ALL THE BRIGHT PLACES: JENNIFER NIVEN

Sometimes a book will completely win me over with the very last line. A line so beautiful that it kind of knocks me off balance. This was one of those books. It wasn't just pretty at the end though, this book is freaking FULL of beautiful lines. In fact sometimes I was thinking: "Come on! People (and teenage boys especially) don't talk like this!" But then isn't the fun of reading a book sometimes to read dialogue and words that are prettier and more meaningful then in real life?

This book has both female and male perspectives and the voices are distinct and complementary. Niven so fully and perfectly delves into the heart and mind of a mentally unstable, wonderful teenage boy that I dare you not to fall in love with him. While our heroine is so strong, broken, wonderful, and real that I dare you not to cheer for her happiness. 

BOOK BLURB:

The Fault in Our Stars meets Eleanor and Park in this exhilarating and heart-wrenching love story about a girl who learns to live from a boy who intends to die.
Soon to be a major motion picture starring Elle Fanning!
 
Theodore Finch is fascinated by death, and he constantly thinks of ways he might kill himself. But each time, something good, no matter how small, stops him.

Violet Markey lives for the future, counting the days until graduation, when she can escape her Indiana town and her aching grief in the wake of her sister’s recent death.

When Finch and Violet meet on the ledge of the bell tower at school, it’s unclear who saves whom. And when they pair up on a project to discover the “natural wonders” of their state, both Finch and Violet make more important discoveries: It’s only with Violet that Finch can be himself—a weird, funny, live-out-loud guy who’s not such a freak after all. And it’s only with Finch that Violet can forget to count away the days and start living them. But as Violet’s world grows, Finch’s begins to shrink.
   

You can read more about it HERE.

 

LOVE AND OTHER UNKNOWN VARIABLES: SHANNON LEE ALEXANDER

Read this book if you have ever wondered what it would be like to be loved, adored, worshiped, and have your spirited lifted by a geeky boy. Our hero in this male POV novel is so stinking loveable and likeable and funny and charming that absolutely nothing could have happened in this book and I would have still enjoyed it. One of my favorite heads to be in as a reader ever.

BOOK BLURB:
Charlie Hanson has a clear vision of his future. A senior at Brighton School of Mathematics and Science, he knows he’ll graduate, go to MIT, and inevitably discover solutions to the universe’s greatest unanswered questions. He’s that smart. But Charlie’s future blurs the moment he reaches out to touch the tattoo on a beautiful girl’s neck.

The future has never seemed very kind to Charlotte Finch, so she’s counting on the present. She’s not impressed by the strange boy at the donut shop—until she learns he’s a student at Brighton where her sister has just taken a job as the English teacher. With her encouragement, Charlie orchestrates the most effective prank campaign in Brighton history. But, in doing so, he puts his own future in jeopardy.

By the time he learns she's ill—and that the pranks were a way to distract Ms. Finch from Charlotte’s illness—Charlotte’s gravitational pull is too great to overcome. Soon he must choose between the familiar formulas he’s always relied on or the girl he’s falling for (at far more than 32 feet per second squared).

You can read more about it HERE.

THE VOW: JESSICA MARTINEZ

You know that the best books have to have some type of conflict and The Vow delivers the best kind of realistic conflict that kept me on my toes from beginning to end. The struggle and characters evolve and grow until you have only 10 pages left and you want to scream: "What is going to happen! I only have 10 pages left!" I guess that is a good thing because I enjoyed this book so much it could have gone on much longer. 

I loved Jessica's first book, didn't love her second. But this one was a real wow for me. Definitely the best boy/girl friendship I have ever read. And perhaps one of the best friendships I have ever read period.

BOOK BLURB:

No one has ever believed that Mo and Annie are just friends. How can a guy and a girl really be best friends?

Then the summer before senior year, Mo’s father loses his job, and by extension his work visa. Instantly, life for Annie and Mo crumbles. Although Mo has lived in America for most of his life, he’ll be forced to move to Jordan. The prospect of leaving his home is devastating, and returning to a world where he no longer belongs terrifies him.

Desperate to save him, Annie proposes they tell a colossal lie—that they are in love. Mo agrees because marrying Annie is the only way he can stay. Annie just wants to keep her best friend, but what happens when it becomes a choice between saving Mo and her own chance at real love?

