Tag: Marlou

Always and Forever, Lara Jean by Jenny Han

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Always and Forever, Lara Jean

Author: Jenny Han
Series: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, #3
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

Lara Jean is having the best senior year.

And there’s still so much to look forward to: a class trip to New York City, prom with her boyfriend Peter, Beach Week after graduation, and her dad’s wedding to Ms. Rothschild. Then she’ll be off to college with Peter, at a school close enough for her to come home and bake chocolate chip cookies on the weekends.

Life couldn’t be more perfect!

At least, that’s what Lara Jean thinks . . . until she gets some unexpected news.

Now the girl who dreads change must rethink all her plans—but when your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

I saw everything in this book coming. Did I mind that? Nah. Did Han write it well enough that I still kept reading? I finished it didn’t I 😉 
Since the book was so predictable I did enjoy it less and there was a lot of drama going on and I couldn’t keep up. The book was a cute read though, but it’s not like I’m ever going to reread it. 
Favorite quote:

“Never say no when you really want to say yes.”

That’s some good life advice right there provided by none other than the infamous flirt, Stormy. So, I liked this book, I didn’t love it but that’s fine. I wasn’t even expecting to like the Contemporary gener enough to read three books in one go. Solid three stars for the last book in the trilogy.

“Kitty’s always saying how origin stories are important.
At college, when people ask us how we met, how will we answer them? The short story is, we grew up together. But that’s more Josh’s and my story. High school sweet-hearts? That’s Peter and Gen’s story. So what’s ours, then?
I suppose I’ll say it all started with a love letter.”

Books in this series

To All the Boys That I Loved Before (#1), P.S. I Still Love You (#2), Always and Forever, Lara Jean (#3)

P.S. I Still Love You by Jenny Han

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P.S. I Still Love You

Author: Jenny Han
Series: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, #2
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

Lara Jean didn’t expect to really fall for Peter.
She and Peter were just pretending. Except suddenly they weren’t. Now Lara Jean is more confused than ever.
When another boy from her past returns to her life, Lara Jean’s feelings for him return too. Can a girl be in love with two boys at once?

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

The review of this book is gonna be a little shorter… I was bored through most of the book, half forgot what they were talking about and got frustrated that they were fighting over nothing. And yet, I still liked the book. Funny how that goes. 
Favorite quote:

“So I take Peter’s hand; I put it on my heart. I tell him, “You have to take good care of this, because it’s yours.”

*insert squealing fangirl* This is so terribly cute, it gives me major heart eyes.
This book was not as good as the first one, but still enjoyable in the end. Solid three stars.

Books in this series

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before (#1), P.S. I Still Love you (#2), Always and Forever, Lara Jean (#3)

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han

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To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before

Author: Jenny Han
Series: To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before, #1
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before is the story of Lara Jean, who has never openly admitted her crushes, but instead wrote each boy a letter about how she felt, sealed it, and hid it in a box under her bed. But one day Lara Jean discovers that somehow her secret box of letters has been mailed, causing all her crushes from her past to confront her about the letters: her first kiss, the boy from summer camp, even her sister’s ex-boyfriend, Josh. As she learns to deal with her past loves face to face, Lara Jean discovers that something good may come out of these letters after all.

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

“If love is like a possession, maybe my letter are like my exorcisms.”

This book was so terribly cute! I picked it up because I loved the movie and two of my friends kept telling me how great the books are. This book is actually the first ever contemporary book I’ve read. I can’t say that I liked it any less without magic, violence and/or dragons. It was just different than what I’m used to. Sometimes you just gotta go a little outside the (hat)box right?
So I loved this quote:

My letters are for when I don’t want to be in love anymore. They’re for good-bye. Because after I write in my letter, I’m not longer consumed by my all-consuming love…My letters set me free. Or at least they’re supposed to.

Why? Because it reminded me of advice I was given a couple years back; ‘Write your emotions down so you can deal with them better.’ It never worked for me, because I’d rather be writing about magic than about my feelings (or I would write down stabby stab stab and that wasn’t the way to go either), but for Lara Jean it worked. Of course things got a little complicated when her inner thoughts were out in the world, but hey, she managed to put her thoughts into words and I’m having difficulty with that even as I write this review. 
All in all a lovely book and I give it a solid four stars.

Books in this series

P.S. I Still Love You (Book 2), Always and Forever, Lara Jean (Book 3)

To Kill a Kingdom by Alexandra Christo

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To Kill a Kingdom

Author: Alexandra Christo
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

Princess Lira is siren royalty and the most lethal of them all. With the hearts of seventeen princes in her collection, she is revered across the sea. Until a twist of fate forces her to kill one of her own. To punish her daughter, the Sea Queen transforms Lira into the one thing they loathe most—a human. Robbed of her song, Lira has until the winter solstice to deliver Prince Elian’s heart to the Sea Queen or remain a human forever.

