Screwed -- Laurie Plissner

Rating: ✰✰
(2.3) 

Mesmerized by Nick, the cutest guy in school, seventeen-year-old Grace Warren, captain of the math team, gets pregnant the night she loses her virginity. Still hopeful that Nick is madly in love with her, Grace ends up heartbroken. When she tells him about the pregnancy, Nick not only couldn't care less about her, he wonders aloud if the baby is his. Desperate, Grace turns for help to her super-religious, strait-laced parents, and is stunned when they not only insist that she get an abortion, but, when she balks, literally kick her out of the house. Taken in by an elderly neighbor, Grace must face a choice she knows will haunt her for the rest of her life, whatever she decides. Just when Grace is feeling at her lowest, Charlie, her neighbor's great-nephew, shows up, asking her to try again to believe in human nature...and teenage boys.

One careless decision has changed everything for Grace, and it will take all her courage to make it on her own. But, if she can really trust Charlie's unconditional love, despite all hher fears, Grace might learn to trust herself again. She might still have one shot at becoming the woman she hoped to be.

---

This was a fairly fast read, and the review is probably going to go by just as fast. 

I received this in the mail this morning (yay!) when I was lying in bed half-awake and my brother plopped this heavy package down on my chest with an unceremonious "Here" at 10:11. It was a cardboard, fairly big, and sealed-shut envelope, and at first I thought there was some flap I was supposed to open that turned out to be nonexistent. So, summoning whatever strength I possessed at ten in the morning, I ripped open the top of the envelope thing.

And pulled out the book:

*game show music* It was Screwed! Yay!

Anyway, onto the actual review:

From the synopsis, it sounds pretty interesting, right?

It sounds difficult and a touchy subject that will be handled with grace and make you think about teen pregnancy, right?

It sounds like a book that you will finish reading, flipping over the last few pages to the acknowledgments, saying, "Wow," right?

The writing was something that you would not grow fond of. It was told in third person omniscient, and I don't mean just occasional thoughts from other main characters other than Grace--I mean really really omniscient, where you get everyone's thoughts on everything.

Everything.

How I wish I were exaggerating.

To give you an example:

Basically, Grace, pregnant and back at school, is hiding in the bathroom when four girls come in and she hears their conversation about their suspicions that she's pregnant (it's only been a few months and she doesn't show that much yet, until the day the conversation takes place). It's long and boring, so I won't give you the whole thing, but

Awesome Girl B: "If she's got a kid in there, it had to be an immaculate conception. No one but God could be porking Warren."

Awesome Girl C: "Whatever."

Awesome Girl C didn't give a rat's ass what a charter member of the geek squad was up to when she wasn't changing the batteries in her calculator. In her thousand-friend Facebook universe, high school was for looking good, getting hammered, and hooking up, not gossiping about losers who sat in the front of the class with their lips permanently attached to some teacher's ass.

 

You never even see "Awesome Girl C" again for the remainder of the entire book.

 And now itty bitty small useless details like that about EVERY freaking character's life is going to be permanently ingrained into my brain cells!

ARRRGGGGH! I DON'T CARE! I DON'T CARE ABOUT ALL THESE MINOR CHARACTERS' MADE-UP, SHALLOW, PATHETIC LIVES!

This was the biggest issue I had with the book.

You see, I am very protective of my brain cells, because one, I do not have a very bountiful supply of them, and two, I certainly do not want them being clogged up with useless information when I could be using them for something actually helpful in life that I need, like, say, information to help pass the SATs, or my grandmother's birthday.

I also have pretty good memory, so I remember a lot of things from books, like a lot of minor details.

So of course I get pretty pissed off whenever there's so much going on in a book that I just don't freaking care about but I have to waste up space in my brain's storage to read over anyway.

Every few paragraphs I would get some random person's entire backstory, their opinions on everything, and their reasons for existing and life in general. This took up paragraphs and paragraphs, and sometimes even entire pages. And he/she is never to be seen again!

GAH!

Now I'm stuck with Nick's freaking plans with Amy (which are really gross and not age-appropriate for me, and also took up a whole page to explain--seriously?), Helen's entire life story (which I couldn't care less about, sorry Helen), "Awesome Girl C"'s philosophy on high school...

I'll spare you all the other grueling, minor details.

I just don't understand why Laurie Plissner would do this at all. Why? Why, Miss Plissner, why would you do this to yourself and to readers everywhere?

Was she trying to prove her world was very thoroughly developed? Did she want to show off that she had beautiful character development? Did she want to brag about how three-dimensional all her characters were?

Well it didn't work.

It slowed down and dragged all the progress of the story so much, especially when after a simple sentence like "I like your hat" (just deal with me here, I'm not going to go back looking inside that book), you would get the person who commented on said hat's entire backstory and ALL their reasons for saying that one simple sentence.

