Review: The Boyfriend App by Katie Sise

The Boyfriend App by Katie Sise

• Pub. Date: April 30, 2013
• Publisher: Balzer & Bray
• Pages:320
• Goodreads/Amazon/Book Depository

     In The Boyfriend App by Katie Sise, super-smart, somewhat geeky Audrey McCarthy can’t wait to get out of high school. Her father’s death and the transformation of her one-time BFF, Blake Dawkins, into her worst nightmare have her longing for the new start college will bring.

But college takes money. So Audrey decides she has to win the competition for the best app designed by a high schooler—and the $200,000 that comes with it. She develops something she calls the Boyfriend App, and suddenly she’s the talk of the school and getting kissed by the hottest boys around. But can the Boyfriend App bring Audrey true love?

First Line: It was lunchtime in the social battleground better known as Harrison's upperclassman cafeteria, and I was staring at Aidan Bailey.

Review: I loved the idea behind this book, it was so cute and adorable. And for the first half or so of the book I was leaning towards a strong 3.5 rating but as the book progressed things just got a little to weird and scattered that by the time I was done reading it it dropped to a 2.5.

Audrey is in high school she was once part of the popular crowd but now hangs out with the "geeks" who spend most of their time in the computer lab. She has some amazing skills when it comes to hacking and programming thanks to her father ( who passed away her freshmen year ). The girl is smart but sadly her and her mom don't have much money to send her to college so when one of the nations hugest tech companies starts up a contest to where whoever creates the most popular app will get two hundred thousand for college Audrey jumps at the chance and creates a boyfriend app. And everything is going good until all hell breaks loose.

Before I get into what didn't work for me I'll talk about some of the things I did enjoy. I really liked Audrey and her set of friends. Mindy, Nigit, Aidan and her cousin Lindsey were all amazing characters and really good friends that a girl would be lucky to have. As for Audrey even though half the computer tech stuff she talked about I could not make any sense of, she was very believable. I never doubted her or her computer skills.

Now as for what didn't work for me, when the app was first created it was cute, people were hooking up and then the problem arose that the app wasn't the matchmaker it was thought to be when people were getting rejected so then Audrey went and created a newer version of the app thanks to some major conspiracy theory type plot twist and well that is where things got a little messy and at times just too unbelievable. The book went from cute where a girl is just trying to make it through high school and get some money for college to it involving top level executives trying to ruin Audrey's life. Also this book went with the stereotypical ex best friend mean girl and the girl put mean to an extreme. I've been seeing that in so many of the books I've been reading lately it's really just starting to annoy me especially since they are not even believable, maybe in some H.S some where in the world there are mean girls like that but it's still a little hard to believe.

Overall the book had lots of potential but even with my issues I found it to be a quick read.

Review: Death and the Girl Next Door by Darynda Jones

Death and the Girl Next Door by Darynda Jones

• Pub. Date: October 2, 2012
• Publisher:St. Martin's Press
• Pages:304
• Series:Darklight #1
• Amazon/Goodreads/Book Depository

Ten years ago, Lorelei's parents disappeared without a trace.  Raised by her grandparents and leaning on the support of her best friends, Lorelei is finally beginning to accept the fact that her parents are never coming home.  For Lorelei, life goes on.

High school is not quite as painful as she thinks it will be, and things are as normal as they can be.  Until the day the school's designated loner, Cameron Lusk, begins to stalk her, turning up where she least expects it,  standing outside her house in the dark, night after night.  Things get even more complicated when a new guy—terrifying, tough, sexy Jared Kovach—comes to school.  Cameron and Jared instantly despise each other and Lorelei seems to be the reason for their animosity.  What does Jared know about her parents?  Why does Cameron tell Jared he can't have Lorelei?  And what will any of them do when Death comes knocking for real? 

First Line: The small town of Riley's Switch, New mexico, had only one coffee house, and I sat at a booth in it with my two best friends.


Review: I really love Darynda Jones Charley Davidson series which is why I was excited to get my hands on her new YA novel Death and the Girl Next Door, but *sighs* I was not a fan of her latest novel, it fell short of what I expected. Do not get me wrong I loved the witty banter and humor that she thankfully also brought to this series but the plot and the characters were all too cliched.

My two pet peeves in YA books are love triangles, which thankfully there was none of that and my biggest pet peeve which is insta-love and this novel had that in big bold capital letters INSTA-LOVE, it was just a little too much. Actually this was one of those books where the romance came first and then the actual plot which by the way there were quite a few plot holes as well. Not to mention I got so annoyed with being reminded how hot Jared is. I get it the guy is sexy...jaw dropping gorgeous etc lets just move on from that.

