Breathe

Posted on October 20, 2011 by Tina

Breathe by Cliff McNish
McArthur & Co, 232 pages

Jack is used to danger. His asthma has nearly killed him more than once. But his new home has a danger he’s never known before — the spirits of the dead.

The can’t breathe.

But in Jack’s house, they can chase, hide, scream.

Only Jack can see them. Only he can hear them. And only he can learn their secrets in time to save his mother — and himself…

I may be one of the biggest scaredy-cats in the world, or at least, among my group of friends. I know this doesn’t make sense when it comes to my love for all things zombie. I like all the shambling, brain-moaning creatures, but when it comes to ghosts and other supernatural stuff? I cower under my covers. When I was a kid I used to like scaring myself silly by watching those Halloween specials that all local TV shows air during those times and no fail, I always end up being too scared to sleep for at least a week after watching those shows. I finally got to the point where I told myself to stop — no more scary TV shows, no more scary anything, especially if I will lose sleep over it!

So to be totally honest, I was kind of apprehensive with my Required Reading challenge for October, given my state of being a chicken. :P But of course, what is a challenge if you don’t challenge yourself, right?

The thing that really got me to buy Breathe by Cliff McNish is the fact that the main character, Jack, has asthma. I’m an asthmatic, too, so reading about characters who have the same condition brings me comfort because I could relate to them¹. Jack’s asthma attacks seem to be more dangerous than the ones I’ve been having lately, though, bad enough to almost kill him. It doesn’t help that his dad recently passed away. In an effort to stop him from stressing out or getting lonely, Jack and his mom moved out and into an old farmhouse, where they hope to find peace and quiet.

But instead of finding peace and quiet, they find something else. Little did they know that the farmhouse was haunted by four ghosts, all children, whose spirits can’t seem to leave the house Jack finds that he has the ability to sense who had lived in the house before, and to the ghost children’s surprise, he could actually see them. This makes Jack extremely curious to the point of triggering his asthma, but then he discovers that there is something more sinister living in the house, and only he has the power to save himself and his mother.

Like I said, I’m a big scaredy-cat, so I made it a point to read Breathe in broad daylight. The first few chapters of the book were creepy and the illustrations at the start of each chapter gave my imagination enough fuel to see practically the entire chapter. McNish’s writing is very vivid — it was easy to slip into the world he created and actually see the house and the characters. I admit to being spooked for the first few chapters (but then again, it may be just because I’m easily frightened), but I grew comfortable with it later on. Jack’s asthma attacks were also very accurate — and also really scary, in the actual physical sense because I know I could also experience something like that. The extreme measures he and his mom had to go through just to make sure his lungs would behave is something akin to what my mom used to do when I was younger. I’m really, really hoping my asthma won’t escalate to anything similar.

You know now that I think about it, it’s not really that scary. However, I think I can attribute that to the fact that the story is really quite linear. Somewhere early into the book, we already know who the real villain is, and a little bit of why. The other reasons and the story were gradually revealed, but by then it feels almost like a typical ghost story. While I’d really rather not read ghost stories, I still want for a twist that will leave my mouth hanging open in the end, at least to thrill the reader in me.

Breathe still manages to have a heart-warming moment somewhere in the end, which earns it more points for me. I liked how the Nightmare Realm (the place where spirits go when they don’t go to the “light”) is described, and how one of the ghost kids finds some kind of peace there. The actual ending was wrapped nicely and I think it would leave readers with pretty much a good sense of completeness that stand-alone novels can give. (Except if you decide to nitpick, like me. But I can’t offer another ending, so I should stop doing that :D)

Breathe by Cliff McNish may not fare so much with people who really love ghost stories (or who take delight in being scared), but for a casual reader (or for someone who doesn’t really like getting scared), it’s a pretty good novel. The first aid lessons for an asthma attack are a plus, too. This is my first Cliff McNish, but I think it won’t be my last. Now, are his other books scary, too?