I could deal with it the first 80% of the book, but after:

Another thing about the writing was that it was very bland and just...bleh. I'm not even sure why. But despite all this "character depth" on everyone, you never really feel like you're there in the story, you don't get inside Grace's head much, you just...don't care.

The writing just drones on and on and on. It would be a chore to read, except it just never stops or starts, just goes on, so I kept reading and reading. It wasn't compelling, just...I guess I really had nothing better to do than read this for five hours. The prose wasn't terrible, or outstanding, just...

Sigh.

Trust me on this, the writing in here is so freaky in its "boring readability," but not enough that you would want to torture yourself reading it.

Grace as a main character I could stand, but near the end she started annoying me with her weird motives and messing with Charlie's mind, and that weird thing after, well, she gives birth.

I wish the fate of her baby had turned out differently (even though I guess it's for the best), and that's about all I can tell you on that without giving away too much.

The whole plot, if you can call it that, is pretty cliché and predictable, so much that I'm not sure there was even a plot or a point to the 300 pages this book takes up.

Everyone kept calling Grace "special," seriously, for no reason, and after a while without even an infamous explanation for it, that annoyed me, too.

There were two weird scenes between Grace and Charlie I'd rather not tell you about because they're kind of creepy. (Also, Charlie, by the way, is a really bland, "good boy" love interest, who's really stereotypical, except for the fact that he's Jewish. Really, think of "preppy good boy" and you've got Charlie. His motives were sweet, I guess, but his love for Grace wasn't really that believable, especially since they'd only known each other for a little over six months.)
 

I wouldn't recommend this book.
 

You're probably wondering why the heck I gave this book a 2.3 rating then.
 

See, sometimes at the beginning of a few chapters there would be a letter from Grace to her baby. I thought these were really adorable and so sweet, and they showed how much Grace cared about her baby, and I even started looking forward to them after the first one. Sadly, they were stopped almost as soon as they began :'(
 

And the ending was really cliché, but it was a sweet cliché, and I like those. I base a lot of books on how their endings make me feel, so if you can stick in a sappy romantic scene that's pretty much another added star rating from me.

Yep, bottom line, don't read this book unless you really hate yourself.


But thank you so much to the publisher for sending this book to me! (I think. Or maybe I should thank the person who listed the giveaway on Goodreads? I'm really not sure who to thank...) 

The Worst Book I Have Ever Read in My Life

Rating: --✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰✰ x ∞

I don't even want to have this book on my blog in the first place, but since I can't bring myself to write any other reviews and the world needs to know how horrible it is, I'll just say it:

 I would not wipe my dog's ass with this.

Ellie: Manny! You can't choose between your kids!
Manny: He's not my kid. He's not even my dog. If I had a dog, and my dog had a kid, and that dog's kid had a pet, that would be Sid.

I would not even wipe my dog's kid's pet's ass with this.

This book is the biggest waste of paper I've ever seen, even more so than Twilight. There is absolutely no use for this book in this world at all.

NO USE.

It would have been better for it to have never been published at all, or even conceived in thought. Children everywhere weep because this book exists.

Are you happy, Michael Grant? Are you happy your book makes children weep?

Ink!

*Not a review of any books, don't waste your time reading this long babbling if you have other things to do

So, let me start out by saying that if you do not have a Half Price Books store near you, then I severely, severely, severely, very very very much completely and totally pity you.

I really do. So...so much...

Anyway!

My dad has been meaning to take me there since Wednesday, and I guess because he didn't get to, he was feeling guilty enough to take me last night. (I love you, Dad.)

I'm very picky when it comes to buying books, and sometimes I'm not picky enough, and other times I just want to buy all the books in a bookstore and then I'm racked with indecision about which to buy. (I'm really indecisive, and also, I think my personality is really prone to flip-flopping around.) The point is, when I go into a bookstore, it takes a long time for me to decide what to get.

Since we left at 9, and the store closes at 10, I had about an hour to decide what to get. I browsed through the whole Young Adult section, almost got a book from a whole lot of Amanda Hocking books, found only Beautiful Chaos in hardcover (only $9.87, if you were wondering), Unearthly in this horrible, ugly paperback and then Hallowed without a dust jacket so I wasn't even sure how much it cost, and I wanted to get Silence so I could finally read it and finally complete my Hush, Hush collection, but the only hardcover they had had a dust jacket that was frayed and ripped. Stuff like this went on for a long time (and I even considered getting Torment because they were displaying it with a bunch of other books and oh my gosh that cover was so beautiful *shivers*).

If you didn't want to read that entire paragraph, I was basically screwed.

And the store was closing in literally less than ten minutes when my dad and I were searching the clearance shelf for something to read. My dad kept pulling out random books that looked old (no offense, books) but when he pulled out this one random book from the very bottom shelf, I noticed the book that was to the left of it.

