Edition Published April 22nd 2014 by Broadway Books
Goodreads description: On a warm summer morning in North Carthage, Missouri, it is Nick and Amy Dunne’s fifth wedding anniversary. Presents are being wrapped and reservations are being made when Nick’s clever and beautiful wife disappears. Husband-of-the-Year Nick isn’t doing himself any favors with cringe-worthy daydreams about the slope and shape of his wife’s head, but passages from Amy’s diary reveal the alpha-girl perfectionist could have put anyone dangerously on edge. Under mounting pressure from the police and the media—as well as Amy’s fiercely doting parents—the town golden boy parades an endless series of lies, deceits, and inappropriate behavior. Nick is oddly evasive, and he’s definitely bitter—but is he really a killer?
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I honestly don’t know what to say about this book.

The writing is amazing. There’s no doubt about that.

But it’s also depressing, and confusing, and a little bit scary. Actually, very scary.

The plot is most easily described as clever. Interesting. But not interesting in the I -don’t-know-how-else-to-describe-it way. It was actually, really, truthfully interesting. Mind-boggling, even. I really don’t know how Gillian thought of all of these twists and turns and the thrills that make this book a great thriller – she honestly has an outstanding mind to be able to piece everything together the way she did – and then explain it all to the reader.

But that is where my love for this book ends.

The characters are not exactly likeable. Both of them certainly have almost-likeable qualities, but neither of them are actually people I could relate to (in the slightest) or be friends with. I started by being sympathetic with Nick, but then something happened (SPOILER: he cheated. I don’t even have a problem with the fact she cheated with a student. That doesn’t bother me at all. It’s just the fact that I see cheating as wrong, and I saw him as a bad person because of it).

The language just annoyed me. I’m hardly uptight when it comes to swearing, but this just annoyed me after a while. It seemed unnecessary and not needed.

I also disliked is the ending. In a way, it is absolutely perfect for this sick, twisted but amazing book. But it just didn’t appeal to me. It just didn’t seem right – it was almost like (spoilers) Nick and Amy had come completely full circle. Maybe I just viewed it in the wrong way, but that’s how it seemed to me. It made the book entirely pointless.

My rating is…

★★

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

Edition: 2014, Usbourne
Goodreads description: Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on brooding artist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And, after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer break, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to face uncertainty about their futures, and the very real possibility of being apart.
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Wow. Wow. Wow.

I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to say. I don’t know how to force the words out in the right way.

This book is…

omg.

This book is…freaking…extraordinary.

Wow. I feel like I’m talking to someone who I love, really awkwardly. It’s like the first time I skyped my boyfriend.

Because I think I just fell in love.

No, I mean seriously. I just fell. In. Love. And now I don’t know how to explain that love to my very best friend.

We straighten , but our snickering is barely contained as we attempt to focus our attention on a picture of a discarded Coke can. “This guy’s lady love is kind of a slob, don’t you think?” he whispers.
I cover my mouth with my hands again.
“A reaaaaaaaal litterbug.”
“Stop it,” I hiss. My eyes are watering. “Ohmygod look at this one! How did he get her toenail clippings?”
“If you were my girl,” he whispers, “I’d take creepy pictures of your trash when I knew you weren’t looking.”
“If you were my girl,” I whisper back,” I”d put the creepy pictures in a foreign museum so you wouldn’t know that I take creepy pictures.

Okay. This book made me laugh, it made me cry. It made me feel completely absorbed in a book like I never have been before. When I looked up after reading the end for over an our, it was like…seeing my bedroom for the first time. Like seeing the sun, but knowing I’d been somewhere else when it rised.

Somewhere in an amazing, extraordinary, I-can’t-believe-a-human-being-created-this type of fantasy world. I honestly never knew a human mind could make that much love. Hope. Everything.

This book was a perfect explanation of my favourite type of book. Romance, but with hope.

Everything…everything about this book just seemed perfect. I cried when I finished it, because I just want to go back to Paris.

I really want to just keep writing and writing about this one, which maybe I’ll do one day when I’ve got my head together more, but right now, I will let you carry on with your life until it appears very near the top of my Favourite Books of 2015 list.

So the last thing I will say, is this book made me feel like some of the books I’ve rated 5 stars before weren’t worth it as much as this one…

Unsurprisingly, this book gets a massive 5 moons.

