Cover Reveal: For the Record by Charlotte Huang

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FOR THE RECORD by Charlotte Huang Cover Reveal hosted by Me, My Shelf and I

ABOUT THE BOOK

Chelsea thought she knew what being a rock star was like . . . until she became one. After losing a TV talent show, she slid back into small-town anonymity. But one phone call changed everything. 

Now she’s the lead singer of the band Melbourne, performing in sold-out clubs every night and living on a bus with three gorgeous and talented guys. The bummer is that the band barely tolerates her. And when teen hearthrob Lucas Rivers take an interest in her, Chelsea is suddenly famous, bringing Melbourne to the next level—not that they’re happy about that. Her feelings for Beckett, Melbourne’s bassist, are making life even more complicated.

Chelsea only has the summer tour to make the band—and their fans—love her. If she doesn’t, she’ll be back in Michigan for senior year, dying a slow death. The paparazzi, the haters, the grueling schedule . . . Chelsea believed she could handle it. But what if she can’t?

BOOK LINK: Goodreads 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Charlotte Huang is a graduate of Smith College and received an MBA from Columbia Business School, which is clearly something every aspiring writer should do. When not glued to her computer, she cheers her two sons on at sporting events and sometimes manages to stay up late enough to check out bands with her music agent husband. Charlotte lives in Los Angeles and is the author of For the Record (Delacorte, 2015)
Twitter: https://twitter.com/charlottexhuang
Website: http://charlottehuangbooks.com/index.html
Blog: http://charlottehuangbooks.com/tagged/blog
Instagram: http://instagram.com/charlottexhuang







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Book in Review: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

2014 ya releases
16143347
Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Publishing Date: May 13th 2014
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Format: Kindle

A beautiful and distinguished family
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 
We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it. And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

Rating: 10/5 stars

How do you describe a book that gripped you from the very first line, ate away your soul and left your sweet poor little heart shattered into thousands of pieces? 

We Were Liars is mesmerizing, intriguing, and so hauntingly real and personal. The writing is crisp, strong and wonderfully messy. The descriptive passages and imagery are praise worthy, and never goes overboard. You've got descriptions like "Sugar, curiosity and rain" and "ambition and strong coffee", a string of simple words that mean so much deeper than face value. The plot starts out slow and cryptic, but quickly picks up as the climax draws closer. The story is sophisticated, smart and unforgettable. It is told from the point of view of a confused and distraught teenager, and the writing is consistently beautiful and emotional and distinctively from her perspective - with it starting as a slow gentle puff of air blowing into your face, then quickly turning into a fast whirlwind as the plot unfolds.  The characters are so well-rounded and flawed; each of them are passionate, driven and young, but also imperfect and trying to make things right. They view love and friendship above economic and social stability and try to put justice into a world where money is everything and prejudice is prevalent everywhere. 

This book was incredibly painful to read but so unconventionally addicting. There is no Scrabble word that could describe how I feel about this book. This book took my breath away, and I found myself sobbing uncontrollably towards the end of it. I did NOT see that ending coming, and WOW, it tore me apart but it was just brilliant!

Never have I been at a loss of words so drastically over a book. Normally, I tend to blabber on about a book endlessly (even accidentally spoiling it for everyone else) but this is an exception. I just can't seem to say any more. This review may be as vague as the blurb but there is no other way to put this, or you may not truly experience the story when you read it.

It's true what they say that it's better to know absolutely nothing about this book and just go into it blind. Please don't let anyone spoil this book for you, please don't demand spoilers no matter how much you like them, and please do NOT skip to the ending. 

My heart is broken beyond repair because of this book, but I have no regrets.

Book in Review: Hexed by Michelle Krys

2 stars
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Title: Hexed
Author: Michelle Krys
Hardcover: 384 pages
Format: ARC
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: June 10, 2014 
Rating: 2/5

Witchcraft is one of the many paranormal elements that I've always been curious about, especially because it is a folklore that is rarely explored in popular culture aside from the famous Sabrina the Teenage Witch. I was very glad to pick up Hexed because i haven't read as much witch books compared to any other obscure paranormal book ranging from unicorns, zombies, vampires, werewolves etc. 

Generally, Hexed follows the normal paranormal/supernatural genre formula: girl is normal then one day when she comes of age she becomes supernatural and becomes exposed to a whole new world. While we see her learn to use such supernatural ability, good and bad forces collide and she has to save the world because of a prophecy or because of any other responsibility that was thrust upon her by external factors. Along the way, she meets a hot guy who is also paranormal, may be a bad guy, or add some other twist here. He ends up to be actually good and they save the world and wait for their next adventure in book 2!

Hexed sure was an interesting read and I was never bored reading it, but I felt like it is a bit too laughable even in parts that are supposedly serious.

I really wanted to like this book. I really did.

Instead, I'll just slam my face to the wall.

Following the formula for writing a supernatural book is okay, but Hexed adds NOTHING to what we already have in witch lit. The plot is not at all unique and the characters aren't even extraordinary. What I can say though is that they are realistic. Realistic if most teenagers today are complete assholes and whiney douchelords who only care about their problems. I tried really hard to like Indie, but I guess she's just not likeable. At first, I liked the fact that she is a popular girl who is concerned about her clothes and looks and that she's not a loner emo girl who's trying to find her place in this world like most other protagonists. However, her development as a character is slow if nonexistent. So she finally breaks up with her asshole boyfriend and ends her 9 year friendship with what's her name. Her mom dies. It was nice to see her cutting off all the toxic people out of her life and doing something for herself, but throughout the book that is ALL she does - doing things for her own benefit. Everything she does is for her own personal gain, and even befriending Paige is a selfish act on her part and I hated how everything that happens she makes it all about her and what she wants. In the end, she doesn't become any smarter or a better person.

