REVIEW; Rule, by Jay Crownover

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: New Adult, Romance, Drama

Recommend: Yes/No

Summary:

Rule Archer is a tattooed, bad-ass player. It his ritual to go out and get drunk, pull a girl and get what he wants and have her leave quietly in the morning. He turns heads when he walks in a room and most females swoon after him.

Shaw Landon has been one of those girls for over 5 years. Having loved him since she first met him at 14 years old, she could never get over him. Following the death of her best friend, Remy, Rule's twin brother, Shaw still found herself wrapped up in the lives of the Archers. 

Every Sunday she drags Rule from his latest acquisition and drives him to a family meal, in the hope she can keep his family together. They were more of a family to her than her own were, and she doesn't want to give up. 

Rule can't stand Shaw, or doesn't have much time for her. But after her spends more time in her presence and his friends and family point out her looks, Rule begins to see Shaw in a completely different light, and his feelings and thoughts about her change him. After Shaw's birthday night, their relationship changes and so begins the rocky love life of Shaw and Rule.

My Thoughts:
ABSOLUTELY LOVED THIS!! It's definitely on my list of favourites. 

LOVED:

1. Rule; we're told all the girls can't help but pine after him due to his looks, but that followed through with his personality and attitude. Even with words Crownover portrayed his sex-appeal and angsty attitude that draws you in to his power. I didn't like him to begin with, as in his dismissive attitude towards women wouldn't attract me at all, but as soon as he starts to really see Shaw, we see the real him emerge from his pain and he becomes a bad-ass we can't help but love. 
2. Shaw; gotta give this girl props, she fell in love with her best friend's twin, and dealt with for years despite him breaking her heart every week when she witnessed his girls being dismissed. The girl had strength! She had awful pressuring parents who didn't listen to her and she finally was able to stand up to them and also confess her feelings to Rule.

DIDN'T LOVE:

1. Names; This won't seem like much of a big thing, but one thing really stuck out to me from the start and that was the character names- the majority were all 4 letters long!! Shaw, Rule, Rome, Remy, Nash, Gabe, Dale and others. It just lacked a bit of balance as realistically in a group of friends there is a variety in name length! It would be one thing if some were nick-names like Alex being short for Alexander but it was just something that irked me as the story progressed. 
2. Sex; this book oozed sex appeal and attitude. But as a female, I didn't really like the presentation of sexual topics in this. Rule's attitude was a huge turnoff. He wanted sex and to use girls, but put the blame on the girls being stupid enough to go home with a stranger. It's 50/50. He was a player and Crownover wrote from that POV but he was a bit too flippant that you wonder is it possible for one girl, and of course the one girl who loves him, to change his ways. Shaw had kept herself for him and her first time was absolutely brilliant and amazing... not buying that. 
3. Plot; it was a little predictable but NA/YA generally is to an extent. At times it felt like it was the same skeleton of a lot of similar stories but just dressed a bit differently. The stereotype virginal goddess falling for tattooed badboy and he of course reciprocates the feelings and is forever changed by the goddess. All the drama too- Remy's death, their mother, Shaw's parents, Gabe- all the trauma and drama surrounding the lot of them at times just seemed too much to be true.
4. Communication;  At times it really felt like I was missing a huge part of Shaw and Rule communicating. There were too many repetitive conversations about love and their relationship and not knowing what they were doing but knowing they love each other to not wanting to hurt each other, and all of this just in metaphors etc etc. It all just felt a little too much and up in the air for me. 

Although there were a few things I disliked/had issues with, it didn't really take away from the fact that I REALLY LOVED this book. I fell for Rule and Shaw together. Their relationship is depicted beautifully and their journey is far from smooth but it's captivating. It may not be the best written of novels, but it is still mighty good and the novel itself has an attitude that draws you in. 

I both laughed and cried whilst reading this and if a book can cause me to do both, then it's winner to me.

