Category Archives: The Must Reads

These are the books that I think are a must read.

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Goddess Interrupted by Aimee Carter

I have so many feelings after finishing this book and while some of these feelings hurt, they hurt in the best way possible. I know what I’ve read is amazing when, after finishing the book, I want to thank the author for crushing my heart. That is exactly what I want to do with this book. I’d like to thank Aimee Carter for writing a book that has ripped my heart out in the most delicious way.

My main problem with The Goddess Test was how the mythology was handled. I missed that sinfulness that has become so associated with Greek Mythology. In Goddess Interrupted, you get some of that put back in the story. The Gods and Goddess aren’t quite as put together as they appear in the first book and I absolutely loved it. I love more and more this world Carter has created.

I found Kate extremely interesting in this book. In The Goddess Test, Kate was very dependent on her mother. Nearly everything she decides is connected to her mother in some way. In Goddess Interrupted, Kate has lost the dependence on her mother, but instead needs Henry. She hasn’t quite become her own person just yet, but the ending of Goddess Interrupted gives me hope that Kate is finally coming into her own and finding the ability to depend on herself for something. Of course, the major cliffhanger has me salivating for more and hoping Kate is able to keep growing into her own person, not dependent on anything or anyone, but can stand on her own.

The romance part of the book takes a slight backseat for parts of the novel and I’m completely fine with that. The parts of the novel between Kate and Henry were frustrating, sweet, amazing, and perfect. They’re still trying to figure everything out about their relationship. They don’t fall into the perfect relationship right away. They dance around each other, make mistakes. It’s absolutely wonderful to see a relationship written the right way.

Goddess Interrupted is a book that has left me utterly crushed, yet hopeful and eagerly anticipating The Goddess Inheritance. It can’t some out soon enough.

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Between by Jessica Warman

I am in love with this book. It’s not a happy book and sometimes it got tough to read, but I love it. Warman created a murder mystery and layered it with an exploration of the different kinds of love people can have. It was intense and meaningful and I loved it.

Liz annoyed me at the beginning of the novel, but she was supposed to. She has everything she could need in life. An almost too perfect boyfriend, friends that love her, parents that just want to make her happy. The only major flaw in her perfect life is waking up on the morning of her 18th birthday as, basically, a ghost.

With the help of Alex Berg, the boy killed in a hit and run less than a year earlier, she gets pieces of her memory put back in place. She’s trying to figure out why she’s still around instead of passing on to wherever it is the dead are supposed to go. She watches her family grieve and her friends fall apart. The secrets that held everyone together start to come out and it’s easy to see that life isn’t always what it looks like on the surface. People aren’t black and white; you can’t judge a person’s character on only what one person sees. People are grey and sometimes you don’t see everything about them.

Alex is on his own journey in this afterlife. He spends time with Liz, helping her with her own discoveries before the truth comes out. I loved him as a character and he really helped Liz’s growth and even though we didn’t see much of his life; it was easy to see him grow as a person as well.

That was another thing Warman did wonderfully in this book. The characters don’t end up the same people they started as. They change and grow. Each one has flaws and strengths. It’s so refreshing to see a book where even the minor characters are people. It made the book even more enjoyable for me.

This book was fantastic and such a wonderful journey to be taken on. So much happened in this book, but it was never too fast or too slow. This is definitely a book people need to read. It will make you think in such a wonderful way.

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A Million Suns by Beth Revis

Oh my god. This book was fantastic. I was left almost speechless after finishing. I say almost because I was still able to go “oh my god” repeatedly.

Both Elder and Amy grow up quite a bit in this book. Elder is faced with having to lead the ship and all its people when they don’t really think he’s fit to lead. Amy has to deal with being the outsider and being viewed as the distraction keeping Elder from being a true leader.

Elder’s desire to be a different kind of leader than Eldest before him means he lets the people think for themselves. They start to think and learn about the choices they can have and they start to rebel. Life becomes difficult for everyone on board the Godspeed and people are divided on Elder’s decision to stop using phydus to control the ship. On top of that, he’s still in love with Amy and will do anything to make her happy. He’s a wonderfully realistic character and I love him. He faces the challenges set before him and tries to find a way to solve them based on what looks to be for the good of the whole, even if that means it’s not easy on him. He grew up in this book and I loved reading that.

Amy spends most of the book following clues left for her by Orion because she’s the only person he trusts with the decision that will impact everyone on the Godspeed. She’s the only person that has seen both Earth and the ship and he believes that makes her to only person that can make the best decision for everyone. She spends the other parts of the book trying to figure out if it’s really her choice to fall in love with Elder, or if it’s happening because there’s no one else. She wants to decide, not have the decision taken away from her.

