Alyssa’s Reviews – Square Root of Summer + Q&A! (ARC)

Hi friend!

A few weeks ago, I decided to apply to join the Square Root of Summer book tour, run by Raincoast Canada! Today I and Liz @ Midnight Bloom Reads have our stop/posts on the blog tour!

The Square Root of Summer was a book I had heard of before Raincoast. I believe it was recommended to me on GoodReads, and I decided to add it to my TBR list. When I heard I could be a part of the blog tour, I jumped on the chance and decided to join in!

The box the book came in was soooo cute, and I read the book in a quick matter!

Let’s get started with the review!


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Synopsis:

This is what it means to love someone. This is what it means to grieve someone. It’s a little bit like a black hole. It’s a little bit like infinity.
Gottie H. Oppenheimer is losing time. Literally. When the fabric of the universe around her seaside town begins to fray, she’s hurtled through wormholes to her past:
To last summer, when her grandfather Grey died. To the afternoon she fell in love with Jason, who wouldn’t even hold her hand at the funeral. To the day her best friend Thomas moved away and left her behind with a scar on her hand and a black hole in her memory.
Although Grey is still gone, Jason and Thomas are back, and Gottie’s past, present, and future are about to collide—and someone’s heart is about to be broken.
With time travel, quantum physics, and sweeping romance, The Square Root of Summer is an exponentially enthralling story about love, loss, and trying to figure it all out, from stunning debut YA voice, Harriet Reuter Hapgood.

Review:

This book was such an incredibly powerful novel. It really shares how love and friendship can change you and make you crazy!

What I loved most about this book was the characters. I really liked Gottie, especially the nicknames she was given from her family and friends! Gottie was funny at times, especially in the beginning when she was comparing her life to math, more specifically wormholes. This made her different then many other YA characters, especially because her qwerks were lovable, not annoying. Another character I really enjoyed reading about was Thomas. Thomas and Gottie had a special connection throughout the entire book, and I really enjoyed reading about them when they were together. Also, can we mention that Thomas moved to Toronto, Canada for 5 years before coming back to England to spend the summer in Gottie and Ned’s (Gottie’s brother) house. The stereotypes were so funny and they gave me a good laugh!

One of things I enjoyed reading were all of the flashbacks from Gottie. The ones I liked most were the ones when she was recounting her times/memories with her grandfather Grey. You could tell that she had another special connection with Grey, and missed him dearly.

Other then the relationships between characters, this book had a lot of time traveling involved. As someone who knows absolutely nothing about time travelling, Harriet made it really easy to understand, which I was very grateful for! The time travelling added a really neat touch to the novel, that most authors would never think of doing. I think that that aspect really enhanced the book, rather then made it difficult to understand.

The book is set in an English small town/countryside. The town was so cute, other then that I really don’t know how to describe it! There was a “home-ie” feeling to it that not many books have, as many authors don’t pay close attention to a setting, unless the book is dystopian! Gottie’s dad “Papa” took over the bookstore that her grandfather Grey owned.

And like any feel-good contemporary there is a lot of good romance, which ended up being really sweet and cute!

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and gave it 4/5 stars!


I had the opportunity to ask Harriet a little question, and here is her response!

What inspired you to write The Square Root of Summer?

I started writing the book so long ago it’s hard to remember the original spark of
 inspiration. My grandmother had died and I had a really hard time dealing with it, and
I wanted to write about that – a summer story about grief, because I love books set in
the summer holidays when there’s no school structure or timetable or familiarity to
each day, and time slips into a different groove. I went away to a cottage in Norfolk
to think about it and ended up using that as the setting – something about the sea and
the countryside and solitude combined to create this lonely tone. And the last conversation my grandmother and I had had was about quantum physics, so the book ended up being a continuation of that conversation.


I’d like to send a heartfelt thank you to Raincoast Canada and Harriet Reuter Hapgood for giving me the oppurtunity to participate in this blog tour, as well as giving me an ARC of the book!