Bishop is also one of the worst love interests ever because he is a sexist pig who keeps objectifying Indie and making disgusting misogynistic statements. I was disgusted with his naked Betty Boop tattoo and all his sexual innuendo and it's not because I'm a prude, but because I really can't stand jerks who "get the girl" in the end when he doesn't deserve anything at all. The part when they are stuck in the sewers and he practically drools over Indies half naked body and he gives her clothes which Indie describes as "short and skanky" and is actually amused with himself is just the most disgusting thing ever. He also starts out as this stalkerish kid who follows Indie around, and all the backhanded comments he gives her, like remarking about cheerleaders have a brain after all, laughing at how Indie butt shaked during the game,  are just annoying and makes him irredeemable as a love interest.

I also found the world building incredibly lacking. I was very interested about the magic part and the battle between the witches and sorcerers. But they didn't even address what they are fighting about in the first place- all we know is that there was a war and that there are these cartoon villains out to get the witches. What baffled me even more about the book is how little the magic there actually is. I really wanted to see more of her training as a witch but there is next to zero magic involved in it (there's more kissing between her and Bishop) and the magic they possess is actually laughable and not just believable. I mean magic is not realistic at one bit but there must be laws, like how could you conjure creatures out of nothing? I just couldn't seem to understand the folklore of their magic.

Hexed could've easily been one of the best paranormal books I've read in a while, but the treatment of the story is not at all executed properly. 

Honestly? It is by far one of the biggest disappointments this year and it just read to me like bad fanfiction.




Book in Review: Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mylnowski

2-star rating
 Don't Even Think About It
Title: Don't Even Think About It
Author: Sarah Mylnowski
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Publication Date: March 11, 2014
Hardcover: 336 pages
Rating: 2/5

Synopsis (via Goodreads):

 Contemporary teen fiction with romance, secrets, scandals, and ESP from the author of Ten Things We Did (And Probably Shouldn't Have).

We weren't always like this. We used to be average New York City high school sophomores. Until our homeroom went for flu shots. We were prepared for some side effects. Maybe a headache. Maybe a sore arm. We definitely didn't expect to get telepathic powers. But suddenly we could hear what everyone was thinking. Our friends. Our parents. Our crushes. Now we all know that Tess is in love with her best friend, Teddy. That Mackenzie cheated on Cooper. That, um, Nurse Carmichael used to be a stripper.

Since we've kept our freakish skill a secret, we can sit next to the class brainiac and ace our tests. We can dump our boyfriends right before they dump us. We know what our friends really think of our jeans, our breath, our new bangs. We always know what's coming. Some of us will thrive. Some of us will crack. None of us will ever be the same.

So stop obsessing about your ex. We're always listening.

This book has so much promise. The plot was unique and the writing was good but the way the story played out was, for me, unsatisfying. There are a lot of things that Mylnowski could have done with this story that would make me give it a 5-star rating. She could have made this a story that was so extraordinary and  utterly unforgettable but she didn't. I had such high expectations for this book but in the end, I was sorely disappointed.

I felt like this book didn't stand out among all of the books in this genre. Though the writing was good and the pacing was okay, the story wasn't able to draw me in and keep me in. They found out that they have telepathy and they don't even put it to good use. Instead, they use it to find out some utterly mundane things like whether or not someone liked them back. Also, thoughts are, well, they're thoughts. Not every thought is verbalized. When I think of something, that thought doesn't appear as words. It was simply unbelievable that they would find these thoughts in  people's minds in verbal form. I'm not sure if you can understand what I'm trying to say here. It's quite hard to explain. Another thing is how they were so adamant to keep this telepathy thing a secret. At first, I could understand why they wanted to keep the telepathy thing a secret. People would think that they were crazy or playing a prank. But even when they knew that the people from the place that did something about diseases (I don't know what it's called) knew about the telepathy and was looking for them and would believe them and would want to give them the cure, they still wouldn't tell. It frustrated me to no end. 

When I started this book, this was one of the first lines I saw:  
Maybe you think Olivia is telling the story. Or Mackenzie, or Cooper, or someone else in our homeroom you haven’t met yet.
It could be any of us.
But it’s not.
It’s all of us. We’re telling you this story together.
It sounded so cool. I thought that the book would be sort of sci-fi-ish with lots of science-y stuff involved but I was wrong. It turned out to be quite ordinary. Just a story of mostly ordinary teenagers with completely ordinary problems and issues that just happen to have telepathy. I was just hoping for something a little more out of the ordinary.

Also, they never really explained the science behind the telepathy and how they made the cure. They explained that it was in the flu shot but never said how it got there. They didn't even say what it was. They also didn't tell us how the cure worked. I was hoping that they would because that would make the story much more interesting and plausible.

But, on the other hand, I guess that this is a story that a lot of teenagers can relate to. All of their insecurities and problems, well, we've been through it too. Well, not the telepathy thing but the other problems. Worrying about saying the wrong things. Wondering what other people really think of you. The relatability (is this a word?) factor was one of the two stars I gave this book. The other star was because you could completely understand each character's motives. I didn't dislike any character in this book which is because I could understand them.

Have you read Don't Even Think About It by Sarah Mylnowski? What do you think about it? Leave a comment!