Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

Normally, I am not a big YA Mystery type of reader, however this book may change that. “Dare You To Lie” by Amber Lynn Natusch is a new YA Thriller/Mystery novel that I requested and received from Raincoast Canada over two months ago. However, I just read this book last week and LOVED IT. By far one of the best YA thrillers I have EVER read. I featured “Dare You To Lie” in my October TBR, which you can read here!

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

When her FBI agent father is framed for murder, Kylene is forced to move in with her grandfather, back to the small town that turned its back on her, and the boy who betrayed her. All Ky cares about is clearing her father’s name, but someone won’t let her forget the photo scandal that drove her away two years ago. As the threats gain momentum, Ky finds an unlikely ally in the rookie FBI agent sent to keep an eye on her. Determined to expose the town’s hidden skeletons, Ky unwittingly thrusts herself into a much bigger plot. They thought she’d forgive and forget. They’re about to learn they messed with the wrong girl.

This book was INCREDIBLE.

I am not normally a huge fan of YA Thrillers/Mystery books, so requesting this one was definitely “out of my comfort zone”. However, reading this was a very rewarding experience, especially since I enjoyed it so much.

Originally, when I started the book, I was not in the mood for a high school story. Most of the ones I had read before had been been very easy to predict and included a very nauseating love story. But even after just 50 pages, I was hooked! The high school setting was great and very beneficial for the story. While we didn’t read many chapters about the school and Kylene’s student life, the role of the kids in the school was important in the story, therefore setting it at a school made a lot of sense.

All of the characters in this story were fascinated to read about, and contributed to my overall enjoyment of the story. I found that I formed a connection to the characters very early on into the story, which usually means that I will enjoy reading the book throughout the whole plot/story line. Kylene was a great protagonist and I loved reading from her perspective throughout the novel. The emotions she felt were expressed in great detail in the book, which made it much easier to read and understand how she was feeling throughout different events in the story. One of my favourite characters in the book was Kylene’s grandfather. While Kylene’s connection with her parents may not have been so strong, her bond with her grandfather was very special and you could tell how deeply they cared for each other. The absence of her parents (specifically her Mom) seemed hard to deal with for Kylene, but her Grandfather filled that void. I also loved both Garrett and Tabby, Kylene’s two best friends. They both added so much to the story and were a great support system for Kylene when she needed to talk out what she was feeling.

Even though Kylene’s parents were brought up slightly during the first half of the novel, I would have loved to have read more about both of them. The mothers’ story was easy to understand because it pretty much resulted in Kylene’s move back to her original home. However, I found Kylene’s fathers backstory quite confusing. I would have liked to read more about her Dad in the passed, and I would have liked to read more about the father in the present and seen him more involved in Kylene’s story.

Since this was a fact-paced YA thriller, Amber Lynn Natusch’s writing style may not be for everyone. It was an extremely fast read for me, which was mostly because of the pace of the plot line. I personally enjoy reading books where you really have to pay attention to all of the events going on in every chapter, or else you would not understand what is going on. Those types of books make for thrilling reads and really impressive story lines, like what is seen in “Dare You To Lie”.

This book also featured a lot of impressive plot twists, that I did not see coming AT ALL. The mystery aspect greatly contributed to the plot twists and turns throughout the novel. I am normally pretty good at predicting events in a novel, but this one had some very surprising ones that I did not see coming.

One of the only things I didn’t like about this novel was the ending. At first, I didn’t realize that this book was the first of a series, so the ending had me quite confused. There wasn’t any real closure in this novel, it only answered one main mystery, but left the much bigger one unsolved. I assume all of it will be solved in the books to come, but I wish we had a bigger hint, and weren’t left with such a cliff hanger.

Overall, this book was fantastic and I gave it 4.5/5 stars on Goodreads. To read my thoughts on this book while reading it, click here!

Thanks for reading my book review for “Dare You To Lie” by Amber Lynn Natusch! I haven’t read a YA thriller like this in a long time, so if anybody has any YA thriller/mystery recommendations, let me know in the comments!

Thanks to Raincoast Canada for sending along an ARC of this book, I’m so thankful for this opportunity!

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading!