And oh my gosh, I nearly flipped over and fainted.

Because there was that familiar logo I was so used to seeing all the time!

Ink, running down the spine!

For a little bit of backstory, I found that book in Netgalley, requested it, and got rejected. Fine. Whatever. But then Goodreads was having a giveaway of five ARCs of the book, I read the summary, and I wanted that book so badly. The morning the contest ended and the e-mails went out, I got up early to check my e-mail, and, because life is so cruel, I got a bunch of e-mails from Goodreads, but none that said "Congrats - you are a First Reads winner!" (Reading the subject line for each e-mail from Goodreads made my heart stop way too many times to be healthy.) I'd wanted the book so much I was about ready to cry, and spent the rest of the day between a state of depression and anger (though it was mostly depression).

But HOLY CRAP HERE WAS THE BOOK RIGHT THERE IN FRONT OF ME OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH OH MY GOSH!!!!

I gasped, pulled the book out with disbelieving hands, and flipped it over. Sure enough, there it was, that familiar cover with the painted blonde girl and the title underneath.

And it was only five dollars.

Half Price Books...I love you so much.

I bought it, of course, and also got a really pretty bookmark to go along with it :)

My dad and I also went shopping for a while at Wal-mart to buy food and towels, so when we got home it was already around 11. I started reading about half an hour after we got home and got to page 22--then this morning I had to physically restrain myself from reading past Chapter 1. Yes, it is that freaking good so far. And I love love love the book. It's so pretty!

Which is why (especially since I've wanted it for so long so badly) I have to read all the books I got from the library first, so I can savor this as much as possible. *sigh*

By the way, is it just me or are publishers getting cheaper with bindings? I mean, look at that book: the covers are made of porous white paper instead of cardboard or just whatever publishers usually use for paperbacks. I don't mind, but really, I also got a book from Goodreads earlier that had the same binding. I thought it was a novelty so I really liked it, but is this going to be how all publishers will make paperbacks from now on?

I kinda would have preferred a hardcover of this and I wish Half Price Books had had it but I won't complain

Speaking of the wonderful, amazing, Half Price Books, I also printed out a reading log for their summer reading challenge thing--if I read 300 minutes I get a $5 coupon! ...Which I'd already accomplished the first day I found out about the program by reading Scumbled. (Ahhh, I love being a kid. How I'm going to miss it so much when I turn 15 :'(((( Lucky for me I found out about this before I turned 15, because 14 is the cut-off date.) Since it's not the end of the week, though, and that's when your parents initial for the total number of minutes you read, I can't redeem for it yet. Let's just hope they don't think I'm faking because of the ridiculous number of minutes I read each day (yeah I sadly have no life ;w;).

Top Reader in each age category gets a $20 gift card too--wish me luck, invisible audience! Fingers crossed! *waves*

Spirit -- Brigid Kemmerer

Rating: ✰✰

It's hard to believe that, after how much I loved the second book and how eager I was for my copy to arrive in the mail, that I didn't like this book as much as I thought I would. 

On May the 6th, I finished Storm, the first book in the Elemental Series at school, and, since I'd already downloaded the second book, Spark, I decided to read that too--might as well, right? 

Admittedly, Storm was just okay for me, but once I started reading Spark, I didn't stop until I'd finished the whole thing around eight p.m. the same day. Yep, I just finished two books in a single day, and this is where I should probably backtrack:

The whole reason I started reading this series in the first place was because I entered a giveaway on Goodreads for Spirit. That was during a time where I would just enter any old giveaway I saw my friend Amber entering, so it was like, "What the heck?" (Secretly, I didn't like the cover all that much, but a free book is a free book.) I never actually expected to win anything from it, so imagine my surprise when I checked my e-mail one Saturday to find out I'd won a free book!

Me! 

Or, more specifically, an advanced reading copy. But still. THIS WAS AWESOME!

It was the third in a series, and it was one of the books I'd entered for where I didn't really care about. 

But still. THIS WAS AWESOME!

I procrastinated promptly got the first two books on my Kindle, and started reading a few days later. 

Now, by the time I'd finished Spark I had already convinced myself I was in love with Gabriel Merrick, one of the twins that are a part of the Merrick brothers. I also just found out from my cousin that my copy of the third book had arrived and my mom had taken it to work with her. So naturally I was shaking and excited for my mom to get home and when she did, I immediately took the envelope the book had came in and tore the book out from it. I was that excited to read the book. 

I sat down and opened the cover. 

Immediately from the first page Hunter is in danger. 

To be honest? I thought it was boring. 

Blah. Who cares? I didn't. Of course the guy lives, because, come on, there are 360+ something pages left in the book. 

It went up and down from there for me. But mostly down. 

