Triple ARC Review: Those Girls - Lauren Saft

Those Girls
Lauren Saft 
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary
Release Date: June 9, 2015
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers: Poppy
Rating: 1 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

Thanks to Little, Brown Books for Young Readers for the eARC I received via Netgalley!

The more I think about this book, the more I dislike it.

Those Girls is about three girls who are "friends" and what they go through as their junior year progresses. Each of these girls is facing her own problem: Mollie is having trouble keeping her boyfriend interested in her, Veronica is trying to shed her reputation for being easy, and Alex is trying to deal with the guy she's in love with dating someone else. This all sounds fine and like it could potentially be interesting since the three friends are keeping these secrets from each other; however, things soon go horribly terribly wrong.

I was intrigued by this premise of three friends at odds with each other, but as I started reading Those Girls, I realized that the actual premise was different from what I thought it would be. These characters all come from pretty well off families and attend an all girls prep school. When they're not at school, they're pretty much always partying, smoking weed, or having sex.

On some level, I was intrigued because it seemed like it would have a Gossip Girl vibe; however, even though it's similar, Those Girls misses the mark in being a Gossip Girl-esque story in many ways. One thing that I think made Gossip Girl so great was the metropolitan high life aspect - the characters had some class. On the other hand, Those Girls took place in a suburb and it felt like a small town full of spoiled kids. The other main thing that was a problem was that the main characters of Those Girls were horrible people. Sure, the characters of Gossip Girl weren't saints, but the characters of Those Girls rarely redeemed themselves for their poor behavior. Combining their behavior with their everyday setting, the characters of Those Girls can't be forgiven as much as those of Gossip Girl.

The one character who sometimes showed some redeeming qualities was Alex. I didn't particularly like Mollie or Veronica, even at the very beginning - I found it really hard to connect with them - but at least Alex seemed like a real, relatable character for most of the book. If it were up to me, I'd probably have a book just about Alex and remove her friends. Yes, it would be a bit cliché - girl in love with best friend since forever - but at least it would remove her horrible friends who make her do horrible things.

Did I mention that Mollie and Veronica were horrible? I don't want to spoil anything for anyone who might want to read this book, but all three of these girls have awful double standards and do things to each other that makes one question if they're really friends at all. I guess in some ways Lauren Saft succeeded in showing how horrible people interact and somehow are still friends for whatever reason, but it felt more like trying for shock and horror rather than actually exposing the wrongs of society. Especially with the ending of this book, where the girls are still friends but are still horrible people and it doesn't make any sense how they even forgave each other because THEY'RE HORRIBLE.

I feel really bad about this review. (Amrutha's mom calls me the "Paula" of WLABB). I hate writing negative reviews because I know someone put their heart and soul into writing the book I am bashing, but I can't help ranting over this one. The thing is, I can't say that there was absolutely nothing good about this book - after all, I did finish it. There were moments where I saw the characters actually growing and escaping from the things that made them horrible, but ultimately they remained horrible, one of them even losing the person that made her less horrible.

As a character based reader, the thing that kept me from liking this book was the horrible characters (horrible in the sense that they have poor moral standards, not in the sense that they are poorly written). I didn't like what these characters did to each other, and I didn't like how someone could read this book and potentially think that their actions were ok in the end. I think there are people who could really enjoy this book; I'm just not one of them.

- Kiersten

Noor's Review
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Those Girls was honestly so whack -- I didn't like the book, Amrutha didn't like book, Kiersten really didn't like the book -- she rated it a full star lower than both Amrutha and I, which usually doesn't happen because she feels bad being mean. It isn't enough to just give it a low star rating and move on though because I have such a strange mix of emotions about this book (not mixed feelings, I know I'm not a fan of it) -- I was entertained enough to keep reading and it wasn't one of those books where you force yourself to make it through page after grueling page so you can bash it. I might not have enjoyed the book but it kept me mentally occupied enough that I could feel what I was reading and wanted to know where the story was progressing, if you could call these storylines progress. But anyway, I didn't force myself to finish it. And then, the very first page of the book, I thought the voice was gonna be all weird and awkward sounding and shift tenses because there were a few phrases in the first few paragraphs that I guess I just wouldn't have had there and I was bracing myself for a super poorly composed novel but then that quickly changed and the actual writing composition was fine for the most part although the character voices were intriguing not in that they were poorly written but just in what they said about each other.

