Seeker | Book Review

Title: Seeker

Series: The Seeker Series (Book 1)

Author: Amy Reece

Genre: Young Adult, Paranormal

Summary: Ally has psychic visions and she keeps having visions of bad shit happening to a classmate and then other stuff happens I suck at summaries

Rating: 8/10 pretentious quotes about telling the truth

Review: I was surprised with Seeker. It does follow a lot of YA tropes (mean popular girl, troubled bad boy, plain Jane female lead) but the book makes up for it by having a lot of humor and being self aware. There were multiple times that I was reading something and thought "that's ridiculous"  but then a character would point out the ridiculousness immediately afterwards. Ally, for the most part, is an alright heroine. Her constant crying gets annoying after a while and she makes really stupid decisions a lot of the time. I mean, REALLY stupid decisions. For example, instead of going directly to a girl who she knows is being abused, and getting help as soon as possible, she wastes time joining the cheerleading squad and trying to wiggle her way into that girl's inner circle. This girl's life is in danger and Ally acts like it's not as big of a deal as it really is.

Ally's personality is good, she's funny and entertaining, but I still feel like she's a bit immature. Which is a problem because she's fallen into insta-love with the Typical Troubled Bad Boy. They're at the "I love you" stage within a handful of weeks. The Typical Troubled Bad Boy tells Ally he was arrested for drug use and she doesn't even ask what drug(s) he had? Any rational person who is trying to have sex with someone, and who claims to love them, is going to know about their drug use past. Drug use can spread diseases if certain drugs are involved. If the Typical Troubled Bad Boy had told her it was just marijuana, then Ally would have been in the clear because it's harmless. But if he told her it was heroine, HIV can be spread through needles and there could be a chance that he has it, yet she's trying to have sex with him?? Do you see where I'm going with this? Realistically, it was probably just marijuana and the Typical Troubled Bad Boy doesn't have HIV, but still, I wish we could have characters who know how to be responsible.

Another thing I wasn't particularly fond of was the ending. I felt that it wrapped up too fast. We'd spent the entire novel building up to the climax and it's over in a few pages. It was like the author was already focused on book 2 and needed to get through book 1 as quickly as possible.

Despite the gripes I have with Seeker, I was entertained by it. It's funny, interesting, and Ally is a solid, yet reckless, heroine. I recommend picking it up (it's free on Amazon kindle!)

Seeker is available at Amazon and at the Book Depository.
You can add Seeker to Goodreads here.

Filthy Beautiful Lies | Book Review

This book is a filthy beautiful mess

Title: Filthy Beautiful Lies with no commas separating the words
Series: Filthy Beautiful Lies with no commas separating the words (Book 1)
Author: Kendall Ryan
Genre: New Adult, Adult
Summary: Sophie decides to sell her virginity to pay for her sister's cancer treatment and she ends up having to live with/have sex with a rich, hot, young guy because that's totally realistic.
Rating: 5/10 bottles of wine actually called "Naughty Girl"

Review:
I don't know how I feel right now. Filthy Beautiful Lies has some strong points but then sometimes I was actually cringing while reading it. The best thing about the book is the cliffhanger, which was so good that I want to read the next book. And I do think the premise, while ridiculous, is new and original. However, some of the dialogue and the romance was laughable and the main character is such a moron. The 28 year old billionaire love interest with a disturbingly high sex drive (let us count how many novels feature a character like this) has no consistency? He says he doesn't want to force Sophie into sex, which of course makes sense, but this is after he's forced her to perform oral sex on him twice?????????? He attempts to treat Sophie with care and respect, which again makes sense, but then he turns around and calls her his property??? Sophie claims to be a smart independent woman yet she's calling this guy who PURCHASED her "master"????????? The term "genital-on-genital contact" is actually used in 100% seriousness??
But I gave this a medium rating for a reason. Like I said, it's original and I liked the cliffhanger. And I sped through this baby in a day because laughing at it was keeping me so entertained. It's not the worst adult or new adult novel I've read or attempted to read (will anything ever be worse than Fifty Shades?) but it's far from the best. If you're looking for a great romance with an engaging story, Filthy Beautiful Lies may not be for you. But if you want something new and fun, take a day or two to curl up with this book and laugh your butt off.

