Review: No One Needs to Know by Amanda Grace

Released: September 8, 2014
Publisher: Flux

Series: NA
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
Page Amount: 240
Age Group: Young Adult

Sometimes, the cost of love is too steep 

Olivia's twin brother, Liam, has been her best friend her whole life. But when he starts dating, Olivia is left feeling alone, so she tries to drive away Liam's girlfriends in an effort to get her best friend back. 

But she meets her match in Zoey, Liam's latest fling. A call-it-like-she-sees-it kind of girl, Zoey sees right through Olivia's tricks. What starts as verbal sparring between the two changes into something different, however, as they share their deepest insecurities and learn they have a lot in common. Olivia falls for Zoey, believing her brother could never get serious with her. But when Liam confesses that he's in love with Zoey, Olivia has to decide who deserves happiness more: her brother or herself?

I was instantly intrigued by the idea of this storyline because I have read very few books dealing with LGBTQ protagonists. I have read a few where some of the side characters were gay, but I can't think of any main characters. Sadly, I was pretty disappointed. The relationship between Olivia and Zoey came extremely abruptly, without warning (other than previously knowing what the book was about). If I were to go into this book blind, without seeing a cover or anything, I would have never known that there was growing feelings between the two before the climax of their romance.

This book is short, and I think that it could have used at least a good 100 more pages. The story could have used a lot more development.

Although the story development let me down, the character development was brilliant. All of the characters in this novel grew as people (in a good way) and were a lot stronger characters by the end of the book. A lot of them came to their senses, because they were all pretty immature at the beginning of this novel.

I do have to say, I was fond of the moments when the novel took place at the lake house. I expected more of the book to take place there, considering the cover, but sadly only a small section of the novel took place at the lake house, and those were my favourite parts. I have a fond connections to lakes and I enjoy reading books where characters are having fun at a lake.

Although I had a few key issues with this novel, it was a fun quick read, and I really did enjoy reading it. I read it in about a 6-hour time period, in one sitting. I needed a cute contemporary read but it wasn't exactly what I was looking for, but it wasn't bad.

Review: Thirty Sunsets by Christine Hurley Deriso

Released: July 8th, 2014
Publisher: Flux
Series: NA
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
Page Amount: 240
Age Group: Young Adult

To Forrest Shephard, getting away to the family's beach house with her parents and her brother, Brian, is the best part of every summer. Until this year, when her mother invites Brian's obnoxious girlfriend, Olivia, to join them. Suddenly, Forrest's relaxing vacation becomes a mission to verify the reality of Olivia's rumoured eating disorder. But the truth behind Olivia's finicky eating isn't at all what Forrest expected. And over the next thirty days, Forrest's world is turned upside down as her family's darkest secrets begin to come to light.

*I received a free e-copy of this novel from Netgalley in exchange for a honest, unbiased review.*

Considering that this book is not too lengthy, and I read it over Dewey's 24 hr readathon, I will begin this review by saying that this book was not a difficult read at all. I did enjoy it, however I did have a few issues with the story and the context in it.

Firstly, this novel is by no means a fluffy contemporary read. This is not a stereotypical romance, which is what I got the impression when I first went into the story completely blind, and is why I actually chose to read it in the first place. This book deals with many dark themes, one of them being eating disorders. In my opinion, they dealt with these themes extremely dismissively. The topic was there, and then the next paragraph it was gone and the protagonist was going off about something else. I did not appreciate that about the novel, especially since the themes are no joke and should have been taken more seriously than they were.

I did not find very many characters in this novel appealing. I found Forrest to be immature, and in the beginning of the novel she didn't even make an effort to act nice to her brother's girlfriend. I mean, come on, is it that hard to play nice every once in awhile? Also, she was so dependent on this one specific character in the novel, who, may I add, she had only met with a few select times during the entire novel. I could understand it a little bit, but it got so extreme that to a point it just got irritating.

