And I Darken by Kiersten White

Watch my review on my YouTube channel: Pages to Turn.Oh this book.... I'm stunned. I don't even know what to say, it was like watching one of those insanely good war movies. Except it was a book. I finished the last three hundred pages in a couple hours, and it felt like no time had passed. I was completely absorbed by the beauty that is this book. White's writing style is pretty much above anything I've read before, she isn't afraid to show off what she can do with words and it shows in her characters and the world that she creates.  Her Brother Radu is also interesting, I loved the character development with him. Oh my gosh it's amazing. And Lada I loved how we got to see her change but inherently at her core she stayed the same, valuing what she wanted and not afraid of what it takes to get there. I definitely recommend this book, it as an amazing and fun wild ride that I would recommend to pretty much anyone and everyone. Absolutely stunning book. I'm not saying this book was perfect by any means, the perfect book doesn't exist. It had it moments where I felt things could have been left out(this book definitely crosses the line between YSA and Adult fiction) or somethings were drawn on to long but this book was stunning. Absolutely gorgeous. Kiersten White creates this amazing world of silk and swords mixed in with a constant struggle for power that takes your breath away. Lada the main character is amazing, she is no princess. I don't even know if you could call her a heroine, she is unique. Incredibly amazingly unique. She knows exactly what she wants and what she will have to sacrifice to get it, she's like Mulan in a way. Mean Mulan on Steroids is probably the best comparison I have for her.

The Girl on the Train by Paula Hawkins

First Things First: Cover art!

I actually like the cover art for this book! I think it works great with the title, it seems to represent something in motion which again works really well with the cover. 

*******

Summary:

"Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. “Jess and Jason,” she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel offers what she knows to the police, and becomes inextricably entwined in what happens next, as well as in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?"

*******

My Review: 

Eh... This book was not my favorite. I skipped to the end a third of the way through and then forced myself to read through the rest of it. I expected a murder mystery full of suspense and crazy twists and turns, what I found was a crazy alcoholic lady who can't get over the fact that her husband cheated on her.

 Rachel as a character, she's a mess.  She's written well but I just couldn't get myself to like Rachel at all... She wants her life back, I get it but why is it that suddenly everyone in the world is involved with her ex-husband. If Criminal Minds was about cheating husbands instead of serial killers, than this would definitely be an episode. I just did not like how it revolved on Rachel's problems more than the actual story line.
Usually in books like this I can have sympathy for the main character, but Rachel she is doing NOTHING to solve her problems which absolutely ruins the story line. Thy mystery of it all was really good but halfway through the book I already knew who killed when and where and what happened pretty much. I feel like this book could be a People magazine story just add celebrities and you got an instant story!
Now I didn't hate everything about this book I liked the premise of the story but it's not what I signed up for after reading the dust jacket summary. Rachel as a character I just couldn't... We all have one of those friends at some point which basically sit there like slugs, complain to you that their lives are miserable and complain all the time about the decisions that THEY make. I wanted to grab Rachel and push her into a very very very cold pool of water in hopes that would knock some sense into her. Half the book was her complaining about how "I know this decision is stupid but I am doing it anyways". She made great strides in overcoming her alcohol addiction at some points but she always slipped back into her addiction without fail for some reason or another which just made her to whiny of a character for me. The end was somewhat expected for this book, I kinda knew it was going to go in that direction about fifty pages before the end of the book. All in all, this book started out promising but it just didn't finish strong, and it became very predictable.

Rating: 5 out of 10. Wasn't good but it wasn't great either. Just feel like the summary promised one thing and what I got was something else.

Content Rating: 4 (18+). Adult romance, swearing, and alcohol.

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr

First things first: Cover Art

I don't know what part of the book this cover art is supposed to be from but because of the ocean I'm assuming it's Saint-Malo. I like how it's cast in a shade of blue so it's easy to look at and the details are just muted enough that my eye's see the image as a whole and not just bits and pieces of it. 

