Review: One Moment by Kristina McBride

Summary from Goodreads:
It was supposed to be the best summer of Maggie’s life. Now it's the one she'd do anything to forget.

Maggie Reynolds remembers hanging out at the gorge with her closest friends after a party the night before. She remembers climbing the path hand in hand with her perfect boyfriend, Joey. She remembers that last kiss, soft, lingering, safe. So why can’t she remember what happened next?

All it takes is one second for everything to change. One moment to realize that it’s the people you love who hurt you the most.

Maggie and her close friends spend one summer day at a gorge where they take turns diving into the water. Maggie is scared but Joey, her boyfriend, takes her hand and they climb the rocky ledge and prepare to jump together. The next moment, Maggie climbs down the gorge to find Joey surrounded by blood and not breathing. All she can remember was the kiss before the jump and Joey telling her to trust him.

I hated the feeling of being kept in the dark while Maggie narrated and she kept going in circles about the whole gorge incident. Thankfully the book was not so long and things came to light pretty soon. The writing was great in the way that it made me analyse the behaviour of characters in the aftermath of Joey's death and in incidents Maggie recalled (her first date with Joey, parties and other events) and question why someone would be acting a certain way.

Although I didn't like Maggie as she was quite self-absorbed and the type to run away from the truth even though it was staring her in the eye, I felt for her when the secrets kept from her were revealed and things got ugly. Overall an engrossing novel.

Review: Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas (Throne of Glass, #2)

Summary from Goodreads:
Celaena Sardothien is the king’s Champion—yet she is far from loyal to the crown, for the man she serves is bent on evil. But working against her master in secret is no easy task. As Celaena tries to untangle the mysteries buried within the glass castle, she can trust no one, not even her supposed allies Crown Prince Dorian, Captain of the Guard Chaol, and foreign princess Nehemia.

Then, an unspeakable tragedy shatters Celaena’s world. She must decide once and for all where her loyalties lie... and whom she will fight for.

I lowered my expectations for Crown of Midnight after being a bit disappointed with Throne of Glass. It turns out I could have raised my bar a lot higher and the book would have still delivered. It was an amazing sequel!

This book built on so much of the first book. In the first book I was endlessly complaining in my mind that Celaena had a backstory which was never told and she was all talk and no action, but now I know why she kept it in wraps and never said anything. The things she did in this book were so badass and erased my doubts about her credibility as an assassin. Blood and gore is what I find synonymous with the word 'assassin' and plenty of violence that had me awe-stricken was served in this installment. I frequently had no idea where the book was headed and I liked the surprises. More than just assassinating under the king's orders, Celaena discovers his larger plans for the realm.

Character development was much better here than the ToG. The relationship of Chaol and Celaena progressed and I found myself liking this development and caring more for them. This may have been partly due to Celaena becoming less self-absorbed and more focused on the seriousness of her role as King's Champion and the fact that she now had people close to her she could potentially lose if she stepped out of line. There wasn't a complete change in character though with just enough arrogance to remind me of the person she was in ToG.

I am totally ready for the journey set up towards the end of the book that will be continued in Heir of Fire.

Review: On the Fence by Kasie West

Summary from Goodreads:
She's a tomboy. He's the boy next door…

Charlie Reynolds can outrun, outscore, and outwit every boy she knows. But when it comes to being a girl, Charlie doesn't know the first thing about anything. So when she starts working at a chichi boutique to pay off a speeding ticket, she finds herself in a strange new world. To cope with the stress of her new reality, Charlie takes to spending nights chatting with her neighbor Braden through the fence between their yards. As she grows to depend on their nightly Fence Chats, she realizes she's got a bigger problem than speeding tickets-she's falling for Braden. She knows what it means to go for the win, but if spilling her secret means losing him for good, the stakes just got too high.

I have loved every book Kasie West has written, including this one! She's a queen of spinning love stories and tugging (heart)strings. The summary/blurb pretty much reveals a lot of what happens in the beginning, with Charlie getting fined a speeding ticket and finding a job to pay it off. Charlie hangs a lot with her four brothers and the boy next door Braden, who has been friends with the lot of them since they were young. One night when she can't sleep due to her recurring nightmares, she goes out to the garden for some air and finds Braden sitting on the other side of the fence. Charlie finds herself unloading her thoughts to Braden (something she doesn't do during the day when they hang out) during these fence chats which become a frequent thing.

The dialogue in this book was funny and cute and I loved the way we were let in on the inside jokes shared between the characters. I loved the family dynamics between Charlie, her overprotective brothers and their father single-handedly raising them up. Most of all I loved the contrast between Braden and Charlie's interactions during the fence chats at night (where Charlie pictures a 'disembodied' Braden, hehe!) to their interactions during the day. I was anticipating the time it came when the line would blur!

I devoured this book like multiple Weis bars on a summer's day! On the Fence was sweet and satisfying but definitely left me craving for more because I just didn't want to leave.

Review: Nick and Norah Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn & David Levithan

Summary from Goodreads:
It all starts when Nick asks Norah to be his girlfriend for five minutes. He only needs five minutes to avoid his ex-girlfriend, who’s just walked in to his band’s show. With a new guy. And then, with one kiss, Nick and Norah are off on an adventure set against the backdrop of New York City – and smack in the middle of all the joy, anxiety, confusion, and excitement of a first date.

The reason I completed this horrendous book was so I could count it towards a challenge :/ straight off the bat I knew that I wouldn't connect with any of the characters. They unnecessarily swore (50+ f words in one chapter?!) and they were irresponsible hormone-driven teenagers. I hated Norah the most who was always going on about how a high achiever and good girl she was when her appalling behaviour and attitude conveyed the complete opposite. Straight laced she tells us? She sends her drunk and passed out friend to the back of the van of some strangers and throw them her address and house keys for good measure while she goes and frolicks with Nick! What the heck?!?!

The story was a mess, things made no sense and one crazy thing lead to another with no end in sight. When the ending arrived, I was completely dissatisfied and my final thought was that I should have read a hundred odd pages of the dictionary (to boost my vocab rather than getting the f word thrown at me a hundred times) instead of this disaster of a book. Complete waste of time.