Check out all of the other amazing blog tour posts for Square Root of Summer here:

Alexis @ Inside the Pages Book Reviews
Ryley @ Ryley Reads
Jenn @ Lost in a Great Book
Christine @ Padfoot’s Library
Liz @ Midnight Bloom Reads
Tiff @ Mostly YA Lit
Melissa @ YA Bookshelf
Ambur @ Burning Impossibly Bright

Use the hashtag #SquareRootofSummer on Social Media to discuss this amazing book!

Thank you all so much for reading! Let me know if you enjoyed this book/plan on reading it in the comments below!

Good Night Book Owls!

Mothers Day Book Recommendations!

Hey everyone!

Happy Mothers Day!!!!

My family and I always celebrate Mothers Day together, and I really enjoy the time we always have together. My mom is one of the best moms out there, and I don’t know what I’d do without her! My mother is the person that made me love reading and I will always thank her for that!

Today, I am going to be recommending some amazing books that I think you should give your mom for mothers day!

First, I want to share with you the book that I’m giving my mom for mothers day!

I received this book from Penguin Canada to give to my mom for mothers day! Yesterday when I was in Indigo, I had my mom read the synopsis of this book, and she said it sounded really interesting! I’ll let you know if she likes it!

My mom and aunt have read this book, and they both loved it! It’s been an adult bestseller and its been featured by many book stores, so I assume its really good!

My mom read this book last year and absolutley loved it, as did I (read my book review for it here)!

Those are my top 3 book recomendations for Mothers Day! Let me know what books you’d get for your mother in the comments!

Good Night Book Owls!

Alyssa’s Reviews – Flawed by Cecelia Ahern (ARC)

*I am one day behind on my posts, so another post will be going up earlier today!

Hi everyone!

Today, I am going to be posting a book review from the book that I received at last years TeensRead Winter/Spring Preview! I received This Is Where it Ends from last years event, and I just realized I never did a review for it… I will have to post it one day! Anyways, this years TeensRead Fall 2016 Preview is this upcoming Saturday (May 7), and since I received this book last year and just read it, I figured it would be fun to write a review for it today!

Let’s get started!

Synopsis:

You will be punished…

Celestine North lives a perfect life. She’s a model daughter and sister, she’s well-liked by her classmates and teachers, and she’s dating the impossibly charming Art Crevan.

But then Celestine encounters a situation where she makes an instinctive decision. She breaks a rule and now faces life-changing repercussions. She could be imprisoned. She could be branded. She could be found flawed.

In her breathtaking young adult debut, bestselling author Cecelia Ahern depicts a society where perfection is paramount and flaws lead to punishment. And where one young woman decides to take a stand that could cost her everything.

Review:

This book was very, very good! I received a tweet at the end of last years event, asking for someone to trade their ARC copy for another book, but I never ended up trading it away, and I’m glad I hadn’t!

The book started off like an interesting contemporary novel! There were a few interesting things about the society, but overall the way it was introduced, sounded like a YA contemporary! Plus, the cute romance scene with Celestine’s boyfriend Art was SO CUTE!

But then, let’s just say all hell broke loose!

So many odd things happened to Celestine, and I could never imagine going through what she went through!

The town/city where this novel takes place was so interesting to read about! There were so many different rules as to how the city/citizens could operate, but they all had a back story to them. Again, I couldn’t imagine anyone/myself living through these rules. Especially now in our society, where everyone is welcomed.

The characters were so intrucuit, and Cecelia wrote them so descriptively and with such character that I could really understand them. Sometimes authors will right there characters very “naive-ly”. They will have a very bland personality. It almost seems as if one YA character will have the same traits as another, but there are written by a completely different author and in a completely different world.That being said, these characters were very different from ones you may find in other YA books. Sure, the main female character was brave and heroic, but instead of her trying to be heroic she stood up for something without thinking of what her actions could lead to. Plus, she ended up getting in trouble for her heroic ways!