Now as for the actual characters Lorelei had the classic case of she is beautiful but doesn't know it, and considers herself a plain Jane. One thing that bugged me was when she died and was brought back to life she  didn't question it all, just accepted it. Accepted everything really, about who Jared was, what Cameron was and then her and what her role was in all of it, she just took it all with stride. Which of course made her a very unrealistic character and in no way relatable. As for Jared he was an old being and it showed when compared to Lorelei and her friends. Jared had a maturity level that Lorelei and her friends didn't possess which also made the two hooking up seem so unlikely to really happen. None of the characters really grabbed me the only two that made somewhat of an impression were her friends Glitch and Brooklyn they are the reason I'm giving this book an extra half star.

 I'm still a little upset that I didn't love this book seeing what an amazing author Darynda Jones is, I had really high hopes for this one and like I said I love her other series, but this series of hers is just not for me. There were too many things that I couldn't get past to really enjoy the book. Overall Death and the Girl Next Door was just a little too all over the place that I do not see myself picking up the next book in the series.

Review: Ironskin by Tina Connolly

Ironskin by Tina Connolly

• Pub. Date: October 2, 2012
• Publisher: Tor Books
• Pages: 304
• Series: Iron Skin #1

Jane Eliot wears an iron mask. 

It’s the only way to contain the fey curse that scars her cheek. The Great War is five years gone, but its scattered victims remain—the ironskin. 

When a carefully worded listing appears for a governess to assist with a "delicate situation"—a child born during the Great War—Jane is certain the child is fey-cursed, and that she can help. 

Teaching the unruly Dorie to suppress her curse is hard enough; she certainly didn’t expect to fall for the girl’s father, the enigmatic artist Edward Rochart. But her blossoming crush is stifled by her own scars, and by his parade of women. Ugly women, who enter his closed studio...and come out as beautiful as the fey. 

Jane knows Rochart cannot love her, just as she knows that she must wear iron for the rest of her life. But what if neither of these things is true? Step by step Jane unlocks the secrets of her new life—and discovers just how far she will go to become whole again.

First Line: The moor was grey, battlefield grey.


Review: I had such high hopes for this book, the cover the blurb everything screamed this has to be a 5 star book but no not the case. I was a little disappointed the book had so much potential especially with that blurb but in the end it didn't live up to it entirely. Also if you have read Jane Eyre this is a retelling... a very loose retelling.

The book starts off letting us know that the Fey war has been over for the past five years. We are introduced to Jane who has to wear an iron mask since she was struck with the shrapnel's of a fey bomb and in turn she is cursed with rage and the iron mask keeps her curse in check. The people who wear ironskin are looked down upon and Jane has a hard time keeping a job until she gets the chance to work in the home of Edward Rochart who has a fey cursed child. 

I was expecting a fast paced thrilling read, what I wasn't expecting was to be bored for the first half of the book. The majority of the book was Jane trying to teach the child (Dorie) how to stop using her powers and use her hands to do things. I was tempted to mark this as dnf but I was stubborn, I was determined to see this one to the end and I'm actually glad I did, it got a lot better in the second half. It was more fast paced and we finally had other interesting characters to read about. I was expecting romance but there wasn't much and what did develop did not seem believable. Jane and Edward barely saw each other, didn't have much interaction but somehow fell in love.

I did like the world building it was done very well, I was able to really picture it all with vivid detail. I really liked the fantasy aspect of the world. I also actually really liked Jane. She is half the reason I continued reading when I normally would have put this one aside, she wasn't a damsel in distress when things got tough and chaotic she took action. 

Overall this book  was not for me, There were a few things I liked but not enough to where I want to pick up the second book when it comes out. 

Review: The City's Son by Tom Pollock

The City's Son by Tom Pollock

• Pub. Date: September 8,2012
• Publisher:Flux
• Pages: 480
• Series: The Skyscraper Throne #1

Running from her traitorous best friend and her estranged father, graffiti artist Beth Bradley is looking for sanctuary. What she finds is Urchin, the ragged and cocky crown prince of London’s mystical underworld. Urchin opens Beth’s eyes to the city she’s never truly seen-where vast spiders crawl telephone wires seeking voices to steal, railwraiths escape their tethers, and statues conceal an ancient priesthood robed in bronze.

But it all teeters on the brink of destruction. Amid rumors that Urchin’s goddess mother will soon return from her 15-year exile, Reach, a malign god of urban decay, wants the young prince dead. Helping Urchin raise an alleyway army to reclaim his skyscraper throne, Beth soon forgets her old life. But when her best friend is captured, Beth must choose between this wondrous existence and the life she left behind.

First Line: "I'm hunting."

