Michelle and Leslie's Book Picks

Title; These Things I've Done Author: Rebecca Phillips Hardcover ,  352 pages Published August 1st 2017 by HarperTeen ___________________________ I've been starving for some contemporary jewel this year. So far this has probably been the busiest year of my life so far (and that's saying a lot) and I have read a whooping 4 books so far--and it's friggin April. So I was desperately needing some good quality story to get me out of my funk. These Things I've Done turned out to be the miracle I was hoping for. I didn't even expect it. I haven't even read a blurb for the book so I was on a blind date. It's so shocking to realize you are so compatible with your blind date (not that I have ever been on a blind date before, mind you) that I am still trying to make sense about what happened. The book is about a tragic accident where a girl named Aubrey died. It's about the very different and heartbreaking ways the people closest to her, her best friend Dara an...

Title; Top Ten  Author; Katie Cotugno Hardcover ,  320 pages Expected publication: October 3rd 2017 by Balzer + Bray ____________________________________ Ah. Where to start?   I honestly can't find the words because it almost pains me to say that I did not like this book. I will try to make sense of why now. First of all; the format. What was up with that? The book jumped from time to time without much sense. We'd be reading about senior year and then summer of freshman year, then junior year winter and it wasn't confusing per se (well at least not ALL the time) but it was annoying and pointless. Throughout I kept wanting to fix the damned timeline. Another thing was that I didn't quite connect with either of the main characters. Even their friendship made no sense to me or them it seemed. And not in a way that they shouldn't be friends just like neither of us know if they are friends just because they want to be together. But my biggest problem with it, and I hate ...

Title: Someone Else's Summer Author: Rachel Bateman Publication Date: May 9th, 2017 Goodreads | Amazon ______________________ I liked the premise of Someone Else’s Summer: girl sets off to do her dead sister’s bucket summer list and enlists the help of her sister’s best male friend. At first I thought the premise was simple and straight-forward and I was in the mood for some of that. But then, things not always turn out how you expect them and the book had more layers than I initially thought. Now I am not a fan of books where they spend all the time reminiscing about a dead character I never met. That was one of my problems with this one too. Like how all the time Anna and Cameron would be: “You know how Storm was!” and I would be: No, I don’t know, move on please. But that’s just the natural progression of grieve, so I let it slide. Even though I just was told that Storm was great and I never got to see why. Also everyone else, from the parents to the aunt to Anna’s best friend ...

Title: Lucky Girl  Author: Amanda Maciel Expected publication: April 25th 2017 by Balzer & Bray GOODREADS | _________________________ You know I hate trashing books. That's just not classy. But I also hate not being honest. So I am going to take the easy way out: This book was not for me. I guess I just thought this book was going to be something entirely different. Somehow I pictured a story about redemption. You know, because the main character is supposed to be this super gorgeous girl, so I thought, I don't know, that the book would focus on agreeing why looks are meaningless. But no. I basically had to sit through ten thousand paragraphs that were a variation of "I'm so gorgeous", "Everyone stares at me because I'm so gorgeous", "I wish everyone would stop reminding me how gorgeous I am". And I'm not even kidding. I was like, I got it the first time you said it can we move on? But we hardly moved on so I basically endured the ...

Title: Fireworks  Author: Katie Cotugno Expected publication: April 18th 2017  by HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray GOODREADS / AMAZON  ___________________________ I have a love/hate relationship with Katie Cotugno. I love her books but I hate that I do. I hate it because she writes about everything I hate, like love triangles or siblings fighting or best friends falling out and all that stuff that makes me sad. I don't like that I enjoy everything she writes even though her stories tear me apart. But I keep coming, like a dumb moth to a flame. I grabbed an ARC of Fireworks as soon as I saw it, without knowing anything about it. Zero knowledge about the story except that it was written about Cotugno and apparently that was enough. Now onto business. Honestly, I enjoyed every second of this book. From the fact that it was set in the 90's, to the fact that it was about girl bands and boy bands (that makes it larger than life, you know?) it was all so bloody entertaining. It...

Review:  Just A Girl  Author: Carrie Mesrobian Expected publication: March 28th 2017 by HarperCollins Goodreads . Amazon __________________________ After finishing Just A Girl all I can say is that it was, hmm, interesting. It was definitely attention-grabbing, if only because it was such a trainwreck. And I don't mean it in a bad way exactly, but not in a good one either. It's hard to explain why this book was not what I thought but I'll try. First of all, I thought it was going to be about a girl who is just having fun with her life. But Rianne was not having fun, or it didn't seem to me she was. She pretended to be happy while all the time she was a big emotional mess. It was awful to witness. Second, Rianne had a friend who was a big witch yet it literally made no difference to Rianne. I just don't get why Rianne would want to, and keep trying to, stay friends with a girl who is responsible for the whole school basically calling Rianne a slut. That's just w...

Title: The End Of Our Story  Author: Meg Haston Expected publication: April 4th 2017 by HarperTeen GOODREADS | AMAZON _________________________ Disclaimer: Hello friends. I decided that this book is basically this song in story form. So if you want, you can listen to it while reading my review. If you don't want that, please don't do it just because I said so.  So, as I read the last chapter of The End Of Our Story I have mixed feelings. There isn't a single chapter in the book that didn't depress me. Seriously it was all an avalanche of sadness. And yet. Yet I kind of liked it. The writing was very lyrical and the character's background story was my favorite part. You know how I am a sucker for bestfriends turned something more, and this story had plenty of that. Bridge and Wil had been each other's closest friends for a long time, they were even a couple at some point. But situation after situation have kept them apart for a year. A year where things unravel...