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REVIEW: The Doll's House, by Louise Phillips

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genre: Thriller, Suspense

Recommend: Yes/No

Summary:

Criminal psychologist, Kate Pearson, is called upon for her help on a murder in Dublin city centre, where the victim was brutally stabbed and then drowned in the canal. Another murder follows in similar style and Kate and her team aren't any closer to stopping the killer.

Meanwhile, Clodagh McKay is battling with her own demons. A recovering alcoholic in an abusive marriage, coping with the death of her mother, whom she had no bond with, and having driven away her own daughter, Clodagh takes matters into her own hands and attends a hypnotist. With his help, Clodagh regresses and attempts to uncover the secrets of her family and childhood, unaware the danger she is surrounding herself in. 

Her father supposedly committed suicide thirty-five years ago, and now men in his circle are turning up dead, and Clodagh wonders how she is connected to them.

My Thoughts:
Red Ribbons was a huge success for me and I was excited to be reading Phillip's next novel. I had hoped to have enjoyed it just as much but unfortunately it was a let down to my expectations. 
Still judging the book in its own right, I couldn't ignore the details or aspects that hindered my love for this novel. 

• POV; I normally enjoy the switching of the POV but I felt the sudden but brief changes didn't work out as well. So many of the chapters were only 2 pages long and the snippets of info (sometimes pointless) got lost too easily. 

• Clodagh; gahhhh, I wanted to like her, I wanted to feel sorry for her but I really couldn't. I don't like giving criticism without being constructive but I can't pinpoint what was missing from her character description that caused my lack of sympathy, but something was. Her regression sessions were also drawn out way too long. The effort to build suspense with the dolls and the doll's house and Clodagh's hesitance, failed. Towards the end I was skimming her sessions as they were too repetitive and not engaging. (I understand IRL hypnotism sessions would be long and a slow process but for a mystery novel there needed to be a faster pace.)

• Pace; the pace of this novel started off very well, the changing of POV's were all well done. After 50% though this fell apart. I felt at times it was being rushed to get points in and then slowing down again as if remembering to build suspense. Was bearable for the most part but I felt at the end everything got windswept in an effort to close up the plot twist.

• Setting; I loved the setting of this book. Irish author and realistic setting in Dublin with references to places around town and the suburbs. The choosing of a real setting and map plan brings the story to life rather than an unclear imagined setting that holds no presence.

The novel overall was still very good though. The insight into Kate's life makes her character come to life and more human as we see her life beyond her career. There are both minor and major plot twists, some of which are integral to the story, others which don't hold much importance. 

I would still recommend this novel to anyone that loves thrillers and mystery. There is a solid story-line with twists and turns and I look forward to reading Phillips' next book.

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REVIEW: My Name Is Rapunzel, by KC Hilton

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review contains spoilers

Genre: Young-Adult, Teen, Romance, Fantasy

Summary:

Rapunzel is about to get married and run away with the love of her life-Henry. But their plan is interrupted when the witch, Gretta, intervenes and ruins Rapunzel's life forever.

As a young girl she befriended Gretta and promised never to leave her; little did she know the seriousness of this promise. When Gretta sees her try to escape with Henry she curses Rapunzel to immortality- frozen in her current young woman state. 

After losing Henry and ultimately her parents, Rapunzel moves into the family castle with Gretta, being guarded by the dragon, and lives hundreds of years in solitude and grievance for Henry. 

Then in current day, Rapunzel decides to tell her story to a journalist; John Jenkins. And thus begins the start of a plot-twisting romance and Rapunzel gets a second chance of escape...but it won't be an easy fight.

My Thoughts:
I love fairy-tales and this really sounded like a novel that I'd enjoy. I think the main issue with it for me was that it was more suitable for younger teens more so than young adults. 

The story held a lot of promise; Rapunzel's true love, Henry, being banished from the start and subsequently turning out to be the dragon who tried to protect her and then a love-triangle. 

However, the story just fell apart, soon after it began and never really got back together.

