Mini-Review: "Stoked" by Lark O'Neal

The second, compelling chapter in the Going the Distance series. A novella of 100 pages. He never believed in love at first sight until he fell…. At the beginning of the summer, former Olympic hopeful Tyler Smith was knocked off his feet by Jess Donovan. Smart, beautiful, courageous—and dirt poor—she awakened his desire to be someone better than he is. The two found a rare and rich connection, but in a moment of bad judgment, Tyler nearly broke it all to pieces, forcing Jess to make a decision that would take her far away from him—and maybe build a brilliant new life for herself. Now he has a second chance to win her love…. When Tyler is handed an unexpected opportunity to earn her respect, and maybe his own, he’s ready to give it everything he’s got. Can he shed his demons and become the man she deserves? More urgently, can he do it in time? Because there might be another guy who would like to be Jess’s one and only…and that guy hasn’t spent a life time sabotaging everything good in his life. This novella is the second episode in Jess and Tyler's story. Read about how they met in RANDOM.

I was pretty excited to read "Stoked", as "Random" was one of my Top Ten New Adult Contemporary Reads from one of my Top Ten Tuesday posts.  I really enjoyed getting a look inside Tyler's mind and getting his point of view of some of the events from "Random".  But "Stoked" also carries on the story of Tyler and Jess, even though Jess is now in New Zealand and their relationship is somewhat undefined.  In "Random", I was a little unsure as to Tyler's motivations as far as Jess was concerned - did he really love her, or was he just playing her.  Now, after reading "Stoked", I felt that Jess was being a bit hard on him, and not forgiving enough.  So now I'm conflicted.  But I am definitely "Stoked" to read "Epic"!

My rating:

Review: "Going Long" by Ginger Scott

They fell in love in high school and found their way back to one another despite the odds. But can first loves really be forever? For Reed Johnson, the dream was always football. But then Nolan Lennox took over his heart. Is he willing to give up his first love just to keep his true love? Or will he be too late? Reed and Nolan’s story continues in "Going Long," sequel to "Waiting on the Sidelines."

Thank you to Netgalley and Ginger Scott for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this book.

"Going Long" is a follow-up to Ginger Scott's "Waiting on the Sidelines", which was one of my top ten reads of 2013.  I fell in love with Nolan and Reed in the first book, so I was pretty excited to see that I would have more of them in "Going Long".

Did "Going Long" live up to my expectations?  Not exactly.  This time around, we get to hear Reed's point of view as well as Nolan's, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.  But mainly I was just irritated with both characters in that they didn't COMMUNICATE with each other!!!  None of their problems would have happened if they'd just talked to each other!  Then I guess there'd be no book, either.  So, it's a bit of a conundrum.

Anyway, I still like Nolan, I still like Reed, and their friends and family are all great (well, except Reed's mom and brother, but they're the ones you love to hate!) and I'm really happy with the way things wrapped up.  So definitely a worthwhile read if you're a fan of "Waiting on the Sidelines".  

My rating: 

Review: "Endless" by Amanda Gray

Jenny Kramer knows she isn't normal. After all, not everybody can see the past lives of people around them. When she befriends Ben Daulton, resident new boy, the pair stumble on an old music box with instructions for “mesmerization” and discover they may have more in common than they thought. Like a past life. Using the instructions in the music box, Ben and Jenny share a dream that transports them to Romanov Russia and leads them to believe they have been there together before. But they weren't alone. Nikolai, the mysterious young man Jenny has been seeing in her own dreams was there, too. When Nikolai appears next door, Jenny is forced to acknowledge that he has travelled through time and space to find her. Doing so means he has defied the laws of time, and the Order, an ominous organization tasked with keeping people in the correct time, is determined to send him back. While Ben, Jenny and Nikolai race against the clock - and the Order - Jenny and Nikolai discover a link that joins them in life - and beyond death.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this novel.

"Endless" started out strong - I was involved, enjoying both Jenny and Ben, liking the reincarnation piece.  But as the book progressed, I started to lose momentum, and I think the main reason was Nikolai.  There is nothing to dislike about him, but there's also nothing to draw me to him either.  He was a bit too perfect, the cookie cutter hero, and really lacked personality.  Usually, with love triangles, I'm rooting for the person the protagonist will ultimately end up with, but  in this case, I was really hoping Jenny would see the light and end up with Ben, the guy who actually has some depth and dimension.

If you're interested in Romanov, history, I don't think "Endless" will satisfy your curiosity.  This aspect of the story is not fleshed out in any great detail.  I also feel a bit disillusioned with the whole time travel thing.  Maybe it was all a bit much, you know - either stick with time travel, reincarnation, or freaky, seeing-into-the-past-through-physical-contact powers, but not all three.

So when all is said and done, "Endless" was just okay for me.  It definitely didn't leave a lasting impression.

My rating: 2.5 stars

Review: "Easy" by Tammara Webber

Rescued by a stranger. Haunted by a secret Sometimes, love isn’t easy… He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became her savior… The attraction between them was undeniable. Yet the past he’d worked so hard to overcome, and the future she’d put so much faith in, threatened to tear them apart. Only together could they fight the pain and guilt, face the truth—and find the unexpected power of love. A groundbreaking novel in the New Adult genre, Easy faces one girl's struggle to regain the trust she's lost, find the inner strength to fight back against an attacker, and accept the peace she finds in the arms of a secretive boy.

