Kids Books - Romance

What Happened to Goodbye by Sarah Dessen is a really inspirational book. Mclean Sweet is the main character of the story. Her parents divorced two years ago when her mom cheated on her dad. The betrayal left Mclean very angry and she was unsure of her true identity. She moved to different towns with her dad because of his job, and to escape the past, she reinvented herself at every school. She was never Mclean, she had been Beth, Lizbeth, and Eliza, but when she moved to Lakeview, she couldn’t escape her true identity - Mclean. This book is different from other Sarah Dessen books where a “hero” saves the main character. In What Happened to Goodbye, Mclean saved herself and fixed her relationship with her mom. Mclean lets her anger out and isn’t scared to rebel for the right of her own choice. It felt positive and I was cheering her on.

I had mixed feelings about this book. There were parts I like and there were parts I hated. So, I'll split this review into what I liked and what I didn't like. Starting on a good note, what I liked: Big one for me - character growth. I could see a steady progression of growth in Sonya throughout the book. Revolution theme. Seeing the rising of a revolution and the problems that arose with it. World building. I really got a sense of the countries and cultures. What I didn't like: The inconsistentness of Sonya's 6th sense. For example, in the beginning Sonya feels the anger/hunger of the peasants at the gate of her convent and it controls her to the point that she ultimately kills her friends. Then later she has no (mostly but I'll get to that later) problem controlling her emotions in just as high emotional situations. The only time she can't control her emotion 6th sense is when the emperor feels any passionate/lusty type emotion toward her. She's then all over him later blaming her 6th sense for the lack of resistance. The books focus was much more on her love interests then it was on revolutionary plot or that there were starving people in the world. Lastly, for Sonya having killed her friends in the beginning of the book, she got over it pretty fast. She "punished" herself by holding a statue with her friend's blood on it (she can feel the pain of her dead friend through the blood). But that stopped even before a quarter of the book was done. Aesthetic note: For me the book was really a three part book. The first part was between the convent and arriving at the castle, the second was arriving at castle and finishing reading the poetry book, and the third part was between finishing the poetry book and the end of the book. I had an ARC so maybe there was a page that said part 1, part 2, and part 3, but if not, it would have been a nice physical transitional between the grown of the character.

Do you like historical fiction with time traveling and a smidge of romance? If that sounds like you don't bother reading my review any farther and just go pick up Into the Dim and enjoy it. I'd give Into the Dim 3 1/2 stars. At first, Hope (main character) was a claustrophobic, fearful, jittery mess that would have a panic attack at the thought of closed spaces. For me it didn't work - I was annoyed at the beginning when it seemed like every other thought was about how fragile she was. Finally, the panicky thoughts toned down and Hope got a little moxie. My other problem was that Hope didn't ask any questions. There were lots of strange things going on such as a secret room in the broom closet or her mom in a picture wearing a toga and she just shrugged them off like it's totally normal. When she did try to ask a question the other characters would change the subject or ignore her. She would not push for an answer even when it was obvious they were lying. This brings up my other issue - predictability. Hope didn't find out about time travel until about 50% into the book. Readers know about the time travel aspect from the beginning thanks to the book's summary, "...also a member of a secret society of time travelers." Having read Into the Dim, I can tell that the author has spend a great deal of time on researching the eras and infused the book with interesting facts such as kings and queens weren't called "your Majesty" until Henry VII's reign they were just referred to as "your Grace". I also enjoyed the romance between Hope and Bran. It was very cutesy and wasn't the main focus of the book. I would say that it wasn't insta-love only because of the backstory at the end of the book. Intrigued? Read the book. My favorite character was Phoebe, I wish she would have been the main character instead of Hope. She had a much better personality (so much more spunk) and I love her blue hair. Last problem with Into the Dim was that some of the scenes seemed cheesy, especially the fight scene with Eleanor in her bedroom. Might have just been me but... Anyway Into the Dim is worth reading. I was entertained and I enjoyed it which is what you look for in a book. *Thank you to NetGalley and HMH Books for Young Readers for allowing me to read this book.

When Jessica's ex-spy father took another ML6 case, vanishes mysteriously, and ML6 refuses to help, Jessica Cole has been forced to deal with it all. Armed with a full makeup bag of high tech gagbets, Jessica finds her way to the AKSC skincare company. She was there to find her father and her father's target, Sam Bishop. While Jessica was undercover, she had no idea that she was set up by mysterious "Starfish". It's time for Jessica to prove that she can do more than just strike a pose. Cole must take on the bad guys and beat the spies at their own game. Throughout this page turning novel, Jessica learned to be confident, to fly on her own, and understood clearly who she truly is. Even though this book is not one of my favorites, I am still so grateful to read it. I wasn't sure whether to start this book or not since I'm not a big fan of spy stories. But after reading this book, I'm in love with action and spying novels. I would recommend this book to mostly everyone. It is always best to try new genres and a new style of reading.

