The Perfect Game by J. Sterling

Title: The Perfect Game
Author: J. Sterling
Blurb:
He's a game she never intended to play.
And she's the game changer he never knew he needed.

The Perfect Game tells the story of college juniors, Cassie Andrews & Jack Carter. When Cassie meets rising baseball hopeful Jack, she is determined to steer clear of him and his typical cocky attitude. But Jack has other things on his mind... like getting Cassie to give him the time of day.


They're both damaged, filled with mistrust and guarded before they find one another (and themselves) in this emotional journey about love and forgiveness. Strap yourselves for a ride that will not only break your heart, but put it back together.


Sometimes life gets ugly before it gets beautiful...

Links:
The Perfect Game on Goodreads

The Perfect Game on Amazon

J. Sterling's Website

 Kala's Review:

I have really mixed feelings about this book. The first half is almost a clone of Beautiful Disaster with Jack acting like a huge player who "never sleeps with the same girl twice" and gets in fights a lot (aka Travis). Cassie acts exactly like Abby as the girl who can resist him, but not really, and he instantly falls for her. They start dating quickly and he becomes possessively obsessed with Cassie. He even gives her an arbitrary nick name the first time they meet - Kitten (which makes as much sense as Pigeon, but at least is something cute instead of the cockroach of birds). Jack also beats people up, treats every other girl (EXCEPT Cassie and her best friend) like a slut.

Speaking of the best friend, Cassie's best friend is a clone of the BFF in Beautiful Disaster too. She fluctuates between warning Cassie off of Jack and telling Cassie to forgive Jack's constant bad behavior.

Despite the similarities to Beautiful Disaster, I still enjoyed the story for the most part.

The book starts deviating in plotline towards the middle when Jack gets drafted (for baseball).  

Major spoilers after this point!

Jack cheats on Cassie, which I don't understand at all. I know he was drunk, but he was completely uninterested in this girl who won't leave him alone yet he KEEPS drinking until he's so drunk he goes home with her.

Of course, the girl ends up pregnant. Then Jack, who is the biggest moron ever, decides he has to marry the girl. He can't stand her, is in love with Cassie (who is willing to forgive him despite him cheating AND getting a girl pregnant), but he insists on torturing everyone by marrying the girl.

AND HE DOES IT. Despite Cassie coming down the day before to beg him not to. That conversation broke my heart and the way he treated Cassie during that conversation, especially when the other girl shows up, was unforgivable. Completely unforgivable.

But then, of course, the girl was faking the pregnancy (and Jack, the biggest moron ever, can't wait to see a pregnancy test or a PATERNITY TEST... this girl is a huge slut and he doesn't wait for a paternity test??).

So Jack dumps her and waits six months to beg for Cassie back. I admit he did it in a cute way, but I didn't care at that point. He was not redeemable at that point. He just wasn't. So I couldn't feel like it was a happy ending, despite it being a happy ending.

I was impressed by the author's writing style though. The book was well edited, has a nice cover, and was formatted well. Though I had some issues with the story itself, the book flowed really well and was a quick and easy read. I will be checking out additional books by this author

3 out of 5 stars.


Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/444239414

Losing It by Cora Carmack

Title: Losing It
Author: Cora Carmack
Blurb:
Virginity.

Bliss Edwards is about to graduate from college and still has hers. Sick of being the only virgin among her friends, she decides the best way to deal with the problem is to lose it as quickly and simply as possible-- a one-night stand. But her plan turns out to be anything but simple when she freaks out and leaves a gorgeous guy alone and naked in her bed with an excuse that no one with half-a-brain would ever believe. And as if if that weren't embarrassing enough, when she arrives for her first class of her last college semester, she recognizes her new theatre professor. She'd left him naked in her bed about 8 hours earlier.

Links:
Losing It on Goodreads

Losing It on Amazon

Cora Carmack's Website

 Kala's Review:

I enjoyed Losing It, but I wasn't blown away by it. Slammed is a MUCH better teacher/student/I didn't know/OMG love story, but Losing It is still decent.

I have to say, I hated the names. I'm not a big fan of wacky names in general, but there are times when the names grow on me. In this case, the names were just all off-the-wall. Bliss is a difficult name to take seriously on a heroine, and Garrick isn't bad, but it sounds like someone's SCA roleplaying name. We also have Cade, the guy best friend who is secretly in love with Bliss.

(sigh)

The story itself is a quick and easy read and the characters are mostly interesting and fleshed out. However, the virginity thing was made in to such a huge deal that I was starting to wonder if I bought one of those faith-based books on accident. I didn't, but Bliss' craziness over the whole virginity thing borderlined on over the top.