“Dry” by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman was one of my most anticipated releases of 2018, so when I received an ARC in the mail from Simon and Schuster Canada, I was so excited to read and review it! I knew the very basics about the plot, and knew nothing about the characters – other than the fact that the main protagonists name was Alyssa (we share the same name!). I featured “Dry” in a couple of my newest blog posts, including my October 2018 TBR and my seventh edition of “In My Mailbox“.

Synopsis (Goodreads.com):

The drought—or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it—has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers. Until the taps run dry. Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbours and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life—and the life of her brother—is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.

While this book did not live up to my highest expectations, I still really enjoyed it!

Alyssa, the main protagonist, was my least favourite character in the book. During the beginning of the novel, I enjoyed reading her thoughts and perspective surrounding the Tap-Out, however, by the end of the novel, I didn’t think that she added much insight and was more of an “annoyed personality”, rather than a crucial character that added a lot to the storyline. In my opinion, she was the least significant character out of their group. Although the story was based around her family and how the tap-out impacted them, I preferred to read about Garrett, Alyssa’s 10-year-old brother. He was one of my favourite characters in the novel, and he played a huge role in the story. He seemed much braver and courageous than a typical 10-year-old boy would be, but since these were unimaginable circumstances, he stepped up to the plate and helped out their group a lot throughout the novel. Garrett developed the most out of all of the characters in the novel, and he was my favourite character to read about by far. Jacqui, Henry, and Kelton were three very interesting characters to read about as well. In “Dry”, we get to read about them in Alyssa’s perspective, as well as read about their thoughts and emotions from their own perspective. Jacqui was my least favourite character during the first half of the book, but she slowly grew on me, and by the end of the book, I really enjoyed and appreciated her character. While I thought Kelton’s role at the beginning of the book would be Alyssa’s love interest, he shaped into his own character thought the progression of the novel, and ended up affecting the story line much more than I had originally thought. Kelton’s family dynamic and his parents thoughts on the world were fascinating to read about, and I would have loved to have read more about his family overall. Even though Henry is introduced more than half-way into the novel, I loved his character and how he added a mysterious element into the storyline. He seemed like a wealthy teenager living in his house alone while his parents left during the tap-out, but we quickly learn that he is not who he really appears to be. I also loved reading about the neighbours. Like Keltons family, I would have loved reading more about them and how they felt towards the other families on the street. I would’ve liked more time to read about them and delve into some of the families more individually.

Even though we didn’t get to read much about the neighbours, one of my favourite aspects of the book was the little “snapshots” of other peoples lives during this disaster. Normally, I hate reading any sort of “snapshot” chapter (like a look into the future or past), but these individual stories added so much emotion to the book, and I could not have enjoyed reading them any more than I did. From reading about news anchors, to people who ran water plants, we got read about other peoples perspectives and emotions during the tap-out, and we also got to see how the sudden loss of water impacted different types of people.

Like I mentioned before, the plot/overall concept of this book was very interesting and appealed to me very much. And while it was a good idea in the beginning, I felt like it was a little flat. There were so many dramatic parts/climaxes in the story, but they all felt very anti-climactic and didn’t really result in anything. There were some things (like the neighbours/different home-lives of the characters, etc.) that I would have liked to have read more, while there were other things I could have read less about (travelling in the car, trying to locate water even though they could never really find anything, etc.). I felt like some of the “travelling” chapters dragged on, and when they finally made it to their desired destination, we only read about it for a few pages. Shusterman could have made some of the destination parts longer, resulting in more world-building. In my opinion, the ending felt very abrupt and incomplete. I would have loved to have read more about their “rescue” (no spoilers here!) and how their lives went directly after the tap-out (in hospital, stuff with parents, etc.), rather than reading about their thoughts two weeks after the initial event took place. The book was extremely thrilling and fast-paced, which made it much easier to read in a timely matter.

“Dry” is a multi-perspective book, not like your typical “two-sides of the story” novel. I thought the POV writing style was beneficial in this story, since no two people would be feeling the exact same emotions during an event as dramatic as a literal water lock out. That being said, I wished they would have stuck to two individual POVs, rather than making ever single character in the book (except Garrett) have POV parts. At times throughout the novel, I was confused as to who was speaking and who they were talking about. Some POV parts were longer than others, and during those long parts I found myself flipping to the beginning to remind myself who was speaking. The characters all spoke pretty similarly, and I found it hard to distinguish one character from the next.