Rating: ★★★★★

2011 Challenge Status:
Required Reading – October

My copy: paperback, bought from Bestsellers Galleria

Other reviews:
Goodreads

If you want to know how it is to have an asthma attack, try breathing through a straw. Hard, right? :P [↩]

Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride

Posted on October 18, 2011 by Tina

Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride by Sandra D. Bricker
Emma Rae Creation # 2
Abingdon Press, 320 pages

As a wedding planner, you’d thinkshe would have the perfect wedding experience…

Sherilyn Caine has left Chicago behind to marry Andrew Drummond IV, an Atlanta native with a family name that tops all the social registers. Landing the job as The Tanglewood’s wedding planner is a piece of cake for someone with a Type A personality; she’s the perfect fit for a wedding destination hotel known for its attention to even the tiniest details.

But when everything else is going along swimmingly, why are her own wedding plans drowning right before her eyes? One way or the other, Sherilyn is determined to make this wedding work—until the latest development threatens to call the whole thing off. Is it possible that Sherilyn is allergic to her fiance?

I read and enjoyed Sandra D. Bricker’s other book, Always the Baker, Never the Bride last year, and I honestly had no idea that this was a part of a series. So when I saw the galley for this book on Netgalley, I was pleasantly surprised. The first book wasn’t a favorite, but I liked it enough for me to get the sequel and read it in between pages of a ghost story I was also currently reading.

In Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride (which will be known as AWPNTB from now on — what a long title), we meet an old friend of the heroine from the first book, Sherilyn Caine. She’s a wedding planner and she fits right in the Tanglewood Hotel’s wedding planning staff. Sherilyn is also moving back home to get married with her fiance, Andrew Drummond IV, who she has met only a few months ago. Their engagement was short, sure, but they love each other — that should be enough right? But why is it that none of their wedding plans are pushing through?

AWPNTB is a fun read, especially since there are all those familiar characters that I liked last year. There was also the Southern charm that most Christian chick lit has, and it made me want to really see if Atlanta was as nice as it was written in these books. The book stays true to its wedding themes, too, and I liked the little wedding checklists written in between the chapters, as well as some of the recipes (like cookies) that Emma the baker plays with.

This had more marriage and wedding stuff compared to the first book, so to be totally honest, I wasn’t able to relate. Oh sure, I know a lot about weddings, given that my brother got married just last year and that he works as a wedding videographer, so I get regular doses of wedding magic. But being someone who has no plans of settling down anytime soon, I really couldn’t relate to the things that Sherilyn worried about. I felt bad for her, yes, but that was just it. I can’t really empathize — not yet, anyway.

Okay, maybe I feel that way because Sherilyn and Andy seemed to be products of “insta-love”, and I’m not really much of a fan of that. They knew each other for less than a year and then they’re getting married — how about that? But the good thing is, the issues about this quick engagement were tackled really well. The doubts, the quirks and the little issues that came up were addressed well, and even I was surprised with the last thing that ultimately gave Sherilyn and Andy reason to think about their relationship. I also liked how Sherilyn came into her final realization. It’s sweet and I guess, true. Not that I would know now, of course, but I’d like to believe that it is. :)

Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride is a nice installment to the Emma Rae Creation series, even if it I wasn’t able to relate to it that much. I dare say I will still pick up the next book, Always the Designer, Never the Bride. I wonder what crazy love-related and wedding antics the main characters will get into then?

Rating: ★★★★★

My copy: e-ARC from Netgalley

Other reviews:
Long and Short Reviews

The Piper’s Son

Posted on October 10, 2011 by Tina

The Piper’s Son by Melina Marchetta
Candlewick Press, 336 pages

The award-winning author of Finnikin of the Rock and Jellicoe Road pens a raw, compelling novel about a family’s hard-won healing on the other side of trauma.

