Book Review: Lucky Me by Saba Kapur

Title: LUCKY ME
Author: Saba Kapur
Publisher: Amberjack Publishing
Published: April 2016
Pages: 446
ISBN: 978-0-6925-3639-1
Price: $11.95 [Amazon]
Rating: 2/5 stars

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"A jealous boyfriend, a manipulative arch nemesis, a creepy stalker, and a frustratingly good-looking bodyguard. Throw in some pom poms and a stolen cheer routine, and I was the definition of cliche." - Chapter Two

I know, you might be wondering why did I choose this kind of book at the first place? Lucky Me is definitely not my cup of tea. Please don’t judge. I was trying to explore new things. People who like this kind of story might give this book more than two stars. So, if you’re a fan, stop reading and find the review somewhere else. If you’re omnireader, or you have the same taste as me, keep going. I’ll explain more about the book.

Lucky Me is about a spoiled girl named Gia Winters who lived in a big mansion with her celebrity dad, Harry, and her brother, Mike. She had her good reputation, coolest squad in school, and the perfect boyfriend, Brendan. Saba Kapur did a really good job in writing the opening, I guess. It was written in form of fairy tale because Gia’s life is like fairy tale in Hollywood version. Her mom was also a celebrity, but she lived in different city. So, you can imagine how glamorous her life was right? For me, it was like reading Legally Blonde’s story (except Gia wasn’t that smart).

After the short and refreshing opening, I was brought to the point of the story. Danger. Yep. On the first chapter, Harry told his children that they could have been in danger because of something. That was why he hired bodyguard for each of them. The bodyguard would follow them everywhere, including pretended to be cousin when they were at school. Can you guess what happen next? If you’re smart, you must know that Gia’s bodyguard turned out to be super hot, super handsome, and super mysterious. I was like, seriously??

‘‘...a young, blonde-haired guy who was standing only an inch away. His eyes were blue, but not piercing, and I was standing close enough to see tiny bits of grey in them. He was the kind of attractive that you don’t come across too often, the kind that makes you all excited. He was the type of guy who you’d tell your friends asked for your number at a bar, when really all he did was walk past you.’’ – Chapter One

Everything after was predicted. Super cheesy. With the love triangle between Brendan, Gia, and Jack the bodyguard, I don’t understand why Kapur bothered to add one more guy to make Gia’s heart complicated. It was the cutie police. I know that a story comes from writer’s imagination, but sometimes you have to keep it real in order to make the reader feel related. I got bored easily and tended to skim. Kapur also described too many things in details. It wasn’t the fantasy kind of world. Most readers know how Hollywood’s life looks like. I think Lucky Me becomes a really thick book with no reason (sorry to say).

Book Review: This Song is (Not) for You by Laura Nowlin

Title: THIS SONG IS (NOT) FOR YOU
Author: Laura Nowlin
Published: January 5th, 2016
Publisher: Sourcebooks
Pages: 220
ISBN: 978-149-260-290-3
Price: $12.11 (Book Depository) // $9.95 (Amazon)

*Digital ARC was received from Sourcebooks through Netgalley*

Rating: 3/5 stars
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I always fall for novels about music. It's not always necessary talking about music, but just put the word "song" on the title and I'll read it. Well, that's the case with This Song is (Not) for You by Laura Nowlin. I must admit that the cover is not that beautiful. It's not the kind of novel with very captivating cover which will hypnotize people to buy it. But, yeah, the "song" word works (for me). Thank you NetGalley for the opportunity. I had to shut down my old NetGalley account in order to have a clean slate in book review. Hopefully it will work well. So, back to the novel. I haven't heard anything about Laura Nowlin. I thought she's a newcomer, but it turns out she already has a book before This Song is (Not) for You and she has quite lot fans. That's why I started this book on my Kindle App with a pretty high expectation.

Music will always be a part of my life. A huge part. But there are other things in life that I also want, and I don't want to give them up to pursue just one thing. - Tom

Ramona is just an average high school student who doesn't have many friends because everyone thinks that she's weird. But, she has Sam who is always beside her. The "weird" thing about Ramona is that she always has feeling about something. She feels like Sam is meant to meet her and so does Tom, a guy whom she met at an audition. She feels like Tom is meant to be in her band. So, they three get along and play music together. They do it great. I, of course, cannot hear the song. According to how Nowlin describes it, it sounds great. I imagine Fun. kind of songs. Ramona on the drum, Sam on the guitar, and Tom as the chaos maker with his own instruments.