While I did have some major issues with this book, I wouldn't say that I didn't enjoy reading it. I really did, and it was a nice book to have a breather with during the 24 hour readathon. I just wish that some things would have been fixed that weren't, but overall I did enjoy this book.

Mid-Year Reading Goals Update

I cannot believe that it is July already! This means that I am going to update you guys on my reading challenges and the progress (or lack thereof) that I have made with these challenges. You may have remembered that I made an entire post at the beginning of the year stating all of the challenges that I was going to try to do throughout the year, and here is my progress...

50 Book Challenge:
As I am writing this, I have read 32 books total so far this year. That means that I am 8 books ahead of where I should be and I am proud of that! I'm actually hoping to finish off my 50 books by the end of the summer, but we'll see how that one goes!

Dystopia Reading Challenge:
I challenged myself to read 6 dystopian books this year, and as of now I have read 4. I'm happy with my progress and this hopefully means that I can bump up my goals after this quarter!

Rewind Challenge:
Looking back on this, I'm not sure why I decided to put my goals for this challenge so low. I challenged myself to read 5 rewind books... and I have read 20. I am bumping my goal up to 30 books for this challenge because of my progress!

Series Challenge:
For this challenge, I mark myself a little differently than the original rules state. I mark every book that is within a series. I have read 14 books in series this year thus far (completing 2 series so far). I am not going to bump this goal up any further as I am happy with my progress.

Back to Classics Challenge:
This challenge... I have abandoned. I only have completed one book off my list so I made the decision not to continue the challenge.

So far I am extremely happy with my progress and I am excited to see what the next half of the year is going to bring me!

Review: The Voice Inside My Head by S.J. Laidlaw

Released: March 11, 2014
Publisher: Tundra Books
Series: NA
Star Rating: 3 out of 5
Page Amount: 256
Age Group: Young Adult

A fast-paced mystery, The Voice inside My Head is expected to be a commercial success and a hit with teens.      Seventeen-year-old Luke's older sister, Pat, has always been his moral compass, like a voice inside his head, every time he has a decision to make. So when Pat disappears on a tiny island off the coast of Honduras and the authorities claim she's drowned - despite the fact that they can't produce a body - Luke heads to Honduras to find her because he knows something the authorities don't. From the moment of her disappearance, Pat's voice has become real, guiding him to Utila, where she had accepted a summer internship to study whale sharks. Once there, he meets several characters who describe his sister as a very different girl from the one knows. Does someone have a motive for wanting her dead? Determined to get to the bottom of Pat's disappearance, Luke risks everything, including his own life, to find the answer.

I was intrigued by the plot of The Voices Inside My Head for many reasons. First of all, it is a young adult murder mystery, which is a subplot that I haven't explored much of. Also, it takes place on the island of Honduras, and I like reading novels that don't take place in America because it gives a new scenery. Unfortunately, this book fell a little short for me. 

First of all, I found the protagonist, Luke, annoying. At some points in the novel, he was obsessed with finding his sister and finding out what happened to her on this mysterious island. And then he will do a complete 360 and start obsessing over drugs, alcohol or Reesie. This really got on my nerves because I couldn't see Luke's rational at certain times in the book. All of the other characters fell flat for me. I didn't have one character that I really enjoyed reading about, all of them were just meh for me. I typically can find at least one character that I end up really liking/loving, but not in this novel. All of the main characters were flat and one-dimensional, and all of the relationships were extremely sudden and didn't have a rhyme or reason to them. This made the book unrealistic, in my opinion. You wouldn't just automatically befriend some random drunk on the boat to the island, would you?

Also, as much as I found the plot intriguing, it was extremely unrealistic. Honestly, this type of investigation between three teenagers would not occur in real life. Sure, it was fast-paced and enjoyable, but extremely unrealistic.