Award-winning author Melina Marchetta reopens the story of the group of friends from her acclaimed novel Saving Francesca – but five years have passed, and now it’s Thomas Mackee who needs saving. After his favorite uncle was blown to bits on his way to work in a foreign city, Tom watched his family implode. He quit school and turned his back on his music and everyone that mattered, including the girl he can’t forget. Shooting for oblivion, he’s hit rock bottom, forced to live with his single, pregnant aunt, work at the Union pub with his former friends, and reckon with his grieving, alcoholic father. Tom’s in no shape to mend what’s broken. But what if no one else is either? An unflinching look at family, forgiveness, and the fierce inner workings of love and friendship, The Piper’s Son redefines what it means to go home again.

One of my favorite things to hear back during those high school graduation programs is the class prophecy. I think I heard my first class prophecy back in elementary, when our teacher read a prophecy of one batch for us. Then sometime during sophomore year in high school, I wrote an incomplete class prophecy on a whim, set about ten years later, one where I apparently lost contact with most of my high school friends and even crashed into my best friend’s car. And finally, during senior year, I was assigned to write our batch’s prophecy, which was kind of boring now that I remember it. Boring compared to the sort of morbid prophecy that the higher batch had before us, anyway.

But again, I love those things because it has that infinite feel to it. I can write practically anything about what our fortunes will be (and because it’s going to be read to everyone, I have to make sure all of us were successful, sort of). It had all those possibilities for all of us, giving all of us in the batch hope that we could all fulfill that prophecy that I had penned.

That’s what The Piper’s Son read like for me — a class prophecy. It’s been five years since Saving Francesca, and the little group that I have grown to love in that book has changed. Will is now an engineer in Singapore, and having a long-distance relationship with Frankie. Frankie’s parents are in Italy and she now works in a local pub with Justine. Siobhan is in England, Tara is in Timor, Jimmy is somewhere out there. And Tom. Tom Mackee is lost. Ever since his uncle died in a terrorist attack in London, Tom’s life had fallen apart. When he finally hit rock bottom, he finds himself living with his pregnant aunt Georgie, who’s also deep in her own grief. Tom is going to have to start picking his life back up again, but will the people he’s left behind be there to help him?

What can I say about The Piper’s Son that the other readers haven’t said yet? Once again, Marchetta shines in this book. This is one of the best spin-off novels I’ve read ever. Like I said, it reads like a class prophecy, so I was thrilled to read about what happened to my favorite group of fictional friends five years down the road. It wasn’t the same as my “we’re all so successful” prophecies though, because Tom is broken. And it’s with Tom that makes this book so heartbreakingly good. There were so many layers to him and his relationship with his family and friends. I think it was Aaron who once said that he had more personality than Will had in Saving Francesca, and it’s true. I liked that this book gave us a way to know him more than the smart-aleck seemingly bad guy character he had before.

To be honest, I had no idea where this book was going and a part of me keeps on wondering where. But I think the beauty of contemporary novels, especially that of Marchetta, is she makes even the most ordinary seem extraordinary. Tom’s days in the pub, his encoding work, his family, most especially his emails to his sister and Tara made this book so much more emotional than I expected. His aunt Georgie’s point of view also gave us a different perspective. It wasn’t opposing, but just different, and it gave a certain depth in the story that made us understand just how much they all lost when Joe Finch Mackee died in that explosion. Oh, but it’s not completely sad, though — there’s still humor, especially when the Tom and his friends banter, and even with their grudge on Tom’s abandonment, it’s clear that they all still care for one another. My favorite moments include the one with Lord of the Rings, Tom playing with Callum, the one with “I think we’re getting our Tom back”, and Tom telling Frankie to stop listening to the news. Oh, and of course, the reunion scene — I’ve been an inexplicable fool / A thousand times, yes. :)

I had to marinate on this book for a while before I decided on its final rating. It’s not exactly an easy read, especially with all the issues it tackled. Somehow, this made Saving Francesca seem like a sunshine-y happy book, even if it also tackled pretty serious issues. I guess it’s because Tom was dealing with harder ones, and being a guy, he handles it differently. But after a few days of thinking about it, I finally got to the point where the beauty of this novel has finally settled deep into my bones, and I am just in awe of how Marchetta can keep me thinking about her story and her characters long after I’ve finished reading. If that isn’t a sign of a great book, then I don’t know what is.

