Tag: Genre: YA Fiction

Review: The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends
Book List 2025 · Reviews

Review: The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends

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Title: The Good Vampire’s Guide to Blood and Boyfriends
Author: Jamie D’Amato
Series: N/A
TW: Attempted Suicide, anxiety and depression.
About this Book: It’s only natural nineteen-year-old Brennan’s life would be upended by something as ridiculous and unexpected as turning into a vampire. But if there’s one thing Brennan can do, it’s pretend everything’s fine when he’s close to losing his mind. Brennan has just clawed his way back to Sturbridge University after recovering from a suicide attempt, and this is not the new life he was hoping for.

Brennan’s newly bloodthirsty existence gets way more complicated when Cole, the super cute librarian and everyone’s campus crush, stumbles on Brennan drinking from a stolen blood bag. Luckily, adorable Cole is happy to keep Brennan’s secret, and even seems to maybe like him? Navigating a new relationship is hard enough without the added struggles of vampire puberty, an eclectic clan of self-proclaimed “good” vampires, and growing feelings for the one person who makes Brennan feel normal. With swirling rumors of a missing student and a rise in strange “animal attacks” near campus, Brennan must uncover the secrets of the clan and figure out how to balance vampirism and humanity, or risk losing the first real friends he’s ever had.

My Thoughts:

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Review: Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson
Book List 2025 · Reviews

Review: Nine Liars by Maureen Johnson

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Title: Nine Liars
Author: Maureen Johnson
Series: Truly Devious
About this book: Senior year at Ellingham Academy for Stevie Bell isn’t going well. Her boyfriend, David, is studying in London. Her friends are obsessed with college applications. With the cold case of the century solved, Stevie is adrift. There is nothing to distract her from the questions pinging around her brain—questions about college, love, and life in general.

Relief comes when David invites Stevie and her friends to join him for study abroad, and his new friend Izzy introduces her to a double-murder cold case. In 1995, nine friends from Cambridge University went to a country house and played a drunken game of hide-and-seek. Two were found in the woodshed the next day, murdered with an axe.

The case was assumed to be a burglary gone wrong, but one of the remaining seven saw something she can’t explain. This was no break-in. Someone’s lying about what happened in the woodshed.

Seven suspects. Two murders. One killer still playing a deadly game.

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Book List 2024 · Reviews

The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist

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Title: The Perfect Guy Doesn’t Exist
Author: Sophie Gonzales
Source: Netgalley
Genre: Contemporary YA
Summary: Ivy Winslow has the house to herself for a week while her parents are away. She’s planning to use this newfound freedom to binge-watch her favorite fantasy TV show, H-MAD, and hang out with her best friend, Henry. She’ll also have to avoid her former best friend-turned enemy (and neighbor), Mack. But things quickly go awry when Ivy wakes up to find Weston, the gorgeous, very fictional main character of H-MAD in her bedroom, claiming to be her soul mate.

Ivy realizes that her fanfic writing has somehow brought Weston as she’s imagined him to life. But it turns out that the tropes she swoons over in her stories are slightly less romantic in reality, and her not-so-fictional crush is causing some real-world problems. To figure out why Weston is here and what to do with him, Ivy decides to team up with Henry and (against her better judgment) Mack. But with Mack back in her life, Ivy starts to wonder if Weston, her “perfect guy”, is the one who’s truly perfect for her . . . or if that was someone else all along.

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Book List 2023 · Reviews

Review: Donick Walsh and the Reset-Button by Nathaniel Shea

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Title: Donick Walsh and the Reset-Button
Author: Nathaniel Shea
Source: Netgalley, I received a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Genre: Contemporary, YA, Romance
Trigger Warnings: Homophobia, bullying, abuse, suicide.
Explicit? No.
Release Date: August 15, 2023
Summary: Donick Walsh: king of the school bullies, secret dancer, closet-case. What’s to be done when a football injury means he can never play again? Dance in the school musical, of course! Not like he has a choice. Fingers crossed his father doesn’t find out!

Enter Michael Penrose: theatre-kid, and Donick’s former best friend. For years Michael has been the object of Donick’s ridicule simply because Michael is out and proud, and Donick is afraid.

