The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han
I´ve read just too many summer beach romances in my life that I always feel like I have read everything that I need to read in that category, but once again, I was swept off my feet by a gorgeous teenager. I have read To All the Boys I´ve Loved Before by the same author and I absolutely loved Peter! So, I was a little bit excited to start reading this series, but at the same time, I felt a little nervous because I tend to enjoy summer books, but never really love them as others.
The Summer I Turned Pretty tells the story of Belly, a soon-to-be sixteen-year-old that has been visiting Cousins every year of her life during summer. Her family always goes and stays with Sussanah, her mother´s best friend´s family, and they are like a big family. Belly is sure that this summer is probably going to be the same, but when she gets there, she realizes that there may be something different this time.
Belly has always had a crush on Conrad, one of Sussanah´s sons, and when she sees him again, she tries to convince herself that her feelings for him are over, but that may not be the case.
On the other hand, Belly and Jeremiah, Conrad´s brother, may have left some things unclear last year.
When summer starts with people mentioning that she is different now and with guys actually checking her out, she realizes that this summer is going to be completely different to others.
Eventually, she meets Cam, a very good-looking guy that seems to be Belly´s age, they eventually end up spending a lot of time together.
Who is going to steal Belly´s heart this summer? Is this going to be the summer that changes everything for her? Will there even be more summers after this one?
I think what I liked the most about this novel was the way its story. Okay, the plot is not that interesting and the things that happen aren´t that story-changing, but what I really liked was the story about their beach house, Conrad, Jeremiah, Steven, and Susannah, I just fell in love with the way Mr. Fisher always visits during summer and barbecues, I guess I just loved the way this novel gave us a look at what having traditions like this feels like. I think that almost everybody wants to be able to just leave the life that they are living for a couple of months and go to a small bubble with the people that you love being with and The Summer I Turned Pretty did that.
On the other hand, I really liked the characters and their relationships. I just loved the way Steven, Conrad, Jeremiah, and Belly had a unique bond that made them friends and almost siblings. I adored the way they had things that only they understood because that made them part of something that they were very emotionally attached to. I liked Steven, although he wasn´t part of the story a lot because he was just like the typical older brother that every sister should have and it was adorable to see how he protected her and how the other guys just automatically did the same when he left.
Furthermore, I believe that having a love triangle with two brothers was just so dramatic and intense, which I absolutely loved! I fell in love with Jeremiah almost immediately and although I liked him so much, I did believe that Jeremiah and Belly weren´t that compatible, so I actually found myself rooting for Belly and Conrad, so yes, I absolutely hated Cam and although I do love his name, I thought that he was a character that wasn´t that useful, he appeared through most of the novel, but he didn´t really impact Belly in any way and he seemed to be almost like her second plate, something that she only wanted when Conrad wasn´t talking to her.
On the other hand, I didn´t really like how Belly is always focusing on Conrad, I mean, yes, I adored them, but she was always talking about him that it got a little bit stressful. I wanted more of the story, I expected more character development from other characters as well, such as Jeremiah, who is a love interest in this novel.
Similarly, The Summer I Turned Pretty did have a pretty interesting story that kept me reading until the end, but nothing very essential seemed to happen, almost as if we were actually living that summer with her completely instead of only getting the juicy parts of it. I believe that the only story that I did like was the drama about Taylor, the girl that used to be Belly´s best friend. I liked how the author built an anticipation that made the readers eager to find out what Taylor, a 14-year-old had done, and honestly, I did enjoy the outcome of that.
Similarly, I really liked how the story had chapters from different time periods from Belly´s point of view because we are able to follow Belly´s family and friends throughout the summers and understand how summers always tend to be for these families.
Overall, The Summer I Turned Pretty is a very enjoyable summer tale of growing up and trying to continue traditions and a story that you will not want to see the end.
4 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
Open Road Summer by Emery Lord
Imagine your best friend is America´s new sweetheart and suddenly, you are able to tour the country following her along a country tour, where Matt Finch, the new cute opening act of the tour, will be joining them for all sorts of adventures.
