Title: Undead Girl Gang
Author: Lily Anderson
Published: 2018
Genre: Young Adult/Paranormal
Rating:
Synopsis
Meet teenage Wiccan Mila Flores, who truly could not care less what you think about her Doc Martens, her attitude, or her weight because she knows that, no matter what, her BFF Riley is right by her side. So when Riley and Fairmont Academy mean girls June Phelan-Park and Dayton Nesseth die under suspicious circumstances, Mila refuses to believe everyone’s explanation that her BFF was involved in a suicide pact. Instead, armed with a tube of lip gloss and an ancient grimoire, Mila does the unthinkable to uncover the truth: she brings the girls back to life.
Credit: Google Books
From what I’ve seen and heard, this book isn’t very liked. However, I found it to be a funny and thrilling. Their were some twists and turns that I didn’t see coming, but loved. At first, I thought this would be fun, witchy contemporary, but it surprisingly has a lot of thriller aspects.
To be honest, the writing isn’t the best, so that might turn some readers off. Yet, I found that the writing fit the story perfectly. The entire book felt like an old-school teen movie. It was lighthearted, but had spooky elements too. I noticed that there were a lot of pop-culture references throughout the book.
These days a lot of contemporary seem to be full of pop-culture references. Perhaps authors believe that they’ll relate more to the younger generation if they talk about ‘Instagram’ and ‘HP’ in their stories. I personally don’t care when authors do this, but I know some readers find it annoying. I will say that those references worked well in this case, since the story was very campy.
“You wouldn’t understand. It’s a dead girl thing.”
The best part of the book was the twist at the end. Now, I am not the best at solving mysteries. So I found the reveal at the end to be shocking. However, I can see how some could find it underwhelming. Looking back, there were a lot of red flags when it came to the killer that I seemed to have overlooked.
Personally, my favorite thing about the book was the dialog. For a spooky YA story, I found it to be pretty funny. The author did an amazing job mixing a mystery-thriller with a cheerful contemporary. I probably wouldn’t rereead the book, since I already know the big twist at the end. Still, I will recommend it to others looking for a more tame YA thriller.
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Until The Next Chapter,
Bunny
Title: Hocus Pocus and the All New Sequel
Normally I would choose ‘A Christmas Carol’, since it is my all-time favorite book. But thought I’d step out of my comfort zone. I excepted myself to pick ‘Little Women’, which I did enjoy. Yet, the classic that sticks out in my mind is ‘The Catcher in the Rye’ by J. D. Salinger. I don’t hear many people talk about, or like this book. I might be an oddball, but it is a pretty good classic in my opinion.
A book has to be pretty amazing to make me stay up late. Since I can rarely make it passed 10pm before passing out. One book I know I couldn’t put down was ‘P.S. I Still Love You’ by Jenny Han. This is the second book in the ‘To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before’ trilogy, and my favorite of the three book. I was up pretty late to finishing this book.
Can I say the family romance (love) in ‘A Christmas Carol?’ No, okay bye.
‘My Sister’s Keeper’ by Jodi Picoult is all about these two things. First off, I want to say that I don’t remember a lot of this book, but I apparently gave it three stars. However, I do remember the basics of the story. This book is all about sacrifices and getting the power to make your dreams come true. Things don’t turnout perfect at the end of this book, but it is a pretty powerful story. I would say it is more about sacrifices, but there is much more to the story.
‘The Hate You Give’ by Angie Thomas! Starr grew into the strong and intelligent young women. She wasn’t afraid to fight for what was right, and call-out her so-called friends for their racist behaviors.
Audrey Rose in the ‘Stalking Jack the Ripper’ series. She has a passion for forensic medicine, and doesn’t care if society tells up it isn’t proper work for a girl. Unlike other girls, she gets a thrill from working on corpses in her uncle’s laboratory. She doesn’t care about people’s opinions and knows what she wants out of life.
I have to go with ‘The Project’ by Courtney Summers (review). This book is a cult story that is full of twists and turns. It had my emotions all over the place for days.
Instead of going with the obvious choice (Katniss Everdeen). My pick is a little different. There’s a character at the end of ‘There’s Someone Inside Your House’ by Stephanie Perkins that was totally bad-ass. The killer went after her, but she fought like hell not to die.
I don’t believe I have read any books featuring an artist except for ‘The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants’ series. Lena, who was my favorite character, was an aspiring artist. She was sweet and shy, and expressed herself through her art work.
‘The Hazel Wood’ by Melissa Albert. Now the mother and daughter relationship isn’t a big feature in this book, but I found it very interesting. The twist about their relationship was unexpected.