I absolutely adored this book and the way it made me think. It’s not only a sci-fi story; it’s not only a romance story. It’s a story that gives you something to think about. A Million Suns made me think about choice and just how important that is to life. With the power to think, comes the power to choose and A Million Suns really shows the two sides of that. People can chose to do good or bad, but even then, the lines get fuzzy. Is doing bad for good reasons as bad as just choosing the wrong thing? Is doing good for the wrong reasons still as good as doing good for the right reasons?

A Million Suns was an amazing book and I can’t wait for the conclusion to this series. I need to know what happens next.

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Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver

WARNING: This review contains slightly spoilery statements. Read at your own discretion.

Continue reading →

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Allegiance by Cayla Kluver

I rarely like the second book in trilogies. They generally feel like a bridge to get from the end of book one to the beginning of book three without anything happening. It usually feels like a waste of a full book when simply making books one and three just a little longer would have worked just fine.

Allegiance is nothing like that.

There is not one part of this book that felt like that. I could not stop reading. The only times I was forced to put the book down were driving home from the coffee shop and when I grabbed the bag of pepperonis that classified as my dinner. The rest of the past 10 hours has been spent reading this book.

Allegiance picked up right where Legacy left off and while it would have been easy for Kluver to follow the recent novel trends and make this the book that introduces the typical love triangle, she doesn’t. Instead, she builds the characters and makes you like people you couldn’t stand in the first book. Kluver was able to take characters and make them people. They have flaws and you’re still rooting for them in some capacity or another.

Alera grows up in this book and it’s easy to see from start to finish. She becomes the person she needs to be rather than the person she wants to be. The wonderful thing is that in the process, the two becomes the same. Even Steldor grew on me and I find myself wanting even more from his character.

There’s a nice mix between the romance aspect of the story and the action. It never gets overloaded with the love story, but it’s never too action heavy. There’s enough of both to keep the hopeless romantic in me happy, and the fight scene lover engaged. It’s amazingly mixed and only adds to the story.

I can’t wait for November to get my hands on the last book. I’m incredibly impressed with how Kluver has written the story thus far and will be anxiously waiting to see how she concludes this fantastic series.

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The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler

Jay Asher absolutely moved me when I read “Thirteen Reasons Why” and if I’m remembering correctly, I didn’t get out of bed for a couple days after so I could recoup from that experience. So when I saw his name attached to this book, I knew I had to give it a read.

It’s certainly not as deep as 13 Reasons, but it still has an important message to convey. I felt that in making Emma the vain, worrisome character they did, Asher and Mackler got the point across. Don’t worry so much about the future that you forget to enjoy today. I spent much of the novel being annoyed with Emma. She was way too worried about not getting her perfect future when Josh gets his. It was a competition with her and it was difficult for me to like her much. But by the end of the novel, I understood why she was like that and I don’t think the novel would have been as good had she been the perfect person.

And Josh! I loved him. He was sweet and nice and wonderful. He was curious about the future, but he didn’t want to make huge changes to it when it was uncertain what those changes would be. He realized that they might be able to change the future, but once changed, they can’t undo it. He <i>got</i> it and I loved that. He was happy in his present and happy in his future and that was enough for him.

I do wish some of the plotlines had been tied up a little better, but I can understand that the book had reached its end and those little plots weren’t as necessary to the overall story.

This was a great book and I devoured it. I’ll definitely be recommending it to my friends, not only for the great story, but the nice little trip down 90’s memory lane.

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The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

I don’t really know what the statistical probability of love at first sight is, but I fell in love with this book at first read.

It was sweet with a touch of bitter reality and a happy ending. It’s a quick read, but a good one. The entire book takes place in the span of a day and I was incredibly impressed with how Smith was able to pace the book and make it flow easily. It never felt rushed or drawn out, but everything seemed to happen right when it should. I never once thought, “How is she going to make this day last an entire book?” or “there’s no way she’ll be able to wrap this up the right way in the time left.” I’m in love with how Smith told this story.

And the characters! Hadley was the perfect teen. She wasn’t too old for her 17 years, but she wasn’t too young. She was what I’d expect of a 17 year old being forced to go to her father’s wedding to a woman she partially blames for her parent’s divorce. She felt the anger towards her dad I’d expect, but she was also mature enough to have a life realization moment and grow from it. Oliver was a delightful British boy with just enough quirky to keep me smiling. He was sweet and funny and wonderful.

