Boys Like You by Juliana Stone

Boys Like You by Juliana Stone is a cute summer read with a lot of predictable and cliche elements, but still engaging enough to keep me reading. It's the story of "two broken souls... one hot summer" where two teens, Monroe and Nathan, both struggling with guilt over past tragedy, find each other in the way that pretty much only happens in YA novels.

Although romance is expected as soon as I picked up Boys Like You, I still felt like it was too sudden with the love and quite predictable and didn't have enough intensity and build it. It also felt like it was based only on physical attraction (at least at first), but the author wanted you to think it was deeper. But other than the fact that they both had dark secrets, they really didn't seem to have that much in common. That said, I really did enjoy reading Nate's perspective, while I had more difficulty connecting to Monroe, possibly because her secret was a mystery even to the reader. I think knowing what Monroe was hiding earlier would have made her more sympathetic and would have allowed for more development of what she had gone through and her recovery, as happened with Nate. Still, Monroe's secret was a bit different for a YA novel, while Nate's was more expected.

I also had an issue with the ending which was just too perfect and not at all realistic. However I ultimately did believe Nate and Monroe had a genuine connection, so even though there were a lot of difficulties with the story, there was enough there that made Boys Like You a cute and fun read overall. 

Release Date: May 6th 2014 Pages: 288  Format: ARC
Source: Publisher  Publisher: Sourcebooks  Buy It: Book Depository

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

I enjoy fairy tale retellings, but when it comes to Beauty and the Beast, there has just been a ton that at this point something has to be pretty cool to catch my attention. Well, Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge is pretty cool, and I am so glad it caught my attention as my friend Ambur and I decided to buddy read this book together.

How much did I love this book? Well, after finishing Cruel Beauty I posted this to my Goodreads account: UGH SO GOOD. I don't usually give books stars, but this needs five.

Cruel Beauty is the story of Nyx, a girl promised to marry the Gentle Lord, basically the Demon King, and since birth she has known she will marry him, and that it is her job to kill him and break the curse he has put on her people. But when she turns seventeen and enters his castle, she finds that the Gentle Lord, Ignifex, is not what she expected. And he has secrets. Secrets that may be the key to doing what she promised to do-- but doing so may also destroy the one she loves. 

I love a lot of things about this novel, including, most importantly, the writing. Hodge brings magical rooms to life, and creates realistic and flawed characters. Nyx isn't perfect, but she's strong, sometimes to the point of being stubborn. There's also some complex mystery involved, although I did see the final twist coming, I really enjoyed getting there. There were also enough secrets that I didn't know to keep me satisfied overall.  

All of Hodge's worldbuilding and history just felt natural, it flowed easily and it never felt like an info-dump or unnecessary detail. Overall, Cruel Beauty was a smashing success for me and I am definitely going to pick up whatever Hodge writes next.  

Release Date: January 28th 2014 Pages: 342  Format: Egalley
Source: Edelweiss  Publisher: Blazer + Bray  Buy It: Book Depository

Pawn by Aimee Carter

In Pawn by Aimee Carter Kitty Doe lives in a world where people are ranked, and being given a III means a short life of misery. When she has the chance to become a VII, the highest rank possible, she takes it. What she doesn't realize is that agreeing means becoming Masked-- surgically transformed into the Lila Hart, a member of the royal family who died and whose family doesn't want the public to know. It turns out the reason she died was that she was helping start a rebellion, and it's up to Kitty to stop it. But what happens if it's a rebellion she believes in as well?

Unfortunately, even though it had a really cool concept I had a lot of issues with Pawn. Kitty is a pretty weak character a lot of the times (or she is randomly strong in a way that doesn't seem consistent) and she just does things like going with the government to become a VII without knowing at all what that entails. It's also one of those books where the whole point is that everyone has secrets and Kitty doesn't know them and has to find things out. So basically at the end of the book, not much has actually happened, but Kitty knows a lot more, setting it up for book 2. That said, there was enough intensity and intrigue in Pawn to keep my attention and keep me reading.

I expected Pawn to really be about a rebellion, but it was mainly about a royal family and dynamics, set in a dystopian world. The dystopia itself was pretty predictable, borrowing lots of elements like the caste system from many other books. I also felt like most of the characters didn't have a lot of depth, and I didn't really believe or enjoy the romance element and am glad it wasn't bigger in the book. I never really got the connection between Kitty and Benjy, except that they were together because they lived in the same house.  

Pawn by Aimee Carter is a book with a great concept that it unfortunately doesn't really deliver on and instead works mainly to set up for a sequel instead of having much content on its own. However, there was enough interesting aspects that I will be picking up the sequel when it is released.


Release Date: November 26th 2013 Pages: 346  Format: Egalley
Source: Netgalley  Publisher: Harlequin TEEN  Buy It: Book Depository

You Are Not Here by Samantha Schutz

I just love my novels in verse, so when I had a chance to pick one free book out of any, I instantly went for You Are Not Here by Samantha Schutz. I'm not sure why I waited until that moment to pick up a copy, but it was an easy choice. You Are Not Here is the story of Annaleah, after the death of Brian, the boy she loved but who never quite made their relationship official. As a result, Annaleah ended up ditching her friends, and when Brian dies she finds herself alone.

Even though he is already dead by the time You Are Not Here starts, I definitely wasn't a fan of Brian and the way that he treated Annaleah, but at the same time, it felt like she should almost no better. Of course, she is a teenager and it is much easier to judge from the outside than inside that feeling of first love. In terms of emotion and grieving, Schutz captures it very well with her verse, the complicated balance between mourning and moving on, and the feelings that Annaleah has for Brian. Perhaps as a result, You Are Not Here feels like a very personal book, and the other characters do not have much dimension to them, and their relationship with Annaleah is less strong.

Overall, I thought Schutz did an excellent job with the verse in You Are Not Here as well as capturing emotion in a vivid way, so that even though the other characters and storyline could have been stronger, I would still be interested in reading more from Schutz in the future.

Release Date: October 1st 2010 Pages: 292  Format: Ebook
Source: Personal  Publisher: Push  Buy It: Book Depository

Ocean by Sue Goyette

One of my absolute favourite books of 2013 was one that managed not to get a review (although I did include it in my top 10 books list) so I am back to say a few words about Ocean by Sue Goyette, a book of poetry that you absolutely must pick up! 

This book feels like a complete summary of the ocean and its impact. It’s a story, a community, one breathing tidal wave. There’s a certain humour to some of the poems, “One” plays on water-related words, mentioning a ‘tidal wave of disruption’ or ‘being out of our depths’. The playfulness of the words is mimicked by the oblivion of the house-searching individuals contained within the poem. Other poems have similar puns, such as "Thirty", where 'joy was tidal and anger came in waves'.

Sometimes the ocean is something to feared, other times it is joyous or even, in “Two”, it is a 'fashionable accessory for our vacation wardrobe' that isn’t quite as flawless as it appears. In “Eight” the ocean is something that must be fed, and that “the trick to building houses was making sure/ they didn’t taste good.” There are a few poems without oceans or water, like “Eleven” a poem about bees, but most of the rest tell a story using ocean, which is understandably that is the major focus of the collection. Trees also become beings, alive in Goyette's words. Flickering imagery. Old men beneath the ocean and 'the ocean is the original mood ring' in "Seventeen". Even as we fear the ocean, we are drawn towards it, and the same could be said of Goyette's captivating words.

Release Date: April 2013 Pages: 80  Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher  Publisher: Gaspereau Press   Buy It: Book Depository