I am going to go with ‘Conceal, Don’t Feel’ by Jen Calonita, which is a Frozen retelling. The book gives readers a look at “what if” Anna and Elsa never met. I thought the sibling relationship was special, because even though they didn’t know each other, they still had a bond. They both went out of their way to find one another. If that doesn’t portray the love of siblings, I don’t know what does.
If This Gets Out by Cale Dietrich, Sophie Gonzales (December 7th)
Title: Five Feet Apart
In this moving story two teens fall in love with just one minor complication—they can’t get within five feet of each other without risking their lives.
I wasn’t sure if I should give the book 5 or 2 stars, because it truly broke my heart. However, I settled on 4 stars. I loved the writing style and the plot isn’t too far from John Green’s ‘Fault in Our Stars’. I was not a fan of Green’s book, yet it is very beloved. This book is not nearly as popular, but captivated me in ways ‘Faults in Our Stars’ didn’t. This was much more than a love story, even though that was a big part of the plot. It focused on death, illness, and not always getting what we want.
This is a set of companion novels marketed as a series. The first book is ‘My Lady Jane’, which is a historical reimagining of Lady Jane Grey. The next book follows Jane Eyre, and the last Calamity Jane. I have only read the first book, but would like to finish the series fairly soon. This author trio does have a new book out about Mary, Queen of Scots, which I’d also like to eventually read.
Truth be told, I started the series because of its stunning cover. Yep, it was a cover buy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t impressed by the story. The overall plot was interesting enough, but I found the book slow and boring at times. Also, the love story was a snooze. And there are 10 books in the series? Seriously? What is this ‘The Immortal Instruments’? Do I really care enough about these characters to read nine more books? Probably not.
Sadly, another likely DNF series. If you remember the old days of Booktube and book blogging, then you have probably heard about these books. A young adult dystopian trilogy with a bachelor-type plot, sounds cool, right? Wrong. Maybe I’m strange, because I didn’t love the first book. I didn’t exactly hate it, but, eh. Also, I can’t seem to bring myself to finish the series. I fear that reading it will put me into a reading slump. On top of everything, the author released a companion duology that wasn’t well received. I’m just not sure I want to force myself to read something I have no interest in.
This series is pretty special to me. I remember getting the entire trilogy for my 15th birthday. But for some reason, I’ve never picked up the last book in the series. I remember enough of the first and second books to not have reread of them, at least. So, I just need to bite the bullet and pick up the final book. Plus, I’d like to finish the series so I can watch the HBO series adaption that I’ve heard about.
I am dying to read the next book in this YA sci-fi, dystopian trilogy. The books follow multiple characters perspectives, and the ending of the first book took me completely by surprise. I am curious to see where the author takes the story. In case you’re interested, I have a 
This series gives me Sherlock Holmes energy and I am here for it. The characters, forensics aspect and slow burn romance is magnificent. I have been putting off these books, because they take me a while to read. They are mainly plot-driven and are somewhat drawn out. Still, the writing and stories are fantastic.
I am probably one of the only people in the world that hasn’t read this series in its entirety. To my surprise, I enjoyed ‘The Hunger Games’ a lot. Tried picking up ‘Catching Fire’ soon after, but wasn’t in the mood for it. But I would like to finish the series off, since I have seen mostly all the film adaptations. Can one truly be a book lover if they’ve only seen the movie, and not the book its based on. I think not!
This series got me hooked on audiobooks! The books are read by Sarah Drew (April on Grey’s Anatomy), which made for a great reading experience. The story takes place in a dystopian world where love is seen as a disease. I was riding high on this book after I read it back in 2013, but my taste in books has changed and the story doesn’t interest too much anymore. Maybe too much time has past for me to continue with the series. I’m not writing it off forever, but I’m also not 100% sure I’ll ever finish the series.
Title: One Of Us Is Lying
I went into this book with low expectations, considering that the reviews aren’t the best. The book started off fairly slow, but from there, it got right into the main plot. Unlike others, I was a fan of the writing style. The characters were the typical ‘Breakfast Club’ stereotypes. However, you could see growth and development throughout the story. The author took a lot of time on their personalities and lives. They all had secrets of their own, which I will admit were pretty mediocre. Although, I was spoiled for one of the secrets, but I probably would have figured it out before it’s reveal.
Today, I wanted to talk about a few self-care things you can do when anxiety and depression become overwhelming. Currently, depression and anxiety have been dominating my days. Some days, it’s hard to get out of bed, or find the simple joy in doing things that I normally do. So I hope these tips can help you, and me.