Anyway, thats about it for my mixed feelings, let's move on to what I'm certain of: why the book wasn't good. One of the biggest things was the characters. Alex, Veronica, and Mollie are all juniors in high school and honestly don't act like it at all. They're also supposed to be best friends but they like, hate each other and are catty and rude and it's all really extra and hella OD. In one of the scenes in the very beginning -- this is the first day of school, I'm pretty sure -- Mollie's internal monologue describes Alex as such:

"I watched Alex talk to the seniors, all her clothes hanging off her like she couldn't be bothers to actually put them on, but just mustered the energy to drape herself in whatever stained, wrinkled item was lying on her closet floor."

Like, rude much? And there's so much of this. From all three of them. I get sometimes you feel trapped in your friendships blahblahblah but honestly if you three hate each other this much just get out of this already. Alex already has a guy best friend (who she's in love with in case you didn't pick up on it on one of the times she mentioned it every five seconds), Mollie and Veronica have other friends who invite them to parties and stuff. They'd deal.

I've read novels with purposefully unlikeable protagonists. I've read novels where I just personally didn't like the main character and most people did. This is a different case altogether. In this book, none of the characters are even remotely redeemable, even by the end (sorry spoiler alert not that sorry) and they aren't unlikeable for any sort of reason other than they just are because they're annoying people and that's how they roll. And honestly, I could read a book with terrible main characters. I can suck it up. But this book just has so much weird content as well. I'm the last person to regulate anyone's use of anything or attendance of anything but this book overdoes the parties and illegal substances and relationships and all that stuff to such an extent that I just don't want to read about it anymore and the main characters start to annoy me because of their associations with their actions.

Also, Amrutha mentions this in her review, but Mollie and Veronica have the same voice. It really bothered me that if she was going to use different voice she couldn't have bothered to flesh them out. Adding profanity to Mollie's voice does not make give her depth and dimension and gets very old very fast. In the beginning, I thought Veronica was nuanced and wasn't bothered but the more I read the more I felt like they were essentially the same voice. Also, even though Alex's voice remained recognizably different doesn't mean I liked her character. I wasn't a fan of the way she mentioned her love for her best friend so often. Like there's one scene where she says "I knew he wasn't intentionally putting his arm around me, but I liked to pretend that he was. I liked to think that if someone had seen us right then at that moment, they might have thought we were a couple." His arm was reaching for the back of her headrest so he could reverse because that's how you reverse that's like driving 101. Please tell me I'm not the only one who sees a problem with this. It'd be ok if it was a few times but every time he's even a little bit near or thinks about being near she gets like this. It's ridiculous.

Overall, it was a largely unsatisfying book and the characters were all really annoying but there are some gems in there (like not quality, like to laugh at and wonder how it got published gems) so if you want to read it go for it.

- Noor

Amrutha's Review
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Wow, as the Simon of WLABB (Kiersten is Paula as mentioned above, and yes we are referencing the glory days of American Idol), it is a little embarrassing for me to admit that there is a book that Kiersten hates more than I do. But who'd have thought, I didn't hate this book /that/ much. Let's get started:

First of all, I got this book at BEA 2015, making this the very first BEA book I'm reviewing for this year! Also, I met Lauren Saft and she signed this book to me, captioned "I hope your friends are nicer than those girls," which, is, to say the least, something that anyone with even the most basic sense of humanity should hope for anyone else. I wouldn't wish the main characters of this novel on anyone.

