Tag Archives: Kindle

Minis: YA Contemporaries

Time to catch up on some reviews! I’ve read some of these books months ago, but I never got around to reviewing them around that time. Here we go! :D

Amelia O’Donohue is So Not a Virgin by Helen Fitzgerald
Sourcebooks Fire, 217 pages

At this boarding school, even the wildest rumors don’t measure up to what’s really going on…

Rachel Ross is asthmatic and “more bottled up than ketchup,” but that’s fine. Nothing will prevent her from graduating at the top of her exclusive new boarding school and getting into Oxford.

Rachel refuses to be distracted by the present until she uncovers a shocking secret on campus. She realizes that someone is in desperate need of help and that she actually has something to share-and more friends than she knew.

With an utterly original, hilarious, and honest voice, Amelia O’Donohue delivers a sexy new boarding school tale with true heart-and a surprise ending you won’t forget.

This book had me at “asthma”. Being an asthmatic myself, I like reading about characters who deal with the same thing. Amelia O’Donohue Is So Not a Virgin sounds like a fun book from the title alone. Rachel Ross (sidenote: Friends reference, anyone? :D) is uptight…but that’s okay, because her parents finally allowed her to go to the boarding school she wanted, so she can go to Oxford. She works hard to be the best in class, until she discovers a secret that could totally change the life of someone in school…if only she can figure out who it is.

Did I say fun? Oh yes, it was, and I found myself smiling at several parts of the book. I realized, though, that Rachel is really uptight, and sometimes it gets tiring to be in her place. Loosen up a little, girl! I found myself getting annoyed at her for not even trying to reach out…until the mystery is uncovered. When the secret was revealed, I had a teeny tiny suspicion about who owned that secret, but I wasn’t sure. I mean, there were no clues! Until I got to the end, and I had to flip through some of the previous parts to look for proof. Talk about mind games, Helen Fitzgerald. Well played.

Amelia O’Donohue is So Not a Virgin is a fun and smart book that talks about friends and family and a lot of mystery that can only happen in a boarding school. It’s a quick escape, and I enjoyed reading it. Oh, and this is not about Amelia O’Donohue. ;)

Rating: ★★★★★

The Treasure Map of Boys by E. Lockhart
Ruby Oliver # 3
Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 244 pages

Ruby is back at Tate Prep, and it’s her thirty-seventh week in the state of Noboyfriend. Her panic attacks are bad, her love life is even worse, and what’s more:

·        Noel is writing her notes,
·        Jackson is giving her frogs,
·        Gideon is helping her cook,
·        and Finn is making her brownies.
·        Rumors are flying, and Ruby’s already sucky reputation is heading downhill.

Not only that, she’s also:

·        running a bake sale,
·        learning the secrets of heavy metal therapy,
·        encountering some seriously smelly feet,
·        defending the rights of pygmy goats,
·        and bodyguarding Noel from unwanted advances.

Ruby struggles to secure some sort of mental health, to understand what constitutes a real friendship, and—if such a thing exists—to find true love.

I liked the first two Ruby Oliver books I read, and I wasn’t planning to buy The Treasure Map of Boys, until one day I was left waiting somewhere without a book. So I finally got this so I would know what happened to Ruby and her state of Noboyfriend. In this book, Ruby seems like she’s back to square one, but this time there’s Noel. And Hutch. And Jackson again. And there’s lots of baking, and Nora and friendship that may or may not be ruined because of boys.

Oh poor Ruby. It was nice going back into the Tate Prep world, but I really, really want Ruby to have her happy ending. But I’m not even sure if her happy ending should involve a boy, because I think she should find a way to be happy by herself first before going out of the state of Noboyfriend. Not that I personally know, of course, but I wanted to give Ruby a hug every time she gets a nervous breakdown in this book! She becomes a bit more mature here, but even so there were wise and stupid decisions made. In a way, I think there’s a little Ruby Oliver in all of us.

As always, I liked how real Ruby’s voice was here, and funnily enough, her thoughts are not just thoughts of teenage girls but also sometimes, thoughts of someone who’s way past that age. Ehem. :p I loved the other characters, too, especially Ruby’s friends. I didn’t like how she treated some of them…but high school, oh high school. The pettiness makes me cringe, but I can’t say I didn’t go through the same incidents Oh, Ruby, you are not alone! I’m looking forward to reading the last book in the series, and I really, really hope that she gets the ending she really and truly deserves.

