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FRIDAY STARS – Your Weekly Must Knows 04/17/15

April 17, 2015 / Jen / 0 Comments

Friday Stars

Click book covers for ordering.

Happy Friday! Below you will find:
The latest giveaway.
What we just finished and loved.
What we are planning to read next.
An Upcoming release, in the next week, that we are extremely excited about!
And of course the latest sales and freebies, which we have either read or have on our to-read lists.
♥ Enjoy!

Giveaway

Enter to win a $25.00 Gift Card to the eBook Retailer of Your Choice + A Flirt Mug for the release of Crushed by Lauren Layne → Click Here

Just Finished and Loved

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers – 5 Stars! As usual, her writing is raw, beautiful and compelling, and I was hooked from the beginning. Indeed her books are such page-turners that I always know that I’ll end reading them in a sitting. Perfect Parker Fadley isn’t so perfect anymore. She’s quit the cheerleading squad, she’s dumped her perfect boyfriend, and she’s failing school. Her parents are on a constant suicide watch and her counselors think she’s playing games…but what they don’t know, the real reason for this whole mess, isn’t something she can say out loud. It isn’t even something she can say to herself. A horrible thing has happened and it just might be her fault. If she can just remove herself from everybody–be totally alone–then everything will be okay…The problem is, nobody will let her. Anna’s Review

✩✮✩✮✩

All the Rage by Courtney Summers – 5 Stars! It’s no secret that this woman snuck up out of nowhere and stole my heart with her magnificent and flawless writing. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when I pick up a Summers book that I will be transported to another world where someone doesn’t have it as good as me. That I will not be the same after reading it. That I will never find an author who speaks to me on such a deep emotional level. The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything–friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous. But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn’t speak up. Nobody believed her the first time–and they certainly won’t now–but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear. Chelsea’s Review

✩✮✩✮✩

Blood of My Blood (Jasper Dent #3) by Barry Lyga – 5 Stars! I am just astounded by the awesomeness that was this story!!! What and how and why and who and blah blah blah how did he make up this story????? The epicness that jumps off of every page makes a ridiculous fangirl out of me, and for once I just don’t care! I love this book so much it hurts. In the first book, I Hunt Killers, Jazz is a likable teenager. A charmer, some might say. But he’s also the son of the world’s most infamous serial killer, and for Dear Old Dad, “Take Your Son to Work Day” was year-round. Jazz has witnessed crime scenes the way cops wish they could–from the criminals’ point of view. And now, even though Dad has been in jail for years, bodies are piling up in the sleepy town of Lobo’s Nod. Again. In an effort to prove murder doesn’t run in the family, Jazz joins the police in the hunt for this new serial killer. But Jazz has a secret–could he be more like his father than anyone knows? From acclaimed author Barry Lyga comes a riveting thriller about a teenager trying to control his own destiny in the face of overwhelming odds. Chelsea’s Review

✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮

Reading Next

Asa (Marked Men #6) by Jay Crownover – Starting over in Denver with a whole new circle of friends and family, Asa Cross struggles with being the man he knows everyone wants him to be and the man he knows he really is. A leopard doesn’t it change its spots and Asa has always been a predator. He doesn’t want to hurt those who love and rely on him, especially one luscious arresting cop who suddenly seems to be interested in him for far more than his penchant for breaking the law. But letting go of old habits is hard, and it’s easy to hit bottom when it’s the place you know best. Royal Hastings is quickly learning what the bottom looks like after a tragic situation at work threatens not only her career but her partner’s life. As a woman who has only ever had a few real friends she’s trying to muddle through her confusion and devastation all alone. Except she can’t stop thinking about the sexy southern bartender she locked up. Crushing on Asa is the last thing she needs but his allure is too strong to resist. His long criminal record can only hurt her already shaky career and chasing after a guy who has no respect for the law or himself can only end in heartbreak. A longtime criminal and a cop together just seems so wrong . . . but for Asa and Royal, being wrong together is the only right choice to make.