Overall, I enjoyed this book and gave it 3/5 stars. To read my thoughts throughout reading the book, click here!

Thanks to Simon and Schuster Canada for sending along this book, I’m so thankful for this opportunity!

Have YOU read “Dry” by Neal Shusterman and Jarrod Shusterman? Tweet me (and follow me!) @readingreadingr and we can discuss the book on twitter! Also, make sure to follow my Instagram to see sneak peaks of upcoming blog posts and to find out what I am currently reading!

Good Night Book Owls!

Welcome back to Reading, Reading, Reading written by Alyssa Cohen!

Long time no post, I’ve been super busy with school work and personal stuff. I’m going to try and post at least twice a month on this blog. The posts will hopefully consist of book reviews (which I’m renaming “Alyssa’s Reviews”) and Monthly TBRs/Monthly Wrap Ups. I am not going to commit to anything, but after having and writing on this blog for almost 5 years, I figure I need to keep up with it and everything else around the book blogosphere!

Now… let’s get onto the review!

Title: Gone Girl
Author: Gillian Flynn
Publication Date: April 22, 2014
Page Count: 415

Synopsis:
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?

My Rating: 4 Stars

This book was a WHIRLWIND to read! I actually had to read it for an english project, but I ended up loving it even though it was technically “required reading”. All of the other people in my group for the project really enjoyed it, which was interesting because I was put with 2 boys and 1 other girl.

First Star: Two Point Perspective

• When I was younger, I used to LOVE two point perspective, but as my opinions shifted slightly as I got older, I started to really dislike reading two point perspective. I found it very repetitive and it didn’t really do anything great for the book itself. That being said, Gone Girl had a much different and better way of using the two point perspective. It seemed like Nick would always vaguely mention an event that happened in the past, but Amy would go much more in depth with exactly what was going on when that event happened. That added a lot of detail to the story, and while it turned out that Amy’s diary entries were not what we had believed they would turn out to be, they were still really interesting to read.

Second Star: Character Development

• Character development is one of my favourite literary elements in any novel. Whether it may be positive or negative development, anytime you see a character change throughout the novel helps pick up the pace and rhythm of the story. In Gone Girls case, both characters developed a lot in the story. Nick was the first character to change throughout the novel, as he continued his conquest of looking for his missing wife, Amy. While Nick did not make a complete flip in personality, he developed his character in positive ways near the middle of the story. Amy changed a lot during the end of the novel. We learned what her true personality was like during the last 100 pages of the novel, which made you question and think about the previous pages you read. While I did not end up liking Amy in the end, she truly defined “Character Development” in novels, which made her character stand out.

Third Star: Setting

• Gone Girl is set in a mysterious town somewhere in Missouri. Amy and Nick did not live in a small, tight-knit rural community, but they did live near interesting people and had very interesting neighbours that ended up having a decent impact in the story. Since the beginning portion of Gone Girl is a scavenger hunt, this forces Nick to delve deeper into his home-town roots and visit old places they had travelled to once before. When reading these parts, we begin to gather information about their town and develop a sense of community. This has a great impact in the story and helps you understand things about the town before Amy’s abrupt disappearance.

Fourth Star: Storyline

• Gone Girl was perhaps one of the most interesting novels I have ever read. It is not like a generic murder mystery novel, but rather a “He said, She said” battle between the two characters. Because of the different perspectives and drastic character development, the story formed into a twisted tale between two people with different feelings. I definitely did not expect the novel to end the way it did, even though many people prepared me for  a shocking twist.

One Stair: The Ending

• While the twist was phenomenal, I didn’t love the overall ending of the story. I would have loved to have read Amy’s thought process after all was said and done. I would have also liked to hear what happened to Amy’s parents and ex-boyfriend after Amy was found and returned back to her “normal life”. But maybe Flynn ended it on an abrupt note for a reason, we will never know.

Favourite Quotes:

• “A lot of people lacked that gift: knowing when to fuck off.”
• “There’s a difference between really loving someone and loving the idea of her.”
• “There’s something disturbing about recalling a warm memory and feeling utterly cold.”
• “Love makes you want to be a better man—right, right. But maybe love, real love, also gives you permission to just be the man you are.”

I hope you all enjoyed reading my review of Gone Girl! Expect more posts soon, and let me know in the comments what you guys are reading this weekend!

Good Night Book Owls!