*C Rating

Review: Famously Engaged by Robyn Thomas

May 7, 2013 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 12 Comments

Famously Engaged
By Robyn Thomas
Publisher: Entangled Indulgence
Publication Date: May 13, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Source: Publisher

A chef and a rock star. They couldn’t be from more different worlds…

Rock star royalty’s favorite son, Jake Olsen, couldn’t help but interfere after listening to his future brother-in-law talk non-stop about his ex-wife, Beth Carlisle. Jake decides that the only way to get the groom’s mind off his ex-wife is to give her a fake fiancé.

Before Jake can convince Beth of his plan, he’s forced to move in with her to avoid the paparazzi. Their instant attraction makes for a sizzling “first date”, but soon Jake’s fame gets in the way and Beth wants out. Too bad Jake’s figured out just why her ex is so obsessed with her, and he’s afraid he’s not going to be able to give her up either.

Now it’s up to Jake to convince this chef together they make the perfect recipe.

Goodreads Summary

This was one of those times when I wanted to smack my own head against the wall because I wanted to like this book so much and yet there was something so missing that I never quite reached that point where I got beyond the, “ehhh, it was okay,” conclusion. It was like having a craving for chocolate and all I had in the house was a packet of sugar free hot chocolate mix. You know how I am without my chocolate. Not pretty.

One positive thing I can say is that the book starts out poorly and gets better as it goes along. Rock star Jake is concerned because his half-sister Skyla is getting married to someone who seems to still be hung up on his ex. He hangs around her constantly, talks about her all the time and is even talking about moving in with her temporarily to help with her ailing mother. Skyla is perfectly fine with this because she’s not just Beth’s BFF, but she knows Brad and Beth are more sister and brother than anything else, but Jake won’t listen to reason. Reason and Jake have never met, which explains his next move.

Jake decides that in order to keep Beth and Brad apart until the wedding, he’s going to arrange some fake contest in which Beth will have “won” him as her fiancé, thereby taking her off the market. I think the plan was that he’d get to her house and have it announced in the paper so quickly that she’d be besieged by paparazzi and unable to go to Brad. I’m not sure though. It didn’t seem very well thought out, especially considering his band had a weird “no relationships” policy and he’d never met Beth, only seen a photo that got him hot and bothered. For her part, a strange man turns up on her doorstep (she doesn’t know who his band is), announces he’s her new fiancé that she’s won in a contest and after a token, spirited protest, she lets him into her house. Even when he explains what he’s done and why, she gets huffy but then helps him get comfy.

These were characters I really wanted to like and I think if I’d been allowed to believe they were together for more than a couple of days, I might have. Jake was funny and I liked the way he was opening up to the history in Beth’s home. Beth was a chef, had a lot of friends, was funny when she was angry and had a lot of ties to her home. Their chemistry was odd, only because acted like they’d known each other for a long time, thinking in terms of, “as long as I’d known him,” and, “it wasn’t like her,” (those are strictly examples and not necessarily direct quotes). He touched her breast once and compared it to something and she said every time she saw herself, she’d think of that. See, that’s something you say to someone after you’ve had a torrid affair for a week or so, right? Not within 24 hours of meeting them and this is the first time they’ve touched you. Things like that are why I was hitting my head; I kept thinking I was on the edge of really having a good moment with these two then something like that would happen. Argh!

This is a plot I’ve liked before and has elements I could have liked here. However improbable it is, I kind of like stories that have a rock god falling in love with a regular person, odd engagements that end up turning into something real and I’m always a sucker for something set in Australia. I think I’ve already said enough about how I felt about most of the story and unfortunately, the only real reference to it being set in Australia was when a rugby team helped distribute some charity meals. At about the 85 percent mark, things did get better (I know, that’s really late, but it worked for me, somewhat). I actually liked Beth and Jake, they did things that made sense and I even pulled out a tissue. The ending was just as improbable as the beginning, but at least it was funny in a shake-your-head kind of way.

My Rating: C-

Filed Under: *C Rating, 2013 Ebook Challenge, Contemporary/Romance Tagged With: Robyn Thomas

Review: When She Was Gone by Gwendolen Gross

May 4, 2013 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 5 Comments

When She Was Gone
By Gwendolen Gross
Publisher: Gallery Books
Publication Date: March 19, 2013
Genre: Contemporary Fiction
Source: Edelweiss
Read during the Clean Sweep ARC Challenge

Seventeen-year-old Linsey Hart disappears the day before she’s due to leave for college. As her neighbors piece together what they saw and what they think they know about the missing girl, their long-held secrets, prejudices, and entanglements become rudely evident.

There’s Linsey’s mother, Abigail, whose door-to-door searching makes her social outcast status painfully obvious; stay-at-home mom Reeva, whose primary concern is covering up the affair she’s been having with the Starbucks barista; Mr. Leonard, a reclusive retired piano teacher—and the last person to see Linsey alive; George, an eleven year-old gifted loner who is determined to find out what happened to Linsey; and Timmy, Linsey’s ex-boyfriend, who is left grieving as he embarks on his own college career.