✩✮✩✮✩

Charm & Strange by Stephanie Kuehn – When you’ve been kept caged in the dark, it’s impossible to see the forest for the trees. It’s impossible to see anything, really. Not without bars . . . In Stephanie Kuehn’s brilliant debut Charm & Strange, Andrew Winston Winters is at war with himself. He’s part Win, the lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy. The guy who shuts all his classmates out, no matter the cost. He’s part Drew, the angry young boy with violent impulses that control him. The boy who spent a fateful, long-ago summer with his brother and teenage cousins, only to endure a secret so monstrous it led three children to do the unthinkable. Over the course of one night, while stuck at a party deep in the New England woods, Andrew battles both the pain of his past and the isolation of his present. Before the sun rises, he’ll either surrender his sanity to the wild darkness inside his mind or make peace with the most elemental of truths–that choosing to live can mean so much more than not dying.

✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮

Upcoming Release

Asa (Marked Men #6) by Jay Crownover – (Releases 4/21) Starting over in Denver with a whole new circle of friends and family, Asa Cross struggles with being the man he knows everyone wants him to be and the man he knows he really is. A leopard doesn’t it change its spots and Asa has always been a predator. He doesn’t want to hurt those who love and rely on him, especially one luscious arresting cop who suddenly seems to be interested in him for far more than his penchant for breaking the law. But letting go of old habits is hard, and it’s easy to hit bottom when it’s the place you know best. Royal Hastings is quickly learning what the bottom looks like after a tragic situation at work threatens not only her career but her partner’s life. As a woman who has only ever had a few real friends she’s trying to muddle through her confusion and devastation all alone. Except she can’t stop thinking about the sexy southern bartender she locked up. Crushing on Asa is the last thing she needs but his allure is too strong to resist. His long criminal record can only hurt her already shaky career and chasing after a guy who has no respect for the law or himself can only end in heartbreak. A longtime criminal and a cop together just seems so wrong . . . but for Asa and Royal, being wrong together is the only right choice to make.

✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮

Sales

$0.99

New Sale Anna’s Review	New Sale	New Sale
New Sale 5 Stars! Jen’s Review

$1.99

New Sale
5 Stars! Chelsea’s Review

$2.99

4.5 Stars! Jen’s Review Chelsea’s Review		Chelsea’s Review
Chelsea’s Review

$5.99

Chelsea’s Review

✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮✩✮

Freebies

BOOK REVIEW – Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1) by Robin LaFevers

April 16, 2015 / Anna

Grave Mercy (His Fair Assassin #1)
by Robin LaFevers
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?

Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.

Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

۩ This is the kind of book you eat and forget most of the details just after reaching the last page, because if there’s a new event at each chapter, you quit on the feeling that nothing happened. Actually if Grave Mercy is by no means a bad book, I wasn’t impressed either. What surprises me the most is how an original concept as Assassin nuns can lead me to feel slightly underwhelmed.

I guess that expectations are everything.

“So,” she says, looking back up at me. “You are well equipped for our service.”
“Which is?”
“We kill people.”

My biggest fear before starting it? To be bored to death. And yet, strangely, the biggest – only one? – compliment I can offer it is the fact it was so compulsively readable. Weird right?

► First of all, how can we not be interested in the original concept on which Grave Mercy relies?

Undeniably, what could be more fascinating than the discovery of the daughters of Death, more known as St Mortain’s nouns, whose purpose is to learn an incredible amount of ways to be a deadly assassin? Tell me? Therefore I wasn’t bored, but interested, hooked, even – political calculations always draw me in, and I must confess that the settings immensely pleased me. As a great fan of Dumas, I always had a soft spot for intrigues taking place at Court, especially when the Kings aren’t the most famous (please stop talking about Louis XIV and Henri IV, not to mention Louis XVI). Indeed there’re so many periods which have not yet been explored by the literature!

However, I’m sorry, but what was this obvious twist? For real, I was waiting and waiting and waiting for the characters to get to the same conclusion as me and Oh. My. They took their time for sure. As a result, I can’t say that the mystery was compelling. Indeed while the writing, the details of the political complots enthralled me, I didn’t care much about the big revelation of the villains’ identity, for it was pretty obvious since the beginning.