The Piper’s Son is not an easy book to read, but it’s one of those books that you’d want to read. Because a story such as this deserves to be read. It just wraps itself around your heart like that. If you’re off to read contemporary YA books, do yourself a favor and put Melina Marchetta high on your list. I promise you won’t regret it.

Rating: ★★★★★

2011 Challenge Status:
Required Reading – September

Other reviews:
Chachic’s Book Nook
G-Reads!
Persnickety Snark

Past Perfect

Posted on October 8, 2011 by Tina

Past Perfect by Leila Sales
Simon Pulse, 322 pages

All Chelsea wants to do this summer is hang out with her best friend, hone her talents as an ice cream connoisseur, and finally get over Ezra, the boy who broke her heart. But when Chelsea shows up for her summer job at Essex Historical Colonial Village (yes, really), it turns out Ezra’s working there too. Which makes moving on and forgetting Ezra a lot more complicated…even when Chelsea starts falling for someone new.

Maybe Chelsea should have known better than to think that a historical reenactment village could help her escape her past. But with Ezra all too present, and her new crush seeming all too off limits, all Chelsea knows is that she’s got a lot to figure out about love. Because those who don’t learn from the past are doomed to repeat it….

Oh how this cover lies. This cover has absolutely nothing to do with the story, no matter how cute it looks. I know covers are really for sales, and I may be able to forgive this if the book gets more sales because of the cover. Still, I can’t see any connection.

But anyway, in Past Perfect, Chelsea is stuck in the past — literally and figuratively. Chelsea is back to work for the summer in the Essex Historical Colonial Village, where she dresses up as a colonial woman named Elizabeth Connelly, and it was really the last place she wanted to be. She wanted to get out even more when she finds that her ex-boyfriend and first love, Ezra, is also working in Essex. And she’s far from getting over him. But when Chelsea falls for a guy from the Civil War Reenactmentland next door who has been at war with Essex for as long as they can remember, it makes Chelsea’s summer a little more complicated than what she expected.

Past Perfect is my first Leila Sales read, but I’ve been curious about her other book, Mostly Good Girls, because of the good reviews it has been getting. I was really glad that Galley Grab had this up in their list. :) I love that the book is set in a historical village — I’m not too fond of history back in school, but if I had the chance to visit places like this, I probably would like it a lot more! I’m not sure if we have a historical village here in the Philippines. I think the closest we have of one is in Vigan, Ilocos Sur, but I don’t think it’s even close to what Chelsea had at Essex.

Chelsea is a real darling in this novel, and she’s someone I would like to be friends with. She’s funny, witty and honest — far from perfect as she makes some pretty stupid decisions in the book, but all in good faith and she learned from it in the end. I liked how even if she didn’t really like working in Essex, she still considers her friends there as family, at least even for the summer. I wasn’t able to get any summer jobs when I was in school because summer was really just for lazing around or attending YFC activities, but I also do know the feeling of having a “summer family”. I also really liked Fiona, Chelsea’s best friend. She seems like a really good friend and one of those who will definitely have your back even if she seems flighty at first. The supporting characters were also quite stellar, and I think the thing that made them so fun was the war. I don’t think I could ever be a part of a war like that. I have no competitive bone in my body. I loved reading about the strategies and the intimidation and such, though. :D

I also liked how the idea of moving on is tackled in this book. It’s true: sometimes we tend to idolize certain experiences or people because they’re the only things we can hold onto when it’s all over, but when you really think about it, these moments in history aren’t always the shining, shimmering, splendid moments we thought they were. We tend to wear rose-colored glasses over some things and people, and when it’s time to move on, we need to remove it and see things as they really are and not as what we want it. I liked how this lesson was juxtaposed with the actual historical setting that the characters worked in. It made what Chelsea learned more resonant somehow.

