Crash Into You (Pushing the Limits, #3), by Katie McGarry

Release Date: November 26th, 2013
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Source: Publisher through NetGalley
Overall: 5 Monkeys
Interest: Romance, Bad Boy/Good Girl
Categories: Contemporary, Romance, Series
Goodreads / Katie McGarry's Website

Summary:

From acclaimed author Katie McGarry comes an explosive new tale of a good girl with a reckless streak, a street-smart guy with nothing to lose, and a romance forged in the fast lane 
The girl with straight As, designer clothes and the perfect life-that's who people expect Rachel Young to be. So the private-school junior keeps secrets from her wealthy parents and overbearing brothers...and she's just added two more to the list. One involves racing strangers down dark country roads in her Mustang GT. The other? Seventeen-year-old Isaiah Walker-a guy she has no business even talking to. But when the foster kid with the tattoos and intense gray eyes comes to her rescue, she can't get him out of her mind. 
Isaiah has secrets, too. About where he lives, and how he really feels about Rachel. The last thing he needs is to get tangled up with a rich girl who wants to slum it on the south side for kicks-no matter how angelic she might look. 
But when their shared love of street racing puts both their lives in jeopardy, they have six weeks to come up with a way out. Six weeks to discover just how far they'll go to save each other.

My Opinion:
Wow, I'm slow. I had no idea this book was part of a series when I requested it on NetGalley. Anyway, the book stands on its own, and what a great choice I made by requesting it!

The story of Rachel and Isaiah is fast and dangerous, just like what they most love: speed. They seek freedom at all costs, freedom from their families, from their school life, from everything that overwhelms them.

I seriously love a good bad boy-good girl book, and this one was just brilliant! I love how it alternated between both main characters, giving us a much wider take on their story.

Isaiah is a guy who puts up a front for everyone, he wants people to believe he's bad news. But then along comes Rachel, who can see past his walls and into the boy he really is. Both characters are from broken homes: Isaiah is a foster care system kid, while Rachel's existance is an excuse to make up for the death of an older sister she never knew.

I had no idea, none, about how bad a panic attack can be. This thing, this disease that Rachel suffers from... it's just WOW. Nice work, Katie, you really changed how I view them. I now know how serious they can get if whoever suffers from them doesn't get help. 

Where can I get myself an Isaiah? The tough bloke with the soft interior... I could just feel his love for Rachel through the pages, and I LOVED (kudos Katie!) how Rachel changed him and his need to always be in control. He learned how to fully trust her, and that just shows that he really, really loved her, and my heart just... <3 

Both of them get in real deep trouble with Eric, resident ruler of the streets, and they need to pay off their debt to him before something bad happens. The pressure of this drama, combined with Rachel's older brothers' bullying, really made her ill. 

I had to keep myself from screaming at my Kindle, they were so, so MEAN. Except for Rachel's twin, Ethan, they all pushed her so hard, I wanted to beat them until they felt the same pain I was getting from Rachel. (They eventually begin to change, but still. This just goes to show that you can be as rich as a king and still have a crappy family.)

Then there were the friends, who I now know have their own stories. Noah and Echo were lovely, all suportive, Logan was wicked cool and Abby... LOVED her. I would love to read her story.

The road to a good place will be difficult for these two, but they'll get there safe and... relatively sound. 

I'll of course be reading the previous books soon, I wish I'd read them before reading this one!
PRE-ORDER CRASH INTO YOU NOW!

Wild Cards (Wild Cards, #1), by Simone Elkeles

Release Date: October 1st, 2013
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Walker Books for Young Readers
Source: Publisher through NetGalley
Overall: 5 Monkeys
Interest: Romance, Simone Elkeles
Categories: Contemporary, Sports, Romance, Stand-Alone, Family Issues
Goodreads / Amazon / Simone Elkeles's Website
Read in September 2013

Summary:

After getting kicked out of boarding school, bad boy Derek Fitzpatrick has no choice but to live with his ditzy stepmother while his military dad is deployed. Things quickly go from bad to worse when he finds out she plans to move them back to her childhood home in Illinois. Derek’s counting the days before he can be on his own, and the last thing he needs is to get involved with someone else’s family drama.
Ashtyn Parker knows one thing for certain--people you care about leave without a backward glance. A football scholarship would finally give her the chance to leave. So she pours everything into winning a state championship, until her boyfriend and star quarterback betrays them all by joining their rival team. Ashtyn needs a new game plan, but it requires trusting Derek—someone she barely knows, someone born to break the rules. Is she willing to put her heart on the line to try and win it all?

