Book Wrap Up and Reviews for May and June
I can't remember if I already wrote about my summer book binge, but it is in full swing! I have spent the majority of my time off from work reading books and watching YouTube videos about book hauls! So far, I have read ten books this summer and am about a third of the way through my 11th one. I thought I would share with you my thoughts on the books so if you guys are looking for something to read then you may have some suggestions! Just to preface this post, these books were all from my big book purchase when Hastings went out of business back in October, so I don't really have any recent releases on my list. I read mostly YA contemporaries, fantasy, and psychological thrillers. These are just my personal thoughts and opinions about these books and I hope you find them helpful if you are looking for a new read!
Flabbergasted by Ray Blackston
This book was very different from the books I normally tend to read. It was a Christian contemporary about a stock broker named Jay who moves to a new state for his job. He ends up joining a church's singles group with the hopes of finding a new girl. He begins to fall for a missionary girl named Allie after being invited along to a singles retreat to the beach. He starts to question what his relationship with God is and after a near-death experience, he decides that he wants to give his life to Christ. After only being at his new job for a few months, Jay gets offered a really huge promotion to New York. He is conflicted about going to this new job because he wants to see Allie in Ecuador where she has been doing missions work for a little while. I won't spoil the ending for you, but Jay has to make a big decision that I definitely did not see coming! It was a cute book and a really good one to start the summer out on. Rating: 6/10
The Patterns of Paper Monsters by Emma Rathbone
I loved this book! It was incredibly intriguing for me and I read it super fast because I couldn't put it down. The book is styled as a journal by a teen boy named Jacob who has been put into a juvenile correctional facility for trying to rob a gas station. He is trying his best to just go through his days without causing any problems because he just wants to get out and pretty much just wants to be left alone while he is doing his time in the facility. The food is terrible, the classes are boring, and the environment is sterile and unpleasant. The only person who is making his time better is a girl named Andrea, but he doesn't get to see her often at all. When a new guy is admitted who seems more strange and messed up than all the other delinquents in the facility, Jacob has to decide whether he believes anything this guy says or if his plans are a bunch of baloney. The ending to this book was so surprising! I loved the writing style of this author and this was her debut novel! It was so real, a little bit raunchy, and with it being written like a journal, I think it made the book more emotional and relatable. Rating: 9/10
Wicked Sweet by Mar'ce Merrell
Best friends Chantal and Jillian are going into the summer before their senior year of high school and are planning on it being the best one yet. Each summer prior to this one, the two friends have made plans for some epic summer project to work on. This year though, Jillian gets a boyfriend and it puts a lot of tension between the two friends. Little do Jillian and Chantal know, Jillian's new boyfriend, Parker, and his best friend Will have made a bet that Parker can kiss Jillian before Will can kiss Chantal. Chantal finds out about the bet and plots to get revenge on Will for kissing her and messing with her and Jillian's friendship. Chantal really discovers her true self throughout the novel and it was a cute coming of age story. I didn't love this book, but it was an interesting story and definitely had some funny moments. Rating: 6/10
Riding Out the Storm by Claudia Jones
In this book, a girl named Emily nearly drowns in her school's pool after never previously being afraid of swimming and being a good swimmer. After this experience, Emily starts having nightmares where she is drowning, but not in her school's pool. Her family takes her to a therapist who suggests having regression therapy done. The therapy reveals that in a past life, Emily was a guy named Michael who drowned during a storm. Emily has to come to terms with this idea and has so many questions that she decides to locate Michael's remaining family and get some answers. I had never read a book with a concept like this and I really loved it! In my opinion, the first half of the book was a lot better than the second half. I kind of think that the author revealed that Emily had a past life too soon, because the majority of the second half of the book is pretty slow paced with Emily looking for closure and trying to find answers from Michael's family. Overall though, I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Rating: 8/10
Stained by Cheryl Rainfield
This book was so dark and had me on the edge of my seat and it was thrilling in the scariest of ways. Sarah is a teen who was born with a port-wine stain on her face and she has grown up hating it all of her life. On the day that she is supposed to get treatments that will reduce and eventually clear her skin of her port-wine stain, her father finds out that 100,000 dollars has been embezzled from his business and they cannot afford to do the treatments until they figure out what has happened with the money. After this happens and Sarah is incredibly bummed out about not being able to get the treatments, she is being bullied on her way home from school. Sarah's dad's assistant acts like he is trying to help her, but then drugs and kidnaps her. Sarah is not the first person that this man has kidnapped and she ends up being gone for 4 months. The kidnapper brings Sarah food and water to keep her alive, but also rapes her and tells her that he loves her and keeps trying to teach her these "lessons" about how she had been using her family because of her deformity and that nobody really loves her. Sarah is able to escape one day and the twist ending had my heart gripped in knots and was totally unexpected. This book is definitely not for people who are triggered by kidnapping and rape, but it ends up being a beautiful story about self acceptance that I really appreciated. Rating: 9/10
The Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Robin Palmer
Annabelle is a teen whose mom is a famous actress. For a while, Annabelle and her mom were living a fairly high end life. They had a designer home that was featured in magazines, they got to attend Oscar parties and other amazing award ceremonies, and overall just a pretty great life. However, Annabelle's mom falls into drugs and alcoholism and literally lets her life begin to waste away. After a DUI that ends with her in jail, Annabelle's mom has to go to rehab and completely turns her life around. When she is about to leave rehab, they find out that Annabelle's mom's finance manager has embezzled a lot of money from them and they must move into a small apartment because they can no longer live in their lavish home. Throughout this hard time in Annabelle's life, she uses photography as her one thing that her mother is not involved in and that she can separate herself with. After Annabelle plots to get her mom into a really big new movie, the mother daughter duo must move across the country and sort of start a new life there during the filming. Annabelle meets new people and kind of learns how to accept and understand change in her life. I liked this book for its realness and for portraying drugs and alcoholism well. Rating: 7/10
Missing Abby by Lee Weatherly
This book was an interesting twist on a missing person story. The main character named Emma was bullied at a school that she went to before because she was interested in fantasy worlds and make believe with her friend Abby. After one particularly bad bullying instance, Emma decides to distance herself from Abby and moves to a new school. She makes new friends and has a change of personality sort of. Almost a year later, Emma finds out that Abby has gone missing and realizes that she is the last person that saw Abby, in an accidental run in at the bus stop. Emma feels guilty for Abby's disappearance and believes that it may have been her fault that she ran away. Emma ends up teaming up with Abby's new friends to find Abby and things do not turn out as expected. I liked this book because it did not have a cliche ending or story line for a missing person story. I really liked how the book ended and enjoyed the read. Rating: 6/10
InZanesville by Jo Ann Beard
Set in the 70s, the nameless narrator and her best friend Felicia are both late bloomers and just want to be like the other girls around them. They want to interact with boys, be popular, and just feel like they fit in. They both have messy home lives and use each other to escape their problems. Their parents however think that the other is a bad influence after the girls keep getting detention on purpose to talk to boys. One day the girls are invited to a sleepover with a bunch of the school's cheerleaders. Felicia is skeptical about this party but the narrator is very excited. The party ends up tearing the narrator and Felicia apart for a little while but come together in the end because they realize the value of each other's friends. I'm not gonna lie. I hated this book. I don't like to say that I hate something, but there were a lot of problems with this book for me. First, I felt like there was not a structured plot. It just kind of jumped around all over the place and I had a hard time paying attention to it. Secondly, the book is set in the 70s and I didn't understand some of the references, but also I don't think that the author really stuck with the time period. I just could not enjoy this book and it was definitely my least favorite book I have read this summer. Rating: 4/10
Orbiting Jupiter by Gary D. Schmidt
Y'all. This book. This book right here. This book was AMAZING. It is the shortest book I have read this summer, sitting right at 183 pages, and when I picked it up, I thought that it would just be a short little book that I would not get super invested in. Boy was I wrong. I read this book in probably 45 minutes-1 hour because it was just that good. The book is about a boy named Jack whose family takes in a delinquent foster child named Joseph who has a messy past. Joseph got a girl pregnant when he and the girl were both 13 years old. The girl's parents get a restraining order on Joseph and he gets sent to a correctional facility. Joseph was abused by his father in the past and because of that and his obsession with finding his daughter, Jupiter, he is pretty aggressive. The story revolves around Joseph learning how to become a part of a family that actually loves him and treats him right and his efforts to find his daughter. The story was captivating and beautiful and the ending was so unexpected. In fact, it was so unexpected that it broke my heart in the last 8 PAGES! I highly, highly recommend this book. It was phenomenal! Rating: 10/10
Knife Music by David Carnoy
A 16-year-old girl named Kristen is involved in a car accident where she ruptures her spleen and has to have it removed. The surgery goes well and she continues on with her life. However, about six months after the accident, Kristen has killed herself and her mom finds her diary in which she writes that she had consensual sex with the doctor that performed her surgery. Kristen and her best friend had been drinking that night at a party and went to Dr. Cogan's house because Kristen was acting really weird and they couldn't take her to the hospital because if their parents found out they would be in a ton of trouble. The book goes back and forth between Dr. Cogan's point of view, who knows that he is innocent and is trying to find out how to prove it, and the lead investigator's point of view, who just wants to find out what happened. I definitely did not expect the outcome that happened and it was a very interesting turn of events. Rating: 8/10
~Em
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