Good day, world! Welcome to my review for The Things They’ve Taken, from Katie McElhenney =D I’ve received my review copy from YA Reads through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review and this is it! THANK YOU SO MUCH, GUYS! ❤
All Lo Campbell wants is to be a normal teenager – to go to one high school, live in one place, and have one real friend. Instead, she travels the country with her mother, chasing the unknown, the “what else” that’s out there…
Until one day, the “what else” chases back.
Determined to rescue her mom from whatever supernatural being took her, Lo will need more help than a badly dressed demon obsessed with country music. She’s going to need a Tracker – and lucky for her, she finds one. Shaw is strong, good-looking, possibly available, and utterly infuriating. Sure, he may have secrets, and his help costs more than a brand-new car, but she’ll have to deal with him if she wants to find her mother – and get her home alive.
Hello, world! Welcome to the book blitz for the third book in the Lovely Vicious series, by Sara Wolf: Remember Me Forever! In this post, you’ll find overall info about book and author, my cover analysis and an excerpt!
Remember Me Forever
by Sara Wolf
Lovely Vicious #3
Genre: YA Thriller Comedy
Release date: May 2nd, 2017
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Isis Blake hasn’t fallen in love in three years, forty-three weeks, and two days. Or so she thinks.
The boy she maybe-sort-of-definitely loved and sort-of-maybe-definitely hated has dropped off the face of the planet in the face of tragedy, leaving a Jack Hunter’s shaped hole. Determined to be happy, Isis fills it in with lies and puts on a brave smile for her new life at Ohio State University.
But the smile lasts only until he shows up. The menace from her past – her darkest secret, Nameless – is attending OSU right alongside her. And he’s whispering that he has something Isis wants – something she needs to see to move forward. To move on.
Isis has always been able to pretend everything is okay. But not anymore.
Isis Blake might be good at putting herself back together.
Good afternoon, beautiful peeps! Welcome to my review for a delicious romantic YA book: Operation Prom Date, from Cindi Madsen! I received my copy from Chapter by Chapter in exchange for an honest review and here we go! Thank you, guys!
Kate ships tons of fictional couples, but IRL her OTP is her and Mick, the hot quarterback she’s crushed on since, like, forever. With only one semester left of senior year, it’s now or never if she wants to land him in time for prom. Since she’s flirtationally challenged, she enlists Cooper Callihan, the guy who turned popular seemingly overnight but who used to be a good friend.
Cooper lives and breathes rowing, but his partner just broke his wrist. When he remembers Kate’s good with a set of oars, he strikes a deal: help him train, and he’ll make sure her crush notices her. Only he didn’t know how addicting spending time with her would be. Or how the more successful the Operation is, the more jealousy he experiences.
The mission has been set. The troops have their marching orders. But what if the target is the wrong guy all along?
Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains stargazing, accidental swimming, and poker swindling. This kissing practice will melt your ereader…and give you a new couple to ship.
Hello, dearies! Welcome to the blog tour for the first book in the Juniper Falls series, by Julie Cross: Off The Ice! In this post, you’ll find more info about the book and the author, a playlist, my cover analysis and an incredible giveaway!
Off the Ice
by Julie Cross
Juniper Falls #1
Publication Date: February 27th, 2017
Publisher: Entangled Teen
All is fair in love and hockey…
Claire O’Connor is back in Juniper Falls, but that doesn’t mean she wants to be. One semester off, that’s what she promised herself. Just long enough to take care of her father and keep the family business—a hockey bar beside the ice rink—afloat. After that, she’s getting the hell out. Again.
Enter Tate Tanley. What happened between them the night before she left town resurfaces the second they lay eyes on each other. But the guy she remembers has been replaced by a total hottie. When Tate is unexpectedly called in to take over for the hockey team’s star goalie, suddenly he’s in the spotlight and on his way to becoming just another egotistical varsity hockey player. And Claire’s sworn off Juniper Falls hockey players for good.
It’s the absolute worst time to fall in love.
For Tate and Claire, hockey isn’t just a game. And they both might not survive a body check to the heart.
Hi, there! Welcome to the cover reveal for Chasing Truth, by Julie Cross 🙂 This reveal is hosted by Chapter by Chapter.
