Our February book of the month will be–What Light by Jay Asher! We hope you will join us in reading this book this month!

Hello! So I gave this book 4/5 stars on Goodreads. I looked back at the first book and I realized I gave All Fall Down 5/5 stars. I think the reason that rating went down for the second one was because it had been so long since I read the first one, I had trouble getting into the second one.

Once I was about 100 pages in though, I was starting to remember and get caught up. I really like the story of this book. While I don’t always like some of the characters, I like the story that the author weaves. I remember in the first book I did not like Grace as the narrator. I knew she had some problems and she still does but the reason I didn’t like her was because she did nothing to help herself with those problems. She was too busy being tortured and torturing herself to care and that is what bothered me. That is why in this second book I tried to ignore that a little bit. I didn’t write it off completely because she is our eyes and ears in this story but I tried not to focus too much on her hating herself and I enjoyed this book much more.

***********************************************************************SPOILER SECTION!! DO NOT READ PAST THIS IF YOU HAVE NOT READ THE BOOK YET!!***

I accidentally read the blurb/summary for the third book in this series so that basically ruined the whole secret for me. I knew she was the lost princess from the beginning and I could tell a couple times that the author put little easter eggs in the second book. When Grace went to the palace on the first night of the Festival and the princess looked right at her or just how everyone was either trying to kill Grace’s family or protect them, especially the princess. When I say princess, I’m talking about Ann but now we know that Grace is the lost princess of Adria so she’s not the only princess.

Wow, I feel like I need to work on my reviewing skills. Lol. This is a mess but we are going to go with it and learn together.

Anyway, I love Alexei. I love when he and Grace went out to the waterfall and swam underneath the stars. That was really cute. I loved the history that was woven through this story and how it all related to the present and the idea that history repeats itself because it does.

I wish Grace’s friends were present in the story more. They were there but we didn’t get to see a lot of them; like Rosie, Noah, and Megan. I hope they come into play more in the third book. I also want to know more about Grace’s family. I loved that we got to see Jamie in this book but now that Grace knows more, I want to see how their relationship develops with this new knowledge about their heritage. I also want to meet Grace’s dad. I don’t remember if we ever got to meet him. If we did, I want to know more about him nonetheless.

I still don’t really know how I feel about Chancellor. I know I don’t trust her but she seems to play a vital role in all these books so far. She is a character I can’t figure out.

I wish we got to see more of Spencer. He was a very closed off character but was so vital to the story. I don’t like how he died but without his death, a lot of things would have probably remained buried in the book’s catacomb of secrets.

I liked this book overall and will probably be picking up the third one soon. Hope everyone has a wonderful day and we hope you will join us for our February book of the month–announced in a separate post!

~Erin

I have been waiting to read See How They Run for a while and I was really excited to pick it up. However, I was pretty disappointed by it. I know Erin had a different experience of the book, but I wasn’t enthralled by it. There was a combination of a few factors that did it for me: characters (specifically Grace), the secrets, and the ending. If you have not read the book yet and plan to, I would recommend reading the book before reading this review. There will be spoilers.

First, the characters… Specifically Grace was terrible. I know, I know, she has issues. I get that. We touched on this in our book talk/review on YouTube last year of All Fall Down. As someone dealing with mental illness, I totally understand where she was coming from in the first book. The PTSD of the first book was very centered and reasonable for what she had been through. I can’t imagine finding out that I shot my mother. However, See How They Run takes all the supposed resolution from the first book and blows it out of the water. Literally every chapter is her describing how guilty she is and doing absolutely nothing about it. That’s the part that gets me the most. I can’t deal with people who don’t help themselves in some way. I can understand needing help and asking for help, but I can’t understand when someone knows that they need help to stop suffering and do nothing about it. I also can’t stand hating the main character/narrator of a book.

Second, the secrets… So someone has PTSD right? And they just found out they killed their mother and was super angry at you for not telling them. What makes you think that keeping more secrets from them is a good idea? I firmly believe that Grace would have been about 50% better if she actually knew about her life. At least then she could deal with it rather than have someone after her with no logical explanation. Just a thought.

Lastly, the ending… Up until this point, the plot made sense. The Society, John Spencer’s murder, the Festival, everything. Then she becomes the lost princess of Adria and Ally Carter officially loses me. We didn’t even know that the princess wasn’t killed on that night! She was supposed to be dead, and everyone saw it. But now Amelia lived, and Grace is her descendant? I call bull on that. For me, plot twists have to make sense within the context of the story. I have to have some background information that, individually, doesn’t amount to much. However, when they finally reveal whatever it is you are supposed to know, all that information suddenly makes sense. It’s a very sneaky thing that makes you applaud the author for their talent. This was not one of those times, and I was disappointed.

Overall, I kind of drudged through this book hoping that it would get better. I understand why someone would want to keep reading, but I don’t. I’m going to give it 2 out of 5 stars and leave it at that. Make sure you check out our February 2017 Book of the Month post to see what we are reading next month!

