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readingwitherin's reviews
1613 reviews
Compulsion by Martina Boone
4.0
Rating 4.25
Between Barrie finding out about her family's past of privateers, an ancient curse, family feuds, and family secrets. Plus dealing with the death of her mother, and her Godfather slowly dying from pancreatic cancer. This book kept me captivated from start to finish, and was one of my quickest reads this year.
Between Barrie finding out about her family's past of privateers, an ancient curse, family feuds, and family secrets. Plus dealing with the death of her mother, and her Godfather slowly dying from pancreatic cancer. This book kept me captivated from start to finish, and was one of my quickest reads this year.
Winger by Andrew Smith
3.0
3.5
"And then it's always that one word that makes you so different and puts you outside the overlap of everyone else; and that word is so fucking big and loud, it's the only thing anyone ever hears when your name is spoken.
And whenever that happens to us, all the other words that make us the same disappear in its shadow.”
I really didn't know much about what this book was besides it was about a boy who was a rugby player. I'm not going to lie I wasn't expecting to like this book at all. But boy was I wrong. I ended up really enjoying it. In this book, for a change a teenager actually acts like a teenager, while that can be annoying at times, but Smith did a really good job of showing the main characters point of view of things so you never got too overly annoyed with him.
While Ryan is very immature you also have to remember that he is the youngest one of his friends, and while he might be super smart the majority of the decisions he makes aren't.
The only downside to the whole story to me was that for the first good half of the book I didn't really care for any of the characters. It wasn't until Ryan got to be good friends with Joey that I started to care for the book. I loved their friendship. I wish there had been more Joey, but then again I don't because I didn't want to get anymore attached to him then, I already was.
I was not expecting that ending. It has been a few days and I still can't think of anything besides heartbreaking to explain it. Just wow.
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"And then it's always that one word that makes you so different and puts you outside the overlap of everyone else; and that word is so fucking big and loud, it's the only thing anyone ever hears when your name is spoken.
And whenever that happens to us, all the other words that make us the same disappear in its shadow.”
I really didn't know much about what this book was besides it was about a boy who was a rugby player. I'm not going to lie I wasn't expecting to like this book at all. But boy was I wrong. I ended up really enjoying it. In this book, for a change a teenager actually acts like a teenager, while that can be annoying at times, but Smith did a really good job of showing the main characters point of view of things so you never got too overly annoyed with him.
While Ryan is very immature you also have to remember that he is the youngest one of his friends, and while he might be super smart the majority of the decisions he makes aren't.
The only downside to the whole story to me was that for the first good half of the book I didn't really care for any of the characters. It wasn't until Ryan got to be good friends with Joey that I started to care for the book. I loved their friendship. I wish there had been more Joey, but then again I don't because I didn't want to get anymore attached to him then, I already was.
I was not expecting that ending. It has been a few days and I still can't think of anything besides heartbreaking to explain it. Just wow.
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Tandem by Anna Jarzab
3.0
3.5
" The world is far less random than it appears. Once you started paying attention, patterns emerged where before you only saw chaos."
Jarzab did beautifully on building the world of United Common Wealth and how the parallel universes worked. It was a little bit confusing at first, but after awhile it really starts to get explained, and shows how it all works.
I did really like Sasha as a character at first but towards the middle of the book, I started to really get annoyed with her due to her not doing what she was told to be able to get back home. Thankfully as the book went on though she started to get comfortable in her surroundings and she started to take charge of her/Juli's life somewhat and made me start liking her again.
What little bit of Juli we did get to see and know I really didn't have many feelings towards her. I got why she wanted out, but the fact that she thought it would actually work shows how naive she was. While I do understand her being naive it also annoyed me because of whom she trusted and who she ended up betraying in the end.
As for Thomas (KES Guard/Kidnapper) I really wanted to like him, and to just feel like he was just doing his job, and while he was, and I do think he did care for Sasha I also just couldn't trust him or like him very much and I'm still not even sure why.