I liked Hunter in the first book, and I liked him even more in the second book. Everyone was always talking about how he couldn't be trusted, how he was so mysterious and how his allegiances were unclear, but honestly? I never saw it. He'd always seemed like a trustworthy guy to me, and nice, so I never got what the big deal was about. It's Hunter, and his goodness just was really apparent for me. 

But somehow this all went wrong in Spirit. For whatever reason, instead of  liking him more like everyone else probably did, I just started liking him less and less. I don't even clearly remember why, and I couldn't explain it to you, but there you have it. There was just something off about this book that I couldn't really digest. 

One of the reasons I didn't really like this book was Kate Sullivan. I tried to like her, I really did, but geez, this girl was like a Mary-Sue right from the start. As soon as you meet her she's described as stunningly gorgeous: short blonde hair down past her chin, luminous green eyes or whatever, perfect skin, and all that other good stuff. 

Wow. Another amazingly good-looking person in this series. That makes what, including Hunter and Becca, the Merrick Tribe, Layne, Hannah, ten? (But don't forget her "mentor" Silver, who's hotness personified to the power of infinity with a British accent, too! Never mind, the count goes up to eleven hot main characters. Am I being picky? Maybe. But I'm getting sick of all these "good-looking" people running around all in this one school--where are the average people who are cool too?)

Then of course Hunter is instantly attracted to her the moment he sees her in the counselor's office (which, by the way, he's in because of a certain threat named Calla, who isn't all that threatening). She makes eye contact with him. And she does nothing. Except ask him a question, or say something witty, or I don't know, it's pretty much all a blur whatever she does because it's anything but memorable to me.

Oh, ho ho! This girl is so honest and different, thinks Hunter. She's so blunt and straightforward, of course unlike any other girl he's ever met.

And I know that I am probably a die-hard romantic (I'll like pretty much anything with a romance traipsing in between its pages--give me a break), but honestly? Right now, I am so freaking sick of the "boy-meets-girl" set-up in every. Single. Book. I am so freaking sick of every book being told from the exact same viewpoints every time.

Storm--it barely even seemed like that at first. (It actually took me a while to realize that that one chapter from Chris was actually going to be a recurring thing--whoops. Slow reader alert.) Heck, it took me like 70% of the book to realize it was supposed to be regularly flipping between Chris's and Becca's points of view. 

Spark--I didn't even mind because Layne and Gabriel were so likable, to me. Plus, I didn't realize that this would be the entire setup for probably every other single book in the whole entire dang series (gleaning from what I've seen in Spirit, and reviews for the other short novellas in between the main three books).

This especially did not help considering I was tired of Kate. Right from the minute we first meet her, the first impression I got was "typical supposedly badass awesome hunter girl who's hotter than Angelina Jolie and Beyonce combined and more skill than Jackie Chan in all things physical, with a tragic boo-hoo sob story lurking behind her luminous eyes. Oh, yeah, and she doesn't mind sleeping around, either."

She hardly ever broke that cliche for me throughout the entire book, except for the occasional moments where she showed "Oh yeah, I do have a heart!" (Those few moments I could like her, but geez, the rest of the time...Nope, three or four acts of kindness isn't going to cut it.)

Maybe I was prejudiced or biased against her because of her looks (and her Mary-Sue tendencies *rolls eyes*) but geez. I just could not bring myself to like her that much no matter how much I tried.

In terms of plot, Spirit didn't accomplish much in the long-term goal of bringing down Calla and what-have-you (because honestly I have no idea what the point of this entire series is anymore). Oh yeah, wasn't it also about protecting the Merrick brothers from the Guides?

Because that was probably the point of this particular book, considering Kate is a Guide herself, along with Silver (by the way, with already like five people on the "fifth point of the star"--yes I've forgotten what they're called--I'm starting to think it's not really that rare after all). They're supposed to eradicate the Merrick brothers, and to do so they instill Kate inside the brothers' school and have her try to win them over.

Except she ends up involving herself more with Hunter than anything else, and she doesn't even go over to their house except for once or twice.

So where does this leave most of the book then? you ask. If the ultimate goal is to protect the Merrick brothers and stop Calla from starting all these fires, and that hardly ever happens, then how come there are 350+ pages in this book?

Let me tell you, you're not going to get much out of this except weird character development from Hunter (weird as in I somehow started liking him less), finding out more about his home situation, more character "development" from Kate (I still don't like her), and about a billion making out scenes between Hunter and Kate.

And to be honest, those are extremely boring for me. I don't like making out scenes in the first place, but I especially don't like it when the author uses pretty much the same exact wording for everything, for every couple. It just gets tiring and shows that yes, for each book there's going to be cut-out roles for a boy and a girl to fulfill, and yah, every kissing scene is going to end up in more hormonal angst that they can't just sleep together already and a lot of the same recycled adjectives.

