A Book Lover's Corner

I received an ebook copy via NetGalley from the publisher for an honest review, but in no way am I being compensated for my honest opinion. 

 

I just want to say that this has easily become one of my top reads of 2015. The Choiceis beautifully written, and so powerful with its message. My interpretation of the message (every book has a different message for each of its readers) is that time heals everything. Life can be cruel and cold, but with time events can be reflected upon and a sense of peace can be created. Most of the time we think time is working against us, because we never know what tomorrow will bring. Time has lost our appreciation when really it deserves our utmost respect. Has anyone heard of the saying, "Time heals all wounds?" I have no idea who said it, but whoever said it was right. The time might be two days, a few months, or 10 years, but there will come a day when the past can be let go. I read The Choice from start to finish in one seating, and it left me sitting in stunned silence. I was exhausted after I read this book in the best possible way ever! Kennedy takes your emotions on one hell of a ride called reality. 

 

The Choice is a story about a 17 year old girl, May, who is raped and conceives the rapist's child. She keeps the rape a secret, and tries to process through the emotions she is feeling by herself. Then she struggles with whether or not she should abort her unborn child. Kennedy tackles two tough and emotional topics, and does so tactfully. She shows no favor to either side of each topic, if anything she includes every side. 

 

I loved the style The Choice was written in. Throughout the book, May in present day reflects on how she is now, and then reflects on what happened when she was raped and the days that followed.  This particular formatting allows us to see where she starts with all the emotions and years later how she has grown and healed. 

 

To be honest with you guys, this review isn't giving any justice to this book. The book drips with raw emotions. You feel May's pains and struggles. You will shed tears and your heart will be jerked in all different directions. When you finally start thinking that everything will be okay something else is thrown into the pot causing everything to go wrong again. The Choice covers difficult and controversial topics, but I encourage you to choose to read this book. Kennedy's writing walks you side by side with May, and makes you wish you could actually be there for her in real life. 

I received an e-copy through Xpresso Book Tours for review, but in no way was I compensated for my opinion. 

 

Guys. I found a new favorite that I need to add to my collection of paranormal/thriller/scary/looking over my shoulder books. It's probably been a good hour to hour and a half since I have finished the book, and I am still looking over my shoulder and jumping at the littlest sounds. You know how freaked out I am? I went outside to get the mail, and my neighbor was out and she was all like "hey Meredith! Isn't it a gorgeous day?" and I literally squealed (Yeah, no I won't deny it), grabbed the mail, and ran back inside. 

 

The way the book started I did not think I would like it so much. Amy, the narrator, just moved to Narrowdale and all she did was complain. She complained about the hot temperatures, the broken air conditioner, her brother, the house being small, how every house looked the same, and on and on and on. What really bugged me was how she treated the two people who were trying to be her friends. Sure, they weren't the coolest of people, but that shouldn't matter when they are the nicest people and the only ones that are welcoming at her new school. 

 

I think I just needed to get used to the author's writing style, which I ended up loving. You definitely come across funny commentary as well as commentary that is dripping in sarcasm. Amy and I bonded over the fact we both have sarcastic humor. We're best buds now. Mmmhmmm. Anyway, the writing style is super unique, and makes this book what it is. Amy has the same nightmare every night, sometimes even multiple times a not. Someone is following her in the dreams, and she only wakes up when she is overtaken by her pursuer. Throughout the book, we are sent back into the past during her dreams as well as dreams she has during the day that are about a young woman being kidnapped. There is no apparent transition to let us know that we are now entering a dream. Amy will be talking, and then all of sudden we are re-living the nightmare or a new twist to the nightmare. Having no transitions adds to the creepiness and urgency of the story.

 

Another cool aspect to the book is that there are live links that will take you to Amy's actual blog she writes during the book. There's only a few links, but I thought that was such an awesome way to make the book more interactive. 

 

Even though the beginning started out a bit tedious, the majority of the book kept me in suspense. I haven't been this scared in a long time, nor had such a feeling of urgency to find out what was going on and why it was happening. I recommendSleepless to all thriller, paranormal, suspense fans out there who enjoy constantly looking over their shoulder!

I received an e-copy via YA Bound Book Tours in exchange for a honest review. 

 

For some strange reason I didn't read the part about how this is the third book in a series, but once I figured that out things made more sense to why certain topics weren't being explained more. For example, Rose, the narrator, kept referring to the parking lot scene that got Jamie kicked out of school. Every time she mentioned it I was lost, but then I thought oh it's probably being escalated up to. Then for some reason I'm looking at the email I was sent and see that it's the third book. Even with that knowledge, I feel like No More Confessions could be a stand alone with the exception that you miss out on the history of Jamie and Rose's relationship. It is easy to make your own assumptions about their past though. 

 

I enjoyed watching the relationship between Rose and Jamie. For all of youConfessions veterans, you all probably enjoyed it even more than I did just because you have been with these two from the very beginning. I could easily pick up that Jamie cared and was protective of Rose, especially in the first bedroom scene in the book. Talk about heart melting. I have heard that Rose was more of a bad girl in the previous two books. Let me know if she is, because I would love to read them to see how she is as a bad girl. I want to see that dynamic with Jamie. 

 

Rozett covers alcoholism and the impacts of the war in Iraq on families of soldiers as well as soldiers themselves. She writes about both topics with great messages. The message for alcoholism is how it's never your fault if a loved one increases their drinking. The individual makes the decision to turn to the bottle and not receive proper help. The lesson about the war is to not stop living your life when you lose someone to a war or in general. If anything live your life even harder. 

 

I definitely will be reading the first two books in the near future, so some of the holes that I have can be filled. Otherwise, I feel No More Confessions is a great story about taking a step back to focus on yourself, while you figure out your own demons. And yes, even if that means stepping back from the one you love for awhile. 

