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Book Review: The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Apr 18, 2016

The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson

Pages: 496
Publish date: May 5th 2016
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1471146146
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

Andie has a plan. And she always sticks to her plan.

Future? A top-tier medical school.
Dad? Avoid him as much as possible (which isn’t that hard considering he’s a Congressman and he’s never around).
Friends? Palmer, Bri, and Toby—pretty much the most awesome people on the planet, who needs anyone else?
Relationships? No one’s worth more than three weeks.

So it’s no surprise that Andie’s got her summer all planned out too.

Until a political scandal costs Andie her summer pre-med internship, and lands both she and Dad back in the same house together for the first time in years. Suddenly she’s doing things that aren’t Andie at all—working as a dog walker, doing an epic scavenger hunt with her dad, and maybe, just maybe, letting the super cute Clark get closer than she expected. Palmer, Bri, and Toby tell her to embrace all the chaos, but can she really let go of her control?

The Unexpected Everything:

I received an arc of The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson from Simon and Schuster in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

This was the first book that I read this year and silly me forgot to; 1. Take notes and 2. Write the review when I finished reading the book. So I had to re-read the book, so I don’t miss-lead anyone that is going to read the book.

The Unexpected Everything is the third Morgan Matson book that I’ve read and I am still surprised how she can interview so many different topics flawlessly. The Unexpected Everything deals with family, friendship, love and finding yourself.

The Unexpected Everything follows protagonist Andie Walker as her life turns into something that she cannot control. Andie likes to be in control and that has a lot to do with her father.

Andie is the daughter of a politician so her life has been filled with, do’s and don’ts, living by a timetable and being in the public eye and when this all nearly disappears; she is kind of left with nothing. She also likes to be in control of her relationships, she has never been a relationship for over 3 weeks. When he starts to want more from her, she runs.

She likes the idea of being free however, she is so used to having all these things that it is hard.

I like books about politicians’ children, I find them interesting. It gives something to the storyline that you don’t see often. Andie doesn’t have the best relationship with her father and that is mainly because of his job. We see at the start of the novel that their relationship is quite rocky, and the way that she speaks to him is quite…different and some people may not like it. However, I didn’t mind it given the circumstances.

I quite liked Andie as a protagonist. She has this innocence about her because of the way she grew up and now that a lot of that is gone, she needs to find herself and it was nice to see. At times I wanted to hit her on the head because of how closed off she was at times, but in true Morgan Matson style, it all worked out.

Even though she was hard headed at times, my heart did break for her.

Friendship was one of the major themes of The Unexpected Everything and it shone. The banter between Andie and her friends; Toby, Palmer and Bri was nice to see. They were a fun group and I giggled a lot when they were together. But, something The Unexpected Everything shows us that all friendships don’t work out and when you grow older, sometimes the person that you thought was your friend you don’t click with anymore.

The Unexpected Everything is full of fun moments, heartbreaking ones and overall very real, the problems that aroused in this book felt like they could very well happen and the way that Matson dealt with them felt real.

The romance was adorable and slow burning. It was enjoyable to see how they move forward in their relationship, from someone they bumped into, to friends and then into something more.

Clark is adorable, can he just be mine? What I loved about him is that he is an author and a pretty big one. It was truly nice to see an author writing a book, in a young adult novel. We do sometimes see it with protagonists, but I loved seeing it in a secondary character.

The only bad thing I would say about the book, is that I felt that it may have been too long for a contemporary. Some things did drag on and I felt that it could have been cut at parts.

Overall, I loved The Unexpected Everything by Morgan Matson. It is a tale of friendship, family, love and unexpected adventures that all feels real. The Unexpected Everything is for every author, book lover and reader alike. It’s a beautiful story of friendship, heartbreak and family. Morgan Matson brings together a beautiful contemporary novel that makes you smile, laugh and cry.

Have you read The Unexpected Everything? Are you excited for The Unexpected Everything? Have you enjoyed Matson’s other books? Let’s Chat!

Book Review: The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler

Apr 11, 2016

The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler

Pages:320 (Kindle)
Publish date: May 21st 2013
Publisher:Simon Pulse
ASIN: B008J4N5GA
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

Jude has learned a lot from her older sisters, but the most important thing is this: The Vargas brothers are notorious heartbreakers. She’s seen the tears and disasters that dating a Vargas boy can cause, and she swore an oath—with candles and a contract and everything—to never have anything to do with one.

Now Jude is the only sister still living at home, and she’s spending the summer helping her ailing father restore his vintage motorcycle—which means hiring a mechanic to help out. Is it Jude’s fault he happens to be cute? And surprisingly sweet? And a Vargas?

Jude tells herself it’s strictly bike business with Emilio. Her sisters will never find out, and Jude can spot those flirty little Vargas tricks a mile away—no way would she fall for them. But Jude’s defenses are crumbling, and if history is destined to repeat itself, she’s speeding toward some serious heartbreak…unless her sisters were wrong?

Jude may have taken an oath, but she’s beginning to think that when it comes to love, some promises might be worth breaking.

The Book of Broken Hearts:

I received a copy of The Book of Broken Hearts by Sarah Ockler for review, in celebration of all her books now being available in all English-speaking countries digitally. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

I have wanted to read a Sarah Ockler book for such a long time, years in fact and I just never had the chance to pick them up, so I took this as an opportunity to finally read her books and wow, I am so angry with myself for not picking them up sooner.

The Book of Broken Hearts is such a beautiful novel about family, friendship, love and that sometimes you do have to think about yourself.

