shine your icy crown by Amanda Lovelace
Once again, LadyBookMad has done it. She's written a book of poetry that speaks to me. This tome is for those of us with low self-esteem, the introverts, the ones who feel looked over. Just when you think there's no one out there that understands, one of Ms. Lovelace's books is published and you feel less alone. I will buy every one of her books just to know I am not alone.
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson
Pip is an overachieving high school senior trying to get into Columbia. Five years prior, there was a murder-suicide in her town. Pip believes that the young man who killed himself is innocent of the murder and makes finding out what really happened the subject of her AP Capstone project.
The first person she interviews is the younger brother of the young man accused of killing his girlfriend, Ravi. Ravi is hesitant to talk to and ultimately help Pip at first, but decides it is a good idea to help clear his brother's name. Pip interviews a lot of people close to both victims in an effort to learn more. The more she learns, the more dangerous things become for her. She receives threats and one of those leads to the death of her beloved family pet.
Will the threats make Pip stop trying to find the truth? Does she find the real killer? Is Ravi's brother actually innocent? You'll just have to read this to find out.
The Cousins by Karen McManus
I actually finished this a couple of weeks ago, but am just now getting around to this. I have been eyeballing this book at Target for the past couple of months and ended up getting it a month ago. This was a great read.
This is told from three perspectives: Milly, Aubrey, and Jonah Story. Their grandmother disinherited their parents before they were born, and despite a letter to the contrary, no one knows why that is. So, it was quite a surprise when their grandmother invited them to her island resort for the summer.
Over the course of the summer, well, only a few weeks really, the three cousins learn about each other and secrets that have been buried for years. Some of those secrets are whoppers, and the end was a bit shocking. Definitely worth the read.
Beautiful Mistakes by RJ Avenira
In truth, I only read this because I needed to read a book from Kindle Unlimited for the January Kindle Challenge from Amazon. Being poetry, I knew it would be a fairly quick read, and I was correct. This one took about ten minutes, which begs the question: how did it even get published? These poems aren't long, and they are written in a similar style as those by Rupi Kaur and Amanda Lovelace. These were ok, but not anything that has stuck with me since I read them.
Love and Olives by Jenna Evans Welch
Having read both Love and Gelato and Love and Luck by this author, I thought this would be connected to those two novels, but it wasn't. This is totally ok though because it was a great stand-alone read. I actually finished it a week and a half ago, but am just now finding time to talk about it.
Olive, or Liv, as she prefers to be called, is just finishing her junior year of high school. Her boyfriend is about to head to college and he wants her to tour and apply to the same college he is going to attend. Liv, however, has her heart set on RISD, or the Rhode Island School of Design, and she doesn't know how to tell him this. She figures she has the summer to do so, but then receives a postcard from her father, whom she hasn't seen since she was eight years old.
When he left, there were 26 things that Liv's father left behind. Each chapter describes the item. Needless to say, the absence of her father has left an indelible mark on Liv, so when she gets the postcard, she doesn't really know what to do. Doesn't matter anyway, as it turns out, as Liv's mother sends her to Santorini, Greece to spend some time with her dad.
Liv's dad is preoccupied with Atlantis and believes that it is near Santorini. Liv is enlisted to help shoot a documentary for National Geographic with her dad and Theo, the son of her dad's close friend. Over the course of time, despite the fact that Liv doesn't buy into the Atlantis myth, she finds what has drawn her father to it. She also gets to be pretty close to Theo, and that isn't a bad thing.
I enjoyed this read and didn't want to put it down. I sincerely hope this author continues to write because I would definitely read her books.