Moreover, I couldn’t help but notice the lack of accuracy in the historical facts – I don’t know if that’s supposed to be accurate, but in case you’re wondering, that’s not. Oh, yes, the big events are “true”, but except from them, every character is pictured in a wrong way. Take Alain d’Albret, for example. Yes he was betrothed to Anne de Bretagne, but he never had 6 wifes (only one, actually). As for Fedrik de Nemours… he didn’t exist. And so on. To be fair, even Dumas was known for romanticizing grandly his characters, so I’m not sure that it can be considered as a flaw. I thought I’d point it, anyway, because I’m an History nerd (sorry about that). Finally, why in the world are they travelling via Quimper when they intend to go to Guérande? Seriously, lost enough, aren’t you?

Okay, I’m annoying. I stop here. Sigh.

✐ Generally speaking, I quite liked the writing, which was pleasant and flowed smoothly. But then, I must point that I have not the sufficient knowledge to judge if the way the characters speak can be considered as accurate for 1400s (I have to admit that I have many doubts, because it appeared rather modern to me). Now, what I can judge are the mistakes when French language is used. Of course it was rare – Thanks Mortain! – but come on, don’t you think that it would be greatly appreciated if, I don’t know, some French speaker checked before publishing? There are grammar mistakes (“entré” instead of “entrez”) and a weird use of interjections (“mais bon”, in that sentence, doesn’t make any sense. At all.) One might argue that I make grammar mistakes in English as well, and it’s true (sorry about that). But the fact is, I’m not publishing a book, but writing a review.

But let’s talk about the characters, shall we?

▧ Ismae, who has a special talent for poison, is sent on an assignment in the Guérande court. Her mission? To protect the Duchess, Anne de Bretagne, while unraveling the layers of treason the young ruler faces. In a word : Ismae must use her talent to figure out who is plotting against the duchess, including her closest support, Gavriel Duval. Well, I haven’t much to reproach her, to be fair. Indeed I could understand her decisions, and contrary to some (many?) readers I didn’t feel like she gave up her mind for the sake of her love for Duval. On the contrary, she thinks before acting, and if she IS long to realize some facts (DUH), I can’t say that she’s blinded by love, as she wonders why and who and how is right all the freaking time. She didn’t trust Gavriel on sight for Mortain’s sake! Yet… I didn’t care so much about her either. In my opinion her monologues lacked of sincerity and believability, as I often found myself wondering… Who thinks like that? Every thought is too neat, and I never really felt her struggle, question – I was told so, but never get the feeling, you know?

▧ Gavriel, now. He is nice, kind, but has the bad habit to order Ismae around. Yet he is nice. And, you know, he is … he IS …

Well, okay, mostly dull.

♥ That’s why even if the romance didn’t bother me, it never made me swoon either, as I never really saw any chemistry between Ismae and Duval. As the rest of the story, everything felt too
mild
to me, and no, my heart never missed a beat. Lack of strong feelings indeed.

▧ The so-called villains. Yes, so-called, because we are told that they are the villains in this story, but never really shown, or not enough, in my opinion. Take d’Albret, for example. Oh, yes, he seems really disgusting, but what does he really do? Nothing. To me, the only real villains are Ismae’s father and her previous husband.

▧ What bothered me the most was the lack of involvement of the secondary characters. Indeed even if they exist, except for the beginning, the other characters fall into the background pretty fast, unfortunately. Personally, I’m eager to learn more about Beast (how awesome is that name, by the way?) and Sybella – Annith I don’t care about.

► See, when I weigh the pros and cons….

… It’s pretty obvious that the cons overtake the pros by far. Now, as I did enjoy my reading still, I decided for a three that I can’t help but find quite generous.