☽☽☽☽☽
5 out of 5 moons

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! (ESPECIALLY THIS PATICULAR ONE!) ☽

Edition: 2014 by Usbourne Publishing
Goodreads description: Budding designer Lola Nolan doesn’t believe in fashion… she believes in costume. The more expressive the outfit – the more sparkly, more wild – the better. And life is pretty close to perfect for Lola, especially with her hot rocker boyfriend.
That is, until the Bell twins, Calliope and Cricket return to the neighbourhood and unearth a past of hurt that Lola thought was long buried. So when talented inventor Cricket steps out from his twin sister’s shadow and back into Lola’s life, she must finally face up to a lifetime of feelings for the boy next door. Could the boy from Lola’s past be the love of her future?
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I’m not going to lie, it took quite a while for me to get into this book and completely connect with the characters. I found the first two chapters confusing and found I had a lot of questions for Lola about her childhood, which were later answered, luckily.

But even saying that, I still found the first 50 pages or so quite badly structured. If I wasn’t determined to carry on reading, I could have easily put down this book and just forgotten about it, as I didn’t really want to read on.

Cricket.
His name explodes inside of me like cannon fire. I move towards our windows. His curtains are open. The bags he brought home are still on his floor, but there’s no sign of him. What am I supposed to say the next time we see each other? Why won’t he stop ruining my life?
Why does he have to ask me out now?

But after that, it really picked up. As you can see, even though I didn’t enjoy the first part, I am still rewarding this lovely book with four stars.

Because after learning who Cricket Bell actually is, and why Lola is adopted by two gay men, I could finally focus on the actual story.

And I really did lose myself in this book. I forgot I had a hospital appointment, which is always a good thing!

I found Lola intruiging, to say the least. I have to admit, at first I didn’t really get the costume thing. But now, I completely do. I really grew to admire her. I’ve done a bit of sewing, myself, so I can really see how much work Lola puts into her designs and outfits.

I also love the way Stephanie weaves difficult subjects into her writing, giving them a neutral viewpoint. I completely agree with her view of home education, as it did help Cricket, and put across the point that sometimes, school just isn’t for everyone, all the time.

Other things, such as age-gap love, long distance relationships and same-sex relationships are also portrayed in what I believe is the right way. That’s the main thing that made me fall in love with this book.

But still, even though I did really enjoy the story, even going as far to say I am completely bessotted by Lola and Cricket, something is holding me back from that big 5 stars. Maybe it was just the start of the book, but I just can’t bring myself to do it. So, even though I have a feeling I will be giving this series as a whole the big 5, this one has been given….

☽☽☽☽

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

Edition: 2014 by Usbourne Publishing
Goodreads: Can Anna find love in the City of Light?
Anna is happy in Atlanta. She has a loyal best friend and a crush on her coworker at the movie theater, who is just starting to return her affection. So she’s less than thrilled when her father decides to send her to a boarding school in Paris for her senior year.
But despite not speaking a word of French, Anna meets some cool new people, including the handsome Étienne St. Clair, who quickly becomes her best friend. Unfortunately, he’s taken —and Anna might be, too. Will a year of romantic near misses end with the French kiss she’s waiting for?
My rating:☽☽☽☽☽/5
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Big question everyone! Do you ever feel already buried deep like you love too many books?

Because I love, love, loved this book. But I’ve been loving a lot of books recently. So I’m trying to do this from a neutral point of view, even though this one already has a hands down 5 stars.

“Most people in Atlanta don’t have an accent. It’s pretty urban. A lot of people speak gangsta, though,” I add jokingly.
“Fo’ shiz,” he replies in his polite English accent.
I spurt orangey-red soup across the table. St. Clair gives a surprised ha-HA kind of laugh, and I’m laughing too, the painful kind like abdominal crunches. He hands me a napkin to wipe my chin. “Fo’. Shiz.” He repeats it solemnly.
Cough cough. “Please don’t ever stop saying that. It’s too-” I gasp. “Much.”
“You oughtn’t to have said that. Now I shall have to save it for special occasions.”
“My birthday is in February.” Cough choke wheeze. “Please don’t forget.”

I just found this book really…lovely. I love the way it’s written, it’s easy to read, relate to and get into.