The ocean is the only place Prince Elian calls home, even though he is heir to the most powerful kingdom in the world. Hunting sirens is more than an unsavory hobby—it’s his calling. When he rescues a drowning woman in the ocean, she’s more than what she appears. She promises to help him find the key to destroying all of sirenkind for good—But can he trust her? And just how many deals will Elian have to barter to eliminate mankind’s greatest enemy?

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

“Every princess needs her prince.”

I FINISHED THIS BOOK IN A DAY! OOPS!

It was really cute and very easy to read. Not totally my kind of story because there wasn’t much happening, but still a good book. I thought the book was slow paced and then the ending was rushed. There wasn’t that much happening and then suddenly everything happened at once. Not my kind of story. I did like Christo’s writing style, I went through the book pretty fast so that was great!

Lira and Elian’s banter was super cute and the banter between Elian and his crew members are total friendship goals.

This book was a total cliche though. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, but it did make the book predictable. I know it’s based on The Little Mermaid so you already knew that Elian and Lira were going to end up together but Christo added a lot of typical tropes in there and that just wasn’t it for me.

Did this book blow my mind? No. Was it incredibly enjoyable? Absolutely.

Loved By P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

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Loved by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

Author: P.C. Cast, Kristin Cast
Series: House of Night Other World #1
Reviewer: Marlou

Content warnings

Swearing

Summary

It’s Zoey’s eighteenth birthmas and the Nerd Herd has been scattered across the country busily adulting for almost a year when Stark calls them back to Tulsa to surprise Z. But all is not well in T-town. Strange, dark signs are appearing—could it be possible Neferet is stirring? Not willing to chance disaster striking again, Zoey calls on her newly reunited friends to circle with her and add a layer of protection over Neferet’s grotto jail. Easy-peasy, right?

Wrong. Nothing at the House of Night is ever as it seems.

With rabid red vampyres closing in, Zoey and the Nerd Herd must come together again and battle evil. But a year is a long time. Have these old friends grown too far apart?

When the world fractures and allies become enemies, will darkness devour friendships or will light save those she’s loved?

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

I wanted to love this book so badly, but I just can’t. House of Night was (with Twilight) the first fantasy series I’d ever read and these books got me into reading fantasy and I still (8 years later) barely read anything else. Loved was definitely nostalgic because of that, but it really wasn’t good. Cast tries too hard to make them sound like teenagers but it’s very obvious it’s written by an adult who views teenagers as little children that can’t form proper sentences, or something like that. 

Yes, I do love the characters, I love the HoN world. BUT everything is so poorly written that I can’t stand it. 

The storyline is interesting enough. There’s some kind of parallel world that comes into ours and shit goes wrong. And guess what, it takes half a book to get to the ‘and now shit goes wrong’ without building any tension. Then shit goes wrong and everyone freaks out. The goddess Nyx swoops in gives someone a new ability to save humanity and everything is resolved. At least the saved people have major PTSD, so not everything was solved so quickly.

Gosh, I’m so annoyed by this book. I won’t be reading the other books, that’s for sure… Loved gets a two star review from me and that’s already pretty damn high.

Books in this series

Lover (#1), Lost (#2), Forgotten (#3)

Poseidon’s Academy by Sarah A. Vogler

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Poseidon’s Academy

Author: Sarah A. Vogler
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

Getting sucked into a whirlpool, sleeping in monster-infested woods, and battling psycho sea-nymphs was not how Hailey planned to spend her first year of high school. But when you’re the only Zeus in the world, life tends to get a bit complicated… 

The Great Battle saw the world changed forever when humans killed the gods and absorbed their powers. One power was coveted above all others: Zeus’s. Thirteen-year-old Hailey Woods is the first Zeus in over a century. Unlike everyone else, she hates her powers because of an ancient prophecy that claims a Zeus will have to save the world someday. 

Hailey doesn’t want to save the world. She wants to be a normal teenager, whose biggest dilemma in life is deciding what to eat for lunch, rather than training to become the ultimate weapon. Poseidon’s Academy, an underwater palace where her powers don’t work, was meant to give her that opportunity. But when she arrives, she discovers the sea-nymphs living there are plotting to resurrect the gods, and Hailey must find a way to stop them before they can enact the prophecy. 

So much for normal!