Rating: ★★★★★

Amplified by Tara Kelly
Henry, Holt and Co, 293 pages

When privileged 17-year-old Jasmine gets kicked out of her house, she takes what is left of her savings and flees to Santa Cruz to pursue her dream of becoming a musician. Jasmine finds the ideal room in an oceanfront house, but she needs to convince the three guys living there that she’s the perfect roommate and lead guitarist for their band, C-Side. Too bad she has major stage fright and the cute bassist doesn’t think a spoiled girl from over the hill can hack it. . .

I like music, but I can hardly play any instrument or even really sing (except in karaoke sessions), but for some reason, I love books about music. Or books with characters who are in a band. I don’t know why — perhaps it’s because I secretly dreamed of being in a band? Or is it because one of my dream jobs is to become a band’s manager? But I love reading books with them, so I’ve been wanting Amplified by Tara Kelly for a while now. Thanks to Celina for giving me a copy!

Amplified is about 17-year old Jasmine Kiss, who was kicked out of her home after saying she wanted to defer college so she can become a musician. She goes to Santa Cruz to find a place to stay and stumbles upon C-Side, an industrial rock band looking for a new guitarist ASAP and offering a room to rent, as well. Jasmine tries out, even if the band wants a male guitarist, and she has no idea what she will do with her stage fright when they told her they need the new guitarist for an upcoming show.

Just like the other books with a band that I have read, Amplified is full of rocking fun. I liked Jasmine, even if she was a little too uptight. She stuck to what she believed in, and she was so out of her comfort zone in her new place that I almost wished she’d give up and go back home because some of the things they tell her were painful. I also liked the other band members, especially Veta and Felix, who were both darlings. The romance was also well-developed, and there was good enough tension and slow enough development that made it believable — and Sean very crushable. ;) I liked their band dynamic, although I wished I could’ve seen a bit more of what makes the other characters tick — like more conversations between them, instead of just Bryn being almost as uptight as Jasmine or you know, having too many band practice.

But overall, Amplified is a novel full of rocking band fun and music. I still wish I could hear some of the songs they sing, though, just for the fuller experience of reading something like this. The author is writing a companion novel for Amplified entitled Encore. Sign me up, please — I want more of C-Side!

Rating: ★★★★★

The Comeback Kiss

Iscariot: A Novel of Judas

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Iscariot by Tosca Lee Iscariot by Tosca Lee
Howard Books, 352 pages

In Jesus, Judas believes he has found the One—the promised Messiah and future king of the Jews, destined to overthrow Roman rule. Galvanized, he joins the Nazarene’s followers, ready to enact the change he has waited for all his life. But soon Judas’s vision of a nation free from Rome is crushed by the inexplicable actions of the Nazarene himself, who will not bow to social or religious convention—who seems, in the end, to even turn against his own people. At last, Judas must confront the fact that the master he loves is not the liberator he hoped for, but a man bent on a drastically different agenda.

Iscariot is the story of Judas, from his tumultuous childhood to his emergence as the man known to the world as the betrayer of Jesus. But even more, it is a singular and surprising view into the life of Jesus that forces us to reexamine everything we thought we knew about the most famous—and infamous—religious icons in history.

Ever since Tosca announced that she was writing this book in 2010, I have been eagerly waiting for this to come out. I loved her first two books, Demon and Havah: The Story of Eve, and a novel about Judas Iscariot is something that I know only Tosca can write with the same heart-wrenching clarity and sensitivity that she did in her first two books. When it came up available in Netgalley, I immediately got it and saved it in my Kindle. Of course, it took me ages to finally start it, until I decided that it would be my Holy Week read.

Judas Iscariot. The traitor. The betrayer. It’s so easy to hate him, and blame him, because if he didn’t sell Jesus for 30 silver coins, then maybe Jesus wouldn’t have died. It was simple, right? But have we ever wondered that even if Judas hadn’t done what he did, would Jesus still have died? After all, it was salvation history, and it was God the Father’s will for the Son of Man. Would someone else have betrayed him? And we always associate Judas with something evil, but if he was evil, why would he even be a part of Jesus’ closest circle? Why would Jesus even call Judas friend?

Iscariot doesn’t attempt to answer this, but instead presents what we know of Jesus’ time in an even more clarity. Tosca brings us to the heart of that time — the social and political unrest of the Jews against the Romans, the religious customs of the Jewish and how important it is to them, and how the Pharisees just seem to be everywhere. And then there’s Jesus, who shocks everyone and speaks of a radical faith, heals people, drives out demons and resurrects the dead. We see all this in the eyes of Judas bar Simon, who came from a tumultuous childhood and is desperately wishing for a messiah. When his paths cross with Jesus the Nazarene of questionable birth and he follows him together with eleven other men, he wonders if he is the one. He wonders, and dares to hope, torn between love for his master and wanting a specific vision for the people. In Iscariot, we see Jesus through human eyes — through doubting, human eyes and a heart that is so scared to hope — and it brings the readers this question: if I were Judas at that time, would I have done the same thing if I thought it was the right thing?