So this book is about three girls who are all mildly sociopathic, from the get go calling their best friends sluts and bitches and whatever worse spoilery insult they could think of. God, just reading their descriptions of each other was exhausting. I went into this expecting friend drama and some backstabbing and boy trouble but this was another level of horrible. As Kiersten has touched upon above, it is impossible to like a book where all of the main characters are so unrelatable and just plain mean.

That being said, I did think they were fairly well constructed and for a while even seemed like character development was happening (although ultimately I didn't like how any of them turned out), it is clear that the characters were not neither static nor poorly written.

HOWEVER, while the actual characters themselves were not constructed poorly, the representation of their Point of Views was. This book would have been so much better off in third person omnipresent, because this author just struggled to differentiate between the distinct voices of the three main characters. Alex was easily the most distinguishable (incidentally, also the most tolerable of the three, so I'm thinking Lauren Saft had a particular affinity for her). Then there was Molly who basically is the exact same as Veronica, except she says the word "fucking" every sentence. I'm not kidding, I'm not sure why anyone who was involved in the publishing of this book didn't once think "huh, I think adding in one curse word into every sentence of an otherwise undistinguishable chapter to create the illusion of a point of view is a ridiculously transparent idea and we should work on melding this character into having her own voice." While I understand each of these girls are meant to share their cruel and downright unbelievable mindsets, I think having separate PoV chapters begs actually separate point of views.

Other than these major points of the well constructed but poorly developed and poorly voiced characters, this book was entirely mediocre. It contained at least one unpredictable plot point, which was added some ~interest~ and ~pizzazz~ to the book but all in all, just genuinely mediocre. Girls keep secrets. Girls get high and have sex and party it up, and somehow, their secrets unravel. Girls get hurt. Possible character development. No character development. Girls suck. Basically, that is the summation of this entire novel. Entirely uninteresting with a few pitfalls, but ultimately not bad enough that I feel the need to trash it all of the internet.

It was eh. If you want to read it, by all means, just try to remember that the characters might almost develop and not for a reason -- sometimes, I guess that happens in real life. It's just wholly unsatisfying to read about it in fiction, especially with these characters.

- Amrutha

Do you like books about mean girls?

Let us know in the comments!

Review: Tape - Steven Camden

Tape
Steven Camden
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

I picked up Tape as an ARC at BEA 2014, which was almost a year ago so it hasn't been an ARC since it's publication in September, which is why it fulfilled the requirement to be chosen as "an old ARC you never got to" for my January pick from my TBR Jar. Yes, I know it's April. I know I'm behind. Judge me all you want, this is the most stressed I've ever been in my life and now I have to deal with looking for internships and moving and -- okay, I'm going to save the ranting about my life for Life of a Blogger posts.

Anyway, you might recognize this title from Amrutha's Stuffed Animal Saturday at the end of January. Looking back at that post, the book seemed so much more promising than it turned out to be, but that post was just also hilariously off the mark. I suppose you can't blame her, she is a simple dolphin after all. *cue someone telling me that dolphins are smarter than humans and the word simple is offensive*

Okay, we're getting off track here (okay, I'm getting off track here), there is a two star rating that needs to be addressed. This book could have been so much. Just look at that cover. It's beautiful enough to be my February TBR (read a book solely judging by its cover). And the blurb promises a story of "two teenagers separated by time but infinitely connected." A story that "to really get it, you just have to read it." Well, I read it, and there are parts I still don't get.

Like the tape itself. For some background, Ryan and Ameliah are our two main characters and the story alternates between their storylines, Ryan's in the 90's, Ameliah's in the present day. Ameliah has found, in her attic, a stash of old audio tapes, many of which are static, but some of which relay the voice of a boy sometimes saying her mom's name and telling her stories. Ryan, meanwhile, is often found recording tapes for his mom, but also sometimes for other purposes. There comes a point in which they both say something into their respective cassette playing devices and they end up being able to hear the other. Woah, weird, right? Twenty year gap, but this is happening, and I can totally roll with it because hey this is a book, and books have magic or science fiction or weird happenings all the time. Except it literally never happens again until the like the last two pages and it's never addressed and it doesn't have any bearing on the plot whatsoever. And the entire rest of this book is set in reality with no magic or time travel or anything that isn't realistic fiction and it just irritates me so much that there are these three pages in the whole book that have these useless scenes that I could honestly rip out and nothing would be lost upon the next reader (I won't do that I can't damage books it's against my moral code). What was the purpose of that????? If you were going to make that a thing, why didn't they talk to each other regularly, or find out some deep intricate plot secrets from one another, or I don't know, this could have gone so many ways. Honestly, it should have just been taken out, it seemed thrown in as an afterthought but it so clearly wasn't.