BOOK REVIEW: All the Rage by Courtney Summers

April 15, 2015 / Chelsea / 0 Comments

All the Rage by Courtney Summers
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
The sheriff’s son, Kellan Turner, is not the golden boy everyone thinks he is, and Romy Grey knows that for a fact. Because no one wants to believe a girl from the wrong side of town, the truth about him has cost her everything—friends, family, and her community. Branded a liar and bullied relentlessly by a group of kids she used to hang out with, Romy’s only refuge is the diner where she works outside of town. No one knows her name or her past there; she can finally be anonymous.But when a girl with ties to both Romy and Kellan goes missing after a party, and news of him assaulting another girl in a town close by gets out, Romy must decide whether she wants to fight or carry the burden of knowing more girls could get hurt if she doesn’t speak up. Nobody believed her the first time—and they certainly won’t now — but the cost of her silence might be more than she can bear.

With a shocking conclusion and writing that will absolutely knock you out,All the Rage examines the shame and silence inflicted upon young women after an act of sexual violence, forcing us to ask ourselves: In a culture that refuses to protect its young girls, how can they survive?

When all you can do is watch, you see.

Well, I begrudgingly give this five stars….Oh, come on. Yeah the hell right. Did anyone really expect me to give this any less than a bajillion stars? I am still awaiting the day I’ll pick up a Courtney Summers novel and not be floored by her simple words that portray deep, meaningful messages so many authors gloss over today. And even if that day comes? I know to the bottom of my soul, even if the story isn’t for me, I will still write her name, like, ten times in my review because that’s just what I do with my two favorite authors and because her words will never cease to have an impact on me. You know why? ‘Cuz she’s Courtney fuckin’ Summers and she isn’t afraid to get raw, gritty, and in your face.

You know all the ways you can kill a girl?
God, there are so many.

It’s no secret that this woman snuck up out of nowhere and stole my heart with her magnificent and flawless writing. I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, when I pick up a Summers book (anyone keeping a count of how many times I’ll say her name?) that I will be transported to another world where someone doesn’t have it as good as me. That I will not be the same after reading it. That I will never find an author who speaks to me on such a deep emotional level. That, during the story, I will learn something not only about a flawed, broken girl (or boy), but also about myself. Her novels aren’t simply page-turners, though they are undoubtedly that, they mean something. They make you wonder, they make you think, “Was I ever so blind to something like this?” “Was I as care-free and oblivious and go-with-the-flow that I was a part of someone’s torment without even knowing it?” And that’s what Courtney Summers does-she doesn’t simply write-she educates. She makes you aware. And this story was no exception.

It’s amazing how bad you can make the truth sound. As long as you keep it partially recognizable when you spit it out, a crowd will eat it up without even thinking about how hard you chewed on it first.

Romy is a whole new level of broken. In Summers’s previous works, we see lots of broken girls who don’t quite know how to handle what they’re going through, what they feel. I mean, they think they do…but do they ever really want to do what they think they need to do? Anyway-I digress. My point was that Romy is emotionally broken in a way that, while familiar from her other stories, I have never seen before. It’s not like she lays down and takes it. She doesn’t simply play dead and walk through the halls like a zombie. She has a bite that is unlike anything I’ve seen. It was deliciously depraved, some of things she had to do, but it was never over the top. This girl is someone who was bullied for speaking out against a rape no one believes happened, bullied for simply existing, bullied because she had the misfortune of being the only girl ‘found.’ The things she had to hear whispered behind her back and go through were unwarranted, nasty, and catalyst to thoughts that a girl should never have about herself…or anyone, for that matter.

I forget what I was doing. I forget what I’m here for. There’s a point to all of this but I don’t know what it is anymore.

What we see, essentially, is a girl who has been backed into a corner and can as easily be discarded as a piece of paper. No one looks out for her, no one will save her…she has to be there for herself-at school, that is. Outside of school we get to see the love that her mother and her mother’s boyfriend have for her, how they worry and would do anything for her. It’s not simply a case of blind parenting-they do their best to figure out what’s going on and they don’t clam up. They continually ask her why she’s acting this way, why she is running off, why she started a fight at school…it was heartwarming and broke my heart when they realized they couldn’t do anything to help if she wasn’t willing to open up. Because not only does everyone in the school hate Romy Grey….everyone in town despises her as well.

Why her?

