Review for Roar And Liv (Under The Never Sky #0.5) by Veronica Rossi

TITLE: Roar And Liv
SERIES: Under The Never Sky #0.5
AUTHOR: Veronica Rossi
PUBLICATION DATE: October 30, 2012
PUBLISHER: HarperCollins
PAGES: 68 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 4 bows

Roar and Liv have always been an item, so deeply in love that no one can see them ever parting ways. No one that is, except for Liz older brother Vale. When the Tides start going hungry more often than not, Vale makes a decision that will change everyone’s life forever.

I should have read this before I read Through The Ever Night. Had I read it first, it might have gotten 5 stars, maybe. But, perspective is everything and knowing what I know makes it impossible for me to love this. Poor Roar and Liv are star-crossed lovers and it isn’t going to end well. I cannot get over how badly it’s going to end. Why, Veronica, did you write this novella just to torture me? Knowing what will happen in TTEN****SPOILER****That Liv is going to fucking die and this pair will never get their happily ever after****END SPOILER*** I just can’t…you…WHY?!?!? Why would you want me to fall more in love with their story only to end it that way?

This short novella, told via Roar’s perspective, tells us about the short journey he makes to deliver Liv to her newly betrothed husband. After Vale makes the decision to trade Liv for food for the Tides, everything is thrown in an uproar for our beloved leading guy and he doesn’t know how to fix it. If they run away, he and Liv will never see their family again and the Tides will surely suffer consequences for not delivering Liv, but if she marries Sable, they can never be together again. How can he live with her? He doesn’t know how because she is so much a part of him.

If you are looking for something to pull on your heartstrings and make you curse fate, this is definite what you need. It’ll make you love Roar even more, if that is possible.

Review for Breathe (Breathe #1) by Sarah Crossan

TITLE: Breathe
SERIES: Breathe #1
AUTHOR: Sarah Crossan
PUBLICATION DATE: October 2, 2012
PUBLISHER: Greenwillow Books, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
PAGES: 384 pages
FORMAT: Hardback
SOURCE: Library
RATING: 4 stars

Most of human kind died during the Switch, when the level of oxygen in the air dropped to nearly nothing. The small percentage of survivors now live in an enclosed dome where manufactured air is pumped into the environment by Breathe. The catch is that you have to pay for any extra air you use. Quinn is a Premium, the son of a rich and powerful member of the Breathe company who has always had everything he ever wanted or needed at his fingertips. He’s best friend Bea, on the other hand, is an Auxiliary. She’s the daughter of a poor working class family who struggles to pay for the air they breathe, much less anything extra. Then there is Alina, a rebel who steals plant clippings for the Rebellion and wants to show everyone the truth. Is the bubble society the only way to live now? Or can we learn to exist on lower amounts of air? This trio end up on a journey that will lead to unexpected truths and the realization that maybe some things are worth fighting for.

The three main characters were all interesting in their own way, but Bea has to be my favorite. Quinn starts off as annoying, being the privileged upper class man who doesn’t know how hard life can be and Alina is just too…..cold? She shows very little emotion and is hard to relate to. Bea, though, is easy to root for. Quiet, poor girl who has been in love with her best friend for years, just waiting for him to notice. As the story progresses, all three characters grow in different ways. Quinn and Bea both become adamant that things need to change, while Alina finally opens up enough to start to care about them. Bea constantly stands up for what she believes is right, regardless of what Quinn or Alina think about it, starting with the insistence that they help Maude. Maude may just be my favorite character. She’s an old drifter they come upon who is just trying to survive. She has done terrible things in her life, but somehow she manages to carry on.

Initially, this novel irritated me quite a bit. I really try to avoid love triangles, but since I love dystopian and the two seem to be linked, I try to deal with it as best I can. What bugged me most was how head over heels Quinn instantly was for Alina. You don’t even know her, she’s just pretty and you want to hit that. I couldn’t help sympathizing with Bea because I knew there was no way he was going to choose her over Alina because they never do, right? They always choose the new and exciting person, while the sweet friend who has been there for you all along is left in the dust, right? ****SPOILER****Except that he does, which is a reason to love this novel. He eventually sees Bea as a woman, not just his friend and chooses her. You can imagine my joy.

