All her life, Elise Dembowski has been an outsider. Starting a new school, she dreams of fitting in at last – but when her best attempts at popularity fail, she almost gives up. Then she stumbles upon a secret warehouse party. There, at night, Elise can be a different person, making real friends, falling in love for the first time, and finding her true passion – DJ’ing.
But when her real and secret lives collide, she has to make a decision once and for all: just who is the real Elise?
4* Read
I haven’t read 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher, but I have heard a lot about it through the BookTube and Book Blogging community, which is why when Netflix announced they were making a TV show adaptation – I got excited.
Unfortunately, it did not live up to expectations.
Sixteen-year-old Starr lives in two worlds: the poor neighbourhood where she was born and raised, and her posh high school in the suburbs. The uneasy balance between them is shattered when Starr is the only witness to the fatal shooting of her unarmed best friend, Khalil, by a police officer. Now what Starr says could destroy her community. It could also get her killed.
5* Read!
Lily hasn’t always had it easy, but that’s never stopped her from working hard for the life she wants. She’s come a long way from the small town in Maine where she grew up – she graduated from college, moved to Boston, and started her own business. So when she feels a spark with a gorgeous neurosurgeon named Ryle Kincaid, everything in Lily’s life suddenly seems almost too good to be true.
4.5* Read!
Irene Stanley thought her world had come to an end when her son Shep was murdered during a robbery at their home. 19 years later, Shep’s killer is placed on death row, awaiting a date for execution. Irene, having reached the brink of suicide, now realizes that she needs to face the secrets that surround her son’s murder.
4.5* Read!
In the Cornish town of Talting, everyone is famous for something. Until recently Rose was known for many things: her infectious positivity; her unique artistic talent; and her devotion to childhood sweetheart Lucas.
But two years ago that changed in one unthinkable moment. Now, Rose is known for being the young woman who became a widow aged just twenty-four.
Though Rose knows that life must go on, the thought of carving out a new future for herself is one she can barely entertain. Until a newcomer, Robert, arrives in Talting for the summer… Can Rose allow herself the chance to love again?
4* Read!
Life on the Refrigerator Door is told exclusively through notes exchanged by Claire and her mother, Elizabeth, during the course of a life-altering year. Their story builds to an emotional crescendo when Elizabeth is diagnosed with breast cancer. Stunningly sad but ultimately uplifting, this is a clever, moving, and original portrait of the relationship between a daughter and mother. It is about how we live our lives constantly rushing, and never making time for those we love. It is also an elegy to how much can be said in so few words, if only we made the time to say them.
3* Read!
Four years ago, 19 year old Travis Brown made a choice: to raise his newborn daughter on his own. While most of his friends were out partying and meeting girls, Travis was at home, changing diapers and worrying about keeping food on the table. But he’s never regretted his decision. Bella is the light of his life. The reason behind every move he makes. And so far, she is fed. Cared for. Safe.
But when Travis loses his construction job and his home, the security he’s worked so hard to create for Bella begins to crumble. Then a miracle. A job in Raleigh has the power to turn their fortunes around. It has to. But when Travis arrives in Raleigh, there is no job, only an offer to participate in a one-time criminal act that promises quick money and no repercussions. With nowhere else to turn, Travis must make another choice for his daughter’s sake. Even if it means he might lose her.
4* Read!
Alice Love is 29, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child. Imagine Alice’s surprise when she wakes up on the floor of a gym (a gym! She hates the gym!) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over – she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old.
Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how she’s become one of those skinny mums with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over.
3.5* Read!
When Alice finds herself in the rapidly downward spiral of Alzheimer’s Disease she is just 50 years old. A university professor, wife, and mother of three, she still has books to write, places to see, grandchildren to meet. But when she can’t remember how to make her famous Christmas pudding, when she gets lost in her own back yard, when she fails to recognise her actress daughter after a superb performance, she comes up with a plan. But can she see it through? Should she see it through? Losing her yesterdays, living for each day, her short-term memory is hanging on by a couple of frayed threads. But she is still Alice.
4* Read!
Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon, published August 2015 by Penguin Random House. Read: August 2015 Genre: Young Adult/Romance/Contemporary/Issues Source: Publisher #Pages: 320 Get It Now: Wordery Goodreads Synopsis: My disease is as rare as it is famous. Basically, I’m allergic to the world. I don’t leave my house, have not left my house in 17 years. The only people […]
Christian Grey exercises control in all things; his world is neat, disciplined, and utterly empty – until the day that Anastasia Steele falls into his office, in a tangle of shapely limbs and tumbling brown hair. He tries to forget her, but instead is swept up in a storm of emotion he cannot comprehend and cannot resist. Unlike any woman he has known before, shy, unworldly Ana seems to see right through him – past the business prodigy and the penthouse lifestyle to Christian’s cold, wounded heart.
Will being with Ana dispel the horrors of his childhood that haunt Christian every night? Or will his dark sexual desires, his compulsion to control, and the self-loathing that fills his soul drive this girl away and destroy the fragile hope she offers him?
2* Read!
How can you make someone love you when they won’t? And what if that person happens to be your mother?
Sayre Bellavia grew up knowing she was a mistake: unplanned and unwanted. At five months shy of eighteen, she’s become an expert in loneliness, heartache, and neglect. Her whole life she’s been cursed, used, and left behind. Swallowed a thousand tears and ignored a thousand deliberate cruelties. Sayre’s stuck by her mother through hell, tried to help her, be near her, be important to her, even as her mother slipped away into a violent haze of addiction, destroying the only chance Sayre ever had for a real family.
4* Read!
In Hopeless, Sky left no secret unearthed, no feeling unshared, and no memory forgotten, but Holder’s past remained a mystery.
Still haunted by the little girl he let walk away, Holder has spent his entire life searching for her in an attempt to finally rid himself of the crushing guilt he has felt for years. But he could not have anticipated that the moment they reconnect, even greater remorse would overwhelm him…
4* Read!
Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…
That’s what 17 year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.
4* Read!
Daisy is 27-years-old and has only months to live. And, each day, she’s finding her way through what needs to be done. Her major worry is what her wonderful, charming husband, Jack, will do without her. She knows that he won’t take care of himself so Daisy has to do it for him. As she searches for Jack’s next wife, she begins to realise that her plan to ensure Jack’s happiness is much more complicated than she expected.
4* Read!
Confessions of a Book Geek 