Confession time: I have to say that I signed up for this reveal in the dark: they didn’t provide a blurb for us, just the name of the book and the publisher. I was dead curious (I’m a journalist, after all) and I trusted the publisher, as Entangled Teen has some pretty awesome books. Reading the blurb and seeing the cover now, I don’t know if I’d pick this book up, to be honest I make a point of only reviewing/promoting books that I genuinely like and have an interest in, but unfortunately I already had compromised myself to post this cover reveal, so here we go and I’m sorry! I promise I won’t sign up for stuff in the dark again.
Chasing Truth
The Eleanor Ames Series #1
by Julie Cross
Release Date: September 6th, 2016
Genre: YA Thriller/Mystery
At Holden Prep, the rich and powerful rule the school—and they’ll do just about anything to keep their dirty little secrets hidden.
When former con artist Eleanor Ames’s homecoming date commits suicide, she’s positive there’s something more going on. The more questions she asks, though, the more she crosses paths with Miles Beckett. He’s sexy, mysterious, arrogant…and he’s asking all the same questions.
Eleanor might not trust him—she doesn’t even like him—but they can’t keep their hands off of each other. Fighting the infuriating attraction is almost as hard as ignoring the fact that Miles isn’t telling her the truth…and that there’s a good chance he thinks she’s the killer.
You can pre-order Chasing Truth in both paperback and ebook formats 🙂
I’m so excited to reveal this cover! I saw it months ago and not only loved it, but felt like I finally had something tangible to show the vibe of this story. Chasing Truth began as a teen romance featuring a girl with a unique past–she’s from a family of con-artists. Until recently, Ellie spent her entire life living under multiple identities, being everyone and anyone. So falling for new neighbor, Miles, as herself is brand new territory and that definitely creates a bit of a rocky relationship for my two leads. While the story is still built on all of that, it also evolved into a slightly different recipe as I wrote.
Chasing Truth is 1 part mystery/thriller, 1 part high school drama, 1 part family story, and 2 parts (maybe 3…) romance. If you’re a fan of the TV series Veronica Mars, you’ll find that Chasing Truth has a similar feel. I can’t wait for all of you to have a chance to the read the book in September, but for now, I’ll have to settle for showing off this beautiful cover!
Julie Cross is a NYT and USA Today bestselling author of New Adult and Young Adult fiction, including the Tempest series, a young adult science fiction trilogy which includes Tempest, Vortex, Timestorm (St. Martin’s Press).
She’s also the author of the Letters to Nowhere series, Whatever Life Throws at You, Third Degree, Halfway Perfect, and many more to come!
Julie lives in Central Illinois with her husband and three children. She’s a former gymnast, longtime gymnastics fan, coach, and former Gymnastics Program Director with the YMCA.
She’s a lover of books, devouring several novels a week, especially in the young adult and new adult genres.
Outside of her reading and writing cred, Julie Cross is a committed–but not talented–long distance runner, creator of imaginary beach vacations, Midwest bipolar weather survivor, expired CPR certification card holder, as well as a ponytail and gym shoe addict.
One lucky INTERNATIONAL winner will take home a very exclusive digital ARC of Chasing Truth!
To enter, just click here and good luck: GIVEAWAY!
That’s it, thanks for reading and once again, I’m sorry for showing a book that isn’t really my cup of tea. Regarding promotions, this won’t happen again 🙂
Hello, good morning! It’s time for a blog tour for a lovely YA romance! Brought to you by Chapter by Chapter, here we have the third book in the Creative HeArts series by Shellee Roberts: Crazy Stupid Fauxmance! 😀
Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance
Creative HeArts #3
by Shellee Roberts
Release Date: April 18th, 2016
Genre: YA Contemporary Romance
Publisher: Entangled Teen Crush
Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains a kickass heroine, a boy so hot he’ll make you shiver, and a falling-in-love story fit for the big screen. You’ll want to settle in and have the popcorn ready.
After Mariely Hinojosa and Cabot Wheeler both break up with their significant others at the same party, Mariely sees a way to get even with both of their exes. Everyone knows that the best way to get over a breakup is a hookup—a fake hookup, that is. Three weeks, all fun, no strings, and definitely no heartbreak at the end.
