January Love Stacks Giveaway

What better way to start off the new year than with a giveaway and some of my favorite books? I loved them so much that one of them even made it onto my top 5 reads of 2015 list.

If you’re new to my Love Stacks giveaways, here is a little bit about them: Love Stacks giveaways are monthly giveaways hosted by me, using gently loved ARC copies provided by Liberty Bay Books. The giveaways are open to entries for the entire duration of the month, and it is possible for an individual to win multiple different months’ prizes. All winners are chosen randomly by Rafflecopter. Winners MUST BE U.S. RESIDENTS.

Winnings Include:

• One ARC copy of The Way We Bared Our Souls by Willa Strayhorn
• One ARC copy of Passenger by Alexandra Bracken
• One ARC copy of Endure by Sara B. Larson

Good luck and happy reading!
a Rafflecopter giveaway

All The Major Constellations

All The Major Constellations

by Pratima Cranse

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Format: Paperback

Source: Liberty Bay Books

Expected Date of Publication: November 10th 2015

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Laura Lettel is the most beautiful girl in the world. . . and Andrew’s not-so-secret infatuation.

Now he’s leaving high school behind and looking ahead to a fresh start at college and distance from his obsessive crush. But when a terrible accident leaves him without the companionship of his two best friends, Andrew is cast adrift and alone—until Laura unexpectedly offers him comfort, friendship, and the support of a youth group of true believers, fundamentalist Christians with problems and secrets of their own. Andrew is curiously drawn to their consuming beliefs, but why? Is it only to get closer to Laura? And is Laura genuinely interested in Andrew, or is she just trying to convert him?

***

I have been dying to get this review out to you guys. I read All the Major Constellations all the way back in July and finally get to share my thoughts.

Andrew was a wonderfully lost and snarky soul. In some ways he, as well as some of the other characters, and some events of the book, gave off a little bit of a Perks of Being a Wallflower vibe. He, much like this book, is one of those that you either love or you hate, and I grew to love him. He was a wonderfully flawed character and an extremely interesting narrator because of his occasional tendency to drift towards becoming an unreliable narrator in a sense.

The plot had the perfect amount of complexity and wasn’t as predictable as I’d worried it may end up being. It was a wild ride that was as dramatic as it was entertaining. While it may have been more intense than everyday life is for most people, it didn’t bother me too much because I felt that it addressed some extremely important social and emotional issues.

The book was written with this sort of dry sense of humor woven in. It was very interesting to read and very well done. Some of the issues and the stances on them combined with the dry and sarcastic writing gave it the potential to offend people, if they don’t go into the book with a particular mindset. Personally, I loved that about it and wasn’t offended in the least. I thought it was fantastic how fearlessly and genuinely Cranse wrote and genuinely admire her as an author.

Last Thoughts: I would definitely recommend reading it and if you decide to, I’d love to hear your thoughts on it. It is a very unique book and left an impression on me; isn’t a book I’ll be forgetting about anytime soon. Four out of five stars.

Gif Consensus: 

Add it on Goodreads

Buy it from Liberty Bay Books

Love Hurts, Accidents Happen, and Dolls are Creepy

  The Accident Season

by Moira Fowley-Doyle

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom.

The accident season has been part of seventeen-year-old Cara’s life for as long as she can remember. Towards the end of October, foreshadowed by the deaths of many relatives before them, Cara’s family becomes inexplicably accident-prone. They banish knives to locked drawers, cover sharp table edges with padding, switch off electrical items – but injuries follow wherever they go, and the accident season becomes an ever-growing obsession and fear.

But why are they so cursed? And how can they break free?

I still can’t quite figure out how I feel about this book. It is unique for sure and sent shivers up my spine, but for some inexplicable reason, I didn’t quite connect with it as deeply as one would hope.

The storyline was truly one of a kind, I haven’t even heard of any other book like this. It is a wonderfully fantastical concept, and I’d love to know what inspired it. This book turned out to have so many more dimensions to it than I thought it would after reading the synopsis. It was so eerie. I had no idea it was going to go so far in that direction, but I was very happy it took that turn for the better.

The creep factor was very well done. The Accident Season was full of magic and mystery and intrigue, all of my favorite things. The entire book was spine tingling and filled with beautiful yet haunting scenes that had me checking over my shoulder everywhere I went.

The characters were kind of impossible not to love as a group. They were all really well written for each other and their closeness was really sweet and refreshing to read about. You have the sisters Cara and Alice and their “ex-step brother” Sam, and then their best friend Bea. I loved how this book and this set of characters really showed some amazing messages about family not always being by blood.