Suddenly confronted with his old friend, Donick sinks under the weight of the guilt of his past. How can a bully make amends for all the hurt he’s caused? How can a closeted ex-high school football player make peace with the very real crush he suddenly has on a boy? And what in the world can be done to hit the reset-button on an entire life?  Donick Walsh and the Reset-Button  examines the confusing nature of what it means to forgive, the discovery of living one’s authentic self, and yes, even the joys and pains of first love.

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Book List 2023 · Reviews

Review: I Like Me Better by Robby Weber

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Title: I Like Me Better
Author: Robby Weber
Source: Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.
Genre: Romance, YA
Explicit? Nope.
Trigger Warnings: Animal abuse…sort of?
Summary:

This is not how soccer-star Zack Martin thought his summer would go. When the captain’s prank means trouble for the whole squad, Zack’s left with no choice but to take one for the team and cover for him.

Now he’s trading parties and beach days for community service at a seaside conservation center—fair enough. But thanks to his new reputation, the cute intern, Chip, won’t even give him a shot. Still, Zack finds himself falling for Chip between dolphin encounters and shark costume disasters, which means he suddenly has way more on the line than he ever expected.

Zack may be good at winning on the field, but can he keep up the lie without losing himself? 

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Book List 2023 · Reviews

Someone is Always Watching

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Title: Someone is Always Watching
Author: Kelley Armstrong
Source: Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.
Genre: YA Thriller
Explicit? No
Trigger Warnings: Gaslighting, Murder
Summary: Blythe and her friends—Gabrielle, and brother and sister Tucker and Tanya—have always been a tight friend group, attending a local high school and falling in and out of love with each other. But an act of violence has caused a rift between Blythe and Tucker . . . and unexpected bursts of aggression and disturbing nightmares have started to become more frequent in their lives.

The strange happenings culminate in a shocking event at school: Gabrielle is found covered in blood in front of their deceased principal, with no memory of what happened.

Cracks in their friendship, as well as in their own memories, start appearing, threatening to expose long-forgotten secrets which could change the group’s lives forever. How can Blythe and her friends trust each other when they can’t even trust their own memories?

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Book List 2023 · Reviews

Never Ever Getting Back Together by Sophie Gonzales

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Title: Never Ever Getting Back Together
Author: Sophie Gonzales
Source: Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Explicit? No
Trigger Warnings: Cheating and gaslighting
Summary: When their now famous ex-boyfriend asks them to participate in a teen reality show, two eighteen year old girls—one bent on revenge, the other open to rekindling romance—get tangled up in an unexpected twist when they fall for each other instead in Never Ever Getting Back Together by nationally and internationally-bestselling and Indie Next Pick author Sophie Gonzales.

It’s been two years since Maya’s ex-boyfriend cheated on her, and she still can’t escape him: his sister married the crown prince of a minor European country and he captured hearts as her charming younger brother. If the world only knew the real Jordy, the manipulative liar who broke Maya’s heart.

Skye Kaplan was always cautious with her heart until Jordy said all the right things and earned her trust. Now his face is all over the media and Skye is still wondering why he stopped calling.

When Maya and Skye are invited to star on the reality dating show Second-Chance Romance, they’re whisked away to a beautiful mansion—along with four more of Jordy’s exes— to compete for his affections while the whole world watches. Skye wonders if she and Jordy can recapture the spark she knows they had, but Maya has other plans: exposing Jordy and getting revenge. As they navigate the competition, Skye and Maya discover that their real happily ever after is nothing they could have scripted.

My Thoughts:

1st things first. Female bisexual representation not being used in an exploitative way! YAY! I’m SO happy. It’s amazing, and I love it.

2nd thing. No one reacting in a homophobic way to the thought of beautiful sapphic love! Again, so so happy.

I didn’t know how much I would enjoy this book but yes, I ended up loving it so much. Jordy however? As bad as you think he is in the beginning? He gets much, much worse, just trust me on this one. It’s bad. So so bad.

His ex girlfriend’s are interesting though, and sadly their common denominator seems to be insecurities he knew exactly how to prey on. So when revenge is the order of the day against Jordy, I have to admit I was quite happy to see how it would unfold.