The Vow is a extremely clean read while still dealing with a few mature themes. It doesn't talk down to it's audience but it doesn't shock them either. A great balance. 

This kind of book is exactly the reason I started this blog. Not enough people hear about certain great reads and I want to get the word out! Read more about it HERE.

ME BEFORE YOU: JOJO MOYES

This is the kind of story that could have had a political agenda, and I am so glad it didn't. Moyes just tells us a story without picking sides. This is the kind of book that won't be easy for me to forget. It was lovely and sad while being hopeful and funny.

BOOK BLURB:

Lou Clark knows lots of things. She knows how many footsteps there are between the bus stop and home. She knows she likes working in The Buttered Bun tea shop and she knows she might not love her boyfriend Patrick.
What Lou doesn't know is she's about to lose her job or that knowing what's coming is what keeps her sane.
Will Traynor knows his motorcycle accident took away his desire to live. He knows everything feels very small and rather joyless now and he knows exactly how he's going to put a stop to that.
What Will doesn't know is that Lou is about to burst into his world in a riot of colour. And neither of them knows they're going to change the other for all time.

Has a bit of swearing, but otherwise a clean read. Read more about it HERE. 

Thanks Edelweiss and Penguin for this read.

TIGER LILY: JODI LYNN ANDERSON

This book completely transported me to a magical world, and I loved all of it. I don't even know what possessed me to pick this up. I don't really like fantasy books, and I didn't like Anderson's contemporary romance series Peaches at all. But I liked Tiger Lily right away. The poetic and full words swept me off to an island with a very loveable Tinkerbell as my guide.

BOOK BLURB:

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.

I don't generally keep track of quotes, but this book was so darn full of them that I had to make note of at least two:

" 'I'm not myself,' she offered, guilty. 

He smiled. 'You can never say that. You're just a piece of yourself right now that you don't like.' "

And then this one:

"To love someone was not what she had expected. It was like falling from somewhere high up and breaking in half, and only one person having the secret to the puzzle of putting her back together." 

At first this felt like a book that a mother could sit and read to her 8 - 10 year old daugter. But despite the fact that it is a clean read it is probably too dark for most children. The darkness was one of the reasons I loved it though.

Again, this book surprised me in so many ways because I just didn't think I could like it, but I freaking loved it. My cute daughter was fascinated when I told her I was reading a book about Tinkerbell and Peter Pan, and I promised my four year old that I would read it to her one day. Hopefully she will love it too.

 

FOREVER CHANGES: BRENDAN HALPIN

This is a really beautiful book. It wasn't until I finished reading it that I realized that Halpin did not take the typical route of the "sick girl dying" book. There is no magical boyfriend who bestows first love, or a series of bucket list moments. This is just a pretty story about a girl who is real, and tries to be a good friend and person while she deals with a disease that cripples her life. It is just lovely to read about her. On top of that this book has my favorite daddy-daughter relationship ever. Great read.

BOOK BLURB:

5:30 a.m., Brianna Pelletier gets ready for her daily pounding. As she lies on the couch, her dad beats her chest, then her back, coaxing the mucus out of her lungs. The pounding doesn’t take care of everything. Brianna’s held out for a long time, but a body with cystic fibrosis doesn’t last forever. It doesn’t matter that Brianna has a brilliant mathematical mind or that she’s a shoo-in for MIT. Or even that her two best friends are beautiful, popular, and loyal. In the grand scheme of things, none of that stuff matters at all. The standard life, lasting maybe seventy-five years, is no more than a speck in the sum total of the universe. At eighteen, and doubting she’ll make nineteen, Brianna is practically a nonentity. Of course she’s done the math. But in her senior year of high school, Brianna learns of another kind of math, in which an infinitely small, near-zero quantity can have profound effects on an entire system. If these tiny quantities didn’t exist, things wouldn’t make the same sense.


Funny, tear-jerking, and memorable, the author’s second novel for teens introduces readers to an extraordinary girl who learns that the meaning of forever can change, and that life – and death – is filled with infinite possibilities. 

Read more about it HERE.

