Romancing the Throne, Nadine Jolie Courtney

Romancing the Throne by Nadine Joline Courtney

I am OBSESSED with Royal romances. It started a couple of years ago when I read The Royal We by Heather Cocks and Jessica Morgan. I just fell in love with the whole concept of falling in love with princes and having friends that have always lived well because of the old money they have always lived surrounded by. But honestly, what I really like is all the drama that always surrounded these characters and these stories. I mean, everything that happened in the story was eventually going to cause drama. After completely falling in love with everyone in The Royal We and obsessing myself with the royal story, I was craving for more. So, I started researching books that were similar. Honestly, I had such a long journey, I read The Heair and the Spare by Emily Albright and that didn´t end well because I liked the story, but I thought that the story was just too similar in a lot of parts to my favorite royal-romance novel, but not really fun like The Royal We.
That´s why when I first knew about Romancing the Throne, I was hesitant to read it. I knew that the story was somewhat going to be different from The Royal We since in this novel two sisters want to date the prince, but there was also another part of me that wasn´t sure about reading that type of novel because I knew that I would feel uncomfortable reading the novel and rooting for a couple knowing that her sister was also in love with the same guy, but honestly, it somehow worked in this novel and I am going to explain how later.
Romancing the Throne by Nadine Joline Courtney tells the story of Charlotte and Libby. Charlotte attends a private school with some of the teenagers that will become the most important people on Earth, including Edward, the prince. On the other hand, Libby attends an all-girl school that is the most competitive academically.
During summer break, Charlotte is invited to a party at India´s, one of Edward´s close friend, house. When Charlotte gets there, she sparks a conversation with Edward and they end up together the whole night and Charlotte goes home thinking that her chance to be Edward´s girlfriend has finally come.
But suddenly, Libby´s school is involved in a scandal, so she decides to transfer into Charlotte´s school in order to be able to get into a university and suddenly, Libby´s life changes completely. She is part of the group of people that will someday become the most influential and now that she is finally living with Charlotte, she is eager to meet Edward, Charlotte´s boyfriend.
Charlotte tries really hard to make Edward and Libby get along since they are the two people that she likes the most, but every time that the two are together, they seem to be getting closer that at some point, everyone in the group starts doubting that the two are only being friends since they are always acting very close to each other and they seem to be enjoying themselves.
Now, Charlotte and Libby seem to be fighting for the prince, while trying to keep the sister code.
So, I did enjoy Romancing the Throne, but it isn´t my favorite novel. There were too many things that I didn´t enjoy, but I found Edward to be super cute that I decided to keep reading.
I want to start by talking about the characters because I believe that this is going to be the longest part of the review.
So, I want to start by talking about Charlotte since she is the main character. I didn´t like her voice AT AT ALL! I found her extremely annoying because she was trying too hard to be something that she wasn´t and I know that if she wasn´t like that, the story would be completely pointless, but this made her look very immature. Also, her reactions made her very immature because she reacted very dramatically to everything!
On the other hand, I actually liked Libby a lot, but her character was rather plain because Charlotte was just too focused on herself that she wasn´t able to tell us how her sister was! But from the little personality that I got to see, I thought she was very nice and I really liked her. Yet, from what Charlotte explained about her sister, Libby was just a walking stereotype because the only thing that described her was that she attended an all-girls school and she only liked to study, so much that she didn´t even have friends. I was annoyed to see how Libby was just described as a stereotype because she wasn´t the main character. Similarly, Charlotte is portrayed as a stereotype as well. She liked to party and have fun with wealthy people and she just liked sports, which makes her the exact opposite of her sister, which makes them compete with each other continuously.
Now, Edward is a completely different story because I found him to be super adorable! The way Edward was portrayed was weird because he seemed to be a very typical YA male character, but at the same time, I found him to be very mature and act differently and entirely like a prince, he reminded me a lot of Nick from The Royal We, but in his youth since Nick is a college student when we meet him.
Similarly, I liked the way the main characters were surrounded by other supporting characters because they helped us understand the type of characters that they were, yet, on the other hand, I believe that the characters that were chosen to be part of the group were a bit similar to the group of friends from The Royal We. Also, I wanted them to have more personality and be actual characters rather than just names that were mentioned throughout the novel. 
I want to take the time to talk about how much I loved Libby and Edward. They were just SO cute! I mean, after immediately falling in love with Edward from the very first scene in which he was introduced, I still didn´t believe that he was the perfect guy for Charlotte because they felt more a fling rather than them actually dating. So, when Libby and Edward were finally together, I actually think that they were good together because they seemed to fit together very well and her story was going to be much more fun because she was new to the school and she was trying to adjust being part of a group of friends and having classes with different people, that´s why I would have liked to have the story narrated from her point of view or at least have the opportunity to know more about her relationship with Libby. So, in my opinion, approaching this novel from Charlotte´s point of view was a bad idea.
Similarly, I didn´t like the way the dialogues were because they made me roll my eyes and I found them very annoying and like I mentioned before, Edward was the only thing from this novel that made me keep reading.
Additionally, I was confused throughout the novel because it wasn´t specified that the story was in England. I mean, they only talked about Sussex Park, but they never said that it was in England, especially because they played hockey and they talked like Americans. 
Overall, I did not enjoy Romancing the Throne as much as I thought I would.