****END SPOILER****

My other big issue was that the first half is so fucking boring. It literally put me to sleep. It has taken me over a month to finish because it make me tired every time I read it. I read some while taking a bath before bed and my eyes started drooping. Fine, it’s late, I’m tired, I’ll read more later. I read some on my lunch break for work and my eyes started drooping. Fine, I didn’t sleep well last night and I’m still tired. I read some after work while waiting for my college classes to start and my eyes started to droop. I’m noticing a pattern here. Until about half way through, I could only read in 20 pages increments because it literally made me want to take a nap. Once you get past that, though, it’s pretty hard to put down. Once you make it to resistance headquarters, the pace picks up drastically. Things start moving and the next thing you know, it’s over.

So ups are the characters show quite a bit of growth and things become very intense towards the end, but the downs are love triangle, cliffhanger, and don’t forget the overly boring beginning. I think it’s worth the effort though and I’m excited to see where the next book takes me.

Review for Losing It (Losing It #1) by Cora Carmack

TITLE: Losing It
SERIES: Losing It #1
AUTHOR: Cora Carmack
PUBLICATION DATE: October 15, 2012
PUBLISHER: William Morrow Paperbacks, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers
PAGES: 204 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 4 stars

Bliss Edwards is a college senior with a dirty little secret. She’s still a virgin. It’s not that she is saving herself for marriage or that she’s a super prude, it’s just that no one has ever gotten her blood boiling. Determined to rid herself of this label, she goes to a bar to find a one-night stand. What she finds, however, is Garrick. Hot, British, and utterly charming, they end up going back to her place. Things don’t go according to plan because Bliss freaks out in the middle of their massive make out session, created a ridiculous excuse to literally run out of her apartment. After Garrick leaves, Bliss consoles herself with the fact that at least she won’t have to see him again. Then she walks into her first class of the semester and see’s their new teacher, Mr Taylor, a.k.a. Garrick Taylor, that hottie she left naked in her bed last night.

Bliss was an interesting character. She is a control freak and a theater major. She cannot decide if she wants to pursue acting as a career or become a stage manager. I’m not a control freak, but I can definitely understand her need to make the voices in her head shut up for a small amount of time and how difficult making that happen can be.

Garrick was a character I was a little on the fence about. Initially I liked him, but the further into the story we get, the more slick he felt. He doesn’t fight his attraction to Bliss and puts her in more than one compromising position, which was hard for me to understand because he could lose his job over their relationship. I had a love/hate thing going for a while because I felt like it was unrealistic for him to want to risk his job for a girl. Luckily, he improves quite a bit towards the end. Normally I’d be all over the captivating guy with that sexy British accent, but I was a bit more leery of him than I honestly understand.

The whole student-teacher aspect is something I’m always cautious about because some novels get it so right and others I just find creepy. This one definitely gets it right. The lusty romance has you on the edge of your seat for the will they or won’t they conflict. You get just the right amount of side characters and I loved that the relationship with Cade wasn’t instantly mended just because Bliss is sorry. It gave the story a more realistic edge than is portrayed in many novels.

This had everything I was searching for: love, passion, suspense, and that happily ever after that I’m always so hung up on. No cliffhangers either, just boy plus girl and all their major problems solved.

Review for Devoured (Devoured #1) by Emily Snow

TITLE: Devoured
SERIES: Devoured #1
AUTHOR: Emily Snow
PUBLICATION DATE: October 9, 2012
PUBLISHER: Touchstone, an imprint of Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Inc
PAGES: 202 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 4 stars

Sienna’s career is finally starting to pickup with a steady wardrobe job on a tv show, then she gets a call from telling her that her grandmother’s home is being foreclosed on. Taking time off work, she flies home to Nashville just in time to see Lucas Wolfe sitting across from her family in the courthouse. It’s been two years since her almost tryst with Lucas and she’s done everything she can to bury those memories. Now she’s faced with the ultimate decision. Allow Lucas to take her childhood home from her grandmother or work as his assistant for ten days to win back the deed. The right answer is obvious, but can she make it through the week without succumbing to Lucas’s…charm?

I’ll be honest here. The main reason this particular series caught my attention is because Dusan Novakovic is on the cover. The last novel I read with him on the cover was Easy, which blew me away. I realize that the cover model has no direct relationship with how good the story will be, but I couldn’t help myself. It’s the same way if I see Pepe Toth on the cover of something. I can’t promise I’ll read it immediately, but it does get added to my TBR pile. You can say that I had high expectations for this. It wasn’t perfect, or nearly as good as Easy, but it was worth a read.