The Book of Broken Hearts follows Jude and her journey of self-discovery, love and what it means to be family.

Jude has been told all her life to stay away from the Vargas brothers, that all they would do is break your heart. she has seen firsthand what these brothers can do, and she swore that she would never fall.

I adored Jude as the protagonist, we just clicked with each other. She has this presence about her that alone kept me reading. Her need to look after her family is powerful throughout the novel, and it was great to see. Her sheer determination to look after her father was incredible to see in a YA novel.

Jude’s father is suffering from Alzheimer’s and while trying to keep her father from hurting himself, she tries to rejig his memories with rebuilding his old motorcycle. But to do that she needs someone who knows what they are doing and is cheap. Guess who it turns out to be…Emilio Vargas.

If it wasn’t for her father, she would have steered the other way, but if it will help him she will do it.

I loved the relationship between Jude and her father, even though at times he does forget who she is, she is so determined to not let him go. She also tries to hide all this from her friends and anyone actually. I don’t think she did this because she was ashamed, but more like she didn’t know how to explain it to people.

Even though I liked her father, that is pretty much where it stopped with family. Throughout The Book of Broken Hearts I wanted to scream at her mother and sisters. Jude was looking after her father so much and at times I felt that she didn’t care in a way. And her sisters were too concerned about what happened in the past. I understand that they don’t want their little sister to go through what they did – they didn’t care how Jude felt. By the end of the novel, I liked them – but that was about it.

Can Emilio be mine? Please. He was a smart ass, but not a horrible one that I wanted to kill. It was just enough that had me smiling and loving the banter that he had with other characters.

The romance was so slow burning, that I loved it. Jude and Emilio were so adorable together. I loved how it did start off as something that wasn’t even a friendship, however, as The Book of Broken Hearts went on, we get to see it form into something more.

The ending of this book killed me. I was crying so hard. It doesn’t take much for me to cry, but I was sobbing.

Sarah Ocular’s writing is beautiful, it was simple but so strong. She knows how to captivate an audience and keep them close until the end.

With beautiful writing, captivating characters and an intriguing storyline, The Book of Broken Hearts is a beautiful novel that needs to be read by anyone, but more importantly teens growing up and having to make choices for themselves.

Have you read The Book of Broken Hearts? Did you love it? Are you going to read it? Let’s Chat.

Book Review: Follow Me Back by Nicci Cloke

Mar 31, 2016

Follow Me Back by Nicci Cloke

Pages: 288
Publish date: February 4th 2016
Publisher: Hot Key Books
ISBN: 9781471405082
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

There was no sign of a struggle, they whisper to each other. She took her phone but left her laptop behind.
Apparently, she’d met someone online, they write to each other in class, phones buzzing.
She ran away. She was taken.The first time Aiden Kendrick hears about Lizzie Summersall’s disappearance is when the police appear at his front door. He and Lizzie used to be friends; they aren’t anymore. And when Aiden finds out that Lizzie had been talking to strangers on Facebook; that the police think she went to meet one of them, he begins to wonder how well he ever really knew her, and Aiden doesn’t know it yet, but with Lizzie’s disappearance his life is about to take a twisted and desperate turn.

Follow Me Back

I received a review copy of Follow Me Back by Nicci Cloke from Hot Key Books in exchange for an honest review, this has in no way included my thoughts and feelings about the book.

When I asked to review this book, I was expecting it to blow my mind – however it fell short. I was waiting for something more, something big to happen and something did happen, but it was not what I was expecting and it was a letdown.

Follow Me Back follows Aiden as he deals with the disappearance of Lizzie Summersall. Aiden and Lizzie used to be friends – well more than friends and as the novel goes on we get to find out more information about the two of them.

I have a like/hate relationship with Aiden. I liked him at points, but he was really annoying. For a lot of the book he was just complaining. A girl was missing, a girl that he knew quite well. And all he cared about was about she wasn’t with him anymore. However, I did like that we predominately had a male protagonist. You don’t see that much in YA and it was interesting, in that sense.

I didn’t like that it changes POV in the middle of the book. Most of Follow Me Back is told from Aiden’s point of view, but then it changes to so many different people. It would have worked so much better if it was told just from Aiden’s.

I also didn’t like how the internet was portrayed in Follow Me Back. I understand where the author was coming from. The internet can be horrible, however the way that it comes across to me is everyone on the internet is horrible and that you should never meet people that you talk to online.

I found this unreal and annoying simply because I have met with people that I talk to online in real life. There are those who are not who they say they are, but not everyone.

I liked that the author used internet slag in Follow Me Back however, at times it got too much and I felt that I was reading old conversations my 14 year old self.

Even though this book was a ‘thriller,’ it was slow. The pace of the whole book was slow and took ages to find out what was really happening. Nevertheless, I liked how the book had many twists and turns. I had no idea who to believe, what to believe.

There were a few surprises here and there and I did like that, however there were other parts that were quite predictable.

The ending, sort of confused me. It was left kind of open ended and it some things did tie up, but there was so much left in the open especially between characters. I wanted to know more.

In saying that, I also felt disconnected from the characters of Follow Me Back. Aiden didn’t really have a character arc and there was no reason for me to connect with him. I also felt that way with Lizzie, I wanted to know what happened with her, however I didn’t really…care.

Overall, I enjoyed reading Follow Me Back it kept me entertained and focus while I was reading it. Though the main protagonist was annoying and acted like everything was about him, Follow Me Back does delve deep into the dangers of the internet and that sometimes it can be a dangerous place that can do harm.