BookishlyFaith

I received an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review (Thanks!) Rating: 4 stars I loved the emotional rollercoaster that was  Abby Jimenez 's first book,  The Friend Zone  so I was ecstatic when my wish was granted to read the ARC of  The Happy Ever After Playlist .  This book takes place after the events of  The Friend Zone  so I would recommend you pick that book up before this one (you just get a better emotional connection to all the characters, okay?). Sloane is a lot less wacky than the main character of  The Friend Zone , Kristen. Sloane is still grieving a year after the events of the last book when a dog suddenly jumps into her convertible when she's driving. When she meets the guy who owns the dog, she finds out he's a musician and they fall in love. This book is riddled with drama as the guy's popularity surges and Sloane still tries to deal with her grief.  I think I'm officially obsessed with  Abby Jimene...

I received this ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review (THANKS!) Rating: 5 Stars I was over the moon when I got the ARC for this book. I devour every  Christina Lauren  book I can get my hands on and when I heard this book is about people who work for a home renovation show, I jumped on this ARC so fast.   I loved both the main characters and watching them fall for each other while also managing their respective difficult bosses was super fun. They are trying to manage a PR nightmare (a famous couple who want to break up when their brand is their love life) while on a book tour. I liked seeing the disability rep in Carey's character, who has a disability involving pain in her hands and witnessing her character arc in the story was inspiring. I also liked James, who is doing a job he is overqualified for (which is #relatable for a lot of millennials).  If you loved the Netflix movie Set It Up as much as I do, you will love  The Honey-Don't Li...

I received an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review (Thanks!)  Guys, this book is so freaking WHOLESOME. There are so many scenes where the characters are baking and there were so many good pop culture references (i.e., Mean Girls, Gossip Girl, Taylor Swift). This is a YA rom-com filled with sugary descriptions and memes (yes they fall in love while making MEMES. If this isn't so 2019/20, IDK what is). It is a very sweet PG romance (if you care about the steaminess of the romance).  While this is an adorable love story, it does focus a lot on the characters figuring out what they want to do after high school. It also deals with family issues (specifically feeling like you're living in the shadow of your sibling and how to deal after a divorce).  Overall,  Tweet Cute  is a wonderful coming of age story perfect for teens today. It perfectly encaptures the current online landscape teens face while creating an adorable teen romance.

Rating: 3 stars. I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Thank you!) Stay Sweet is a book about ice cream, friendship and feminism. The main character Amelia is tasked this summer with keeping the town's famous ice cream stand open after tragedy strikes. She has to work with the owner's nephew, a cute college boy, and struggles to maintain her friendship with her best friend.  What I really liked about this book was Amelia's emotional growth. She starts the book almost kind of whiny. Amelia doubts her ability to be a leader, doesn't think that she's very fun, and is wondering why she was chosen to be the manager of the ice cream stand. As the book progresses, Amelia discovers her passions and becomes more confident, which I really loved seeing.  I also really liked the diary entries from the owner of the ice cream when she started making ice cream during WW2. I did feel like there was a point where there were too many, but I do real...

Rating: 4 stars!  I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Thanks!)  I was a bit hesitant to read this poetry collection since I wasn't thrilled with her previous work,  The Princess Saves Herself in this One . But I do want to read more poetry so I went for it and I liked  The Witch Doesn't Burn in this One a lot more.  This collection focuses a lot on feminist themes, flame similes, and the archetype of the witch/ bad girl. I found that  The Princess Saves Herself in this One   was a bit too dark for me with all the themes of cancer, rape, and body issues, whereas  The Witch Doesn't Burn in this One  did have some dark themes but the main message was empowerment. I found myself bookmarking a lot more quotes and getting the chills while reading this collection of poetry.   I just felt so empowered while reading this collection of poetry. If Katniss Everdeen read poetry, I think she would be a hardcore fangi...

Rating: 4.5 stars.  I received an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Thanks!) I will admit, this book did stress me out a ton. Mei's life is quite stressful. She skipped a year in school, so she's a year younger than everyone else and is now starting college. Her parents want her to become a doctor but Mei loves dance and secretly dreams of running a dance school. She doesn't try to pursue this dream because her brother is a disappointment to her parents since he is going to marry an infertile girl. But when Mei meets Darren, he challenges her parents' ideas and encourages her to pursue her dreams. 