Sienna is an interesting character, the opposite of what you’d expect from a red-headed woman. I think red, I think fiery and filled with attitude, but Sienna is rather submissive in the beginning. She allows everyone except Lucas to push her around and verbally abuse her. Watching Lucas push her to stand up for herself a bit more was interesting to see. As for Lucas, well, I don’t have much to say. Though we see a lot of them interacting, this is told entirely from Sienna’s perspective. This was shocking to me since All Over You was told in dual perspectives and I sorely missed getting Lucas’s side of things. Without his point of view, he seems a bit shallower than I expect him, much more focused on sex than anything else, including his music and that wasn’t exactly how he came off in AOY.

Really, this gets a 3.5 from me. It was good, but overall, it felt too short. It is a scant 200 hundred pages and while there are some writers that can get their point across well is that short space, this just wasn’t one where I felt like there wasn’t room for more. It felt a bit insta-love-y to me and everything felt a bit more forced than necessary. I realize that the concept is she has 10 days with him so everything must fall in that time frame, but, in my personal opinion, this book would have been much better if we got some of Lucas’s perspective as well. In fact, take this, combine it with the novella Snow is currently publishing chapter by chapter on her website, and combine them into one book instead of two. That would be the real winner.

Another issue that really isn’t entirely related to this book particularly but New Adult in general is the sex. I get that New Adult is for an older audience and much more explicit than YA, but I feel like too much of it reads like erotica, which isn’t what I’m looking for when I pickup one of these novels. Yes, I want more description than a YA would provide, but I’m not looking for a play by play of every single sexual activity the couple participate in. There are some points where less is more. Maybe it’s just me, but some of that seems overdone.

Either way, this is a pretty good read that really knows how to build the tension. It leaves off with a bit of a cliffhanger because we still don’t know what’s going on with Lucas’s ex or how they will resolve their issues, but one thing is certain and that is Sienna and Lucas will find a way to make it work.

Review for Dark Seraphine (Seraphine Trilogy #1) by KaSonndra Leigh

TITLE: Dark Seraphine
SERIES: Dark Seraphine #1
AUTHOR: KaSonndra Leigh
PUBLICATION DATE: October 21, 2012
PUBLISHER: Independent
PAGES: 230 pages
FORMAT: Paperback
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 2 stars

Caleb Wood has always been able to see the Walkers. He doesn’t know what they are; he just knows that no one can see them except him. Then one decides to strike up a conversation with him and become corporeal and he can’t help but obsess over her. Then creepier Walkers start turning up and everything gets out of hand.

I feel like I have really missed something in this novel. My sister absolutely adored it and I have read several other reviews of people raving about its awesome-ness, but I just don’t see it. It took me a record amount of time to read this rather small book (almost a month) and the entire time I was forcing myself to go on and truly gearing up to write an overly insulting review and give the book a single star rating. I gave it 2 because right at the end (in the last 30 or so pages) the story truly got interesting. Reading this really made me consider starting a “did not finish” shelf because it was so fucking hard to get through.

The truth? I’m just too tired and frustrated to write a bitchy review. Yes, I want to warn people that this book has major issues and they might be better off staying away, but my usual fire is gone. I think this novel had many problems, the writing, the characters, the stop and go plot, the whole enchilada basically. I start with the characters because that’s what I ‘m best at.

First off, we have our main man, Caleb. The entire novel is told via his perspective and let me tell you that for the first time I would have rather it been in third person. Caleb’s personality fell beyond flat and his voice felt very much like a woman desperately trying to be masculine. This is not just because the lack of swear words or his overly censoring of his naughty thoughts (though it probably contributed just a bit), the way he processed things and the fact that he was always on the brink of tears just felt feminine to me. And seriously dude, learn to say fuck because “oh snap!” just doesn’t cut it. Seriously, those words were on every other goddamn page and it was about as believable as Zoey Redbird saying “bull-poop” all the time.

Then there were the female interests. Yep, I said interests, so love triangle land it is. Gia, the Walker/Angel/Whatever, so is all over the place that you can’t tell what the hell she wants. One minute she is saving Caleb and then next she is avoiding him, telling him that he needs to leave her alone. She makes me wanna sing Katy Perry ::sings:: ‘Cause your hot then your cold, you’re yes then you’re no::stops:: I hate Katy Perry. For being the main love interest, she sure was flaky as hell and I couldn’t bring myself to root for them at all. I honestly wanted Caleb to just forget about her and be happy with Erica, if for no other reason than so I could stop listening to his inner monologue of “why can’t I being with Gia? Why doesn’t Gia love me? Whine whine whine.” As you can guess, Erica is the other love interest. In the beginning, I really thought she was going to be the only one, but damn was I wrong. She’s that popular girl with a sweet side, you know the caring cheerleader. Her character was a bit to clingy, trying to force Caleb to like her when it was clear that he was hung up on someone else. I gotta give her props for being patient, but she would have been better off with someone else.

