Monday, August 18, 2014

Brutal Youth by Anthony Breznican Review


18404289
 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18404289-brutal-youth?utm_medium=email&utm_source=book_recommendation
 
 
Three freshmen must join forces to survive at a troubled, working-class Catholic high school with a student body full of bullies and zealots, and a faculty that's even worse in Anthony Breznican's Brutal Youth

With a plunging reputation and enrollment rate, Saint Michael’s has become a crumbling dumping ground for expelled delinquents and a haven for the stridently religious when incoming freshman Peter Davidek signs up. On his first day, tensions are clearly on the rise as a picked-upon upperclassmen finally snaps, unleashing a violent attack on both the students who tormented him for so long, and the corrupt, petty faculty that let it happen. But within this desperate place, Peter befriends fellow freshmen Noah Stein, a volatile classmate whose face bears the scars of a hard-fighting past, and the beautiful but lonely Lorelei Paskal —so eager to become popular, she makes only enemies.

To even stand a chance at surviving their freshmen year, the trio must join forces as they navigate a bullying culture dominated by administrators like the once popular Ms. Bromine, their embittered guidance counselor, and Father Mercedes, the parish priest who plans to scapegoat the students as he makes off with church finances. A coming-of-age tale reversed, Brutal Youth follows these students as they discover that instead of growing older and wiser, going bad may be the only way to survive.

Brutal Youth is definitely not for everybody. This book was very realistic. This is not one of those movies were the victims end up being the heroes. No. This book was a very authentic painting of the unfair world we live in. It's about adults not caring, about despicable teenagers and good guys not always getting their happy ending. Throughout the book, I had this horrible feeling of sadness and anger. Sadness for these characters that deserved so much better than what they got. And anger because I just wanted to hurt someone! I do think, though that that was what the author wanted to provoke in us the readers. If that's the case then bravo Mr. Breznican, because man, this book brought many strong feelings out of me.

This book was very dark but at the same time very easy to read. One of our main characters, Pete Davidek, was one of the most-refreshing voices I've read in a long time. This kid stayed true to himself and his friends until the very end. I thought after reading some reviews that I was going to hate the ending of the book, but I actually loved it. The ending stayed true to the characters. True to one of the main points of the book (at least to me): good guys not always win, which is actually true. But, that doesn't mean that the "bad guys" won either. I don't want to spoil anything, but I think that it was a great ending. A satisfying ending.

I loved the way Brutal Youth made me feel. Even if it wasn't good feelings it still make me feel something. The characters all made me want to get to know them better even the ones I hated with all my heart because even they had a story. Stories that made me sympathize with them until I remembered their cruel and vile behavior, but the fact that Anthony Breznican made me forget their horrible ways and made me see them as human beings did make me realize how talented of a story teller he is.

I loved Brutal Youth and I think you should give it a try. I listened to the audiobook and thought that the narrator was brilliant. Darkly entertaining, fast-paced and unforgettable characters, I think and hope Brutal Youth will be a favorite for many readers.



Friday, August 15, 2014

LEAD by Kylie Scott Tour: Review

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Stay up all night with the sexy rockers in Stage Dive, the epic New Adult series from New York Times bestselling author Kylie Scott, author of Lick and Play.
 
About Lead (Stage Drive #3):
 
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As the lead singer of Stage Dive, Jimmy is used to getting whatever he wants, whenever he wants it, whether it's booze, drugs, or women. However, when a PR disaster serves as a wake-up call about his life and lands him in rehab, he finds himself with Lena, a new assistant to keep him out of trouble. Lena's not willing to take any crap from the sexy rocker and is determined to keep their relationship completely professional, despite their sizzling chemistry. But when Jimmy pushes her too far and Lena leaves, he realizes that he may just have lost the best thing that ever happened to him.

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I'm sad that I finished LEAD so fast. I'm obsessed with this series! I'm surprised that I enjoyed it so much because I usually get bored with romance series. But these books are so entertaining and the main characters are so different from the past books that it's just impossible not to enjoy reading them.

