Genre: Contemporary

The Wicker King by K. Ancrum | Review

Posted February 25, 2019 in Books, Reviews / 1 Comment

The Wicker King had been lingering on my TBR for a while, and when it was announced as the first read in the Dragons & Tea Book Club, it shot to the top of my TBR so I could participate. When I received my paperback copy in the mail, I actually initially though it was damaged as the pages slowly fade into the black the further along the novel progresses, which seemed an ominous sign for what I was getting into while reading. As expected from both the description on the book design, The Wicker King is a tale of […]

Love á la Mode by Stephanie Kate Strohm | Review

Posted February 11, 2019 in Books, Reviews / 3 Comments

One of my favorite things to do after a long day at work is to unwind with a cooking show. Can I cook or bake? Barely, if you count boiling pasta or making a salad. Yet anything food related on tv- Master Chef, Chopped, Holiday Baking Championship, Chef’s Table, etc.- and I am here for it. Cooking shows are the number one thing taking up room on my DVR, so when I found out about Love á la Mode I was PUMPED. A YA series set in Paris with the backdrop of an intensive cooking school? 100% right up my […]

On the Come Up by Angie Thomas | ARC Review

Posted February 4, 2019 in Books, Reviews / 4 Comments

It’s no secret that everyone’s been waiting for On the Come Up since The Hate You Give took the YA world by storm. Angie Thomas’ debut novel was bold, tackling tough topics and unafraid to confront harsh realities concerning race, police violence, class, and interracial relationships. In her sophomore novel On The Come Up, Thomas spins another story about a girl from The Garden, but focuses on Bri, an aspiring rapper, who faces the threat of poverty, drug abuse, grief, and stereotyping on her journey to “make it” in the music industry and provide stability for her family. One of […]

A Heart in a Body in the World by Deb Caletti | ARC Review

Posted December 24, 2018 in Books, Reviews / 3 Comments

As the year comes to a close, my biggest question of 2018 is: How is it that everyone isn’t raving about this book? A Heart in a Body in a World snuck up on me and is quite possibly my favorite book of 2018. The novel is heartbreak and activism and politics and grief all wrapped up in a story that manages to capture a tragedy in such a deeply visceral and personal way that the media and news cannot. The novel follows Annabelle, a teenager who has suffered a terrible tragedy and decides to run from Seattle to Washington […]

In Dog We Trust by Beth Kendrick | Black Dog Bay #5 ARC Review

Posted December 17, 2018 in Books, Reviews / 2 Comments

So in typical fashion, I found out that the Black Dog Bay series which I love dearly had a new installment thanks to Lauren @ Bookmark Lit who is probably responsible for a solid 25% of the books on my TBR shelf at any given moment. I hit that NetGalley request button SO FAST you don’t even know. So over Thanksgiving break I was spending yet another summer in my beloved East Coast seaside town of Black Dog Bay on another truly puppy filled adventure. The newest series installment follows Jocelyn, a local Black Dog Bay resident, who runs a […]

A Very Large Expanse of Sea by Tahereh Mafi | When the Teenage Feels Are Too Real

Posted December 10, 2018 in Books, Reviews / 6 Comments

Clearly I am late to the Tahereh Mafi party, as A Very Large Expanse of Sea is the first book by her I’ve read, despite her popular dystopian and middle grade series. I honestly had not heard much about her first contemporary YA novel and decided to check it out on a whim when browsing my library’s Overdrive selection and seeing it was available, as I wanted a shorter contemporary novel to read in conjunction with my long, time consuming TOG reread. What I didn’t expect to find was a story that would so viscerally remind me of what it […]

Sarah Dessen Mini Reviews: Keeping the Moon & This Lullaby

Posted December 3, 2018 in Books, Reviews / 4 Comments

I can’t believe that Keeping the Moon is almost 20 years old! Every summer I set out to reread a Sarah Dessen book or two (the goal being that I’ve reread all in recent memory) and it always blows me away that Sarah’s been writing for so long, and how her stories do feel so timeless despite their age. Keeping the Moon is no exception, and I was curious to see how I would like it as I barely remembered anything since the last time I read it was probably back in 2004 and I remembered it not being my […]

The Royal Runaway by Lindsay Emory | ARC Review

Posted October 29, 2018 in Reviews / 8 Comments

*Huge thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for providing an review copy free of charge!* If you know my reading tastes at all, you know that word “royals” in a contemporary novel hooks me every.single.time. That’s why I’ve had my eye on The Royal Runaway for a while now, and it’s comp titles are The Princess Diaries and The Royal We (two of my favorite contemporary reads EVER) so I screamed when I was approved for it on NetGalley and immediately dove in once I knew I had some good, solid uninterrupted reading time. The Royal Runaway features a […]

What If It’s Us by Becky Albertalli and Adam Silvera | ARC Review

Posted October 22, 2018 in Books, Reviews / 6 Comments

This ARC and I have been on quite a journey. It wasn’t even on my radar when I attended the 2018 YALLWEST festival and then I heard ~rumors~ that Epic Reads would be giving it away at some point and frantically planned my afternoon around the drop. Too many people ended up attending the event so it turned into a long, tedious, hot raffle in the sun for who would walk away with a copy of this much coveted author mash up. After being convinced it wasn’t meant to be (I never win ANYTHING), my number got called and I […]

Heretics Anonymous by Katie Henry | Review

Posted October 1, 2018 in Reviews / 6 Comments

If you’ve followed my blog for any amount of time, you know I’m a HUGE fan of any YA books that incorporate religion as a theme- not because I’m by any means super religious, but because as a Religious Studies major in college it was my job to study and learn about religion from a sociological and anthropological perspective, and old habits die hard. When I heard about Heretics Anonymous I was especially intrigued as I myself grew up Catholic, so I was curious to see how it would portray the Catholic school experience (though I attended public school, I […]