But somewhere between the sweet hand-holding and melt-your-mind kisses, their fake relationship starts to feel less like an act and more like the real thing…but Mariely’s a free-spirited girl from the other side of the tracks, and Cabot’s the hot trust-fund guy from the Hills.
They’d never work for real…
Mariely and Cabot Book 1 of 3. Book 2 coming Winter 2017.
Despite this being the third volume of the series, I saw that each book is a standalone and has its own plot and characters 🙂 I’ve been reading fantastic books from Entangled Teen Crush, so I trust them to make me like Contemporary YA, haha!
Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance is available in both paperback and ebook formats ❤
There are three things (besides her family) that Shellee loves more than Netflix: Dr. Pepper, OTPs, and book boyfriends (I’m looking at you, Gilbert Blythe).
Shellee has been told that her life goal as a writer should be to win prestigious awards that will grant her literary immortality, but as an OG ‘shipper (like, seriously, Tad and Dixie–my first hardcore ship) all she really wants is to create two characters that people love so much they give them a cool mashup name.
Shellee spends her days living the dream with her family in Austin, Texas–and by living the dream she means waking up at the crack of dawn to go to work, chauffeur, walk dogs, do dishes, and fold laundry. At night she gets down to to real business, basking in the warm, blue glow of her computer screen and bringing the stories in her head to life on the page…or watching Veronica and Logan fan videos on YouTube till 2am.
Tomorrow she’s definitely going to kick that procrastination problem to the curb.
Hi, there! Welcome to the second official review of the day 😀 It’s part of my stop at Love Me Never Blog Tour, hosted by Chapter by Chapter 😀 I’ve received my copy of Love Me Never, first book in the Lovely Vicious series from Sara Wolf, in exchange for an honest review and the moment has arrived!
That’s how long it has been since the last time that Isis Blake fell in love. If she can help, this counting will never end. She knows that ugly people like her are not loved, so why even try? She’s okay with being just awesome and perfect all the time instead. Also, she’s the new girl in school, so she has yet to teach people in East Summit High how awesome she is.
Her regular boring high school days come to an end rather quickly, as Isis ends punching the most beautiful and unsuferable boy of the school right in his nose during her first party. How can people allow Jack Hunter to say the most awful things to their face and still like him?
Someone has to put the Ice Prince back into his place in humanity. And Isis is more than willing to be this awesome martyr.
The war is on.
Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂
Honestly? This book was everything I’d hope for and more. SO. MUCH. MORE. I laughed out loud so many times with Isis that my cheeks still hurt, haha! She was one of the best female characters ever and she officially joined my bookish bffs army! Seriously, she rocked my world. I’m feeling blessed for meeting so many wonderful contemporary romances lately – a book like Love Me Never makes me re-think all my previous opinions of the genre and see it in a whole new way!
Also, I could NEVER EVER have predicted that twist and the cliff hanger in the end, OMG! Without any shade of doubt, this is a full big five stars read!
The narrative style is first person, switching points between Isis and Jack, but we mainly follow Isis around, as Jack is the mystery to be solved. I loved Isis and I longed for this sense of camaraderie since Integrity and Gifted Thief. I can only imagine the size of the damages both women would do if working together, haha! World domination is a given!
The plot is ingenious and makes the reader wonder through the possibilities all the time. It’s not really hard to guess the whole story with Isis, but we are left wanting for what Jack truly did for so long! It’s nothing Sherlock Holmes-like complex or anything, but the war and the strings that Jack and Isis pull off during it is just BREATHTAKING! AND THAT TWIST IN THE END?! OMG OMG OMG!!!
The lower characters were totally obfuscated by Isis and Jack. While Jack is the not so mainstream beautiful untouchable type minus the vampireness, Isis is the epitome of a bubbly, smart-ass and strong teen girl. She has insecurities, has deep problems with herself and still manages to pull it all off and have fun, being always true to herself and her beliefs – no matter the social costs of that. Kayla, Wren and Avery also had a big part to play and were very well constructed characters, but seriously. I can’t see their shine like Isis does. ❤
I decided that Jack earned his spot on My Bookish Boyfriends list,despite some things that he did during the story that left me less than impressed. I have a weakness for good looking, really bad and mean and intelligent guys. I wish more real men would appreciate the beauty of being intelligent, haha! Also, Jack reads manga! OMG!