The romance was sweet, but not really a favorite of mine. It was done realistically and was well founded and such, but there were moments of it that kind of annoyed me for some reason. Maybe because of the predictability and all the moments where you figure something out before the characters do and are left sitting there rolling your eyes. There wasn’t enough of these incidents to ruin the book for me or anything, but the romance plot held quite a few of them, enough to get on my nerves and keep me from totally and completely loving it.

Unfortunately, the plot occasionally fell pray to the same predictability problems. Thankfully, it was never in too big of a way. It never ruined any big moments, so I guess I’ll have to forgive and forget.

The writing was sweepingly beautiful, and did a great job of weaving together deep emotions and messages with fin, magic, and mystery. Like the book, the writing was both stunning and one of a kind. It was full of absolutely amazing imagery and passion that tugs at your heartstrings.

Last Words: This book is brimming with magic, mystery, and thrill. It is a truly fantastical tale written with deeply impassioned writing that will whisk you away into a unique and eldritch world, that unfortunately I still don’t completely understand. Maybe that is why I didn’t quite connect with it as solidly as I would have liked to, there were still a few holes for me and I prefer a complete pictured. Other than that and the predictability I found this book to be absolutely stunning and a veritable powerhouse. I’d definitely recommend it because it is so one of a kind and pretty much indescribable, it is definitely one have to read for yourself, and with an open mind. I gave it a solid four out of five stars.

Goodreads and Liberty Bay Books.

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Yin Loves Yang

Everything Everything

by Nicola Yoon

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Format: Paperback ARC

Source: Liberty Bay Books

Expected Date of Publication: September 1, 2015

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My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in seventeen years. The only people I ever see are my mom and my nurse, Carla.

But then one day, a moving truck arrives next door. I look out my window, and I see him. He’s tall, lean and wearing all black—black T-shirt, black jeans, black sneakers, and a black knit cap that covers his hair completely. He catches me looking and stares at me. I stare right back. His name is Olly.

Maybe we can’t predict the future, but we can predict some things. For example, I am certainly going to fall in love with Olly. It’s almost certainly going to be a disaster.

***

Yes, this book was not without some bothersome flaws. But I must say that it was so adorably touching and sweet that although I found somethings irritating, they didn’t stop me from loving this book to bits and pieces.

Lets start off with the issues I had:

1. Why was everything white? Making things white doesn’t make them less allergenic! I don’t know if this was some weird literary device thing and it was just a huge metaphor for her life? If it was, that was just too deep to make all the white stuff ok, or normal.

2. The no touching rule made absolutely no sense. Clara and Maddy’s mom touched Maddy regularly despite living and working outside the house then going through the whole decontamination thing before entering the house again. Maddy’s teacher and Olly also live and work outside and go through the same decontamination system but are forbidden from touching her because it could be so detrimental to her health. That is a direct conflict of logic if I ever read one.

3. The relationship suddenly began progressing extremely fast. Don’t get me wrong almost all of it was the epitome of adorableness and sweetness but the relationship started moving way too fast for my taste towards the end.

Now let’s move on to something more fun to talk about, all the things I loved!

1. The voice  of the writing was surprisingly clever and funny. I found myself laughing out loud at some parts which is extremely rare for me.

2. The format was also insanely clever and funny, in fact how it was formatted/written is really what brought out more of that humorous voice. There were funny lists, drawings and diagrams in between chapters and it was a great way to tell the story and delve into Maddy’s character.

3. It moved at a surprisingly fast pace, but I couldn’t help but love that about it. It was something different and it was well done.

4. Maddy+Olly. They might just be one of my new favorite literary couples. They were so, nearly unbearably, sweet. They were cute and awkward and heartwarming. There was no way not to love them, both as individuals and as a couple!

5. The story and the writing were both extremely full of life, emotion, and strong imagery. It had a vibrancy that many other books strive for but don’t quite manage to achieve as well as Nicola Yoon did in Everything, Everything. 

6. THE ENDING! Oh my stars, the ending! It was a complete surprise and the perfect twist. It was so utterly stunning and brought everything about the story together. It was heartbreaking but at the same time, everything you wanted to hear, a flawless and passionate antithesis. It very well could have been my favorite ending of all time, and my favorite part of the book.

