Review: Music & Books OH MY!: The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich

The Love Interest by Cale Dietrich
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Published: May 16, 2017
Rating: (4/5)

Today's post is going to have a couple of my favorite things. Books and music. I am the kind of person that needs to have music on while I'm reading. It adds to the experience and music was such a fun addition for me while I was reading this book!

Here's a little bit about this book:

There is a secret organization that cultivates teenage spies. The agents are called Love Interests because getting close to people destined for great power means getting valuable secrets.
Caden is a Nice: the boy next door, sculpted to physical perfection. Dylan is a Bad: the brooding, dark-souled guy who is dangerously handsome. The girl they are competing for is important to the organization, and each boy will pursue her. Will she choose the Nice or the Bad?
Both Caden and Dylan are living in the outside world for the first time. They are well-trained and at the top of their games. They have to be—whoever the girl doesn’t choose will die.
What the boys don’t expect are feelings that are outside of their training. Feelings that could kill them both.

This book takes all those tropes such as love triangles, teenage spies, good vs. bad guy, and turns it into something genius! This book was funny, unique, and everyone needs to read it! Some of my favorite aspects of this book were the pop culture references. Friends and How I Met Your Mother are two of my all time favorite shows and if you're a fan as well you will definitely pick up on the references that are weaved into the book. 

Along with shows there is a lot of music mentioned. Artists such as The Killers, Nicki Minaj, the Smiths and others artist/bands are mentioned. Music is everything. It makes you feel good. It helps you cope with difficult moments in your life. It pumps you up before and during your gym workout. Music is a universal language. 

I have found a few songs that I think fit perfectly with this book and so I have created a playlist for you to listen to while you read this book. 

The song I'm featuring in this post is a song I played on repeat while reading this book. It fits the two main characters Caden and Dyl perfectly! During their drives together late at night, this was the song that I heard in my head. 

These are some of the lyrics that I found fitting for their relationship:

"And we don't know what we're waiting for

And we don't know the truth anymore

And we can't see clearly through the fog

So we end up chasing ghost

Outside these walls we're criminals

They chase us down, we're singing hymnals..."

-Hymnals (RAC Remix) by Grizfolk

I am in LOVE with this song and I listen to it daily. I tend to get obsessed with songs and listen to them for a long time before I move on. 

Do you listen to music while you read or do you need quiet?


Be sure to check out my playlist below! 

GET YOUR COPY

AMAZON

BARNES & NOBLE

#ARCstravaganza: The Belles by Dhonielle Clayton

"#ARCstravaganza is a weekly meme hosted by YA and Wine to give book bloggers/bookstagrammers a chance to show off their ARCs/eARCs that they are most excited about! Remember to comment on their weekly posts with a link to your own #ARCstravaganza blog post, or post a picture on Instagram using the #ARCstravaganza hashtag, and you will be entered to win an ARC copy of an upcoming YA novel! One winner will be chosen at random each month."

Happy Monday everyone! Today I am participating in #ARCstravaganza! 

 

I picked this beauty up at YALLWEST and it is my most anticipated book of 2018. LOOK AT THAT COVER. LOOK. I can't wait to get started on this book.

ABOUT THE BOOK

Camellia Beauregard is a Belle. In the opulent world of Orléans, Belles are revered for they control Beauty, and Beauty is a commodity coveted above all else. In Orléans, the people are born gray, they are born damned, and only with the help of a Belle and her talents can they transform and be made beautiful.
But it’s not enough for Camellia to be just a Belle. She wants to be the favorite—the Belle chosen by the Queen of Orléans to live in the royal palace, to tend to the royal family and their court, to be recognized as the most talented Belle in the land. But once Camellia and her Belle sisters arrive at court, it becomes clear that being the favorite is not everything she always dreamed it would be. Behind the gilded palace walls live dark secrets, and Camellia soon learns that the very essence of her existence is a lie—that her powers are far greater, and could be more dangerous, than she ever imagined. And when the queen asks Camellia to risk her own life and help the ailing princess by using Belle powers in unintended ways, Camellia now faces an impossible decision.

With the future of Orléans and its people at stake, Camellia must decide—save herself and her sisters and the way of the Belles—or resuscitate the princess, risk her own life, and change the ways of her world forever.

Title: The Belles
Author: Dhonielle Clayton

Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Pub Date: February, 20, 2018

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Dhonielle Clayton was born in the suburbs of Washington, DC and spent her childhood Saturdays at the comic book store with her father and most evenings hiding beneath her grandmother’s dining room table with a stack of books. She earned a BA in English at Wake Forest University. She was an English teacher for three years and worked with educational curriculum. Being surrounded by children, Dhonielle re-discovered her love of children’s literature and earned a masters in children’s and young adult literature from Hollins University. Currently, she is working on both middle grade and young adult novel projects. She moved to NYC where she earned her MFA at the New School's MFA Program. She is co-founder of CAKE Literary, a literary development studio committed to bringing diversity to high concept content.