I didn’t exactly fall head over heels in love with this book, because the “I could relate to this!” factor was kind of low. However, it is a very fun novel, and I can’t think of anything that I disliked about this. Now to get myself a copy of Mostly Good Girls. :)

Rating: ★★★★★

My copy: e-ARC from Simon & Schuster’s Galley Grab

Other reviews:
Chachic’s Book Nook
G-Reads!
inkcrush
Hobbitsies
Good Books and Good Wine
Forever Young Adult

Forbidden

Posted on October 5, 2011 by Tina

Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee

Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee
The Books of Mortals # 1
Center Street, 384 pages

A terrible truth has been revealed to one man: the entire human race has been drained of every emotion except one– fear. To bring life back to the world, Rom must embark on a journey that will end either in his own demise or a reawkening of humanity. But to bring love and passion back into existence will also threaten the powers of the world with the revolution and anarchy that had nearly destroyed them previously.

After happening upon a journal through strange circumstance, Rom’s world is shattered. He learns that humanity long ago ceased to “live,” that it exists today in a living death of emotions. In a terrible risk, Rom exposes himself to the vial of blood folded into the old leather of the journal. His change is fearful and fraught with mind-bending emotion. A once-pious observer of the Order’s passionless statues, he is filled with uncontrollable impulses. He is filled with love.

He is undone, terrified, and alone in the desolate world.

My supply of Christian fiction has sort of run low ever since I started reading more YA books, so new books from my favorite Christian authors are always exciting and squee-worthy. One of the dream team-ups I had ever since last year when the news went out was Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee, and I have waited with anticipation over this book, Forbidden. Imagine my excitement when I saw that the book was available in Netgalley.

In the year 2005, geneticists discovered that there is a certain gene in our DNA that controlled the emotion of fear, further leading to the discovery of other genes that control other kinds of emotions. After a war that devastated the world, humanity vowed to destroy everything that led to that war, particularly the emotions that come with it — love, joy, passion, anger, hatred, sorrow. Out of all emotions, only fear was allowed to survive. And because of this, peace reigned.

480 years later, we meet Rom Sebastian, a simple, ordinary man who sings songs for the dead. On his way home from a funeral, he meets an old man who tells him of an Order called Keepers and leaves a vial of blood wrapped in a vellum with strange symbols. Citadel Guards caught up with them and to Rom’s horror, they killed the man. Soon Rom is on the run from the guards with his childhood friend Avra, confused and scared to why they were running away. When he decides to drink some of the blood in the vial he carried, long-forgotten emotion surface within him together with the fear that he has been so used to feeling: sorrow. Anger. Passion. And most of all, love.

Early into the first pages of Forbidden, I couldn’t help but compare this book with Delirium by Lauren Oliver. Both books have the same premise and almost the same environment. But where Delirium lacks, Forbidden totally makes up. The world building in this book is solid, so real, and contains the signature Dekker that I have known and loved. I found that the world building here makes the idea of a world operated by fear because of genetic means more plausible as compared to that where “love is illegal and I’d have to cut a vague area under your ear to get that love out”. This book had touches of Dekker’s Circle series, with the countries and royalties and guards and the people. The composition of the world contains both ancient and modern elements that somehow mesh together really well — from advanced alchemy to the hierarchy order of the Brahmin. This somehow gives the readers a clue that while it is set in the future, it doesn’t mean that it is actually advanced. Maybe the truth is, the world is going backwards because of the fear that the people were kept in.

