"Adam & Evie" Book Review

My Rating: ★★★☆☆ 3 Stars 

Digital copy received in exchange for my honest and unbiased review.

 Adam & Evie was one of that cute, high-school, I-have-a-crush-on-my-best-friend kind of feel-good book.

Evie Chase is the quiet, nerdy but cute girl who is in love with her best friend Adam Fields. The mean girl (because let’s face it, there’s always a mean girl) humiliates Evie in front of the entire student body. Evie not only loses what little confidence she holds dear, but she loses trust in her best friend and ultimately the friendship ends.

Fast forward to 3 years, and Evie & the rest of the Chase family are living it up in LA. Evie is a famous pop star and older sister is an actress. But now Evie has to return to her hometown where she will face Adam once again, as well as the mean girl who took Adam from her. The only twist is – Evie is returning in disguise to finish up her senior year at Roosevelt High.

I am always, and I truly mean ALWAYS fascinated when famous people (albeit movie characters) take on a disguise to mask their true identity and no one figures out who they really are - Batman, Superman, Supergirl.

Come on! You couldn’t possibly be that dumb/oblivious right?

Overall, it was a good book. It was not an original plot, but find me an original plot in this day and age out of the millions/billions of published books.

I found the book having way too much drama at times as well as unnecessary teenage angst.

Pretty early on in the book Evie’s identity was revealed and I appreciated that. We got to know the real Evie, more or less. It felt like the book was plot-driven with a lot of fillers, rather than being character driven, which is not necessarily a bad thing, its just that I didn’t get to really know the characters.

There wasn’t much of a character arc for Evie & Adam; however, one particular character displayed some noticeable character development toward the end.

I would recommend this to teenagers who fall within the 13-16 year old range.

"Restart" Book Review

My Rating: ★★★★☆ 4Stars


Really exciting premise which delivered! The writing style was clear and crisp with a perfect selection of words and metaphors. The choice of alternating views was the best approach and the author was able to tell this story in detail with distinctive character voices and personalities.
I loved how the book preaches that someone can really change, albeit the main character had to get amnesia to actually change, but still, I loved the lesson and some of the themes. What I did not like, and that’s something I never like, is bullying. I do not condone bullying, I do not like to read books or watch movies in which humans are so wicked and unfair. No matter what goes on in your life, there is NO excuse for bullying.

"Tattoo Thief (Tattoo Thief Book 1)" Book Review

My Rating: ★★★★☆ 4 Stars

Let’s get one thing straight, this book has absolutely nothing to do with the stealing of tattoos, because c’mon, that would be torture to the highest degree; however, the thought of someone carving out tattoos from a person’s body does make for a compelling premise of  a future novel. Hint Hint.

So, Tattoo Thief – music, romance, second chances, real estate, drugs, insta-love/infatuation and a judgmental pseudo-psychologist is what we get.

Beryl, our protagonist, is a small town girl of Eugene, Oregon, living a small town life working at a coffee shop and three days a week at a brewpub. She gets the opportunity to become a house sitter for the ultra-rich in the big apple.

Her new-found job places her in the home of rock star Gavin Slater – lead vocalist of Tattoo Thief (yup, it’s a band). His place is trashed, his dog abandoned and Beryl makes it her duty to get to the bottom of this – why he left his place in such a mess, why he disappeared in such a hurry and what part did he play in the death of his muse?

I gave it 4 stars because it was well-written and there was an actual plot, the romance did not overpower the plot at all.

The plot started out great – a small town girl getting a job opportunity in the big city, getting to house-sit for a super-rich, hot, rock star. I loved that about the book, I even loved that she had the opportunity to fall in love with the guy. I found that to be a dream come true fantasy. Ugh, what I would give to be in her shoes.

However, the romance between Beryl and Gavin blossomed prematurely and because of that it felt like they didn’t have much in common except for their loneliness. It would have been more plausible if the author chose to keep them as friends, which is what they were more suited to be based on their conversations.

