Book Blogger Hop (1)

Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer of Crazy-for-Books. I thought this would be a great way to meet some new bloggers and other bloggers to meet me.

So my name is Emilie and I love books. I've just started blogging and I'm already loving sharing my opinion about books. I'm very friendly and I look forward to meeting book bloggers out there.

This week the question was about favourite authors, so here are some of mine.

Meg Cabot: I think I've read just about everyone of her YA novels and a good number of her adult ones. There is just something about her that I love and I can't help but pick up her books when I find one that I haven't read (which admittedly there aren't that many).

Sarah Dessen: I've also read all of her books and I absolutely love them. I think my favourite one would have to be The Truth About Forever. I don't know how many times I've read it but every time I find something new to love about it.

And then there are others like J.K. Rowling and Suzanne Collins that I love just because their books are pure awesomeness...in my opinion anyways.

So that's it about me and some of my favourite authors.

The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han

Title: The Summer I Turned Pretty (Summer #1)

Author: Jenny Han

Publisher: Simon & Schuster BFYR

Release Date: May 5, 2009

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

When each summer begins, Belly leaves her school life behind and escapes to Cousins Beach, the place she has spent every summer of her life. Not only does the beach house mean home away from home, but her favorite people are there: Susannah, her mother’s best friend, and her sons, Conrad and Jeremiah. Belly has been chasing Conrad for as long as she can remember, and more than anything she hopes this summer will be different. Despite distractions from a new guy named Cam and lingering looks from Conrad’s brother, Jeremiah, Belly’s heart belongs to Conrad. Will he offer his to her? Will this be the summer that changes everything?

I decided to pick up The Summer I Turned Pretty because it seemed like a good summer read and it proved to be just that. Don’t pick up this book if you are looking for something deep that will make you think, this is not it. But just because this is a light read it doesn’t mean that it wasn’t good. I truly enjoyed this book and actually had trouble putting it down at times.

Belly has spent every summer of her life at the beach house in Cousins Beach. There she spends her time swimming and hanging out with her older brother Steven and Conrad and Jeremiah, her mother’s best friend’s two sons. For as long as she can remember, Belly has been in love with Conrad but this summer maybe things will be different. New guy Cam shows up and shows great interest in Belly as does Jeremiah who Belly has always seen as her best friend. And of course Conrad still doesn’t seem to feel the same way about her. But maybe that summer things will change for Belly.

Belly was a pretty realistic character and easy to relate to, though at times I had trouble with her. There were moments where I just wanted to tell her to stop being so whiny and move on while others I totally felt how she felt. I could easily relate to many of the things she was going through because some of them I had gone through myself. What girl has never been in love with a guy who doesn’t share her feelings? But like I said there were other moments where I just didn’t understand her reactions to different events.

I think my favorite character would have to have been Jeremiah, there was something about him that I just couldn’t help but like. He was so easy going and it was obvious he was in love with Belly. I was totally rooting for him throughout the whole book. I enjoyed Conrad’s character as well but at times I had mixed feelings about him. I understand that people can be moody and suffer from mood swings but with Conrad they were often over exaggerated. He would go from being totally pleasant one second to yelling at Belly the next. The other characters were also interesting but they didn’t have me as hooked as Belly, Jeremiah and Conrad. Sometimes it felt like they were just part of the setting.

Like I said before, this isn’t a particularly deep story, but at the same time there are some events in the book that give it a certain depth. Though I had trouble following at first, the flashbacks throughout the novel were really useful to explain some of what Belly was talking about in the present. Overall the story was really enjoyable and I would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a nice summer read.

