angelreads, Author at Angel Reads

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Six: The Musical | Book Tag

Dec 3, 2019

Angel Reads is back! I had a little scare there for the past 24 hours. But we are back online and ready to get back into the action.

When I saw this book tag floating around, I knew that I needed to do it. The Six Book Tag was created by the fabulous Wilde Book Garden and Snow White Reader, over on YouTube. So go check them out.

I don’t speak about this often but I am a massive musical theatre fan. It’s something that I’ve always loved going to, and this year I made it my mission to try and see what I wanted. But I’m already thinking about next year. And guess what is coming to Melbourne!! That’s right Six!

And Six brings together two of my favourite things; Musicals and History. Six, the musical follows Henry VIII’s six wives as they finally get to tell their story. Each wife tells us about their lives both before and with Henry VIII. And it’s all done through, pop and RnB music. It’s all a concert. If you haven’t checked it out yet please do! Anyway enough of this, here we go!

#1 Ex-Wives: A female-centered retelling or reimagining: This one was easy for me. ‘The Conqueror’s Saga’ by Kiersten White has to be one of my favourite trilogies of all time. And one of the main reasons why I loved these books was it was a female Vlad the Impaler. I have so much praise for this series and it has everything that I love. Intense characters, a strong female protagonist and all the court intrigue. If you haven’t had the chance to pick this series up please do, because it’s fantastic.

#2 No Way: A character with strong convictions whom you admire: This one has to go to Beatrix Hathaway from Love in the Afternoon by Lisa Kleypas. From the start of the series she always stood out. I loved that she didn’t really care what people thought of her. She loved animals and her way of thinking and she doesn’t let the time she lives stop her from doing things she loves. And this is highlighted in her book Love in the Afternoon. She is this free-spirit that just wants to be who she wants to be and doesn’t let anything, even love stop her.

#3 Don’t Lose Ur Head: A character who makes terrible choices but you can’t help loving them or sympathizing with them: This one has to go to Emelina Flores from Ruined by Amy Tintera. While everything that she does has some sort of reasons. She makes a lot of terrible choices that not only affect her but so many others around her. Emelina thinks that she is doing the right thing most of the time, it just doesn’t always work out that way. But what I love is that it doesn’t stop her. She doesn’t let her bad choices stop her from saving her people and fighting the people she loves.

#4 Heart of Stone: A non-canon OTP or a canon one that didn’t get enough page time: This one was really hard for me, as I tend to gravitate towards books with a romance it in. But one that came to mind for me was Harry Potter and Ginny Weasley. I adore these two together, but this is mainly to do with fanfiction. They had very little time together on the page as a couple. And I get there was a lot going on, but I do wish there was more.

#5 Haus of Holbein: A female-authored work you read in translation: Sadly, I couldn’t think of anything of this. I’ve read a couple of male-written translations, but I can think of a female one. So the plan for 2020 is to read more books by female authors that have translated.

#6 Get Down: A character you’d like to get down with…interpret how you will! Date, be friends with, party with, etc: This one was difficult for me to pick where I was going with it. But in the end, I went around the friend’s route. I would love to be friends with the gang from Red, White & Royal Blue by Casey McQuiston. I don’t think I need to say too much about them, but gosh it would be a ride. You can check out my discussion with Ely and see how much I adored this book and being friends with Alex, Henry and the rest of the gang would be pretty damn amazing.

#7 All You Wanna Do: A book that would have been much better without the romance OR a female character you feel was unfairly defined by her romantic relationships: As I said before, I love reading books with a romance. It’s something that always catches my attention in a book. So I found this one really hard, but I think that Ella Harper form The Royals series by Erin Watt is defined by the romance in every way. I don’t love this series – really at all. And one of those reasons was because I felt that Ella had no backbone. She did what everyone told her and lets her romantic feelings get in the way of everything that happens in the novel.

#8 I Don’t Need Your Love: Share a seriously underrated female author: There are many authors that I could have put on this list, so many. But one of the first authors that came to mind is Ellie Marney. Ellie is a local Australia author who I have been reading for years and if you haven’t picked her up please do. She writes YA crime and romance. And they are just fantastic. There are many more things that I could say but just read her books.

#9 Six: Tell us about one of your favorite bookish Girl Squads or female friendships: This one has to the Wallflowers from the Wallflowers Series by Lisa Kleypas. These girls have my heart and I want to be best friends with all of them. This group of friends is the group that everyone wants to be part of. They are there for each other, help each other, but also push each other. I loved seeing them all grow, find their love and find happiness.

And that is it for this post! I had so much fun doing this tag and it really got me thinking. I’m tagging anyone that wants to do it, and let me know when you do, so I can check it out.

Book Review: The Play by Elle Kennedy

Nov 28, 2019

The Play (Briar U #3)

Pages: 422
Publish date: October 7th, 2019
Publisher: –
ASIN: B07NF2BDFZ
Purchase: Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

What I learned after last year’s distractions cost my hockey team our entire season? No more screwing up. No more screwing, period. As the new team captain, I need a new philosophy: hockey and school now, women later. Which means that I, Hunter Davenport, am officially going celibate…no matter how hard that makes things.

But there’s nothing in the rulebook that says I can’t be friends with a woman. And I won’t lie—my new classmate Demi Davis is one cool chick. Her smart mouth is hot as hell, and so is the rest of her, but the fact that she’s got a boyfriend eliminates the temptation to touch her.

Except three months into our friendship, Demi is single and looking for a rebound.

And she’s making a play for me.

