Showing posts with label Blink YA Books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Blink YA Books. Show all posts

05 March 2019

Between Before & After | Book Review

ABOUT THE BOOK


“The carnage began with the roses. She hacked at their ruffled blooms until they dropped into monstrous drifts of red on the parched yellow lawn … Only two things kept my mother grounded to us: my uncle Stephen and stories.”

Fourteen-year-old Molly worries about school, friends, and her parents’ failed marriage, but mostly about her mother’s growing depression. Molly knows her mother is nursing a carefully-kept secret. A writer with an obsession for other people’s life stories, Elaine Donnelly is the poster child of repressed emotions.

Molly spends her California summer alternately watching out for her little brother Angus and tip-toeing around her mother’s raw feelings. Molly needs her mother more than ever, but Elaine shuts herself off from real human connections and buries herself in the lives and deaths of the strangers she writes about. When Uncle Stephen is pressed into the limelight because of his miracle cure of a young man, Elaine can no longer hide behind other people’s stories. And as Molly digs into her mother’s past, she finds a secret hidden in her mother’s dresser that may be the key to unlocking a family mystery dating to 1918 New York—a secret that could destroy or save their future.

Publisher: Blink
Release Date: February 5, 2019


15 February 2019

Five on Friday | Quick Reviews



Gilt Hollow by Lorie Langdon

There's complicated drama aplenty when Willow Lamott's best friend, Ashton Keller—also an accused murderer—returns to their small town. Mystery, suspense, danger, and of course, romance fill Langdon's story as the pair works to reestablish their friendship and discover what exactly happened all those years ago. It's a fun, intriguing, spooky-ish read.




In 27 Days by Alison Gervais

When one of her classmates commits suicide, Hadley Jamison gets the opportunity to rewind twenty-seven days and try to rewrite the future. As I read, I worried about the commentary Gervais would make regarding suicide, but in the context she creates, the message of Hadley's experience is well delivered. All in all, it's a great story of friendship.




It Started With Goodbye by Christina June

In a refreshing retelling of the Cinderella fairytale, Tatum Elsea's summer looks nothing like she expected: wrongly accused of a crime, at odds with her best friend, distrusted by her father and stepmother. Everything may seem hopeless at first, but her story plays out with great humor and heart, including lessons of self-discovery, friendship, and forgiveness. It's a definite recommendation from me.



One Paris Summer by Denise Grover Swank

Against her wishes, Sophie Brooks is sent to spend a summer in Paris with her father. She'd rather devote her time to practicing piano, but it's clear she has some important growing to do in her familial relationships. With some adventure and romance, too, it's a cute story (that reminded me of Anna and the French Kiss at times), and I heartily enjoyed it when I read it.




The Thing With Feathers by McCall Hoyle

Emilie Day has spent years protecting herself from the world, thanks to her epilepsy. Now, as she begins to attend public school again, she must confront her fear. With moments of friendship, romance, and discovering that everyone has challenges to overcome, this was exactly the type of good-hearted YA I needed when I read it. I loved it.



So, what books have you enjoyed reading lately?

Thanks to Blink YA Books, I received complimentary copies of these books and the opportunity to provide an honest review. I was not required to write a positive review, and all the opinions I have expressed are my own.