Charlie St. Cloud by Ben Sherwood

Title: Charlie St. Cloud

Author: Ben Sherwood

Publisher: Bantam

Release Date: June 22, 2010

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

In a snug New England fishing village, Charlie St. Cloud tends the lawns and monuments of an ancient cemetery where his younger brother, Sam, is buried. After surviving the car accident that claimed his brother’s life, Charlie is graced with an extraordinary gift: He can see, talk to, and even play catch with Sam’s spirit. Into this magical world comes Tess Carroll, a captivating woman training for a solo sailing trip around the globe. Fate steers her boat into a treacherous storm that propels her into Charlie’s life. Their beautiful and uncommon connection leads to a race against time and a choice between death and life, between the past and the future, between holding on and letting go--and the discovery that miracles can happen if we simply open our hearts.

I’ll be honest, I probably wouldn’t have picked up Charlie St. Cloud if it wasn’t for the movie coming out. As a general rule, I try to read the book before I watch the movie just because the movie doesn’t ruin the book. Since I intend to see the movie when it comes out, I decided to read the book. All I had to go on was the preview for movie and when reading the book I recognized some scenes that I had glimpsed in the preview. The book overall was a good read and I really enjoyed it.

Thirteen years ago, Charlie St. Cloud nearly died in a car crash that killed his twelve-year-old brother Sam. Since then, Charlie has been able to see Sam and works at the cemetery where he is buried. In comes Tess Carroll, a young woman preparing to embark on a solo sailing trip around the world. When Charlie and Tess meet there is an instant connection between the two, a connection that causes Charlie to make decisions and feel things he never thought he would have to until then.

I really liked Charlie’s character, if I were able to pick an older brother he is definitely the one I would go for. Either that I would fall in love with him like Tess did. He was just a really likable character. He was so devoted to his younger brother Sam, despite what it did to his own life. Throughout the whole novel you could tell that Charlie was hurting and that he truly felt responsible for what had happened to Sam. But at the same time he met Tess and he didn’t know what to do. He didn’t want to break the promise he had made to Sam but at the same time he wanted a life with Tess.

If you forget the whole ghost aspect of the novel, the other characters were also really believable and you just wanted to get to know them more. Sam was great, sure he was a twelve-year-old but so often it felt like he was so much older, especially when he was with Tess. I also really like Tess. There was just something about her that made her really easy to like, I don’t really know how to explain it. And there was also the fact that she wasn’t what she looked like.

It was more than just a love story between Tess and Charlie and a story about two brothers. There is just so much more than that to Charlie St. Cloud. The story is really well written and throughout you just can’t help but feel Charlie’s pain and longing for something more than his life in the cemetery. I was pleasantly surprised by this book and it reminded me a lot of some of Nicholas Sparks’s stories. If you want to see the movie I recommend that you read the book first and also you enjoy Nicholas Sparks’s books, you will most likely enjoy Charlie St. Cloud as well. 

Wondrous Strange by Lesley Livingston

Title: Wondrous Strange (Wondrous Strange #1)

Author: Lesley Livingston

Publisher: HarperTeen

Release Date: December 23, 2008

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

Seventeen-year-old actress Kelley Winslow thinks that playing the role of the fairy queen Titania in a production of Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream could be her lucky break--if she can pull it off. But when she meets the handsome Sonny Flannery, Kelley has to face the shocking truth that the world of Faeries is all too real--and that she is an unwitting part of it. Sonny warns Kelley that she is no mere mortal, and that she is being hunted by powerful forces from the Faerie realm. Now, Kelley must come to terms with her heritage--and her growing feelings for Sonny--if she wants to save not only herself, but also the human world that she holds dear.

Every time I went to the bookstore I saw Wondrous Strange on the shelf and it caught my attention every time, I just never picked it up. After looking the book up online, I finally decided to buy it during my next trip to the book store. Once I started reading, I began asking myself why I had waited so long to get the book and read it. The story was captivating and imaginative and made it very difficult to put the book down. This was an amazing debut novel by Lesley Livingston and a great start to what promises to be a great trilogy.

Kelley came to New York after having dropped out of theatre school in order to pursue her dream of becoming an actress. That dream seems to be coming true when the lead actress in the play she is working on gets injured and she has to fill in for her. In comes Sonny Flannery, a mysterious stranger who almost seems to be stalking Kelley, everywhere she goes he just seems to show up. And let’s not forget about the horse who has taken up residence in her bathtub after Kelley rescued him from drowning in a lake in Central Park. And that’s just part of what’s going on in Kelley’s life.