Although I've read this book before, I wanted to see if my opinion had changed in the last year and a half since I first read it.  For the most part, "Easy" is a really good read, but I'm not sure what exactly is keeping it from being a "great" read or a "fantastic" read for me.  Here's a couple things I did notice that maybe could have been done better:

• Although Jacqueline is characterized as being this wonderful musician, we are hardly shown that at all.  I think she plays her bass twice in the whole book.  Give me a few more details, please!
• Lucas is soooooooo good at everything!  He's good at economics, engineering, drawing, martial arts...He's a little too good to be true, so awesome I can't even believe it.  And if there is a guy like that in the world, what's he doing with Jacqueline when he could be with me?  (Husband, if you're reading this, I'm just kidding!)  But really, I could do with a few flaws, even one, just to make him more real.
• I had a hard time believing the villain's motivation, especially at the end.  I don't want to give anything away, but something happens that seemed just way too far fetched.

So these are just a few of my nitpicky things, but "Easy" is definitely worth a read, especially if you're looking to read something from the New Adult genre.

My rating: 3.5 stars

I really need to get me a graphic with half stars!

Review: "Caught" by Lisa Moore

Caught begins with a prison break. Twenty-five-year-old David Slaney, locked up on charges of marijuana possession, has escaped his cell and sprinted to the highway. There, he is picked up by a friend of his sister’s and transported to a strip bar where he survives his first night on the run. But evading the cops isn’t his only objective; Slaney intends to track down his old partner, Hearn, and get back into the drug business. Along the way, Slaney’s fugitive journey across Canada rushes vibrantly to life as he visits an old flame and adopts numerous guises to outpace authorities: hitchhiker, houseguest, student, lover. When finally he reunites with Hearn just steps ahead of a detective hell-bent on making a high-profile arrest, their scheme sends Slaney to Mexico, Colombia, and back again on an epic quest fueled by luck, charm, and unbending conviction. Moore's most plot-driven novel to date, Caught is a thrillingly charged escapade that thrums with energy and suspense and deftly captures a moment in the late 1970s before the almost folkloric glamour surrounding pot smuggling turned violent. Ripe with bravado, love, ambition, and folly, Caught is about trust and deceit, about the risks we take for the lives we want and the mistakes we can’t outrun.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this novel.

Oops.  I did it again.  I decided to read a book simply because I liked the cover and the fact it was nominated for a prestigious award.  Sometimes this type of novel works for me - I like it and enjoy the reading experience.  Other times, as was the case with "Caught", I find myself slogging through and forcing myself to finish.

One thing that irritated me to no end was the lack of punctuation!  Why do authors do this?  So many times I had to reread passages in order to figure out who was talking, or if they were speaking out loud or merely thinking.  It's not that I can't figure this stuff out, it's that I don't want to!  After a long day of work and family obligations, the last thing I need or want to do is try to figure out what's going on in my supposed leisure reading.  Ugh, I left that behind in University.

I suppose I should write something about the characters, but the only one I remember anything about is David Slaney.  He's young, handsome, and charismatic, but he makes the stupidest decisions, so he's pretty hard to feel sympathetic towards.  Of course there are other characters, like Patterson, the undercover guy trying to take down the whole operation, but again, I didn't really get attached to him.  

Yeah, I don't know.  Not much of a review, but that's all I've really got to say about this book.  Good luck with it if you decide to give it a read.

My rating:

Review: "Don't Even Think About It" by Sarah Mlynowski

We weren't always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn't expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper. Since we've kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what's coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same. So stop obsessing about your ex. We're always listening.

Thank you to Netgalley and Delacorte Press for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this book.

I kind of want to call this book cute, but that would make it sound pretty juvenile, which it wasn't.  Although the premise was rather fantastical - kids from one homeroom developing ESP as a result of a tainted flu vaccine - the characters themselves seemed authentic and realistic.  I know I am far from my teen years, but I could still relate.

Each character is unique, and we get to know some of them more than others, but given that there are 22 of them, this is probably a good thing.  We've got the power couple, the brainiac, the shy girl, and the guy whose thoughts are overly preoccupied with sex.  There's a jock, the twins, and a couple others thrown in for good measure.  But since the story is told from a collective POV, it is difficult to connect deeply to any of the characters, and this is one area I felt could have been improved.  Still, overall a good read, fun and light.

My rating: 

  

Review: "Jagged" by Kristen Ashley

An old flame rekindled . . . Zara Cinders always knew Ham Reece was the one, but he wasn't interested in settling down. When she found someone who was, Ham walked out of her life. Three years later, Zara's lost her business, her marriage, and she's barely getting by in a tiny apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. As soon as Ham hears about Zara's plight, he's on her doorstep offering her a lifeline. Now, it will take every ounce of will power she possesses to resist all that he offers. Ham was always a traveling man, never one to settle down in one town, with one woman, for more time than absolutely necessary. But Ham's faced his own demons, and he's learned a lot. About himself, and about the life he knows he's meant to live. So when he hears that Zara's having a rough time, he wants to be the one to help. In fact, he wants to do more than that for Zara. A lot more. But first, he must prove to Zara that he's a changed man.

Thank you to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review an ARC of this novel.

I was really excited to read this because I've heard great things about this author, but I'm feeling a little underwhelmed at the moment.  I like the fact that Ham and Zara are ordinary people with ordinary jobs, and I like the setting of Gnaw Bone, a small town in the Colorado Rockies.  What's got me flummoxed is the dialogue!  Do people really talk that way?  Is it a Colorado thing?  Ham sounds like a Neanderthal, which I suppose goes with his persona, but still, not a guy I would be attracted to.  Are all of Kristen Ashley's characters like this?  I sure hope not!

I found this book easy to put down, and once it was out of sight, it was definitely out of mind.  In consequence, it seemed to take me forever to finish it.  As the book progressed, I started to get used to the writing style, but I wouldn't say I warmed up to it.  The characters were memorable, but only because I've never read characters who speak in quite that manner.  There was a bit of action, but honestly, nothing to write home about.  Overall, I'm rather disappointed, but maybe that's because my expectations were so high. 

My rating:  2.5 stars