Reagan joins Dee´s summer tour with a broken heart, but when she arrives at her best friend´s tour, she realizes that her heartbreak may not be as awful as Dee´s. Dee is soon surrounded by rumors and articles full of her ex-boyfriend, so her team decides to bring a new distraction for the media, a new opening act. That´s how Matt Finch, a total sweetheart that every girl has had a crush on in middle school, gets to join the tour. When Reagan meets Dee´s fake boyfriend, she knows that she won´t be falling for him, well, that´s until she gets to know him. Aside from all cute looks, what really captivates Reagan is his music. So, Reagan falls in love with his passion and his way of communicating with the world. On the other hand, Dee is trying to live her life as a teenager, even when she has certain rules to follow because she´s under the spotlight, so having her best friend with her will mend her heart and make everything better. This will be a summer they will NEVER forget!
I liked the plot a lot, although it seemed a little cliché, it was nice to read about the music world because I am a person that LOVES music! My favorite part of the whole writing of the novel was the fact that the author added Matt´s lyrics because it made it more real and it gave us an idea of the reason behind Reagan liking his music so much since having that piece of information kind of creates a better logic in your mind instead of just having a piece of information thrown at you.
Surprisingly, my favorite character in the book was Dee because she was a teenager that was eager to live life and that made her really special. Even though the story is focused on Reagan, especially because it is narrated from her point of view, we see a lot of Dee by her actions. It broke my heart to read about her heartbreak because it sounded so devastating, especially when she was living a very hard life surrounded by millions of people. Also, the whole articles about her ex-boyfriend were the key part that made me feel so bad for her because she had to deal with the horrible breakup and she also had to take care of her image and her reputation, it put her in a situation where she still had to care about her ex when the relationship was over.
On the other hand, Reagan was definitely not a favorite character of mine, she annoyed me a lot because she is one of those characters that knows what she wants, yet when she can have it, she just backs away and ends up hurting everyone. I could understand why she might have felt betrayed throughout the novel, but the reason why she was feeling that way was that she was so close-minded when someone hurt her, she just ran away without understanding the situation she was in. I do understand that when we are about to get hurt, humans tend to back up a little bit to protect ourselves from the heartbreak, but Reagan kind of took it to another level. She just didn´t want to hear about anything that had to do with it and that may have hurt her more than she expected.
Matt was a character that I liked but didn´t get obsessed with. He was very easy to let go as time passed by, he isn´t a character that stayed with me for a long amount of time like I did with other characters, yet I do admit that at the time of reading it, I really liked him and his personality. He is very funny and he´s passionate about his work and that seemed very beautiful to me.
For me, the story seemed more about friendship rather than romance because the whole meaning behind Reagan being on tour with Dee was to celebrate their friendship and to me, that seemed beautiful because there are things that you can ONLY do with your close friend, and Dee having her best friend with her made it easier to start living life the way she was eager to do so.
I believe that it is a perfect book to enjoy if you love music and if you want to read about a friendship that could melt your heart.
4 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
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
36 Questions That Changes My Mind About You by Vicki Grant
Who could have thought that a psychology experiment could actually make people fall in love with each other?
I am not sure if it is because of the colors of the cover, but everyone just generally seems intrigued by this novel, I now that I was, but I mean, who would have thought that all of my teachers would be really interested in the book? And may I mention that all of them are male teachers? Also, they all thought that it was super interesting, so in a sense, it receives kudos for looking so intriguing and making me look so cool for two days. But they are all correct, 36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You by Vicki Grant is a very interesting novel. I believe that what makes everyone be interested in this book is the cover. It doesn´t have the most complicated design, but the colors it has, in this case, bright green and dark pink, is very pleasing to the eye and it is very easy to lay your eyes on it.
Vicki Grant tells us the story of Hildy and Paul in an unforgettable adventure created by a psychological test.
Hildy is a high school student that signs up for a psychological test because she is greatly interested in the area of study, but when she gets there, she realizes that maybe the test is not for her once the instructor tells her that the test can spark a little romance for both subjects that are testing. But later, she impulsively decides to take place in the study, which is when she meets Paul.
Paul seems to be the exact opposite of Hildy and of course, the beginning of their relationship is rather bad, their conversation and answers are small and they are not enjoying each other´s company, which makes their idea of finding love by answering 36 questions almost impossible to think about.
After Hildy and Paul have a disagreement, Hildy explodes and leaves, yet after a couple of hours, Paul is able to find her Facebook and they are able to talk again, but only because Paul really wants to receive his payment by answering questions, even after Hildy threw a fish at him.
