Forget You, by Jennifer Echols

Book Review Time:

Forget You

by Jennifer Echols

Forget You is a captivating modern-day romance starring Zoey Commander (to be honest, this might not be her last name, it might just be people at the beach party poking fun at her, but I can't seem to find her real last name!). Zoey has a life-changing year, during which her father cheats on her mother with a twenty-four-year-old woman, impregnates her, and then her parents divorce. But it gets worse! Three months later, Zoey's mother attempts suicide, and it is Zoey who finds her and calls 9-1-1! While she is at the hospital, Doug shows up, who has hated Zoey since 9^th grade, when he asked her to homecoming, but then went to juvie, missed it, and Zoey went with someone else. Zoey is now forced to live with her insensitive dad, who, after refusing to send Zoey to a therapist/shrink to talk about the experience of her mother, goes away to Hawaii to marry his twenty-four-year-old fiance, leaving cameras around the house which he could watch via the internet to make sure Zoey was behaving. Zoey then, as a way to make herself feel better, loses her virginity to one of her friends, Brandon, who has a reputation for easiness. A couple nights later, Zoey gets in a wreck, and when she wakes up, all she can remember of that night is Doug pulling her out of the wrecked car! What happened that night, at the party she supposedly went to? Where are her diamond earrings? Why is Doug suddenly so nice to her, and why is he trying to kiss her? But, most of all, why does she want to kiss him back? This story is full of twist and turns, and you won't (willingly) put it down until the end (unless someone takes it from you, which happened to me twice!)

Overall, wow! This book was great! I bought it on my nook to read on a cruise I went on this summer, expecting a fluffy, predictable romance story, and it surprised me - I couldn't put it down! The characters are fantastic – I could feel how Zoey felt, as she worried about her mom's condition, and whether it was hereditary, and I totally fell in love with Doug! All the character's relationships felt very real, not at all forced or boring. Plus, for those people with nooks, even though it wasn't that expensive, there are very few misspellings or weird words on the electronic version. I highly recommend this book, for any of you who need a good summer read!

Wishing For Someday Soon, by Tiffany King

Book Review Time:

Wishing For Someday Soon

by Tiffany King

I would like to say, before I begin, that I only read up to page 15, and I read this book after reading a bunch of really great New York Times bestsellers and such, so I might judge this a bit harshly. After all, maybe this book is for someone younger? I hope, for Tiffany King's sake, that it is.

Wishing For Someday Soon, as far as I have read, is about a girl named Katelyn Richards, who has family issues. Her mother, Lucinda, drags Katelyn and her brother Kevin from town to town, marrying and divorcing men as she goes, leaving Katelyn and Kevin in constant fear of the moment when “Lucinda decided yet again that the grass was greener somewhere else”. Plus, when they're not in homeless shelters, they're sleeping in the family car, which has a big hole in the bottom. And, to make matters worse, Kevin is malnourished, and has ceased to grow! (I must say, I was excited about this story at this point. Many questions ran through my mind, including, “How will Katelyn and Kevin survive? Who is this boy that the blurb describes and how will he effect the family's situation?)

The novel begins in late September (why aren't they in school already?), as Katelyn, Kevin, Lucinda, and Jim, the latest stepfather (or, as Katelyn and Kevin refer to him, step-dork! Ha. Ha. Ha.) pull into their new hometown, Four Corners, Montana. Four Corners is named such because it literally consists of four corners, with a run-down establishment on each one – Higgins Grocers, Sunny-Side Up, Withers, and the trailer park, in which Katelyn and her family would now be living. (Hardy har har. Four Corners. I get it. My question is, how small is that trailer park, that it fits in the same size corner as the grocery store? Or, rather, how big is that grocery store?) Finally, they arrive at their trailer, and Katelyn marvels at the size of the trailer and unpacks the car as Lucinda and Jim disappear into the back bedroom - “by the grunting and moaning I had heard … I knew Mom and Jim would be busy for a while”.

While unpacking the car, Katelyn meets another senior from our school, who has a “splotchy and greasy” complexion, “dingy” overalls, and hair that appeared to have not “seen shampoo in days”. Pleasant. She informs Katelyn that the senior class only consists of seventeen students, and that the elementary, middle, and high schools in Four Corners are combined. This horrifies Katelyn.