The story follows Anna, an American girl from Atlanta who is sent to SOAP, the School of America in Paris. She feels like the odd one out, until she meets Mer and her friends.

Slowly, gradually, she starts to fit in. She meets St Clair, one of the friends from her group, and even though he’s taken, they hit it off as great friends.

But slowly, they get closer and get to know each other better. This book follows their beautiful story.

I absolutely fell in love with Anna, St Clair and in turn, Paris.

This is yet another beautiful story. But with a twist. Although there is many books similar to these, with just enough romance and even the same quotes I’ve seen in other books, I found this one somewhat different. Unique. And that’s what made me love this book so much. Because even though, I won’t lie, there is some familiarity to other books, the romance is one of a kind in this one.

I honestly can’t wait to get to Lola & Isla, now!

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

The Geography of You and Me by Jennifer E. Smith
Edition: October 9th 2014 by Headline
Goodreads description: Lucy and Owen meet somewhere between the tenth and eleventh floors of a New York City apartment building, on an elevator rendered useless by a citywide blackout. After they’re rescued, they spend a single night together, wandering the darkened streets and marveling at the rare appearance of stars above Manhattan. But once the power is restored, so is reality. Lucy soon moves to Edinburgh with her parents, while Owen heads out west with his father. Lucy and Owen’s relationship plays out across the globe as they stay in touch through postcards, occasional e-mails, and — finally — a reunion in the city where they first met.
My rating: ☽☽☽☽☽/5
Amazon | Book Depository | Wordery

I’m pretty sure I’m not going to be able to find words good enough, that mean enough- that are enough – to describe this book. But it’s definitely worth my attempt. It’s worth a lot more than that.

I’m not even sure where to start. So I guess, being the logical person that I am, I’m going to start at the end.

When I finished this book, I placed it between my knees and then hugged it (and my knees). I then tried to hold back the tears as I faced my laptop – with Skype open, on a call to my lovely boyfriend, and smiled.

And how many times had they all been stuffed in here together? Dad, with his newspaper folded under his arm, always standing near the door, ready to bolt; Mom, wearing a thin smile, seesawing between amusement and impatience with the rest of them; the twins, grinning as they elbowed each other; and Lucy, the youngest, tucked in a corner, always trailing behind the rest of the family like an ellipsis at the end of a sentence.

And now here she was, in a box that seemed too tiny to hold so many memories, with the walls pressing in all around her and nobody to come to her rescue.

This book is a perfect description of long distance relationships – the inconstant, uneven but definite motion of rushed, loud and exciting hellos and drawn out, quiet and tear speckled goodbyes.

With nothing in between but mere words that don’t fill the gap between two people in love nearly enough – spoken into a phone, typed into a computer or written onto the back of a postcard…

And when they finally meet up after long months of being alone, just being together feels like so much, it feels like waking up from a sleep that was way too long…something this book demonstrates amazingly.

After reading so much romance – Simon vs. The Homo Sapiens Agenda followed by How To Be Bad followed by Let It Snow – I thought I was done with reading romance for a while. But I was so, so wrong. Because whith romance books, there’s an extremely fine line between too-much-cheese and overwhelming beauty.

And I’m very happy to tell you, this one was pretty far over the overwhelming beauty line.

In fact, it just made me want to pick up all of my favorite romance books and read the most important parts all over again. Which I think I’ll do in a second.

This one meant so much to be. I’m in a long distance relationship myself, and not only did I completely understand everything this book talked about, but I really related to it. The longing, the missing, the wishing, the being across an ocean. And weirdly enough, me and my boyfriend are across the atlantic just as Lucy and Owen are.

And it’s so true. Everything in this book is so true and pure. But the thing that stands out is this:

Home isn’t a place.

Home is who the heart finds. And whether you’re standing on the top of a highrise in New York City, or on the Point Zero star in Paris – you’ll always feel more at home next to the person you love.

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

P.S. I wrote this review as a draft, yesterday. Since then, I have not started another book, instead I’ve been reading my favorite parts of all the romance books I own. Carry On, Night Owls, Amy and Roger’s Epic Detour…I can’t get enough love.

P.P.S. No one look at my goodreads. I will have to kill anyone who knows about the amount of romance novels I’ve just added to my TBR list.