However, that's not my only issue with the book. The beginning was just so hard to get through. And by beginning I mean like the first half. I keep saying it took me so long to read it because I haven't had time but I think it's also very much because even when I did have time this book was so dry that after a few pages I would just put it down and do something else. The writing was just so monotonous and boring and everything was described in weird ways. It wasn't too detailed or anything, it just wasn't memorable writing, I honestly can't remember anything except for the fact that he overused the phrase "he/she puffed out his/her" cheeks" way too much and started to bother me so much I would get genuinely angry when I saw it. What does that even mean? I tried puffing out my cheeks and it does not express any of the emotions the characters are showing when they are doing that, which is every emotion because he uses it when they're confused, frustrated, happy, sad, upset, curious, thinking, talking, deliberating, anything really. I tried reconciling it in my head by imagining them like blowing air out their mouths but kindof through their cheeks if you can picture that but that connotes frustration so it wasn't applicable everywhere but it got me through.

Anyway, the first half was spent mostly just introducing the characters and talking about their lives and it was honestly just, like I already mentioned, dry and not fun to read, and I could feel myself waiting for the stories to connect so I could find something to be interested in or at least want to follow. I don't know why it took so long, there are only like three and a half characters probably. But so much time was spent on irrelevant things and it felt like it moved so slow and nothing really happened. By the time things picked up, I had already figured out the big reveal (it wasn't hard you probably already know) and even the twist at the end with Joe wasn't hard considering there were one of two possibilities for him.

The characters for the most part felt dull but they had their moments (not enough moments to warrant more than two stars). Ryan and Eve felt kinda insta-love but it wasn't too too bad where I'd harp on it like I can see where it can also be kinda "13 year old boy sees 13 year old girl and they think the other is cute and then they talk and they're like wow we are in love" because that's how kids are I just remember 13 year olds being not very forthright about this stuff but what do I know I'm like an old lady (no I'm not I'm 12) and also it's a book who cares. You know who was definitely insta-love? This might be a spoiler, so like, avert your eyes? Ameliah and that supermarket boy. What was that? So cheesy and lame and I'm all for cheesy and lame all the time. Spoiler over by the way. Anyway, speaking of Ameliah, she felt like a shell of a character, and so did Heather, like they both had stock personalities with nothing built upon that. Those aren't characters I enjoy reading. Ryan and Nathan were pretty cliched as well and their development happened too abruptly but I liked that it happened and I liked their stories more than Ameliah's up until the end when she started learning about what happened. Overall, the book was kindof a mess and there are definitely more things I could pick on but if this gets too long no one will read it.

Also, the last thing I want to comment on is I suppose a personal problem but I just really did not like the formatting of the book at all. My biggest problem was that none of the dialogue (which, by the way, was dry and boring and forced) was in quotes! Instead, there were just em dashes ( -- ) used to signify someone was speaking but there was no "he said" or "she said" or like labeling or person talking so you just had to figure out who was talking and sometimes in a conversation someone got two em dashes in a row or three and it was just???????? Also, more minor than that, I didn't like the typeface chosen for neither Ryan nor Ameliah's parts and I didn't like how they looked next to each other. I thought they very much clashed. Like this book did with my brain.