Following their story to reach the dream and figure out their future is kind of entertaining. They are bond together but somehow they have different goals. When they're trying to be honest to each other, they're afraid to hurt someone else. I can feel how strong their friendships. I can understand how important they are to each other. So, yeah, I have to give a thumb up to Nowlin for this. I've never read a friendship as strong as Ramona's. But things get weirder when we talk about relationship. Well, don't be surprised. Don't you ever heard someone said, "It's impossible for guy and girl be in a friendship without falling for each other,"? There's something going on between Ramona, Sam, and Tom. But I can't give you more details about that because it's shocking! I was like shaking my head, confused, a little bit disagree. I was like "what the ****?!" But, the final judgement might be different based on the readers' culture. I have been warned.

Overall, I give this book 3 out of 5 stars. The story's idea is not unique, but Nowlin has her own way by putting a lot of music things (which is great). Describing music and successfully transfer the feeling to the readers is not easy. Nowlin did it great. I was a little bit struggling to understand some musical meaning, but it doesn't affect my understanding of the whole story. So, it's fine. Unfortunately, this story is very lack of family's value. I think it would be great if Nowlin brings the reader to get to know each family better in order to understand the sexual issue.

Book Review: The Pajamas of My Dreams by Laurie Collins

Title: The Pajamas of My Dreams
Author: Laurie Collins
Ilustrator: Margie Florini
Publisher: Three Bean Press
Published: 2013
Rating: ★★★★

Children dream of what their futures hold--what will they be when they grow up? But some children don't have the luxury of dreaming big. Sometimes wishes are far simple and more immediate.

This book only consist of 26 pages. And yes, there is not much words on it, but the ilustrations amazed me! They all are so beautiful : ) Each picture has its own story and all of them have the same beginning:

"I climb into bed, pull the covers up tightly, close my eyes and..."

There are several dreams of some children. Those dreams were described so casually, like what the real children would think of. The dreams were various, from paleontologiest until "I dream of being warm and safe in my bed at night." The last dream was a little bit touching. I imagine it as the dream of poor childrean and homeless people. This book is recommended for any children : ) I think it is very helpful for them to get to know another professions.

These are some ilustrations inside the book:

Author's Note

This book was inspired by my involvement with a Pajama Drive held each year by the nonprofit organization Cradles to Crayons. Cradles to Crayons provides local children in need with clothes, shoes, books and school supplies that they collect from the community and process in an incredibly organized fashion at their Giving Factory locations in Boston and Phildelphia.

There is no lovelier point in the day for caregiver than when they tuck a child into bed, read a story, give them a kiss and probably "just one more drink of water." Then they watch them slip off into the world of their dreams. Cradles to Crayons helped me to realize that not all children have this privilage.

My dream is that all children go to bed in snug pajamas, not hungry or cold, thus able to sing their own lullaby of a promising future as they fal to sleep. - Laurie Collins 

Hush

Title: Hush (Lakeview Series)
Author: Stacey R. Campbell
Publisher: Green Darner Press
Year Published: 2012

Price: $11.20
Rating: ★★★

Summary:

For small-town girl Blakely Henry, any hope of finding her biological parents died when she stopped believing in fairy tales and Disney princess. That is, until she spots her boarding school's new British exchange student, Max Ryder, staring at her. Why would a boy who looks like he stepped out of the pages of a magazine be looking at her? Because Max knows something Blakely doesn't. 

Following the tragic demise of one of Europe's most beloved royal families, Max has stumbled upon information he thinks may lead to a lost royal heir, and now he is on a quest halfway around the world to see if he's right. 

Sworn to secrecy by his university professor and the headmaster of Lakeview Academu, Max is admitted into an exchange program with the sole purpose of finding out the truth. But will his personal feelings for Blakely get in the way? When a stolen email surfaces, Blakely and her friends' lives are threatened, and Max starts to question what he is really after. From the exclusive rolling lawns of Canada's most prestigious boarding school to the University of Saint Andrews' hallowed grounds, Blakely's quiet, unassuming life is turned upside down. Is she really who she thinks she is? Can she survive long enough to help Max unearth the truth?