And finally there’s Leon. The guy she works with. The guy who’s above pettiness and high school games and wants to make a name for himself. The guy who would do almost anything for Romy…even after she rips his heart out time and again. He only has eyes for her, but he certainly doesn’t take her bull shit. He tells her like it is and he makes her a better person. I loved their relationship and thought it was adorable watching a new romance bloom after the wake of a tragedy, watching the struggle to keep her ‘good side.’ Okay, I lied. I don’t suppose it was adorable so much as uplifting….and heartbreaking. My soul was ripped in two more than once, longing for the perfect relationship, the perfect end to their (Romy’s) tremulous journey. But that’s Summers and she doesn’t sugar coat life. Things happen. It’s how you handle life’s hurdles that makes you who you are. If you can’t get past it? That’s your own hang up. And that’s what we get to see.

I don’t believe in forgiveness. I think if you hurt someone, it becomes a part of you both. Each of you just has to live with it and the person you hurt gets to decide if they want to give you the chance to do it again.

Suited in her battle armor to take on any day and each new event in life, I loved Romy to pieces. She was fierce, determined, but fractured into pieces and unable to feel complete and like a real, whole person. Her bad ass battle armor was a farce for what she really feels on the inside: dull, lifeless, and hurt. Watching her fight her internal battles and take on one snobby bitch or asshole, one at a time, whenever she felt like it, we saw the fight that has long since extinguished since ‘that night.’ I hope everyone can find something to love about this story, because I was undeniably hooked and wanted nothing more than to read about Romy’s happy ending. I hope you will, too.

…how do you get a girl to stop crying?
You cover her mouth.

*whines* And Courtneyyyyyy…..release another boooook….pleasseeeeee.

******************************

AGHHH!!!! It’s LIVE!! FINALLY. *Rubs hands together* I shall start reading under my desk now-lol

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I’m going through serious, SERIOUS Courtney Summers withdrawl. It’s like I am starting to itch and I need that next fix immediately and I can’t seem to find any books that scratch that infernal itch and…

Soon. April can’t make it soon enough.

Dying.

BOOK REVIEW – Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers

April 15, 2015 / Anna

Cracked Up to Be by Courtney Summers
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
When "Perfect" Parker Fadley starts drinking at school and failing her classes, all of St. Peter's High goes on alert. How has the cheerleading captain, girlfriend of the most popular guy in school, consummate teacher's pet, and future valedictorian fallen so far from grace?

Parker doesn't want to talk about it. She'd just like to be left alone, to disappear, to be ignored. But her parents have placed her on suicide watch and her conselors are demanding the truth. Worse, there's a nice guy falling in love with her and he's making her feel things again when she'd really rather not be feeling anything at all.

Nobody would have guessed she'd turn out like this. But nobody knows the truth.

Something horrible has happened, and it just might be her fault.

☠ Warning: I thought about it over and over, and the only way I feel writing this review includes a great amount of personal information. If you don’t care about it, if you think that’s not a review, if you – well, just thought I’d warn you.

“You know how when you meet someone and they just give you the impression they’re living on this entirely different planet from everyone else? That’s sort of how I felt when I met you.”

I don’t really know what to say. I mean, how am I supposed to say that I can relate to Parker without sounding like a bitch? Because I do, but I’m not, and I wasn’t. Lost a little? I’ll explain. The fact is, above her actions, what stroke me the most in Parker is her need to be herself, even if the way she takes to do so appears to be incredibly harsh and selfish at times. What I love in Courtney Summers is the way she manages to take the high-school stereotypes and to go further, to crack the shells in order to show what’s hidden beneath all the craps we’re served in so many young adult books.

“You’ve made a choice and it’s so obvious. I see it; I accept it,” she says. “Even if no one else can. You want to rot and I want to let you.”

If I struggled more with Some girls are, that’s because I found it more difficult to imagine the situation there and I know that I’m in the minority about this. But the truth is, if I never saw groups of people behaving like these assholes in Some girls are, Parker sounds real to me, and yes, I can relate. If I was never mean to people like she can be, I went through a tough phase when I was a teenager and yes, even if I kept an outgoing facade, people made me cringe at times and if I didn’t do what she did to them, I thought about it sometimes. Everything annoyed me, and I didn’t even realize it – I was so full of shit, frankly, if I could slap my younger self I’d do it. Well, I never wanted to die, never, and some of her actions were really awful, so I’m not telling that I can understand all Parker’s decisions but anyway, I get her.