Review: Girl out of Water by Laura Silverman

Girl out of Water by Laura Silverman
Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire
Pub. Date: May 2, 2017
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (4/5)

"However, as strong as my desire is to look like I belong, my desire to not make a fool myself is even stronger." 

The quote above speaks to me on a very deep and emotional level. 

Girl Out of Water is the story of a young girl named Anise Sawyer who would love nothing more than to surf every day of every minute of her life. And living in Santa Cruz, CA, she has a better change of making that a dream a reality. She has a great group of friends, and this summer is going to be the best summer of her life. She's going to spend it surfing with her friends before some of them go away to college. Leaving her hometown is a concept she just doesn't understand. Why would you want to leave your home when everything you need is there? 

But when her aunt suffers an accident Anise has to leave her hometown and friends and fly to Nebraska with her father in order to care of her aunt and younger cousins. While she is extremely unhappy to be leaving home she loves her family and would do anything for them.

She fears that her friends will soon forget about her and she finds herself pulling back the more time she spends in Nebraska. And to make matters more complicated there is Lincoln. He is a cute black, one-armed skater boy who is ridiculously charming and has a big taste for live and adventure.

Anise struggles with being forgotten as well as forgetting. Her mind is set on never leaving Santa Cruz. Will anything or anyone change her mind?

This story was so delightful! I throughly enjoyed being in this world. I loved the characters in this book. It had everything I could ever want in a contemporary story. There was strong family ties. Cute boys. The beach. And kissing.

Silverman did a great job creating the perfect summer read!

Here are just some reasons why I loved Girl Out of Water Here and some examples of the diversity that made this story so amazing:

• Anise dealt with anxiety when meeting new people. It was written so well and I related to it so much. I deal with anxiety when I meet a large group of people and it can be overwhelming. Having a character go through anxiety made me feel like I wasn't alone. 
• Lincoln, the love interest was not only a black guy, but he was a one-armed skater. The point of the story was not that he was a person of color or that he had a disability. IT WAS PERFECT. Our world is diverse and therefor we should have diversity in the stories we read and write.  
• I also really loved that Anise was tall. Anise is 5'10 just like me! I always find that descriptions of girls in contemporary stories are words like "small, petite, or he towered over me, ect." All the tall boys are given to short girls in YA contemporary but Anise and I are here to take them back! (This is from my reading experience. If you have an recs of tall girls in YA that aren't the butt of the joke or where their height is used as an insecurity PLEASE let me know!) 

Fans of Sarah Dessen be sure to pick this book up for the summer!

GET YOUR COPY OF GIRL OUT OF WATER 

Amazon

Barnes & Noble

Also be sure to check your local bookstore!


Thank you to the Netgalley for a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review!

Review: Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel

Waking Gods by Sylvain Neuvel
Publisher: Del Rey
Pub. Date: April 4, 2017
Rating: 🌟🌟🌟🌟 (4.25/5)

“I just thought… I thought he’d be able to weasel his way out of this, twist God’s arm, tell him he had nude pictures of him or something.”

Waking Gods is the anticipated sequel to Sleeping Giants. You can check out my non-spoiler review HERE or HERE. I am so excited that I was able to get an ARC through the NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Waking Gods takes place 10 years after Sleeping Giants. After the discovery of a giant robot the world has now been exposed to the reality that there is life outside of Earth. These aliens are technologically more advanced than we could have ever dream of. Now that we know they exist, should we begin to prepare for an apocalypse?

Ten years later society is forced to answer that question when robots begin falling from the sky and landing all around the world in the Earth’s most populated cities and begin to kill us by the millions.

The story is told in the same format as Sleeping Giants. There are a series of interviews, military reports, journal entries, and live news broadcasts. The same characters that were in book 1 are in book 2, as well as some new faces. Questions are answered regarding our nameless mystery guy. And, the fate of the world is in the hands of two pilots, a geneticist, a physicist, and a ten-year old girl.

The story keeps you hooked the entire time. Just when you think that things are finally settling down something happens that makes you say ‘WHOA’. You keep wondering what this alien civilization wants from us and how can we possibly defend ourselves when they can so easily erase all human life on earth?

Despite the millions of deaths that occurred, this book was funny and filled with sarcastic characters that I love. The story is somewhat predictable yet there were a few outcomes that I did not see coming that kept me wanting more.

One thing about this story that doesn’t make me jump over the moon and want to shove this book in people’s faces is that the format in which the story is told makes it more difficult to connect with the characters. You never really know what the character is thinking. Your perception of them is solely based on the things they say and do rather than reasoning behind their actions. It's easier to empathize with a villain if you know their reasoning behind their madness.