My Thoughts:

Simone has done it again! This woman can really make you fall for her characters! There are so many things I loved about this book, I'll just list them for you:

1. A strong female MC. Ashtyn is such a good and independent (American) football player that her teammates choose her over her boyfriend to be the team's captain. When she first meets Derek, she brandishes a pitchfork at him to protect herself. She can take care of herself and she lets everyone know it.

2. The bad boy with a soft heart. Admit it. You love them. I love them. We all do. Derek has the Elkeles stamp all over him: hard exterior, but really loving heart. I just wanted to hug him all the time.

3. A really cool set of secondary characters. I mean, how great are Ashtyn's boy friends? Her relationship with them is amazing. She's one of them, but she can be a girly girl, too. And I just LOVED them whenever they stepped up to protect her. Those are real friends.

4. A greatly built story that has actual meaning, as opposed to just being there for the sake of giving the characters an environment to meet and fall in love. Derek has lost his mother, his father is overseas with the Navy and his stepmother is a 25-year-old girl with a little son and a baby on the way. Ashtyn's mum is MIA, her father barely gives her the time of day (but for ACTUAL reasons, not just to be out of her way!) and her sister's coming back home after seven years of having no contact with her. These are the conditions in which Derek and Ashtyn meet, and they shape up their story in a beautiful, beautiful way.

5. Sports in a Contemporary book! I don't understand squat about American football, I just think about it like I would rugby, but Simone really made me like the sport! I usually avoid Contemps with sports, but since this was an Elkeles book, there was just no way I was going to miss reading it.

Yes, your heart will twinge a little in pain, but trust me, it'll live. This is just a really lovely book meant to be read when you want to feel a little bit of loving.

Pre-order the book now through the links listed above.
Happy reading,
Ella

DNF: What We Saw At Night, by Jacquelyn Mitchard

Release Date: January 8th, 2013
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Soho Teen
Source: NetGalley

Overall: Did Not Finish

Categories: Contemporary, Thriller, Suspense

Goodreads 

Read in February 2013

Summary:

Allie Kim suffers from Xeroderma Pigmentosum: a fatal allergy to sunlight that confines her and her two best friends, Rob and Juliet, to the night. When freewheeling Juliet takes up Parkour—the stunt-sport of scaling and leaping off tall buildings—Allie and Rob have no choice but to join her, if only to protect her. Though potentially deadly, Parkour after dark makes Allie feel truly alive, and for the first time equal to the “daytimers.” On a random summer night, the trio catches a glimpse of what appears to be murder. Allie alone takes it upon herself to investigate, and the truth comes at an unthinkable price. Navigating the shadowy world of specialized XP care, extreme sports, and forbidden love, Allie ultimately uncovers a secret that upends everything she believes about the people she trusts the most.

My Opinion:

I've been dancing on this book for way too long, and have finally decided to put it to rest. 

After reading the blurb and one very promising review, I requested it from NG, but sadly, I found out that this book isn't right up my alley. 

The pacing was way too slow for my taste, I didn't get emotionally attached to any of its characters, and I felt like Jacquelyn took too much time setting the suspense in the story. Half way into it is not the right moment to start introducing the wow-ing factors. 

The romance fell flat to me too, I didn't feel that "Oh, they want to be together, awww" sense I like to get when I read romances. Juliet was annoying, and I didn't like that Allie didn't do anything to change that. I mean, here's a girl you call your best friend, acting like an idiot to you... I might not be as forgiving Allie was. 

The bad man, Blondie, appeared a couple of times in the first half of the book, and I was not even spooked by him.

All I got from this book is a little bit more knowledge about the illness XP, the allergy to the sun. 

It's too bad too, because the premise sounded so appealling, but the writing didn't do it for me. But hey, it might do it for you. Read some more reviews first. 

