#Review | The Academy: Love Match

The Academy: Love Match

Author: Monica Seles
Series: The Academy
Pages: 224
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children
Release Date: February 25th,2014
Source: Received a copy via netgalley from Bloomsbury.  Thank you so much for allowing me to review this book!

Getting into The Academy is the easy part. Staying there takes more than just talent. After being betrayed by her rival and her boyfriend, Maya knows she needs to shrug off the drama and focus on her game. And after a strong showing in the semi-finals at a tennis competition, Maya seems pretty focused. Until that competition brings a new round of gossip, a modeling gig, and renewed feelings for . . . her ex?

And Maya’s not the only one with drama. Cleo just won her first big golf tournament, but the blogs are bashing her alternative style. Renee is smitten with the school’s newest soccer star, Diego. And the Reed brothers are being pitted against each other by their father, their love for Maya, and the press

#Review| Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi

Ignite Me 

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me
Pages: 416 
Publisher: Harper Collins
Release Date: February 4th,2014

Juliette now knows she may be the only one who can stop the Reestablishment. But to take them down, she'll need the help of the one person she never thought she could trust: Warner. And as they work together, Juliette will discover that everything she thought she knew - about Warner, her abilities, and even Adam - was wrong.

Feature & Follow| Perfect Endings

Hi Guys! 

 This is my feature and Follow. This is Hosted By Alison Can Read and Parajunkee and by clicking on the link you can learn a little more about how this meme works and how to join :)

          

This weeks question is.....

Change the plot. If you could, what book would you change the ending or a plot thread?  

The Last Academy by Anne Applegate

The Last Academy 

Anne Applegate

Series:Standalone
Pages: 320 pages
Publisher:  Point
Release Date: April 30th,2013
Source: Received a copy via netgalley from Point.
Thanks so much for letting me review this book!

  Summary:

What is this prep school preparing them for?

Camden Fisher arrives at boarding school haunted by a falling-out with her best friend back home. But the manicured grounds of Lethe Academy are like nothing Cam has ever known. There are gorgeous, preppy boys wielding tennis rackets, and circles of girls with secrets to spare. Only . . . something is not quite right. One of Cam's new friends mysteriously disappears, but the teachers don't seem too concerned. Cam wakes up to strangers in her room, who then melt into the night. She is suddenly plagued by odd memories, and senses there might be something dark and terrible brewing. But what? The answer will leave Cam—and readers—stunned and breathless, in this thrilling debut novel

Review:

The last academy has you guessing from the beginning and believing in things that will, by the end, blow your mind. With a unique ending that I never guessed would've happen.

The last academy is about fourteen year old girl named, Camden, who has a fight with her best friend and decides to go to a private academy in California. Leaving her ex-best friend behind, she arrives at the academy where she is met with her snotty, obnoxious, roommate Tamara, and makes two friends, on the first day, Nora and Jessie.  This seems like your normal boarding school, right? Wrong! Everyone is there for a reason. A reason you will soon find out ;) With a creepy guy following Camden around how will she ever make it, through her freshman year of high school?

Going into the academy I thought it was your average boarding school and Camden was going to go there make friends, fall in love and forget her old best friend even existed. However, this story turned out to go into the paranormal genre. I didn’t really expect it to go this way, but I kind of had a feeling it would. Camden just so happened to move to boarding school and I don’t find her as an un-relatable character or particularly whiny character, but she didn't really move me like some characters have done before either. I didn't really like they had the stereotypical bully as a roommate. Every time she was mean to Camden I just felt a little annoyed because in almost every boarding school book I read, there is a bully as a roommate and I’d just like to see a change in that. However, the other characters were all quite likeable and I very much enjoyed reading about them and them trying to solve this mystery.

As for the plot line, there were things I thought were great and well written and some things just missed the mark for me.  The one thing that really bothered me while reading this novel was that I read a chapter and moved on to the next one and once I started reading, I felt as a chapter of my book had been ripped out and I was looking at the following chapter.  It became quite confusing and frustrating at points to read because I wanted to know all the details. If I had read this book over the past few days I would have said that’s probably what is was because I would have  most likely went back to reading  and forgot some things. However, I read almost all of this in one day.   

On a brighter note, one thing I did rather enjoy was the ending of this book.  The ending was completely unexpected. This had to be the first time I was like wow I didn't even guess that this is what this book was going to end up being like, halfway through. Most of the time I make a guess and I’m right about some parts, but the ending was no where’s in my mind. It was so mind blowing you guys. It made me rethink the whole entire story and go back and say… Yeah I do see it now.

This book will be enjoyed by book lovers who love boarding school settings and a good paranormal read. I do encourage you to check out!

In the end, nothing’s as it seems and if you decide to check out this book, pay very close attention and see if you can guess the ending and if you've already read it be sure to leave a comment below and tell me what you thought of the ending or the booking in general. 

                     Gabby      

Waiting on Wednesday ( Kiera Cass Returns!)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event that is hosted by Breaking the Spine. Waiting on Wednesday is to spotlight an anticipated upcoming release. 

 The One by Kiera Cass
May 6th, 2014

Summary:

The Selection changed the lives of thirty-five girls forever. And now, the time has come for one winner to be chosen.

America never dreamed she would find herself anywhere close to the crown—or to Prince Maxon's heart. But as the competition approaches its end and the threats outside the palace walls grow more vicious, America realizes just how much she stands to lose—and how hard she'll have to fight for the future she wants.

From the very first page of The Selection, this #1 New York Times bestselling series has captured readers' hearts and swept them away on a captivating journey... Now, in The One, Kiera Cass delivers a satisfying and unforgettable conclusion that will keep readers sighing over this electrifying fairy-tale long after the final page is turned.

