Category: Book Tours

Alyssa’s Reviews – Piper Perish Review + Q&A

Alyssa Cohen1 Comment

Hi everyone!

Welcome to the February 28 stop on the Piper Perish Blog Tour! Today myself and Amanda @ Brains, Books, and Brawn will be reviewing the book Piper Perish by Kayla Cagan. This blog tour is made by Raincoast Canada, and the novel was given to me for honest review while participating in the blog tour.

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Synopsis (Goodreads):

Piper Perish inhales air and exhales art. The sooner she and her best friends can get out of Houston and into art school in New York City, the better. It’s been Piper’s dream her whole life, and now that senior year is halfway over, she’s never felt more ready. But in the final months before graduation, things are weird with her friends and stressful with three different guys, and Piper’s sister’s tyrannical mental state seems to thwart every attempt at happiness for the close-knit Perish family. Piper’s art just might be enough to get her out. But is she brave enough to seize that power, even if it means giving up what she’s always known? Debut author Kayla Cagan breathes new life into fiction in this ridiculously compelling, utterly authentic work featuring interior art from Rookie magazine illustrator Maria Ines Gul. Piper will have readers asking big questions along with her. What is love? What is friendship? What is family? What is home? And who is a person when she’s missing any one of these things?

Review:

Piper Perish was a very fun novel to read!

The beginning started off slow, but picked up the  pace leading to the middle. The middle to the end were quite suspenseful, which benefited the novel a lot! These parts made me want to keep reading.

Piper was a unique character, and I enjoyed reading about her. She had a quirky personality and pop in her step, which is something not all YA females have. I appreciated her journey in the novel, and she seemed to mature a bit in the second half of the novel. Her passion for something (in her case art), was wonderful to read. The obstacles she faced in order to meet her goal made her both a realistic and role model type character.

Piper had many great people in her life, and also some not so great people. Her friends were really nice to read about and her interactions without them added some fun to the novel. All of her friends were very similar to her and all art obsessed! On the other hand, I hated the majority of her family. While the family dynamics were realistic, the sister was extremely annoying and hard to read about.

While reading the novel, you will notice that it is written in diary form. At first the diary format through me off, and I couldn’t understand exactly what perspective the novel was written in. Once the novel started to progress, I figured out the diary format. Near the end the diary format benefited the novel, and complimented it.

The novel ended in the direction that I wanted it to go for both Piper and the overall stories sake.

Overall, I enjoyed this novel and gave it 3.75/5 stars!

I had the opportunity to ask Ms. Kayla Cagan a question about her novel.

Do any of the characters in Piper Perish reflect anyone you know in real life?

“Yes! Adams is based on a combination of two teachers – a creative writing teacher I had in high school named Mary Mischler, and a friend of mine who currently teaches at a school for visual effects, games and animation in Los Angeles. Her last name is even Adams!
Also, the 610 Diner is based on the famous 59 Diner in Houston, Texas. The 59 Diner was named after the 59 highway. It’s no longer in business, unfortunately.”

Thanks to Raincoast Canada for supplying me with the novel, and letting me participate in such a cool blog tour with some awesome fellow book bloggers!

Make sure you check back to your favourite book bloggers blogs everyday this week to read there post about Piper Perish! Check the postcard I posted above to see the bloggers who are participating in this blog tour.

Thanks for reading this post, I hope you enjoyed it. Don’t forget to follow me on twitter for all Reading, Reading, Reading updates!

Good Night Book Owls!

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

Alyssa Cohen3 Comments

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!