What an unsettling novel. It’s kind of hard to explain what effect this novel had on me. It reminds me of the Gospel during the Palm Sunday mass — you know, the one where the priest is Jesus and the mass goers are the people and we all had speaking parts in the Gospel? My heart clenched like crazy when I had to say, “Crucify him!” The second time I had to say it, my eyes burned with tears, because I knew that at several points in my life, I had crucified Christ because of my sins. And I keep on doing it whenever I fail to be loving, when I fall into sin. In Iscariot, we see Judas and the apostles in all their humanity, and how they tried to follow Jesus even if they do not understand him. Tosca weaves a story of how everything must have been like for Judas as he fights against himself in hoping that this charismatic Nazarene could be the savior of all — and how he tries to act as a good friend when he realizes that maybe his master may not be what he expected him to be. Tosca’s writing was rich and colorful, and it puts all those miracles and stories in the Gospels in a more concrete way, so much that it felt like I was also there. Here’s a favorite part, when Jesus calmed the storm:

In a flash of lightning, I saw the sandaled feet of Jesus, flagging against the floor of the boat, loosely in the water, like the body of a dead man, floating. Had he drowned, then, there beneath the stern? Had he departed from us silently, without even a word of farewell? Soon we would all be fortunate to float like that on any water here.

I told myself to let go, to lunge forward and seize him by the legs. Then the boat jinked sideways, throwing us all backward. For a horrifying instant, I thought we would capsize. I opened my mouth to cry out to him, only to be slapped in the face with a crashing wave that slapped my ears and sent my head ringing.

It was John who fell down over us, grabbing me by the arm when I nearly fell over the side. “Master! Save us!”

It was a horrid sound, that scream. I would remember it for the rest of my life.

I covered my face, trying to shield my eyes. Against the dark, I saw him, the pale of his tunic in the sluicing blackness, rising up. In my deafness, I heard him when I should not have against the screeching gale:

Be still.

The words had not been shouted to the furious wind or issued to the sky, but spoken as through directly to my heart.

I’m not very good with history or theology, so I can’t speak if this book is super accurate, but for a piece of historical “fiction”, this definitely made me think. It made me feel sympathetic at the least, and it made me see Jesus in a different light. It made me see my Savior’s passion and death in a different perspective. It made me see my own humanity, and the depth of Jesus’ love even for those who He knew would betray Him.

And aren’t we all that, anyway? Haven’t be betrayed him at some point in our life? And won’t we betray him in the future, because we are human and we are weak? And Jesus knows that…still, He loves us without a doubt.

I finished reading Iscariot before 3:00pm on Good Friday, and I was a little overwhelmed with the time and how it ended. I knew how it would end, and yet…it left me somber. It left me sad. Would there have been redemption for Judas, if he had just waited? Could he have become someone like Peter, who denied Jesus but accepted mercy which led him to become the great church leader that he is? If he had just waited until Sunday, would he have believed that Jesus was indeed the person he had been waiting for his entire life?

We would never know.

I admit that I may be just a little biased because I love everything that Tosca has written, but if you would read any of her work, I think Iscariot: A Novel of Judas is the best place to start. It’s not the easiest thing to read, but it’s one that will leave you longing for your Savior.

Book trailer:

Rating: ★★★★★

My copy: ebook from Netgalley

Other reviews:
DWD Reviews
Backing Books

Reunited

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Reunited by Hilary Weisman Graham
Simon & Schuster, 336 pages

1 Concert
2000 Miles
3 Ex-Best Friends

Alice, Summer, and Tiernan are ex-best friends.

Back in middle school, the three girls were inseparable. They were also the number one fans of the rock band Level3.

But when the band broke up, so did their friendship. Summer ran with the popular crowd, Tiernan was a rebellious wild-child, and Alice spent high school with her nose buried in books.

Now, just as the girls are about to graduate, Level3 announces a one-time-only reunion show.

Even though the concert’s 2000 miles away, Alice buys three tickets on impulse. And as it turns out, Summer and Tiernan have their own reasons for wanting to get out of town. Good thing Alice’s graduation gift (a pea-green 1976 VW camper van known as the Pea Pod) is just the vehicle to get them there.