Review: I've waited writing my review for this one because I've been trying to figure out what exactly it was that made me not really care for it and even now I'm still not sure, which is nerve wrecking because I always have a list of reasons why I did or did not enjoy a book. 

The book itself is a YA Urban Fantasy and the synopsis sounded like something I would enjoy, it's about Fil and Beth. Beth is a sixteen year old girl who paints all of London with her street art. She has a tough life at home and the only one she can rely on to keep her going is Pen her best friend but when she betrays her as well Beth leaves home and due to some seriously strange circumstances bumps into Filius the son of a goddess and from there is introduced to an alternate London in which she easily actually too easily accepts and throws herself into.

I am not going to lie Tom Pollocks ability to create a world where the city is alive literally is pretty damn brilliant. I mean you had railwraiths, girls who were made of electricity, then there was Gutterglass a creature that somehow is able recreate him/her self out of any and everything from maggots to eggshells and the list goes on. And those creatures aren't even half of what you will find in The City's Son. 

 What sucked was the fact that I didn't grasp and understand these creatures until about halfway into the novel. I was literally confused for the first half of the book if not more, there was no background on this alternate London we are just thrown into it. I did like Beth's character but she lost me somewhere in the middle, I was also a little annoyed with how easily she accepted this alternate London. The characters overall were okay no one that made me go WOW! I didn't dislike them nor did I love them. I also didn't really feel the connection between Fil or Beth and then the ending...I was not a fan of it.  For the most part I felt like I was just going through the motions of reading. I really wanted to love this book but in the end it just wasn't for me.

Memorable Quotes:

"All right Hackney Girl, look for me at the dance where the light itself is the music, where the Railwraith's rush beats the drums." 

Review: Burn Mark by Laura Powell

Burn Mark by Laura Powell

• Pub. Date: June 19, 2012
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Pages: 416

Glory is from a family of witches and lives beyond the law. She is desperate to develop her powers and become a witch herself. Lucas is the son of the Chief Prosecutor for the Inquisition—the witches’ mortal enemy—and his privileged life is very different to the forbidden world that he lives alongside.

And then on the same day, it hits them both. Glory and Lucas develop the Fae—the mark of the witch. In one fell stroke, their lives are inextricably bound together, whether they like it or not . . . 

First Line: The walls of the Burning Court were high and white-tiled, its ceiling one giant chimney.


Review: 

This is one of those books I was set out to fall in love with but instead of being sucked in and finishing it in a matter of hours it took me almost a week to finish it.

The premise of the book is pretty unique and what made me want to read it. It's set in an alternate London where there are Covens which are actually gangs, everyone knows that witches exist and they are looked down upon in society, and modern day witch burnings happen in all parts of the world. Glory and Lucas are the main characters. Glory being the next in line to become the head witch of a coven and Lucas who is the son of a Chief Prosecutor for the Inquisitorial Court and finds himself to be a witch which pretty much ruins all his future plans of being part of the inquisition.

Like I said the concept sounds awesome and I really would have loved this book if it wasn't for all the extra details and info dumping that occurred. It really took away from my enjoyment of the book and I even started skimming some paragraphs because it didn't hold my interest. Another thing that was a little frustrating was the switch of point of views in the middle of the chapters. For the most part the povs alternated with each chapter but about half way the switch would come without warning and there were times I thought I was reading in Glory's pov but somewhere in the middle it became Lucas' point of view and vice versa.

Another thing that had thrown me off was that the prologue sucked me in but then after that about half of the book nothing really happened. It was just giving us details about the day to day lives of our two main characters. It's not until Glory and Lucas finally meet up which was literally about half way into the book that things picked up, and I found myself actually wanting to finish the book instead of marking it as a DNF.

Burn Mark has an amazing cover which I think actually reflects the personality of Glory who is very strong willed and knows she is a very powerful witch. She was the only character who I really liked in the novel. Lucas did grow on me by the end but not so much, he was too stuck in his prejudice mindset about witches even though he had become one also.

Overall Burn Mark had great potential but it just wasn't executed well.

Review: The Book of Blood and Shadow by Robin Wasserman

The Book of Blood and Shadow

• Pub. Date: April 10, 2012
• Publisher: Random House Children's Books
• Pages: 448

http://www.robinwasserman.com

" It was like a nightmare, but there was no waking up.  When the night began, Nora had two best friends and an embarrassingly storybook one true love.  When it ended, she had nothing but blood on her hands and an echoing scream that stopped only when the tranquilizers pierced her veins and left her in the merciful dark. 


But the next morning, it was all still true: Chris was dead.  His girlfriend Adriane, Nora's best friend, was catatonic. And Max, Nora's sweet, smart, soft-spoken Prince Charming, was gone. He was also—according to the police, according to her parents, according to everyone—a murderer.