“I still remember being hurt when the teacher made as big a fuss over my classmates’ lesser efforts as she did over mine, which was perfect. Or maybe not as perfect as I thought.”

Can you understand what she’s feeling? Because I can. No matter how ugly it sounds, oh, man, how I get this feeling. I used to, anyway. Trying to explain why I need everything to be perfect, being mad when people don’t get it? Oh, yes, Parker’s struggles hit a nerve with me.

But let’s go some years ago. I always was this weird kid who gets straight -As and reads a lot, who never breaks the rules because never sees the point in it, whose success is expected, no matter what happens. Don’t get fooled, I wasn’t lonely, as I always could count on a solid group of friends, but I was super serious until senior year. My parents weren’t really strict because they trusted me and they were right to do so. But on my senior year, I lost it. I started to ditch school so often that school rang my parents twice a week and I developed a hell lot of tips to sneak out school without being caught. Yet my rates didn’t suffer too much, because I showed up for the tests and I spent my time ditching to read (in France we can specialize in Junior and Senior years, and I was in Literature-Philosophy-Languages). Why did I change all of a sudden? The only thing I can say it’s that I didn’t want to be me anymore. To be frank, I wasn’t full of self-loathing at all, in fact I think it was quite the opposite. Or isn’t it the same thing, after all? I don’t know anymore. God, I was so conceited, as it seems that only teenagers can be – I thought I got it all, and I couldn’t have been more wrong, but the expectations I felt on my shoulders were suddenly too hard to stand – I’m not saying I was right, that’s only what it was.

Why am I telling you that? Because I think that’s why I can relate to Parker – I can understand why she’s acting out of character, or more accurately, out of what others assume to be her personality. Because sometimes, we need to destroy a part of ourselves to evolve, because the way we are seen is suffocating us. And yes, we are hurting people who love us when we are acting that way, because we disturb the way they see us and what’s more unsettling than seeing our best friend, our girlfriend, our daughter suddenly changing? Although I truly think that we mustn’t lie to ourselves and never deny what we are, I can’t deny that it’s fucking difficult to deal with these changes when we are the people who are around. Anyway, it took me years to learn to be less perfectionist, in my studies, in my work, in my life (I never was like Parker about my appearance, though). Because in the end, we realize that in addition to make our lives an hell, we make other lives an hell, and by others I mean people we care about.

“No one will notice how wrong you are if everything you do ends up right.”

Perhaps you think that it’s not a review. Let me disagree : if I can relate on such a strong level, that’s only because Courtney Summers’s characters are so fleshed-out I feel I can grab them and see a part of myself in them. Parker sure doesn’t make it easy to love her, she is unapologetic, smart-ass, and straight-on bitchy at some point. But I I cared about her, deeply, as I did about Jack, Chris, and even Becky. They feel so real to me that I can’t help. As usual, her writing is raw, beautiful and compelling, and I was hooked from the beginning. Indeed her books are such page-turners that I always know that I’ll end reading them in a sitting. Not to mention that we can’t help but wait to know what happened to Parker to explain why she lost it.

❉ Congrats, Courtney Summers. Once again, you got me. ❉

Thanks so much to my incredible friend Chelsea for this birthday gift ♥

BOOK REVIEW: Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas

April 14, 2015 / Chelsea / 0 Comments

Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
It's Spring Break of senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few other close friends are off to a debaucherous trip to Aruba that promises to be the time of their lives. But when Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own, fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations.

As Anna sets out to find her friend's killer; she discovers hard truths about her friendships, the slippery nature of truth, and the ache of young love.

As she awaits the judge's decree, it becomes clear that everyone around her thinks she is not just guilty, but dangerous. When the truth comes out, it is more shocking than one could ever imagine...

