Buy it on: Amazon

Add to: Goodreads

Title:  My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life

Author:  Rachel Cohn

Page count: 352

Published: December 18,2018

Publisher: Disney Hyperion

Genre: Teen / YA

Received: Wish was Granted by Netgalley

Rating:   2.75/5

Summary:

“I’m here to take you to live with your father. In Tokyo, Japan! Happy birthday!”

In the Land of the Rising Sun, where high culture meets high kitsch, and fashion and technology are at the forefront of the First World’s future, the foreign-born teen elite attend ICS-the International Collegiate School of Tokyo. Their accents are fluid. Their homes are ridiculously posh. Their sports games often involve a (private) plane trip to another country. They miss school because of jet lag and visa issues. When they get in trouble, they seek diplomatic immunity.

Enter foster-kid-out-of-water Elle Zoellner, who, on her sixteenth birthday discovers that her long-lost father, Kenji Takahari, is actually a Japanese hotel mogul and wants her to come live with him. Um, yes, please! Elle jets off first class from Washington D.C. to Tokyo, which seems like a dream come true. Until she meets her enigmatic father, her way-too-fab aunt, and her hyper-critical grandmother, who seems to wish Elle didn’t exist. In an effort to please her new family, Elle falls in with the Ex-Brats, a troupe of uber-cool international kids who spend money like it’s air. But when she starts to crush on a boy named Ryuu, who’s frozen out by the Brats and despised by her new family, her already tenuous living situation just might implode.

My Almost Flawless Tokyo Dream Life is about learning what it is to be a family, and finding the inner strength to be yourself, even in the most extreme circumstances.

My Thoughts:

Can I just say that I love the cover of this book? Okay onwards onto my review.

I didn’t really like this book, but I feel like there’s something that I was missing? Maybe I didn’t find the main character relatable? I’m a little conflicted on how I feel about it. I felt that some parts of the book seemed to be a little rushed when they could have taken a few more pages to get everything out.

Elle gets the shock of her life when her dad contacts her and wants her to move in with him and he lives in Tokyo. When she gets to Tokyo she needs to adapt to the culture and at first, she has a hard time getting used to everything. As I was reading I feel like I blinked and then there was a time jump in the story. Which confused me at first. Elle does have a hectic life with everything that is happening with her mom being in prison and her did not there for most of the book.

I didn’t find Elle to be relatable. It could have just been me.

I want to thank Disney for granting my wish and giving me the chance to read this book.

 

Buy it on: Amazon

Add to: Goodreads

Title: Entitled

Author: Cassandra Robbins

Page count: 391

Published: September 27, 2018

Publisher:  The NextstepPr

Genre:  New Adult / Romance

Received: From the Publisher in exchange for an honest review

Rating:   3.5/5

Summary:

People say you can’t find your soul mate at eight years old.
I did.
I found Reed and loved him more than I loved myself.

We were young…beautiful…entitled.

Money and private schools, our families’ lavish parties and posh New York City apartments-it was all mere window dressing. What was real, was our obsessive love, which grew right along with us as we moved towards adulthood. It consumed me, and only in his arms did I feel wanted and safe.

But I have a secret. It’s big and to some, unforgivable. And it’s why I let Reed destroy me, or maybe I destroyed us. Either way, I’m worse than broke—I’m broken.

Once upon a time, we were happy…Yet privilege has an ugly underside and in the blink of an eye, my world crashed down around me.
I don’t feel entitled anymore.

The Entitled is first in the Entitled duet. Their story concludes in The Enlightened.

My Thoughts:

For being Cassandra’s first novel, I have to say this was a really good read.

The first bit in the first chapter oh my goodieness. I was hooked. I wanted to keep reading to see where the story was going to go. I was able to read this story in a day.

The connection that these two have is undeniable. They have known one another since they were 8 how cute right? Tess’s parents come for a visit and when they first meet, I think it’s adorable that Reed got all gobsmacked when he first see’s Tess. Their relationship is real, and I find that reading some books it’s sometimes is hard to come by. At some points I did get a little annoyed because Reed and Tess love one another unconditionally and they just couldn’t communicate their feelings. Aside from that I really enjoyed the book and the relationship they had.

Buy it on: Amazon

Add to: Goodreads

Title:  The Beginning

Author:  Alice J. Black

Page count: 92

Published: July 25^th 2018

Publisher: The Parliament House

Genre: Horror

Received: From the Publisher in exchange for an honest review

Rating:   4/5

Summary:

Peyton is considering using her gift to help others. She realizes she’s already helped so many people, both alive and dead, that perhaps it can continue. But can she do it alone?

While Peyton tries to persuade Olivia to join her in a new business venture, she battles the particularly brusque owners of a haunted hotel in her first paying ghost-hunting job.