Rating: 4.5 stars.  I received an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Thanks!) I love this new wave of YA books set in college, mostly because I'm currently in university.  Emergency Contact is about these two college students who are each other's go-to person for random or deep conversation (i.e. Emergency Contact). Penny is just starting university and is distancing herself from her trying-to-be-cool mom. Sam just found out that his love-hate ex-girlfriend is pregnant. Penny and Sam meet when Sam has a panic attack and they both realize that they need a friend they can tell anything to. 

Rating: 4.5 Stars I don't read a lot of adult books. It's mostly because I'm  worried I will be bored or the language would be too overbearing. But I was too intrigued when I read the synopsis to not pick this up. Plus, I've been eyeing other  Gabrielle Zevin  books for a while now and a lot of reviewers I follow love her work. (She also writes YA which definitely helped with my decision.) Young Jane Young  is about a series of women affected by a political scandal. A twenty-year-old woman has an affair with a prominent political figure and this story tells of the effects this scandal has had on the woman herself (Aviva/Jane), her daughter (Ruby), her mother and the wife of the politician.  I have never read anything like this book and I loved every second of reading it. At first, I thought we were going to alternate POVs between Aviva and her mom, so I was a little disappointed when that didn't happen (because I loved Aviva's POV). But I got over it ...

Rating: 4.5 Stars.  Super cute! Highly recommend it if you're looking for a diverse YA contemporary romance unlike anything you've ever read before. 

Rating: 3 stars.  I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Thanks!) Maybe I don't read enough about goblins, but this was an interesting read. Please note that this is a New Adult book, so there is some explicit sexual content. 

Rating: 3.5 stars.  I received an ARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review (Thanks!).  This is my first  Patty Blount  book and I really liked it! The Way It Hurts  is about Elijah, who wants to take care of his sister who has special needs, and Kristen who wants to get into a competitive musical theatre program. Elijah sees Kristen in a school production of Cats and wants her to join his metal band. Kristen thinks this band could be the edge she needs to get into the previously mentioned program. But when Elijah starts a social media war that goes viral, Kristen starts to fear for her safety. 

Rating: 4.5 stars!  Loved it! Probably the best novella ever! Every Heart a Doorway is about a bunch of kids who has come back from fantasy worlds. The main character in the story is Nancy, a girl who came back from the Underworld and wants more than anything to go back. She can't stand the bright colours she used to wear and just wants the stillness and quiet of the Underworld. Her parents send her to a home where she meets kids like her and she feels like she is understood. When children start getting murdered, she and her new friends has to find the murderer. 

Rating: 3 stars I received an e-copy on NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. (Thanks!) I've heard of this author before; she wrote With Malice . When I read the synopsis for this book and found out that the author is Canadian, I knew I had to request it on NetGalley. All in all, I did like what the author was trying to accomplish with this book but I found the end product to have fallen a bit flat.  The Hanging Girl is about Skye Thorn, a girl who needs money to move into an apartment with her high school friend in New York. Skye pretends to be a psychic to make her way through high-school. She agrees to help someone in school fake a kidnapping and keep the police investigation going with her psychic skills so that they can get the ransom money and do what they want. But it all goes wrong and Skye is stuck with the aftermath.

Rating: 3 stars The Night Circus is an experience! I'm not joking, Erin Morgenstern is amazing at making the reader feel like they are actually in the scene she is describing. Even though I read this book 2 months ago, I distinctly remember the descriptions of smells and sights of the circus the most. The smells of cotton candy and caramel corn are now Night Circus smells in my mind. The Night Circus follows the lives of Celia and Marco, two talented people who can do magic. Their guardians put them in a magical contest to the death and the circus is the setting of this battle.  But what the guardians did not count on was the length of this contest and the fact that the two contestants would start to fall in love. I did like this book, but I think it was overhyped by Booktubers for me. Every video I saw was people who were in love with this book, but I wasn't as in love with it. It could be that I read this book over a month instead of in like a week, but I felt k...

Rating: 1.5 stars.  I received an ARC on NetGalley in exchange for a honest review. (Thanks!) You know that feeling you get sometimes when you are watching a foreign film? The feeling that something of the importance that is happening is a bit lost on you because you're missing that context? That's sort of how I feel about this book. I would say that this novel was definitely unique, but I just wasn't knocked off my feet by it. I'm sure some people will like it, but I just don't think the writing was for me. Welcome to the Slipstream is about Van, a girl who moves a lot because of her mother's mental illness. Van's mom is a genius, but her mental illness makes her a bit difficult for people to deal with so she constantly changes jobs. The constant in Van's life is her surrogate grandmother, who helps to keep her mother sane. They move to Vegas, where Van discovers her dream of being in a band. But when her mother goes off to a self-help cult,...