One moment. One picture. One glimpse-that’s all it takes to make someone think they know the truth.

Yikes. So. I kind of hated this book. But….I really liked it, too. I needed something drastic, a shock to my system. I am on a major book high after I finished the Jasper Dent series. It’s not often that books put me so out of commission that everything afterwards becomes a heaping pile of poo, in my eyes. So, yeah, I had to read something dark, something so sinister that I couldn’t possibly start fantasizing about my lovely, flawed Jazz. But, when I signed on here, I knew I might not wholly enjoy the experience. That I might find characters that were so beyond flawed that it borders on a depressing line that I wasn’t ready to cross (I do so love a good flawed character these days, but woo buddy these were some fucked up characters). That I may be disturbed by the events leading up to the crime. I was 100% right.

I’m not guna lie. I knew who did it. I knew who the killer was. I can’t talk about why or how or what prompted the murder-you have to read it for yourself. It’s not easy to guess who it is and you’ll likely be floundering up until the final moment on whodunnit.

Wouldn’t we all look guilty, if someone searched hard enough?

The story is constructed in such a manner that you’re never bored. You never find yourself wanting to put it down. Each new page unravels another part of this intricately woven story and you start to speculate, to wonder, to explore any and all options. It fluctuates between present day (her trial), ‘before’ (the vacation where it all happened), and the past (high school where she, Elise, Tate, and the other girls all met). We get to see all aspects of the story in every perspective possible, but it doesn’t quite give you the full answer. I won’t lie and say I think this is a fantastic, wonderfully put together novel. I mean, it is! But, I can’t say I loved the format. I also can’t say I hated it. *Note: Please realize I have this under my ‘blur rating’ shelf* I think I just thought….well, I thought there’d be more from the vacation? Maybe that it would show the story leading up to the murder, all in one consecutive piece? But it didn’t. And now I understand why it didn’t, but it doesn’t change the fact that I thought this was a ‘real time’ story. Which is likely my own fault and hang up lol.

Would it have made a difference if I had cried?

Sporadically changing between the trial, when she met her friends, and during the vacay, we begin to see hard truths and ugly betrayals unfold. I think this is where my heart began to hurt. I am such a cliche person, in the fact that, unless it’s a Courntey Summers novel, I don’t much like ‘dark’ books. I mean, I love harsher stories now, whereas I didn’t before. But I need that silver lining, you know?? I am the epitome of the HEA dream. I crave it. I need it….but then again, I really don’t-not always. I just need characters to root for, that I care for, that I can obsess over. And, while I did root for our main character’s freedom and innocence, there wasn’t really anyone else to care about. I snarled at the screen when something would go wrong with her trial, when someone would alter the events that clearly they were glossing over, but, in the end, only having one character to ‘late’ (I didn’t love/like her but I also didn’t hate her….it was a mix) didn’t really do it for me as a whole.

I stare in the mirror, and remind myself: I’m here, I exist.
I’ll be okay.

My rating stems from three things-

The writing. It was great, compelling, kept me on the edge of my seat and flowed without ever being blunt or shortened for effect. I liked that…That sounds specific, but when writing flows, it flows. I don’t know that many stories constructed as such could be considered as ‘fluid’ as this one.

The end. I simply loved it. Want to see my absolute favorite quote/moment/revelation? It’s essentially a spoiler, so look at your own risk. If you’ve read it, you’ll know who said it. If you haven’t? Well, it’ll be your fault for looking. View Spoiler »“I win” « Hide Spoiler Chills. Just many many chills.

The simplicity and gripping nature of the novel. The need to know more, even if it wasn’t the format I’d have liked.

So…that’s it.I hope I did a good job of expressing not only my concerns and issues, but also of letting everyone know that the story is strong and altogether gripping-even if you don’t like it, you’ll likely still make it to the end in record time….that’s just a hunch. After I finished, it was 2 AM and the house was dark- I needed to let my dog out in the back yard and found myself *not so discreetly* peering outside the back door, lest someone stab me repeatedly because I wasn’t aware. Don’t worry, my Pomeranian would have kicked their ass. I needn’t have worried.