3 out of 5 stars 

Love, Sua

Top Ten, Katie Cotugno

Top Ten by Katie Cotugno

This book will be released October 3,
2017 in the US

I have read Katie Cotugno before, I read 99 Days, which makes Top Ten the second novel that I read from this author. I enjoyed 99 Days a lot, I remember that at first, I thought that I wouldn't like the story, but as I continued reading it, I started enjoying it, and I would like to mention that in Top Ten I think that it happened in exactly the opposite way, I liked it a lot at the beginning, but as the story continued, I started getting annoyed by the main character and started to lose interest as the story progressed. 
Top Ten tells the story of Gabby, a teenager that has always preferred not getting involved with other people at high school, and Ryan, probably the most popular guy in high school being the hockey star. They become friends in an awkward attempt to escape realities and before they can realize it, they share a friendship that has changed their lives and they have become the other´s most important person. 
But that is until they start realizing that they may be liking each other as more than friends, but that idea seems to far away from their reality since they are both in different relationships that already feel like so much work. 
Will Gabby and Ryan be able to let go of their friendship and start a new relationship?
As usual, I´ll start by talking about the characters. 
I really liked Ryan because he gave us a new type of popular jock. I actually found Ryan cute and adorable! Which is unusual for me and for anyone that has read several YA novels that involve jocks, they are supposed to be ONLY hot. But Ryan is the exception, he is HOT and ADORABLE, which creates the type of boyfriend every girl wishes for. I liked that he was the first one that realized that he was completely in love with his best friend, which seems to be first because we are not really used to knowing how the male lead character feels like. In my opinion, Ryan was very similar to Peter Kavinsky from To All the Boys I´ve Loved Before by Jenny Han,  who I absolutely adore, again because he is cute and hot, being a high school jock and all. Also, the whole vibe of not having a perfect family and a perfect life like the main character is very similar. 
Gabby was a character that I didn´t like at all! In fact, I started to find her annoying because she was always ready to criticize others and judge them but got very angry when other told her the truth that she wasn´t willing to accept. I saw too little character development throughout the four years of her high school career, she always had something that she didn´t like and found wrong in her life. So, for me, Gabby didn´t really do it for me.
On the other hand, I liked the idea of having Chelsey and Shay as supporting characters because I believe that for example, Shay was the character that pushed Gabby for some character development and seeing the type of people that both main characters were surrounding themselves with showing us how the characters were changing as we read along, I would say they were the piece that completed the story perfectly.
But although I didn´t like the main character, I did enjoy other things about the story. For instance, I liked the structure of the novel a lot. I liked both sides, although they weren´t in the first point of view, they did give us a piece of their minds, which made it easier to understand them and their actions. Also, the structures of the chapters were very nicely-planned because they are told in different time periods of their relationships and they are a list, which is something that only Ryan and Gabby understand, it´s their THING.
I enjoyed the way popularity was portrayed in this novel because it was realistic, just like the whole high school environment. I really enjoyed that Gabby wasn´t immediately popular because she was friends with Ryan, in fact, everything stayed the same way, which showed how personal their friendship was for both of the characters. 
In addition, I really liked Cotugno´s writing because it is very sweet and touching in an emotional way, I believe her words were very carefully chosen and that she was able to describe feelings in a very beautiful way. 
I believed that Top Ten is the perfect mixture of To All the Boys I´ve Loved Before, with a little bit of Love, Rosie and a fun activity in a Morgan Matson style. 
Overall, Top Ten is a fairly enjoyable reading about high school and the popularity.
I apologize for the short review. Also, I would like to thank the publisher for providing an ARC through Edelweiss in exchange for a review. 

