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Review: The Project by Courtney Summers

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense/Thriller, New Adult 18up, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,
The Project by Courtney Summers

The Project
Courtney Summers
Wednesday Books
Published February 2, 2021

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About The Project

Lo Denham is used to being on her own. After her parents died, Lo’s sister, Bea, joined The Unity Project, leaving Lo in the care of their great aunt. Thanks to its extensive charitable work and community outreach, The Unity Project has won the hearts and minds of most in the Upstate New York region, but Lo knows there’s more to the group than meets the eye. She’s spent the last six years of her life trying—and failing—to prove it.

When a man shows up at the magazine Lo works for claiming The Unity Project killed his son, Lo sees the perfect opportunity to expose the group and reunite with Bea once and for all. When her investigation puts her in the direct path of its leader, Lev Warren and as Lo delves deeper into The Project, the lives of its members it upends everything she thought she knew about her sister, herself, cults, and the world around her—to the point she can no longer tell what’s real or true. Lo never thought she could afford to believe in Lev Warren . . . but now she doesn’t know if she can afford not to.

My Review

I could not stop reading this book. It’s super intense in all the best ways. And it seemed like with every chapter, the stakes only got higher. I really needed to know what would happen.

The beginning confused me a little bit. It begins with Bea’s point-of-view, told in third person present tense. Then alternates between her point-of-view and Lo’s (first person present tense), and once I got that far, I felt like I found a rhythm.

THE PROJECT has so many great things. I loved the juxtaposition of the zeal for writing news at SVO, the magazine where Lo works for a charismatic, energetic boss against the magnetic change-the-world attitude of the Unity Project. It felt like a sly contrast showing the difference between a cult and a passion project, if that makes sense??? And also a great way to show some important things about Lo’s character that make some of the events late in the story make sense.

So the Unity Project… at first I was a little creeped out because the leader uses a lot of bastardized Christian ideas (which some cults do, so it’s pretty real). As a Christian myself, it’s always icky to see something be twisted like that, but I felt like as the story went on, it was so clear that the Unity Project not only wasn’t preaching Christian doctrine, but wasn’t pretending to, either. For some reason that made a difference to me.

Anyway– Lo and Bea. Okay, so I’m a huge, ginormous fan of sister stories, and this one is no exception. I loved that their relationship wasn’t perfect, and that they always seemed kind of like seesaw sisters? You know, where one is up when the other is down, never really synced up with each other. But through the narrative, you see that they love one another and how their lives impact each other, even through the time they’re not close.

One note on age range: Though I think this is billed as young adult fiction and Lo is seventeen (I think Bea is in her early twenties), I’m not sure I’d put it on the shelf with YA. I think the themes and attitudes of the characters place it more solidly in a new adult age group.

On the whole, THE PROJECT pretty much swallowed me whole. I felt like I read it all wide-eyed, barely blinking because I didn’t want to stop reading even long enough for that! It’s got some heavy content, so please check that out, but if you enjoy darker suspense novels, this is a top notch one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 18 up.

Representation
I think the major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Brief and longer descriptions of sexual contact between a boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
The leader of the Unity Project uses Bible verses to reference himself (as a stand-in for God or Jesus) and explain his actions. A Catholic priest offers help to Lo.

Violent Content – Trigger Warning for domestic abuse and torture.
References to domestic child abuse. Some references to and descriptions of torture.

Drug Content
Lo’s coworkers often meet after work at a bar, but she skips those gatherings because she’s underage.

Note: I received a free copy of THE PROJECT in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog.

Review: Princess of Thorns by Stacey Jay

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , ,

Princess of Thorns
Stacey Jay
Delacorte Press
Published December 9, 2014

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Princess of Thorns

Game of Thrones meets the Grimm’s fairy tales in this twisted, fast-paced romantic fantasy-adventure about Sleeping Beauty’s daughter, a warrior princess who must fight to reclaim her throne.

Though she looks like a mere mortal, Princess Aurora is a fairy blessed with enhanced strength, bravery, and mercy yet cursed to destroy the free will of any male who kisses her. Disguised as a boy, she enlists the help of the handsome but also cursed Prince Niklaas to fight legions of evil and free her brother from the ogre queen who stole Aurora’s throne ten years ago.

Will Aurora triumph over evil and reach her brother before it’s too late? Can Aurora and Niklaas break the curses that will otherwise forever keep them from finding their one true love?

My Review

This book has been on my reading list for YEARS. I don’t know why it took me so long to read it, since it has a lot of things I like: star-crossed romance, references to familiar fairy tales, alternating viewpoints between Aurora and Niklaas, capricious magic, and political intrigue.

I loved how the fairy blessings that Aurora’s mother passed to her also became curses in their way. She meant them for good, but the magic didn’t work quite the way she and Aurora expected. That created some interesting situations for Aurora to navigate.