I loved Kelley right from the start. She was an extremely likable character and totally relatable...until you learn some things about where she actually comes from, and even then it’s still possible to relate to her. For once, the female protagonist in a paranormal story doesn’t just accept and go along with everything that’s happening. Her initial reaction to faeries being real: she basically laughs in Sonny’s face and tells him that he’s a nut case. Basically a normal reaction to information like this. It was very refreshing to have a female character who just didn’t go along with everything that was presented to her.

And then there was Sonny. I don’t even know where to begin with Sonny. How Kelley managed to to fall in love with him right from the start is a mystery to me. I don’t think anything I could possibly say would do him justice so I’ll just let you read the book and find out for yourself. Trust me you won’t be disappointed.

The book as a whole was simply amazing. The plot was amazing, the characters were amazing I don’t really know how else to describe this book. Wondrous Strange was a lot more than I expected it to be and I can’t wait to go to the bookstore and pick up Darklight, the second book in the trilogy.

A Match Made In High School by Kristin Walker

Title: A Match Made in High School

Author: Kristin Walker

Publisher: Razorbill

Release Date: February 4, 2010

Source: Purchased

Buy the Book: Amazon / Book Depository / Indigo

When a mandatory course forces Fiona to “try the knot” with super-jock Todd Harding, she’s convinced life couldn’t get any worse. Until her crush is paired with her arch-enemy (otherwise known as Todd’s obscenely hot, slightly sadistic girlfriend). But that’s nothing compared to her best friend’s fate--a year with the very goofy, very big Johnny Mercer.

A series of hilarious pranks leaves Fiona wondering: Is there something her “best friend” hasn’t told her? Could there be more to Johnny Mercer than an awesome music collection? And most intriguing, could Todd Harding have a heart beneath his pretty-boy exterior?

I had seen A Match Made In High School in the shelves at the bookstore but never really paid the book much attention. Then I read some reviews online and they all had really good things to say about it so I decided to give it a shot. And it surprised me. I was expecting another book about some high school underdog rising to the top and getting the popular guy. But for once things weren’t that predictable, which was quite refreshing.

Fiona only has one friend and is perfectly happy going through life that way. And then the principal of her school announces a new program called “trying the knot” where male and female students are randomly paired with each other and have to complete assignments to mimic marriage. And of course she gets paired up with the school jock and her crush gets paired with said jock’s girlfriend. Yeah, things are really looking up for Fiona’s senior year of high school.

I had trouble with Fiona at first. Though she claimed like she didn’t care about what people thought of her, she still did everything she could to get noticed by Gabe, her crush, and had to make sure that everyone knew she was behind the pranks she pulled on Todd, her fake husband. As the book moved forward, I liked her more and more because I understood her more. The way Walker writes Fiona’s character, you can see that she actually evolves and by the end of the book I actually really liked her.

The other characters were also great. For once I wasn’t reading a book about high school where every character was cliché or stereotyped. Todd, the jock, didn’t play football or basketball, he was a cheerleader which isn’t something I’ve seen all that often in books. And he also wasn’t a typical jock; sure jocks in YA novels often have multiple layers but there was something more than that with Todd, which was refreshing. And that can be said about most of the characters in the book. They were all the typical people you would find in a book about high school students but at the same time they weren’t the stereotypes of those people.

The plot itself was also really interesting. I particularly liked the concept of “trying the knot”, it wasn’t something I had read about before so it felt like I wasn’t reading just another book about high school. I have to admit that I had seen some things coming but it was nothing that prevented me from enjoying the story. And for once the girl didn’t end up with the guy I thought she would end up with.

I really enjoyed A Match Made In High School, more than I originally expected to. It was a fun story that made me laugh out loud at times and smile at others. I look forward to whatever comes next from Kristin Walker.