Genre: Contemporary

Black Dog Bay Series Review | My Obsession with Idyllic New England Coastal Towns Continues

Posted November 13, 2017 in Reviews / 8 Comments

I 100% blame Lauren for this binge read, as she recommended this series to me knowing my obsession with small, adorable New England Coastal towns (having lived my entire life on the West Coast, East Coast beach towns fascinate me). I found these books through my library’s Overdrive (hallelujah) and they proved to be the perfect books to binge toward the end of the summer, as a ridiculous heat wave (I am talking 113 degrees F) rolled through California and made the Labor Day weekend definitely feel like an extension of summer. The first book in the series started out […]

Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith | Review

Posted August 14, 2017 in Books, Reviews / 14 Comments

I’ll admit I succumbed to major, major cover love with the purchase of Windfall. I had seen a LOT of mixed reviews, but the greens and blues were so my #aesthetic so I decided to buy it (I mean, if all else failed, I got a gorgeous Instagram photo of it). I was also intrigued to see how Jennifer E. Smith portrayed the winning the lottery premise, as another YA book released this year, Lucky in Love, also dealt with the same theme. There’s something so fun about wistfully talking about all of the things you’d do if you won […]

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas | Review

Posted August 7, 2017 in Reviews / 10 Comments

I’ll be totally honest with you. I think I put off reading The Hate U Give for quite a while because I was intimidated by all of the hype. Diversity is such an important and such a needed topic in YA right now, and I wanted to go into The Hate U Give when I 1) Had enough time to devote to reading it in as few sitting as possible and 2) When the hype had died down and I could really focus on it. This course of action proved fruitful because I finished The Hate U Give in less […]

Love & Gelato by Jenna Evans Welch | Review

Posted July 31, 2017 in Reviews / 19 Comments

Love & Gelato is one of those books that always caught my eye during my trips to Barnes & Noble because the cover was so pretty in its simplicity. Yet I never pulled the trigger on purchasing it because the cover also made it seem like it might be too young for me (I have a lot of thoughts regarding the large age range YA covers, and don’t usually enjoy books geared toward the younger end of the spectrum). However, I was looking for a book to borrow on my phone via Overdrive (I always like to have a book […]

Hello, Sunshine by Leila Howland | ARC Review

Posted July 16, 2017 in Reviews / 14 Comments

Thank you so much to NetGalley and Disney-Hyperion for providing a review copy! I have such a soft spot for Leila Howland’s Nantucket series, so I was thrilled to see a new book by her, although set on the West Coast. My NetGalley request to read Hello, Sunshine was approved with perfect timing as I had just listened to Leila’s podcast interview with Sarah Enni on First Draft, and learned about her time spent as an aspiring actress herself. It set the stage perfectly for my reading of Hello, Sunshine as I felt more connected and as though I had […]

Lucky In Love by Kasie West | ARC Review

Posted July 10, 2017 in Reviews / 13 Comments

*Many thanks to Scholastic for providing a review copy of this book!* Lucky In Love was a book I wasn’t planning on picking up at YallWest, having had mediocre experiences with West’s other works (The Fill-In Boyfriend, The Distance Between Us). However, when I heard Kasie was signing the copies and got a look at the GORGEOUS ARC (seriously, the cover AND the back are too cute!) I knew I had to give her books another shot. While Lucky In Love won’t be topping my list of all time favorite books anytime soon, it was a very cute, very easy […]

Rereading Sarah Dessen | Once and For All Review + Dessen Favorites!

Posted June 29, 2017 in Features, Reviews / 7 Comments

Most readers and bloggers can agree that Sarah Dessen is the Queen of Contemporary. Her books have been around long before YA was a well-known genre and I remember her books being some of the first I ventured into in middle and high school summers when the YA section at my local library was lacking and I didn’t even really know what a contemporary novel was. Over the past 12+ years I’ve read and loved almost all of her books, and with Once and for All out this Sarah has surely been on everyone’s mind! Lauren from Bookmark Lit and […]

Alex, Approximately by Jenn Bennett | Review

Posted June 26, 2017 in Reviews / 6 Comments

It took me a while to get into this one, but when I finally did, I fell hard. I was actually feeling super into the romance, which let me tell you, is getting harder and harder for me with high school settings these days (#I’mgettingold). I will admit I pre-ordered this book mainly due to a combination of cover love and succumbing to the hype since EVERYONE seemed to have read it early, but I’ve never seen You’ve Got Mail (I know, I know) so I really didn’t know what to expect, or why people were flailing so hard. However, […]

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid | ARC Review

Posted June 12, 2017 in Reviews / 10 Comments

*A huge thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an ARC copy of this book in exchange for an honest review* I fell in love with Taylor Jenkins Reid about a year or so ago, after reading Maybe in Another Life. I loved her ability to write adult fiction that felt relevant to me in my twenties, to developed extremely nuanced relationships and to write protagonists who all felt distinct and yet familiar at the same time. I’ve read almost all of her published works, so when I heard about The Seven Husbands on Evelyn Hugo, I have to […]

Someone Like You by Sarah Dessen | (Re-Read) Review

Posted June 5, 2017 in Reviews / 10 Comments

Technically when I picked up Someone Like You this summer, it was a reread since I had read the book previously, probably 10-12+ years ago, back when Dessen’s books were some of the only true YA contemporaries out there. I only vaguely remembered the premise (best friends, teen pregnancy, made into a mediocre movie starring Mandy Moore, etc.) but I’m on a Dessen rereading kick and I’m trying to reread the ones I haven’t recently in chronological order to gear up for a fun Dessen related summer feature with Lauren from Bookmark Lit! Perhaps my strongest experiences while reading Someone […]