A keenly observed portrait of a small town under duress, When She Was Gone is a searing portrayal of the bonds that hold a community together—and the secrets and lies that threaten to rip it apart.

Goodreads Summary

In another life, I used to gorge myself on big Agatha Christie-style mysteries and big whodunits that unraveled with people’s closely held secrets. There’s always been something fascinating about examining each of the players, digging at their secrets and trying to put them all together into the bigger puzzle of the community to see how the big event could have happened.

I admit that I went into this book expecting something, and I didn’t get it. The story starts with one of Linsey’s neighbors, a former school music teacher. While he’s playing his piano in the very early morning, he sees her slip away from home, leaving a potential clue to her whereabouts. Her mother later becomes aware that Linsey hasn’t shown up at work that day, and it makes her uneasy but doesn’t ring immediate “emergency” bells because of the timing. Linsey’s getting ready to head off to Cornell University and she’s been upset over a breakup with her boyfriend. It’s possible that she’s taken a mental health day off. By the time night falls and there’s still no sight or sound of Linsey, her mom calls the police and reports her missing. What follows are looks into the lives of the neighbors of Linsey’s family, including tiny interactions with the teen or things they may have heard that would help explain her disappearance.

Ms. Gross can write beautifully and with purpose, and it’s evidenced most in the story of Geo, the quiet young boy with the camera who sees everything but with an innocent, non-judgmental eye. He’s a sweet child who freely embraces some unconventional hobbies that get him bullied by one of Linsey’s brothers and being in his chapters felt like taking my own mental health holiday. I thought Gross may have played his “otherness” (there were several things about Geo that made him different) too much sometimes, but his sections were still clearly the best.

Most of the rest of the story felt slow, weighed down by the repetitive chapters about people I didn’t particularly like who never changed or learned anything. There was very little effort to actually unravel the mystery of where Linsey was, which I’d been hoping would be at least a part of the story. Instead, there was mostly only her mother’s increasing hysteria and a little bit of self-flagellation by her boyfriend/ex-boyfriend.

This may appeal to readers who like the kind of fiction that simply exposes a situation and leaves it there for them to interpret. Gross has solid writing skills, even though I thought it was a little too dense and flowery for this particular story she was telling at this particular pace. I was frustrated because the plot never seemed to go anywhere, even though there was an answer, of sorts. It was unsatisfying, which I expected by the time I reached it, since I could see from the tone of the book what I had gotten myself into.

My Rating: C

Filed Under: *C Rating, 2013 Contemporary Challenge, 2013 Ebook Challenge, 2013 Standalone Challenge, Contemporary/Romance Tagged With: Gwendolen Gross

Quick Review: What Lies Beneath by Richard Denney

April 15, 2013 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 3 Comments

By Richard Denney

Publication Date: March 26, 2013
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal Thriller
Source: Purchased

When Blair Lewis is left for dead in a freezing lake, she can’t get over the fact that her boyfriend tried to kill her. And when she begins to receive disturbing gifts and letters from her supposed dead boyfriend, she attempts to figure out what is going on before the darkness consumes her. Nothing is as it seems and the startling truth is going to rip Blair right out of this world.

Is Blair simply losing her mind? Or is something vicious and dark after her sanity and soul?

Goodreads Summary

This was a generally nice spooky story about a girl whose boyfriend tried to drown her, seemingly out of the blue one day. Afterward, even though there’s credible proof that he’s dead, messages like cute white Valentine bears full of blood keep popping up for Blair that make her think he’s alive and not done with her yet.

I really could have enjoyed this, except for a few things: it was a bit too short, Blair was an inconsistent character and there was far too much going on to really amp up the thrills in this amount of story.

The first is pretty self-explanatory. This is longer than a novella, but falls short of a full-length story. It didn’t take me much more than an hour or two to read (I read quickly).

Blair should have been the character I had the chills for, but she made it difficult. She took her boyfriend Dylan’s attempting to murder her, seeing ghosts and being stalked by her possibly-dead boyfriend rather well. She meets a boy with the same black dead-eyed stare that her boyfriend had right before he tried to snuff her out, so hey, let’s befriend him! She finds a secret room in the maybe-dead-boyfriend’s room that has black candles and a strange design in red chalk on the floor, but hey, let’s not tell anyone! I was disappointed in all of the dumb things she did just so the plot could move along quickly.

There was also a lot of extraneous running around, useless conversation and drive-by character interaction that didn’t contribute anything at all to the story, If it had been taken out, there would have been more room for some of the better things that made me shiver. I wanted to know more about the dead girls, not about how the nurse kept trying to get the IV in Blair’s hand and how much it hurt or how the cop sat on the arm of her mom’s couch and was coughing up phlegm. Yeah, ew.