Although, during some parts of the book it was very hard for me to understand where exactly they were as well as what exactly was going on.

The ending was incredible, especially because I didn’t realize this book was the first of a trilogy…!

Overall:

I really enjoyed this novel and gave it 4/5 stars! It wasn’t the best book I ever read, but it certainly was a good one!

That’s it for today’s book review!

Let me know in the comments if you’ve read this book, and what you thought of it!

Good Night Book Owls!

Quick Thought #17: The Reading Slump.

Hey everyone!

Sorry I wasn’t able to get this post up earlier this evening! If you’re not from Toronto, or not a sports fan you probably don’t know what happened tonight. Kyle Lowry (from the Toronto Raptors NBA Team) hit a buzzer beater in the 4th quarter, which lead to overtime!! They still lost, but it was an incredible game! Also, Justin Smoak from the Toronto BlueJays (MLB) hit a game tying home run in the 9th inning, and won the game with a walk off home run in the 10th inning. Let’s just say it’s been an eventful evening.

And that my friends is what started my reading slump. Earlier last year, I started paying close attention to the Toronto Blue Jays. I went to my first game, and I slowly became the die-hard fan that I am now! Although, whenever my parents would watch a Blue Jays, that was the time when I’d read and write my blog posts. But now, I watch with them. The point I’m making just comes down to= there aren’t  enough hours in the day!

I also haven’t been in a reading mood lately, but since I’ve been blogging I’m catching up with my GoodReads goal and feel really good about it!

Anyways, I hope that was the last reading slump I will have in a very long time!

The truth is, there really isn’t a way to get rid of a slump. You just have to remember how good it feels when you read and blog, and why you started it in the first place!

Let me know down below if you’ve had any recent reading slumps and how you’ve gotten out of them!

Good Night Book Owls!

May 2016 TBR!

Hey Everyone!

Welcome back to my blog! Today, I will be sharing with you the books I plan on reading this month.

As most of you know, this year hasn’t been great for my reading. Last January I read 11 books, so far this year I’ve only read 5. But you know how it goes with me. I either have a great start and a horrible finish or a horrible start and a great finish… Hopefully that’s how this year will go!

  • The Wave

I’m reading this book for school and I literally just finished it. Wasn’t to great, but I’ll talk about it in my May wrap up!

  • Yellow Brick War

I’m currently reading this book, and I’m only about 30 pages in. It’s actually really good so far! This book is part of a trilogy called “Dorothy Must Die”. It’s a series in which Oz is different from the Wizard of Oz we all know and love. It shows what happens when good turns evil, and the only good in the land is the previous evil. Confusing huh? This book is surprising me quite a bit, especially since I didn’t like the 2nd book in the series, although I loved the first book in the trilogy. I hope it stays as good as it is now!!

  • The Square Root of Summer

I will be receiving an ARC copy of this book to read and review for my stop on the Square Root of Summer BLOG TOUR! My post will be up on May 18th, and I can’t wait to read and review the book, along with reading all of the other amazing blog tour posts!

  • Unexpected Everything

I recieved a wonderful copy of this book from Simon and Schuster Canada, and I can’t wait to start it! The cover is so cute, and will most likely be on my best covers of 2016 list! I’ve heard such great reviews about it, and I’m excited to see what all of the hype is about!

  • Charlotte Cuts it Out

I recieved this book quite a while ago, and it came out 2 weeks ago. It sounds like such an interesting book about frendship and new beginnings. I can’t wait to read and review it!

  • The Name Therapist

Finally, I want to read The Name Therapist! I heard about this book first during my latest trip to Indigo, and then the next day I recieved the monthly Penguin Newsletter and requested it right away! It sounds like a really interesting non-fiction book that I’ll really enjoy!

 That’s it for today’s blog post! Let me know what you’ll be reading during May in the comments below!

Good Night Book Owls!