I couldn't even count how many times the phrases "suddenly there was just too much clothes, and they were in the way," "fire was scorching," etc. were in this book and the last. I'm starting to think Brigid Kemerrer doesn't really know what she's doing.

Speaking of recycled phrases, when someone said "Michael's going to sh*t a brick if he finds out," I thought it was the funniest thing ever. I loved that phrase. I even made a mental note to remember it and use it for myself one day when I first saw it.

Turns out, I didn't need to, because every single characters uses "Oh noes, [Insert Name] is going to sh*t a brick!" Everyone. EVERYONE. I GOT SO SICK AND TIRED OF THIS PHRASE! It wasn't even funny anymore, and I'd loved it so much when I first saw it! Everyone pretty much talks the same way, uses the same sayings, etc.

Why can't you just use something else to describe someone is going to be really pissed off?! Every time you use a phrase to the point of death it loses its effectiveness!

So please, for the love of all things good and holy, STOP IT!

Everyone also says "God" way too much. Gah, I wish I could shovel a brick someone sh*tted out in the face of the person who next uses this word.

There was a scene where Hunter and Kate slept with each other (AFTER LESS THAN A WEEK OF KNOWING EACH OTHER AND AFTER SHE SUSTAINED A GRIEVOUS INJURY) and I just thought it was stupid considering yes, they hardly even knew each other. 

Also, there was a death at the end that was predictable and I really couldn't have cared less about. Boo-hoo.

To summarize, this book was a disappointment. I didn't like it that much. It was okay at best.

Shatter Me -- Taherah Mafi

Rating:✰✰✰✰

Let me start out by saying that I started reading this book expecting to hate it--I'd seen it before on my friend's favorite bookshelf and decided to check it out on Goodreads. I read a few reviews, and from what I saw, this book was awful. 

Like, honest-to-goodness awful. So bad it surpassed Fallen on the badness scale (or at least, I think that's how it went. Oh, and by the way, don't click on that link if you want to make sure you still have a decent amount of brain cells left). So I was bracing myself for the worst. 

Why, then, would I ever read this book?

Because on Tuesday my best friend took a while texting me back because she was reading Unravel Me, which she "really wanted to finish." The title sounded familiar to me and I guessed it was the sequel to Shatter Me, and as it turns out, I was right. When she was done, she said, "But now I have to wait for the freaking third book," and so of course I, being the totally great friend that I am, decided to share in her pain to make it less burdening. 

I told her I'd get the first book to read, and I did, that night. I read the first few lines thinking, "Meh," because I was so braced to hate this book to death and ready to start secretly thinking my friend has awful taste in books. 

But I didn't. 

I've been locked up for 264 days. 

 I have nothing but a small notebook and a broken pen and the numbers in my head to keep me company. 1 window. 4 walls. 144 square feet of space. 26 letters in an alphabet I haven't spoken in 264 days of isolation.

6,336 hours since I've touched another human being.  

Deer Lord, I thought, SPELL OUT YOUR FREAKING NUMBERS! I, personally, cannot stand it when, especially in books, people write out numbers in numerical form instead of "one," "two," "three," etc. It was like, geez, this book already got stupid.

I'd promised my friend I'd read it that night though, so I kept on.

 "You're getting a cellmate roommate," they said to me. 

"We hope you rot to death in this place For good behavior," they said to me.

 "Another psycho just like you No more isolation," they said to me. 

Uh, what the heck. How are you even supposed to read that?

This went on for maybe the first two, three pages on my Kindle, and then when Adam came into the scene/cell where Juliette is kept, I thought about how this was sort of ridiculous and hardly plausible and just why would that happen?

But, whatever. Like, that's my attitude to bits of the book now. Whatever. (Hench the lack of a five-star rating.)

I got used to the numbers after a while, and I actually got to start liking them. I like how they show how dependent Juliette is on numbers to provide her stability, how it shows her mindset and her need for some constant in her life, something solid. How she keeps track of them with an almost OCD-type of mindset to concentrate. Plus, since "1" and "2" are so much less common in books than "one" and "two," it makes you think of not just another word but a numerical value that has significance.

Juliette, to me, was a likable character. She had some stupid moments in the second book (but that's for another time) and possibly in the first that made me like her less, but as of right now I can't remember them. As the story progressed though she was often apologetic of her behavior, and she could recognize it as selfish or stupid. She's shown to be kind, not just through anecdotes from Adam (like how she helped out a girl in her fifth grade class who stood crying because she'd turned in a field trip slip too late and Juliette gave her her seat without even hesitating) where she's repeatedly throughout the years kind to other people even without receiving any acknowledgment or recognition for it, but through an example in the middle part of the book where she has to save a three-year old toddler from a hazard chamber. Her emotions and feelings just showed she cared about other people, and personally, I love heroines that are selfless and caring and I wish I could see more of them.