Avoiding her is impossible. We’re paired up on a yearlong school project, but I’m confident I can resist her. We’d never work, anyway. Our backgrounds are too different, our goals aren’t aligned, and her parents hate my guts.

Hooking up is a very bad idea. Now I just have to convince my body—and my heart.

The Play:

I received an e-arc of The Play in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

I’m not going to lie here, but this is probably my least favourite Elle Kennedy book – and that is really hard to say. In the past, I’ve really enjoyed most of her books, but there was something about The Play that I just couldn’t love.

The Play by Elle Kennedy follows protagonists Hunter Davenport and Demi Davis as they try and navigate a new year at college. Last year distractions cost the ice hockey team their whole season. Now as captain he knows that he has to redeem everything that happened the year before. So he has a plan and that is to focus on hockey and not on women. But all his plans are out the window when he meets Demi. But she has a boyfriend, so everything is going well until they break up and she is looking for a rebound.

Samantha Gades

I really wanted to like The Play, but I just couldn’t get it into like Elle Kennedy’s other novels. It was a combination of reasons that made me like this book less than all her others.

I didn’t have much of a problem with the protagonists, other than the fact that I felt a distance from them. I couldn’t really connect with them at all. Hunter was really interesting to me. Throughout the Briar U series, especially at the start I really enjoyed getting to know him, but as the novels went on and his attitude changed – understandably. I couldn’t like him as much as I wanted too. He acted like a 2-year-old and that just put me off. So being in his head, while he gets over most of the issues, wasn’t the best. It was hard for me to like Hunter like other male protagonists and that really put a sour note on the book for me.

I didn’t have any problems with Demi, but I just could not connect with her. I really wanted to like her, but there was something that was holding me back. Saying this I really enjoyed Demi as a character, she was interesting and engaging. But I couldn’t love her as a protagonist. She just didn’t feel real for me. I felt that she was just someone on a page and really nothing more. I felt very similar about Hunter as well.

Green Chameleon

Because of not being able to connect with characters, it made it really hard to love the romance. While everything was believable, I wasn’t begging them to get together. And while I enjoyed Hunter and Demi together, again I just felt very separated from it all and wasn’t able to connect with it. In saying this, I did find it adorable and I did like them together. I felt like they fit one another and they really worked well together.

One of the things that I did like about the romance was that they started out as friends. That is always something that I love having in my romance books. It just makes everything more relatable and real.

Another problem that I had with The Play, was that it was too long. It was over 400 pages, and for a romance book, that took some out of me. I love long books, but I feel that romance books that exceed that 350 mark, takes a lot out of the reader. I kept on wondering when the book was going to end. Because of all this, it made reading the book less enjoyable.

Alejandra Quiroz

The Play by Elle Kennedy was okay. I didn’t hate it by any means. But compared to her other books, this is very low on my list. I really wanted to like it, but I was just left disappointed. I think if I hadn’t read many of Elle Kennedy’s books before, I wouldn’t feel the way I do. But I really do enjoy Elle Kennedy’s books.

Overall, The Play was okay. I really wish that I could have liked it more, but it was a miss for me. I wasn’t able to connect with both protagonists as I would have normally liked. And this made it hard for me to like the romance. I just felt like there was something missing. It was an okay addition to the series and Elle Kennedy’s world and I did like reading it. Hopefully, I will love Elle Kennedy’s book a lot more.

Books That Have Changed My Reading Habits

Nov 20, 2019

This week I’m sharing the books that change my reading habits over the last couple of years. Top Ten Tuesday was created by The Broke and Bookish and is hosted by The Artsy Reader Girl.

Well, this post is a little late, but I thought better late than never. Today, I’m sharing the books that have changed the way that I read. Whether it’s reading a different genre, a new author or trying something that I’ve never read before. So, here are the books that have changed how I read, as always there is no particular order.

Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead: This is one of those books that rekindled my love for reading. Not just that, it’s what sent me on my reading journey that I’m still on today. It sent in motion my love for young adult and urban fantasy. It also sent me on this journey of blogging as well.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare: Like Vampire Academy, this series sent me on another reading journey and Cassandra is still one of my favourite authors to this day. Not only did it really enhance my love for young adult and fantasy, but it also gave me the push that I needed.

Catching Jordan (Hundred Oaks #1) by Miranda Kenneally: This is not only one of the first contemporary books that I read, but it’s also fueled my love for sports romance. Most of this series includes some sort of sports and that what made me love it so much. I loved that it was a different sport in each book, but also everything is still connected.

Pushing the Limits (Pushing the Limits #1) by Katie McGarry: This one here is what really got me into New Adult. While when first published it was classed as YA, I could call this and most of McGarry’s books as New Adult. But I adore them. They just hit me in the right spot. They hit me with lots of feels. And even today NA is very much part of what I read.

Full Measures (Flight & Glory #1) by Rebecca Yarros: Like Katie McGarry’s books, Rebecca Yarros really got me into reading more romance. It became addicting really. I wanted to read more and more and that is what I did.

Taste the Heat (Love and Games #1) by Rachel Harris: This has to be one of the first adult romances I read and like everything else. I not only loved the book. But I feel in love with the genre. I read so much romance that, probably more than YA.

Secrets of a Summer Night (Wallflowers #1) by Lisa Kleypas: This was of the first historical romances that I read and loved. Up until this year, I read a lot of romance, but never really read anything historical. And then I picked Lisa Kleypas up and that changed me. I’ve read nearly all of her backlist now and I can’t wait to read more in the genre.

That is it for this post! What are some of the books that have made you change your reading habits? Let’s Chat!