I like Richard Denney’s books and will definitely keep on reading. I just wish I’d liked this one more, I really do, because it was such a great idea. Don’t get me started on that ending though.

My Rating: C

Filed Under: *C Rating, 2013 Ebook Challenge, 2013 Standalone Challenge, Paranormal, Thriller, Young Adult Tagged With: Richard Denney

Review: Walking Disaster (Beautiful #2) by Jamie McGuire

April 5, 2013 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 23 Comments

By Jamie McGuire

Publisher: Atria Books
Publication Date: April 2, 2013
Genre: New Adult Contemporary
Source: Purchased

Finally, the highly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Beautiful Disaster. Can you love someone too much?

Travis Maddox learned two things from his mother before she died: Love hard. Fight harder.

In Walking Disaster, the life of Travis is full of fast women, underground gambling, and violence. But just when he thinks he is invincible, Abby Abernathy brings him to his knees.

Every story has two sides. In Beautiful Disaster, Abby had her say. Now it’s time to see the story through Travis’s eyes.

Goodreads Summary

My review of Walking Disaster comes with a warning: the book is New Adult and my review isn’t for the young or fainting-types either. I know and respect that this has its fans, so my thoughts are all about the characters and story and not about the readers who’ve liked this. Because Walking Disaster is Beautiful Disaster from another character’s viewpoint, there will obviously be spoilers for that book. Kumbaya, my friends.

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Filed Under: *C Rating, 2013 Ebook Challenge, 2013 New Adult Challenge, Contemporary/Romance, New Adult Tagged With: Jamie McGuire

Review: Dualed (Dualed #1) by Elsie Chapman

March 7, 2013 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 26 Comments

By Elsie Chapman

Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Publication Date: February 26, 2013
Genre: Young Adult Dystopian
Source: Netgalley

You or your Alt? Only one will survive.

The city of Kersh is a safe haven, but the price of safety is high. Everyone has a genetic Alternate—a twin raised by another family—and citizens must prove their worth by eliminating their Alts before their twentieth birthday. Survival means advanced schooling, a good job, marriage—life.

Fifteen-year-old West Grayer has trained as a fighter, preparing for the day when her assignment arrives and she will have one month to hunt down and kill her Alt. But then a tragic misstep shakes West’s confidence. Stricken with grief and guilt, she’s no longer certain that she’s the best version of herself, the version worthy of a future. If she is to have any chance of winning, she must stop running not only from her Alt, but also from love . . . though both have the power to destroy her.

Elsie Chapman’s suspenseful YA debut weaves unexpected romance into a novel full of fast-paced action and thought-provoking philosophy. When the story ends, discussions will begin about this future society where every adult is a murderer and every child knows there is another out there who just might be better.

Goodreads Summary

One of the analogies I’ve been tossing around for Dualed is that it’s like a bag of jelly beans. I like the red, black and white ones but the rest only look pretty and are best left to just sit and harden in the bowl before they get tossed out. For every three elements of the story that I enjoyed, there were three more that disappointed me. Dualed could have been so much more than it was.

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Filed Under: *C Rating, 2013 Debut Author Challenge, 2013 Ebook Challenge, Dystopian, Young Adult Tagged With: Elsie Chapman

Review: Dance of Shadows (Dance of Shadows #1) by Yelena Black

February 15, 2013 by Barbara at Basia's Bookshelf 11 Comments

By Yelena Black

Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Children’s Books
Publication Date: February 14, 2013
Genre: Young Adult Paranormal
Source: Netgalley

Dancing with someone is an act of trust. Elegant and intimate; you’re close enough to kiss, close enough to feel your partner’s heartbeat. But for Vanessa, dance is deadly – and she must be very careful who she trusts . . .

Vanessa Adler attends an elite ballet school – the same one her older sister, Margaret, attended before she disappeared. Vanessa feels she can never live up to her sister’s shining reputation. But Vanessa, with her glorious red hair and fair skin, has a kind of power when she dances – she loses herself in the music, breathes different air, and the world around her turns to flames . . .

Soon she attracts the attention of three men: gorgeous Zep, mysterious Justin, and the great, enigmatic choreographer Josef Zhalkovsky. When Josef asks Vanessa to dance the lead in the Firebird, she has little idea of the danger that lies ahead – and the burning forces about to be unleashed…

Goodreads Summary

Vanessa had always wanted to dance, but it was really her sister’s dream to be a prima ballerina, not hers. She’s left to try to fill her sister’s shoes though, attending an elite New York ballet school that Margaret had attended just before her. Vanessa’s sister mysteriously disappeared from the school, right after she was cast as the lead in the production of Firebird. The explanation nearly everyone seems to be accepting is that she couldn’t take the pressure and ran away, which is a chilling pattern at the school.

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