Filthy Beautiful Lies is available on Amazon and at the Book Depository

Confess book review

Title: Confess
Author: Colleen Hoover
Genre: Contemporary
Rating: 10 dirty little secrets out of 10
What It's About: Auburn is new to Dallas (ugh, Dallas) and one day she meets an artist named Owen, who sells paintings inspired by the anonymous confessions that people leave for him. They, of course, start falling in love, but they both have big, MEGA-secrets that they're afraid to confess to one another (see what I did there?)
Recommended For: I don't really know. I can't think of another book/movie that centers around confessing things.

Review: So yesterday morning, I finished Ugly Love and I wanted to jump into another Colleen Hoover book, so I started Confess last night at about 11pm and I finished it at 4am. It's finals week, and I chose reading this book over studying. That's how un-put-down-able this book was. It gripped me right from the hella depressing beginning and I just didn't want to stop reading. What kept me going for the first half was the mystery of what Auburn and Owen were hiding from each other. But then once I found out what was going on, I couldn't stop reading, because I had to see how all of the drama was going to wrap up by the end of the story. I don't want to say too much about this book, because there are mystery elements that I don't want to spoil for you. Basically, this isn't really a romance. I mean, yeah there are cute shippy scenes, but this is more of a drama than a romance (I'd divide it 10% luck, 20% skill, 30% romance and 70% nail-biting drama). The romance was well-done, even though there was some insta-love. I liked the addition of art and putting the art into the book. I hate when books spend two paragraphs describing how a piece of art looks, when the message of the art would be way easier to understand if the reader could see the actual art. I do like this book more than Ugly Love, just because Ugly Love was really hard on my emotions at some times, but I can't rate this higher than Ugly Love because I gave Ugly Love 10/10 #ReaderProbz. Anyway, Confess is a very interesting, gripping book and I'd HIGHLY recommend picking it up.
Links:
Book Depository
Amazon
Goodreads

Ugly Love Book Review

Title: Ugly Love
Author: Colleen Hoover
Genre: Contemporary, New Adult, Romance
Rating: 10 orange juice jugs out of 10
What It's About: Tate moves in next door to Miles and the two decide to start a "no strings attached" sexual relationship, but then they start to fall in love with each other, but Miles' tragic back story is preventing them from actually being together.
Recommended For: Fans of J. Lynn's "Wait For You" series

Review: This isn't the first Colleen Hoover book I've read, but it is the first contemporary NA book of hers that I've read and I'm starting to see what all the hype is about with her. Normally in contemporary romance, the tragic back story for whichever character is suffering from the "I want to love you but my past is getting in the way" trope, is very cliche. "My daddy didn't love me," "I've had my heart broken before," "I'm just not good for you." They're all so played out. But with Ugly Love, there was a really, REALLY tragic story behind why Miles couldn't let himself pursue a romantic relationship with Tate, and it was the first time I'd read about the complicated love interest being complicated for this certain reason (which I'm not going to spoil). I think that this back story worked even better because of the way that the book is written. There are chapters in the present from Tate's point of view, where she talks about how frustrating it is that Miles won't tell her anything about his past, but those chapters are alternated with Miles' flashbacks to six years ago. The flashbacks lead to a climax where we finally find out what happened to Miles, and it's much sadder than you think it's going to be when you start the book. Another thing I really liked about this book was that even though Tate is the main character, this is Miles' story. He's the character that grows the most and goes through all the development, Tate is just a catalyst for that to happen. Normally, I'd be like "why is the girl only here so the man can get his shit together?" but the moral of this story is the most important part, and the moral comes from Miles' character arc. The lesson he learns is what's supposed to stick with the reader, and it's a good thing that the romance was a little sidelined so that the reader could focus on what Miles was going through. It's not often that we see New Adult books that go beyond "hot 20-somethings have sex and there are mild inconveniences thrown in." There's an actual story to be told with Ugly Love. And it's a pretty great story.