But on the long drive cross-country, the girls hit more than a few bumps in the road. Will their friendship get an encore or is the show really over?

I got my first taste of boyband love when I was in Grade 5, when I first saw the Backstreet Boys perform Get Down on a noontime show when they stopped by the country. I had no idea who they were, but I thought the song was catchy, so I asked for a cassette tape (!!!) of their first album. I fell in love with them (specifically, Nick Carter!) ever since then. I had several friends who were also fans, but I think I was the biggest fan among them. By high school, some of them have moved on from the boyband phase to other pop stars, while I stayed happy in my teenybopper bubblegum pop world a little while longer.

In Reunited, we meet Alice, Summer and Tiernan, best friends who share the love for the rock band Level3. That is, until high school, anyway — when Level3 disbanded and their friendship dissolved for reasons that they didn’t really want to remember. Alice is the good girl, the one who held them together and would want to remain friends with them if things didn’t fall apart. There’s Summer, the budding poet who eventually became Miss Popular. Then there’s Tiernan, who’s the school’s resident rebel, and this rebellion reaches even in her home life. When Level3 announced that they will have a reunion concert, Alice buys tickets without thinking and convinces Summer and Tiernan to go on a road trip with her to watch this one-time reunion concert. So here we have three (ex) friends, a band, and a road trip — oh, I am definitely sold.

The story switches from the point of view of each of the girls, which gives us a pretty equal glimpse of how they feel about each other. There’s this big mystery of sorts about why they fell apart from the first place — things were alluded to, but I couldn’t really guess what happened that made them swear off each other like that. The voices of the three girls were pretty distinct, and I liked being in Summer’s head the most because it felt like she had the most to lose and the first to let the trip go. That almost came true, and in the end, I was happy how she pulled through for the two other girls, and I felt sympathetic with what really happened between the three of them.

As with every road trip, there’s craziness: from an ex-convict to having no gas to falling in love/in crush, to dance contests and parties. There was this one part that felt a little too hard to believe, and I felt like it was used to make that one thing happened, and I wasn’t really completely sold. It set a lot of things in motion, that made the ending a little bit more hilarious than I expected.

I’m not sure how I feel about the ending. It was cute, but it felt like it was a little bit on the wish-fulfillment side. It’s the stuff my high school fan girl dreams were made of, actually, which is probably why I feel like I can’t really believe it. But maybe that’s just me. It’s not like some of my fangirl dreams never came true, anyway.

Oh and as much as I like reading books that has bands and music on it (Audrey, Wait! and Five Flavors of Dumb, for example), it feels a bit hard to really get into the music when I don’t know how the songs sound like. The lyrics were a nice touch, but I wish books like these come up with a soundtrack of sorts. Although it might be a little bit difficult for this one because Level3 has a pretty big discography in the story. ^^

Reunited is okay — quick and fun and interesting. While I didn’t really feel like it’s totally awesome and groundbreaking, I enjoyed reading it. It’s the type of book I would recommend to anyone who has ever been a big fan of any kind of band at some point of their teenage life. Better if you share it with friends who love the same band, too. :)

Rating: ★★★★★

Other reviews:
Buried in Books
Kirkus

Required Reading 2013: March

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February was a fabulous month, if I do say so myself. Many things happened in February, but three major bookish things happened to me:

My book/short story discussion happened last weekend (and I wrote about it here)
My new Kindle Paperwhite that finally arrived:
Hannah the Kindle Paperwhite ♥
I finally finished Les Misérables! (On Valentine’s Day!)

So February was a very good bookish month, all things considered. A recap of my February Required Reading books:

Every Day by David Levithan (4/5) – Levithan does it again. There were several memorable quotes here, and it was the right book to start February with. I still like The Lover’s Dictionary just a bit more, but Every Day is pretty good.
Boundless by Cynthia Hand (4/5) – The finale to my favorite angel series. I lost sleep over this! Still gathering my thoughts for my review – wait for it!
Fourteen Love Stories edited by Jose Dalisay Jr. and Angelo R. Lacuesta (3/5) – It was okay, and there were some stories I really liked, but there were others that I was kind of ambivalent about. I guess I was expecting it to give me more feels?

I wasn’t able to crack open For Darkness Shows the Stars at all, and I’m still in the middle of Ghostwritten, but I won’t include them in the next month’s list anymore. I did read several romance books in the last month to keep up with the theme — needless to say, I had a very “romantic” month because of all that.

On to my favorite month!

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Tag Archives: Kindle

Minis: YA Contemporaries

The Comeback Kiss

Iscariot: A Novel of Judas

Reunited

Required Reading 2013: March