Now for Callum who is the prince she is to marry. I did like him as a character and I did feel somewhat bad for him considering how horrible his mother is according to everyone else. Plus from seeing what little we did of her in the book I think her and the Queen of the United common wealth would make great friends considering how they both treat people. I did like him as a character and that he really did seem to care of Sasha/Juli but I was also slightly apprehensive about his motives for certain things.
As for the "love triangle" I really don't see one. While there are two love interest for Sasha she really only cares for one and is only using the other one to get to safety or to please everyone else. I do have problems with Sasha and Thomas relationship though since not only did he kidnap her I feel like partially she likes him so much because he is her savior whenever she gets into trouble and he is here only connection to get back home.
Overall I really did enjoy this book and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to Sasha now.
Slightly disappointed that this appears to be a trilogy and not a duology like I originally thought.
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" The world is far less random than it appears. Once you started paying attention, patterns emerged where before you only saw chaos."
Jarzab did beautifully on building the world of United Common Wealth and how the parallel universes worked. It was a little bit confusing at first, but after awhile it really starts to get explained, and shows how it all works.
I did really like Sasha as a character at first but towards the middle of the book, I started to really get annoyed with her due to her not doing what she was told to be able to get back home. Thankfully as the book went on though she started to get comfortable in her surroundings and she started to take charge of her/Juli's life somewhat and made me start liking her again.
What little bit of Juli we did get to see and know I really didn't have many feelings towards her. I got why she wanted out, but the fact that she thought it would actually work shows how naive she was. While I do understand her being naive it also annoyed me because of whom she trusted and who she ended up betraying in the end.
As for Thomas (KES Guard/Kidnapper) I really wanted to like him, and to just feel like he was just doing his job, and while he was, and I do think he did care for Sasha I also just couldn't trust him or like him very much and I'm still not even sure why.
Now for Callum who is the prince she is to marry. I did like him as a character and I did feel somewhat bad for him considering how horrible his mother is according to everyone else. Plus from seeing what little we did of her in the book I think her and the Queen of the United common wealth would make great friends considering how they both treat people. I did like him as a character and that he really did seem to care of Sasha/Juli but I was also slightly apprehensive about his motives for certain things.
As for the "love triangle" I really don't see one. While there are two love interest for Sasha she really only cares for one and is only using the other one to get to safety or to please everyone else. I do have problems with Sasha and Thomas relationship though since not only did he kidnap her I feel like partially she likes him so much because he is her savior whenever she gets into trouble and he is here only connection to get back home.
Overall I really did enjoy this book and I'm looking forward to seeing what happens to Sasha now.
Slightly disappointed that this appears to be a trilogy and not a duology like I originally thought.
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Mila 2.0 by Debra Driza
3.0
“No matter what. I wouldn't let anyone change me. I wouldn't let them strip away whatever tiny parts of me were human. Assuming I had any humanity to lose.”
I really struggled with this book.
In the beginning you have Mila who has moved to a new town due to her father dying in a fire, which causes her mother to become extremely protective of her. Because of that her mom doesn't want her to do anything dangerous or be out alone where she doesn't know where she is. Which I thought was understandable. What I didn't like about that though was that her mom was extremely withdrawn towards her and was also very secretive. We also got to see Mila's "friends" (who were more mean girls than friends in my opinion). From there we also get to meet Hunter who is also new to town, and becomes her so-called friends new boyfriend target. Which causes a whole new set of problems that were not even going to get into.
When Mila discovers what she is due to her flying out of the back of a truck thanks to her so-called "friend" driving like a maniac. From there we really start finding out how Mila came to be and exactly what she is and why her mom is so secretive. Now you would have thought that from this point you would become hooked to this book, but instead you just get information dumped on you so fast that it's hard to remember it all, plus Mila's confusion and not wanting to believe it makes it slightly harder to understand as well.
But the craziness didn't end there after coming back from a date with Hunter she finds her house broken into and her mother being held captive due to people wanting her. Which causes Mila to go into what I liked to call Android mode which caused her to become a fighting machine. After that, they go on the run and Mila gets even more information dumped on her.