Almost all the rest of the characters felt one dimensional and didn’t really add much to the story. Caleb’s friends, the other Walkers, the bad guy, all feel very flat to me, so I’m not even going to bother with talking about them. The writing style in this was choppy and the plot was slow. I felt like none of it flowed well. You’ll get 200 pages of Caleb and Gia doing the whole on again off again dance that drove me absolutely bonkers, with Gia not revealing any real information about herself (so really, what is the attraction? Just because she’s hot? Dude, stop being so shallow) and Caleb panting after her, while keeping Erica waiting on the sidelines. Then after that, we get just a little bit of stop and go action and then it ends with your typical cliffhanger.

Okay, so maybe I got a little rantey, but really, it’s what I do. This novel was a big downer for me and I can’t say that I’ll recommend it to anyone. Those out there in interweb land, enter at your own risk. Maybe I missed something, but I really just didn’t enjoy this and I definitely won’t be reading the sequel.

Review for The Secret of Ella and Micha (The Secret #1) by Jessica Sorensen

TITLE: The Secret Of Ella & Micha
SERIES: The Secret #1
AUTHOR: Jessica Sorensen
PUBLICATION DATE: October 4, 2012
PUBLISHER: Independent
PAGES: 313 pages
FORMAT: Paperback
SOURCE: Purchased
RATING: 5 stars

In my search for an amazing book, this is probably the closest I’ve come since I finished Easy back in December. I’m currently adding all of Jessica Sorensen’s books to my to-read list with over enthusiastic glee and will be downloading her The Coincidence of Callie and Kayden as soon as I’m finished with this review.

Ella and Micha both had somewhat traumatic childhoods, and they managed to stay sane through them because they had each other, but when Ella’s mother commits suicide, Ella can’t handle it anymore and she runs away. She leaves Micha standing in the pouring rain and leaves town. Now, 8 months later, when her first year of college at UNLA is over, she has no choice but to head back home and confront all the things she left behind. And Micha is the one she fears the most.

Watching Ella switch between the fiery girl she once was and the subdued girl she has made everyone at college believe she is was perfect. She can almost keep her cool, but then Micha shows up and she loses her shit. I am personally a big fan of her original personality, the fully alive girl who wasn’t afraid of anything is something to be envied. The quiet, college girl is just a façade because she’s scared of getting hurt and as long as no one knows her, she can’t care and is therefore safe.

Micha was the perfect hero. Though he is far from perfect, with his own set of issues, he is so head over heels for Ella that he’ll do whatever it takes to help her. When she ran away from him, he spent the entire time she was gone searching for her, needing to know she was alive and okay. So when she steps back into his life, he is full of a wide range of emotions, love, anger, and hope all rolled into one. I absolutely loved him, how he never gives up on her and he pushes her to be the girl he knows she wants to be, even if she won’t admit it. Their relationship is the stuff of fairy tales, trapped in a real world setting with alcoholic fathers, dead beat parents, and fears as real as anything we’ve ever felt.

Then they have a great supporting cast, Ella’s friend Lila, Micha’s friend Ethan, and Micha’s mom are all wonderful characters. Lila met Ella in college so seeing her switch into someone completely different would have freaked a lot of people out, but Lila rolls with it and still accepts Ella for exactly who she is. Ethan has helped Micha search for Ella even though he thinks Micha should just give it up. Micha’s mom is supportive for whatever her son gets into which is something I don’t see a lot of these days. Parents in novels especially seem to always be the bad guys, forbidding relationships and pushing their kids to do what they think is best no matter what the kid thinks.

I was so excited to read this that I bought the physical copy from amazon and before it even arrived, I downloaded the kindle version so I could go ahead and read it. It was definitely worth it. I recommend this to everyone who enjoyed Easy by Tammara Webber or Pushing The Limits by Katie McGarry.