• Rapunzel~ all talk and no action. She constantly moaned or dreamt about escape and how she wanted to leave Gretta but didn't because... ? Gretta would never let her. Well, Gretta's power fell through a lot but I'll get on to that in a moment. Rapunzel reads John Jenkins' sceptical article about fairy-tales and she feels the need to write to him with her "story." And in a "letter" to him that read more like a flashback novel, we find out about Luke, her son (not really but she becomes his guardian) and his story- and by the end we find out the whole story was pointless. There was no purpose whatsoever. It also didn't make sense that Rapunzel, after making it quite clear that she could not go into town for fear she'd be noticed and her secret revealed, writes a letter to a journalist confessing her tale who would ultimately want to publish said story. So her wanting for secrecy fell through here. And considering she sacrificed further love because of Henry, she fell for John way too easily.

• Gretta~ the "powerful" witch. As I said, Rapunzel was in fear of her. She had cursed Rapunzel and had to live with her and Rapunzel could never escape because of her. There was a constant threat of Gretta but never any evidence. There were the spells she did at the start, obviously, and the bit at the end... but in the middle? There was no evidence of any brutality or evilness. Rapunzel was able to follow Gretta into town one morning, go out for coffee another, go out with John a few times; but yet she couldn't run away because Gretta would know. How? How could she punish her if she was thousands of miles away?!  Rapunzel didn't even try to escape or defeat her. Just accepted her fate and spent 250 odd years complaining about it. If it were me, I would've died trying to escape (if it were possible that I could- if not, well I'd have no excuse for not trying!) There was also no real indication as to why Gretta wanted Rapunzel or her hair, everything was just insinuated and this was only sort of answered in the final few chapters.

• Plot~ held so much promise, didn't deliver. Henry was the dragon, okay good idea. But when that was revealed it was a bit too much of a surprise/unbelievable; for 250 years this dragon supposedly "protected" Rapunzel, but we never really got a great idea if he was protecting her or holding her prisoner. He still loved her and claimed that he had hoped their love would stand the test of time but yet never once did he try and explain who he was or what had happened! John made the ultimate sacrifice for the woman he loved, and became her "hero" by taking Henry's place as the dragon. Cute and romantic gesture but then Rapunzel just happily went off with Henry to have their happily ever after. She claimed to love John too and yet didn't even react to him giving up his life as a human!?

• Characters~ no development. Rapunzel, Henry, John, Gretta... all of them just lacked. They lacked depth and lacked major development. John wavered between loving and trusting Rapunzel to having speculated her all along and Henry, being honest I didn't trust him at the start and didn't feel his love for Rapunzel despite all the writing about how true and powerful their love was. 

Overall, I would recommend this book to much younger readers who don't read too much into books or aren't avid readers. Unfortunately, I have read too many that I cannot overlook all the red flags throughout this book. I expected so much more and it ultimately fell through on poor writing and an under developed characters. There were too many holes in the plot and as a novel with romance, the romance was never believable or heartfelt. 

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REVIEW: The Secret History, by Donna Tartt

Rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review contains spoilers

Genre: Mystery, Thriller, Literary Fiction

Summary:

Richard Papen arrives at Hampden College and gets involved with five other students- Bunny, Francis, Henry, Charles and Camilla- who all share a love for Greek Classics. Attending all classes under the eccentric Julian, they are segregated from the rest of the college students.

All with an air of secrecy, Richard tries his best to infiltrate the tight circle of friends, and gradually uncovers the dangers of which the group are involved in. After taking part in an ancient ritual, the group murder a farmhand and all decide to keep it quiet. When one member of the group is found to be less trusting, they are forced to get rid of him. Following his death, the group spiral out of control as a murder mystery unfolds and more drama ensues.

My Thoughts:

Where to begin with this book... I think this is one of those books that you either "get" or don't... and unfortunately I don't. 

I had been warned that this takes a good while to get into but was worth the read, so I persevered and really wanted to like it... but being honest I didn't enjoy reading it. 