Their conversations suddenly start changing and they start becoming more friendly with each other once their layers start fading away with their laughter.
Interestingly, their conversations seem to always come back, even after all of their disagreements, almost as if it was meant for them to meet and talk to each other.
My favorite thing about this novel is the plot and the way the story progressed.
I thought the plot of this novel was very creative. I mean, a story was created based on a psychological study. It was interesting to see how science inspired a story, which makes me believe that eventually, novels such as this one will take over the YA world.
Similarly, I really enjoyed the story because although other sides of the characters were not really shown to the readers, we saw small glimpses of them, such as Hildy´s family and all the drama that was surrounding her. Also, reading a little bit about Paul´s family made him much more human. And although I would have loved a more complete story for both characters, I was pretty satisfied with what I got since the novel is written creatively and different from traditional novels.
Honestly, I really liked the family drama since it made the story much more fun and interesting than I expected from small dialogues.
However, my favorite part of this novel was the story itself. I really enjoyed interesting characters and the ways the story progressed. The way the characters fell in love was beautiful and everything that they did together was just ADORABLE! Also, the way the story actually pushes the two characters to be together was very interesting and fun to read, and at the same time, it sounded very normal, it didn´t sound like something out of a book or a movie, on the contrary, it seemed more as if Hildy and Paul were actually meant to be together.
In addition, I liked the characters, although I didn´t love them. I mean, Paul is cute and interesting, but there was nothing that caught my attention and made me obsess myself with him. On the other side, Hildy was pretty interesting, but I did find her to be a little too plain and a little too predictable and common. But a character that I really liked was Max, Hildy´s friend because he is super funny and made everything in the story better, although again, there is nothing much about him either.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed the writing and the drawings. I found it very interesting that the novel was mainly written by dialogues because I am one of those readers that just understand what is happening through dialogues and being able to do that with this book felt different and refreshing. It was interesting to see how readers get to know the characters and the story by reading their dialogues. This story made me want to read more stories with more dialogues and I hope that this novel helps to have more novels published through dialogues.
In addition, I really liked the drawings because they made the story very special and they made me laugh A LOT, but I did want more of them. I enjoyed that we were able to see Paul´s drawings because I think that they made the novel way more special. Although I would have wanted more of them throughout the story, I think that made me treasure them more.
Overall, 36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You by Vicki Grant is a short, creative, refreshing and fun novel with good dialogues and funny drawings, along with characters that are just charming! You will want to finish Paul and Hildy´s story in a sitting, and the best thing is that you actually can since it isn´t a long novel! 36 Questions That Changed My Mind About You will open new doors for new novels.
4 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
Paradox Bound by Peter Clines
Time-traveling through history and future. Doesn´t it sound exciting? I discovered this novel by searching for a book to request through Blogging For Books and the best thing about actually discovering it was that it isn´t the type of novel that I would pick for myself, I mean, it does sound super exciting and adventurous, but it just doesn´t seem like the type of novel that I like, which are usually romantic novels or contemporaries that make me laugh, or even some women fiction titles. I am going to admit that Paradox Bound surprised me in a very positive manner. The novel kept me intrigued and eager to know what happened next, although I didn´t absolutely love it, I fairly enjoyed.
Peter Clines tells the story of Eli, who lives in Sanders, a small city in Maine, and encounters a strange woman and an old car in his neighborhood, which seems weird since there aren´t many visitors in his town. A couple of years pass and Eli keeps encountering the same mysterious woman, who always seems to look exactly the same and travels in the same vehicle throughout all those years! But he decided to change that one night when he encountered her while on the road with some of his old friends. Eli is the same awkward kid on the inside, except he is now an adult and actually has a job and when he encounters Harry, the strange woman that he keeps noticing throughout his life, Eli decides to approach her once again and after that, there is no turning back, he has invited himself in a journey that will change his life forever.
After Eli approached Harry, a faceless man appears at his work the next day and he is wanting answers about Harry, that´s when he decides to go all the way to Boston to save her and tell her that men are looking for her. Once he finds her after a long chase from the faceless men, they are on the road finding the country´s dream, which gives the power to control the country and change it in any way they want to the person holding it.