Desperate to prove his innocence, Nora follows the trail of blood, no matter where it leads. It ultimately brings her to the ancient streets of Prague, where she is drawn into a dark web of secret societies and shadowy conspirators, all driven by a mad desire to possess something that might not even exist. For buried in a centuries-old manuscript is the secret to ultimate knowledge and communion with the divine; it is said that he who controls the Lumen Dei controls the world. Unbeknownst to her, Nora now holds the crucial key to unlocking its secrets. Her night of blood is just one piece in a puzzle that spans continents and centuries. Solving it may be the only way she can save her own life."

Review: I really wanted to love this book, it had mystery, intrigue and some serious betrayal. But alas it just wasn't for me. In the beginning I was hooked within the first few chapters. I was really interested in Nora's character but mid-way I started losing interest and found myself bored. It's not until the last few chapters that my interest kicked up into high gear and I was pulled back into the story full of curiosity.

The Da Vinci Code is what this reminded me of. A young adult version of it at least. Nora is trying to prove that Max didn't kill her best friend Chris and so she travels all the way to Prague decoding letters and clues trying to find the one thing that will supposedly help clear his name and meanwhile she has run-ins with secret societies and conspirators who are all after her.

Like I said there were some very exciting parts to the book but at the same time there was so much historical information being thrown around and the writing felt a little choppy. Not to mention at times the letters by Elizabeth just grew too long for me that I found myself skimming it. I wanted to connect with this book since it sounded so exciting of a read but in the end it just wasn't for me.

Overall even though I didn't enjoy it as much as I wanted to, I still recommend picking it up if you like a good murder mystery and have a liking for lots of historical facts in the book your reading.

Buy on

Amazon / B&N 

Review: The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

The Demon Lover by Juliet Dark

• Pub. Date: December 2011
• Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
• Format: Arc 
• Pages: 448
• Series: Fairwick Chronicles #1

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Juliet-Dark/154372161299152

I gasped . . . or tried to. My mouth opened, but I couldn’t draw breath. . . . His lips, pearly wet, parted and he blew into my mouth. My lungs expanded beneath his weight. When I exhaled he sucked in my breath and his weight turned from cold marble into warm living flesh.

"Since accepting a teaching position at remote Fairwick College in upstate New York, Callie McFay has experienced the same disturbingly erotic dream every night: A mist enters her bedroom, then takes the shape of a virile, seductive stranger who proceeds to ravish her in the most toe-curling, wholly satisfying ways possible. Perhaps these dreams are the result of writing her bestselling book, The Sex Lives of Demon Lovers. After all, Callie’s lifelong passion is the intersection of lurid fairy tales and Gothic literature—which is why she finds herself at Fairwick’s renowned folklore department, living in a once-stately Victorian house that, at first sight, seemed to call her name.


But Callie soon realizes that her dreams are alarmingly real. She has a demon lover—an incubus—and he will seduce her, pleasure her, and eventually suck the very life from her. Then Callie makes another startling discovery: He’s not the only mythical creature in Fairwick. As the tenured witches of the college and the resident fairies in the surrounding woods prepare to cast out the incubus, Callie must accomplish something infinitely more difficult—banishing this demon lover from her heart. ""

Review: The Demon Lover was not what I expected. The cover is gorgeous and the synopsis looked very promising but it turned out be a very uneven paced read for me. It starts off very slow and took a while for me to get into. Than you have moments where everything becomes very fast paced and I found myself flipping through the pages only to be greeted with more slow moments where I actually started skimming through quite a few pages since I felt it did nothing to move the plot along.

Honestly the main concept of The Demon Lover was interesting which is why I still stuck through it and read it but there were alot of parts that could have been taken out and way to many sub plots. Not to mention not much was explained but after learning that there will be more books published in the series I can understand why the author left so much still a mystery.

What I really did enjoy was reading about the Incubus. Pretty much all the exciting page flipping parts were when the incubus was involved. And lets not forget Liam, he made the second half of the book interesting , of course once I found out who Liam really was it made sense why he was the only other character who I really cared for in this entire novel.

Now as far as the main character Callie goes I didn't feel any connection with her and for me to really get into a novel I have to feel something for the main character. Instead I found her odd. Callie for one did not show a bit of shock or surprise when she found out about the supernatural world or that most of her co-workers were otherworldy beings, and for someone who has a PhD in folkolore who has also written a book about the sex lives of various demon lovers she was very clueless.

I did love the mystical setting of The Demon Lover, and I could definitly envision the gothic feel of it all. Also there was  a lot of hot and heavy sexual scenes which I would define as erotic but tastefully done.

Overall my feelings for this novel is mixed. I loved some aspects of it while still finding myself frustrated and at times bored.