Links:
Amazon
Book Depository
Goodreads

Fallen Too Far Book Review

Title: Fallen Too Far
Series: Rosemary Beach (Book #1)
Author: Abbi Glines
Genre: Romance, Contemporary, New Adult
Rating: Nothing. Zero. Nada. No stars at all.
What It's About: This girl named Blaire goes to her dad's new house where he lives with some woman he just married, but her dad and new stepmother aren't there and this huge house is only inhabited by Blaire's hot stepbrother - Rush. Blaire moves into the house and I am having so much trouble summarizing this book. Just go to the review section.
Recommended For: PLEASE DON'T READ THIS BOOK

Review: I normally finish books before I review them. I like to give them a chance to turn themselves around by the ending and I want to have the whole story before I pick the book apart. But I could not finish this book. It felt like I was being tortured while reading this. I got about 4/5 of the way through, and even though I only had a little bit left, I just couldn't do it. About a year ago, I read a book called Sweet Evil and I've since said it is the worst book I've ever read. This is still true, but Fallen Too Far is the second worst. You'd think that my biggest problem would be the almost-incest but no. There's much worse happening in this book. Blaire is just a bitch. This girl gets mad when Rush chooses his biological sister over her, and she stands there and watches Rush have sex with other girls. Even though Rush is okay with this (why?) the girls he's having sex probably do not want some creeper watching them. It's supposed to be "hot" that Blaire is watching them but if she's doing so without the girls knowing, that's not "steamy" or "sexy." That's being a fucking pervert. I feel like bugs are crawling on my skin just thinking about it.
And there's Rush. He's just your typical hunky, charity working, golf course owning, mansion dwelling, bad boy with a troubled past, member of rockstar royalty. His feelings for Blaire come out of nowhere. There's no development or even seeing why they like each other besides physical attraction. This is one of the worst cases of insta-love that I've ever seen. Rush invites Blaire to a party and then gets mad at her when she shows up??????? That literally makes no sense at all. He gets this intense jealously whenever Blaire so much as blinks at another guy and he's so cliche and laughable that I can't take him seriously as a character. Another character - whose name I can't be bothered to find - is an employee at the golf course where Blaire works. And this girl can't stop having sex with the guests at the course. But then it's SO overdone and corny. She's standing near one of the guys who she likes to do the hanky panky with and she's one word away from taking off all of her clothes right there in front of everyone. Blaire gets put "in charge" of this girl and I'm like"???????" This girl is in her twenties and she can't control herself while on the job and you want to make someone else babysit her rather than just firing her? There's Nan, Rush's actual sister, and we get hints that something happened between Nan and Rush and by the time I finished the book, we hadn't found out what it was, but this plot line was almost interesting. But that all got fucked up because Nan acts like she's in middle school. She bullies Blaire and "ruins her work uniform" because she's salty about Blaire and Rush. This is so juvenile. Who would write this shit? Who would publish this shit?
There is no plot beyond Rush and Blaire with a side order of Nan and the Me So Horny Girl who all want to bang someone else in the book. I get that this is a romance, and it should center around romance, but not one that doesn't make any sense and isn't compelling in any way. There are other things going on that would be much better side plots than Nan and the Me So Horny Girl, such as the death of Blaire's twin, her father being a jerk, her mother's death. But no. Instead we get all this boring crap about these terrible characters, mixed with cringe-worthy dialogue ("all females need a phone") and bad writing.
Goodreads, I hate you. You made me think this book would be good (why does this have a 4.26 rating?) There are much better New Adult books out there. Don't waste your time on this one.
Links:
Goodreads
Book Depository (if you just really want to laugh at all this book has to offer)