Review: Impossibly Love

Impossibly Love
Shane Morgan
New Adult Romance

All Moya Douglas wants to do is study hard, maintain her scholarship, and make her mother proud while attending college. She doesn't have time for a boyfriend or going on dates arranged by her best friend. Moya doesn't believe in love. And she has no intention of ever finding it. 

Branden McCarthy is determined to change her views.
A selfless romantic who's had his heart broken in the past, Branden is fascinated with Moya's personality and hopes to develop something real with her—a connection so strong it'll open her heart. But just when things start to work between the two, Branden’s secret threatens to get in the way.

Will Moya finally do the impossible and give love a chance with Branden, or will fear keep them apart?

I received a copy of this book for the tour stop I hosted back in October and I finally got around to reading it. I'm so glad I did! I absolutely loved the author's writing - her word choices were beautiful.

I'm pretty new in the NA genre, and I recommend this book for other readers looking to bridge into the area- Impossibly Love is totally clean and easy to get through even for a younger reader like me.For a relatively short book, a lot happened in it, which made for a well paced and fun read. However, there were certain plot points that I didn't buy. 

For example, I found Moya's feelings about love really understandable considering her past, but I didn't make sense to me that she was completely adamant to not date at all... with horomones running wild in college, that didn't strike me as very realistic. Also, in the novel Branden discovers some dark secrets in his immediate family that in my opinion should have impacted his character or the plot in some way- he didn't react to the information at all. 

Something I liked about the book was that Moya is black, but that it's not stated directly in the book. Since when is the default white?  You only know because of the cover and certain hints. So kudos to you, Shane Morgan.

Rating: 3.5 stars (So I figured out how to cut the star, but it won't save or copy. Go figure.)


Have a great weekend people, and a wonderful spring!
Love,
Esty

Review: Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover

Losing Hope
Colleen Hoover
YA/NA romance + other stuff

Still haunted by the little girl he let walk away, Holder has spent his entire life searching for her in an attempt to finally rid himself of the crushing guilt he has felt for years. But he could not have anticipated that the moment they reconnect, even greater remorse would overwhelm him…

Sometimes in life, if we wish to move forward, we must first dig deep into our past and make amends. In Losing Hope, bestselling author Colleen Hoover reveals what was going on inside Holder’s head during all those hopeless moments—and whether he can gain the peace he desperately needs.

I have been salivating to read a Colleen Hoover book since forever and was overjoyed when I got a copy of Losing Hope from Netgalley. As you can see though, it took me this long to get to it- and man I'm glad I finally did. 

Losing Hope started out so STRONGLY, which was amazing. I'm used to being introduced to the characters and world slowly and gradually, but this novel began with a boom and really added to the emotional strength of the book. 

I haven't read Hopeless, which is Sky's story, and while I absolutely loved Losing Hope and you can read one independently of the other, I did feel that certain bits were missing or needed elaborating, and that's what tipped me off about the companion. Needless to say, IMMEDIATELY ADDED TO TBR. 

Oh my gosh, Holder and Sky each broke my heart with every secret unveiled. The big one is also the obvious one, but don't be fooled like I was- you think you know what's coming, but it's the details that made the plot. My favorite parts were Holder's letters to Les- they were windows into his real pain, and to me there's no beautiful relationship like that of a brother and sister. 

On that note, I was disappointed in that the story stayed focused on Holder and Hope. I understand that is was meant as a companion to Hopeless, but in order for a different POV to be successful in my opinion, it can't just be a repetition of the first one just with the others' thoughts- it needs to be his or her STORY. Therefore I was disappointed with  the book's neglect of Les. We don't know almost anything about her, and being Holder's twin and Sky's best friend and the victim of the same things and *minor spoiler* commits suicide right in the beginning *spoiler over* you'd think she'd warrant a respectable portion of the book. She's there but only because he writes her letters. There are virtually no memories or flashbacks of her at all. 

Likewise, I felt their friends Daniel, Amy, and Thomas should have had more impact on the book. And everyone's parents- they seemed to have good relationships with Holder, Les and Sky and knew a lot of what was going on and yet there's not enough interaction. I would have wanted to hear more about how Holder and his family dealt with the grief- it's a defining factor in his character.

Spoilers Ahead:

In the end of the book, Holder comes to terms with Les's suicide in a way that makes it seem like it was the only thing she could have done. It could be percieved as justifying it. I wasn't happy.

Done Spoiler.

As usual, when the review is long you know it was nice and complex and emotional. Highly recommended!! Rating:



Please check out my first giveaway below! International (:
Love, 
Esty

March Clean Out Your E-Reader!

Hey everyone(: COYER is a reading challenge hosted by Berls at Fantasy is More Fun and Michelle at Because Reading where you read and review free or nearly free ebooks that have been sitting in your e-reader for way too long! Links to the start post above^^

This month I plan to read and review 3 books! Last time I didn't make it.... hoping to rectify that!

Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover





Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mylnowski



Impossibly Love by Shane Morgan




Below is the linky for the start up posts and reviews! Feel free to check up the hosts for the Twitter parties, mini challenges, giveaways and more!
Love,
Esty

An InLinkz Link-up

Review: Pawn

Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion #1)
Aimee Carter
Dystopia

YOU CAN BE A VII. IF YOU GIVE UP EVERYTHING. 