Review for Lovely, Dark and Deep by Amy McNamara

TITLE: Lovely, Dark & Deep
AUTHOR: Amy McNamara
PUBLICATION DATE: October 16, 2012
PUBLISHER: Simon Pulse, a division of Simon & Schuster
PAGES: 342 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: PulseIt
RATING: 2 stars

So, one of my new year’s resolutions is to stop giving books higher ratings that I feel they deserve just because I feel bad about giving ratings less than 3 stars. I know that might not make sense, considering I have no problem ranting my head off about things I hate and have rated more than one novel 1 star. I typically give books that didn’t suit me 3 stars because they probably weren’t bad, I just didn’t care for it. Well starting now, I’ll assume (probably wrongly) that everyone who follows my reviews has similar tastes as me and would generally agree with my thoughts (or sometimes just likes to see thoughts different than their own) and start rating in a brutally honest fashion. The reviews themselves won’t change, but you may start seeing lower ratings.

So two stars for this novel. It follows Wren Wells as she tries to deal with the death of her boyfriend and the chaos of life in general. After the car accident that left her alive and him dead, she moves from her NY home with her mom to a cabin in the middle of the woods with her artist father to get some downtime. All her life crashes to a halt when she literally stops speaking. She stops seeing her friends, won’t leave the house, has no college plans. Now all she does is sit around her dads house and mope. Literally, that is all she does, that and run.

I started this with mediocrely high hopes (if that makes sense). I expected the story of a girl struggling to get over her boyfriend’s death. I expected to read about someone who WANTED to recover. But that just wasn’t the case. In her mopey moods, she manages to find someone with almost the same attitude towards life that she has adapted. Though the writer plays if off like this dude inspires her to do better, I just don’t see it. Mopey and grumpy with major issues of his own, Cal is far from the perfect leading man. Yeah, he does push her some, but mostly, he lets her do her own thing and gets mad over nothing.

Another reason this novel disappointed me was I HATED Wren. She’s so fucking selfish, I couldn’t sympathize with her at all. After the car accident, she curls into herself and pushes everyone away. She sees them trying to help her and makes fun of them in her inner monologue. She doesn’t try to contact the parents of her dead boyfriend, even though they show obvious concern for her well being, she won’t even speak to her best friend. Then in the “present day” of the story, she is just a bitch. When her dad gets a new art intern, Nick, she mean to him. Nick goes out of his way to try to keep her company or be nice to her, even accompanies her on a run and she fucking screams at him telling him that she doesn’t want or need his company, to go the hell away.

All in all, this book was just a disappointment. I wouldn’t have wasted my time on it if I had known, so I’m warning all of you. Just don’t bother.

Review for Out of Reach by Carrie Arcos

TITLE: Out Of Reach
AUTHOR: Carrie Arcos
PUBLICATION DATE: October 16, 2012
PUBLISHER: Simon Pulse, a division of Simon & Schuster
PAGES: 256 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: PulseIt
RATING: 2 stars

WARNING: This review may contain, foul language, spoilers, general rantiness, and an over use of angry gifs.

I really wanted to like this book. Truly, I did. But it pissed me off and I can’t say that I will be recommending it to anyone. In fact, I have already told several people to steer clear. Let’s do the basics first. Out Of Reach is the story of Rachel’s journey to find her wayward brother. She enlists the help of his bestie, Tyler to assist her and they head out to search in the areas she thinks he might be. A few weeks before, she received an anonymous email stating that her brother was in a lot of trouble and she should come and try to help. Why she thinks she will be able to find her brother by simply looking on street corners in a single day was beyond me, but hey, more fucking power to her misguided hope.

I started off really enjoying this novel. Rachel didn’t seem so bad and I was intrigued by Tyler. There was obvious chemistry between the two though Rachel does her best to deny it. Plus, I was hoping she would find her brother, bond with Tyler over the experience, and things would end more or less happily.

I know, it was a goddamn pipedream, but I try to start every novel from a happy place…..unless I’m reading it because I want to be depressed, but that is a different matter entirely. The further I got into this book, the more irritated I became. The more I read about Rachel, the more my dislike started to creep in. She gives these flashbacks from when they were younger and her and Micah (her brother) were just sssssoooo close. But here is what I don’t get, if you were so bonded and lied to your parents for each other and all this other shit, then why did you wait all goddamn summer to start searching for him?

Micah disappears at the very beginning of summer and you just write it off, knowing his a goddamn drug addict, because your parents assure you he is fine and you don’t think you should waste your time on it?!?!?!