I had been seeing I Am Princess X floating around lately in the blog-o-sphere, so when I saw it at my library I decided to go ahead and pick it up. I don't have any big problems with the book, because the whole concept and story were pretty good. A bit random, but still entertaining. My biggest thing that kept throwing me, especially in the beginning when we meet Libby and May as kids, was how they were in fifth grade but they spoke like high schoolers. As the book went on, I kept thinking that the characters were older or younger at times, because of the way they spoke. 

 

I Am Princess X is written in third person and follows May, Libby's best friend, and Trick, a computer nerd who helps May track down Libby's whereabouts. I highly enjoyed reading from the third person point of view, because I have been reading a lot of books written in the first person. It was a nice change to be outside of the character's head for once. I will admit that third person makes it a bit harder to grow close to the characters, but I felt Priest did a great job portraying the emotions we should be having as the story progresses. Emotions, such as, fear, worry, and being in suspense along with the characters. The book is split into chapters with the majority of them following May as she tries to decipher the clues that she finds in the I Am Prince X web-comic. However, every once in awhile a chapter would follow Trick to see what he was up to with the whole mystery of Needle Man, Libby's captor. 

 

Since the novel was written in third person, it is a bit hard for you to truly get to know the characters. May is a determined girl who is searching for her should be dead best friend from three years ago. Libby, maybe or maybe not alive best friend, and her created a comic I Am Princess X when they were in fifth grade. May would do the writing, and Libby would do all the drawing. They continued to create scenarios for Princess X up until the point that Libby died...supposedly. We know that May's parents split soon after Libby's death, and now May goes back and forth between them. That's it though. Same goes for Trick. He is the pure definition of a computer nerd. He has this huge set up that lets him do all kinds of crazy things that you wouldn't be able to do with a normal computer. We know he had a full ride to University of Washington, but that was revoked when he didn't think through his actions too well while dealing with anger. We also know that he is on the short side, and it's something that has always and will always bother him. 

 

I love how the comic is dispersed through the novel, and how the clues are hidden in the comic for May to find in order to locate Libby. The comic also tells how the Needle Man kidnapped Libby for his reasons, and how he is on the hunt for her again since she ran away. Reading the comic was probably my favorite part of the book! I would recommend I Am Princess X to suspense lovers and cat and mouse chase lovers. This book will definitely not be for everyone, however I encourage everyone to give it a chance. 

I'm finding that Daughter of Deep Silence is one of those books for me that I am at a lost of words, because I am blown away from how amazing this book is. I literally finished the book with my mouth opening and closing like a goldfish. I did my usual routine of writing down my immediate thoughts upon finishing the book. I have now come back several hours later to see what my thoughts are like (they're the same :D ), but now I want to formulate what I'm feeling perfectly to you guys. So here's for trying!

 

Our narrator for the whole novel is Francis Mace...I mean, Libby...Francis...Got you confused didn't I? Let's try this again, shall we? Francis is living Libby's life. To all who know her, she is Libby. Libby is outgoing, full of energy, and all eyes are always on her. Francis is the opposite. She is duller, and is second to Libby. Always. Even after the real Libby is dead, Francis is second. I'll refer to the narrator as FL to make things easier. FL for four years learns everything about everyone who was involved with the Persephone cruise ship sinking. For four years she plots out every move she will make to every minute it will take to get the real truth out of the Senator and his son, Grey, who are the other two survivors of the cruise ship. That's one thing that made this book fantastic was how meticulous and calculated FL was in all of her actions, even when she was put on the spot! 

 

Grey, the Senator's son, and FL had a relationship on the cruise ship before the attack took place. Four years later, and FL's anger and desire for revenge is unbelievably strong. She won't even consider that maybe Grey was forced to lie about what actually took place during the attack of the cruise ship during the interviews after being rescued five days before her and Libby. She lost her family, and he got to keep his. She wants revenge. Shepherd is Libby's, the real Libby, adopted older brother who FL has avoided for four years, but can't since she returns home. He is cold and suspicious of her. Is she the real Libby? Be careful FL, your tightly twined ball of a plan may become unraveled. The relationship between Grey, Shepherd, and FL was a bit weird (worked perfectly for the book), because both guys technically were in love with FL. Grey thought Francis was dead, so he was now in love with Libby, but really he was still falling in love with Francis. Shepherd was still in love with Libby, which is who Francis was pretending to be. So, as you can see I thought there was going to be this uncomfortable love triangle contraption happening, but due to certain events we totally detoured from that first assumption. 

 

Now let's talk about THAT ENDING. The ending is the main reason why I was left gaping like a fish. I'm so curious/anxious to what happens to everyone. The letter FL writes to Grey. You seriously cannot leave a book anymore open-ended than that. I wish I could explain so much more about it, but it wouldn't be as powerful/shocking/heart-wrenching since a) you haven't read the whole story and b) I would blow the ending. Once you guys read this book (if you decide to) let me know so we can freak out about the ending together!!!!!

 

Daughter of Deep Silence kept me in suspense from page one to the last word on the last page. I loved being in the head of FL, because I felt I was right there with her planning out our next move to bring revenge...errr I mean justice...oh who am I kidding!...revenge to those who rightly deserved to be punished. The whole story was devious, calculated, and full of twists. Besides revenge, you have a character who is struggling with finding herself after being someone for four years that she isn't. Would you guys switch lives with a dead girl if that meant you would have a father figure, a house, money? As a result, she doesn't know who she can trust. 

 

If I learned one thing from Daughter of Deep Silence it would be this: Revenge is sweet, but there are times when it's better to turn the other cheek and move on. You only have so much time on this earth, so use your time by doing stuff you love not by concerning yourself by upping the person who did you wrong.