Adam was cute, and his big-brother-relationship with James was touching, as well as how deeply he cared for Juliette. Their love was buyable, and I liked how he described it as "because you're the only good thing left in the world."

Warner, who was supposed to be the antagonist, wasn't all that scary, admittedly, even when he killed a soldier without even flinching. Sorry, Warner, but you have a really cool name, so I root for you! (Even if you're a sick, sick person who enjoys torturing people and didn't care if a toddler died to help you do research, but my friend tells me you're amazing in the second book so that's softened my opinion of you. Lucky jerk.) To be honest, I spent most of the book wavering between "You are sick, twisted bastard" and "Poor Warner, he's probably got a sucky life and he might actually love Juliette." (Don't worry if you're wondering about my sanity, it mostly went back to the former.)


The plot was filled with plenty of action and romantic scenes, so I was content with both of those aspects of the book. Somehow the pacing seems slow and yet...fast, at the same time. Does that make sense? Probably not, but a lot happens and it somehow seems slow-going at the same time, so this actually works out pretty good for me. There's not a lot of time spent where Juliette does nothing, and things just seem to keep happening around the 70% mark of the book.

Also:

Kenji Kishimoto.

Freaking.

Kenji.

KENJI. I LOVE YOU SO MUCH! WHY CAN'T YOU BE REAL?

He's so upbeat, resilient, happy-go-lucky what have you and the best part is he's Japanese AND he's a buff soldier! (Also, he has this cool thing about him that I won't reveal to you, but it's cool. Trust me.)

He's so funny, sarcastic, witty, and his dialogue isn't too forced or overdone. It's just there. It's just him and who he is. Some guys, (read: Jace Wayland from The Mortal Instruments) the authors like to force on you that they're perfect, always oh-so-extremely-witty, and in an attempt to do this, it gets to be annoying because they always have to have something cool to say at inappropriate times. Their dialogue also gets longwinded because of this and in their attempt to be "cool"...Nah. You're just trying too hard.

Kenji, though? Please. Move over, Jace Waylands of the world, because this is how you get to be cool--by not trying.

He's amazing. I love him.

It's so adorable how he's protective of James, too, even though he just met him, and his voice is so refreshing to hear after all this long description from Juliette that makes you wonder if anyone in the world talks normal (they do, and you see that early on, but after reading a while from Juliette's prose you forget a lot).

I heard a complaint on Goodreads about how there's something racist that's mentioned about Kenji, and I just kept waiting to leap on the author and hate her for it because of it, but it never came until near the almost end of the book. And honestly? It wasn't even racist. Just dumb.

Kenji's last name is "Kishimoto," and according to a guy named Winston, it's "hard as hell" to pronounce, so they call him "Moto," which pisses Kenji off. I mean, seriously? Kishimoto is not hard to pronounce, even when it's written down, but especially when you say it out loud. My own last name is harder for me to pronounce (I'm also Asian, by the way). It's just stupid on Winston's part, and anyone else that does that, but not racist. I mean, come on, I bet no one would care if it was a white guy's last name, but as soon as it's a character of different ethnicity everyone gets their underwear all in a knot.

There are some things about the book that may turn readers off, though, and Juliette's prose is one of them. I like it most of the time, and yes, she does use a heck of a lot of metaphors all the time. Most of them are weird and admittedly, produce bad images (etc., the only one I can think of right now: "My stomach drops to my knees").

They can be overlooked though, and the rest of the prose is pretty easy to read for me. There's the run-on sentences that she has when she's panicked, but I find them expressive and effective, not annoying.

There are also some things that are questionable, like Juliette's reaction to Adam considering she hasn't seen a human in 264 days, how she's so mentally sound after being cooped up in solitary confinement for so long, how she regains her sanity so quickly, and how she can talk pretty normally to him for the first time after almost a year, but again, they can be overlooked.

Overall:

This was a great book for me, and I love it. I'm currently reading the sequel right now, and it's living up to the first book. I would recommend it, and I would even go so far as to also buy a physical copy of it :) 

Shiver -- Maggie Stiefvater

Rating: -✰✰✰

Copied from my review on Goodreads

This book sort of made me shiver. 

Okay, so maybe not "shiver" so much as "shudder," because seriously, this may just be the second-worst book I've ever read in my life. (The Worst Book in the World award goes to Gone by Michael Grant. Don't ever read this book. Ever. I wouldn't wish it onto my worst enemy.) 

To understand the enormity of this accomplishment for Shiver, you'd have to understand that I am not, in any way, shape, or form, hard on books. At all. I'll like anything. Seriously. I'll like trashy YA romance novels, I'll like books everyone else says it's cool to hate, I'll like anything that's popular but is apparently, really bad. 