The strongest point on the book is for sure its dialogues and Isis deep thoughts. She’s the what-you-see-is-what-you-get person when it comes to her mouth, so she talks exactly in the way she thinks and this can be both brilliant and hilarious, haha! I took the liberty of selecting some pearls from the book for you to understand what I’m talking about, haha!
This dialogue when Isis first meets Kayla:
Kayla: They are probably VEOs or something.
Isis: CEOs.
Kayla: Yeah! I guess it’s a really important job, but then I thought about it really hard and how can it be so important if it’s only three letters?
Isis: You may be onto something. Something very drunk, byt definitely something.
~*~
This dialogue between Isis and her mom:
Mom: Did you have fun? How many boys did you make out with?
Isis: Seventy. At least.
Mom: How many shots did you take?
Isis: Fourteen. I let go of the wheel halfway home and Jesus drove me the rest of the way.
Mom: I’m glad you had fun.
~*~
A small sneak peek of how Isis and Jack war goes:
Jack: How did you find me? If you hacked into the Club’s computer to look up my appointments-
Isis: Whoa, I think you overestimate me, shitlord. Last time I checked, all I did was be in the wrong place at the right time. I saw you and had to-
Jack: Stalk me.
Isis: – delicately approach you. In a sideways manner. From behind. Without being seen at all. For ten minutes.
~*~
And those Isis solo wisdom moments:
“If I were less perfect I would probably be bothered by insults.”
~*~
“And he uses big weird words, so he’s probably a huge nerd. To be fair, I do, too, but that’s because I’m mildly fabulous. Jack has no such excuse.”
~*~
“Thanks, ancient Chinese philosofers. You guys are the best. And the deadest. But mostly the best.”
~*~
“If there’s anything I’ve learned this year, it’s that I have to stand up for myself, or no one else will.”
~*~
“I know it’s hard to believe, but some people my age aren’t entirely obsessed with the idiotic game called dating! Some of us have lives! And generally higher goals than messing around with our peers. I’ve got colleges to apply to! And friends to hang out with! And an entire life to plan!”
~*~
“I’m not fighting anybody. Well, I have to fight on a daily basis not to marry myself, but no.”
~*~
Overall, If you love YA, fun and galaxy-talking-proportions mind-blowing books, electrical and strong protagonists and a good mystery, PLEASE STOP READING MY DAMN BLOG AND GO READ LOVE ME NEVER!!!
That’s it, thanks so much for reading! And thanks again to Chapter by Chapter for my stop on the tour and for my review copy ❤
ps: If you want to see the covers for the next books in the series, check this post!
Hi, there! Welcome to the other book news post of the day! It’s another cover reveal, this one on Chapter by Chapter’s account, for Spindle, by Shonna Slayton! 😀
Spindle
by Shonna Slayton
400 pages
Release Date: October 4th, 2016
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Genre: YA Historical Fantasy
From the author of Cinderella’s Dress, a brand-new standalone novel that retells the story of Sleeping Beauty, this time set during the Industrial Revolution.
Sleeping Beauty’s happily ever after isn’t the end of the story…
The evil fairy’s magic is still trapped in her unfulfilled curse, and the only way to release it is to see a girl to the death. But the spindle has been hidden away for centuries, until a peddler offers it to an unsuspecting mill girl during the Industrial Revolution.
Briar Jenny had planned to escape her life of poverty and hardship with Wheeler, an ambitious young man who plans to leave the valley and start his own business. Trouble is, he no longer cares for her, fancying the new girl who just moved into town to work at the cotton mill. When Briar tries to use the spindle to win back Wheeler’s heart and secure her future, she has no idea the power she has unleashed.
After pricking her finger on the magic spindle, she falls under a sleeping sickness that slowly claims her body bit by bit. It will take all her strength, to not only survive, but also break the curse and defeat the evil fairy for good.