When Harry realizes that she has no other option than to have Eli with her, she decides that it may not be that awful to have a companion, and soon before they can realize it, they are traveling through time and through the country in search of the most precious possession of any traveler: the dream.
First of all, I want to apologize for the short summary, but the truth is that there are just too many things that make this exciting story that there isn´t a specific point where I know what is too much to mention in a review, that´s why I have decided to keep it short to actually give the readers more freedom to understand and take in everything that happens in the novel.
I want to talk about the characters first.
I really liked Eli as the main character because he is different, he is not the perfect professional character that everyone expects to find in this type of stories, he is actually pretty normal and has a story that people could identify with. My favorite part of him was that it was shown how he was afraid of staying behind, but at the same time afraid of jumping to a lifestyle in the unknown, but at the same time, he always acted so passionately for the things he cared about and he was fearless when he needed to be. I think that I really enjoyed Eli´s character and this is something that has happened to me for the first time with these type of novels because I believe that novels that contain a lot of action and lot of things to narrate tend to forget a lot of how a character may change throughout the novel, yet I believe that Clines did an excellent job with Eli.
On the other hand, I really liked Harry because she was fearless and although she was cold at times, there is something inside her that seemed so familiar and so soft and warm. Yet she has seen so many bad things that instead of breaking her made her become fearless and create a barrier for herself against everyone else.
In addition, there are a lot of other characters throughout the novel with different traits and different things that change the story, but there are too many that it seems hard to talk about them all and actually review them.
Although I really enjoyed the many characters that were part of the story, I expected some more character development from every character and I know that it is very hard to do with characters that only appear once or twice in the novel, but I did come across with the realization that maybe the story was too focused on introducing the complicated story to the readers that it left very little opportunity for the characters to grow.
Moving on to the story itself, I found it a little bit confusing from time to time because there were too many things to understand at the same time in the story because the story is very broad and there is a lot to cover in a single novel, which at the same time was very interesting because it really felt like entering a new world.
However, I did like how the author made everything in the story work and how he planned the novel throughout the pages and how we are given certain scenes and how everything is lined up because those are the things that make this story so unique and creative.
On the other hand, I really enjoyed having several parts of the story told, for example, we got stories narrated in third person point of view but concentrated in a certain character, like Eli, Harry or Zeke. I think that by having these, readers got the chance to read about all the things that other characters were explaining in other chapters.
Also, the plot is so creative and entertaining that it will be hard to put the book down, although it is a very heavy reading.
Overall, Paradox Bound by Peter Clines is a fun and creative novel that narrates a story about time traveling while trying to save the world and all while overcoming personal fears and problems. The novel is similar to the many adventures that Dan Brown writes by including elements of adventure, culture and a new understanding, all of these under the pressure of saving people and staying alive.
Paradox Bound will keep you reading until the very end.
In addition, I would like to thank Blogging For Books and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review this amazing novel.
4 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
Eight Days on Planet Earth by Cat Jordan
Imagine that you go out of your house once and you find a very skinny and pale-looking girl, she is beautiful , but she just doesn't look normal. Once you approach her, she starts telling you that she is an alien and that she is collecting data to send it back to her planet. This sounds extremely unrealistic, but that is exactly what happened to Matthew Matty Jones.
Matthew is a very average teenager, he has a close friend, Brian, who is always smoking weed and getting high, and he usually hangs out with Brian's older sister, Sam, whom Matty really likes; he lives in a very small town, where there is not much to see and he lives an ordinary life with his parents. Well, that is until Matthew's life changes completely.
DJ, Matthew's father has always loved stars and consequently, Matty used to love them too, but he simply grew out of it. But once his father leaves him and his mother, Matthew is in charge of taking care of her mother, who was left heartbroken after her husband left. While he is trying to make sure her mother is okay, he sees something new near his house.
There's a girl. Very skinny. Very pale. With very white hair. And very beautiful.
Matthew gets closer to her and realizes that she is different, and well, she says that she is different too. Priya, the girl, says that she comes from another planet and that she has come to the Earth to collect data to send back to her planet, where everyone is just like us but with different ways of doing things. For example, they can all share information through their heads. Priya says that her spaceship is coming to get her and that she is going home soon, she says she is sure that the spaceship is coming for her because that's what her calculations showed her. Yet, the days keep passing and Priya continues to be there, exactly where Matty says goodbye to her.