Rating: 2.5 stars. As I Descended was a decent Macbeth retelling, if a bit too loose. As I Descended is about Maria, a girl who is competing for a scholarship against Delilah, who she believes doesn't deserve it. Maria's secret girlfriend, Lily, thinks so too and after they have a seance, the girls decide to take matters into their own hands and try to reveal the true nature of Delilah. But when murder results, they start to question whether it was a good idea. I really only liked this book because of the similarities to Macbeth. Even then, it's hard to like it because it was only loosely based on the play.  I picked up this audiobook because I heard great things about how diverse it was. I do have to agree that As I Descended did have quite a bit of diversity and did it well. I think my favourite character in this book was Matteo. I have no idea if he's supposed to resemble a character from the Shakespearean play, but I liked him the best; he was the most s...

Rating: 5 stars Strange the Dreamer was a masterpiece. I loved every second reading it. I loved Laini Taylor 's Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy so I thought I'd like this book. Now I'm questioning which book of Laini's I love the most. It's probably a tie between Strange the Dreamer and Daughter of Smoke and Bone . Strange the Dreamer follows the PoVs of Lazlo Strange and a goddess. Lazlo is an orphan who is obsessed with the forgotten history of a city called Weep. When a group of people from Weep are recruiting talented people at his library, he fights to be part of this team. The other point of view is better left as a surprise. All I'm going to say is that she is awesome. Taylor is amazing at writing romances. I felt so many feels for the main couple in this book. I think Lazlo is definitely going on my book boyfriend list, because he is such a sweetheart. He loves books and is driven by his dreams. Lazlo sees everything as beautiful and he...

Rating: 5 stars.  I think this book is my favourite Paula Stokes  book I've ever read! I mean, I've only read one of her other books,  Liars, Inc. , which was kind of meh. But I would compared how much I love this book to how much I love  Made You Up . (Plus this cover is gorgeous!) Girl Against the Universe  is awesome because it's all about accepting that you have little control over your life. The main character, Maguire, has lived her life in fear of hurting others. She believes she is unlucky because she was in a lot of accidents growing up where others were hurt and she was unharmed. But when Maguire goes to therapy and meets a boy, she learns to relinquish control and starts to live again.  I think my favourite part of this book was the romance between Maguire and Jordy. Oh my god, they are so cute together! I couldn't stop smiling whenever they talked. I loved that Maguire was superstitious because it meant that I learned a lot about good luck...

Rating: 2.5 stars. I was really underwhelmed by this book. I think I was expecting a bit too much because the cover for this book is freaking gorgeous. Plus, I read and loved Everything Leads to You , which had a mystery in its plot and romance.  We are Okay is about Maren, a girl whose life fell apart a few months ago and she is now at college. Everyone has left for Christmas break and she has no home to return to so she is alone in the dorms. But her best friend, Mabel, is coming to visit and she will make Maren think about why she left her hometown.  I have to say, Nina LaCour  did do a great job of portraying mental illness in this book. Maren has anxiety after what happened to her and you could clearly feel and see how much it affects her. I could also see how much Maren has changed since that traumatic event that has given her anxiety. Maren used to be someone who liked ambiguity but now, she likes the cold hard truth. Nina LaCour   always does a grea...

Rating: 2.5 stars.  I've read quite a few of Kelley Armstrong 's YA books, like the  Darkest Powers series, Darkness Rising series and her most recent YA standalone, The Masked Truth . All of those books I've liked, if not loved. Missing was a different story for me in terms of enjoyment. Missing follows teenage girl Winter Crane. She lives in a small town with her abusive father and works at a medical clinic, hoping to get into medical school in the future.  Her mother died when Winter was young and Winter's sister Candace left for a bigger city after a tragedy that she blames Winter for. Winter's life gets shaken up when she finds an injured boy in a tree, trying to escape dangerous wild dogs.  She saves him only to get caught up in a psychopath's scheme. I think my favourite part of this book was the atmosphere that Armstrong creates. Missing is set in a small town in Kentucky and throughout the book, it becomes clear how independent one must ...