- Noor
 

Amrutha's Review of Tape

Rating: 1.5 out of 5 Stars

If any of you read my stuffed animal saturday (linked above) this past January and accidentally purchased this book based on my analysis of the first three pages, I AM SO SORRY. Again, like many books, it sadly has only a nice cover and very little else to offer. I also got this book at BEA 2014 and like Noor school and classes and internships and things are literally the realest struggle. 

Okay so it has been well established that one of my least favorite things are static characters, which Noor touched upon above. Our homegirl Ameliah literally has the most static stock personality of all time, and none of the supporting characters are much better. Like actually, from the blurb if nothing else, I expected some quirky traits to signify the difference in time but no not even that was given to us. Again, S I G H. Also there is instalove which happens with both the main characters (Ameliah and Ryan) on two different occasions so like ???????? if it /absolutely/ has to happen once I guesssss that's maybe understandable (not really but better than doing it twice). 

Okay so like even if we ignore all of my preferences about books and characters such as non-stereotypical/cliched/static characters and instalove and really awkward mushy I-tried-to-sound-like-a-middle-schooler-in-love-but-failed language, we literally cannot ignore the plot. First things first, the tape was like almost completely irrelevant to the story, which Noor touched on above. Honestly if the book wasn't named tape they could have easily changed this any which way and had the plot really not deviate from where it already is at all -- this should be a sign that the book in question cannot be good, because changing the (what is implied to be) central plot point of the story and still having the same story is just ???????no. 

Because of this, the actual story was a little annoying to follow because I have no idea how this tape playing at the same time worked -- because everything else was so realistic I was like ????? is just just magic should I just accept this or will there be more and just overall it was just really poorly explained. If there is going to be a magic aspect to the book at least explain it, and also that might have made the tape part a little more necessary to the plot. 

Also, Noor said this, but the layout of the book was just kind of ugly for me, in that there are no quotes but dashes instead, making it really hard for me to read through and know who was talking at all times. Also the dual point of view was a little awk in this just because it'd be one chapter with two points of view and sometimes I'd forget who we had switched to and the lack of quotes and indication of who's talking did not help. 

All in all, good cover, but I vote no on the plot. 

P.S. Tape is super predictable like super super predictable like I'm almost 100% sure you guessed what the connection between Ryan and Ameliah is from the blurb or review or the first part of the book. 

Have you ever made anyone a mix tape?
Let us know in the comments!

Double ARC Review: Anatomy of a Misfit - Andrea Portes

Anatomy of a Misfit
Andrea Portes
Series: N/A
Genre: Young Adult
Release Date: September 14th, 2014
Rating: 1.25 out of 5 Stars
Word Rating: :'( boo
Goodreads | Amazon | Book Depository

THE ONLY GOOD THING ABOUT THIS BOOK IS THE TITLE. TURN BACK NOW. DON'T TRY TO READ IT.

Geez. Where do I even start with this. I was so SO excited for Anatomy of a Misfit when I got it at BEA 2014, because lets be real, it has an awesome title and cool font on the cover (I'm usually pretty on point with judging books by their cover/title (side bar: if you've read any of my other reviews and notice a lot of them aren't good, I usually know when I won't like a book, but I try to read it anyway, because sometimes I am so wrong and turn out grateful that I read a book despite my initial issues with it)).

Alright, let us start off with the main character. OH MAN. This chick is whiny and obnoxious and so obsessed with the "pecking order" and I think she might actually be racist towards herself(????) and slut shames and I literally hate her so much. As a character, Anika is so annoying - while also being completely unrealistic. I understand that often, main characters feel super different from their peers and that is the foundation of the book. However, the "misfit" here, who is oh so different, is basically "the third most popular girl in school" who looks really "vanilla." She is self-described as someone with friends (although she basically talks shit about her friends in the book), and feels like she doesn't fit in because of her Romanian (vampire??? seriously she makes a lot of weird stereotypical racist remarks about her own heritage, which is especially weird because she grew up in a fancy home in Romania, and I've never come across a protagonist who was so inherently ignorant to her own culture). Also never come across a narrator who hates the last name "Dragomir," because, lets face it, that is a wicked awesome last name and anyone who doesn't appreciate it is just not my type of person. Plus she kept saying how she was like spider soup or spider stew and neither of those things sound particularly appealing or teenager-y to me.

