ARC Book Review Archives - Page 4 of 9

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.

Have you read Follow Me Back? What did you think of it? Are you going to read it? Let’s Chat.

Book Review: The Winner’s Kiss by Maire Rutkoski

Mar 21, 2016

The Winner’s Kiss by Maire Rutkoski

Pages: 496
Publish date: 24 March 2016
Publisher: Bloomsbury Childrens
ISBN: 1408858746
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon UK – Amazon US – Amazon AU

War has begun. Arin is in the thick of it with untrustworthy new allies and the empire as his enemy. Though he has convinced himself that he no longer loves Kestrel, Arin hasn’t forgotten her, or how she became exactly the kind of person he has always despised. She cared more for the empire than she did for the lives of innocent people—and certainly more than she did for him.

At least, that’s what he thinks.

In the frozen north, Kestrel is a prisoner in a brutal work camp. As she searches desperately for a way to escape, she wishes Arin could know what she sacrificed for him. She wishes she could make the empire pay for what they’ve done to her.

But no one gets what they want just by wishing.

As the war intensifies, both Kestrel and Arin discover that the world is changing. The East is pitted against the West, and they are caught in between. With so much to lose, can anybody really win?

The Winners Kiss:

This review will have spoilers from the previous novels in the trilogy.

Bloomsbury Children’s sent me an e-arc of The Winner’s Kiss via Netgalley, in exchange for an honest review, this has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

I loved the first two books in this trilogy – I adored them. I was intrigued by the world, by the characters, I wanted to know what was going to happen next. I read both The Winner’s Curse and The Winner’s Crime in a day each and it was no different when I read The Winner’s Kiss.

The Winner’s Kiss was action packed, emotional and also kept me on my feet. I didn’t know what was going to happen next, it was full of blood, secrets and revenge. If Kestrel and Arin will ever see each other again? If they will ever come back together?

The Winner’s Kiss starts off no far from where it finished in The Winners Crime. Kestrel is being held prisoner in a brutal work camp. When the book start she is just arriving at is not prepared for what is in stall for her. She is hoping that Arin will come and save her, but as the days go on and on her hope lingers.

The work camp scenes were very hard to read at times. I just wanted to hold Kestrel in my arms. Her whole life she hasn’t had to deal with things like this and now she is doing them herself. She is being drugged so that she works hour after hour and it’s tearing her apart. She is being mentally and physically tortured.

One of the hardest things about these scenes throughout the book was that I knew that her father was responsible for this. Her own father put her there.

Arin is not physically being tortured, but he is mentally. He thinks that Kestrel has betrayed him, she cared more about the empire than him. He is trying to convince himself that he no longer loves her, that he no longer cares. But we can see right through it and all we want to do is hug him nice and tight.

This might be a spoiler here, but we cannot go nearly 500 pages of a novel and Kestrel still be in the prison. She does escape with the help of a special someone. But she has changed and this broke my heart.

There were countless twists and turns throughout The Winner’s Kiss that I didn’t know when anyone was going to be safe, I couldn’t know till the last page.

The Winner’s Kiss is much darker than the previous novels. Both protagonists have gone through so much and they have both been hurt. Arin is swoon worthy and gorgeous, but he has been hurt and he doesn’t trust anyone. Kestrel is broken, but her love is what gets her through it all.

The writing of Marie Rutkoski is exquisite, it just takes you write into the story and you are lifted into another world. The world building in these books is also taken to another level.

The Winner’s Kiss has everything; romance, friendship, battles, and heaps of banter that helped realise the tension, and it was brilliant.

One thing that I have loved about this series from the start is the strategies. It is about, okay let’s fight. It’s well thought out, well planned and very interesting to read.

The romance in The Winner’s Kiss just broke my heart. I adore Kestrel and Arin together, from the start they captured my heart. Throughout The Winner’s Kiss they are tested, they are broken, they are torn apart, and they are pulled in many different directions.

