Review: Need

I've been through the woods with this one, and not in a nice little city forest. In the beginning the hike was hard and I struggled to continue. In the middle the branches hit me in the face and hard. In the end I couldn't find my way out. When I finally did find out, all that was left of me was an annoyed feeling because of all those clichés had hit me in the face.

★★☆☆☆

So if you already didn't catch my meaning, I did not enjoy this book very much. Okay, there were elements that I liked, but as a whole, waste of time. That's harsh, I know, but what can you do.

What annoyed me the most was the similarity to the Twilight series and the plot holes. Like, the road had so many wholes that sometimes I forgot I even was reading book, because I had to find my way out or around them. What comes to the Twilight side, the main character and the setting in the beginning are so close that only the name of the town and the protagonist was changed. Thank heavens Need took a bit different path from that. What also didn't make any sense to me, was Zara's, the main character's, obsession with phobias. If there's someone wiser out there, please, do explain it in the comments below!

What I actually liked was that there was the love interest hanging around and the story didn't evolve around him, like in most books it does.

This was the first book in a series of four. Unfortunately, I won't be reading the next one. Still, I don't regret reading this. It always gives more perspective to other books, if you've read some book that you haven't liked so much in between great ones. And a change out of my usual genre really felt great despite Need not being the best book ever.

Reading challenges - the Ultimate Guides of Life

It's been a while since I've done something else than review. And now that my finals are over I'm going to review and do more things here. From now on I'm going to read furiously and write more reviews and posts here!

My newest feature on my site is the ''Reading Challenge'' page. It contains three challenges: The BBC - list, The 50 Before You Die, and 100 and 1 Books of YA.

Those challenges are the most common and feel free to copy them to yourself!

As you can see, if you already checked the page out, I did horribly on the first two. The YA list isn't with the best score either... Shame on me.

Most of us, myself included, do not take reading challenge lists too seriously. They're more like guidebooks to what to read next or what we should be reading. The only challenge most of us take seriously is the Goodreads' Reading Challenge. I stress that one more than my finals... Again, shame on me.

Review: Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between

''Like I said... the prologue is the best part.''

★★★☆☆

Just like a bittersweet memory from your childhood, this book makes you do the sad smile. There's no helping it. Aidan and Clare's story makes you think of your first crush or relationship. The sweet times, when we thought that life was perfect.

If you're looking for character development, you won't find it in Hello, Goodbye, and Everything in Between. The characters are good, if you're wondering, but they are not made to fit into a certain mold. The reader can/must fill many gaps. Which was one of favourite things in this book.

Since we're talking about Jennifer E. Smith's book it's obvious, to those who have read more of her books, how this books is going to end. I wouldn't say that the predictability lowers the quality of the book too much.

You get to follow the story from the first hello to the last goodbye. All the stops in between, the things that matter. The things that made Aidan and Clare's relationship theirs.

A perfect read for Fall and Winter. A book to curl up with, with a hot beverage and warm fuzzy socks. ☕

Review: Melody's Key

I'm having a really, really bad habit of finishing books during classes. Someday I might embarrass myself really badly, if I don't get out of this habit.

In books, there are two kind of clichés: The good ones and the awful ones. They're sorted into those classes by the plot, and what works in one book may just be the doom of a another. These sweet 'good' clichés were the best thing in Melody's Key. A summer romance, English countryside, handsome, world-known popstar, and love letters from a hundred years back. These made it perfect.

★★★★★

Tegan Lockwood's story is about love and loss. About trusting yourself and that everything happens for a reason. And when there's no reasonable explanation for something, you're going to realise it later on. Tegan is sweet, hardworking, and definitely a dreamer. Spending her evenings reading old love letters in their attic, and tending the gardens of her family's holiday estate during days in the idyllic English countryside. But then, a popstar literally pops in to spend the summer at their place. What neither Tegan or Mason, the pop star, knows is, that they might just find what they're both looking for in the backwoods of England. 

All the characters are well developed and the plot was well tied. I couldn't find any obvious loose ends or cutting the corners. The letters were missing in some point, and I really missed them being a bit more tied to the plot, but in the end it may not have made any difference if they were mentioned three more times in the middle. 

Definitely if you haven't already started reading Melody's Key or you have, but didn't know, go check out the songs written in the book. They can be found on Dallas Coryell's Youtube page! They give an extra kick to the story. I found them after reading and now everything that was crystal clear and made sense, makes even more sense.

Definitely worth reading, and even though it's a summer romance, it can be read all year around, since the book is just so lovable.