Publisher: Disney Hyperion

YA Mini Reviews: Chasing Lucky + The Voting Booth

Posted December 28, 2020 in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

I was a little nervous going into Chasing Lucky, because I’ve had mixed luck with Jenn Bennet books. I adored Starry Eyes but never even got around to finishing Serious Moonlight, and I didn’t know where Chasing Lucky would end up on the spectrum of enjoyment for me. Luckily (pun intended), Chasing Lucky proved to be an enjoyable read for me, falling right under Starry Eyes in my ranking of Jenn Bennet books. Chasing Lucky follows protagonist Josie who is returning to her hometown after being gone for several years moving all over the east coast with her mom. She’s […]

Don’t Date Rosa Santos by Nina Moreno | Review

Posted March 30, 2020 in Books, Reviews / 0 Comments

One of my goals for 2020 is for at least 10% of the books I read to be by Latinx authors, and I’m thrilled I was able to start off the year with a cute and charming Latinx story. Don’t Date Rosa Santos was as charming, quirky and colorful as the gorgeous cover suggests, and also had threads of magical realism, self-discovery and travel that I wasn’t expecting. The story takes place in the charming Florida town of Port Coral, where Rosa lives with her abuela Mimi, who’s raised her from a young age while her wanderlust mother travels across […]

This is Our Story by Ashley Elston | Review

Posted December 9, 2019 in Books, Reviews / 4 Comments

There’s nothing like reading a book set in autumn during the actual autumn season, and This is Our Story was my quintessential fall read this year. Though published back in 2016, the book has been on my radar since Kristin recommended it a few years back in her Autumn Book Recommendations video. Her recommendation plus the beautifully haunting cover made it a book that survived on my “Want to Read” shelf during my recent Goodreads reorganization and I’m so glad that I finally got around to it this year! Similarly to what Kristin mentions in her video (which I had […]

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 […]

The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton | ARC Review

Posted February 5, 2018 in Reviews / 10 Comments

Have you ever gone into a book with little to no expectations and then end up being BLOWN AWAY by how much you adore it? That is what exactly happened to me when I picked up The Belles on one of my last days of my Hawaiian vacation. Feeling burnt out from reading about a book a day, my boyfriend suggested I switch up genres to keep from falling into a reading slump. Having read 3 contemporaries already that week, I decided to pick up my ARC of The Belles that had been waiting for me since last summer’s YALLWest, […]

Prince in Disguise by Stephanie Kate Strohm | ARC Review

Posted December 4, 2017 in Reviews / 8 Comments

Anyone who knows me knows that I am obsessed with contemporary books that feature royalty (an obsession likely starting with my love of The Princess Diaries series and continued currently by the Netflix drama, The Crown). So when I saw this at the Disney-Hyperion booth at YallWest I KNEW I had to grab it despite knowing literally nothing about the plot or premise, but the cover and title were enough to know it would firmly fall into my modern day royal obsessed brain. Couple that with the recent news of Prince Harry’s engagement and I couldn’t have read Prince in […]

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 […]

Nantucket Red by Leila Howland | Review

Posted November 4, 2015 in Books, Reviews / 4 Comments

My Review There’s something about Leila Howland’s writing that makes it compulsively readable among the huge selection of YA contemporaries on the market today. I think it’s due to a combination of the dreamy, beachy setting of Nantucket along with her willingness to go just a little farther than other YA authors in her heavier content, from sex to grief to bullying. There’s a rawness around Cricket’s experiences that makes the narrative hit home a little more without compromising its status as a fun, beachy read. The first thing that I, (and many other reviewers, I’m sure), have to bring […]

A Thousand Nights by E. K. Johnston | ARC Review

Posted October 19, 2015 in ARCs, Reviews / 13 Comments

My Review “Good men fall to monsters every day. Clever men are tricked by their own pride or by pretty words. That is what happened to the king in the tale she tells.” Very rarely do I find myself reading -and finishing- a book that was completely and totally not what I was expecting. Somehow, however, A Thousand Nights slipped through my bookish radar and when I finally got my hands on a much-coveted copy at ALA, I was somehow convinced it was going to be your average, run of the mill, Disney-washed Arabian folk tale retelling that was heavy […]

Book Buddies Review: Nantucket Blue

Posted September 3, 2015 in Book Buddies Reviews, Reviews / 3 Comments

Cristina and Lauren Read: Book Buddies is a discussion style review I participate in every other month with my friend Lauren who runs the blog Bookmarklit. We choose a themed book for the month, read it, and the have a discussion where we both discuss themes and aspects that really stood out to us. Book Buddy Reviews are posted during the last week of the month.You can see our review in a Q&A format with half posted here, and half on Lauren’s blog! 1) How big of an impact did the romance aspect of the book have one you? […]