After awhile they get caught, and taken back to Military secret hide-out and Mila has to undergo many tests to see if they should keep her or not. There we meet several important people including her other creator and his intern (Lucas). I never like her other creator and I was never very trusting of Lucas.
A little after this point (370 pages in) was when I started to somewhat like the book.
I did really feel bad for Mia she was a prisoner in her own body, she was taught to believe she was one thing and then all of a sudden her whole world gets turned upside down and she has an identity crisis (which lasts the whole book). But I also thought she made a lot of dumb decisions (I mean really why would you call someone you've only known for three days when you're on the run!).
Lucas turned out to be an unexpected favorite character for me. I was expecting to hate him, but he actually turned out to be very helpful, and he actually had a heart.
While I'm not sure if I will continue on with the trilogy/series I would like to know what happens to Mila and if she ever is able to do the things her mom wanted her to do.
See more reviews like this on my blog
I really struggled with this book.
In the beginning you have Mila who has moved to a new town due to her father dying in a fire, which causes her mother to become extremely protective of her. Because of that her mom doesn't want her to do anything dangerous or be out alone where she doesn't know where she is. Which I thought was understandable. What I didn't like about that though was that her mom was extremely withdrawn towards her and was also very secretive. We also got to see Mila's "friends" (who were more mean girls than friends in my opinion). From there we also get to meet Hunter who is also new to town, and becomes her so-called friends new boyfriend target. Which causes a whole new set of problems that were not even going to get into.
When Mila discovers what she is due to her flying out of the back of a truck thanks to her so-called "friend" driving like a maniac. From there we really start finding out how Mila came to be and exactly what she is and why her mom is so secretive. Now you would have thought that from this point you would become hooked to this book, but instead you just get information dumped on you so fast that it's hard to remember it all, plus Mila's confusion and not wanting to believe it makes it slightly harder to understand as well.
But the craziness didn't end there after coming back from a date with Hunter she finds her house broken into and her mother being held captive due to people wanting her. Which causes Mila to go into what I liked to call Android mode which caused her to become a fighting machine. After that, they go on the run and Mila gets even more information dumped on her.
After awhile they get caught, and taken back to Military secret hide-out and Mila has to undergo many tests to see if they should keep her or not. There we meet several important people including her other creator and his intern (Lucas). I never like her other creator and I was never very trusting of Lucas.
A little after this point (370 pages in) was when I started to somewhat like the book.
I did really feel bad for Mia she was a prisoner in her own body, she was taught to believe she was one thing and then all of a sudden her whole world gets turned upside down and she has an identity crisis (which lasts the whole book). But I also thought she made a lot of dumb decisions (I mean really why would you call someone you've only known for three days when you're on the run!).
Lucas turned out to be an unexpected favorite character for me. I was expecting to hate him, but he actually turned out to be very helpful, and he actually had a heart.
While I'm not sure if I will continue on with the trilogy/series I would like to know what happens to Mila and if she ever is able to do the things her mom wanted her to do.
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The DUFF: Designated Ugly Fat Friend by Kody Keplinger
2.0
2.75
“No matter where you go or what you do to distract yourself, reality catches up with you eventually.”
I did end up watching the movie first and while this did affect my opinion at first, after awhile I started to think of the book and the movie as two completely different things and enjoyed each of them for very different reasons.
For Bianca her finding out she was the DUFF empowered her in a way and was almost her downfall. She grabbed onto it and clung to it for a while, but she also used it as an excuse for doing certain things. While I did like that she owned up to her slut-shaming and how using Wesley for an escape wasn't the right thing to be doing. I disliked the fact that she just dropped her friends and stopped talking to them when it started to get rough in her family life. Especially when it came to things involving her dad.
Wesley was not a like-able character in the beginning. But as Bianca started liking him I did too and I realized that he had his own problems as well and used certain things as a form of escapism to plus he made a pretty good distraction for Bianca as well. He was also a lot smarter then people give him credit for.
As for Toby I never really liked him all that much. I did see the appeal of him for Bianca, but I mostly saw him as the person that she had been crushing on for so long that her feelings on him most likely wouldn't have still been the same as they were when she first started liking him.