PRINCESS OF THORNS spins some darker themes into its fairytale story in othere ways, too. Aurora’s mother is THE Sleeping Beauty Princess from the fairytale, only in this story, the prince wasn’t the hero from the original story. Niklaas bears his own curse– one ordered against him and all his brothers by their immortal father– in which he’ll turn into a swan at sunrise on his eighteenth birthday. I liked the ties to other fairy tales and how even those familiar things were reimagined.

The only thing I struggled with at all was a moment in the climax (which I will try not to spoil) that left me feeling a bit let down. It felt like a thing happened because Aurora wanted it badly enough, and I found myself wishing that there had been something more concrete that she had to do instead.

On the whole, though, I really enjoyed this book and I kind of wish that Aurora and Niklaas would go on to try to break his brothers’ curse and confront his father in another book. It looks like there was some discussion of a sequel at one point (there was a Kicktraq fundraiser for one) but I don’t see any recent news about it.

I think readers who enjoyed A CURSE SO DARK AND LONELY by Brigid Kemmerer will love this one.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 15 up.

Representation
Major characters are white.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Mild profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Reference to sex between boy and girl. Niklaas hints at past sexual exploits. Aurora remembers a boy she kissed and considered doing more with. A young woman makes a sexual advance at Aurora (while she’s dressed as her brother) and grabs her groin. Kissing and touching between boy and girl.

Spiritual Content
Aurora has been fairy blessed– received powers her mother meant to protect her, which act more as a curse sometimes. A witch cursed Niklaas and his brothers at his father’s request. Ogres consume human souls for their power. Some have the ability to see the future. A woman with a demon feeding on her ear tells Aurora some details about her future.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. Several mentions of and some descriptions of torture. A couple battle scenes.

Drug Content
Aurora and Niklaas drink beer together at an inn.

Note: This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support running this blog. I received a free copy of PRINCESS OF THORNS in exchange for my honest review.

Review: Girl of Hawthorn and Glass by Adan Jerreat-Poole

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Girl of Hawthorn and Glass
Adan Jerreat-Poole
Dundurn Press
Published October 6, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Girl of Hawthorn and Glass

Eli isn’t just a teenage girl — she’s a made-thing the witches created to hunt down ghosts in the human world. Trained to kill with her seven magical blades, Eli is a flawless machine, a deadly assassin. But when an assignment goes wrong, Eli starts to question everything she was taught about both worlds, the Coven, and her tyrannical witch-mother.

Worried that she’ll be unmade for her mistake, Eli gets caught up with a group of human and witch renegades, and is given the most difficult and dangerous task in the worlds: capture the Heart of the Coven. With the help of two humans, one motorcycle, and a girl who smells like the sea, Eli is going to get answers — and earn her freedom.

My Review

The story world in GIRL OF HAWTHORN AND GLASS is unlike anything else I’ve ever read. It’s both contemporary and fanciful, charming and full of teeth. A tiny coffee shop to a forest of awake trees to a walled compound of violent witch children to a library where the books might attack. It kind of has everything.

From the first page I found Eli likeable. Right away I wanted to follow her down the path of solving the mysteries of her existence and to learn more about the mysterious motorcycle rider who befriends her. I loved the banter between Cam and Tav, too. Those two were fantastic.

The story is a bit dark. The magic has that eye-for-an-eye feel to it, where the rules are unbreakable, and it’s all about figuring out how to make what you need conform to the rules of the magic. And Eli is, after all, an assassin, so she thinks a lot about killing, and, until things start to go sideways, she never questions her assignments.

I think readers who liked NEVERWHERE by Neil Gaiman or THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SORROWS OF AVA LAVENDER by Leslye J. Walton will definitely want to check out this book.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Tav is Black and nonbinary. Cam is Asian-American and gay. Eli is pansexual.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two girls. Kissing between a girl and nonbinary character.

Spiritual Content
Witches, who live in a connected but separate world, created Eli to kill ghosts in the human world. Eli is made from stone and blood and other materials. Witches have rituals– sometimes about giving gifts or accepting favors.

Violent Content
One scene describes Eli killing someone she believes to be a ghost. Other situations of peril. In the witch world, there are children who are fixated on violence. Eli can transform into a toothy crocodile girl and does so to bite an opponent.

Drug Content
None.

Note: I received a free copy of GIRL OF HAWTHORN AND GLASS in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: Where Dreams Descend by Janella Angeles

Book Review and Content, Fantasy, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , ,

Where Dreams Descend (Kingdom of Cards #1)
Janella Angeles
Wednesday Books
Published August 25, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About Where Dreams Descend

In a city covered in ice and ruin, a group of magicians face off in a daring game of magical feats to find the next headliner of the Conquering Circus, only to find themselves under the threat of an unseen danger striking behind the scenes.