My reasons for not enjoying/liking this novel are as follows;

1. Richard; there was absolutely no traits to prove his gender, occasionally he mentioned his love/affection for a character but their gender didn't matter and his lack of credibility just set the novel on a downward slope from the start. He was as dull as cardboard; he seemed to never have an opinion and if he did he never stood up for what it was. There was a scene where he gets with a girl at a party- he apparently was glad of this hook-up but did we get any emotion from him? No.
2. Characters; the rest of the group also lacked credibility. I made exceptions and allowances for their personalities to be different, as I would for characters in any novel. But after committing murder - twice - Tartt tried to portray a sense of remorse that just seemed forced and fake. Francis Henry Francis Henry- what on Earth was going on between those two and which was which? And the twins? Character building was definitely not on Tartt's list of things to include in this. Many things were suggested and hinted at, but rarely confirmed or elaborated. Now, I know the whole "show not tell" theory in writing, but whilst at times the hinting was sufficient, at some points a little bit of solid evidence would have been appreciated.
3. Writing; In amongst a lot of pointless anecdotes, there lies a fairly decent murder story- this is mainly where the two stars come from. The first killing happened just short of a third the way through, so naturally this caught my interest. The second murdering occurs half way through and there is a fair amount of suspense built as we know the murder is about to happen but we aren't sure how it will pan out. The whole rest of the book- 270 pages or so - is simply the rest of them fluttering around drunk and high, trying to avoid the police and letting their paranoia and anxiety control their actions and they gradually spiral out of control. I felt there was too much written about pointless scenes and not enough of vital ones. eg, there was a section where one of them was telling Richard how he nearly caught them "so many times" from coming home from the woods, when they hid behind the curtain etc, this should have been written into the story beforehand!!! ie, Richard should have noticed something like "when I went down to the fridge I heard some noises in the hall but no one was there and I returned to bed" etc... this lack of foreshadowing just felt like Tartt wrote the novel as she went with no clue where it was going.
4. Julian; Richard (and seemingly the others) idolized this man. I did not nor did I understand his great importance, there needed to be more about him to show the reader his greatness. Julian was one character I wanted to read more about, I wanted to know what was so intriguing and why he selected his students so carefully and such, but nope- we weren't privy to an insight into Julian's psyche.
5. The story; unfortunately the whole plot just fell apart for me. This is deemed as a great murder mystery type novel but that's hardly so. The first telling of the drunken acts and behaviour of the characters were enough, and I did not need to read hundreds of pages of the same thing with different paranoia in a different setting to understand their affliction with substance abuse. Hooray for them being young and daring.

Overall, did not enjoy this book. It probably just wasn't for me and I can recognise the talent of Tartt but it often felt like she was trying to hard to show off her writing skills. The constant forced language use was a turn off; it would have done her no harm to once in a while just write a sentence simply. I think you will either love or hate this and can't recommend it solely to a certain group as I believe it to be an individual preference.

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REVIEW: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer, by Michelle Hodkin

Rating: ★★★★☆

Genre: Young-Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Summary:

Mara Dyer loses her best friend, boyfriend and his sister all in the one night; out late exploring an abandoned building when it all collapses and only Mara escapes alive. Her family uproot and move away to give Mara a fresh start away from all of her tainted memories.

Suffering with PTSD and dealing with hallucinations and nightmares, Mara slowly regains memory of the dreadful night, piece by piece. She also faces the traumas that are associated with starting at a new school; automatically sticking out without a uniform and then the "Queen Bee", Anna, targets her from the beginning and makes life worse for her.

Noah Shaw enters Mara's life and she can't help but fall under his spell. He is more than just a love interest for her however, as she soon realises he has more in common with her than she originally suspected. Mara has the ability to kill people with her mind, and Noah helps her with her journey in discovering her power and dealing with her daily flashbacks and fears.

My Thoughts:

This was a book I had been wanting to read for a good 2 years before I got the chance to. The blurb published doesn't really give much of the story away, but still the mystery suggested really drew me in;

"Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love.

She’s wrong."

I'll start with the fact that I loved the paranormal element to this novel. Mara was such an intriguing character and her power was a subtle yet distinctive one. She kills with her mind, and in a graphic manner and I loved how serious and detrimental her power was. 