Now I'm not going to lie I hated this book at first due to how Bianca acted in certain situations, how Wesley acted, and how they both escaped their problems. But after awhile I stopped hating it so much and realized that in some messed up way it actually worked and they did end up being better people. I'm also glad that I watched the movie first because I think without it I wouldn't have ever ended up reading this book.
Disclaimer: This book does contain sex and talk of sex but it is not graphic.
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“No matter where you go or what you do to distract yourself, reality catches up with you eventually.”
I did end up watching the movie first and while this did affect my opinion at first, after awhile I started to think of the book and the movie as two completely different things and enjoyed each of them for very different reasons.
For Bianca her finding out she was the DUFF empowered her in a way and was almost her downfall. She grabbed onto it and clung to it for a while, but she also used it as an excuse for doing certain things. While I did like that she owned up to her slut-shaming and how using Wesley for an escape wasn't the right thing to be doing. I disliked the fact that she just dropped her friends and stopped talking to them when it started to get rough in her family life. Especially when it came to things involving her dad.
Wesley was not a like-able character in the beginning. But as Bianca started liking him I did too and I realized that he had his own problems as well and used certain things as a form of escapism to plus he made a pretty good distraction for Bianca as well. He was also a lot smarter then people give him credit for.
As for Toby I never really liked him all that much. I did see the appeal of him for Bianca, but I mostly saw him as the person that she had been crushing on for so long that her feelings on him most likely wouldn't have still been the same as they were when she first started liking him.
Now I'm not going to lie I hated this book at first due to how Bianca acted in certain situations, how Wesley acted, and how they both escaped their problems. But after awhile I stopped hating it so much and realized that in some messed up way it actually worked and they did end up being better people. I'm also glad that I watched the movie first because I think without it I wouldn't have ever ended up reading this book.
Disclaimer: This book does contain sex and talk of sex but it is not graphic.
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The Sound by Sarah Alderson
2.0
"You Should take people as they are. Stop labeling them. You should get to know people before you start judging them. Get to know me before you decide whether you like me or not."
Going into this book I was expecting a mystery and a little bit of romance. Instead, it ended up being the other way around. While I'm not saying this made the book horrible. It was quite enjoyable just not what I was expecting.
I really wanted to like Ren and I did at first, but as the story went on and she became more of a cliche (even though she kept stating that she wouldn't become one) I just couldn't like her as much. I mean come on her main worry was that she thought her thighs were fat, but yet two foreign nannies had been killed a year apart and no one has any idea who the killer could be. But yet all she was worried about was finally losing her virginity to the "right one". Not to mention I thought she was a bit of an idiot when she kept sneaking around with the one person that everyone told her was violent and to stay away from.
As for the two love interests Jeremy and Jesse. I knew which one she would end up with halfway through the book. You could tell that while she did like Jeremy it was nothing compared to her feelings towards Jesse. Plus Jesse had the whole mysterious bad boy thing going for him and Jeremy had jerks as friends that made Ren not feel very welcome or comfortable. Plus he turned out to be a horrible person.
The ending of the book is what saved it for me. I never would have guessed that that was the killer. The person was hardly ever in the story and if they were they never said more than more, then two words to Ren and never seemed interested in her. The way Ren ended up acting though and finally taking action towards the killer made me like her again, and showed that she wasn't as dumb as she had been appearing to be for most of the book.
I could have done without her constantly fantasizing about sleeping with Jesse though.
I really wish that this book would have been advertised more as a Romance then a mystery. Maybe I would have ended up liking it more.
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Going into this book I was expecting a mystery and a little bit of romance. Instead, it ended up being the other way around. While I'm not saying this made the book horrible. It was quite enjoyable just not what I was expecting.
I really wanted to like Ren and I did at first, but as the story went on and she became more of a cliche (even though she kept stating that she wouldn't become one) I just couldn't like her as much. I mean come on her main worry was that she thought her thighs were fat, but yet two foreign nannies had been killed a year apart and no one has any idea who the killer could be. But yet all she was worried about was finally losing her virginity to the "right one". Not to mention I thought she was a bit of an idiot when she kept sneaking around with the one person that everyone told her was violent and to stay away from.