Peyton seeks the help of Sylvia, the psychic, to hone her skills, all the while trying to coax the spirit out of The Grand Hotel before it’s too late…

My Thoughts:
Payton is now wanting to become a ghost hunter and run a business with the help of her friend Olivia. Will she end up helping her or is she on her own?

One morning Payton is reading the paper and drinking her coffee. She sees an article that catches her eye. It’s about a hunted Grand Hotel in Fillbury. The couple that own the hotel think it’s the elderly woman that had passed a little while ago. When Payton arrives there are a lot of people there because they also want to catch a glimpse of the ghost.

When Payton goes to investigative she gets a little more than she bargained for. Then there happens to be an incident with one of the guests. That’s when she knew she had to do something, and something quick because she didn’t want anyone else getting hurt.

The journey that Payton is on with her Ghost Hunter business I’m definitely left wanting more. I can’t wait to see where Payton goes.

 

Buy it on: Amazon

Add to: Goodreads

Title: All the Things We Lost

Author: Kayla Tirrell

Page count: 186

Published: July 2017

Publisher:  n/a

Genre:  Coming of Age

Received: From Netgalley in exchange for an honest review

Rating:   3/5

Summary:

After her mother’s death, eighteen-year-old Katie finds herself in a town she never thought she’d see again. Lost in turmoil and sadness, a ray of hope shines brightly when she comes face to face with Julian for the first time in years.

However, he isn’t the same boy she left behind. Reserved and covered in bruises, everyone in River Valley avoids him. Rumors of his activities run rampant.
Despite his cold attitude toward her and her own sadness, Katie can’t keep her thoughts from straying to her childhood friend.

Julian is barely keeping it together. He’s the sole provider for his family after his dad leaves. His dreams to go to college are ruined. Even his relationship with his older brother leaves its mark.
But, Katie’s back in town and is stirring feelings in him he thought were lost forever.

Can they find hope and love in each other, or will the struggle to survive their desperate situations prove too much?

My Thoughts:

This book was a super quick read for me. The synopsis of the book really intrigued me but, it did fall flat for me a few times which was a bummer.

 

Katie and Julian have been friends forever, until she moves away. Then one day Katie and Julian meet up again years later.

 

Katie’s mom passes away and she moves back with her dad in Idaho to help re connect with him.

 

Julian becomes the man of the house when he has to provide for his family because his dad leaves.

 

Julian and Katie have both experiences loss and they need to learn how to deal with her losses.

 

While I was reading this, I did feel like there could have been a little more character development, that could be due to this story being less than 200 pages though.

 

Buy it on: Amazon

Add to: Goodreads

Title: Making Faces

Author: Amy harmon

Page count: 405

Published: October 12, 2013

Publisher: N/A

Genre: War, Coming of age

Received: Bought my self

Rating:   4.5/5

Summary:

Ambrose Young was beautiful. He was tall and muscular, with hair that touched his shoulders and eyes that burned right through you. The kind of beautiful that graced the covers of romance novels, and Fern Taylor would know. She’d been reading them since she was thirteen. But maybe because he was so beautiful he was never someone Fern thought she could have…until he wasn’t beautiful anymore.

Making Faces is the story of a small town where five young men go off to war, and only one comes back. It is the story of loss. Collective loss, individual loss, loss of beauty, loss of life, loss of identity. It is the tale of one girl’s love for a broken boy, and a wounded warrior’s love for an unremarkable girl. This is a story of friendship that overcomes heartache, heroism that defies the common definitions, and a modern tale of Beauty and the Beastwhere we discover that there is little beauty and a little beast in all of us.

My Thoughts:

I did read this book a while ago and this was the first book that I have read by Amy and after I read the blub an how it had a reference to Beauty and the Beast (happens to be my favourite movie) I knew I had to read it.

 

This book follows Fern an the insecurities that she has at seeing that she is beautiful. She has red hair, freckles, glasses and braces. She loves to read and she also takes care of her cousin Bailey. Fern has also been in love with Ambrose for as long as she can remember but he has never really taken notice of her. Until one day that everything changes when there both in High school.

 

Baily is a strong, full of life and laugher character he was so funny. He also had a special relationship with Ambrose which I thought was good.

 

Ambrose is a popular guy in school he is the star wrestler and has gotten a full scholarship to collage. He writes these letters an he has no idea that Fern is the one that is replying to him. He tells her things that he hasn’t told anyone. Then one day he finds out that is her and he isn’t sure what he should do. One day he decides after 9/11 he wanted to do something to help out. So he and his four friends decided to enlist in the Army. When he comes he is a different guy because of the things that he had gone through.

 

Fern wants to help Ambrose but he is so down on himself that he isn’t the same but Fern doesn’t give up on him.

 

This was such a beautiful story, you all should check it out.