After a couple of days, Matthew decides to show her around and help her with her investigation. That´s why he ends up showing her his extremely boring town. Later, he decides to go to the lake with Brian, where Priya is in an accident because she doesn't remember how to swim, that´s where Sam tells Matty that there seems to be something wrong with her and that he should be careful with her. This only makes Matty realize that there are many things wrong with Priya and that he should be more careful. This makes him start feeling uneasy with her. Is Sam correct? Is there really something wrong with Priya? Is she even from another planet? If so, why did her ride put her exactly in his yard?
When I first read that a normal teenager met an alien outside of his house, I thought this was going to be really great story. I mean, I thought that this was probably going to be a little but like Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout, which I REALLY enjoyed reading and made me fall in love with aliens, so I thought I would really enjoy this novel. But honestly, this is just completely different from Daemon.
I really tried to like this novel a lot, but I found it to be too peculiar for my taste. I mean, I am always open to different plots because after reading the same type of stories, as a reader, I get tired of some plots, and yes, Eight Days on Planet Earth by Cat Jordan is definitely something new and refreshing, but I found out too weird for me.
I did like the pace of the novel, it was slow, but at the same time quick. By this mean that although there are only eight days (which is the number of chapters), the days pass fairly quickly because so many things happen in such a short time for both characters that sometimes, it is even hard to remember that all of that happened in a single day. But the novel is a fairly quick reading because it only focuses on two things in Matty´s life: Priya and his father. So, overall, it is a reading that you will be able to finish in a sitting.
On the other hand, I did enjoy Matthew´s character a lot because he was a funny narrator and seeing the story from his perspective was very interesting, but I didn't like Priya. I found her a little annoying and the ending just really frustrated me. I just didn't like her attitude at all and at times, I found myself cringing.
Sam is a character that I was hoping to get to know better because I was expecting to get some drama from her relationship with Matthew, but there wasn't´ anything that kept me going because she only appears in like two chapters, which is exactly what happened with Brian, her brother, too. Although I didn't really like Brian, I was expecting to get to know him better because Priya was just too boring for me, but he just disappears on the second chapter with his family.
I really wanted to read some character development from everyone, but I didn't really notice any changes from Matthew or Priya, and like I mentioned, Sam and Brian weren't even part of the story.
In addition, I didn´t really like the story itself because I found it to be too boring because nothing really happened, the whole story just revolved around Priya and although I really like novels focused on the romantic relationship, I found it annoying to notice that Matthew was not caring enough for his mothers although he actually took the time to talk about her. Similarly, I found the story to be weird, as mentioned before. I just didn't really feel the whole dating an alien and eating pizza with a random girl that just didn't look normal and the whole idea of knowing someone that considers herself to be an alien and actually having someone, like Matthew, believing in that without any real proof. For example, Daemon actually shows Kat his powers and how she shines like a Christmas tree, but Matthew was just a naive teenager that believed everything that the beautiful girl told him.
As much as I disliked this novel, there were some things that I liked as well, such as the way the chapters were organized, which is by days. It was a simple, but at the same time, really effective because it was creative and really enjoyed reading it like that.
On the other hand, I really liked the writing, in fact, I found it beautiful because Jordan was able to write a story that was fun, romantic and at the same time, realistic in the sense of Matty´s point of view.
In addition, I really enjoyed the ending because it was realistic and very touching. I think I enjoyed it because it was very different from the whole story since the story was very optimistic while the ending was sad and realistic.
Overall, Eight Days on Planet Earth is a quick sci-fi book with a funny narrator and the main character that you won´t forget. You will also get to know Earth like never before.
I would like to thank Edelweiss and the publisher for giving me the opportunity to review this novel.
3 1/2 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
Once and for All by Sarah Dessen
I have read three Sarah Dessen novels and I am not her biggest fan, although I am aware of the fact that many people adore her novels, I have never really liked them that much. I have read this one, The Lullaby and Along for the Ride. Along for the Ride is probably my favorite one out of those three and I will admit that it is a pretty good book, hopefully, I will be able to post a review of that one sometime soon. When I tell people that I am not Dessen´s biggest fan, people immediately ask me if I even like YA novels or summer romances, and I absolutely love those two, but it´s just that her stories have never really stayed with me and I had a similar experience with Once and for All because I was unsure that I was going to like it, but I adore weddings, so I thought that I needed to at least give it a try. I think weddings are special and that they are beautiful. In fact, I live them so much that at some point when I was growing up I honestly thought about becoming a wedding planner but discovered that I am not that patient, therefore, not really qualified for that business, yet I still have the right to enjoy them, so after reading how many people were actually enjoying Once and for All and how it was set inside the world of wedding planning, I thought that I should give it a go. I mean, there wasn´t really anything to lose.