While I liked Cade as the best friend, his character kind of got ruined when he became the third wheel in a sort of love triangle that went nowhere. Bliss made it pretty obvious she wasn't interested in him like that, but he didn't want to take no for an answer and then he turned from the sweet best friend into kind of a jerk. I know his feelings got hurt, but love isn't always requited. It's a believable scenario, but I didn't feel like the Cade thing added anything to the storyline.

Garrick was kind of generic and suffered from the 'too perfect' syndrome that so many romance novel heroes have. He has a British accent, he rides a motorcycle, he's so hot that women can't seem to stop throwing themselves at him, he's an actor (at least he's not famous!), he's completely understanding and sweet about the virginity thing...

The only downside to Garrick was that I didn't feel like he fought the student/teacher relationship thing at all. He said he did, but he kept grabbing Bliss and kissing her at school. It was kind of strange. It felt like Bliss tried a lot harder to fight it, but Garrick is the one who had everything at stake.

The romance between Garrick and Bliss was cute, overall, and I enjoyed reading about the progression of their relationship. Their almost sex scenes (V-CARD!) were steamy!

While I thought Slammed was FAR better than this, I still enjoyed Losing It and will probably be checking in to other books by this author.

3 out of 5 stars.


Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/443551750

Finale by Becca Fitzpatrick

 Title: Finale
Author: Becca Fitzpatrick
Blurb:
Fates unfurl in the gripping conclusion to the New York Times bestselling Hush, Hush saga.

Nora is more certain than ever that she is in love with Patch. Fallen angel or no, he is the one for her. Her heritage and destiny may mean they are fated to be enemies, but there is no turning her back on him. Now Nora and Patch must gather their strength to face one last, perilous trial. Old enemies return, new enemies are made, and a friend's ultimate betrayal threatens the peace Patch and Nora so desperately want. The battle lines are drawn—but which sides are they on? And in the end, are there some obstacles even love can't conquer?

Links:
Finale on Goodreads

Finale on Amazon

Becca Fitzpatrick's Website

 Kala's Review:

SIGH

BECCA FITZPATRICK!  WHY??

This book suffers the exact same "unnecessary fourth book syndrome" as Breaking Dawn, in all the wrong ways.

I enjoyed the first three books of this series.  They weren't the best written stories ever, but I got attached to Nora and Patch and Vee and Scott.  Then came Finale.  As a side note, this book also might earn the "Worst Title Ever" award.

Reasons why this book sucked:

(SPOILER ALERT FRIENDS)

1) Nora gets everything she ever wanted.  The same thing happened in Breaking Dawn where Bella basically gets it all, no matter how impossible it should have been. See rest of this list for details.

2) Vee has been Nephilim this whole time, she just didn't know it.  What?  Seriously?  This is so beyond stupid and completely ruined Vee's character.

3) Patch gets to "feel" forever.  Apparently Detective Basso was an archangel in disguise!  Because Patch has been such an awesome fallen angel, he lets him stay immortal AND he gets to "feel" now! WOO.  Sorry, but this is dumb. 

4) Patch turns against his own people.  He and Nora talk another angel into gathering every fallen angel feather so that every single fallen angel will be chained in hell forever and ever.  He does this because he is so in loooove with Nora that he will destroy the lives of all of his friends.  Apparently he is the only "good" fallen angel out there.

5) Dabria and Patch and cheating allegations.  Again.  Nora, being the immature and overly jealous teenage girl that she is, thinks Patch might be cheating on her.  Again.  Haven't we been through this before?

6) An immature teenage girl is the leader of an army of Nephilim.  This might be the #1 most ridiculous part of this story.  Their former leader was an imposing older man.  He went completely bonkers and did a blood transfusion to turn Nora Nephilim so he could make her leader of his army.  What army is going to follow a high school girl in to war?  Seriously?  Nora attends her high school classes (sporadically), and then goes to war meetings after school.  It's so beyond dumb.

7) Nora's training sessions.  She does 15-mile sprints before school every day!  Does this girl ever sleep?  The training sessions are boring as hell.  And so overdone in these YA Paranormal books.  Every YA Paranormal these days has tons of "training" sessions and they're almost all boring.  She also spends one day learning swordfighting with Patch and suddenly becomes a samurai ninja girl.  Nice.

