Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Dash & Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Publisher : Knopf

Pages :  260

Series : N/A

Rating: 3/5

I've left some clues for you.

If you want them, turn the page.

If you don't, put the book back on the shelf, please.

So begins the latest whirlwind romance from the bestselling authors of Nick & Norah's Infinite Playlist.  Lily has left a red notebook full of challenges on a favorite bookstore shelf, waiting for just the right guy to come along and accept it's dares.  But is Dash that right guy? Or are Dash and Lily only destined to trade dares, dreams, and desires in the notebook they pass back and forth at locations across New York?  Could their in-person selves possible connect as well as their notebook versions?  Or will they be a comic mismatch of disastrous proportions.

In Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares, when Dash looks up his favorite author he is surprised to discover a red moleskin notebook hidden away.  He is ever more surprised to find dares in the notebook.  These dares lead him to picking up books like The Joys of Gay Sex and Fat Hoochie Prom Queen.  Once he’s finished the dares he leaves the mysterious Lily with a dare of his own creation.  Soon Dash and Lily are trading dares and learning about each other.  But will their romance work in real life or is it restricted to the written word?

This is only one adjective to describe this book, adorable.  That one word perfectly sums up how I felt about this book.  It wasn’t sexy, hot, fantastic, amazing or cute, it was adorable.

Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares was much more innocent and contained then Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist.  In my mind, Nick & Norah’s is a huge rollercoaster that you rip right through with lots up ups and downs and circles where as Dash & Lily’s is more like the Jungle Cruise ride at Disneyland, calm, serene, thought provoking, and has a few surprises.

By far my favorite aspect of Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares was the setting.  I loved the feeling of Christmas time in New York, especially because you get to see it through two very different sets of eyes, Lily who loves Christmas and Dash who couldn’t care less.  I loved everything from the Santa at Macys to the street of crazy decorated houses.

In the end, I liked Dash & Lily but didn’t fall in love with it.  It was adorable and real, everything it should be but it was missing the spunk I’d be expecting from Rachel Cohn and David Levithan.  If you’re looking for a cute, young novel, give Dash & Lily’s Book of Dares a try.

Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker

Small Town Sinners by Melissa Walker
Publisher : Bloomsbury

Pages :  273

Series : N/A

Rating: 2/5

     Sometimes you just know everything is about to change.  That you'll finally get your own moment in the spotlight.  This is that year for perennial good girl Lacey Anne Byer.
     With her driver's license in hand, Lacey has a little freedom from her protective parents now - or at lease more than she had before.  And as a junior, she is eligible to try out for a starring role in Hell House, her church's annual Haunted House of sin.  But it turns out Lacey doesn't need to play a role to have her moment.  What she needs is Ty Davis.  He's smart, cute, and best of all, new.  He doesn't know sweet, shy, good girl Lacey Anne.  With Ty, Lacey could reinvent herself and maybe get her first boyfriend.
     As her feelings for Ty grow, and conflicts surrounding Hell House intensify, Lacey finds reason to test her own boundaries - to question the faith she's always known to be absolute.

Small Town Sinners is the tale of Lacey Anne Byer who lives in the small town of West River.  Lacey’s Christian upbringing and pastor father have cemented her as the good girl in town.  Then she meets the new guy, Ty Davis.  Ty is perfect boyfriend material in Lacey’s mind.  The only thing standing in the way is Ty’s persistence of making Lacey think with her own words.  Ty, and other events, are making Lacey question her faith.  Suddenly Lacey has changed from seeing the world in black and white (right and wrong) to varying shades of gray.  What will this church girl do when forced to think about abortion, teen pregnancy, bullying and drunk driving without the input of faith?

I don’t know if I’m right but I keep coming back to the fact in my mind that I wasn’t raised in a faith driven house hold.  I have no idea what Lacey is going through, I can’t relate.  Therefore, I want to read about extremes.  I want to be told that growing up Christian is worse than growing up like I did.  I want to see the problems and I found the normalcy in Small Town Sinners tedious and boring.  I wanted Lacey to fight back and rebel because I would have found it interesting, not because it would help her character grow.  I don’t know if this is a hurtle I’ll ever be able to overcome but it definitely stopped me from enjoying Small Town Sinners.

Even with my own mental road block I still found Small Town Sinners okay.  I loved the exploration of Hell Houses.  Before I’d read this book I had no idea what a Hell House was. (A Hell House is like a haunted house but they scare you with grossly hyperbolized images the church believes are wrong.  For example in Small Town Sinners one scene in the Hell House is a Gay Marriage where after getting married one of the husbands dies of AIDS and it is implied that only gay sex results in AIDS.)  I found the whole idea of a Hell House shocking and at times unbelievable.  I wish the topic and the rights and wrongs of it had been explored in more depth.

Overall, I found Small Town Sinners to be an okay read.  I wish I could say it was fantastic and made me question my own morals but it really didn’t.  If you’ve read Small Town Sinners and were left with a different opinion, let me know! I want to know what others thought about this book.