View this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 2,5 out of 5 stars

This book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. 

I want to start this review saying that despite giving this book 2.5 stars, I still enjoyed myself. This book has a lot of potential, but it just didn’t wow me. I’ve read almost all of Rick Riordan’s books and I find myself comparing this book to his, and when I do, I find that this book lacks so much. 

Worldbuilding: Gods have been defeated by humans. Humans got their powers. And that’s it. I couldn’t find anything more than that and I would have liked to see more.

Mythology: Yes, she uses the gods and their powers, but there is nothing that hints to myths and no actual stories about the gods are mentioned. 

Characters: Oh boy, they were so flat. There just wasn’t much to them and I really wouldn’t have cared if any of them died… 

Overall, this book is okay. I give it 2.5 stars and I’ll never look back. I do not recommend reading this book. Maybe a young child of age 8 might like it, because of its simplicity.

Books in this series:

Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy

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Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy

Authors: Cassandra Clare, Sarah Rees Brennan, Maureen Johnson, Robin Wasserman
Series: Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy #1-10
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

Simon Lewis has been a human and a vampire, and now he is becoming a Shadowhunter. But the events of City of Heavenly Fireleft him stripped of his memories, and Simon isn’t sure who he is anymore. He knows he was friends with Clary, and that he convinced the total goddess Isabelle Lightwood to go out with him…but he doesn’t know how. And when Clary and Isabelle look at him, expecting him to be a man he doesn’t remember…Simon can’t take it.

So when the Shadowhunter Academy reopens, Simon throws himself into this new world of demon-hunting, determined to find himself again. His new self. Whomever this new Simon might be.

But the Academy is a Shadowhunter institution, which means it has some problems. Like the fact that non-Shadowhunter students have to live in the basement. And that differences—like being a former vampire—are greatly looked down upon. At least Simon is trained in weaponry—even if it’s only from hours of playing D&D.

Join Simon on his journey to become a Shadowhunter, and learn about the Academy’s illustrious history along the way, through guest lecturers such as Jace Herondale, Tessa Gray, and Magnus Bane. These ten short stories give an epilogue to the Mortal Instruments series and provide glimpses of what’s in store in the Dark Artifices.

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

“Simon had to save the world, and the rest of us get in because we have the right surname?” George asked lightly. He winked at Simon. “Hard luck on you, mate.”

Did I love this book? No. Did I enjoy this book? Absolutely.

This book was just a fluff piece for me. There isn’t a powerful storyline, there’s no evil that need to be defeated, it’s just a bunch of hormonal teenagers learning how to kill demons. Oh, and of course, there’s a little something about racism and that it’s bad, like duh. It’s not a bad book, it’s just not great either. *shrugs*

Now let’s talk about the things I did really like:

Izzy and Simon falling in love all over again? Sign me up! Gosh they were so cute together in this book. Just look at this wonderful little snippet:

“I love you. I love you without the memories. I love you right now.”

Isabelle said in a calm voice, “I know.”

Simon stared at her. “Was that…,” he said slowly. “Was that a Star Wars reference? Because if it was, I would like to declare my love all over again.”

Tessa Gray talking about her family? YASSSSS

“Little James Herondale, age two, was in fact holding a dagger quite well. He stabbed it into a sofa cushion, sending out a burst of feathers. “Ducks,” he said, pointing at the feathers.”

Also, GEORGE!

“Well, I’m a Lovelace. My family quit Shadowhunting due to laziness in the 1700s.”

All in all it was a good book, I enjoyed reading it. Some short stories were way more interesting than others. Simon was nice to read about. 3.5 stars for this one.

Books in this series

The Foxhole Court by Nora Sakavic

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The Foxhole Court

Author: Nora Sakavic
Series: All for the Game #1
Reviewer: Marlou

Content Warnings

Drug use, violence, lots of alcohol use, abuse

Summary

Neil Josten is the newest addition to the Palmetto State University Exy team. He’s short, he’s fast, he’s got a ton of potential—and he’s the runaway son of the murderous crime lord known as The Butcher.

Signing a contract with the PSU Foxes is the last thing a guy like Neil should do. The team is high profile and he doesn’t need sports crews broadcasting pictures of his face around the nation. His lies will hold up only so long under this kind of scrutiny and the truth will get him killed.

But Neil’s not the only one with secrets on the team. One of Neil’s new teammates is a friend from his old life, and Neil can’t walk away from him a second time. Neil has survived the last eight years by running. Maybe he’s finally found someone and something worth fighting for.

