Bloggin 'Bout Books Blog

Hello Lovelies!! As I mentioned before, I'm really behind on my reviews. So I'm doing a couple of themed round-ups to catch-up. These cover all the books I've read in a certain genre for the last month and a half or so. With summer time, I felt the need to breeze through a boatload of contemporaries or books which fit the contemporary genre. Here's what I've read so far. My Love, My Love or The Peasant Girl by Rosa Guy Published: 1985 Publisher: Holt McDougal Received: Borrowed from a friend "When the heads and hearts of fools and children are filled with the images of gods and ghosts,  what room is there for reason?" So this walks a fine line between contemporary and fantasy, but I decided to put it here and call it a contemporary with a dash of magical realism. It's a retelling of the Little Mermaid (the Hans Christian Andersen, not the Disney) and it's set on a tropical island. The main character is Desiree, a peasant...

Gimme a Call by Sarah Mlynowski is a delightful look at how the choices you make define you. I should probably preface this review by saying that I love time travel novels and movies. If you play with the concept of time, I'm on board. My friend, Kayla, on the other hand, hates anything that deals with time travel. She doesn't think it makes sense...ever. So depending on where you fall on the love of time travel spectrum, your appreciate of this book will vary with it. Devi has had a terrible time. She just broke up with her boyfriend of three years, she has no friends, and now she's dropped her phone in the water fountain at the mall. When she tries to dial out after rescuing her phone, she reaches herself. Herself from Freshman year of high school. Devi has the brilliant idea that if she tells Freshman Devi the choices to make, she will never have her heartbroken by Bryan. I really like how every simple choice had a fairly large consequence. I don't ...

Keeping the Moon by Sarah Dessen is a fun, contemporary novel about finding yourself. I've had this book for two years, and even though I've loved Dessen's other works, I kept pushing it aside for other reads. I think part of it was my copy (a slightly water-damaged garage sale find with this truly atrocious cover), and part of it was just that I kept wanting to read other things more . But when I was looking over my bookshelf, I realized that this was the book that I'd moved across the country that I'd owned the longest. And I was feeling like a fun read. Like I needed to feel like it was summer outside and that all the possibilities of the world were at my fingertips. Maybe that was too much pressure to put on one book. This one didn't quite live up to my expectations. But it still left me feeling a little warm and gooey inside. Colie is the daughter of Kiki Sparks, fitness guru extraordinare. Both Kiki and Colie were overweight. But Kiki got her ...

ISLAAAAAAAAAAA. ISLA ISLA ISLA. You guys, I've been waiting for this book for two years. I know that isn't as long as some, but it's still been a really long time. But you guys, it was so worth it. Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins  is the third in the sort-of-series that begins with Anna and the French Kiss . Perkins has the ability to write contemporary YA in a way that makes me feel like I'm living it. Isla and Josh's romance is damn-near perfect. Perkins excels at the awkward, does he like me or doesn't he stage. She make the relationship bumps believable. No relationship goes perfectly 100% of the time. Possible Minor Spoilers ahead: I loved that Isla and Josh had both had sex with other people. It's unrealistic and annoying when two virgins continuously meet in contemporary YA. I think that's a trend that's changing, but I'm glad that Perkins chose to support the fact that teens have sex, and often with more ...

If I Stay by Gayle Forman is an interesting look back at a person's life and deciding if life is still worth living without the people who made up the most important moments. If I Stay is quick read. For taking place basically entirely in a person's thoughts, it dives right in and just goes.  This book packs a lot of emotion into a short 200  or so pages. That worked for me. I knew what I was getting in to, and I felt connected. I'll admit that since I'd seen the trailer for the movie before I read the book, I did picture most of the characters as the actors who'll be playing them. I'll also admit that the age difference between Mia and her brother is almost exactly the age difference between me and my brother, so that hit especially close to home. Mia's (and her family's) devotion to music made me want to whip out my violin or find a piano and play some music myself. I wanted to envelope myself in music while reading this. Overall,...