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan

Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan
Publisher : Knopf

Pages : 183

Series : N/A

Rating: 5/5

     Nick’s just seen the girl who dumped him walk in with a new guy.  What else can he do but ask the strange girl next to him to be his new girlfriend for the next five minutes?

     Norah would do anything to avoid conversation with the not not-friend girl who dumped Nick…and to get over the Evil Ex whom Norah never really totally dumped.  What else can she do but answer Nick’s question by making out with him?

      With one electric, unexpected kiss, the five-minute couple of Nick and Norah set off on an uncharted adventure called the “first date” that will turn into an infinite night of falling in and out (and in and out, and maybe in and maybe out) of love.  Theirs is a first date of music, laughter, heartache, confusion, passion, taxi driver wisdom, and a jacket named Salvatore.  And of course a killer soundtrack.

     As Nick and Norah wander through the middle-of-the-night mystic maze of Manhattan, they share the kind of night you never want to end, where every minute counts and every moment flickers between love and disaster.

I LOVED AND DEVOURED THIS BOOK! I started it last night around midnight and couldn’t stop. I loved everything about this book.  Everything, from the queer band members to Caroline’s drunken state to Tris’s nice but not attitude.

I think what I loved the most was that it was a love story but it wasn’t predictable.  And finding that is really hard for someone who has watched every romantic comedy on Netflix.  I find that whenever I read or watch a romance I can always tell when the inevitable fall apart then come together is going to be and I couldn’t predict that in Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist.

This book has been on my shelf for years now and I’m so glad I finally picked it up.  Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist is the only book I’ve ever read where I just wanted to reread it over and over and over again.  Don’t let this book pass you buy.

The Underland Chronicles by Suzanne Collins

Raise your hand if you have read The Hunger Games.  Keep your hand up if you consider yourself a big fan of Suzanne Collins.  Okay, now keep your hand up if you have heard of The Underland Chronicles.  I bet you put your hand down and that isn’t right.

Before I go any further I suppose I should include what The Underland Chronicles is about.  But instead of trying to write a synopsis myself which will leave you confused I’ll just give you the synopsis on the back of the first book in the Underland Chronicles, Gregor the Overlander:

     When eleven-year old Gregor follows his little sister through a grate in the laundry room of their New York City apartment building, he hurtles into the dark Underland beneath the city. There, humans live uneasily beside giant spiders, bats, cockroaches, and rats – but the fragile peace is about to fall apart.
     Gregor wants no part of a conflict between these creepy creatures. He just wants to find his way home. But when he discovers that a strange prophecy foretells a role for him in the Underland’s uncertain future, he realizes it might be the only way to solve the biggest mystery of his life. Little does he know his quest will change him – and the Underland – forever.

For those of you who don’t know, The Underland Chronicles is a series Suzanne Collins wrote way before The Hunger Games. Yet you can still tell that it is the same author. The Underland Chronicles deals with many of the same issues and has the same themes that are present in the Hunger Games.  Gregor (protagonist of The Underland Chronicles) and Katniss both struggle with what they must do.  Gregor must become a warrior and Katniss is slated to be the picture girl of the rebellion.  Both do their fated jobs in the end, but with a sense of unease and dislike.

The most common theme in both of these series is tendencies of humans.  More specifically the human tendency to fall into historical patterns and believe that the best way get rid of your enemy is to kill them.  

1.       Historical Patterns

      ·         At the end of the Hunger Games, District 13 decides to have another Hunger Games, but this    

             time using Capitol kids. 

      ·         In The Underland Chronicles the humans can’t get over past differences with the rats and so they   

             are always on the brink of war.

2.       Killing Your Enemy

       ·         The Capitol believes that the best way to keep the Districts from rebelling is to kill two teenagers 

              from each District once a year.

      ·         The humans are known to the other animals as Killers because whenever they have a problem 

             there solution is to kill it.

Don’t let the giant bugs and slightly younger characters scare you away from reading this series.  You will be surprised at the level of intensity found in the later books.  I promise you that if you liked the Hunger Games you will like the Underland Chronicles.

The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan

The Throne of Fire by Rick Riordan

Publisher : Disney Hyperion

Pages : 447

Series : The Kane Chronicles Book Two

Rating: 5/5

     Ever since the gods of Ancient Egypt were unleashed in the modern world, Carter Kane and his sister, Sadie, have been in trouble.  As descendants of the House of Life, the Kanes have some powers at their command; but the devious gods haven't given them time to master their skills at Brooklyn House, a training ground for young magicians.  And now their most threatening enemy yet - the Chaos snake, Apophis - is rising.  If they don't prevent him from breaking free in a few days time, the world will end.  In other words, it's a typical week for the Kane family.
     To have any chance of battling the forces of Chaos, the Kanes must revive the sun god, Ra.  But that would be a feat more difficult than any magician has ever accomplished.  First they have to search the world for the Cook of Ra, then they have to learn how to chant it's spells.  Oh - and did we mention that no one knows where Ra is, exactly?
     Narrated by two different wisecracking voices, featuring a large cast of new and unforgettable characters, and with adventures spanning the globe, this second installment of the Kane Chronicles is nothing short of a thrill ride.

