that, as an act of kindness they’ll help her lose her virginity by hiring confident, tattooed bad boy Tyler Mann to do the job…unbeknownst to Rory.



Tyler has told Rory that he’s not good enough for her. She’s smart, doctor smart, while he’s barely scraping by at his EMT program, hoping to pull his younger brothers out of the hell their druggy mother has left them in. But he can’t seem to stay away from her, and even when Rory knows she should push him away, something about him makes it nearly impossible for her to resist—even though her heart is at stake…



Torn between common sense and desire, the two find themselves caught up in a passionate relationship. But when Tyler’s broken family threatens to destroy his future, and hers, Rory will need to decide whether to cut her ties to his risky world or follow her heart, no matter what the cost…

 

My Review:

The synopsis for this New Adult novel does not do the story justice. The New Adult category has been receiving a lot of criticism lately, mainly because of the wanting plots and the over-consuming sexual adventures of the main characters. This, however, isn't a problem in True.

Erin McCarthy managed to balance the amount of sexual interaction in the book to match the characters' personalities. Rory is intelligent, hard-working, and too be honest a bit too subdued and quiet. I loved her. She was frustrating and stubborn like the best female characters, and she kept at what she wanted. What I admire most about her character was how supportive she was of Tyler throughout the novel.

Tyler grew up on the wrong side of the tracks. He's that guy that everyone automatically assumes is no good, without even a word spoken to him. He's the kind of boy that girls always eventually dream of having a fling with before settling down. The bad boy with the soft interior.

Seems typical right? The good girl meets the bad boy and immediately falls head over heels in stupidity. These stories always end up with the girl realizing her self-worth and dumping her bad boy, usually for the cute good guy who lived next door.

This does not happen in True. Rory is more than just a good girl and she's fiercely loyal, much like Tyler, who faces plenty of challenges in his own life, and is conflicted throughout much of the novel.

He's also scorching hot. I mean, scorching hot. He's everything we've come to expect in our bad boy NA book crushes, and while True touches on the light, steamy stuff that leaves us blushing and fanning ourselves, it goes so much deeper.

McCarthy gracefully touches on subjects like sexual assault, criminality, stereotypes, insecurity, and chronic drug use by balancing it love, sexuality, loyalty, and truth.

I loved this novel and I rate it 5 stars.

Read More

The Madman's Daughter

The Madman's Daughter by Megan Shepherd (NY: Balzer & Bray, 2013).

At sixteen, Juliet Moreau leads a harsh life, scrubbing floors at the medical school where her father used to teach before the scandal that led him to abandon his family.  Left seemingly orphaned after her mother's death, Juliet can scarcely believe her circumstances, which quickly worsen to the point that she herself must flee--with a former servant and childhood friend, Montgomery, to her father's island refuge on the other side of the world from Victorian London. Little does she know the grisly details of her father's research that will meet her there, or the choices she'll have to make.

Fans of Gothic horror will love this novel, but even readers who don't ordinarily enjoy such gruesome doings can enjoy the way Shepherd explores family secrets and self-revelations. You don't need any knowledge (or even awareness) of the novel's inspiration, H. D. Well's The Island of Dr. Moreau to follow the story of the love triangle Juliet finds herself in or her growing realization of the depth of her father's insane obsession with creating monsters in the name of science. Also, Shepherd saves some great surprises for the very end of this novel, so I can't wait to read the next one!  Recommended for ages 13 & up. Mild sexual situations, horror.

Read More