I NEED TO READ!!!!!!!!

Looks Interesting!

When I read the title Nemesis, I'm expecting the book to have hatred, anger, or maybe vengeance theme to it. Some wrong that turned people against each other or created an archenemy. Something that actually requires the word nemesis. Yet, the book's only reason for the title nemesis is that a group of people split from Serubel kingdom some hundreds of years ago to create the kingdom Theoria and Serubel kingdom lost the war to bring the Theorian people back. So, basically the Serubelians are sore losers. Of course now the main character (Sepora) must be enemies with the rival kingdom. That could be a good reason for the rivalry but the main character seems to have no real emotion of hate (or really any emotion at all) against the other kingdom Theoria. Story plot: Sepora's father wants to use her ability to make a energy containing metal to make weapons against other kingdoms and take them over. Because she feels this is wrong Sepora flees Serubel. After fleeing she is captured by stereotypical thieves (two bothers - one is the brains of the operation and one is the muscle and stupid) and sold to the king. By the way, Serpora traveling the desert, getting captured, and sold (and the plague going through the kingdom) takes up 44% of the book. After being sold to the king, Sepora is appointed to be the chief adviser's servant where she sells out her kingdoms secrets without a second thought (reason why the title Nemesis doesn't make sense). The king and Sepora (of course because it was advertised on the cover) fall in love. The book's plot is pretty obvious from the blurb of Nemesis. You know how the book will go even before you start reading it. My recommendation is to read the blurb if it sounds like a book you'd like - read it. Just because it is such a transparent blurb. Fans of Anna Banks previous books will enjoy Nemesis. It's writing style and flavor is exactly like her other books. I know the author has no part in designing the book cover but the cover does not go with the book at all. It looks like it should be with an alien story - just saying. I guess it's to show that Sepora makes a silver metallic metal... *Thank you to NetGalley and Feiwel & Friends for the opportunity to read this book.

I loved Allie Carters books and now this is my new favorite!

If you love romance and adventure, The Next Together is the perfect book for you. This book takes you through a journey of two lovers, Katherine and Matthew. Even though they both love each other very dearly, their destiny always seem to challenge them by letting them born again and again in different periods of time and destination. Each time they are born, their relationship and status changes, however in the end they still fall helplessly in love but forced to separate. So together, Katherine and Matthew have to solve this mystery to successfully get together and live their happily ever after. The main key of this book that fascinates and attracts me is that the ideas are all so creative and new. During each life the characters encounter different conflicts but they still all somehow relate back to each other. Reading it also brings deep thoughts such as the real meaning of true love and the cycle of birth and death. Even though the story switches from one life to another, the author manages to use different text features such as the font to keep it clear for the readers. So I was not confused and frustrated while reading, instead it’s like a simulation of time-traveling between the pages a book. My favorite part of the reading process would be observing how each time Katherine and Matthew fail only to learn even more. For example, as the number of times they reborn increases, the more clues they receive about this mysterious reincarnation. In the end they are still tragically separated, but it leads to a better possibility and opportunity next life. This proves that you should never let failure bring you down, because we learn from our own mistakes. It’s alright to have errors as long as you try your best to improve and learn from them. Therefore, I would sincerely recommend this book to my peers and everyone else. The Next Together is a book that will take you through experiences of heartbreak, true love, magic and miracles.

The book The Sound of Letting go, is a beautiful, well written book. This book is, realistic fiction  and written by Stasia Ward Kehoe. I give this book 5 star rating because of the connections that I made with it and the main character Daisy  is kind of similar to me. I think this book  is really good and I'd read it again.   the main character, Daisy, she's a good student daughter and sister, she's got great grades and  plays her horn beautifully. She hates to blow off her friends to help her mom with her autistic  brother, Steven but she knows that her parents work to hard and deserve a little bit of freedom.  But she is soon told by her parents that Steven will be sent to a new school where he will sleep,  eat and well, live, and with Steven being her only brother she doesn't take this very well. She  starts to wear dark clothes and makeup and she's blowing off her classes. Her friends start to  worry about her, but she gets annoyed and tells them to mind there own business.