Okay, other than the obnoxious narrator, there is the issue of the other characters. Pretty much everyone in this book is super static and stereotypical: nerd-gone-bad-boy (with a vespa? I wish I knew what was going through the author's mind), the queen bee (#1 in the very important pecking order), and the school slut (#2 in the pecking order and our girl Anika's best friend, despite the slut-shaming). I don't think I have to say anymore about these characters, we all feel the same about stereotypical, overdone characters, especially when they're not done right.

Moving on to romance: there was like a weird 3-way love triangle thing going on here, but the author made me want to root for no one, and when both guys fell for Anika(out of the blue, too), it was like insane instalove (like WOW, THE INSTALOVE HURTS). Logan and Jordan both fell for Anika so fast, and I feel bad saying this because it is clear that Portes put in the effort to make it seem like Logan and Anika had a meaningful relationship, but just to be honest, neither of these relationships were ship worthy.

Also like totally like this is gonna be such a full review of the book like woo! Did you enjoy reading that? I didn't like typing that. But unfortunately, this entire book is riddled with little "teenage" mannerisms, but these are intertwined in a way that is not classic or a way that sets the tone of the novel, but instead, in a way that just annoyed me. Sometimes, too many colloquialisms in writing is just off putting, and this was one of those times. To add to the issue, the writing was a little to middle school grade level (which I am usually okay with) but in this scenario, coupled with the teenager sayings and mannerisms, the writing just seemed of poor quality.

Also, the ending sucks and pretty much the whole book is just not worth the effort in my opinion. The plot moves a little too quickly for my taste, and while some humor is incorporated, the characters are just not worth the investment of time and Anika will drive you insane. At times the book had a good moment or two, but geez, do yourself a favor and don't bother reading this. The only good thing this book has going for itself is a rockin' title.

- Amrutha

Noor's Review
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Word Rating: Anatomically Incorrect 

I finished this book a few days ago, and have kind of been stewing over it because I really don't know how I feel about it. I don't think I hate it as much as Amrutha does, but I definitely do have issues with it. It's just that there are also some parts I really enjoyed so I don't know what to feel but maybe talking about the good and the bad will clear my mind by the end of this review.

The first thing I'd like to discuss is the fact that this book tried way too hard. In the description on Goodreads, it says "Anatomy of a Misfit is Mean Girls meets The Perks of Being a Wallflower" and I really think Andrea Portes put too much effort into making it just that and less into fleshing out her characters or her plots. Anyway, I'm not so sure she actually knows what high school is, or how it works, or how teenagers actually act. Either that or she chooses to ignore it in order to make her plot work. Like, there's the whole scene with the magazine and Stacy Nolan and how Anika, our dear protagonist, feels bad that Becky, resident Queen Bee, has spread a rumor that Stacy is pregnant (except Anika doesn't realize Becky herself made it up because she's dense or something) and decides that sitting next to her, as the third most popular girl in school, will make it all okay.  I mean, she does spread a counter rumor but it was all just so weird and unrealistic and also probably hella suspicious. Like, if you have never sat next to this girl ever and all of a sudden the day after a huge pregnancy rumor gets spread about her you're telling people it's not true and sharing magazines with her, people will figure something is weird about the situation. Anyway, people at her school are waaaaaay too preoccupied with who's dating the "losers" and who's hanging out where and all this stuff that I feel like doesn't actually happen in high school. Like yeah, I've had the occasional "They're a couple? Never would have expected that" moment in my four years of high school but like after the initial surprise I will probably never stop to care about their relationship status or social status ever. I couldn't name you the first, second, and third most popular girls in school but apparently the count isn't just in Anika's head because later Shelli and her have a discussion about how Shelli thinks she might be bumping up to two and Anika doesn't believe her. Also, Anika knows she will move past number 3 because her name is Anika Dragomir, which is weird and ethnic. Becky even calls her Immigrant, which is really problematic behavior but Anika apparently doesn't care because she wishes to be rid of her vampire blood pretty badly. Anyway, I don't think I've ever seen anyone's name get in the way of their social standing. I mean, in the real world, ethnicity and names and all that stuff actually does play a huge part in things like getting jobs or being profiled by the police, but that is not what this book is about. This book is about high school and in high school literally no one cares what your name is, as long as they have something to call you by. Maybe this is because white people and their names were a minority in my high school, but I go to a college that is 60% white people and I still don't think having a slightly different name is going to stop you from climbing the social ladder.