THE FAULT IN OUR STARS: JOHN GREEN

The only reason I even read this is because my husband, who does not care about new books heard that this was a must read, and despite my hesitations he put me on the very long library waiting list. This book had to work extra hard to win me over. I disliked Green's first book "Looking for Alaska", and after I read and hated "Paper Towns" I just figured I was not going to be someone who believes the YA sun rises and sets on John Green. Of course I don't think Green even writes YA, but writes more books for adults about teenagers. I kind of wonder if Green ever felt like a teenager, because his characters never freaking sound or act like them.

But here his freakishly sassy dialogue worked for me, and overall this felt like it was written by a completely different person than his previous books. This was raw and sad and still kind of pretentious. I think Green won me over when overly handsome Augustus starts making jokes about their support group leader saying they were "literally in the heart of Jesus" while they are meeting in a church. It reminded me when I was teaching a class in Sunday school and this guy that bugs me said "we are literally the nails in Jesus' hand", and I thought nope we are NOT literally nails. But instead I just smiled and moved on because I am nice like that. So anyway, after that overly witty repartee with our main characters in the book about the correct use of "literally" I was in it for the long haul and all the freaking tears that come after it.

BOOK BLURB:
Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs... for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

I'm certainly not the only person who liked this book, get opinions from thousands of other people HERE.

THE PROBABILITY OF MIRACLES: WENDY WUNDER

When you read as many books as I do, it is always a special surprise when you discover a book that is nothing like you have ever read before. The Probability of Miracles is an amazing treat. It is the kind of book that so easily could turn out to be emotionally manipulative or silly but it ends up being the kind of book that speaks to you and makes you no longer question the extraordinary.

Our heroine, Cam is hilarious and so likeable. Also you almost forget this book is written in third person because you feel so close to Cam and her world. I don't usually make notes of favorite quotes, but this one I loved:

"Cam hadn't gotten the gene that allowed you to flirt. She was convinced it was genetic. You either had the capacity for coyness, or you simply could not pretend to be stupid. Which was what guys really wanted." I have always felt that way about flirting, so Cam was definitely my kind of gal.

BOOK BLURB:
Dry, sarcastic, sixteen-year-old Cam Cooper has spent the last seven years in and out hospitals. The last thing she wants to do in the short life she has left is move 1,500 miles away to Promise, Maine - a place known for the miraculous events that occur there. But it's undeniable that strange things happen in Promise: everlasting sunsets; purple dandelions; flamingos in the frigid Atlantic; an elusive boy named Asher; and finally, a mysterious envelope containing a list of things for Cam to do before she dies. As Cam checks each item off the list, she finally learns to believe - in love, in herself, and even in miracles.

A debut novel from an immensely talented new writer, The Probability of Miracles crackles with wit, romance and humor and will leave readers laughing and crying with each turn of the page.

I am noticing that I read a lot of sad books with death often a big part of the story. It is funny but I don't cry very often when reading these sad books. It is like I am immune. So when a book, like this one, makes me cry for like 10 minutes after I finish the last line you know I am hooked. Thank you Wendy Wunder for creating a world that was based in reality but quietly tip-toed in the fantasy. It was a tremendous treat to visit a town where anything could happen.

I also do want to mention that I am glad that I still read this even though I seriously hated the cover. It honestly offends me. I am so glad I gave this book a chance because it was awesome despite the freaky pink feather theme.

Read more about this book HERE.

THE SKY IS EVERYWHERE: JANDY NELSON

This is the beautiful paperback cover for The Sky Is Everywhere, and it is much improved because the original hardback cover looked like a cover for a spiritual self help book and NOT a good one. I generally don't dig poems in books, but there are some poems in this one and and they are lovely and add a whole original dimension to this story.

BOOK BLURB:
Lennie plays second clarinet in the school orchestra and has always happily been second fiddle to her charismatic older sister, Bailey. Then Bailey dies suddenly, and Lennie is left at sea without her anchor. Overcome by emotion, Lennie soon finds herself torn between two boys: Bailey's boyfriend, Toby, and Joe, the charming and musically gifted new boy in town. While Toby can't see her without seeing Bailey and Joe sees her only for herself, each offers Lennie something she desperately needs. But ultimately, it's up to Lennie to find her own way toward what she really needs-without Bailey.

This book broke my heart and picked it right back up again. It is steamy and sweet and honest and lovely. And the prose is perfection...man it is such a beautifully written book.

Read more about it and see if you might love it to HERE.