I liked Halo. I liked Hush Hush, I liked Hades, I liked Heaven, I liked Twilight, Beautiful Creatures, Breaking Dawn, City of Bones--you get the gist. (A lot of people say these books are awful, but I liked them, okay?) 

The point is, I'm not harsh on books at all, and I am always, always, looking for things to like about a book. I'm always looking for the redeeming qualities in everything, because that's just who I am, too nice to give a harsh judgement or sound mean, even in the privacy of my own mind, blah blah. I'm even nice with rating. If it's really a one-star book in my opinion, I'll even bump the rating up to two stars. I'm the least observant reader out there, so if a fourteen-year old girl with the attention span of a gnat, the memory of a goldfish, and the observational depth of a slice of bread notices something wrong with a book, YOU BETTER FREAKING BELIEVE THERE IS SOMETHING WRONG WITH THAT BOOK! 

I really tried to like this book. I really did, for the sake of one of my best friends whose opinion I highly value and who very, very highly recommended this book. 

But did I?

Let me let Daniel Bryan, the ultimate Yes Guy, to do the talking:






I also don't write reviews for books, period. Ever. Zip. Nadda. But there was just so much going on in this book that I hated that I wrote this anyway (and admittedly I was spurred on by my other friend who said I should start writing reviews). 

Why do I dislike this book so much, you ask? 


A number of reasons. 

1. They all sound the same

And by "they," I mean Sam and Grace. Their voices. Were exactly. Identical. I could've been reading the whole story from Grace's OR Sam's point of view and I wouldn't even know. Without the chapter headings, I would've been totally and completely lost. Heck, even some of the side characters sounded the exact same as they did. 

You know why?

"God." 

"God, God, God, God, God, God, God, God." 

GEEZ. THIS IS WORSE THAN CITY OF BONES! 

Every. Other. Sentence was ended with, had, or began with, "God."

It's not because I'm Catholic, or religious, or even because I hate it when words are repeated too much. I usually don't mind. It's realistic. People say "God" all the time, especially when they don't know what to say, and I don't mind it even if I don't say it. Heck, I won't even mind if a word's repeated continuously to the point where it loses its effect. But come on. Seriously? All the characters said it all the damn time. Even freaking Beck did. Who does this? Why are all their speech patterns and behaviors the same? It was annoying to read, it got on my nerves, and it just further showed how Maggie Stiefvater CANNOT WRITE INDIVIDUAL CHARACTERS. 

By the first half of the book, I was ready to physically harm the heck out of whoever next said the Lord's name in vain. Like this:





Besides the above, their voices, how they described things, what they thought, were nearly identical. This does not make sense. Why does Sam sound like a teenage girl when he's practically aman? Others have commented on this before, and I never noticed it (oblivious reader here, dur hur hur), but what I did notice is that he and Grace have pretty much the exact same thoughts on everything. The only exception? Sam liked to add retarded song lyrics randomly when he felt like it. 

The only ones who didn't sound like an exact copy of everyone else were Olivia and Isabel (who were the only ones I liked), and of COURSE they get the least amount of screen time. 

2. The romance was unbelievable

...Not to mention creepy. 

We start off in the book with Grace getting mauled by wolves/Sam's pack, or whatever the heck is going on because even after re-reading it three times I still don't completely get it. (Call me stupid, call me slow, call me lame, but usually, it's the author's fault, not the reader's.) 

And then, a chapter later, we get treated to a summary of how Sam and Grace's wonderful epic awesome relationship advanced. 

Yep. You totally guessed it!

...Sam sometimes wanders by the woods in Grace's backyard, she watches out for him 24/7, and then, like. 

That's it. Literally. Sometimes she feeds him, she always refers to him as my wolf, and at first I'm like, "Okay, well, I get it, she's possessive of the wolf, that's fine. We form attachments to animals all the time."

And then one day in an event that I guess was supposed to be exciting, some dudes with rifles try to hunt the wolves, Sam gets shot and then he's bleeding and he's naked on Grace's porch, and she's like "OMG THIS IS MY WOLF GAIS HE IS SO HOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

And then, like, literally 15% into the book and literally the FIRST day they meet, Sam's already sleeping in Grace's bed, and she wants him to sleep near her. 

Wow. 

I don't care if you've been stalking this wolf for six years, I don't care that you think he's hot and sooooo cute, YOU JUST FOUND OUT HE WAS A FREAKING WEREWOLF AND YOU WANT TO SLEEP WITH HIM!

That is just weird. Okay? It's plain freaky, and no girl in her right mind would ever, ever do that. 



