Overall: 2.5/5 Stars
Characters: 2/5
Setting: 2/5
Writing: 2/5
Plot and Themes: 3/5
Awesomeness Factor: 3/5
Review In A Nutshell: The Supervillain and Me is cute, but reads more as a younger-YA contemporary rather than a superhero novel.
“He saw me in a way I hadn’t realized I wanted to be seen until I met him. Not a hero, not someone with powers, but just a girl.”
/trigger warning: This book is about a school shooting, so there is a lot of gun violence. There are also mentions of rape and sexual assault/
Overall: 3.5/5 Stars
Characters: 3/5
Setting: 3/5
Writing: 4/5
Plot and Themes: 4/5
Awesomeness Factor: 4/5
Review In A Nutshell: The topic of This Is Where It Ends, and general plot, is really important, and I think it’s really important for people to try to understand more so that we as a society can figure out how to put an end to it. As just a book, it was okay, but when you add the importance of the message, this book becomes something great.
“I never realized that courage was so terrifying.”
Overall: 3.5/5 Stars
Characters: 3/5
Setting: 4/5
Writing: 3/5
Plot and Themes: 4/5
Awesomeness Factor: 3/5
Review In A Nutshell: Not If I Save You First is a fun, lighthearted younger-YA book that’s easy to jump into and enjoy.
“Someday I’m going to write a book: How to Not Die in Alaska — A Girl’s Guide to Fashionable Survival.”
It’s really hard to rate this as a whole, considering it’s an anthology. Scroll down to see my thoughts on each individual story.
Overall: 3.5/5 Stars
Characters: 4/5
Setting: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Plot and Themes: 4/5
Awesomeness Factor: 3/5
Review In A Nutshell: Meet Cute is an adorable anthology filled with a variety of diverse stories by great authors. While some stories don’t shine as bright, others are absolutely perfect and make this 100% worth the read.
“Some people you want to get to know and some people you want to know you”
Favorite Stories: The Dictionary of You and Me by Jennifer L. Armentrout, The Department of Dead Love by Nicola Yoon, Oomph by Emery Lord
Least Favorite Stories: Hourglass by Ibi Zoboi, Siege Etiquette by Katie Cotugno, The Way We Love Here by Dhonielle Clayton (although I would read a longer version of this story, I think my biggest issues with this one were all problems caused by the length)
/trigger warning for this book: sexual assault, rape/
Overall: 2/5 Stars | 3/5 Stars
Characters: 2/5 | 3/5
Setting: 3/5 | 3/5
Writing: 2/5 | 2.5/5
Plot and Themes: 1/5 | 2/5
Awesomeness Factor: 2/5 | 3/5
Review In A Nutshell: Lullaby had a great premise and could have been amazing. Unfortunately, the writing style, pacing, and the characters make this book very disappointing.
“I believed creativity to be the expression of the person, who they were inside. Evil didn’t create beauty like this.”
Note: This review was initially written for the 1st Edition, released January 2018. After posting, the author had reached out to me and other reviewers to edit the book and republish. The second edition – the version currently for sale, as of February 2018 – has addressed a lot of these issues. I have increased my rating here to reflect my new rating of her book (but I also left my previous rating), and any issues that were addressed in the new edition have *s next to them to indicate that it is either less of a problem or gone entirely.
I was so excited to see a book coming out combating Islamophobia and showing the damage these horrible stereotypes cause. Unfortunately, Love, Hate & Other Filters wasn’t as amazing as I had hoped it would be.
Overall: 3/5 Stars
Characters: 2/5
Setting: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Plot and Themes: 4/5
Awesomeness Factor: 4/5
Review In A Nutshell: The initial premise of Love, Hate & Other Filters is so good, and the scenes that revolve around Islamophobia and racism were compelling and left an impression. However, the other aspects of this book lacked any impact and took away from my overall opinion of it.
“These terrorists are the antithesis of Islam. They’re not Muslim. Violence has no place in religion, and the terrorists are responsible for their own crimes, not the religion and not us.”
Overall: 3/5 Stars
Characters: 2/5
Setting: 3/5
Writing: 3/5
Plot and Themes: 4/5
Awesomeness Factor: 3/5
Review In A Nutshell: The premise of Every Day was really interesting, and the writing style was great, but unfortunately, the characters weren’t that likable, and it had a bad case of insta-love.
“If there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s this: We all want everything to be okay. We don’t even wish so much for fantastic or marvelous or outstanding. We will happily settle for okay, because most of the time, okay is enough.”
“How can any girl expect a high school boy to give her the moon and the stars when he’s basically an overgrown testosterone gland with legs?”
“I wondered if life was about facing fears. Sometimes we overcame them and sometimes they overcame us. On the days we won, we had every right to celebrate.”
