revew: books... "Cracked Up To Be" by Courtney Summers

rating: 4 out of 5

rave: deeper than you would have thought & you would have NEVER guessed what secret she's hiding.

synop: Parker was the queen-bee of her private school: cheerleading squad captain, popular, beautiful boyfriend.

but out of nowhere, she dumps her boyfriend, quits the squad, and gave up being not only a popular girl, but a good girl too.

she comes to school drunk, hung-over, and her academic career is basically down the toilet.

her parents have her on suicide watch.
her counselors have her on probation.
her principle is itching to kick her out of school.

but her ex doesn't give up on her.
too bad she won't crack.

then came the new boy. Jake.
thing is, Jake is persistent.
very persistent.

but will Jake finally make Parker spill? or is he in over his head?

rave: i would have NEVER guessed what secret Parker was hiding. i seriously never saw it coming.

at first i thought that this would be another preppy, private school girl book, but it's not.

it's not shallow at all.

i'm suprized that it's actually a very heart-felt, touching book.

i LOVE  Parker's attitude: her personality, how prickly she is, her retorts--she's sassy, saucy, and she's basically a very well-rounded, beautifully created character.

review: books... "Willow" by Julia Hoban

rating: 5 out of 5

rave: unexpectedly beautiful. not sappy-emo at all!

synop: Seven months ago, on a rainy March night, Willow's professor parents drank a little too much, so she drove. And killed them both. now willow lives as a self-tried, convicted murderer of her own parents and as a burden in her brother's life.

even though he never says it, Willow knows. 

she's just an extra mouth to feed at the table.

when he looks at her, she reminds them of their parents. how she killed them.

but he never says it out loud.

just like how they don't talk about anything anymore.

cutting was her escape. killing herself was never the intent.

this is all put into jeopardy when Guy stumbles upon her dirty little secret and threatens to tell her brother.

It was just a small little lie. at first. "if he finds out [i'm cutting], it would kill him."

he was supposed to be easy to brush off. he didn't know her.

but Guy is persistent, and it buds into a romance, an introspective journey to the past, and blossoms.

will he be the one?

rant: This is an unforgettable book.

just beautiful in so many ways.

and a surprisingly deep, un-emo, un-sappy read.

it was supposed to be a casual friendship. fine. nothing special.

they feel in love. fine. still nothing extraordinary.

but it was more than just that. it was a self-journey that Willow takes him on.

sorry--there are just simply no words to describe this book.

review: "The Breakable Vow" by Kathryn Anne Clarke

rating: 6 out of 5

rave: breath-taking, stunning, suspenseful, & the most memeorable book you will ever read. b/c there is nothing like it out there. 

it will keep you on your toes & on the edge of your chair.

b/c in a way, Annie's life is just ike a horror movie.

synop: Annie, 18, gets accidentally pregnant.

stop right there. i know what you are thinking. that this is another book on teen-age pregnancies. you could not be more wrong.

Annie is your average girl w. her football star boyfriend. but thing is, Annie & Keven deeply love each other. so the decide to keep the baby, get married, and move away from Chicago to Texas for him to get an education while she would be the stay-at-home mom.

and that's when it all goes out of control.

Kevin controlls every aspect of her life.
he hides her mail sent by her family,
he controls the finances.
and she is never allowed to leave the house (?) (sorry, it has been a while since i read it, but i read it twice, and i'm already planning to read it again--yup, it's that good, and it's that memorable.)

and most of all, kevin gets violent. he hits her, threatens her, and controls every aspect of her being. but he loves her. and she loves him.

and she loves him too. that's why. that is why this novel is amazing.

if you think that this novel is about the strength of love, you are wrong again.

here's the twist: kevin loosens up a bit. he lets her have a job, the violence stops.

when will Annie finally break free from Kevin? Will she ever?

it all comes down to a suspenseful, dramatic, epic last straw for her to finally break free, wake up to smell the coffee.

rant: THIS IS AN AMAZING MUST READ.

the atmosphere of the entire book is just amazing. pure literary genius.

every page of the book, you can cut through the tension in the air: the horrific beauty of it is just incredibly captivating.

you can feel Annie. you're practically right there the entire time, seeing her stuck in Kevin's web of manipulation & abuse.

you're right there with her everytime she gets reeled back in by his gestures of love.

you're right there when Kevin sweet-talks the cops into believing that there's no problem,

when Annie can't convince her neighbors, Kevin's fans too, that he's dangerous,

you're with her when she feels joy in spending money to buy a notebook. that's the kind of control Kevin had over her--she felt so naughty when she bought something behind Kevin's back--a notebook!

you're in the car with her when Kevin goes on a tirade, driving erratically, smashing her head into the dash,

and you're there when her plan falls through right at the moment she needed it the most. it was just a slip of the mouth. when she finally realized that she needed to escape, but has no power to.

it's just beautiful. with the right amount of blood, violence & gore, more than enough suspense and tension.

this book GETS YOUR HEART PUMPING, YOUR ADRENALINE RUSHING! it's better than a good scary movie--it's "Breakable Vow" by Kathryn A. Clarke.

review: books... "The Summer I Turned Pretty" by Jenny Han

rating: 4 out of 5

rave: it's a good summer read. captures perfectly the essence of summer and fun under the sun.

bottom line: ehhhh.... i say.... read it.

synop: Belly's life revolves around the summers she spends in Cousins beach. The other 10 months of school is just a count-down until the next summer.