Add to the world building, we have the fleshed out characters, which I think is Tosca Lee’s expertise. I liked how different and conflicted the characters were — Rom with his good heart, Avra’s loyalty, Neah’s hesitation, Triphon’s bravery. Feyn’s wisdom, Sarric’s greed, Jonathan’s innocence. These all seem like typical character traits, and I have to admit that some of the characters’ actions were predictable, but I think they were able to give life to them. People may be a bit turned off with the jubilant exaltation of emotions that some characters did in the book, but I thought it was forgivable as they’ve never experienced emotion like that before. Taking the reactions of the characters in this context, it wouldn’t seem exaggerated but just right. These characters were also involved in the right amount of action that it made me cringe and be surprised a couple of times. There was a particular part in the book that got me shaking my fist, but knowing I was in the hands of good writers, I know well enough to trust them.

Forbidden is very, very good. So what’s keeping me from giving it five stars? Well, it may be just me, but I cannot shake off the similarity of this with the Circle series. Also, this book feels just a tad like a prequel rather than the real first book. While there is action, I felt the climax and the ending was just a little anticlimactic. Perhaps I was expecting more…erm, bloodshed there? Not that there wasn’t enough bloodshed earlier, but I just thought there would be more there. However, that may be just because Dekker and Lee are preparing us for the next book in the trilogy. And the ending really did leave a lot of loose ends that I’m sure will be picked up and played with in the next book.

The Keeper by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee If you’re still not sure if you want to splurge on this, the authors have released a short story prequel to Forbidden, entitled The Keeper, available for free as an ebook. In this short story, a man named Talus meets two hermit monk brothers who he chooses to share the terrible secret that he has been carrying, to recruit them in helping protect the knowledge that will save humanity. This short story is a very quick read, and if you’ve read Forbidden before reading this, there’s really nothing much to surprise you here. However, I think that it gives those who have yet to read the first Book of Mortals a chance to taste Dekker’s world building and Lee’s characters. I have a feeling that reading The Keeper will make you want to know more about what this secret is and if Talus ever succeeded with his mission. Also, if you have read the Circle series (Black, Red, White, Green), you will spot a very familiar name in this short story that will probably make you say, “I knew it!” Then the story of Forbidden suddenly makes more sense.

I will finish this review with a quote from the book that pretty much sums up the message of this book:

This is the mystery of it. Life is lived on the ragged edge of the cliff. Fall off and you might die, but run from it and you are already dead!

Forbidden by Ted Dekker and Tosca Lee is now out in paperback and hardbound in all stores. In the Philippines, I saw some trade paperback copies of it in Fully Booked. Must. Get. Finished. Copy!
Rating:
Forbidden – ★★★★★
The Keeper – ★★★★★

My copy:
Forbidden – e-ARC from Netgalley
The Keeper – ebook from Amazon Kindle store

Other reviews:
The Violet Hour
Unveiled
Birth of a New Witch

There You’ll Find Me

Posted on October 3, 2011 by Tina

There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones
Thomas Nelson, 320 pages

In a small cottage house in rural Ireland, Finley discovers she can no longer outrun the past.

When Finley travels to Ireland as a foreign exchange student, she hopes to create a new identity and get some answers from the God who took her brother away and seems to have left her high and dry.

But from the moment she boards the plane and sits by Beckett Rush, teen star of the hottest vampire flicks, nothing goes according to Finley’s plan.

When she gets too close to Beckett, a classmate goes on a mission to make sure Finley packs her bags, departs Ireland-and leaves Beckett alone.

Finley feels the pressure all around. As things start to fall apart, she begins to rely on a not-so-healthy method of taking control of her life.

Finley tries to balance it all-disasters on the set of Beckett’s new movie, the demands of school, and her growing romance with one actor who is not what he seems. Yet Finley is also not who she portrays to Beckett and her friends.

For the first time in her life, Finley must get honest with herself to get right with God.