This e-ARC of this book was given to me FREE in exchange of honest review.
There might be a minor spoiler. You've been warned!

First of all, I totally like the cover. It's simple, vintage, and elegant. The story is good. It reminds me of Mia Thermapolis, The Princess of Genovia in The Princess Diaries movie. There were two main characters here. Blakely, who was a regular student in a boarding school, was adopted and never knew who her real parents were. She was a pretty popular student. Max Ryder was a colleger in St. Andrew. He did a project which occured him to pretend as an exchange student in Blakely's boarding school. He had to found out whether Blakely was the lost princess or not.

For me, the author describes Blakely and Max as too perfect people. Max was described like Alex Pettyfer (which is so damn cool!!) and well, Blakely just a hotty in school but she was hard to get. It would be nice if one of them wasn't so perfect. There were a lot of chapters in this book. You will be brought at 1993 at the first page and jump few years later where Blakely grew up in a good family. One thing about this book was that it was just too easy. I thought the story was predictable until that annoying jurnalist showed up! I think at that point the story became more interesting. I did hoped that the jurnalist would make more troubles, but he didn't. He was jailed by the bad parties and gone for the rest of the story. But there will be the next book, probably until four. I really hope the story will not only about Blakely and Max.

These are some question of the interview with the author on the few last pages:

Who is Blakely really?
The character of Blakely is loosely based on our oldest daughter. I wish there were a real Max for her, but at this point, she is still looking.

Where did you get the idea for Hush?
Every night, we gather around the table dinner. On one such evening, several years ago, we were discussing the British royal family. "Well, there's both Tudor and Middleton on my side of the family," my husband informed our girls. "Does that mean I could be a princess?" a much younger Blakely asked. "Only if several hundred people died first," I told her. "But what if that happened? What if there was some sort of big family reunion and they all died?" And the idea was born...

What motivated you to write Hush?
I wanted to do something with out oldest daughter. She had just started her first year at boarding school, and the loss of her in our day-to-day life was devastating. So, I thought, I'm going to write a book for her, and if I'm lucky, she will help me. I was lucky.

Are there plans for more Lakeview novels?
There are plans for at least two more Lakeview novels, one for each of our girls, and I am toying with an idea for a fourth. No, that does not mean we are having another baby.

Autumn

Title: Autumn (Dog Days #1)
Author: Sierra Dean
Publisher: Sierra Dean
Published: June 2013
Purchase: Amazon / Kobo / Nook
Rating: ★★★★

Cooper Reynolds's life is going to the dogs...literally.As if being a high school senior in a small Texas town wasn't hard enough, Cooper has bigger things to worry about than who he'll take to prom and whether or not the Poisonfoot Padres will win homecoming. He has less than a year before his eighteenth birthday, when a curse placed on his family will doom him to live in coyote form forever.The last thing he needs to complicate his already messed-up life is a girl, but fate has other plans in mind for him when it brings Eloise "Lou" Whittaker to Poisonfoot. She's grouchy, sarcastic and has no love for her new Texas home, but she might be exactly the right person to help Cooper break the curse.The clock is ticking, and Cooper will have to decide if he's willing to let Lou in on his dirty little secret before it's too late.

Happy Birthday to Me

Title: Happy Birthday to Me
Author: Brian Rowe
Publisher: CreatSpace
Year Published: 2011
Purchase: Book Depository / Amazon
Rating: ★★★★

Synopsis:

Seventeen-year-old Cameron Martin has a huge problem: he's aging a whole year of his life with each passing day!

High school is hard enough; imagine rapidly aging from seventeen to seventy in a matter of weeks, with no logical explanation, and with prom, graduation, and the state championship basketball game all on the horizon. That's what happens to Cameron, a popular pretty boy who's never had to face a day looking anything but perfect.

All Cameron wants to do is go back to normal, but no one, not even the best doctors, can diagnose his condition. When he finds love with a mysterious young woman, however, he realizes his only hope for survival might be with the one person who started his condition in the first place...