Last Words: Everything, Everything is a breathtaking tale of growing up, living, and self discovery with a romance that will have you grinning from ear to ear. This story is everything from heartwarming to heartbreaking in all the best of ways. Despite some flaws in logic, it managed to sweep me off my feet. I give it 4.5 out of 5 stars.

 Goodreads and Liberty Bay Books.

Gif. Consensus:

An Epic Tale of Navigating The Mutual Friendzone

Better Off Friends

by Elizabeth Eulberg

For Macallan and Levi, it was friends at first sight. Everyone says guys and girls can’t be just friends, but these two are. They hang out after school, share tons of inside jokes, their families are super close, and Levi even starts dating one of Macallan’s friends. They are platonic and happy that way.

Eventually they realize they’re best friends — which wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t keep getting in each other’s way. Guys won’t ask Macallan out because they think she’s with Levi, and Levi spends too much time joking around with Macallan, and maybe not enough time with his date. They can’t help but wonder . . . are they more than friends or are they better off without making it even more complicated?

Better Off Friends was just the fun summer read I was looking for. It had the perfect balance of comedy, drama, and nerdy fun.

Cait from Paper Fury would appreciate the abundance of food. Macallan was always baking and her friends were always eating, the combination was perfect. Macallan and all of her friends were realistic and light hearted and  their families were actually in the picture! It was amazing, all of them were well developed and realistic. They actually seemed like real teens with real teen drama and problems, interests, and lives. Which made it a lot easier to connect with and relate to them. I loved every single one of the characters even the antagonists because they were so well done and nothing was black and white like it often is in fiction, intentions and actions get jumbled sometimes and not everything is as clear cut as it appears in media and this book’s characters reflected that.

I loved the way the book was formatted. To me, the way it was written and formatted is what made it as good as it was. Between the chapters that alternated POV, there were inserts with conversation between Macallan and Levi talking about what you just read in the last chapter. It was cool to read their thoughts looking back on their past and hearing and seeing all that how the other had at the time. It also added a lot of humor to the book and even had me chuckling (out loud!) at times.

The plot was well done, not too cheesy and dramatic, not too predictable. It was complex but not convoluted and flowed along beautifully.

Last Words: This book is as good as romantic comedy gets. It was a blast to read and perfectly satisfied my summer craving for something sweet and funny. It was surprisingly touching and actually had some pretty deep themes for being the fun and relatively short book it was. Heartwarming, and funny, with just the right amount of awkward, Better Off Friends  is the perfect YA read for romance snobs and grudging fans alike. So go on now, read it! You never know you might just love it.

I give it 4.5 stars out of 5.

Liberty Bay Books and Goodreads.

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Prison, Pizza, and Love

 Saint Anything 

by Sarah Dessen

Peyton, Sydney’s charismatic older brother, has always been the star of the family, receiving the lion’s share of their parents’ attention and—lately—concern. When Peyton’s increasingly reckless behavior culminates in an accident, a drunk driving conviction, and a jail sentence, Sydney is cast adrift, searching for her place in the family and the world. When everyone else is so worried about Peyton, is she the only one concerned about the victim of the accident?
Enter the Chathams, a warm, chaotic family who run a pizza parlor, play bluegrass on weekends, and pitch in to care for their mother, who has multiple sclerosis. Here Sydney experiences unquestioning acceptance. And here she meets Mac, gentle, watchful, and protective, who makes Sydney feel seen, really seen, for the first time.

***

Source: Liberty Bay Books 

Format: Paperback ARC

***

 More and more I find myself venturing into the romance and contemporary genres, and more and more I find myself liking the books I picked (from those genres). I found Saint Anything to be a heartwarming and sweet and emotional tale that was rich with feeling.

The characters were exquisitely built and developed. They were very realistic and none of them were unnecessary and nearly all of them seemed like major characters because they were so detailed and well written that as a reader, I got to know them really well. I can’t even pick favorites because they were all so dear to me from the very start. Mac was definitely one of my favorite characters.

The plot was really well strung together. It wasn’t too predictable or complex and didn’t follow the typical dramatic ups and downs of traditional stories. I found myself so enamored with the rest of the story that I wasn’t thinking too hard about the plot. I moved along easily and smoothly, I had no problems with it.

The writing was exquisitely well done. Once again, I find that I have nothing bad to say about it really.

Last Words: This was the first Sarah Dessen book I’ve ever read, but if all her books are as good as this one was, I’d read them all. This book has made me an unashamed lover of romance. I highly recommend it and give it 5 out of 5 stars.

 

Goodreads and Liberty Bay Books.

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