And then there's Noah... woahhhh. I generally roll my eyes at the cocky confident "man-whore" of the novel who is so sure he'll "get the girl" from the beginning. He just has an air about him that is so enticing and definitely is up there in the top 5 book boyfriends. He too has some mind powers which is really cool and I loved how he had a back story that we slowly uncovered. The romance was a lovely, albeit heated, slow-built affair that was gorgeous to read.

There's also a great underlying sense of eeriness throughout the novel. Mara's nightmares cause a chill down the spine and the events towards the end of the book involving Mara's younger brother, really sets in the level of danger throughout. It's a dark story but one that's captivating rather than disturbing. 

It also ended on a major cliffhanger so I will definitely be reading the subsequent novels in this series. 

I spent a good while trying to decide between 4 or 5 stars for this book. Although I loved it a lot, there were some things that I didn't quite connect with. There were some actions from the characters that didn't seem to be in character to how they were portrayed previously. I also felt Jamie was significantly under-developed and would have loved some more building with his character so we could properly connect. Some vital scenes/events in the book weren't depicted in the best manner and I felt I often had to back-track to ensure I understood what was happening or if I was picking up on something suggested that actually wasn't. 

Overall; I definitely recommend this book, definitely to young-adults but I'd say new adults would easily enjoy this. Has an intriguing mix of paranormal with such a mind-blowing culmination and I look forward to the rest of the series.

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REVIEW: Diary of a Teenage Fairy Godmother, by Kathleen Baldwin & Andrea Sisco

Rating: ★★★☆☆

Genre: Young-Adult, Fantasy, Romance

Summary:
Lilliana Skye is not your average teenager. Lilliana is an undercover Fairy Godmother to Jess Harrison, a descendant of Cinderella, and helping Jess is her first mission after graduating from her training. The only problem is that Jess hates Lilliana immediately and wants her gone. Jess is still grieving over the death of her eldest brother, and fears Lilliana has ill intentions with getting involved with her other brother, Jake. There is undeniable chemistry between Lilliana and Jake from the moment they meet, increasing Jess' hatred for Lilliana.

Regardless of Jess not wanting her brother and Lilliana to be together, there are strict laws forbidding the union of a human and a fairy. Despite Lilliana's best efforts, Jake, Jess and her friends are all thrown into the midst of the magic world and face a magical battle and things they never thought possible. 

My Thoughts:
I honestly was on the fence about giving this 3 or 4 stars but in the end had to settle on 3. 

Pros:

1. Lilliana is such a complex character and reading about her adapting to fit in was entertaining and endearing.
2. The modern twist to fairy-tales was executed well with tying this in to the Cinderella tale beautifully and realistically too.
3. I loved Jess, even though she was so full of anger at the start, her determination was admirable and her heart was definitely in the right place. She also redeems herself massively in the latter half as she shows her true nature. 
4. The format of this book was quite cute; I loved the little Directives from The Fairy Godmother Training Manual that split up every few chapters. 

Cons:

1. The second half may as well have been a different novel as it was so different to the beginning; even though Jess etc didn't really believe in magic, there seemed to be such a sudden shift to the magical world and the end just picked up too much pace as we were thrown abruptly into an action-packed magical battle! 
2. I didn't find the humans' responses and reactions to finding out the truth about Lilliana all too believable. Jess was the only one who showed any skepticism and they all just took it in their stride as they went off with Lilliana and were with Naneth. 

Overall: 
I really wanted to give this book 4 stars; it really had a great story-line and wonderful characters. The modern fairy-tale genre was written in a lovely style and the general story-line held a lot of potential and was enjoyable. 
However I can't ignore the confusion I felt at the end, it just felt like the book completely changed focus and what I thought was the main story-line, was in fact just a build up to the "real" one. 

This is why I'm only giving it 3 stars but in regards to characters, the writing, format etc, it was all done beautifully. 

I would still recommend this book to any one who loves fairy-tales or modern fantasy books. I think the blurb on this novel should be edited to give a little more notice on what the book is mainly about however.