As each act becomes more and more risky and the number of missing magicians piles up, three are forced to reckon with their secrets before the darkness comes for them next.

The Star: Kallia, a powerful showgirl out to prove she’s the best no matter the cost

The Master: Jack, the enigmatic keeper of the club, and more than one lie told

The Magician: Demarco, the brooding judge with a dark past he can no longer hide.

My Review

This might be the best book I’ve read all year. I feel like I keep saying that, but honestly, there have been so many great books this year! WHERE DREAMS DESCEND is definitely near if not at the top of my list.

I loved Kallia. She’s a take no prisoners, driven, smart, savvy lady who never gives up. I loved her relationship with Aaros, the thief she takes under her wing to be her magician’s assistant in the competition. And of course, I loved DeMarco, too. (Fun fact– DeMarco was my great-grandmother’s name.)

This story hit so many perfect notes for me. The moral dilemmas. The mysterious dangers lurking throughout the competition and some characters’ pasts. The forbidden romance. The angsty magicians. The strong sisterhood of performers coming together to support one another.

The beginning started out a little bit slow for me, but once the competition began, I was completely hooked. I couldn’t wait to read every page, and I dreaded reaching the final chapter, too, because then it would be over.

WHERE DREAMS DESCEND is one of those books I’m going to want to read again like next week just to savor it all over again. I feel like I can’t even say enough how much I loved it. Seriously, if you can only buy one more book this year, pick this one!

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 13 up.

Representation
Kallia has brown skin and curly hair.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Profanity used somewhat frequently. (Approximately 35 times.)

Romance/Sexual Content
Intense kissing and desire between a man and woman. Some sensual dancing.

Spiritual Content
Some characters possess magic. At least one character is not human/mortal. Shadowy shapes seem to pursue some characters, possibly intending harm.

Violent Content
Situations of peril. One scene shows a monster. In another scene, characters are showered with broken glass.

Drug Content
Some scenes show characters drinking alcohol at social dinners and a bar.

Note: I received a free copy of WHERE DREAMS DESCEND in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

About Janella Angeles

Twitter | Instagram | Website

JANELLA ANGELES is a Filipino-American author who got her start in writing through consuming glorious amounts of fanfiction at a young age—which eventually led to penning a few of her own, and later on, creating original stories from her imagination. A lifelong lover of books, she’s lucky enough to be working in the business of publishing them on top of writing them. She currently resides in Massachusetts, where she’s most likely to be found listening to musicals on repeat and daydreaming too much for her own good. Where Dreams Descend is her first book.

Review: It Came From the Sky by Chelsea Sedoti

Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , , , , , ,

It Came From the Sky
Chelsea Sedoti
Sourcebooks Fire
Published August 1, 2020

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Book Depository | Indiebound | Goodreads

About It Came From the Sky

This is the absolutely true account of how Lansburg, Pennsylvania was invaded by aliens and the weeks of chaos that followed. There were sightings of UFOs, close encounters, and even abductions. There were believers, Truth Seekers, and, above all, people who looked to the sky and hoped for more.

Only… there were no aliens.

Gideon Hofstadt knows what really happened. When one of his science experiments went wrong, he and his older brother blamed the resulting explosion on extraterrestrial activity. And their lie was not only believed by their town―it was embraced. As the brothers go to increasingly greater lengths to keep up the ruse and avoid getting caught, the hoax flourishes. But Gideon’s obsession with their tale threatened his whole world. Can he find a way to banish the aliens before Lansburg, and his life, are changed forever?

Told in a report format and comprised of interviews, blog posts, text conversations, found documents, and so much more, It Came from the Sky is a hysterical and resonant novel about what it means to be human in the face of the unknown.

From the author of The Hundred Lies of Lizzie Lovett and As You Wish comes the unforgettable story of the one small town’s biggest hoax and the two brothers who started it all.

“A page-turner as engrossing as any classic Twilight Zone starring two spirited brothers who run circles around the Hardy Boys.” – Ben Philippe, Morris Award-winning author of The Field Guide to the North American Teenager

My Review

I have mixed feelings about this book. The whole situation– the explosion that leads to the alien encounter hoax– is kind of funny. I’m generally a fan of stories in which the characters land themselves in bizarre situations and then have to panic-slash-mastermind their way out of them only to have unanticipated consequences result. So this story definitely scratches that itch for me.

I just… didn’t like Gideon. I appreciated his intelligence. And I sympathized with his struggle to communicate his emotions and his aversion to sticky foods. But all of it seemed so selfish to me. He seemed so selfish. Even the idea that he could perpetrate this large-scale lie without any remorse, because it’s for science! I had a lot of trouble connecting with him.