~ Gwen

I found this book recently when I took a trip to Barnes and Nobles. I remember reading the first four books in this series when I was in Junior High and I did not realize that the author had written more books in this series so I was extremely happy to find out that she did. Yes, this is a middle grade book. Yes, I am reviewing it through my twelve-fourteen year old eyes. But first, let me tell you what I thought of it through my present twenty year old eyes.

I got through it. I got through the book without hating it which I was really happy about because I was worried that I wouldn’t like the series anymore because I am older and I thought it would have been boring or too predictable but it was not. Yes, it was a bit cheesy at some points but I still liked it.

Okay, now onto the in depth review. I gave it 4/5 stars on Goodreads. The first couple chapters I had a hard time getting into because I was still remembering what happened in the last book. I totally forgot that the character Aaron was in the books. I like Emily as a narrator because you find things out as she does. It’s very easy to understand what is going on because the characters literally spell out what their plans are and what the magic of everything means. It reminded me a lot of Scooby Doo in those ways. I remembered why I fell in love with these books in the first place and I’m happy this fifth book did not disappoint. I have always loved mermaid books and I remember this series being the first one that I latched onto and absolutely loved. I haven’t found another mermaid series or book that has done that since.

I liked how this one expanded the world view. They went to a totally different part of the ocean and I don’t think they did that in any of the other books. There were mountains and it reminded me of Norway.

Well, that’s all folks. I would recommend this book to anyone looking for a nice, easy read or if you just love mermaid stories, this is the book for you. Leave a comment if you like! Did anyone else read this series? What did you think? Any other recommendations for fantasy mermaid novels, maybe YA?

Have a wonderful day and happy reading!

~Erin

Hello again! I’m back with another review! It has been minutes since I finished this book and I just want to read it all over again. Lauren’s second book was like having a conversation with your best friend. I laughed a lot while reading this book and found myself smiling almost non stop. I gave it 5/5 stars on Goodreads.

SPOILERS PAST THIS POINT

I loved the chapter called “You Can’t Be Vegan Just for Ellen”. When she tried to explain what’s “healthy” and what’s not and what you should eat and not eat, I related to it so much. There is no one way to be healthy because every person’s body is different.

I loved reading her reactions to the first seven seasons of Gilmore Girls and what she remembered from them. I also liked the journal about the revival that she kept.

When she talked about being single for such a long time that people started to worry about her, I related to that chapter so much. I’m 20 (almost 21) and I have never been on a date, never kissed anyone, never been in a relationship, nada. So that chapter was really comforting to me. Lol.

I loved the pictures that she included in each of the chapters. Sutton Foster!!

The ending was a cliffhanger just like Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life. It was great. It was such a wonderful book and I can’t wait for more books from her.

Happy reading!

~Erin

I really wish Goodreads would allow half stars or quarter stars because I wanted to give this book 4.5 stars. I loved this book. I loved getting to see the show business side of things from a first hand point of view. I loved the quirky characters and their different views on the world.

I picked up this book because when I heard that Lauren Graham wrote books, I was really excited. I loved her in Gilmore Girls and Parenthood (still in the middle of this show) and wanted to see if I would enjoy her book as well. Wonderfully, I did.

SPOILERS BEYOND THIS POINT

I really liked the Filofax pages that were included. It really helped me see the personality of Franny and what she thought about and would remind herself to do. It made me relate to her more.

I hated James. He was such a jerk and I never really understood why. He was the “perfect” man from far away but up close, he was fake and vain about everything. Everything he said or did was for the aesthetic of it, not the actual thing it was, if that makes any sense.

I loved Franny’s explanation to Dan of love triangles because I get tired of those endlessly but it’s what a lot of people relate to so, it sells. I loved seeing Dan’s reaction to what she said about the different shapes of emotions/love and how that almost completely mirrored her life but she didn’t want to see it that way.

I liked the answering machine messages we got but I didn’t really like the ending. It just kind of dropped off for me and I was left feeling like there has to be more, it can’t just end like that. When I think about it though, life doesn’t end perfectly. For Franny, it wasn’t over and you see her going on with her life and you know there is more to the message. It was a cliff-hanger for me and I think that’s why I didn’t like it that much. I read a lot of series so when I read contemporaries, I have a hard time letting go of the characters when I know I will not see them again.

Overall, I loved it. I am excited to read her next book, Talking As Fast As I Can. If you guys have any comments or questions or just want to discuss your opinions on this book, leave a comment on this post! I would love to hear your responses if you have read this book!

Happy reading!

~Erin

Hello everyone! So this year we are trying something new. We have chosen to both read a book together each month in addition to all the other books we are reading but you guys can join in! It’s like a book club basically. For the month of January we are reading See How They Run by Ally Carter.

Our reviews for this book will be up at the end of the month on January 31st. That is also when we will reveal the next book of the month for February. You can follow us on Instagram for updates!

We also have a Youtube channel but we have decided to post mostly on this blog and on Instagram because we find it easier to keep up with this instead of making videos. We will still occasionally make videos on our channel but most of our stuff will be on this blog or Instagram.

Hope you can join us on this bookish journey! Have a wonderful day!

~Erin