3 1/2 stars out of 5 stars 

Love, Sua

To All the Boys I´ve Loved Before, Jenny Han

To All the Boys I´ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

This is the second time I read this book and surprisingly, I enjoyed this reading better than last time, which was like three years ago, and I was able to notice different things that made this story very unique and different than others.
So, the story is about Lara Jean, who has had five crushes throughout her life and every time she falls in love with someone and she wants to get over them, she writes love letters about how much she likes them or just some simple confessions she has or thoughts about them. Being a rising junior, she has to say goodbye to Margot, her older sister, who is going to Scotland to study and she eventually breaks up with their neighbor, Josh, the guy that Lara Jean has a crush on and has had for many years.
But that´s not the only problem Lara Jean has to face being a junior, suddenly all of her letters have been sent, including Josh´s.
So, while trying to get away from him since he´s Margot´s ex-boyfriend, she kisses Peter Kavinsky, one of her older crushes to get Josh to forget about the letter, and suddenly, Peter has the fantastic idea of them pretending to be dating because he has just broken up with Genevive, the girl he has been dating since seventh grade, and surprisingly, Lara Jean accepts.
But Margot being gone, Lara Jean has to take care of the house, including her father and her little sister, Kitty, and things that were usually under Margot´s responsibility.
Lara Jean´s junior year is all about trying to take care of her family and surviving a crazy love life with the school´s most popular guy.
I loved this novel because it tells so many different sides of a story that I truly felt like I always got the whole picture of the things that were happening in the lives of the characters.
First, I want to talk about the relationships that the characters had with each other. I loved seeing romantic relationships, family relationships, and friendships. My favorite was probably the family relationships that we could see because they felt more natural in a way because they seemed much closer to our reality. The Song sisters (Margot, Lara Jean, and Kitty) lost their mother when they were very young, so they are under the care of their father, who is a very busy doctor, and Margot is in charge of the family and the household, she literally takes care of everything, from packing lunches to Thanksgiving cooking. And what stayed with me the most within this family was that when Margot and Lara Jean were supposed to be having fun with their friends, they still took the time to care about their family, try to create a cozy atmosphere for Kitty and also take care of their father. So, in a way, they matured quicker than others. Also, the manner in which the sisters were almost pushed to take responsibilities seemed very natural under their circumstances and they seemed very real and humane to me.
On the other hand, it was heartbreaking to read about Lara Jean´s childhood friendships because I think that we all have those kinds of friendships that we move on from throughout the years and at some point they are just kept inside of us as little memories or moments that may have brought us happiness sometime in our lifetime, but we never really do a lot to keep them alive, so reading about little Lara Jean with her little friends was a way of realizing that there are so many things we forget about in our lives, including people that may have changed our points of views or our realities. I truly believe that although it was expressed as a very unimportant topic, it really touched me because I personally have friendships that have been lost and I don´t really cherish them because I have moved on, yet I still have a part inside that wonders if things could´ve been different.
Now, I want to talk about the characters because they are very special to me.
First of all, her family members. I love her father because he really tries to keep an ideal family and tries to act both as a father and mother figure to the three daughters. Margot was a character that I liked to read about because she is like the typical older sister you want to have with you, you could always look up to her since she is always right and knows how to keep everything under control. Lastly, Kitty is the little sister we all need, she is funny and can create the best atmosphere for the other characters, and I think that she played a crucial part in the improvement in Lara Jean and Peter´s relationship.