And now you are all of a sudden worried because you got an email? Lady, I just can’t even begin to describe how much this angers me. This bitch ends up being one of the most self-center, egocentric, moronic heroines I have ever read about…and that statement includes Bella fucking Swan. Oh yeah, I went there. Anyway, a whole lot of shit goes down, they ask around drug dealers places and look on the beach and such, then Miss Whiny-pants car gets stolen. Well, geez, you leave a Honda Civic (one of the most stolen cars in the US) parked on the wrong side of town, what the hell did you think was going to happen?

Then there is the ending, which leaves a lot to fucking be desired. Rachel and Tyler end up finding her car and stealing it back, then head home, sans Micah who is still MIA. Then they kinda sorta discuss their feelings and it’s (lightly) implied that they’ll date soon. Rachel writes an email to Micah, which she doesn’t know if he’ll ever get and sends it out into the universe, basically saying that she isn’t going to worry about him anymore, she’s just going to live her life. Cold hearted bitch. You spent ONE DAY searching.

This novel really was just a whole lot of fuck ups. In retrospect, I realize that I guess the author was trying to write a “realistic” portrayal of the impacts drugs have on the lives of family and friends, but she should have picked a heroine who really cared about the drug-addled brother. I was expecting her to search for several days to find her brother and then drag him home or have him tell her to fuck off or SOMETHING. Whether it be dragging his ass back home for rehab or having an epic confrontation that ends in her leaving him to rot on the side of the street, I wanted something to happen. I would call the ending anti-climatic at best.

Despite all the complaints, I did like how much information the author gave us about meth addicts. It did seem like she did her research on that, but that just wasn’t enough. If that was all I wanted, I could have gotten a pamphlet from my local health department. All in all, don’t bother with this unless you want a big letdown. Do I recommend it to anyone at all? I’ll let Cas answer that one for you.

Review for Poison Princess (The Arcana Chronicles #1) by Kresley Cole

TITLE: Poison Princess
SERIES: The Arcana Chronicles #1
AUTHOR: Kresley Cole
PUBLICATION DATE: October 2, 2012
PUBLISHER: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster, Inc
PAGES: 369 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: PulseIt
RATING: 4 stars

Fuck. This book has got me so turned around that I can’t even decide what to rate it! 1 star because it had a terrible ending? 5 stars because up until the end, I was enraptured? 4 stars because I can’t give a book with that bad of an ending 5? 3 stars because the ending pissed me off so badly I wanted to scream it from the rooftops for unsuspecting innocents to wait until the rest of the series is out before attempting it? I really don’t have a clue. I’m going with 3…..for now.

Evie Greene is little miss popular. Pretty blonde cheerleader with friends aplenty and a senior boyfriend, she’ll do anything to keep them from finding out that she was locked in a mental ward all summer because she can’t stop having delusions of a red witch killing people and the world ending. Released to go back to school, Evie has trouble telling what is real and what isn’t. Hiding the hallucinations is becoming extremely difficult when she doesn’t know if they are real or not. Then the Flash happens. Guess what Evie? Those apocalyptic visions you’ve been having were predictions, premonitions of what was to come. Now most of the world’s population (along with a large portion of the water supply) are gone. With trouble on the way, Evie is forced to leave town with Jackson, the Cajun who is great a pushing her buttons. The destination? The Outer Banks in North Carolina, where Evie’s Grandmother is (hopefully) still alive and waiting to help Evie with her destiny.

This book was up and down for me. As soon as Evie starts telling her tale about life before the Flash, I instantly disliked her. She was one of those popular bitches who thinks she is kind and nice to everyone, but really she’s a snob. The minute Jackson shows up with his friends, who thanks to new policies now have to go to her school, she is quick to turn up her nose. The more I got to see of her life, the more tolerant I became, but I didn’t start to like her or sympathize with her until after the Flash.