This book is seriously entertaining, though I would’ve liked it to delve a little deeper into the other exes not just Maya and Skye, but I was so happy to learn more about them.

Also, not everything is as it seems with the characters in this book so keep that in mind, and keep your opinions fluid.

My recommendation: Read it. Especially if you don’t like reality dating shows (I know, weird, right?)

Book List 2023 · Reviews

Bloodmarked by Tracy Deonn

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Title: Bloodmarked
Author: Tracy Deonn
Series: Legendborn
Source: Netgalley. I received a free copy of this book for an honest review.
Genre: Fantasy
Explicit? No
Trigger Warnings: Racism, Violence
Summary: The shadows have risen, and the line is law.

All Bree wanted was to uncover the truth behind her mother’s death. So she infiltrated the Legendborn Order, a secret society descended from King Arthur’s knights—only to discover her own ancestral power. Now, Bree has become someone new:

A Medium. A Bloodcrafter. A Scion.

But the ancient war between demons and the Order is rising to a deadly peak. And Nick, the Legendborn boy Bree fell in love with, has been kidnapped.

Bree wants to fight, but the Regents who rule the Order won’t let her. To them, she is an unknown girl with unheard-of power, and as the living anchor for the spell that preserves the Legendborn cycle, she must be protected.

When the Regents reveal they will do whatever it takes to hide the war, Bree and her friends must go on the run to rescue Nick themselves. But enemies are everywhere, Bree’s powers are unpredictable and dangerous, and she can’t escape her growing attraction to Selwyn, the mage sworn to protect Nick until death.

If Bree has any hope of saving herself and the people she loves, she must learn to control her powers from the ancestors who wielded them first—without losing herself in the process.

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Book List 2022

Review: If This Gets Out by Sophie Gonzales & Cale Dietrich. Read by Ramón de Ocampo

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Title: If This Gets Out
Author(s): Sophie Gonzales and Cale Dietrich
Narrator: Ramón de Ocampo
Genre: Contemporary, Romance, Coming-of-age, LGBTQIA+
Summary:

Eighteen-year-olds Ruben Montez and Zach Knight are two members of the boy-band Saturday, one of the biggest acts in America. Along with their bandmates, Angel Phan and Jon Braxton, the four are teen heartbreakers in front of the cameras and best friends backstage. But privately, cracks are starting to form: their once-easy rapport is straining under the pressures of fame, and Ruben confides in Zach that he’s feeling smothered by management’s pressure to stay in the closet.

On a whirlwind tour through Europe, with both an unrelenting schedule and minimal supervision, Ruben and Zach come to rely on each other more and more, and their already close friendship evolves into a romance. But when they decide they’re ready to tell their fans and live freely, Zach and Ruben start to truly realize that they will never have the support of their management. How can they hold tight to each other when the whole world seems to want to come between them?

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Book List 2021 · Reviews

Review: The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious) by Maureen Johnson

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Title: The Box in the Woods

Series: Truly Devious

Author: Maureen Johnson

Rated: YA

Genre: Mystery

Summary: The Truly Devious series continues as Stevie Bell investigates her first mystery outside of Ellingham Academy in this spine-chilling and hilarious stand-alone mystery.

Amateur sleuth Stevie Bell needs a good murder. After catching a killer at her high school, she’s back at home for a normal (that means boring) summer.

But then she gets a message from the owner of Sunny Pines, formerly known as Camp Wonder Falls—the site of the notorious unsolved case, the Box in the Woods Murders. Back in 1978, four camp counselors were killed in the woods outside of the town of Barlow Corners, their bodies left in a gruesome display. The new owner offers Stevie an invitation: Come to the camp and help him work on a true crime podcast about the case.

Stevie agrees, as long as she can bring along her friends from Ellingham Academy. Nothing sounds better than a summer spent together, investigating old murders.

But something evil still lurks in Barlow Corners. When Stevie opens the lid on this long-dormant case, she gets much more than she bargained for. The Box in the Woods will make room for more victims. This time, Stevie may not make it out alive.

Continue reading “Review: The Box in the Woods (Truly Devious) by Maureen Johnson” →