I really enjoyed the setting of this novel. I had the opportunity to go to Honduras on my first cruise that I went on a few years back, but unfortunately it was raining so hard that I couldn't go and explore. Like I mentioned before, not very many novels take place outside the United States so it was refreshing to read a novel that was set on a Caribbean island (especially since the area is one of my favourites).

Overall, this book was enjoyable but nothing that I will remember for the rest of my life. It wouldn't be a book that would automatically come to mind when recommending books to people. It was just... meh. That's the best way to explain how I felt about this novel.

Bout of Books 10.0 WRAP UP

Books completed: 

- Fever by Lauren DeStefano

- No One Needs to Know by Amanda Grace

- The Voices Inside My Head by S.J. Laidlaw

- Sever by Lauren DeStefano

- Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

- Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn

- Me Before You by JoJo Moyes

Books Started: 

The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons

Total pages read: 2,176

Total Page GOAL: 2,000 (COMPLETED)

Thoughts/Notes: Bout of Books was a success! My goal for the week was to finish 5 books and I ended up finishing 5 books, and I surpassed that by 2 books! I also achieved my goal of 2,000 pages with some to spare. I was able to eliminate a lot of books off my TBR pile this week and will be continuing doing that in this upcoming week because I am participating in another read-a-thon!

How was your reading week? Did you hit your goals? Tell me all about it!

Bout of Books 10.0 DAY 3 + 4 Update! I HIT ONE OF MY GOALS

Day # 2

Currently reading: 

- The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons (Started readathon @ page 327, those pages will NOT be counted towards my page goal) CURRENTLY ON PAGE 350

- Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn CURRENTLY ON PAGE 48

Books completed: 

- Fever by Lauren DeStefano

- No One Needs to Know by Amanda Grace

- The Voices Inside My Head by S.J. Laidlaw

- Sever by Lauren DeStefano

- Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

Pages read since last update: 376

Total pages read: 1,685

Total Page GOAL: 2,000 (84% complete)

Thoughts/Notes: I hit my goal of reading 5 books this week! I am extremely proud of myself, because this is a lot better than I did at the YearAThon last week. I decided to put these two updates together because I missed yesterday's. I though I had read a lot more pages than I actually did, but I'm still proud of myself because I managed to finish a book and hit one of my goals. The next goal that I am hoping to hit is the 2.000 page goal, which I am well on my way to achieving.

Bout of Books 10.0 DAY 2 UPDATE + Books I'm Looking Forward To!

Day # 2

Currently reading: 

- The Summer Garden by Paullina Simons (Started readathon @ page 327, those pages will NOT be counted towards my page goal) CURRENTLY ON PAGE 350

- Hopeless by Colleen Hoover CURRENTLY ON PAGE 78

- Sharp Objects by Gillian Flynn CURRENTLY ON PAGE 16

Books completed: 

- Fever by Lauren DeStefano

- No One Needs to Know by Amanda Grace

- The Voices Inside My Head by S.J. Laidlaw

- Sever by Lauren DeStefano

Pages read since last update: 273

Total pages read: 1,325

Total Page GOAL: 2,000 (66% complete)

Thoughts/Notes: Today wasn't nearly as good as yesterday, but I did get a lot done! I finished my fourth book, SEVER by Lauren DeStefano, which means that I am only one book away from my 5 book goal. This means I may be upping that goal, but I'm not sure if I am going to be doing that yet. I will see when/if I hit the 5 book goal, because I'm still not sure what school is going to be like this week. At this rate, I honestly don't think that my goal is unrealistic! 

Books I'm Looking Forward To!

Today's challenge is to list some titles that I am looking forward to reading! For this, I decided to make a list of books that are high on priority to buy right now. These are the titles that I am most likely to put into my Amazon cart next! I have also linked the Goodreads page in case you would like to check these books out.

• Noggin by John Corey Whaley
• To All The Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
• Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
• Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira
• Dorothy Must Die by Danielle Page

Did you do a Bout of Books update post? Leave it below!