When I was younger, I used to write stories about a group of friends who lived in Ireland. It was just a random country I picked out in the world atlas, and I thought I liked the sound of Ireland as a setting. Of course, I really knew nothing of the country then, and it wasn’t until later on that I read and watched some stuff about Ireland on TV that I realized none of what I wrote was even the least bit realistic. But my recent trip to Europe got me to meet a YFC mission volunteer from Ireland, and meeting him reminded me of those days when I’d write those stories.

That’s what made me pick up There You’ll Find Me by Jenny B. Jones from my trip readings. Here we meet Finley Sinclair, Save the Date‘s Alex Sinclair’s younger sister. After they had confirmed that Will, Finley’s other brother, had died in an terrorist attack in a mission trip, she was devastated. Her life spun out of control as she tried to cope with her loss. After a year of therapy, she proved herself stable enough to go on an exchange student program to Abbeyglen, Ireland, one of the places that Will had gone to. Finley hopes to find herself and get answers from God who had seemed distant from her ever since she lost Will. But a movie star, the school’s queen bee, a cranky and sick old lady puts a wrench on Finley’s plans. As the pressure all around her builds, Finley starts dealing with things in the only way she knows how, even if it meant harming herself in the process. Can Finley find a way to get it right with God?

I liked Jenny B. Jones’ other novel, Save the Date, a lot, so I was thrilled to find out that There You’ll Find Me was a spin-off novel to that. I always like seeing how other characters I liked from a previous novel were doing in another novel that is not a sequel. There You’ll Find Me is more YA this time around. Finley is such a strong-minded character, sometimes a bit stubborn, but we can also see that she has a big heart, especially with her friendship with her host sister, Erin and her concern for Cathleen Sweeney, the old woman she was assigned to visit for class. I liked Finley’s voice, and I could definitely feel and relate with her need to control things. I liked that she wasn’t portrayed as too depressed or too angry — just very lost. And it made me want to wrap her up in a big, big hug, and tell her that God has not forgotten her.

St. Ciaran's Monastery -- I think this was one of the places Finley and Beckett visited. Image from saintsandstones.net

And speaking of God. The spiritual aspect of this book is not preachy, and I think Jenny B. Jones excels at that. Well, compared to Save the Date, there were more mentions of God, but Finley was in a spiritual journey, so what do you expect? I liked the Finley’s power verse, too, and I admit to shedding some tears at the moment when Finley found what she was looking for. The actual Irish journey was a treat to read, too, and I wished I was actually in Ireland to see the things that Finley was seeing. I wanted to spend a night at a pub enjoying good food, music and company. I want to look at the Celtic crosses that Finley was also looking for. Ireland sounds like a beautiful, beautiful place from the way it was described, and I have already written that place in my bucket list after I was done reading this. :D

There just seemed to be a little too many issues that Finley was trying to get over with in the book: grief, control issues, school stuff, Cathleen Sweeney, a possible eating disorder. Add romance to that and I’m surprised that Finley took that long before she had a melt down. I assume that it portrays real life, but it was just kind of hard to follow and it made the resolutions a little too quickly wrapped up.

And speaking of the romance. Unfortunately, I don’t think there wasn’t anything exciting about the romance, even if it was kind of sweet. I hope I’m not being cynical. I liked Beckett and I thought he was a nice guy, but I felt that the movie star + normal girl pairing has been done a few too many times. Plus points, though, on the development of their friendship to romance, which was fun to read.

There You’ll Find Me is a good follow up from Jenny B. Jones. A little bit paler in comparison to Save the Date, but nonetheless a good one. If you’re looking for a clean contemporary novel that will tickle your romantic and traveling fancies, then I think you’ll like this one. :)

Rating: ★★★★★

My copy: e-ARC from Netgalley

Cover and blurb: Goodreads

Other reviews:
Nightly Reading
Book that Thing!
One Page at a Time

One More Page

Category Archives: Reviews

Breathe

Always the Wedding Planner, Never the Bride

The Piper’s Son

Past Perfect

Forbidden

There You’ll Find Me