I loved this book and I’ll definitely be reading it again whenever I need a fast, sweet pick me up read. It’s the perfect book to read when you just need a little love story.

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The Chosen One by Carol Lynch Williams

Haunting. There is no other word I can think of to describe this book.

Williams writes this world so well, that I had goosebumps throughout most of the novel. She wrote Kyra’s story so well and with such beautiful prose, it was able to take this book to a much more interesting place than I thought it would go. Kyra’s love for her father, her mothers, her sisters and brothers is so apparent, it hurt me to read about the world they lived in.

I applaud Williams for writing this story the way she did. Even though the world Kyra lived in was horrible, I never questioned her desire to stay with her family. It was clear that she detested her world, but even through that, she loved her family and it was incredibly touching to see how much her need to leave hurt her when it came to her family.

I also loved the dynamic Williams created between The Chosen One’s culture are Kyra’s family. Even though her father has 3 wives and many kids, I couldn’t help but admire the love they had for one another. Kyra’s father was a much better character than I thought he would be at the beginning of the book. Comparing that to the rest of the compound, where children are killed for being “defective,” where young girls are forced into marriage with much older men, and where near torture is used as a simple form of discipline. The two words almost seem to oppose each other in ways, and yet they are so intertwined you can’t forget it.

Finding an emotion tie to this book was easy and getting sucked in will happen. But this book isn’t for everyone. It’s a very tough story to read and it will make you angry, sad and everything in between. But it will also show you the power of human spirit and what it can overcome. If you can look past the religious context and embrace the story as a show of human strength, you will be moved by this book, just like I was.

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The Sausage Maker’s Daughters by A.G.S. Johnson

I’ve got a confession. I tend to judge books by their covers and titles more than I should. And when I first saw this book and its title, I wasn’t really interested. And then I read the description and I was a little interested, but my initial judgment of its cover still clouded my vision a bit.

However, the more I read, the more I loved. Kip is a wonderful character that grows throughout the entire novel and starts out a strong character, and ends an even stronger one. My favorite part about this growth is that is it done by showing Kip’s faults and weaknesses, rather than how she excels in her life. She’s exposed and put out there and by being able to see her own faults, she becomes the strong person she needs to be.

Along that same vein, even though I loathed some of the characters (namely big sister Sybel); they were some of the best written characters I’ve seen. That’s probably why I felt such strong reactions towards them. Even Sybel, while still horrible for what she did to Kip growing up, was still a person. She had strengths and faults and even though it was hard for me to find a sliver of something other than disdain for her, it’s a testament to how well Johnson wrote these people.

I’m not usually a fan of books that involve courtrooms, simply because I can find it difficult to follow and understand. Johnson was able to wrote a courtroom that seemed incredibly realistic, and yet easy to understand. That doesn’t mean it’s an easy read, though. I was focused on this book and nothing else. I didn’t want to miss out on anything by skimming.

This is such an interesting and engaging book and people need to read it. It might not look it from the cover, but it will suck you in and won’t let you go until long after you’ve finished.

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Hallowed by Cynthia Hand

Usually, I find myself let down by the second book in trilogies. I feel like they’re just to be the set up for the final novel and not really provide much in the way of plot development. Hallowed managed to avoid this trap and was another fantastically written novel that made me fall in love all over.

The characters grew as people throughout the entire novel and we learned so much more about Clare, Jeffery, Clare’s mother and Christian. I wish there had been more Tucker Avery because I still swoon hard whenever I think about him in Unearthly. However, I understood that Unearthly was Clare and Tucker’s book and Hallowed was more about Clare and Christian. I can’t wait to see what the third book will be.

Now, about the love triangle. I’m not usually a fan of this plot device. Typically it’s thrown in there to provide a conflict for the main character. And in Hallowed, this is still true. But it goes so much deeper than that. It not only represents a choice between two people, it represents the choice between following the fate laid out before her and making her own destiny. She will have to decide between the angel and human sides of her and that’s what this love triangle is about. Not which hot guy she will pick, but what she chooses for her own person. And I love that Hand did this.

Aside from the characters and plot, the writing itself is gorgeous. You can connect with Clara and it brings a special touch to the novel that I’m starting to crave. That connection between me and the characters is something I absolutely love when I read. Feeling all those emotions makes reading more than just reading a book, but turns it into an adventure and an experience. Hand is amazing at putting words together that just pull me in and drag me along, but in the best way possible.

I can’t believe I will have to wait a year to find out how this amazing series will end. I’ll be anxiously waiting to see how Hand will conclude this wonderful series.