Summary:

*******

"Marie-Laure lives with her father in Paris near the Museum of Natural History, where he works as the master of its thousands of locks. When she is six, Marie-Laure goes blind and her father builds a perfect miniature of their neighborhood so she can memorize it by touch and navigate her way home. When she is twelve, the Nazis occupy Paris and father and daughter flee to the walled citadel of Saint-Malo, where Marie-Laure’s reclusive great-uncle lives in a tall house by the sea. With them they carry what might be the museum’s most valuable and dangerous jewel.

In a mining town in Germany, the orphan Werner grows up with his younger sister, enchanted by a crude radio they find. Werner becomes an expert at building and fixing these crucial new instruments, a talent that wins him a place at a brutal academy for Hitler Youth, then a special assignment to track the resistance. More and more aware of the human cost of his intelligence, Werner travels through the heart of the war and, finally, into Saint-Malo, where his story and Marie-Laure’s converge."

*******

My Review

This book was gorgeous. Absolutely stunning. When I first heard about this book I wondered what all the hype was about, it wasn't a movie and it wasn't going to become a movie so why was it so popular? And now I know why. Doerr's writing is some of the best I've read in a long time, as an author myself (I'll post on that a different day, don't worry), I know how hard it can be to paint with words while still making them simple at the same time. Doerr makes this look easy, but apparently it took him ten years to write this masterpiece. This book is set in Nazi Germany and is told mainly through the points of view of a blind girl and a brilliant boy who is fighting for the Nazi's. Their stories are incredibly different and the flow of them was just absolutely perfect, never once was I left wondering how they fit together. You know from flashes into the future that these two will eventually meet up you just have to ride the amazing story line to get there. Marie-Laure as a character... if I could meet her in person I would. I love how she looks at the world, she can't see so she sees through touch and memory. Her voice in this story is honestly my favorite which is why I think it complements so well with Werner's. Werner is the boy fighting for Nazi Germany and his life is incredibly different from Marie-Laure. Marie-Laure is no longer a child by the end of this book, but she still retains a sense of innocence that Werner looses very quickly in this novel. Their stories entwine with a mysterious gem, and everything else that was going on at the time. I was really surprised to find out that this book wasn't taking place in a Concentration Camp so it was incredibly interesting to see what life was like outside of those camps.

There is one section of this book towards the end that made me say the above statement. I knew it probably needed to happen to add to the complexity and beauty of the story line but still my heart broke just a little bit. I actually had to read the section four different times to make sure I wasn't just misinterpreting it. You will fall in love with pretty much all the characters in this book and long to read more about them long after you turn the last page. 

Highly recommend this book, if you only read one book a year than it really should be this one.

Rating: 10 out of 10. Amazing, amazing book. No wonder it's so popular.

Content Rating: 4 (18+). Takes place in Nazi Germany and other areas in Europe. There is quite a bit of violence, swearing and other things not suitable for younger readers.

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

First things first: cover art! I like the simplicity of this cover art (you, my readers know that I love when the cover art isn't to decorative) it features Don, Rosie and a stork carrying their expectant baby.

*******

Summary:

The Wife Project is complete, and Don and Rosie are happily married and living in New York. But they’re about to face a new challenge.

Rosie is pregnant.

Don sets about learning the protocols of becoming a father, but his unusual research style gets him into trouble with the law. Fortunately his best friend Gene is on hand to offer advice: he’s left Claudia and moved in with Don and Rosie.

As Don tries to schedule time for pregnancy research, getting Gene and Claudia back together, servicing the industrial refrigeration unit that occupies half his apartment, helping Dave the Baseball Fan save his business and staying on the right side of Lydia the social worker, he almost misses the biggest problem of all: he might lose Rosie when she needs him most.

*******

I actually did not like this book as much as the first one and had to force myself to read the first half before I really got into it. The begging of this book was just really dry and it was all I could do to actually finish it. However once I got past the rather dry begging the end of the book was really really good! It took my to days to finish the first half of the book, but only an hour to finish the second half. In this book Don and Rosie are married (yay!), and expecting their first baby together (YAY!). I love how Simson gives us this very unlikely couple and I love the contrast between them. Don is a bit better than he was in the last book, but he is still adorably awkward. I don't know why I didn't like the first half of the book, but for some reason it just didn't really interest me. One thing that was very interesting to me in this book is that while Don's life is falling apart literally everyone else around him is having slight marriage problems as well as other issues. I think this is what really saved this book for me because it just isn't about Don's problems it's about everyone else's as well. If you liked this first book then I recommend this one! It's a little slow in the beginning but the end makes up for it! 