8) The epilogue.  There's a hint of a relationship starting between Scott and Vee during this book.  But then Scott gets killed (boohoo).  Then we get this epilogue of Nora at Vee's wedding, where she's marrying some character we've never met and for some strange reason I DON'T CARE. 

So basically, Nora gets Patch.  Patch gets to feel.  All the fallen angels are dead so Nora doesn't have to swear fealty, ever.  Vee is Nephilim, so Nora doesn't have to keep hiding stuff.  Vee gets married to her true love (some guy named Gavin that we never meet).  Everyone lives happily ever after (except Scott who died, but he was barely a blip in this book anyways so I didn't even care).

All this is wrapped up in hundreds of pages of terribly boring dialogue, boring training sessions, even more boring dialogue, and a scant few action scenes (that aren't particularly well done).

To say I'm disappointed in Finale would be an understatement.

1 out of 5 stars.


Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/223161867

The Unofficial Zack Warren Fan Club by J.C. Isabella

Title: The Unofficial Zack Warren Fan Club
Author: J.C. Isabella
Blurb:
Welcome to the big leagues. To secrets and scandals. It's all about the game. Who's playing. Who's not. Who has no idea about the game. And...wait, what game are we playing?

I'll leave that for you to decide.

Where to start is the big question for Chloe Baker. How was she supposed to explain to Zack Warren that she started a fan club for him when she was a kid? It was just a game. A way to make friends and have fun. She never thought it would spiral out of control. And never. In a million, gazillion years, did she think it would follow her to college. How could she tell him her best friend Lana kept the club alive? That she had nothing to do with the craziness?

Chloe didn’t understand why she cared so much about Zack's opinion of her. She hated him. He hated her. They had very mutual feelings of dislike for each other. So he'd just hate her even more when or if he found out.

And that's totally fine...she thinks.

Zack Warren had a soft spot for Chloe Baker. He likes the way she walks. He likes the way she talks. If he was poetically inclined, he’d write a sonnet about her ass.

It's Zack’s junior year of college. He’s got things to worry about. Scouts from the major leagues. Baseball games. Contracts. Grades.... His father ran away to Vegas with Chloe's mother. He didn’t have time to worry about a girl. But he did. He worried about Chloe a lot, especially with that jerk Max sniffing around her. It's weird though, to like your stepsister, right?

But Zack could argue that he saw Chloe first. Way before his dad met her mom. He was too young to stake a claim. But just didn’t care anymore.

He’s done playing games.

Links:
Zack Warren Fan Club on Goodreads

Zack Warren Fan Club on Amazon

J.C. Isabella's Website

 Kala's Review:

This book was very disappointing. I've never read anything by this author before and I love discovering new self-pubbed authors, but I'll have to think twice before buying anything of hers again.

One of the biggest problems is the editing. I try to be understanding of a few small errors in self-pubbed books, but this one has either a spelling or grammatical error on nearly every page. It's also double spaced which makes it really annoying to read on Kindle.

The story itself had potential, but just fell flat. I couldn't connect with Zack or Chloe and the plot itself was just silly. The whole idea of Chloe starting a fan club for Zack in elementary was semi-believable, but the idea that dozens of girls would join it and continue it on into college is just bizarre. What's even more bizarre is that Chloe's "best friend" would continue on with this club despite Chloe not wanting to be involved AND despite having a boyfriend.

Also, the club was a really minor part of the book (until near the end). The majority of the book contains long boringly detailed chapters about how Chloe and Zack take down wallpaper and paint rooms in their parents new house (Chloe's mom married Zack's dad). There is also another ridiculous subplot of a guy friend of Zack's who can't take no for an answer and constantly stalks Chloe, but it's also just over the top stupid.

I got so bored with this book that I ended up skimming huge chunks of it while I tried to find something good. I couldn't find much. The writing was juvenile and simplistic, the chapters were long and boring, the POV switches prove that this author cannot write a male POV at all, and the characters are all flat and cardboard.

I would not recommend this book to anyone - there is MUCH MUCH better self pubbed stuff out there for under $4.

2 out of 5 stars.


Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/439757940

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Title: The Raven Boys
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Blurb:
"There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”

It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.

His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

From Maggie Stiefvater, the bestselling and acclaimed author of the Shiver trilogy and The Scorpio Races, comes a spellbinding new series where the inevitability of death and the nature of love lead us to a place we’ve never been before.

Links:
The Raven Boys on Goodreads

The Raven Boys on Amazon

Maggie Stiefvater's Website

 Kala's Review:

Thank you to Scholastic for providing me a copy of this book via netgalley.com.  :)

The very beginning of this book and the very end of this book are phenominal. Unfortunately, the middle is dreadfully boring and confusing to the point where I seriously struggled to get through nearly 200 pages of this novel.