For Kitty Doe, it seems like an easy choice. She can either spend her life as a III in misery, looked down upon by the higher ranks and forced to leave the people she loves, or she can become a VII and join the most powerful family in the country. 

If she says yes, Kitty will be Masked—surgically transformed into Lila Hart, the Prime Minister's niece, who died under mysterious circumstances. As a member of the Hart family, she will be famous. She will be adored. And for the first time, she will matter. 

There's only one catch. She must also stop the rebellion that Lila secretly fostered, the same one that got her killed …and one Kitty believes in. Faced with threats, conspiracies and a life that's not her own, she must decide which path to choose—and learn how to become more than a pawn in a twisted game she's only beginning to understand.

This book got a lot of hype, and while I was weary of that, overall I thought it was justified. FOR YEARS I've been searching for a book that ranks you by your intelligence- it seems to me like it would be humanity's natural course. I mean, isn't that the ruling factor now? Who are the billionaires? Creators of software, social network sites, apps and gadgets.  Basically, I was so happy to read about that system, and thought it was very well done. 

Another aspect I liked about Pawn was that the story was VERY character driven- wasn't a bunch of random stuff thrown at a group of people. Their decisions and actions propelled the plot. And there were a lot of those! I was surprised and thrown off at every corner.

Speaking of characters- I have to say that I loved them, but I didn't feel we, as readers, were able to fully understand them. By the end of the book, I was thoroughly inthralled by them but still had no idea what made them tick. For that alone I look forward to the sequel.

Now for my nitpick: After the big finale, if you will, or the climax, the correct course of action seemed really obvious to me and I think it will be to a lot of readers. Without spoiling anything, I'll just say they should have exposed the whole thing! There was nothing to stop them. Instead the author chose to stretch out the main conflict for another book, totally unnecessarily. I WILL read it, because I did really enjoy this one, but it'll really have to get complicated IN A WAY THAT MAKES SENSE (I'm referring to countless spin-offs that generally throw some problem out of the blue that in real life would probably not happen. *coughs* Sebastian coming back from the dead) .

Rating:

My goal last December when I just started out as to reach 100 GFC followers by the end of 2013. Almost there!! Care to help me?
Love,
Esty

Review: Crashing Into You

Crashing Into You
Katie McGarry
YA contemporary
Pub Date: November 26, 2013

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane 

The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind. 

Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look. 

But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

Ahh, Katie McGarry. Her writing, her pacing, her characters- there's no wonder she's the love of book bloggers' literary life. I absolutely ADORED every second of Dare You To- you can read my review here. HOWEVER, like most of the reviews I have read, I, too, didn't think Crashing Into You reached the perfect beauty of Ryan's and Beth's story. 

Isaiah was a character it was easy to sympathize with. Life has been tough for him, and you can see the lasting effects of that, yet with hard work and strength of character he retained his goodness and his will to make a future for himself. His mistakes are results of desperation. Rachel, on the other hand, seemed naive and childish to me. She often made seriously unwise and life-threatening choices, supposedly in the name of being brave. In addition to that, she had 17 years of life and no friends to show for it- for a girl often described as pretty, rich, and has talent that seems unrealistic. 

Also, Rachel's family contradicted themselves all the time. Her brothers were always overprotective, hated seeing her suffer and wanted to help her, but refuse to let her tell their mother and get help- and not only that, they encouraged her to do what they knew would bring more of her attacks to keep her mother happy. Likewise, her father obliges Rachel everything to keep her mother happy, yet recklessly endangers her life at one point. Whaaaaaa

The following nitpick was smaller than the above 2^^, but bothered me nonetheless- they got into the whole mess because these two random people stole from Eric and Eric blamed them... couldn't that have been worked out somehow? They caved to his demands entirely too easily in my opinion.

REGARDLESS OF ALL THAT, I loved the influence Rachel had on Isaiah, and how he made peace with his mother, social worker, Beth, and the effort he made to build his future. Not to mention the awesome side characters- I'd kill to hear more of Logan, Abby and Courtney. The setting of a racetrack was pretty cool, too. Also, I am now seriously salivating to read Pushing the Limits, which is Noah and Echo's story. 

On a different note, I'd like to bring to your attention the sheer awesomeness of the author- look what she sent me and other lucky participants of her giveaway!
Dare You To ribbon and Crashing Into You bookmark!













Sorry I wasn't around this week much- hopefully this weekend I'll bring you up to speed on what I've recieved. 
Love,
Esty

Clean Out Your E-reader!

Hey everyone!
This month I will be participating in the Clean Out Your E-reader Challenge hosted by Fantasy is More Fun and  Because Reading is better than Real Life. Thank you so much for the chance to participate! Here are the list of free books I plan to read and review this month:

Crash Into You by Katie McGarry
Pawn by Aimee Carter
Losing Hope by Colleen Hoover
Heart Beat by Elizabeth Scott
And if it agrees to download onto my kindle properly- Sekret by Lindsey Smith

Above are from Netgalley. Here is the linky for the blog hop- don't forget to link up to participate in the giveaway! You can enter at the above blogs. Also, there will be a twitter party on November 24th from 7pm – 8pm (CST). "We’ll be using #COYER and will have lots of fun questions for a chance to win swag and even some free books!!! So don’t miss it " (Fantasy is More Fun) Also, check out the tour posts linked above for a list of all the mini challenges and their hosts. So get ready, get set, READ! Enjoy(:

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