Then there is Jackson, who I did like quite a bit. Lewd and cocky, with a soft intelligent side underneath, not to mention devilish good looks, he had me at the proverbial hello. The only think I couldn’t understand about him is what attracted him to Evie….well besides the busty cheerleader look. Beyond her ability to speak French (which is what the Cajun’s speak naturally), they have nothing in common and yet he stil wants her. Still, even though I didn’t fully understand the attraction, Kresley was able to write sizzling tension and chemistry between the two once they start on their journey. I was all for them being together, pushing for it and setting my mind that it was going to happen. Did it? ****SPOILER****FUCK NO! Well, yes for a short bit, then no again, then yes, then goddammit no! I’ll get more in to the specifics of the no later.****END SPOILER****

I’ve never read a book by this author before, but I’ll give her props for her story telling ability. This books is told mostly from Evie’s perspective, but in the beginning, it starts out with th is man named Arthur trying to lure Evie into his house so he can chain her to his basement wall and do experiments on her. Kresley Cole manages to seamlessly intertwine that present day view with the past. The whole time you are wondering what the hell could happen to Evie to have her end up at this house alone? What happened to Jackson? Well, that bid of foreshadowing should have let me in on something, but I shamelessly hoped for the best.

For the most part, I was hooked on finding out what the hell was going to happen with this story. Like most well written, post apocalyptic novel, I was fascinated with the world and how it had changed as well as how the characters adapt to it. Not only that, but the way the tarot cards are so important and Evie’s abilities are intriguing. This novel manages to be both dystopian and paranormal and it is a wonderful mashup. But about half-way into the novel, a fake love triangle was introduced. I say fake because really, Jackson wants Evie and Evie wants Jackson, but Selena wants Jackson and when Jackson is mad at Evie, he has no problem using Selena to make Evie jealousy. That grated on my nerves a lot. I hate love triangles as much as I hate guys who use other girls to make someone jealousy. Even still, I was rooting for Evie and Jackson to set the bullshit aside and just be together.

Then there was the ending. I saw a small bit of it coming ****SPOILER****I so knew Arthur was one of the Arcana****END SPOILER****, I didn’t see all of it and what I wasn’t expecting shocked me. And then it angered me. No, it fucking pissed me off. If you don’t like bad cliffhanger endings, stay far fucking away from this damned thing until the rest of the series is released because you will not be amused. ****SPOILER****Evie finally decides to tell Jackson all her secrets after they have this big fight but then she sees him making out with Selena, so she just up and leaves. Which is when she comes across Arthur. Now, since she doesn’t have Jackson to keep her sane, she decides to give into her evil destiny to become a murderous witch who has to defeat Death (who is an actual person, not just a mythical figure). Then, of course, after she goes all out psycho, Jackson comes to rescue her and sees her in her Arcana glory and freaks out just like she thought he would. He looks at her like she’s the devil and crosses himself and all hope of them being together anytime soon evaporates instantly.****END SPOILER****

Review for Sam Cruz’s Infallible Guide to Getting Girls by Tellulah Darling

TITLE: Sam Cruz’s Infallible Guide To Getting Girls
AUTHOR: Tellulah Darling
PUBLICATION DATE: October 17, 2012
PUBLISHER: Independent
PAGES: 244 pages
FORMAT: E-ARC
SOURCE: NetGalley
RATING: 5 stars

Ally just got dumped by her boyfriend of two years and is ready to get over it. So instead of moping around the house eating ice cream and wearing pajama’s all day, she asks her best friend Sam to teach her his patented technique for “screwing around and then screwing off.” No more serious relationships, just a series of one night stands where all parties leave satisfied. This, she decides, is the best way to avoid getting dumped for another girl ever again. But what happens when she starts to having feelings for one of the one night standers? For this to all work, Sam decides she’ll need a makeover, but then he realizes that this brainy BFF is hot and can’t help by be turned on by her.

This book gets 5 stars if only just for the blunt manner in which it is written. It is very rare to read a YA book that talks about teens having sex. More than that, teens having a lot of sex without any real guilt attached to that idea. Or, even more than that, about a female teen character who actually wants sex without strings. Most adult writers are appalled by this idea. Hormone filled teens actually want to have sex?!?!

Finally an author who doesn’t hide behind religious or the mythical idea of morally good or bad and is just honest about it. I absolutely loved it. I loved watching Allie transform under Sam’s tutelage and then seeing her take that knowledge and decide exactly what was right for her. I loved the way it ended as well. I think anyone who picks it up can tell right from the beginning where it is going and that was the perfect place for the story to end. I loved the whole thing, especially the makeover bits.

That being said, I know plenty of people who would absolutely despise it. Fair warning to anyone picking up this novel, it contains cursing and discusses sex explicitly. I happened to find it refreshing, but like everything else, it isn’t for everyone. If these things don’t bother you and you are looking for a more honest take on teen relationships, please read this novel. It’s laugh out loud funny with a heartfelt storyline underneath.

****Thank you to Te Da Media for providing me with an eARC via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review****