As for the two love interests Jeremy and Jesse. I knew which one she would end up with halfway through the book. You could tell that while she did like Jeremy it was nothing compared to her feelings towards Jesse. Plus Jesse had the whole mysterious bad boy thing going for him and Jeremy had jerks as friends that made Ren not feel very welcome or comfortable. Plus he turned out to be a horrible person.
The ending of the book is what saved it for me. I never would have guessed that that was the killer. The person was hardly ever in the story and if they were they never said more than more, then two words to Ren and never seemed interested in her. The way Ren ended up acting though and finally taking action towards the killer made me like her again, and showed that she wasn't as dumb as she had been appearing to be for most of the book.
I could have done without her constantly fantasizing about sleeping with Jesse though.
I really wish that this book would have been advertised more as a Romance then a mystery. Maybe I would have ended up liking it more.
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Mortal Danger by Ann Aguirre
2.0
Honestly this book was a huge disappointment to me. Going into it I thought it was going to be a story about revenge.. and it was for the first few chapters and then here and their throughout the book. Mostly though I feel like this was a beauty will make everything better, and partially a love story? Their were a few creepy things that happened here and there but they were so random and came out of nowhere that it was slightly confusing at times.
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The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson
4.0
Rating 4.75
“Fear can't hurt you," she said. "When it washes over you, give it no power. It's a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you.”
“Fear can't hurt you," she said. "When it washes over you, give it no power. It's a snake with no venom. Remember that. That knowledge can save you.”
When I first picked this book up to read I was unsure about what exactly was going to happen in it, I knew it was about Jack the Ripper and that was it. What I wasn't expecting was to love it as much as I did.
The first couple of chapters of the book are slightly slow and boring, but if you can get past those then it is all pretty fast paced from their.
What I really loved about this book was the amount of history you learn about the Ripper from the 1888, and how England's police used to work, and when the different branches were started. At points it did get quite graphic when it was talking about the murders and what happened to the bodies.
Spoiler
I think the part that I loved the most about this book was that it wasn't saying this is who did the original murders. It was about a new murder recreating the murders (Which is extremely disturbing to think about happening again).Another part that made me love this book was the protagonist having no idea with to do the majority of the time when it came to dealing with, and handling the problem.
In short if you love well written historical fiction mixed with modern day and a dash of humor then this book is for you.
I can't wait to read the next two books in the series.
The Madness Underneath by Maureen Johnson
This book to me was a slight disappointment compared to the first one. While I knew it most likely wasn't going to have a huge ongoing case like the first book did, I guess I was just hoping for more crime fighting. I did love the book it was just a little to all over the place. Things did pull together in the end for the cases but there were still alot of loose strings. Strings that I have a feeling we wont get tied up in the third book.
I really did love though how Rory struggled with everything and didn't just bounce back like alot of protagnist do. It was refreshing to see her have trouble in school and with her relationships after being stabbed.
I will be reading the third book though due to the fact that I love the way Maureen keeps holding my interest in the characters and whats happening in the series.
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3.0
“After that, I felt like I had two lives. There was the me I had been before the attack, the one people knew and wanted to relate to. The one people wanted to comfort and fix. And there was another me, a hidden me that no one ever saw. There was a me who had tasted death. That me knew things others people didn't know.”
This book to me was a slight disappointment compared to the first one. While I knew it most likely wasn't going to have a huge ongoing case like the first book did, I guess I was just hoping for more crime fighting. I did love the book it was just a little to all over the place. Things did pull together in the end for the cases but there were still alot of loose strings. Strings that I have a feeling we wont get tied up in the third book.
I really did love though how Rory struggled with everything and didn't just bounce back like alot of protagnist do. It was refreshing to see her have trouble in school and with her relationships after being stabbed.
I will be reading the third book though due to the fact that I love the way Maureen keeps holding my interest in the characters and whats happening in the series.
Spoiler
Plus I have to find out whats happened to Stephen, and where in the world Charlotte is been taken off to.See more reviews like this on my blog