Once and for All narrated the story of Louna, a teenager that lives only with her mother, Natalie, who owns a very successful wedding planning company with William, Natalie´s best friend and basically Louna´s father figure. Our main character has to be running around the town running errands and helping the family business as much as she can before she goes to college. Louna´s summer seems to be going exactly like she predicted, with horrible dates organized by Jilly, her best friend, who is trying to make her be back in the dating field after a past relationship. Well, that is until Ambrose starts working with Louna. Ambrose is exactly what Louna HATES. He is very unprofessional, flirts with all the girls, has a hard time focusing on a relationship and takes the poorest decisions (in Louna´s point of view). Louna continues trying to forget her first love and continue with her life, even when it seems impossible to find someone after Ethan.
I want to start this review by talking about how my favorite character is William! I loved his personality and honestly, I would love to have someone like him by my side because he is funny and caring, which I think was something that Louna needed. Also, he probably made every scene better.
I liked Ethan because he had a very "magical" story with him, plus he was adorable and just like the type of boyfriend you read about in every summer romance book.
Surprisingly, Ambrose didn´t really catch my attention that much. I mean, yes, I like him because he is funny and he has different ideas that are very interesting, but I feel like he didn´t get enough recognition for his self, Louna always seemed to like his physical appearance more than himself. But I did enjoy reading about him.
On the other hand, Louna was a character that I found just okay. I really liked her point of view in true love and weddings because she saw so many people that fell apart because of a relationship, yet she held tight her dream of meeting the right person, and I would like to admit that this was probably the first time that someone actually put into words what I think about marriage. But I also found her a little bit annoying from time to time because she acted a little immature with certain people like Ambrose or Jilly, and she was so immature around those that cared about her.
Jilly is a character that I liked, but she is just the most typical best friend you can think of in a YA novel, she is the opposite of our main character, she likes going out all the time, she sets Louna with weird guys and stuff, but the one thing that made her special and more likeable was the fact that she was always taking care of the family business and her siblings. I think that it showed how there are people that prefer to be more outgoing because they are tired of being stuck with their family all the time.
Another character that I think is worth mentioning is Natalie, Louna´s mother because I liked her and she is not even one of the important characters, but I hated her character development. Sometimes she appeared and sometimes she didn´t, and her ending is something that I didn´t like at all because it made you feel like all those 300 pages were wasted.
I want to talk about Ethan´s story because I found the whole summer romance thing adorable because when you read it, it is described as your ideal summer romance, yes, one of those that lasts at least a week. Well, Ethan´s summer romance only lasted a night and guess what? They started dating! I mean, I loved the night they passed together and everything, but dating and kind of making all these promises seemed a little too fictional, even when I am one of those hopeless romantics at heart! I liked Ethan and everything, but it felt a little unreal, that´s all.
Also, I felt like Ambrose wasn´t even one of the main characters because he never really had a story with Louna, I think they never really fell in love, they were trying to be friends while he kept flirting with the bridesmaids. In my opinion, the novel´s pace was just too slow for me.
I disliked all the sub-plots that were added to the story because it made the story SO messy because at some point we had so many things going on at the same time that it started to confuse me! I mean, I liked that there were many diverse stories in a novel, but in this novel, they were just added out of the blue that it confused me.
I think the one good thing that I want to mention is that the whole wedding planning industry kept me reading because as I mentioned, I love weddings and I think that if this novel was centered in another business, I would´ve probably stopped reading it.
But like I said, Dessen is just not usually my style, but if she is, you should enjoy this one too, I just happened to not find the right theme on this one. Yet, I will admit that it made me continue reading it, so even though it is confusing and messy, Dessen´s writing still has the factor that pulls you in and makes you read more.
3 1/2 out of 5 stars
Love, Sua