Grace and Sam proceed to display that they have no chemistry at all. Zilch. All the conversations between them seemed like rehearsed lines, mechanical, and just forced. I don't get why Grace and Sam "love" each other. I don't even get why they likeeach other. It wasn't even a gradual thing. One day they're sleeping in bed, the next, they kiss kiss kiss kiss and OMFG WE'RE IN LOVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

With no reasons whatsoever. Seriously? It was so random when they started declaring their love for each other. You knew it was coming because it's a YA romance, but you also didn't because there was no precedence for them to. You can argue that they've already "known" each other for six years, but that does NOT count because Sam was a freaking WOLF for those six years, and if Grace was developing romantic feelings for him at any time during that point, then Grace, you're a sick, crazy psychotic bitch and I have no desire whatsoever to know you. You're creepy. You're disgusting. Just...just get away. Seriously. You're freaking me out. 

Do you want to know the entire arc of their relationship?

Grace: Sleep with me.
Sam: No.
Grace: SLEEP WITH ME.
Sam: No...
Grace: SLEEP WITH ME IN MY BED RIGHT NOW!!!!
Sam: *sleeps as far away from Grace on the bed as possible*
Grace: FML.

Repeat for a few days. 

*Next Few Days*
Grace: Do you want to have sex?
Sam: No?
Grace: Let's have sex. 
Sam: No...?
Grace: It's so cute how you're unlike any other boy! But I really think we should sleep together.
Sam: No please...
(view spoiler)

3. The book was pointless

This coming from the girl who didn't mind reading Twilight and Halo. 

Confession? I love fluff. If there's fluff, to hell with the plot, because YAY! CUTE ROMANCE SCENES AND CUTE BOYS!

...No. There was like, dumb scenes with Grace and Sam, and I guess it was supposed to be cute, or show character development, but honestly?

It was just boring. 

Sam and Grace, in my mind, were flat cardboard cutouts with flat cardboard lives and flat cardboard interactions. The dialogue was stilted. 

Not "steamy," "cute," or what you'd expect of a YA novel, just...bland. It was random, unbelievable, just...ugh. There was no point whatsoever in this book. There was no plot. There was no suspense. It was just nothing after nothing after MORE NOTHING. 

I DIDN'T CARE ABOUT THAT DUMB CANDY SHOP OR THAT (view spoiler) OR (view spoiler).

This book was just weird with a capital W. What did happen gave you a "Wtf just happened/why is this happening" feel. 

Just...WHAT IS THE POINT OF THIS BOOK? 

4. The characters sucked

This is pretty much what I gleamed from the main characters by reading this book:

Grace: Hai, I'm Grace, I has the emotional capacity of a doorknob and I is horny for the wolfs!
Sam:: I like guitar chords and inserting random lyrics in to describe my life, also I luvs Grace and I want to stay a virgin wait no I don't wait yes I do WAIT GRACE DON'T LEAVE SLEEP IN BED WITH ME!!!!
Beck: I has square face and I like kidnapping kids to turn them into wolves to make sure my wolfie legacy survives!!!!!

There you have it ladies and gents, our supposed heroes of this supposed story. 

I tried to like Grace. I really did. I was okay with her at first, because hey, she has blonde hair and brown eyes, and I love characters that have blonde hair and brown eyes instead of the usual blonde-and-green-or-blue-eyes combo. I really, really like stoic characters.

But she was just a total bitch. All she cared about was Sam/"her wolf," and she was even angry at a supposed dead guy for dying in the forest because then it brought attention to the wolves there. 

Seriously? 

Seriously?

The dialogue for all these characters was stilted. It all felt artificial and fake, and NO teenagers talk like how they talk. 

5. Sam's nose is weird

Pretty much everyone else has said everything there is to say about the description of this book, but I will say this:

WHAT IS UP WITH SAM'S NOSE?!

Even with freaking descriptions, Stiefvater TELLS, and doesn'tshow.

I mean, Sam has an "interestingly shaped nose that no girl could pull off."

Okay. What does that tell us, though?

You know what, the whole time I was reading the book THIS is what I pictured Sam to look like: 



Enough said. 



The whole book was just...flat. Bland. Boring. It felt like I was reading a cereal box. And not even the fun, color-in-the-rabbit, make-your-own-rap-about-Trix, this-is-how-Kelloggs-came-to-be backs of cereal boxes. I mean the ingredients panel of the cereal box, the ones where they talk about all the preservatives, high fructose corn syrup, and Actually, you know what? I'd rather read that than this book. (Sorry for comparing you to this book, cereal box panels.) 

Don't read this book. Really, don't. It's a waste of time, effort, energy, and money. (This is big, because I don't ever not recommend books because we can all have different opinions on them. This book and Gone are the only books I would EVER recommend you not read, and believe me, it's for a good cause.) You'll cry and children will weep everywhere for all that time you could have spent doing your homework, researching the cure for cancer, and I dunno, playing with your cat. 



Ugh, I'm just...tired of this all. I don't have the energy to write out ALL the faults I had with this book, but hopefully you've been dissuaded from trying to read it. 

To summarize, like my friend said:

"This book is a fart and don't read it."