Book Review: The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang

The Poppy War by R.F. Kuang / ★★★★☆

Summary: Rin defies the odds and passes the Keju, a prestigious test that gets her a spot in Sinegard, the nation’s most prestigious military school in the nation. From there, she continues to work her way to the top and discovers she is capable of things beyond what she thought possible. When a terrible war against a nearby country begins, Rin is pulled into something more deadly than she ever would have expected, and goes to impossible lengths to avenge her people.

I have become something wonderful, she thought. I have become something terrible.

Book Review: The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis

The Female of the Species by Mindy McGinnis / ★★★★1/2

Summary: Three years ago, when her older sister, Anna, was murdered and the killer walked free, Alex uncaged the language she knows best—the language of violence. While her own crime goes unpunished, Alex knows she can’t be trusted among other people. Not with Jack, the star athlete who wants to really know her but still feels guilty over the role he played the night Anna’s body was discovered. And not with Peekay, the preacher’s kid with a defiant streak who befriends Alex while they volunteer at an animal shelter. Not anyone.

Because there are others like him still. Tonight they used words they know, words that don’t bother people anymore. They said bitch. They told another girl they would put their dicks in her mouth. No one protested because this is our language now. But then I used my words, strung in phrases that cut deep, and people paid attention; people gasped. People didn’t know what to think.

My language is shocking.

Book Review: Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton

Social Creature by Tara Isabella Burton / ★★★★☆

Summary: Louise is a broke writer trying to survive in New York City when she meets the wealthy, vivacious, larger-than-life Lavinia. Louise wants to be Lavinia’s best friend, she wants to have what she has, and she wants to be her, and the two strike up a friendship, which evolves into something all-encompassing, intoxicating, and tragic.

It didn’t matter if you weren’t special, she’d say, or even if you weren’t pretty, not even by the standards of Devonshire, New Hampshire, as long as you wanted it badly enough. The city would swoop you up and carry you skyward to all your vaulted aspirations; every single party on every single night in that whole, glistening, glaring city would make you feel like you were the only person in the world, and also the most special, and also the most loved. 

Review: Wires and Nerve by Marissa Meyer & Douglas Holgate

Wires and Nerve by Marissa Meyer and Douglas Holgate (Wires and Nerve, Volume 1) / ★★★★☆

Summary: When rogue packs of wolf-hybrid soldiers threaten the tenuous peace alliance between Earth and Luna, Iko takes it upon herself to hunt down the soldiers’ leader. She is soon working with a handsome royal guard who forces her to question everything she knows about love, loyalty, and her own humanity.

Book Review: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

 

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid / ★★★★★

Movie star Evelyn Hugo is finally ready to tell the story of her life, of her rise to fame and fortune, and of her seven marriages. She chooses unknown journalist Monique Grant to do the job, and no one is more surprised than Monique herself. As Evelyn’s story unravels, however, the connection between them begins to unravel, in a story of tragedy and love.

Movie stars are movie stars are movie stars. Sure, we all fade after a while. We are human, full of flaws like anyone else. But we are the chosen ones because we are extraordinary.

Book Review: Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli

Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli (Creekwood #2) / ★★★★☆

Leah Burke is in her senior year of high school, and she’s not very good with goodbyes, with interpreting the intentions of others, and dealing with her own problems most of the time. So when her friend group starts to rupture with fighting, breakups, and college decisions, Leah’s anxiety runs high. Especially when she realizes she might be in love with one of them.

It’s strange, because good-byes are a thing that I can understand intellectually, but they almost never feel real. Which makes it hard to brace for impact. I don’t know how to miss people when they’re standing right in front of me. 

Book Review: This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab

This Savage Song by Victoria Schwab (Monsters of Verity #1)/ ★★★ 1/2

Kate Harker and August Flynn are the heirs to a divided city—a city where the violence has begun to breed actual monsters. All Kate wants is to be as ruthless as her father, who lets the monsters roam free and makes the humans pay for his protection. All August wants is to be human, as good-hearted as his own father, to play a bigger role in protecting the innocent—but he’s one of the monsters.

It was a cruel trick of the universe, thought August, that he felt human only after doing something monstrous. 

Book Review: The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah

The Great Alone by Kristin Hannah / ★★★★☆

Summary: Leni Allbright’s father, a restless and violent former POW in the Vietnam war, likes to move their family around the country, and is never able to hold a job for long. When they end up in Alaska, it’s just remote and wild enough to seem like the perfect resting place- until winter comes, and Leni learns what it means to be  truly resilient, for both herself and her mother.

Leni had seen all of this before. Ultimately, it didn’t matter what she or Mama wanted. 

Dad wanted a new beginning. Needed it. And Mama need him to be happy.

So they would try again in a new place, hoping geography would be the answer. They would go to Alaska in search of a new dream. Leni would do as she was asked and do it with a good attitude. She would be the new girl in school again. Because that was what love was.  

Book Review: The Broken Girls by Simone St. James

The Broken Girls by Simone St. James / ★★★★☆

Summary: In 1950, Idlewild Hall boarding school is a place for girls no one wants. There, Katie, CeCe, Sonia, and Roberta band together in misery, fear and close friendship until one of them mysteriously disappears. In 2014, sixty four years later, Fiona is determined to finally put together the pieces of how her older sister was murdered and dumped on the old, abandoned grounds of Idlewild Hall. Meanwhile, a mysterious figure looms in the background…

The police don’t have all the answers, and neither does the government. The people are where you find things. Like those records you just found. The people are the ones who keep the memories and the records the powers that be would rather erase. 

Book Review: Warcross by Marie Lu

Warcross by Marie Lu (Warcross #1) / ★★★ 1/2

Summary: Emika Chen is drowning in debt when she accidentally glitches herself into the opening tournament of the biggest game in the world, Warcross. Convinced she’s about to be arrested, a bigger shock comes when she receives a phone call by the game’s creator, Hideo Tanaka, asking her to spy on the inside of the game this year instead.

Imagine wandering through the most realistic virtual Paris ever, or lounging in a full simulation of Hawaii’s beaches. Imagine flying through a fantasy world of dragons and elves. Anything.