Like I mentioned before these books are different from each other but LEAD is a little bit more different than the others. For example, Lena, we know that from pretty early on in the book she has a crush on Jimmy. She didn't deny it to herself or to Jimmy. I thought that was refreshing and brave of her. The only thing I didn't like about Lena was that she was a bit submissive. I wanted her to take control of the situation. I wanted her to think about her and her feelings for a second instead of going with whatever Jimmy said. She did take control in the end and it was glorious.

I truly enjoy the love the guys have for each other. Their love is so genuine and you can really tell that they would do anything for one another. I think that's one of the qualities I love the most about this series. I also love the way they open their arms to Lena. I wish I could be part of their crazy family. I truly did enjoy this installment and I can’t wait for the next book in the series!

 
 
 
The Stage Dive series by Kylie Scott:

Lick (Stage Dive #1): Amazon / B&N / Goodreads
Play (Stage Dive #2): Amazon / B&N / Goodreads
Deep (Stage Dive #4) available on January 6th, 2015: Amazon / B&N /Goodreads

Check out more of Kylie's work:
 

Excerpt:

“Lena, you seen my old black Led Zep shirt?”
“Nope.”
“You sure?” His brows became one dark cranky line. The scratches on his face were healing well, thank goodness. Though it didn’t reduce my desire to throttle his mother on a daily basis.
“Yes. I haven’t seen it.”
Can’t find it anywhere…”
“And this is a surprise, how?” I slipped my hands into my back jean’s pockets. “Jimmy, you own more clothing than Cher, Brittney, and Elvis, put together. Things are bound to go missing.”
“Sure you haven’t seen it?”
“For goodness sake, what do you think, Jimmy? That I stole it to sleep in or something?” I laughed bitterly. Sure as hell, the truth deserved a good mocking. I’d sunk so despicably low.
I hadn’t even meant to steal the stupid thing, but the shirt had been mixed up with my laundry a few days ago. It’d been the first top I laid my hand on after stepping out of the shower, ready to go to bed. Without thought, I’d put it on and it’d been so soft, the scent of him lingering beneath the laundry detergent. Every night since, I’d found myself in it come bedtime. My shame knew no limits. And no, I still hadn’t quit. The words still hadn’t come even close to leaving my mouth.
He frowned. “No.”
“That I have some deep secret longing to feel close to you resulting in my stealing your shirt like some creepy perv?”
“Course I don’t fucking think that,” he replied crankily, reaching up to grip the top of the doorframe. All of his bulging muscles stretched the arms of his white T-shirt in the nicest way. It was all I could do not to start drooling, my heart beat taking up residence somewhere down between my thighs. And who could blame it? Not me. Maybe if I got laid, this would go away and things would return to normal. It’d seemed safer to avoid rubbing up against any men just in case I got carried away and started dating again. This new situation, however, changed everything.
“Well, of course not! That would be crazy.” And wasn’t that the god’s honest truth? Cray-zeee. Lock me up and throw away the key because it wasn’t like I didn’t know better.
“Just can’t figure out where the hell it could be.”
Angels couldn’t have smiled as innocently. They might have tried, but they would have failed, the dirty-mouthed, winged, little liars. “Jimmy, I don’t know where it is. But I’ll look around for it later, okay?”
“Yeah,” he said, and then added as an afterthought, “and stop looking at me weird.”
“I’m not!”

About Kylie Scott:
Kylie Scott
 
Kylie is a long time fan of romance, rock music, and B-grade horror films. Based in Queensland, Australia with her two children and one delightful husband, she reads, writes and never dithers around on the internet.