Beryl was also pretty judgemental toward Gavin. There’s a difference between telling the truth like it is and plain out being judgemental, especially when it’s someone you’ve just met. Like hold up chick, this is my life, not yours; you don’t know what went on so shush. But no, Gavin didn’t tell her that, just wishful thinking on my part.

She also did this creepy thing where she wore his ex-girlfriend’s clothes; the same clothes he told her to throw out. Believe me, I understand that the wardrobe must have been expensive, but don’t go wearing it when you’re going on a date with him. I mean c’mon! Be more considerate toward the poor guy, he’s going to be distraught in memory lane when he sees his dead girlfriend’s outfits on the new girl that he’s dating. That was just wrong and inconsiderate of her. Tsk tsk tsk, any human would know that Beryl.

So there it is – a well-written book with a plot, even though some parts were pretty ridiculous. It doesn’t fall in the erotic genre by the way. 

"Bookishly Ever After (Ever After #1)" Book Review

My Rating ★★★☆☆ While this was a “fun” read, I didn’t enjoy it and I didn’t connect with the characters. I do think this had so much potential to be one of those AWWW books that a girl just has to love. I feel cheated; I feel like a kid who just left the candy store empty-handed. I was genuinely looking forward to reading this a few days ago despite my incessant rantings (soliloquy of course) about not being a fan of YA anymore (to be fair, I was never a real fan of YA, I simply happened to enjoy a select few YA books that I’ve come across in the past).  Phoebe, our protagonist, is virtually socially inept. She’s the classic knitting book-nerd who has a new book boyfriend almost every week but has failed to snatch a real life boy. She goes through her high-school free periods with her nose buried in a book and barely has time for anything else.  At the beginning of the book, Phoebe is actually crushing on a different guy who resembles the hot guy in the book that she is currently reading. Her friend Em has planted this idea into Phoebe’s head that Dev – the tall, dark, gorgeous, band geek – has a crush on her and that she should make her move. It’s only after Em mentioned Dev as a potential that Phoebe starts paying attention to him. But, being that she’s socially inept and has a lack of real life experience with dating she turns to her books as a guide. She attempts to channel the flirtatious female characters as a way to win Dev.  I mean come on! What’s not to love about this premise - the promise of a light, fun, happily-ever-after modern day fairy tale? Even the book cover is gorgeous and inviting.  She loves books. I love books. It was the perfect fit.  Phoebe has read countless romance/YA/Paranormal books; enough for her to easily take notice of Dev’s feelings for her yet she is unsure? Come on Feebs, you’re smarter than that. I know you are. Her obsession with this Golden book really made me like this one less. It really did. How obsessed can one person be with anything? I should’ve known she would be obsessed with a particular book, much like Hazel and Augustus Gloop in The Fault in Our Stars – The Imperial Affliction. She goes on and on about her love for the book and the characters (especially the swoon-worthy Aeden). My utmost wish at this point is to not have to read the word “swoon-worthy” during the next few months.  I also did not enjoy having to read snippets of another book; I cringed every time I had to. There was once I actually turned off my kindle when I got to the part where I had to read yet another scene out of Golden. I resumed reading the day after.  So there you go, I did not like Phoebe.  I did not like Em. She had an obsession too – French kissing German-style and breaking up/getting back together with her foreign exchange boyfriend.  I kept picturing Dev as Michael Persad (that gorgeous, Vine, Indian-descent guy) just to connect with him and get through, suffice it to say – that didn’t really help. Dev was just so plain. There was nothing which stood out about him or nothing that made me think “Yes! No wonder Pheobe likes him”.  Grace was probably the only character who seemed like she had her head on straight. Almost every scene she had in the book she gave some really wise, mature advice. Go Grace!  The writing style was confusing at times, but only a few times throughout the book in particular scenes.  The way the two main characters fell for each other would be more appreciated by the younger audience I think. Or maybe I’m just really not in YA.  Hey, quick question, do readers actually remember the names and stories of characters they’ve read? Because I seem to forget about names shortly after I read a book. And sometimes a month or two later I completely forget the plot of a book