Every year every since the dawn of time, she spends her summers in the beach house with her mother's best friend whose children are her best friends too: Jeremiah and Conrad.

Belly has had a crush on Conrad ever since she was little, but will he ever see her as a girl, and not a playmate?

This summer, things will change. The boys will see her for who she is: not as her older brother's sister, but as a girl.

Rant: i think that this was a ehhh read... i'm really right down the middle: i mean, the beginning & middle were very well-writtten, but i did not like the end.

when i first read the synop, i thought that it would be another shallow teen romance, but i gotta say that it wasn't: there was depth to the novel.

and i think that what set it apart from those other books is that there is change in it:

Jeremiah's father is getting estranged from the family (divorce?),
the guys see her as a girl (!),
her brother is going off to college (!),
and she has a summer fling, which sort of got me mad b/c of how.... i don't know.

on top of that, Conrad was a total ass this summer: he would get drunk all the time, he stayed locked up in his room 99% of the vacation, he also had a summer fling with another girl (not that Belly didn't do the same thing, but hey...) i mean, it would have been fine if he didn't end up w. her.

thing is, i don't think that he deserved Belly's love.

even though he had a good reason to act like an ass, i still felt that it was unacceptable. Jeremiah was going through the same thing, and he wasn't an ass to Belly the entire summer. Maybe it was b/c of different personalities, ways of seeing the world, or watev, but i don't find that as a valid excuse.

Belly had pined her entire life for Conrad, and he was an ass that summer. a total ass. he alienated himself from the rest of the family, and he didn't deserve her.

especially since Jeremiah loves her. the cute younger brother who has always been there for her. but apparently, she doens't feel the same way.

maybe Han is trying to show that you fall in love with who you may, and he may not be perfect, but you're in love with him anyway, but i felt that Jeremiah deserved better than Belly's rejection for a guy that didn't show any interest and on top of that was out-right ignoring her.

review: books... "Very LeFreak" by Rachel Cohn

rating: 2 out of 5

bottom line: a disappointment.

synop: Very is a techie in college that suffers from too-much-good-time syndrome: she excessively parties, buys stuff online with her maxxed out cards, gets drunk every night, and is promiscuous. In addition to that, Very is addicted to her iPhone, her playlists, her precious laptop, and El Virus, a guy she met online, that haunts her every thought and dream.

With her scholarship on the line, her friends decide to intervene: they take away her laptop, iPod, and send her off to tech camp. 28 days of electronics-free hell. No iPod, no iPhone, no IMing, no cell-phones, laptops, nothing.

Does Very have the strength to resist? or will she relapse?

Review: the synop sounds good. they all do. otherwise i wouldn't read them, now would i?

but i gotta say that this was a flopper.

the idea was really nice, and the beginning of the book was okay--i kept hoping that she would fall in love with Brian (her best bud that's also a [cute] techie). i mean he has feelings for her, she knows he does, but El Virus haunts her thoughts.

but the thing i'm not happy about is the ending of the book.

**SPOILER ALERT!!**

she ends up w. her roomate of all people. [we all knew that she was bi, but come on?! everyone loves a good best-friends fall in love book!]

the ending just left too much hanging: all the problems she had to deal with--her credit cards, school, ect. it was all ignored.

i mean, sure, you don't have to explicitly say it out loud and just imply it, but this implication-filled ending was unsatisfying.

review: books... "love sick" by jake coburn

rating: 3 out of 5

bottom line: read it.

synop: one day out of the blue, a wealthy man makes jake a proposition: he will pay for Jake's college at Ivy League in exchange for keeping an eye out for his daughter, Erica.

why?

well, Erica here has an eating disorder. she is bulimic. she gorges herself on a dozen of doughnuts one night, then proceedes to barf them all right back out.

simple enough. at this point, you would think that it would be a stalker-like book, but read on:

but.

he did not expect to fall in love.

is Jake strong enough to keep lieing to Erica?

or will Erica doubt his feelings for her once she finds out?

review: i think that this was a pretty well-written novel.

20% of america's teenage girls have an eating disorder: whether they're anorexic (don't eat), or bulimic (eat too much to only barf it out again).

and i like the fact that this book adresses that--Erica isn't a druggie, or socially-inept.

review: books... "before i die" by jenny downham

rating: 4 out of 5

rant: beautiful novel.

synop: Tessa, 15, is a girl diagnosed with cancer, and she is determined to do 10 things before she dies.

which includes having sex, doing drugs, & shoplifting.

but she unexpectedly falls in love with her next-door neighbor Adam, who has to choose between his mother and Tessa. Adam is all his mother has, but is he all Tessa has? will he make the right choice?

review: it's about experimentation, love, and living life for what it's worth: the tiny moments.

bottom line: read it.