Review:

Whoa! I read this book for a day. I couldn't put my kindle down since the first time I started.  The plot moved along so quickly. Personally, I think the story is unique. I thought that kind of desease were truly exist (well yes but different symptoms) but then it happened because of other reason, love, if I may mention. Cameron had a perfect face, perfect girlfriend, and he was a basketball star. He started aging since the last time he lied about his birthday and got a free chocolate cake. He kept aging and no one could help. His girlfriend dumped him for the new basketball star. His bestfriend turned out so annoying with his documentary project. The librarian loved him! And there was a red-head girl who he had never seen before, started to steal his attention. Cameron is a great character to read about. He started to realize that he had make a lot mistakes to a lot people and he was sorry. The desease made him realized and brought up the good of him. I was touched by the reaction of his family when he was getting older. I know it's hard to accept when you're lovely son will die before you. I can't wait to read the rest of trilogy!! :)

Dive: The Life and Fight of Reba Tutt

Title: Dive: The Life and Fight of Reba Tutt
Author: Hannah Safren
Publisher: Write Bloody Publishing
Date Published: April 12, 2013
Rating: ★★★

Synopsis:

The empowering story of one female athlete's incredible discovery of what it means to truly feel alive. Based on Reba Tutt's heart-wrenching life and fight, Dive details the painful, yet empowering process of healing. The murder of Reba's older sister, Ari, fuels painful flashbacks and unstitches eight years of Reba's healing. With just two months to go before graduation, Reba is consumed by the past, lost in the present and hesitant for the future. With the support of her boyfriend, Pittsburgh basketball player Ronald Ramon, the guidance of her father, and the need to keep her final promise to her mother, Reba learns what it means to accept and persevere through life's many challenges.

Review:

I couldn't see the main problem here. Well, yes I know Reba Tutt was trying to move one, but that was just it. I remember couple days ago my lecture said that the main character can't build the story by itself, supporting characters are important. But in this story, the supporting characters had nothing to do with the main topic. So the story is just all about Reba Tutt. In each chapter, Reba brought out a piece of her journals. This is what I like the most, the journal! There are so many inspirating words on them. If you feel like your life is meaningless or you're almost give up of this world, try to read this book :) It might encourage you, somehow. I personally don't really like the story, but I like its mesaages. Here are some of favorite messages:

"Surviving is simple. It's nothing more than breathing, moving, eating, and sleeping. Living, however, requires far more than just being alive; it requires feeling alive. It requires a sense of fearlessnes and an urge to grow- not just because the days pass, but for a reason, for a purpose." (Chapter 13)

"I am certain that failure is not worthy of our fear and for that matter, our fears are not worthy to be the cause of our failures." (Chapter 14)

"We need dreams and we need hope...  to show us where we want to go, to remind us that we can get there." (Chapter 16)

"I believe in God. He only lets things like this happen to people who can handle it." (Chapter 20)

Excerpt:

22, April. We are all tangled in it.

No, we cannot untie ourselves. However, we will spend our entire lives trying, constantly seeking the escape, the loopholes, the ways to unravel this immaculate design. Knowing that it is not possible.

We give our hearts to family, friends, strangers- allowing only a few to tie into our memories, holding on to each of them with calloused grips. and as for the ones that let go.

They fall into someone new, as do we. We blend stories of our travels, weave our hometowns into farmlands, big cities, different countries... always marking up roadmaps, always searching for a better paradise. Most will discover it along the way. Few will ever notice.

We climb high rises, walk tightropes, wear chains that weigh down our already heavy shoulders, all with the brave intent to part ways, to untie ourselves, to cut the cord. But the design is messy, and we are all tangled in it.

Sure, we can loosen our grips, fly a thousand miles in another direction, but we cannot promise that we will never see each other again, nor promise that we will. We cannot tell each other that there are no strings attached. There are always strings attached. We are all strings.

The knots dragging behind each of us carry our baggage. They slow us down. They weaken our posture, but we are strong. We keep moving. We push on. We push on. We push on.

And I may not even know your name, not one thing about you, but you are in all of my history and I am in yours. And one day, maybe our strings will intertwine; one day maybe they won't. But know that it is us tying this whole world together. Know that we are tangled in this together.