Personally, I love Sleeping Beauty. She’s my favorite Disney princess at the moment (I keep switching, don’t mind me, haha!) and her story retellings are the one that most grab my attention. So far, I’ve read three, that will be listed on the end of this post, and I can’t wait for Spindle to be my fourth!! Also, I found out that Entangled Teen has an awesome portfolio and I deeply trust them with my YA romances ❤
You can already pre-order Spindle in both paperback and ebook formats at our favorite book buying places! 😀
Shonna Slayton writes historical fairy tales for Entangled TEEN. Cinderella’s Dress and Cinderella’s Shoes, set in the 1940s, are out now. Spindle, a Sleeping Beauty inspired tale set in the late 1800s, will be out October 2016.
She finds inspiration in reading vintage diaries written by teens, who despite using different slang, sound a lot like teenagers today. When not writing, Shonna enjoys amaretto lattes and spending time with her husband and children in Arizona.
The best way to keep in touch is by signing up for her monthly newsletter. She sends out behind-the-scenes info you can’t read anywhere else. Sign up is on the sidebar of her website Shonna Slayton.
Yes, we do have a giveaway! … For USA lovely residents only. If you are a lovely US resident or have someone that can receive the prize there for you, approach to see what you may be taking home! ❤
One lucky winner will receive:
A paperback copy of Cinderella’s Dress
A paperback copy of Cinderella’s Shoes
To enter this lovely giveaway, just click here: GIVEAWAY!
That’s it, thanks for reading ❤ And thanks to Chapter by Chapter for the lovely cover reveal!
PS: those are the retellings of Sleeping Beauty that I already read:
HAMSTEAD, Katie – Princess of Tyrone, The Fairytale Galaxy Chronicles #1 (review here!) [5 STARS!]
RICE, Anne – The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty, Sleeping Beauty series #1 (review here!) [2 stars]
Hi, there! Welcome to another book cover reveal brought to you by YA Bound book Tours! Our star now is The Replacement Crush, from Lisa Brown Roberts!
The Replacement Crush
by Lisa Brown Roberts
Release Date: September 6th 2016
Entangled Teen
Summary
True love can’t be strategized.
Romance book blogger Vivian Galdi is a girl with a plan: the Replacement Crush mission. After her longtime crush pretends their secret summer kissing sessions never happened, Vivian creates a list of safe targets, determined to protect her heart and avoid anyone who pings her zing meter. But nerd-hot Dallas, the new guy in town, sends the mission and Vivian’s zing meter into chaos. While designing software for the bookstore where Vivian works, Dallas wages a counter-mission, analyzing his target and taking advantage of the tactical errors in her strategy.
Does Dallas just like a good game of Replacement Crush Battlefield, or is he on his own mission to prove to Vivian that true love isn’t a matter of strategy? And how much collateral damage can they both sustain during the heat of battle?
You can already pre-order this beauty in both paperback and digital formats at our top book buying places 😀
Bellow, you can read a brief bio from Lisa, the author!
Lisa Brown Roberts still hasn’t recovered from the teenage trauma of nearly tweezing off both eyebrows and having to pencil them in for an entire school year. This and other angst-filled memories inspire her to write YA books about navigating life’s painful and funny dramas, and falling in love along the way. She lives in Colorado in a house full of books, boys, four-legged prima donnas, and lots of laughter.
Hi, there! Welcome to a very special book review – and I’m not saying this only because our book star today is on blog tour, hosted by Chapter by Chapter. No, this is a soul-touching and warm book that definitely was one of my best young adult contemporary romances of all time! I’m talking about Playing Defense, second standalone book for Corrigan Falls Raiders series, from marvelous and brilliant Cate Cameron! ❤
Claudia is the kind of girl that has no time to fool around. She has a target and its name is Waterloo University; in order to go studying Engineering there, she must give her best on high school. And give her best didn’t include tutoring one of the stars of the local town hockey team, Chris Winslow.
But it happened. Because life isn’t fair.
Chris isn’t your typical gorilla hockey player. He’s relaxed, funny and easy-going, a real peace and love spirit in flesh. His dream is to become a professional hockey player, but one must be prepared for anything that life may reserve – that’s why he needs tutoring. Chris is failing at chemistry and functions and the only way to stay on his team and have a shot at an university instead of a community college is to have better marks.
But he couldn’t have know just how much fun chemistry and functions were when on Claudia’s hands.