I could go on and on, about how I feel about The Winner’s Kiss, but I finish with, The Winner’s Kiss was a near perfect ending to a brilliant series that blew my expectations. It deals with many things from politics, religion, war, and love. It takes you’re a journey that you near want to stop.

The Winner’s Kiss is about love, betrayal, friendship and what would people do to do for their empire. The Winner’s Kiss takes you on a journey like no other, it captures your heart, but wreaks your emotions, and it will break you and put you together over and over again until the last page.

Have you read The Winner’s Kiss? Are you going to read it? Are you excited?

Book Review: What I Saw by Beck Nicholas

Feb 25, 2016

What I Saw by Beck Nicholas

Pages: 320
Publish date: March 1, 2016
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 9781760371975
Purchase: Book Depository – Amazon US – Amazon AU – Harlequin

One punch will shatter a town.

Is anyone ready for the consequences of the truth?

Callie Jones is not the kind of girl who gets drunk at school dances, and certainly not now, with her scholarship on the line. And she definitely doesn’t hang around with bad boys like Rhett Barker. Especially alone, at night. But these are the circumstances she finds herself in when she witnesses a king hit that lands the town’s golden boy in a coma.

With his reputation, no one is less surprised than Rhett when he is accused of throwing the punch. But he didn’t do it. And he knows Callie saw what really went down. He just has to convince the ‘ice princess’ to come forward and talk to the police – except, for once, good girl Callie doesn’t seem all that interested in telling the truth. Just what is she hiding, and why?

Drawn together by secrets, scandal and heartache, Callie and Rhett find themselves getting closer – even as the solution to their problems gets further away.

What I Saw:

I received an e-arc of What I Saw by Beck Nicholas via NetGalley from Harlequin Australia in exchange for an honest review. This has in no way influenced my thoughts and feelings about the book.

I have wanted to read this book from the moment that I heard about. I like novels that capture heartbreaking incidents from a different perspective. The king hit – is something quite big in Australia at the moment and a lot of I leads to death and the person that committed the crime, either getting away with it or being judged guilty for the crime.

But what happens when the person being accused of the crime didn’t do it? What if the person who was king hit is the towns darling? And what if the only person that saw what happened, wants to hide the truth? Then you have What I Saw by Beck Nicholas.

What I Saw follows protagonist Callie Jones and Rhett Barker as they go through a journey of hurt, truth, lies and questioning what would you truly do if someone you care for was in trouble.

I feel very confused about this book – it had so much potential, so much to go on and then it fell flat. The concept of the plot, intrigued me from the get go and that is what kept me reading. I wanted to know what would happen.

The romance was the biggest problem for me in What I Saw. The book went from about 3/4 days and in that time both Callie and Rhett pretty much feel in love with each other … too much instalove for me. Can it even be called that though? Since they have known each other or about each other for quite a bit.

If the book was set over a couple of weeks and the romance was building in that time – then I would have loved the romance, because Callie and Rhett are quite cute together, but it was just was too fast.

I enjoyed Rhett much more than I did Callie. I sympathised with Rhett and all I wanted to do was tell him that, somehow everything is going to be okay. Everyone pretty has hates Rhett and when is accused of the one doing the punching, it was never questioned. And gosh did it make me angry. I like these types of characters, those who are misunderstood, however I hate the situations. Rhett wasn’t who everyone thought he was, he is just this big squishy marshmallow.

In saying that, I didn’t like Callie as much. She annoyed me quite a bit throughout the novel was getting on my nerves. She wants to be ‘perfect,’ for her family and she plays guitar and just so uptight. I found her quite blank.

I also didn’t like her Callie’s parents, but when do I like parents in YA anyway – next to never.

Nevertheless, I did enjoy What I Saw but not as much as I thought I was going to, I liked the protagonists, but didn’t love them, the message of the book, stood out and I did enjoy that, because it is an important message. Something that everyone should listen to – one punch can kill.

Overall, What I Saw by Beck Nicholas shows us that sometimes the right thing to do is the hardest thing, that sometimes family isn’t everything and the importance of how a king hit can not only hurt the Victim but everyone else around them.