Wow okay I just realized that's a huge wall of text about how Andrea Portes cannot write high school realistically so I'm going to stop that and switch gears. I will say that this review might sound really nitpicky, but if you look at the bigger picture, it's that there are so many little things wrong that add up and just make this book a little more than slightly uncomfortable to read. Anyway, let's talk about characters and the dimensions they possess (or don't) woo! I feel like her characters are so two-dimensional. Her dad only cares about her grades and only calls to make sure she still has straight A's. Her mother is kind and listens to all her problems and never gets mad, even when she steals over a thousand dollars in cash. Her stepfather eats a lot and grunts a little. None of these characters have depth. Her sisters don't speak ever and just glare at her. Why do they hate her so much? She seems to just mind her own business at home. A boy came to her door and they glared nonstop and Anika's internal monologue let us know that they would probably murder her. Why? I don't know. Are they jealous? Do they want Anika's cute boy for themselves? Why do they care so much about that and so little about her the rest of the time? I wish I could tell you. They show some compassion at the end, but honestly if they didn't in that situation, I'd be a little concerned. Even the main characters are flat. Becky is queen and she's awful and rude and no one knows why. Shelli is kindof dumb but still sweet and I like her better than Anika to be honest. Speaking of Shelli, the first words Anika says about her are negative, and then she starts gushing about how they're best friends. At first I wasn't sure if they were only talking about of social obligation but no, Anika just thinks she's better than Shelli but chooses to love her regardless of this. Maybe because she's a pretty decent person. Maybe she wants makeup tips. Who really knows?

This book has two instaloves to form a very unstable triangle and neither of them make sense. Like, this guy out of nowhere likes her and okay, I guess he knows her from school and thought she was cute or cool or whatever, but the second guy literally sees her once and can't let it go, even though she's blacked out for half that interaction. I think Logan isn't supposed to be instalove, because he got to know her on their rides home from school, but it's so rushed that it really does feel like he's saying he loves her way too soon. And of course, these bad boys have bad sides and I usually can pick sides in a love triangle easily, but this time I found myself unable to choose, not because I loved them both, but because I wasn't invested enough to care.

So what did I like? Well, once you get past certain aspects of the voice, Andrea Portes's writing itself isn't actually bad. I mean, a lot of it just reads like straightforward internal monologue, but there are a few gems in there that I like. Also, she tried to make the voice really sarcastic and biting and I don't think she pulled that off like she intended but I didn't think it was awful and even though Anika was really overdramatic and occasionally whiny, I didn't mind the parts where she tried to add in the sarcastic tone. Also, I like some of the descriptions a lot, like in the beginning when Anika describes herself:

"I bet you think I have dark hair and dark eyes and look like I listen to the Cure but you're wrong. On the outside I look like vanilla pudding so nobody knows that on the inside I am spider soup.
Unless they look closer.
For instance...Yes, there is blonde hair, blue eyes, pale skin. That is true. But, you see...everybody around here has a button nose and I have more of n ode that looks like it got lopped off by a meat cleaver. There's another thing too, I have a boy jaw, like a square jaw, and cheekbones you could cut yourself on. Also, there are dark purple circles around my eyes that might be adorable if I was a raccoon."

I personally found that a very amusing description and pretty effective in telling us what she looks like in an unconventional manner. I also like the idea of her  comparing her insides to spider soup, or spider stew, or spider whatever else she uses because she comes back to that idea a lot. I think it's a unique metaphor.