I loved Scorpio Races and thought Shiver was okay. The blurb of this book excited me as well, and I couldn't wait to read another Stiefvater book. Then I opened it up and got even more excited. Blue and Gansey were both fascinating and I couldn't wait to see how they end up meeting up, and what happens from there...

But after that meetup, the story just collapsed for me. I found Adam kind of boring and I don't see someone as eccentric as Blue falling for someone that boring. He is sweet and nice, but I felt myself skimming the pages where he and Blue were interacting because it was all so boring. I also thought Adam was kind of a jerk to Gansey, considering Gansey seemed to want nothing more than to help him. I get that he was prideful, but Gansey obviously had good intentions and Adam treated him pretty badly (especially towards the end after the big confrontation).

Gansey was far more interesting at the start, but he even fell a little flat for me in the middle. He was so focused on the quest, and I was hoping to see more interaction between him and Blue. We get this amazing setup in the first few chapters, with Blue seeing his dead spirit on St. Mark's Eve, and the prediction of Blue kissing her true love and killing him... then he and Blue barely interact. The only time I saw any chemistry between them were the "visions" that Blue had a few times of them. Their actual interactions were boring.

The last couple of chapters picked up again, but at the end I was left feeling somewhat cheated. I can't say there was no plot, because a lot of things happened, but they weren't what I was expecting and they definitely weren't better than I was expecting. I wasn't emotionally attached to Noah, or Barrington, or Neeve, or any of the characters who played such a huge role at the end of this book.

That said, this book wasn't awful. I just didn't love it. I will probably continue the series, as I'm interested to see how things work out for Blue and Gansey.

3 out of 5 stars.

Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/419788782

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Blurb:
Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Links:
Cinder on Goodreads

Cinder on Amazon
 
Marissa Meyer's Website

 Kala's Review:

I'm a sucker for retellings of Disney stories. You know all those cheesy Disney Cinderella remakes? Yeah, I've seen them all. The Hilary Duff one. The Selena Gomez one. All of them. AND I LOVE THEM!

I took awhile to pick this one up, because there was something about the sci-fi cyborg aspect that turned me off. I wish I hadn't waited so long though, because this book was awesome! It's sci-fi, but a lighter version that's easy to read and not as tech-heavy as the hardcore sci-fi tends to be.

Marissa Meyer's world building was a bit shaky at first and I struggled to get a feel for what it looked like, but her characters were all fleshed out and compelling and I got sucked in to their storylines almost from the first page.

There was a "twist" at the end that was obvious from nearly the beginning. I think the first time the author hinted at it, it was extremely obvious. I don't know if she meant it to be obvious or not, but it definitely was. I won't go in to further detail because it would spoil the story, and because the story was still so much fun that it didn't matter.

I am pretty upset at Meyer though, for that ending! Cliffhangers will be the death of me, for real. I can't wait for Scarlet (which appears to be Snow White plus Cinder!). Great book! Highly recommend! Don't let the sci-fi aspect scare you off, this is a great story!

4 out of 5 stars.

Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/353799133

Where She Went by Gayle Forman

Title: Where She Went
Author: Gayle Forman
Blurb:
It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance.

Links:
Where She Went on Goodreads

Where She Went on Amazon
 
Gayle Forman's Website

 Kala's Review:

I liked this book so much more than If I Stay, and I don't know that I can really explain why. A lot of reviewers seemed to have disliked Adam's point of view compared to Mia's, but I preferred it.

If I Stay had that bittersweet sort of ending that left a lot of unanswered questions, and this book answered all of them. Adam was so broken when Mia was in the accident, and Mia leaving him afterwards shattered him completely. It tore me apart to read about the pain he suffered when she left him and when she reappeared in his life.

The writing was beautiful again, just as in the first novel, but I felt far more attached to the characters this time. Although there wasn't much 'plot' in this book, just as in the first, I didn't feel like it dragged. During If I Stay, I got bored of all the flashbacks. That wasn't the case with Where She Went. The breakdown and rebuilding of Adam and Mia's relationship was masterfully interwoven from chapter to chapter.

I admit I was concerned with how Forman would end it, but my fears were for nothing because the ending is satisfying and beautiful and left me sitting here with a happy smile on my face. This book is very, very good!

4 out of 5 stars.

Link to Kala's review on Goodreads:
http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/436187255