Moving on to love interests, I loved both Josh and Peter. I have to admit that the first time I read the novel, I was swept off the ground by Josh and his boy-next-door charm because I just loved simple and sweet guys, but now that I had given Peter a chance after having read the second book a couple of years ago, it was easier for me to like him and adore him because let´s admit it, Peter is adorable! I loved Peter´s sense of humor and the way he brings out a new side of Lara Jean after saying goodbye to her older sister. Also, Lara Jean gets to experience new adventures in her junior year with Peter.
We could say that Peter and Josh are the exact opposite. Josh is sweet, while Peter is arrogant and cocky, but they are both definitely charming and lovely. Oh, and they hate each other because Josh called Peter out during a Spanish test in seventh grade because Kavinsky was copying.
On the other hand, I want to talk about how much I LOVED Lara Jean. She was the character that I could identify myself with the most because I just realized that we have the same age and that she had a crush on Peter at the same age that I fell in love with him too, but I believe that besides the age similarity, it was the culture. After all, she´s half-Korean and I am Korean, so it was very interesting to notice part of my culture in a YA book, but I would like to explain that later on. Now, going back to the whole age similarity thing, I loved how I could relate to being eager to get an activity done, be part of a club or nailing your ACT and SAT scores for college, so seeing a girl that was so similar to me was amazing. Not only we had a similar cultural background, we were both stranded in high expectations from someone we look up to because of college.
Now, going back to the whole Korean culture part, I loved reading about it because it made me feel like I belonged. Being able to read about Korean festivities, like how we wear hanboks in New Year´s Eve and we get money from our elders, or all the amazing dishes, like bo ssam, made me so so happy.  I think to see a part of my culture so nicely portraited in our media platform today was the best part of the novel because it is very easy for someone to mess it up or say something that could not be right, but Jenny Han did it just right! 
Though, there was this one part that´s really going to stay with me. So, Lara Jean is going to celebrate Halloween at her high school and she is choosing her costume and at the end, she has to go dressed up as Cho Chang from Harry Potter because if she decides to wear some thing else, people think that she´s just dressed up as a manga character and being an Asian myself, I know that feeling very well. It´s as if you feel different when other people are able to dress up as something as simple as a princess or a very well-known character costume because you don´t look the part and when people notice that you are far too different from the character that you were trying to be, they immediately think that you are another character that you may not even know about! Noticing the real struggles that were portraited in the story for being from a different ethnicity was something that the novel took lightly, but I will cherish it because it was the best way to show the media how different we feel at simple times as Halloween.
Another thing that I absolutely loved about the novel was how Lara Jean feels pressured by the society into being part of a relationship and being like everyone else because Lara Jean and I are so alike in the sense that we prefer being with our family and we don´t really like going to parties, so actually reading about peer pressure in our society today was something that I really liked. Also, I  liked how Lara Jean was still herself after she was Peter for too long and after going to all those parties and being in the spotlight at her high school, she still preferred being with her family and I really admired that because I believe that if I was in her position, I would do the same thing. 
In conclusion, To All the Boys I´ve Loved Before by Jenny Han is a fun and refreshing story that portrays a lot the different topics in our society today. Also, it will keep you up all night thinking about Peter and Josh because of all their adorable flaws. You will love the characters that surround Lara Jean as much as you will like her, although she sometimes frustrated me with her decisions. I recommend this book a lot if you want something very funny to read, yet with a little drama. 

4 1/2 out of 5 stars 

Love, Sua