#BookLook || Sword and Verse by Kathy MacMillan

Sword and Verse by nobentspines featuring a kat von d lipstick

ARC #Review || A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry

Published April 12, 2016
Goodreads || Amazon
ARC via Netgalley
Rating 2.5 Stars 

Everyone knows the legends about the cursed girl--Isabel, the one the señoras whisper about. They say she has green skin and grass for hair, and she feeds on the poisonous plants that fill her family’s Caribbean island garden. Some say she can grant wishes; some say her touch can kill.

Seventeen-year-old Lucas lives on the mainland most of the year but spends summers with his hotel-developer father in Puerto Rico. He’s grown up hearing stories about the cursed girl, and he wants to believe in Isabel and her magic. When letters from Isabel begin mysteriously appearing in his room the same day his new girlfriend disappears, Lucas turns to Isabel for answers--and finds himself lured into her strange and enchanted world. But time is running out for the girl filled with poison, and the more entangled Lucas becomes with Isabel, the less certain he is of escaping with his own life.

#Review || Degrees of Wrong by Anna Scarlett || Underwater Apocolypse

Degrees of Wrong by Anna Scarlett
Goodreads || Amazon
Kindle Edition
Published: August 28, 2012

This time, the straight-and-narrow path could be the road to ruin. 

Dr. Elyse Morgan’s mission: find the cure to the HTN4 virus. The compensation, courtesy of the United Nations: a lab stocked with hi-tech goodies, limitless resources and enough chocolate to make her rear look like a cellulite farm. Bonus: she gets to live.

Rescued (kidnapped) and secreted (imprisoned) on an undersea warship, Elyse adjusts to her assumed identity as a cadet with the finesse of a toeless ballerina. Her sulfuric temper and blatant insubordination capture the unwanted attention of the ship’s captain, the gorgeous, infuriating, engaged Nicoli Marek.

#BookLook || Saving Montgomery Sole by Mariko Tamaki

Saving Montgomery Sole by nobentspines featuring Dorothy Perkins

My Two Cents

I don't know about you, but I've been COVETING a jean skirt since I got my red boots TWO WHOLE YEARS ago. That's s super long time. I went shopping the other day and saw (and tried on) what I though was The One.

Long story short, it was a let down. So the search continues.

About the Book

Goodreads || Amazon

Montgomery Sole is a square peg in a small town, forced to go to a school full of jocks and girls who don't even know what irony is. It would all be impossible if it weren't for her best friends, Thomas and Naoki. The three are also the only members of Jefferson High's Mystery Club, dedicated to exploring the weird and unexplained, from ESP and astrology to super powers and mysterious objects.

Then there's the Eye of Know, the possibly powerful crystal amulet Monty bought online. Will it help her predict the future or fight back against the ignorant jerks who make fun of Thomas for being gay or Monty for having two moms? Maybe the Eye is here just in time, because the newest resident of their small town is scarier than mothmen, poltergeists, or, you know, gym.

ARC #Review || The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood

Published May 3, 2016
Goodreads || Amazon
ARC via Andye @ Readingteen.net
Rating: 2.5 Stars 

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It's a little bit like a black hole. It's a little bit like infinity.

Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she's hurtled through wormholes to her past:

To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn't even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory.

Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie's past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone's heart is about to be broken.

"Fractals, I write down. The infinite, self-replicating patterns in nature. The big picture, the whole story, is just thousands of tiny stories, like a kaleidoscope."

The mathematical equations, hearts battered from loss and loneliness, teenage love and friendship; The Square Root of Summer follows the story of Gottie after her Grandfather’s death and the return of a certain boy, and black holes. While this book is intensely beautiful in the beginning and in the end, I found myself struggling to keep going with the book during the middle. I liked the middle pages fine, but I felt no attachment or burning desire to keep with the book as an un-put-down-able.

The book has these gorgeous illustrations in it. It made me want to like science and math more. I mean, I still don’t. But it’s the thought that counts, yeah? This book is intensely math-y. In a good way. It tied well with how Gottie was confused about everything: life, and death, and everything in-between.  Her trying to figure out black holes in all their glory is parallel to her life, and her rampant falling into the said black holes only builds on that. As much as I really liked all of that stuff, I just was so bored (and frustrated) with how she handled life and her friends. Also the fact that some of her friendships and relationships weren’t super explained had me searching for an explanation.

(there was not an explanation to be found)

Due to the whole lack of character development issue / me not really liking anybody but highlighting more than necessary because WORDS—let’s just say I found myself befuddled. To say the least, that is. I really wanted to like Gottie, but I was just confused. I get the plot was meant to be that way, and in the beginning I thought it was intriguing. As the book progressed, however, I became disinterested. I think this could have been remedied if I just liked them all a bit better. Honestly, I liked her dead grandfather best, next to her father. I felt like I knew them better that the more dominate characters in the book. Which is weird because they’re hardly in the actual plot.