However, what I don't like about it is that even though throughout the whole book Anika mentions how she's spider soup and how she's dark on the inside and is all twisted up, she really isn't at all. She gives literally no examples as to how she could be as rotten on the inside as she says she is. Are we just supposed to go along with it? She seems perfectly normal to me. Like, the worst thing she did was steal money from her terrible boss, but she had a moral turnaround about that too. Otherwise, she's as normal as it gets. Definitely not the misfit the title must be referring to. She has popular friends and two cute guys chasing after her and nothing is really all that dark about her.

Okay,  I think I might have rambled a lot more than I intended to and I definitely have realized, now that I see all that I've written, that the one positive thing I wrote about isn't enough to make this a book I'd recommend to other people. It was a very quick read and mildly entertaining but definitely not as good as I wanted it to be. I'm disappointed. That beautiful cover and title could have held so much more.

- Noor

Have you ever misjudged a book by its cover?
Let us know in the comments!

Review: Evermore - Alyson Noel

Evermore 

Alyson Noel

Series: The Immortals, #1

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Supernatural 

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Word Rating: Juvenile
On Goodreads

Hello there, lovelies. Remember when college didn't take up all my time? Me neither. This whole college thing has made me required to delve into the library of books I have previously read and do not have with me in order to review something for you. This particular book, I read around sophomore year, so forgive me if I don't remember every single detail.

Anyway, my general feel of this whole book is: no. I was searching through my Goodreads list of books I've already rated and as I scrolled past, the purple and red cover caught my eye (those are my two favorite colors, after all). I didn't remember the book right away and I wondered why. Once I read the description, it all flooded back and I realized my brain had been trying to block it out of my mind for the past few years.

The first thing I remember about this book is how stupid I thought the protagonists name was. Who names their kid Ever? Her sister, Riley, had a perfectly normal name, so why couldn't she? I figured I'd give it a shot though. It seemed interesting enough. Her family had died in a car accident and ever since then, she had been able to see people's "auras" and hear their thoughts and see their lives if she touched them. I definitely think she should only have had the aura-viewing power, instead of tacking on two more (which, if I can remember, didn't serve that well as plot devices) because that would have made it a lot more interesting.

Anyway, Ever meets this guy, Damen, who is apparently immortal and is 600 years old with the body of a high schooler, and fall sin love with Ever. So it's basically Twilight. Although, it's a bit more redeeming than Twilight, because at least Damen didn't just randomly meet this girl and fall in love with her. Apparently, he had met different reincarnations of Ever before, and they fell in love every time, and she died every time, so he basically spent his time waiting for the next reincarnation to show up. Okay, I said it's a little better. Not very much.

I think the one decent part of this book was her little sister, Riley. She had died in the car accident but came back to Ever as a ghost, and constantly talked to her. Riley was younger, I think around 12, but she was very sassy and amusing in general. She stuck around Ever because she never truly crossed over to death, the place where the rest of her family was. Eventually, she let go of Ever and crossed the bridge (there was a literal bridge, because symbolism or something) and didn't come back as a ghost anymore.

So beyond the falling in love with an immortal and discovering her strange powers thing, I don't particularly recall the plot, if there even was one beyond the love story. I know Damen took her to this strange place on a different plane of existence, that was supposed to be between life and death, and I remember a certain character who is out to get Ever and wants Damen to herself. I suppose that is where the conflict of this book comes from.

Another thing I remember is that it was quite poorly written and you can't tell if it's meant for younger readers but she tried to sound smart by using "florid" writing (I use this term very loosely) or if she just doesn't know how to make sentences flow.

I remember reading this book just for the sake of finishing it, and I never bothered reading anything else in the series, so I don't really know what happened after this book, nor do I care to. Overall, I wouldn't recommend reading this, you're much better off not wasting your time.

- Noor

Would you ever want immortality? 

Let us know in the comments!