Rating: 9 out of 10. Had to force myself to read the begging of this book, but the end of it was really good!

Content Rating: 4 (18+). Has a lot of language and adult romance. 

What Alice Forgot by Liane Moriarty

First things first: cover art! After reading this book I really love the cover art for it, it makes so much sense! I love it when the cover art actually pertains to the book and isn't just a random image.I also love just how simple and profound it is. 

*******

Summary: 

"Alice Love is twenty-nine, crazy about her husband, and pregnant with her first child.

So imagine Alice’s surprise when she comes to on the floor of a gym (a gym! She HATES the gym) and is whisked off to the hospital where she discovers the honeymoon is truly over — she’s getting divorced, she has three kids, and she’s actually 39 years old. Alice must reconstruct the events of a lost decade, and find out whether it’s possible to reconstruct her life at the same time. She has to figure out why her sister hardly talks to her, and how is it that she’s become one of those super skinny moms with really expensive clothes. Ultimately, Alice must discover whether forgetting is a blessing or a curse, and whether it’s possible to start over…"

 *******

I first found this book while copying and pasting a summary into my blog from Amazon.com. After waiting a full month for it I finally got it at the library and fished it on the same day I started it. This book was so good! It's told from three points of view, the first is what I like to call "fly on the wall" narrative, the second is in letter format to a therapist, and the third is letters to a dead fiance. All three points of view come together to give us this amazing story! I am so so glad that they are making it into a movie because seriously, it's amazing. Alice was written very well, Moriarty had to deal with two different characters in one considering there is an "old" Alice and a "new" Alice. Plus this love story starts somewhere where most don't, the relationship is on the brink of extinction and its going to take work to bring them back together. Elizabeth, Alice's sister, is also another complex character, She is the exact opposite of Alice and I love the stark contrast between the two characters. The ending is also great! Usually I hate books that seem to scream, "EVERYBODY GETS A HAPPY ENDING!", but this book makes you root for all the characters to find happiness and its amazing when all of them do. 

Rating: 10 out of 10. Highly, highly recommend this book!!! 

Content Rating: 4 (18+). This book has some swearing, and a bit of adult romance. Some topics are definitely meant for older readers! 

The Rosie Project by Graeme Simson

Summary:

"The art of love is never a science: Meet Don Tillman, a brilliant yet socially inept professor of genetics, who’s decided it’s time he found a wife. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which Don approaches all things, he designs the Wife Project to find his perfect partner: a sixteen-page, scientifically valid survey to filter out the drinkers, the smokers, the late arrivers.

Rosie Jarman possesses all these qualities. Don easily disqualifies her as a candidate for The Wife Project (even if she is “quite intelligent for a barmaid”). But Don is intrigued by Rosie’s own quest to identify her biological father. When an unlikely relationship develops as they collaborate on The Father Project, Don is forced to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie―and the realization that, despite your best scientific efforts, you don’t find love, it finds you."

This book will make you laugh, a lot. Don is a geneticist at a University in Australia, and that might be the only normal thing about him. His character is very interesting, and he likes everything to be just so. This book is a fun read, its amusing to watching Don change for the women he's falling for. Simson's writing style is amazing! I love how he is able to make Don's and Rosie's worlds and interactions come to life. He also lets you see the incredible amount of differences between the two characters.  The use of first person narration in this book also works really well with this novel. The plot is delightful, the characters are amazing and so is this book! This will eventually become a movie some day! According to IMDb Jennifer Lawrence is slated to play Rosie, so excited to see if this movie happens!! Can not wait for the second book, I am number one in line for it at the Library so I am hoping to have the review up for it by the end of August. 

Rating: 10 out of 10. Again, this book is hilarious, fun and well written. 

Content Rating: 4 (18+). Rosie has a rather large swearing problem, there is some adult romance, as well as some other mature scenes.