View this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Boy oh boy, this book was so interesting. I don’t usually read contemporary and I never thought I’d pick up a book about sports but hey, here I am. I have finished all three books in this trilogy and I loved it. I asked for recommendations on my bookstagram account and promised myself that the first person that replied with a decent book, I would read that. I’m so glad I did something spontaneous like that because I got to read this book.

This book follows a group of people that have some issues. They’re on an Exy team (Exy is a combination of Ice Hockey and Lacrosse) and they’ve all been given a second chance by playing for the Foxes. I love books about second chances!

The Foxhole Court is a very easy read. I went through the book fairly quickly, which is nice since it was only meant as a book to pass the time. Once I got to the end though, it left me wanting more and then I ended up reading all three books. The same thing happened when I read To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before, I guess I like contemporary now, huh? You never know until you try.

This book isn’t cute in the way some novels might be and yet I would still describe Neil (the main character) as cute, and not because of his looks because he looks quite plain. I don’t know what it is with this book, I can’t quite formulate a sane sounding opinion (what even are words?). I’ll just stop writing now before I start repeating myself 🙂 This book gets three stars because it isn’t my usual genre, it was a bit slow at times, but it’s still a lovely book.

Books in this series

The Ice Princess by Thea Stilton

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The Ice Princess

Dutch title: De IJs Prinses

Author: Thea Stilton
Series: Princesses of Fantasia #1
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

There is an Empire …

… a cold, inhospitable area, where a young princess watches over a great secret. But there is someone who wants to revive the time of the old sorcery, and only Gunnar, the big white wolf, can defend the princess.

And so he shows her his true nature.

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 3 out of 5 stars

Thea Stilton is a childhood favorite author of mine and I had never read this series of hers. I saw the first five at the library and decided to take them with me, they’d be great summer reads.

Ice Princess was totally adorable and had a pretty decent plot line. Usually, I can guess what will happen with Middle Grade books, but this one was not as predictable as I thought it would be.

This cute Middle Grade book gets three stars from me and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants to read a fun Middle Grade fantasy.

I’ve read this book in my native tongue (Dutch) which was a little weird at first, because I usually only read in English. Everything just sounds way better in English. I wasn’t as annoyed with the language as I expected to be and I’m quite relieved about that.

I’m most certainly going to finish at least these five, but maybe just the entire series. I’m pretty sure the library has all of them. They’re just so terribly cute and the story is interesting enough that it makes me want to keep reading, which is a very good sign. The second book was my sister’s favorite one so I’ll see if I like that one best too.

Books in this series

The Revolution of Jack Frost

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The Revolution of Jack Frost

Author: K.M. Robinson
Reviewer: Marlou

Summary

No one inside the snow globe knows that Morozoko Industries is controlling their weather, testing them to form a stronger race that can survive the fall out from the bombs being dropped in the outside world—all they know is that they must survive the harsh Winter that lasts a month and use the few days of Spring, Summer, and Fall to gather enough supplies to survive.

When the seasons start shifting, Genesis and her boyfriend, Jack, know something is going on. As their team begins to find technology that they don’t have access to inside their snow globe of a world, it begins to look more and more like one of their own is working against them.

Genesis soon discovers Morozoko Industries is to blame, but when a foreign enemy tries to destroy their weather program to make sure their destructive life-altering bombs succeed in destroying the outside world, their only chance is to shut down the machine that is spinning out of control and save the lives of everyone inside the bunker–at any cost.

Find this book on Goodreads.

Review

Rating: 1 out of 5 stars

This book was provided to me by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.

I requested this book on Netgalley because it had Jack Frost in the title and the synopsis sounded like an interesting sort of scifi read. Well, guess what, it wasn’t interesting at all. I promised an honest review, I’m going to have to be brutally honest with this one. It sucked.

I was very annoyed with the writing, it felt like the author knew exactly what she wanted to write but once she sat down to actually write the story, she forgot what proper world-building is… 

The characters were all very bland or confusing or just plain weird or all of the above.

Genesis: Her obsession with Jack is so freaking weird, what even is this mess.

Jack: That dude has some serious issues that he needs to solve STAT.

Nathaniel: I was pretty sure he was going to murder Jack and he is supposed to be his best friend *insert my very confused face right here*

Azra: She was cool. She should have been the MC, maybe I wouldn’t have skipped half the book.

Eustace: Okay, what’s up with him? Should I know him already even though he’s never properly introduced? I don’t have a sixth sense so that’s not gonna work…

Okay, so, this book was a little too weird for me. I skipped most of it and had to DNF it a little over halfway through. I don’t like DNFing books but I also don’t like to waste my time. I really wanted to like this book but it’s a definite no from me.