Genre: Social Themes

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 […]

A Good Girl’s Guide to M..

Posted 03/13/2020 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

If there is one thing I do like, it is a good mystery. This one was definitely one of the good ones. The first thing you learn in A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder is that Sal Singh killed Andie Bell. At least that’s what everyone in town believes. Except Sal’s family and one other person. That person is our main character, Pippa. A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder – The Main Characters Pippa is sort of an interesting character. She’s every faculty member’s dream. Her homework is done on time and very neatly. She studies all the time. Even when she chose to prove Sal Singh was innocent, she worked on that all the time. While she is an interesting character, I don’t think we got to see enough of her real personality. We got more of the workaholic than we did the actual person with Pippa. While she […]

The Toll by Neal Shusterman

Posted 02/13/2020 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

I’m going to admit, I was a bit confused when this book first started. I didn’t realize there was a time gap because I hadn’t read the blurb. I’d figured they’d have immediately started trying to salvage Endura, but clearly not. I’m going to admit this right now, I can’t stand Goddard. He’s egotistical, he’s power hungry, and he’s a grade-A jackass. Yes, I said it. He’s a jackass. The way he treats people makes me want to reach through the pages and punch him. I can see why everyone hates him. Greyson Tolliver’s character becomes much clearer in this book – he’s more defined than in Thunderhead and his reason for being in the story makes a lot more sense now than it did when I read Thunderhead. He’s not a particularly likeable character for me – he’s more just there because he needs to be, not because I’m […]

Thunderhead by Neal Shusterman

Posted 01/31/2020 by Charli in Book Reviews / 0 Comments

SPOILER ALERT: There are a couple of spoilers given in this review. I apologize, but I found it very hard to talk about the book without giving anything away. If you’re looking for a second novel in a trilogy or series to frustrate the crap out of you, this one will do nicely. I’m not even kidding. In this second book, we see that Citra is getting along fairly well as a Scythe and the Rowan is playing a bad-guy-who-is-actually-a-good-guy role. I kind of figured that would end up happening, but that’s isn’t the frustrating thing. We also see the return of Scythe Rand and Scythe Goddard. No, I won’t tell you more than that. You have to read the book to understand. But trust me, when it happens you’ll be frustrated, annoyed, and a bit awestruck as it is a big on the ingenious side. Thunderhead has a plot […]

Scythe by Neal Shusterman

Posted 01/28/2020 by Charli in Book Reviews / 1 Comment

When this was chosen as the book for the Barnes & Noble YA Book Club for December, I was a bit disappointed. Up until December, all of the books had been new releases, so it didn’t make sense to me for them to choose Scythe. Then I figured maybe they’d do all three from December through February, but that didn’t turn out to be the case. I’m glad they did choose it though, because I wouldn’t have ever picked it up otherwise. For me, the book was hard to get into. It just seemed like it was very boring and slow to get going. Once it did get going, it was a great book. But wow, the book was just slow to get going. I get why it was slow to get going – after all, we had to have some sort of reason why Scythe Faraday would choose Citra […]