Genre: Friendship

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K...

Posted 05/07/2020 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

TW: Abuse, Racism, Mommy Issues, Daddy Issues (I’m sorry it’s been a month since I listened to it, so if there are triggers I missed, I’m sorry.) Emergency Contact is the story of Penny and Sam. Neither of them is a particularly likable character. They are seriously messed up. But if I have to choose one over the other, I’ll take Sam, thanks. For one, both have issues with their mothers, but for different reasons. To my idea, Sam has a legitimate reason to have issues with his mother, considering what she did to him. Penny, on the other hand, has issues with her mother for being herself. Penny seems to think that her mom is embarrassing and a pain in Penny’s butt on purpose. To my idea, that’s ludicrous and Penny is just being a brat. When Penny moves to college and meets Sam via her dorm roommate, they […]

Reverie by Ryan La Sala

Posted 01/17/2020 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

When the Barnes & Noble book club chose this book for the January book club, I was a little leary. I actually had this book from NetGalley and just couldn’t get into it. I tried for months to get into the book and just couldn’t do it. But, I hate to miss a book club, so I bought the book, hoping getting it in a physical copy would help. It did, but so did finally just sticking to it and getting through the first portion of the book. I’m going to say this now – the only character I actually like is Ursula. The main character, Kane, is so annoying I want to reach through and just smack the daylights out of him. His thing of not being able to remember anything about his accident or who he was/what he was like before the accident, asking people what he was […]

I’m Not Dying With You T..

Posted 09/12/2019 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

This was another book I read for the Barnes & Noble YA Book Club. I have to say, it was completely different than what we thought it was going to be. Somehow, we got the idea it was going to be some sort of post-apocalyptic or dystopian thing. Instead, we got a very real look, in fiction form, at reality. Campbell is a white girl from Pennsylvania who has been tossed into a high school in Georgia city. Lena is a black girl who’s lived her whole life in this Georgia city and knows full well how the police and everyone else there sees black people. During the course of the book, Lena calls Campbell on her naivety when it comes to how the police and black people get along in their city. She calls Campbell on her views about black people. But Campbell calls Lena on her own views […]

Sawkill Girls by Claire Legran..

Posted 07/09/2019 by Charli in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

If Stephen King wrote YA fiction, this book would be right up his alley. Don’t believe me? An evil creature – demon, devil, who knows? This thing comes from somewhere beyond our wildest imaginations. It feeds on teenage girls – at least until it can break free of its anchor. Doesn’t that sound like something straight out of a Stephen King horrorfest? Well, it does to me. Marion is sweet, plain, and well, the mountain on which her family leans. She can’t afford to be fanciful or whimsical. She can’t afford to take a break, because what will her mother or Charlotte do without her? But she’s so much more than that. She plays such an important part in the story and it’s so hard to talk about her without giving things away. Zoey is sweet, loving, but can hold a grudge like no one’s business. Her hatred of the […]

Again, but Better by Christine..

Posted 06/14/2019 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I read this book for Barnes & Noble’s new YA Book Club. I hadn’t even heard of the book and didn’t know who the author was, although once I saw her YouTube channel name, I vaguely recognized who she was. I have to say, I wish she’d gone back and watched some of her own videos when writing this book. The biggest problem is that the characters don’t grow and develop, they either stay exactly the same or they devolve. The character development was great in the beginning and then just started to fall apart. You’re not only still cringing at Shane in Part 2, you might find yourself cringing even more than you did before. And don’t even get me started on Shane’s parents. I get that there are parents like that in real life, but seriously, Shane’s father is just plain scary at times. Also, in the words […]