Eventually, Katelyn  heads to the supermarket to buy food for herself and her family, using her mother's food stamps, and meets a bagger boy (I don't think they mention his name), whose dad owns the grocery shop, and who offers her a job on the spot (um, what?!) (she refuses). This, I believe, is the boy the blurb describes. Katelyn describes him as “boyishly cute” and “steamy” (the book italicized steamy, that isn't my doing). Unfortunately, the boy sees her paying with food stamps, which leads to her hurrying out of the store and vowing to avoid him, even though they will be in the same class next year.

I stopped at this point. I can't describe it, the story just seemed to be trying so hard to be good that it sucked. I feel bad saying this, because I try to give every book the benefit of the doubt, but this was the first book in a long time where I just had to put it down and say “No!”. It was full of literary cliches. I do not recommend this book, especially not as a serious read. The best part about it was that the nook version was cheap.

Things Not Seen, by Andrew Clements

Book Review Time:
Things Not Seen
by Andrew Clements

Things Not Seen is an interesting and captivating mix of the supernatural and the modern world. The novel takes place in Chicago, Illinois. The book is told from the point of view of Bobby Phillips, a seemly average fifteen-year-old boy - until he wakes up one Tuesday morning in February, invisible! Over the coarse of the book, Bobby searches for a way to reverse the invisibility, with the help of his parents, and Alicia, a friend he meets at the library, who has been blind for about two years. About halfway through the novel, Alicia's parents join the "Save Bobby Phillips Committee". Adding to Bobby's newfound troubles with his invisibility, his school and eventually the police start to look into what is going on with him, and eventually they threaten to arrest Bobby's parents!

This book is full of exciting twists and turns. I loved the dynamic between Alicia, the angry-with-her-fate blind girl, and Bobby, the invisible and sweet "Greek warrior". My only complaint is that there isn't a sequel!

Book of a Thousand Days, by Shannon Hale

Book Review Time:
Book of a Thousand Days
by Shannon Hale

Book of a Thousand Days takes place over two parts. Part 1 of the novel takes place in a tower - Dashti, a mucker girl who recently has become a maid to Lady Saren, the princess of Titor's Garden, is shut up in the tower by the ruler of Titor's Garden (Lady Saren's father) with her Lady, because her Lady has refused to marry the vicious Lord Khasar, choosing instead Khan Tegus, of the lesser realm Song or Evela. They are trapped for years, before they escape, and thus begins Part 2! Part 2 includes their quest to reunite Lady Saren with Khan Tegus, their attempt to stop Lord Khasar's evil killing spree, and even a romance between Dashti and Khan Tegus!
My overall opinion of the book is that it's great! While it is different from Shannon Hale's other books - The Books of Bayern - which feature a continuing cast of characters, like Razo, Enna, and Isi, I was majorly wrapped up in the plot! After getting past the first couple days (in the book, not real time!), when I was a bit wary it might be boring, I was walking down the hallways of school with my nose buried, crashing into my friends. This book is filled with surprises, twists and turns, and realistic and believable characters! A great read!

But.
However.
I own a nook, as of about two weeks ago, and one of the first books I searched for on the Barnes and Noble store was Book of a Thousand Days. I was so excited when I saw that the book only cost 99 cents! My mistake. This book was so obviously scanned, it was laughable! Certain words were consistently wrong. For example, "own" became "oven", every single time!
For example:
"I took apart the gher and loaded as much as I could on Weedflower's back and the rest on my oven."
"I always thought I'd be a mucker bride, become a mama like my oven one day."
"I'm a stubborn mare sometimes and must dangle my oven carrot."
"I won't describe any more because, truth be told, I don't want to frighten my oven self."
"The dread was so powerful, I felt like I was walking on my oven studded rat traps."
"The streets were clean and straight, as different from the crooked, narrow lanes of Titor's Garden as my lady's face is from my oven."
"He killed all the gentry and swore all the warriors who'd survived into his oven army."
"He'd recognize the smell of my skin like a mother cat knows her oven kits."
"I didn't want to tell him his oven feelings, but I thought I understood."
"My oven face reflected in one of the nine mirrors on her belt."
"Almost as dark as my oven birthmarks."
"I'd eat my oven toenails before I'd cook that one up."
"Pulled him to her oven side."
"She's no mucker, but that song she sang as well as my oven mama."
And the list goes on and on.
So, my final verdict is that you should definitely read this book, just not electronically! 

gher - a tent-sort-of house used by muckers
muckers - the farming/herding/poor people of Titor's Garden
gentry - royalty

Wow! I'm still trying to get used to the new setup of the blog! I haven't used Google blogging tools since 2010, so I'm a little rusty!
Once I've got the hang of this, I'll post a review!