While I wanted to love the odd mixture of the real life feels about the death of a loved one and emergence of an old friend, along with the memory gaps / falling into black holes, I just wasn’t feeling it. There were parts of the book that just didn’t really work, and had no explanation. This kind of ruined the book for me. Overall I liked it, but the small instances of bad stuck with more than the good instances.

#BookLook || Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

Three Dark Crowns by nobentspines featuring black booties

Goodreads || Amazon

Every generation on the island of Fennbirn, a set of triplets is born: three queens, all equal heirs to the crown and each possessor of a coveted magic. Mirabella is a fierce elemental, able to spark hungry flames or vicious storms at the snap of her fingers. Katharine is a poisoner, one who can ingest the deadliest poisons without so much as a stomachache. Arsinoe, a naturalist, is said to have the ability to bloom the reddest rose and control the fiercest of lions.

But becoming the Queen Crowned isn’t solely a matter of royal birth. Each sister has to fight for it. And it’s not just a game of win or lose…it’s life or death. The night the sisters turn sixteen, the battle begins. The last queen standing gets the crown.

If only it was that simple. Katharine is unable to tolerate the weakest poison, and Arsinoe, no matter how hard she tries, can’t make even a weed grow. The two queens have been shamefully faking their powers, taking care to keep each other, the island, and their powerful sister Mirabella none the wiser. But with alliances being formed, betrayals taking shape, and ruthless revenge haunting the queens’ every move, one thing is certain: the last queen standing might not be the strongest…but she may be the darkest.

Family and Forgiveness || #Review: Summer of Sloane by Erin L. Schneider

ARC via Netgalley and Publisher
May 3, 2016
Goodreads || Amazon

Warm Hawaiian sun. Lazy beach days. Flirty texts with her boyfriend back in Seattle.

These are the things seventeen-year-old Sloane McIntyre pictured when she imagined the summer she’d be spending at her mom’s home in Hawaii with her twin brother, Penn. Instead, after learning an unthinkable secret about her boyfriend, Tyler, and best friend, Mick, all she has is a fractured hand and a completely shattered heart.

Once she arrives in Honolulu, though, Sloane hopes that Hawaii might just be the escape she needs. With beach bonfires, old friends, exotic food, and the wonders of a waterproof cast, there’s no reason Sloane shouldn’t enjoy her summer. And when she meets Finn McAllister, the handsome son of a hotel magnate who doesn’t always play by the rules, she knows he’s the perfect distraction from everything that’s so wrong back home.

But it turns out a measly ocean isn’t nearly enough to stop all the emails, texts, and voicemails from her ex-boyfriend and ex-best friend, desperate to explain away their betrayal. And as her casual connection with Finn grows deeper, Sloane’s carefree summer might not be as easy to find as she’d hoped. Weighing years of history with Mick and Tyler against their deception, and the delicate possibility of new love, Sloane must decide when to forgive, and when to live for herself.

"They don't deserve any of my time, and they sure as hell don't deserve me" (ARC).

Let’s just say (hypothetically) that your boyfriend for a year cheated on you with your best friend for practically ever (TWICE!) and is now pregnant with his baby. After that you broke his nose. While I never condone violence, I couldn’t help but to think that I would probably react a whole lot like Sloane did. She was able to rocket off to her Mom’s place in Hawaii with her twin brother. There she’s able to contemplate the value of family, friendship, and forgiveness.

There are so many highlights in my book. So. Many. Highlights. I mean, wow, looking back through it, I maaaay have gone a tad bit overboard. Just a little. But, goodness, y’all. This book. It was gorgeous and heartbreaking and frustrating.

Wait-what? Yes, frustrating. Snap decisions and quick judgments are a part of what make these characters who they are. They’re human, relatable, and alive. I mean, goodness, I was angry when Sloane was furious, and sad when she was, and hurt when she felt broken. I wanted to be her friend and just hug her and tell her that I’m so sorry that the world sucks, and that life isn’t super green on the other side, and that the lies will sting a little less a little later on. Or at least I hoped that they would.

This story was about family and forgiveness, and that was achieved through growth. It was set it a luscious Hawaiian back drop, with a family secret. It depicted a gorgeous friendship that bloomed as another one fell apart, and a brother-sister relationship that deserves all the stars. The relationships really build the books and I just want to say THANK YOU. For giving me the perspective of the girl who got cheated on, and the reaction of the family as followed. In a teenage light.

I loved this book. I loved the writing, and the characters, and the love, and the hate, and the relationships.

I honestly can’t think of a book that I’ve ever literally ranted about the familial relationships over as much as this one. But it’s worth it.

So worth it.

In this end I have this to say: Summer of Sloane is worth the read. And the re-read.

"You need to do what's best for you, Sloane. If that means moving on, then so be it--at least you can't say you didn't try" (ARC).