Cover:  The cover was just released a little while ago and I think it is amazing and so pretty. It also matches all the other books pretty perfectly and I have that weird ocd where all my covers have to match so that makes me happy. The cover also makes me so excited cuz she's wearing white, but who will the guy be!?! (MAXON!)

Story line:  I've been following this story since The Selection came out and I am still in love! I am so excited for this story to finally,hopefully, have a happy conclusion I've been waiting forever it seems for the ending. 

What do you guys think about this cover and the story line? Do you agree or disagree with my thoughts? Let me know below!

                     Gabby  

 

Top Five Books of 2013

Hey guys, first of all Merry late Christmas and a happy,early, New years.  I know I haven't been around in the blogging world a lot this year because of school, but I have continued to read every know and then. I also know this is going to short, sweet and to the point so below is my list of the top five books I've read this year and please leave a comment below and tell me what your top 5 books of 2013 were.  P.s. please ignore how I placed the book covers below :P

Review: Tumble & Fall by Alexandra Coutts

Tumble & Fall
Author: Alexandra Coutts
Pages:384
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Release Date:September 17th,2013
Source: Received for review Via Netgalley.
Thanks so much for allowing me to review this book!

Summary:

A novel about the end of days full of surprising beginnings

The world is living in the shadow of oncoming disaster. An asteroid is set to strike the earth in just one week’s time; catastrophe is unavoidable. The question isn’t how to save the world—the question is, what to do with the time that's left? Against this stark backdrop, three island teens wrestle with intertwining stories of love, friendship and family—all with the ultimate stakes at hand.

Alexandra Coutts's TUMBLE & FALL is a powerful story of courage, love, and hope at the end of the world.

Tumble and Fall has an amazing cover that intrigued me to no end! At first, I thought this book was a contemporary novel, however, as I read the summary I found it was a mix of sci-fi and contemporary. Which, I thought was also very intriguing and made me want to read it even more out of curiosity. However, as I read on the story just seemed to fall a little short for me.

Tumble and Fall has three different main characters and points of views – Caden, Zan and Sienna. Caden is a nerd at hard, but ever since his dad abandoned his family he has put that aside and became somewhat of a, “party animal.” Zan has lost her high school sweetheart and even though it’s almost been a year she still misses him every day and is still trying to come to terms that he is really gone. Last, but not least, Sienna’s mom died a few years ago and ever since then she has been at The House for mental reasons until the day that her father comes get her to take her home due to the recent news of the impending doom of the world – an asteroid striking earth and knocking it out of its orbit. With only a few days left of their life they all set out on their own separate adventures, some willingly and others not so much, to discover everything they want to know before they die. 

I feel as if Tumble and Fall had such a great concept, but didn’t quite reach that concept. I’ve never read a book before were an author attempted to combine sci-fi with contemporary before and I applaud the author for trying. However, I faced some problems throughout reading this book.

The first real big problem I had was that I couldn’t quite connect with every single character. It felt as if I was reading a completely different book when I got to Caden and he just wasn’t as interesting as the other characters in the novel. As the novel progressed I actually skipped his chapter once or twice because the things his father did was just out right outrageous. Buying your son a prostitute is defiantly not the route to go. Okay, so I understand the world is fixing to end, but I felt as if that was kind of thrown into the book at last minute like yeah oh let’s make his dad buy him a prostitute that should make it interesting.  Caden was the least relatable character in this novel.

The second problem was that while I connected with the other two characters, sometimes it felt as if there was just not enough going on. I mean let’s be realistic, if an asteroid is going to strike earth, there is going to be complete chaos not this calm community. I just felt as if there was just not enough chaos as I expected there to be.

While I did encounter some problems while reading this book, I do have to give this author some props on the other two characters – Zan and Sienna. I connected to Zan and Sienna so much! In fact, it’s the only thing that made me want to finish the book. While the beginning was quite dull, the romance just progressed throughout the book until the end and I was quite interested in how these romances where going to turn out.

Now on to the end! The ending was a bummer and totally not what I was expecting. At the beginning of this book it felt like a roaring fire because I was so excited to read this novel and as the story progressed the fire just burned out little by little. When it got to the end I was completely disappointed that the book didn’t go out with a BANG like I believe it should have.

In the end, this book will be for someone who loves sci-fi with tons of insta-love and who doesn’t mind reading about three different main characters. This book, while it had its flaws still had a story and I still couldn’t put it down. In the end,although it was a miss for me, I still liked it and you should give it a try for yourself!

Event\Signining: Lauren Myracle, Siobhan Vivian & Jenny Han

Hey Everybody! 
So last week I went to my first book signing! I know it's hard to believe it's my first book signing, but no one every comes any wheres remotely close to me so I jumped on this opportunity to met these wonderful authors!

We started off the night with all of the authors reading a few pages of their book and I forgot to take pictures of them actually reading. *Hits head with palm, but I did take pictures after of them answering everyone's questions.

I had so much fun listening to Lauren; she's such a nice person!

 

Jenny Han, Siobhan Vivian and me :) 

Lauren Myracle was so fun to talk to and such a down to earth person I can't wait to read her books. When she read  a few pages of her new book, I was so mesmerized and now I can't wait to read it. 

Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian were also so amazing! There book Burn for Burn is so good and I actually forgot to get my book Fire with Fire signed *Grrr....  Siobhan is another amazing person and so is Jenny Han. Did I forget to mention they are amazing writers?!

All of these ladies are amazing authors and they were so funny. I can't wait to read Lauren Myracle's books and Fire with Fire. Oh and they were so kind; They let me take pictures with them! I can't wait to read their books and hopefully I'll see them again.