Stay, by Deb Caletti

Stay, by Deb Caletti on Goodreads

Release Date: April 5th, 2011.
Age Group: Young Adult
Publisher: Simon Pulse

Overall: 5 Monkeys
Categories: Romance, Drama, Contemporary, Relationships

Challenge: 100 Books in a Year
Read in June 2011

Summary from Goodreads:

Clara's relationship with Christian is intense from the start, and like nothing she’s ever experienced before. But what starts as devotion quickly becomes obsession, and it's almost too late before Clara realizes how far gone Christian is—and what he's willing to do to make her stay.

Now Clara has left the city—and Christian—behind. No one back home has any idea where she is, but she still struggles to shake off her fear. She knows Christian won't let her go that easily, and that no matter how far she runs, it may not be far enough...

My Opinion: 

For my first Caletti book, it was awe-some. It had drama, it had love, it had strange relationships... everything you can ask for in a Contemp!

The way Deb created Clara -at first a shy girl, who becomes someone new with Christian around- was incredibly belieable. I could really see her, hurt and broken, trying to find herself again in that little place on the beach, where she and her father go to escape from the city. Every one of her decisions made sense, once you got to "know" her, which helped me understand her throughout the whole book, and made me want to grab her off the pages and keep her safe myself! She was a really grounded person, and I loved watching her grow.

The rest of the characters was brilliant as well. Her father, and his secrets; her best friend and her personality, Christian and his... he was really well written too, crazy as hell, but a great character, plot-wise.

I loved this book so much, I can't wait to read some other Caletti book! 

If you're looking for an intense Contemporary book, then run to the book store and get this one!

The Goldsmith's Secret, by Elia Barceló

The Goldsmith's Secret, by Elia Barceló on Goodreads

Release Date: March 31st, 2011, UK
Age Group: Adult
Publisher: MacLehose Press

Overall: 5 Monkeys
Categories: Romance, Time-Travel, Historic Fiction, Contemporary

Challenge: 100 Books in a Year
Read in May 2011

Summary from Goodreads:

One snowy night in New York City, a successful, solitary goldsmith reflects on his life, and his unrealiable memories intertwine and collide. Journeying to the village in Spain where he grew up, he hopes with some trepidation that he will encounter Celia, "the Black Widow", a beautiful and mysterious friend of his mother with whom he had a short and passionate affair when he was a teenager. But instead he meets a young woman who opens doors into an unimagined world, and takes him back in time.
The Goldsmith's Secret is a remarkable story of a love trapped between two parallel times, set in Spain in the 1950's, 1970's and in the last year of the twentieth century.
In beautifully economical prose, and with a structure as intricate and refined as a bevelled jewel, The Goldsmith's Secret is alight with intense nostalgia, memories and desires.
Elia Barceló has come to be recognized across Europe as a truly original voice, and her books as poetic works of great subtlety.

My Opinion:

To be such a short novel, it had a very long story that traveled through time; a unique romance.

Written somewhat poetically, Barceló tells us the story of Celia and a man whose name we don't know, if I remember correctly.

Celia, the widow, is in love with a man she loved in her youth, and who left without saying goodbye. And he, a teenage boy captivated by that woman's strength. In their short affaire, she tells him something like, "I knew you'd be back." He doesn't understand a thing, and thinks she's confused, speaking to the man she once lost.

Now a grown man, he makes a trip from New York to the town where he grew up, and where he hasn't been in years. He expects to find a modernised town, as towns tend to get after some decades, right? But when he gets there at night, he can only see a few lights on here and there, and this brings back a memory from his childhood.

The hotel where he's staying is just like the one from his memory, from the time when he looked through tge window to spy on the visitors who stayed there when he was a boy. And like that, litttle by little, he realises that -almost magically- he's back to the Villasanta of his early years. And he remembers, too, that Celia is a teenage girl in this time. 

And so begins the search for the love of that young Celia, while he's a fourty-some-year-old man.

The Goldsmith's Secret is a beautiful tale of a love that couldn't be. He gets his second chance, but will he succeed? 