When Claudia and Chris’ worlds collide, there’s no telling what may happen. The only certain that they got is that their tutoring deal definitely was one of the best deals of the world.
The Analysis
Just remembering that those were my impressions and opinion as a reader 🙂
I don’t have the words to start this review. When I signed up to participate in this blog tour, the possibility of being swept off my feet for this book didn’t even cross my mind. I was in for a cute and light high school romance and I’ve received so much more. This book is awesomeness in its purest form, a gift to the YA contemporary romance – a genre that I usually avoid at all costs. But not Playing Defense. This book had everything that I adore on a book: a powerful female (even if she doesn’t know it on the beginning; actions speak way more than words lol), a goofy and hot male (without being stupid or a jerk, may I add), switching point of views in the story, wonderful dialogues and real characters. Oh, and a cliffhanger plot! How could I want more? Also, there was a book reader character named Annalise and she sounds just like me in high school, for good and bad. Cameron warmed my heart and gave me a metaphorical hug with this book, so how could I rate it any less than 5 stars? If I could, I would give it all the stars in the world! (Damn Goodreads for not having a “Galaxy’s stars” rating after the 5th one!)
The narrative was first person styled and switched points of view between Claudia and Chris restoring my faith on this kind of narrative. I was enchanted by both characters during the whole book, so it worked for me while reading Playing Defense to have both POVs to compare. Chris for sure is the best male narrator of all times and he did made it to My Bookish Boyfriends list. And, for the first time in a very long while, I wished I could meet someone in real life that had his type of personality. But we’ll get there.
Now I must comment on Cameron’s writing style.
Seriously, Cameron managed to turn an intense and a somehow dramatic novel into something light and funny without being silly or useless, you know? You get punched in your gut with all the emotions but you don’t mind, because Chris is so funny and Claudia is so awesome. Their minds are so distinct and yet so connected, they are random and stupid at times… They are teenagers with strong minds. Not overly mature, not whiny. PERFECT. And only a brilliant writing style can transmit all of that on first person narrated books.
me and this book
The plot was simple, but of the anything-can-happen type, so I braced myself for all kinds of ends and twists. Good that I did that, haha! Playing Defense is not here to play [haha], it really gets to the readers and steals their hearts. Mine is missing still and I don’t know when it will return. The book had a tiny loose end, but nothing that bothered me terribly.
The characters were awesome. And the high irony in this is that they are actually working in the book to make themselves more awesome by trying to smooth their flaws as a group: the Sisterhood of Awesomeness, which has two sister boys. What can I say, it’s a very open minded group 😉 And honestly? I wish I could be part of it just to hear Chris say that he wants to be a sister because it makes him feel pretty.
This is the spirit of the sisterhood lol
Seriously, I laughed so hard reading this book that I had to wipe my eyes off several times, to catch my breath and see if more oxygen was already available in the room. I didn’t felt this way since Carry On.
I’ll start with Claudia, as her POV starts the book: I didn’t expect to like her. I have a really hard time liking YA female protagonists because they tend to be too self-centered, whiny or simply dense, but I liked Claudia since page one. I should have seem what was coming, but I didn’t. She was immature in so many ways, but you could tell how hard she worked for anything in her life, how she cared about being a better person and not for the sake of others, but for her own. She grew up a lot in the book and she was scared because of that. Not once she stopped. Not even when she thought she had stopped. She hadn’t. I found myself a new bookish best friend to hang around with Integrity and I couldn’t be happier!
As for Chris, he is simply the best male narrator ever. He was an example of the perfect flawed guy, as he is so not perfect and still manages to look like he is without even trying. He had a great sense of humor, goofed around, was very smart [not as much intelligent, but definitely smart] and a prejudice kicker guy. I knew I was going to fall hard for him in the moment he insisted he was going to be a sister of the Sisterhood of Awesomeness and then I did fall hard for him when he told Oliver that no one would mess up with his boyfriend [Oliver] and get away with it. Oh, did I mention that he has an inner princess? He does.