Twitter | Amazon Author Page | Facebook | Goodreads | Website      


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Monday, August 11, 2014

Sinner by Maggie Stiefvater Review

18406862
 
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18406862-sinner


Everybody thinks they know Cole's story. Stardom. Addiction. Downfall. Disappearance. But only a few people know Cole's darkest secret -- his ability to shift into a wolf. One of these people is Isabel. At one point, they may have even loved each other. But that feels like a lifetime ago. Now Cole is back. Back in the spotlight. Back in the danger zone. Back in Isabel's life. Can this sinner be saved?
I tried to stay away from this book. You might be wondering why. Well, I wasn't a fan of the third book in the Mercy Fall series. I did love the first two books, though. I have this love/hate relationship with Maggie's books. I love some of them with a fiery passion (The Raven Cycle, Mercy Fall books 1&2) and loath the rest with the same passion (The Scorpio Races, book 3 in the Mercy Fall series). With me, there's no in between with her books. I feel like she can be very prose-y, sometimes so much that I get lost and end up scratching my head because I feel so lost. But other times her writing makes me want to weep like a little baby because it can be beautiful and so mind blowing that it gives me chills.

I’m happy to tell you that I loved Sinner with all my heart! It was easy and perfect. Her writing style blew me away once again and went hand in hand with the characters. And this book is all about the characters. I loved how Isabel and Cole’s story took center stage. There’s not much going on that doesn’t have to do with them and I loved that. They were always my favorite characters in the other books in the series and I always thought that there wasn’t enough of them in the books. Well, we get a LOT of Cole and Isabel in Sinner.

I’m happy I gave Sinner a try. There’s a lot of angst, swoony moments, a little bit of wolf and awesome new characters that will make your heart melt, I’m looking at you adorable Leon! If you love Maggie, then you’ll love this book.


 

Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Pic2Book Wednesday Challenge #103

Guess the Book Title




This is a weekly challenge where you guess the book title just by looking at the pictures. This game is inspired by the game Scene it? and it's one of my favorite challenges in it! If you want to participate and don't want any spoilers don't read the comments. I'll post the answer of this challenge in next week's challenge.

What's this book's title?

Hints:
  • This book is 376 pages long
  • L.S. are the author's initials
  • This book was published on June, 2014
 
Only for emergencies!!!
 

You will find the book's title in this list.



One Plus One by Jojo Moyes
One Plus One




Thanks to:  

 
 
Jessica Haluska, Missie, Kindlemom, Giselle & Marianne Robles
 For participating in last week's challenge!
 
 
 
 
 
 

Monday, August 4, 2014

Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock by Matthew Quick

13477676

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13477676-forgive-me-leonard-peacock?from_search=true


How would you spend your birthday if you knew it would be your last?

Eighteen-year-old Leonard Peacock knows exactly what he'll do. He'll say goodbye.

Not to his mum - who he calls Linda because it annoys her - who's moved out and left him to fend for himself. Nor to his former best friend, whose torments have driven him to consider committing the unthinkable. But to his four friends: a Humphrey-Bogart-obsessed neighbour, a teenage violin virtuoso, a pastor's daughter and a teacher.

Most of the time, Leonard believes he's weird and sad but these friends have made him think that maybe he's not. He wants to thank them, and say goodbye.
 

This book was emotionally hard to read but at the same time I couldn't stop reading it. When I found out what Leonard was planning to do, I almost put the book down. It made me rethink if I wanted to read the book or not. But then the more I read, the more I didn't want to put it down. Leonard is so so charming that it made me forget that he was depressed. He's personality made me love him and made me wonder why didn't everybody love him, especially his mom. I detest bad mothers, in books and in real life. And Leonard's mom was the worst kind of mom. I will stop, because my whole review will be about how big of a bitch that woman was.

I enjoy Matthew Quick's writing. It's very realistic and hard breaking but at the same time humorous and smart. The pacing was equally as good. There're some flashbacks here and there, and I usually don't enjoy those, but it was so well done. The book really needed to go back for us to see the whole picture and understand the way Leonard was acting. I wanted to hug him so bad!

I loved everything about this book, but my favorite part were the Letters from the future. Those letters made me happy, laugh and the last one made me cry. I still get a little emotional when I think about it. I still can't get Leonard out of my head, he was such a strong character that it just makes it hard to forget him. If you are looking for an emotional and kind of funny read then Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock is the book you should read next.





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