Book Review: My Dark Romeo by Parker S. Huntington & LJ Shen

My Dark Romeo by Parker S. Huntington & LJ Shen

Quote: 

"They say fate is nothing but the consequences of our decisions. Well, I planned on being the worst thing fate ever had in store for him."

Book Review: Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Divine Rivals by Rebecca Ross

Quote: 

"I think we all wear armor. I think those who don't are fools risking the pain of being wounded by the sharp edges of the world, over and over again. But if I've learned anything from those fools, it's that to be vulnerable is a strength most of us fear. It takes courage to let down your armor, to welcome people to see as you are. Sometimes I feel the same as you: I can't risk having people behold me as I truly am. But there's also a small voice in the back of my mind, a voice that tells me, "You will miss so much by being so guarded." 

Perhaps it begins with one person. Someone you trust. You remove a piece of armor for them; you let the light stream in, even if it makes you wince. Perhaps that is how you learn to be soft yet strong, even in fear and uncertainty. One person, one piece of steel."

Book Review: Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter

Mr. Wrong Number by Lynn Painter

Quote:

"She was less shitshow and more about living in high-definition, wide-awake, full-on color. Or something more poetic than that. But once I'd seen it, I couldn't unsee it. It was in everything she did, and it was why everyone was drawn to her the way they were." 

Book Review: Normal People by Sally Rooney

Normal People by Sally Rooney

Quote:

"Most people go though their whole lives, Marianne thought, without ever really feeling that close with anyone."

Book Review: Funny Story by Emily Henry

Quote:

"I honestly can't totally figure out why someone as good as you would love me, when I can be kind of a pessimistic asshole. But I do feel the luckiest person in the world, to be who you want. Because I want you too. I love you too. I love you in a way that feels brand-new. You make every single thing that went wrong feel like it was just a step in the right direction, and it makes me excited. For life to keep surprising me. You aren't what I pictured. You are so, so, so much better than what my cynical little brain could've ever come up with."

Book Review: Bride by Ali Hazelwood

Bride by Ali Hazelwood

 Quote:

"But at times, there are decisions that feel right, deep in the marrow of my bones. You are one of them"

Blurb:  Misery Lark, the only daughter of the most powerful Vampyre councilman of the Southwest, is an outcast - again. Her days of living in anonymity among the Humans are over: she has been called upon to uphold an historic peacekeeping alliance between the Vampyres and their mortal enemies, the Weres, and sees little choice but to surrender herself in the exchange - again. 

Book Review: Powerful "A Heart-Wrenching Novella"

 

Powerful by Lauren Roberts

Quote: 

"She is an intoxicating sort of exhausting, like running until you've lost your breath but enjoying the feeling all the while. And I feel as though I've been sprinting for days. Even worse, I fear that I am, in fact, beginning to enjoy her."   

 

Blurb:   Adena and Paedyn have always been inseparable. Fate brought them together when they were young, but friendship ensured they would always protect each other and the home they built in the slums of Loot. But now Paedyn - an Ordinary - has been selected for the Purging Trials, which means almost certain death.

Now alone in Loot, Adena must fend for herself. After attempting to steal, it's a mysterious man from the market who comes to her rescue. Mak's shadowy past and secretive power set him apart from the other low- level Elites of Loot. And as the pair team up to see their loved ones before the Trials, the quest tests their loyalty, their love, and their lives. 

Book Review: AGGTM- A Must-Read Thriller That Lives Up to the Hype!

A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

 Quote: 

"She couldn't look at him. Couldn't look at his kind-without-trying face, or at the perfect smile he shared with his brother, or his eyes so brown and deep you could fall right into them. So she didn't look."

 

Blurb:  Five years ago, schoolgirl Andie Bell was murdered by Sal Singh. The police know he did it.
Everyone in town knows he did it.

But having grown up in the same small town that was consumed by the murder, Pippa Fitz-Amobi isn't so sure. When she chooses the case as the topic for her final-year project, she starts to uncover secrets that someone in town desperately wants to stay hidden. And if the real killer is still out there, how far will they go to keep Pip from the truth?

Shatter Me #1 by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Quote: 

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books. In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.”

 

Blurb: A fragile teenage girl is held captive. Locked in a cell by The Reestablishment, a harsh dictatorship in change of a crumbling world. But Juliette is no ordinary teenager - one touch from her can kill. 

The Reestablishment wants to use her as a weapon. But Juliette has other plans. After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovered the strength to fight back - and to find a future with the one person she thought she'd lost forever... 

Book Review: The American Roommate Experiment

The American Roommate Experiment by Elena Armas

Quote:

"I've missed you since you stepped out of this apartment, hours ago. And I had missed you for a long time before then, Lucas."

Blurb: Rosie Graham has a problem. A few, actually. First, she quit her well paid job to focus on her secret career as a romance writer, only to enter a creative slump. Then the ceiling of her New York apartment falls in. To make matters worse, when she heads to her best friend's apartment, she finds that Lina has already lent the studio to her cousin Lucas, who Rosie has been - for lack of a better word - stalking on Instagram. 

When Lucas suggests that they share the small space, Rosie discovers that he strolls around the place on a towel, has a distracting grin, an irresistible accent and cooks meals that are just as tempting. Then he learns about Rosie's writer's block and proposes an outrageous idea: he'll take her on a series of experimental dates to reignite her literary muse. 

This shouldn't be a problem because Lucas's stay in New York also has a deadline. But she might find it hard to write now the research is so much more fun... 

Book Review: A Little Life

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Quote: "You won't understand what I mean now, but someday you will: the only trick of friendship, I think, is to find people who are better than you are - not smarter, not cooler, but kinder, and more generous, and more forgiving - and then to appreciate them for what they can teach you, and try to listen to them when they tell you something about yourself, no matter how bad - or good - it might be, and to trust them, which is the hardest thing of all. But the best, as well."

Blurb: When four classmates from a small Massachhussetts college move to New York to make their way, they're broke, adrift, and buoyed only by their friendship and ambition. There is kind, handsome Willem, an aspiring actor; JB, a quick-witted, sometimes cruel painter pursuing fame in the art world; Malcolm, a frustrated architect at a prominent firm; and withdrawn, brilliant, enigmatic Jude, who serves as their centre of gravity. 

Over the decades, their relationship deepen and darken, tinged by addiction, success, and pride. Yet their greatest challenge, each comes to realize, is Jude himself; by midlife a terrifyingly talented lawyer yet an increasingly broken man, his mind and body scarred by an unspeakable childhood, and haunted by a degree of trauma that he fears he will not only be unable to overcome - but that will define his life forever. 

In a novel of extraordinary intelligence and heart, Yanagihara has fashioned a masterful depiction of heartbreak, and a dark and haunting examination of the tyranny of experience and memory.