If you haven’t read The Red Pyramid by Rick Riordan WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! It is amazing and hilarious and the book that precedes this one so if you haven’t read that, don’t read this and go by The Red Pyramid.

The Throne of Fire starts a couple months after The Red Pyramid ended and the calling card for new recruits worked.  The Brooklyn House is now full of kids training just in time for the impending threat of Chaos.  Carter is informed by Horus, the Egyptian god who possessed Carter’s body in The Red Pyramid, that in order to keep Chaos from breaking out of prison they needed Ra and to get Ra they must find the Book of Ra and travel through the Duat. So accompanied by their new friends Jaz, Walt and Bes along with some older friends, Anubis, Bast, Amos and Khufu, the set out on a new adventure.

I laughed out loud to my empty room more times than I can count during this book.  It was hilarious! I don’t know if Sadie and I have the same sense of humor but I was always looking forward to her narration.  Sadie always has the perfect comeback and is a great smart ass.  The fact that Bes was a dwarf god who killed things but looking ugly didn’t hurt the hilarity.

I know that the main attraction I find for Rick Riordan’s books is the mythological facts imbedded in the story.  History and mythology in particular is my favorite thing so finding it in a book is amazing.  The Egyptian mythology is perfect in both The Throne of Fire and The Red Pyramid. Although they do change the myths to become more age-appropriate because I’ve read many Egyptian myths and some are extremely weird and hardcore.  However, in The Throne of Fire, I especially loved how the story of Isis stealing Ra’s secret name was interwoven with The Throne of Fire and the importance secret names was given.  Also who doesn’t want a hot Anubis, god of death and funerals, showing up randomly?

The new characters in The Throne of Fire were great additions to the family.  Jaz, Walt and expecially Bes had great chemistry and fit into the story so well I can’t imagine them not in The Red Pyramid.  Although I didn’t really appreciate the little love triangle going on, but I won’t say who the people in the triangle are…it’s a bit of a spoiler.

All in all, I loved this book.  I can’t wait for the next book to come out. It’s also left me with an urge to go put kohl eyeliner on my eyes and practice my hieroglyphs.

Sleepless by Thomas Fahy

Sleepless by Thomas Fahy

Publisher : Simon and Schuster

Pages : 209

Series : N/A

Rating :
Beginning : 2/5
Ending : 5/5

     Someone else will die soon, she tells herself.  Someone else will die, and I'll be responsible.  A few days after the first time you walk in your sleep, you kill someone.

     Emma Montgomery is having trouble sleeping.  Every time she falls asleep, she sees horrible, gruesome things in her dreams - and when she wakes up, she isn't where she was when she fell asleep.  And she's not alone.   Her friends are starting to have the nightmares too.

     And that's when the murders start.

     First one kid dies in a car crash, his breaks mysteriously cut.  Then another girl washed up dead on the beach.  The deaths match the nightmares, and Emma and her friends must confront the awful truth - something is making them kill in their sleep.  Now they're in a race against time to keep themselves awake and figure out what's going on - before someone else turns up dead.

Isn’t the cover amazing! It caught my eye right away and I couldn’t wait to dive into the story.  But, in the end, I was disappointed with many aspects of the book but in love with other parts.

I’ve found that most horror novels I read start off horribly.  They’re incredibly boring and I have to force myself to read the book.  Sleepless was no exception.  Even right now trying to write this review, I can’t remember what the first half of the book was about.  I just read it.  I did soak up the main details and the important plot points but nothing else really mattered I just wanted something scary to happen.  Also, I was not a fan of the way the novel switched between telling the present and telling the past and the dreams.  I found it to be choppy and confusing.

That being said, the last half of the book was amazing.  It was scary with great twists, everything that should be in a good horror novel.  Best of all it was very fast paced nothing that was unneeded happened.  Also Fahy’s descriptive writing which I had found long and annoying in the beginning was greatly appreciated during the ending because it brought the story to life.

Even though, it took me a day to read the first 100 pages and an hour to read the last 100, I did enjoy the novel.  The ending was enough to redeem the book in my opinion. What do you guys think did you like the book?

In My Mailbox (4)

In My Mailbox is a meme hosted by the glorious Story Siren, if you don't know who this is, check her out! This meme is a way to share what books you bought, borrowed, traded, won, or in some random way received the previous week.  This week I traded books at a local used bookstore.  How is it that whenever I go to trade books I get more books coming home with me then I left with?

Archaelogy: The Definitive Guide by Barnes and Noble Books

Beautiful by Amy Reed

Grosse Pointe Girl: Tales From a Suburban Adolescence by Sarah Grace McCandless

Sweep Book 8: Changeling by Cate Tiernan

Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie by Jordan Sonnenblick

Luna by Julie Anne Peters

The Black Book Diary of a Teenage Stud: Girls, Girls, Girls by Jonah Black

Thats it for me! I hope you guys had a great week and got some awesome books to read in your mailbox!