To be honest, I fell in love with all Claudia and Chris’ friends: Karen, Dawn, Tyler, Oliver, Annalise [yes, I was in the book #kidding], Karen’s sisters, their poetry teacher… Awesome people. Annalise, Claudia’s best friend, was the portrait of my high school self, for good and evil. I didn’t agree with some of her actions and I wouldn’t have done them, but her personality and her way to face the world was exactly how I behaved and felt on high school: always with my nose on books, living in other realities and really not minding the real world, as it sucked hard. I wish I could hug Annalise and tell her how much better our lives get when we start college/university life.
The strongest point in this book, however, is the dialogical construction. Hm, maybe it’s a tie between Chris and the dialogical construction, but I took the liberty of selecting some of my favorite quotes and dialogues to illustrate my point:
“It was kind of scary, telling other people what words have power over you” – Claudia
~*~
Claudia: “We probably need more members, too.”
Chris: “Can I play?”
Claudia: “Did you catch the Sisterhood part?”
Chis: “Yeah, but…whatever. I figure I’m high enough on the ‘awesome’ to make up for being low on the ‘sister’.” (…)
Karen: “You’re a small-town hockey player, Chris! You’re supposed to just grunt and talk about ‘scoring’ with as many different subtexts as you can find. You should go get in a fight with someone, not sit here talking like you’re auditioning to replace Oprah.”
Chris: “When we’re speaking as sisters, I’d prefer it if you called me Topher.”
~*~
“It was Chris. Goofy, lazy Chris who was afraid of his mom and liked being a member of the sisterhood because it made him feel pretty.” – Claudia
~*~
Chris: Most people like me, you know. I’m likeable. That’s just a fact. So statistically, your mom will probably like me, too.”
Claudia: You can’t really use statistics like that. You can’t pretend we’re dealing with completely random variables.
Chris: Well, you lost me on that, but I think I can use statistics any way I want to. Who’s going to stop me?
Claudia: Reality.
Chris: Statistically unlikely.
~*~
Claudia: I really missed you.
Chris: I got that. I missed you, too.
Claudia: If you died, I’d be sorry we hadn’t had sex.
Chris: Wow. That’s… I can’t decide if I should tell you to stop thinking about me dying, or just keep my mouth shut and let you talk yourself into having sex with me.
Claudia: I don’t think I’m going to talk myself into it.
~*~
Seriously, just stop standing here and go grab this book to fangirl about it with me!! I’ll even leave the buying links bellow, so just GO. You need this book in your life.
Thank you for reading my review! Here you can learn more about where to buy Playing Defense, who is Cate Cameron, the Great, and what does the first book in the Corrigan Falls Raiders series talks about:
Cate Cameron grew up in the city but moved to the country in her mid-twenties and isn’t looking back. Most of her writing deals with people living and loving in small towns or right out in the sticks—when there aren’t entertainment options on every corner, other people get a lot more interesting!
She likes to write stories about real people struggling with real issues. YA, NA, or contemporary romance, her books are connected by their emphasis on subtle humor and characters who are trying to do the right thing, even when it would be a lot easier to do something wrong.
About Center Ice, first book in the Corrigan Falls Raiders series
This Entangled Teen Crush book contains adult language, underage drinking, sexual situations, and crazy squirrels. It may cause you to become a fan of hockey – or at least hot hockey players.
The hometown hockey hero won’t know what hit him…
Karen Webber is in small-town hell. After her mother’s death, she moved to Corrigan Falls to live with strangers—her dad and his perfect, shiny new family—and there doesn’t seem to be room for a city girl with a chip on her shoulder. The only person who makes her feel like a real human being is Tyler MacDonald.
But Karen isn’t interested in starting something with a player. And that’s all she keeps hearing about Tyler.
Corrigan Falls is a hockey town, and Tyler’s the star player. But the viselike pressure from his father and his agent are sending him dangerously close to the edge. All people see is hockey—except Karen. Now they’ve managed to find something in each other that they both desperately need. And for the first time, Tyler is playing for keeps…
That’s it! Thanks for reaching this far on the post and, once again, thanks so much to Chapter by Chapters by the opportunity of meeting such a fabulous book ❤
I make a point of only reviewing/promoting books that I genuinely like and have an interest in, but unfortunately I already had compromised myself to post this cover reveal, so here we go and I’m sorry! I promise I won’t sign up for stuff in the dark again.
The Book Adventures of Annelise Lestrange 