Even though I didn’t connect with Gideon, I read the whole book because I hoped that it would have the kind of resolution that would make it all make sense and that if he really learned his lesson, it’d be worth the investment in the book.

And he does learn some things and make some changes. There’s growth. One of the things I didn’t like (and I’m going to be vague for spoilers reasons) was that toward the end, Gideon is faced with someone who has committed two different types of crimes. In my mind, one was much more personal and damaging than the other. But it felt like because the other frustrated Gideon more, he prioritized reporting it.

All in all, I thought the idea was fun, and the story was interesting, but this one isn’t for me. If you like goofy heist or prank stories, though, IT CAME FROM THE SKY is one I think you’ll want to check out.

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 14 up.

Representation
Gideon is gay.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used infrequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between two boys. References to sex between an adult and minor.

Spiritual Content
None.

Violent Content
None.

Drug Content
Gideon discovers an adult who is drunk and behaving unsafely.

Note: I received a free copy of IT CAME FROM THE SKY in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.

Review: Today Tonight Tomorrow by Rachel Lynn Solomon

Blogger's Favorites, Book Review and Content, Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult/Teen 12-18, , , , , ,

Today Tonight Tomorrow
Rachel Lynn Solomon
Simon Pulse
Published July 28, 2020

Amazon | Bookshop | Goodreads

About Today Tonight Tomorrow

Today, she hates him.

It’s the last day of senior year. Rowan Roth and Neil McNair have been bitter rivals for all of high school, clashing on test scores, student council elections, and even gym class pull-up contests. While Rowan, who secretly wants to write romance novels, is anxious about the future, she’d love to beat her infuriating nemesis one last time.

Tonight, she puts up with him.

When Neil is named valedictorian, Rowan has only one chance at victory: Howl, a senior class game that takes them all over Seattle, a farewell tour of the city she loves. But after learning a group of seniors is out to get them, she and Neil reluctantly decide to team up until they’re the last players left—and then they’ll destroy each other.

As Rowan spends more time with Neil, she realizes he’s much more than the awkward linguistics nerd she’s sparred with for the past four years. And, perhaps, this boy she claims to despise might actually be the boy of her dreams.

Tomorrow…maybe she’s already fallen for him.

THE HATING GAME meets NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST by way of Morgan Matson in this unforgettable romantic comedy about two rival overachievers whose relationship completely transforms over the course of twenty-four hours.

My Review

I could not put this book down. It’s funny. TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW is packed with the kind of snappy banter that I adore. It’s thoughtful. The story made me rethink my feelings on romance as a reading genre. And most of all, it’s desperately romantic.

Most of the book centers around a contest called The Howl, in which the whole senior class participates in a kind of photo scavenger hunt all around Seattle. It’s a race to win a prize of $5000, which both Rowan and Neil fiercely need. The contest gave the story a straightforward structure and high stakes. But what makes TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW really magical, though, is the relationship between Rowan and Neil themselves.

I’m kind of a sucker for enemies-to-lovers stories anyway, but this one had this perfect mix of wit, awkwardness, self-doubt, vulnerability, and passion. I cannot say this enough: I. Loved. It.

A Discussion of Romance

A brief note on the views about romance in the story: In the book, Rowan loves romance novels and has written one herself. She muses about the fact that romance as a genre centers women in a way that other media does not, and yet people often treat it with disdain. She discusses how reading romance also made her feel empowered and comfortable talking about sex.

Her love for romance is really woven into the story, so it doesn’t feel out of place or very preachy. It made me stop and consider the way media represents women. My daughter has participated in a local children’s theater group, and often the majority of the speaking roles are for male characters. I feel like this is something where, once you start noticing it, you kind of can’t stop. Ha.

At any rate, I really appreciated this part of TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW and especially the letter at the end from the author which explained some of her own evolution on those ideas.

All in all, fans of THE ONLY THING WORSE THAN ME IS YOU by Lily Anderson really need to check this one out. If you like witty banter and enemies-to-lovers stories, put TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW at the top of your list!

Content Notes

Recommended for Ages 16 up.

Representation
Major characters are Jewish. Side characters are Korean, bisexual, and lesbian.

Profanity/Crude Language Content
Extreme profanity used fairly frequently.

Romance/Sexual Content
Kissing between boy and girl. References to sex. One scene shows characters discussing having sex and then briefly doing so.

Spiritual Content
Rowan’s family has Shabbat dinner together. References to bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah celebrations and communities of faith.

Violent Content
References to a man beating up a teenager and a girl getting into a fistfight. Some micro and not-so-micro aggressions against Jewish characters.

Drug Content
Neil and Rowan buy cookies with pot in them and get high together.

Note: I received a free copy of TODAY TONIGHT TOMORROW in exchange for my honest review. This post contains affiliate links, which do not cost you anything to use, but which help support the costs of running this blog.