Besides that this book is funny, has a unique format, and it involves alien civilizations with GIANT ROBOTS. What’s not to love?

Review: The Spy by Paulo Coehlo

The Spy by Paulo Coehlo

Genre: Historical Fiction

Published: November 22, 2016

My Rating: 3/5 

"When we don't know where life is taking us, we are never lost."

This is a historical fiction that takes place during the 1910s right at the brink of WWI. The story begins in the Netherlands but mostly takes place in Paris, France and also in Germany. The story is told through a long letter written by the main character Mata Hari. This is a fiction story that is inspired by true events.

Mata Hari, once known as Margaretha Zelle, arrived to Paris with no money and no where to live and soon became the most popular and celebrated woman in France who was showered with all of her material desires and access to all of the fanciest hotels. She was an exotic dancer who performed for important people. She was sensual, manipulative, and had expensive tastes. Her past made her see love as nothing more than a means to get what she wanted and involved no actual feelings of love.

She often found herself in the bed of rich successful business and government men who were often married. But as the imminent war loomed over Europe, Mata Hari was beginning to be a target of suspicion due to her large circle of important men. In 1917 she was arrested and executed.

The story is told through a letter Mata Hari wrote during her time in jail. She tries to prove her innocence and that her only crime was being a free and independent woman. Mata Hari is really the only main character in this book and you get a good sense of her personality through the letter that she is writing. You learn about the reasons behind her actions and how being an independent woman often left her viewed as a prostitute by society.

It was a great story about Mata Hari written simply and enjoyable. There wasn’t any big twist or turns. It wasn’t thrilling. I wasn’t left wanting to read more but at 208 pages it was just right. The story was short and to the point. Mata Hari was truly an interesting and exotic woman.

This book wasn’t my favorite read. I enjoyed it but for such a short book it took me a long time to finish it. I ended up giving this book 3 out of 5 stars. This was also the first book by Paulo Coehlo that I read and I do plan on picking up The Alchemist in the near future.

Find the book here:

Goodreads

Barnes and Nobles

Amazon

Review : Sleeping Giants by Sylvain Neuvel

By: Sylvain Neuvel

Publisher: Del Rey 

Published: April 26, 2016

Rating: 4/5 stars 

This is the debut novel of Sylvain Neuvel. It is a science-fiction novel that takes place, mostly in the United States in an underground government research lab.

The story begins 17 years before the actual story takes place. Rose Franklin is a young girl who took her bike out for a ride and ended up falling through the earth. When she is found, she is located deep underground by glowing walls that are engraved with intricate markings. And mostly notably, she is being cradled by a large hand.

17 years later she becomes a physicist and is recruited to find out more information about this mystery hand. Along with Dr. Rose Franklin, the mystery interrogator puts together a team as they discover that this isn’t the only piece on earth. He puts together two pilots from the military, Kara and Ryan. Later on as they discover more pieces they bring in a linguist named Victor to try and figure out what the symbols mean.

These three work day in and day out to try to find the pieces, put them together and figure out what it makes and what it does.

This is a unique storyline and it raises the question, “are we alone in the universe?” It was a constant page turner. There seems to be a clear plot and you knew what was going. Though you didn’t always know why. Specifically when it came to our mystery man. You didn’t know who he worked for or what is end goal was in retrieving these pieces. That is what made the book so exciting. You only knew what he wanted you to know.

The only downfall I will say is that because this story is told in a series of interviews/interrogations it is hard to connect with the characters. You never get to know what the person is thinking or feeling. The first few chapters I found myself not really caring what happened to them and to be honest I found Kara to be unlikable.

As you get further into the story you begin to get invested in what happens to the characters. Along with the interview format there are personal journal entries that allow you to change perspectives. That is when I begin to feel more sympathetic towards them and begin to be invested in their journey.

This science-fiction novel poses the great question, “are we alone in the universe?” and if we aren’t then “just how many lives are we willing to sacrifice for scientific advancement?” This story had me hooked! I couldn’t put the book down.

This book is a part of a trilogy. I truly believe that it was a great start to this series. I can’t wait to read more.

Check out the links below!

My video review (non-spoiler) :

https://youtu.be/LkxCQcbCwa4

Where to find the book:

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sleeping-Giants-Themis-Sylvain-Neuvel/dp/1101886692/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

Blog: Take 2

Hi! 

My name is Joss and welcome to my blogger. I am moving from josstealreader to just tealreader.blogspot.com. I wanted to keep it simple. Here you will find book reviews, book talks, book tours, and everything books! 

Thanks for stopping by. 

Love, 

Joss aka tealreader