There's not much more to say about this book. I loved Elia's writing; I could see that old Spanish town very clearly while reading. I'm also a hopeless romantic, and this book was perfect for me. I'm really glad to have read it. 

Thanks to Nicci Praca for sending me a review copy.

Love Virtually, by Daniel Glattauer

Love Virtually, by Daniel Glattauer on Goodreads

Original Title: Gut gegen Nordwind
Release Date: February 3rd, 2011
Publisher: MacLehose Press
Age Group: Adult
Categories: Contemporary, Romance, E-Mail Format Novel
Source: Gift
Overall: 4 Monkeys
Read on December 2010

Summary from Goodreads:

'Write to me, Emmi. Writing is like kissing, but without lips. Writing is kissing with the mind.' It begins by chance: Leo receives emails in error from an unknown woman called Emmi. Being polite he replies, and Emmi writes back. A few brief exchanges are all it takes to spark a mutual interest in each other, and soon Emmi and Leo are sharing their innermost secrets and longings. The erotic tension simmers, and it seems only a matter of time before they will meet in person. But they keep putting off the moment - the prospect both excites and unsettles them. And after all, Emmi is happily married. Will their feelings for each other survive the test of a real-life encounter? And if so, what then? Love Virtually is a funny, fast-paced and utterly absorbing novel, with plenty of twists and turns, about a love affair conducted entirely by email.

My Opinion:

What a most original and fresh book! I hadn't known that it was written in e-mail format before buying it. I had read posts about the excitement over its the second part, Cada Siete Olas (something like Every Seven Waves), on several Spanish blogs, but not a book review. I thought it was a YA book. Another error. This is clearly an adult book.

Emmi Rothner and Leo Leike begin their story by mistake, she sends an email to him by mistake. What begins as something formal (they write emails like "Excuse me, I believe you've got the wrong e-mail address.") slowly turns into friendship, which rises in pitch and becomes something else.

You'll want them to get together -and they make several attempts to do so- but there is a problem. Emmi is married. "Happily married."

They make it clear they will never see each other, move onto a stage of joking about meeting, and reach the point of wondering whether what they are doing is having an affair, without having met!

The ending leaves you aching for Every Seven Waves. What a cliffhanger! Bad author!

I expect things will work out for them!

PERFECTION. I mean... Anna and the French Kiss, by Stephanie Perkins

Anna and the French Kiss, by Stephanie Perkins on Goodreads

Release Date: December 2nd, 2010
Publisher: Dutton
Age Group: Young Adult
Categories: Contemporary, Romance, Paris, Friendship
Overall: One Hundred Monkeys. Yep.
Interest: Romance! Paris! Boys!
Read on January 2011

Summary from Goodreads:

Annais looking forward to her senior year in Atlanta, where she has a great job, a loyal best friend, and a crush on the verge of becoming more. Which is why she is less than thrilled about being shipped off to boarding school in Paris —until she meets Étienne St. Claire: perfect, Parisian (and English and American, which makes for a swoon-worthy accent), and utterly irresistible. The only problem is that he's taken, and Anna might be, too, if anything comes of her almost-relationship back home.
As winter melts into spring, will a year of romantic near-misses end with the French kiss Anna —and readers— have long awaited?

My Opinion:

Love. Paris. Boy with cute accent. French food. Drama. More drama. Friends. Love. PARIS.

That pretty much sums it up.

I always try to write good reviews, nothing like, "OHMYGOSH that book IS AWESOME kjsjdfhsjkdfhsj!!!!!!"

But...

OH. MY. GOODNESS.

I couldn't stop reading this book. I had to know how it ended asap! I hadn't felt that many book-related butterflies in my stomach in a long time! I'm using a lot of exclamation marks, but I don't care!

This book is

like this.

And then, whenever Étienne (that is a love name right there. I just made up that term.) and Anna kissed, it was

like this.

I wanted them to kiss all the time. That's how good those scenes were.

The writing is amazing as well. The plot is fantastic, and so is the pace. Everything about this book is incredible. And yes, it's got some clichès, but Stephanie sure used them to her advantage!

I can't write a better review, sorry. All I'm thinking now is, "Where can I sign up for SOAP?" Maybe I'll find my Étienne there.