Recently read books [medium-size reviews]

 Dizzy - Nyrae Dawn & Jolene Perry

I think there should be a GoodReads star for "I loved it" that falls in between "really liked it" and "it was amazing". If there was I would give this book that star! I really did love it, and I will enjoy re-reading it someday as well. I think Dylan was definitely a hot character, and I really loved Ziah's personality. It was sweet to see the romance unfolding between them, and I tell ya what, there were some hot kissing scenes! The scene in the tunnel is particularly a favourite of mine. ;) So if you're a fan of contemp YA romance, I'd highly recommend this one. Thanks ladies :)


Riversong - Tess Thompson (free from Amazon)

Well, this technically is a romance I guess, 'cause it has a happy ending. But not just between the romantic pair - it's also between our main character and the entire town she returns to. I really loved this book. I enjoyed the often poetic writing style. The read was sadly marred by some formatting issues, mostly typos but also entire words missed out here and there. Thankfully they weren't all through the book, and Thompson knows how to use apostrophes. All the book really needs is a good proof read to be made almost perfect, I think. As for plot, I think the resolution of the Zac / Von issue was rushed a little bit, and I think Zac could have been portrayed as more angry/dangerous. Re: the religious aspect, I didn't realise this was meant to be a Christian book in part. Thankfully it wasn't preachy, and the one character who is overtly religious sort of makes sense, considering his background and so on. Also, the way he talked about God was nice because he found God inside himself.

Wicked Games - Jessica Clare (free from Amazon)

Before I started this one, I'd tried starting a few other freebies that just didn't grip me. But I started this and pretty quickly found myself bursting into snorting laughter and basically hooked on the story. It's definitely fluff in the sense that it doesn't try to tackle serious issues or bring about world peace. And yet I really had a good time reading it. I will say that the "happily ever after" was delivered extremely quickly - like, within 3 sentences at the end! But other than that, the storyline was amusing, and I loved main character Abby's sense of humour - and her sarcasm and bitterness too. In the end that bitterness wasn't portrayed as a flattering thing, but it sure made for great ratings (the book is set on a Survivor-esque reality TV show). The sexy scenes definitely grabbed my attention, and were well written and enjoyable. The early fights between Abby and Dean were classic. And I liked the take on this type of reality show. It was amusing to experience the POV of an extremely unwilling participant in such a show. So, to summarise = it's fluff but it's FUNNN-AY, and sexy/romantic too. :)

War of the Worlds - H.G. Wells

Yeah, I fiiiinally finished this, but don't let the extremely slow pace of reading fool ya. I loved this book. I did see the Tom Cruise movie of this story when it came out, and I am pretty sure I enjoyed it (though can't really remember much of it now), but somebody mentioned that they'd like to see a movie version that is set in the era the book was written in. i.e. NOT a modern-day take. And this was actually what I thought myself on occasion while reading the book for the first time. This book is set in an era where there are hardly any cars, and most people ride bicycles. There aren't mass-murdering weapons of war that humans can bring to bear on the invading aliens, and so there are slaughters of humans who are as puny ants in the path of the fearsome Martians. I definitely agree that a movie set in the era the book describes would have potential to be awesome. This is the first of H.G. Wells's works that I've read, and having read it I can say I would love to read more of his work.

Rachel Hawkins's HEX HALL series

Last year I read my first Rachel Hawkins book, #1 in the Hex Hall series, and I loved it. I also wrote a tiny little review over at GoodReads that went a little bit like this:

Okay, so I read this one pretty quickly! It was an easy read, for sure. I LOVE the character of Sophie - she cracked me up on numerous occasions. I love her voice - witty and sarcastic. I also love that she said 'shitty'. I really liked Hawkins's writing too - it was clever and funny and well paced. I look forward to reading the next book, which I have yet to order. This is definitely a book I'd recommend for anyone who likes fun, easy-to-read and pretty light-hearted YA.

It took me until well over a year later to get around to reading book #2, and I loved this one just as much. Here is my review of #2 (hey, that rhymes), slightly abridged and amended:

I finally got my hands on DEMONGLASS and finished it the other day. I wasn't disappointed with this read - Hawkins's writing is as funny as ever, and the plotline moves along at a nice pace (plus it's cool). The ending is one great big cliffhanger. And...I don't have much else to say about this story, except that I really, really hope Sophie ends up with Cal, 'cause he is TEH HOTNESS and for some reason I just can't dig that Archer guy. Sophie needs a good bitch slap back into the reality that is Team Cal, I think. ;)

Have any of you read the Hex Hall books? What did you think? I personally found myself laughing - a lot - and turning pages pretty quickly. Maybe it's not literary, and maybe it has a love triangle (which I generally am not a huge fan of), but you know what? I don't remember seeing one single typo in either of these books, and the writing is fun and entertaining, and the characters are witty and cute (and sometimes evil). But now for my final question -

are you Team Archer or Team Cal?

p.s. I gotta get book #3!