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: 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: 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. 

Book Review: The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle

The Accident Season by Moira Fowley-Doyle / ★★★★☆

Summary: Every October Cara and her family become inexplicably and unavoidably accident-prone. Some years it’s bad, and some years it’s just a lot of cuts and scrapes. This accident season is going to be a bad one. Cara is about to learn that not all the scars left by the accident season are physical: There’s a long-hidden family secret underneath the bumps and bruises.

It’s the accident season, the same time every year. Bones break, skin tears, bruises bloom. 

Book Review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi (The Star-Touched Queen #1) / ★★★☆☆

Summary: Maya is cursed with a future marriage destined for death and destruction. When her father’s attempt to marry her off turns into something more dastardly, she runs away with with the  trustworthy Amar and soon finds herself the Queen of Akaran- an empty place full of locked doors and a voice that calls to her.

Although I had never envisioned marriage, I had thought of love. Not the furtive love I heard muffled in the corners or rooms of some of the harem wives. What I wanted was a connection, a shared heartbeat that kept rhythm across oceans and worlds. Not some alliance cobbled out of war. I didn’t want the prince from the folktales or some milk-skinned, honey-eyed youth who said his greetings and proclaimed his love in the same breath. I wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as the marrow in my bones.

Book Review: Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Renegades by Marissa Meyer (Renegades #1) / ★★☆☆☆

Summary: The Renegades protect their society from danger and the villains who once ruled the city- the Anarchists. Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice—and in Nova. But Nova’s allegiance is to a Anarchist who has the power to end them both.

She lifted the stun gun, but…who was she supposed to aim at? Was she a Renegade today, or an Anarchist? Who was she supposed to be protecting? Who was she supposed to stop?

Book Review: All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

All The Bright Places by Jennifer Niven / ★★★☆☆

Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and is constantly dreaming up different ways of killing himself. Violet Markey just wants to get through life after the loss of her sister. They meet on the ledge of a bell tower.

It’s my experience that people are a lot more sympathetic if they can see you hurting, and for the millionth time in my life I wish for measles or smallpox or some other easily understood disease just to make it easier on me and also on them.

Book Review: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater / ★★★★☆

Summary: On the island of Thisby, every November riders compete in the Scorpio Races, a deadly race on man-eating water horses. Sean Kendrick, a man bound to another man’s business and whose own father was killed in the races, is the returning champion. Puck Connolly enters in a desperate attempt to keep her brother from leaving- and volunteers on her land horse.

This time of year, I live and breathe the beach. My cheeks feel raw with the wind throwing sand against them. My thighs sting from the friction of the saddle. My arms ache from holding up two thousand pounds of horse. I have forgotten what it is like to be warm and what a full night’s sleep feels like and what my name sounds like spoken instead of shouted across yards of sand.

Book Review: Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows

Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)/ ★★★★☆

Summary: Mira Minkoba is the Hopebearer, and the treaty that brings peace to the Fallen Isles, her home, is named after her, and she’s spent her whole life serving it. When Mira discovers a secret that gets her sent to prison by the very people she’s spent her life serving, she’s put to the test by a guard who will do anything to find out what it is she knows.

I was in control of me. No matter how much others insisted, they did not direct my arms and legs. They did not determine what words came out of my mouth. The only reason they’d succeeded for so long was because I’d let them.