Friday Reads: I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios!!!

Hey there guys!

It is Friday! And I'm hoping to get a pair of books in the mail and to have some time to read before going to work night shift, because then I work night shift on Saturday again, which means I'll spend most of my Saturday sleeping...

For this week's Friday Reads I have a book that punched me in the feels in the best of ways and that made me sob and ugly cry and any other actions involving tears that you might think of. I preordered it from Book of Wonder signed and personalized and I got a special promo letter from Josh to Skylar for V-day and that was just wonderful too!

Since it is a 2015 release it will count towards that category on my 105 Challenge!

I'll Meet You There by Heather Demetrios

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


My ratings usually come from gut feelings and when I've been through so many emotions and I've cried as much as I did with this book, it deserves 5 and more stars for sure. And this is particularly relevant for me since this one is a contemporary book, and it's not a genre that I am drawn to much. I usually am very picky when it comes to contemporaries and this one was an absolute bullseye for me!

Skylar is our main character and it's a girl that wants to get out of the small town she has always lived in, and that dream of going away, all the planning and saving and thinking, is what has kept her sane through a very crappy and tough and all around messed up family dynamic, with her dad dead and her mum not being much of a parent for quite some time. Skylar has just graduated high school, has a scholarship for a fantastic art school and she just needs to get through a final summer before she can follow her dreams.

The relationship between Skylar and her mum was painful to read at times, but so raw and real and heartfelt. Skylar has been the one taking over the adult role and being the one responsible for herself and her mother for a lot time already and once her mum falls into another dark hole, Skylar feels like she'll have to give up everything to pull her mum out of it. It was very much a role reversal with the teen being the responsible one and the mum being the one in need of care. I found myself wishing that Skylar would stop feeling so responsible for her mum and would decide to focus on herself more, and feeling like crap for wishing that because her mum is her only family, and we do take care of those we love.

Then we got her friends, Dylan and Chris, both excellently written secondary characters that break through the possible sterotypes. Dylan is a girl that wears tight clothes and has a baby boy, a teen mother that is madly in love with her son's father and that has managed to graduate. Chris is Skylar's ally on the quest to leave their town, to be more and a genius at math. I loved how their relationship went through some hardships due to their different choices about staying or leaving for the future, and how despite it all they were there for each other through and through!

And then we got Josh, and he is such a broken and complex character and one that I simply felt for so much! He also wanted to leave town and did so as a soldier, to fight in Afghanistan, and he is injured, loses a leg and returns suffering from PTSD. A mess if there ever was one. I am very happy that we got both Skylar and Josh's POV, because his chapters if shorter, were even more emotionally heavy and poignant and made me cry like mad! Being in his head was both amazing and painful and was necessary to get us readers to not hate him after one pretty big mistake he makes, but seeing things from his POV... well, we know he made a BIG mistake and we still want Skylar to kick his arse but also to forgive him.

I'm glad that Skylar and Josh's relationship is built by working together, hanging out together, becoming friends by feeling like outsiders and not really belonging in a place, and after quite a few false starts here and there, with communication and a lil help from others here and there, they find a way to be together. They have to work on their relationship a lot, but they do have dreams to achieve and someone to share those dreams with. And an amazing black lab doggie that made me cry even more!

This book was an amazing read for me and not only because it was extremely emotional for many reasons and not just the romance, but so many important relationships like between parent and children, friends, co-workers, parental figures. And it makes you really think and wonder about the consequences of war for those that come from it and their families. A brilliant book through and through.



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Saturday Pages: Pointe by Brandy Colbert!!!

Hello guys!

This week's Saturday Pages comes a lil later than usual because I finished this book so late last night that I was too tired to write the review upon finishing it and I needed to let the whole book sink in a bit.

It is February's Alyssa Recommends book and since that is one of the categories in my 105 Challenge, it is counted towards it, as well as my 2015 Debut Author Challenge, since it was a 2014 debut.

Pointe by Brandy Colbert

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Pointe was one of my Alyssa Recommends books, and this month I felt like reading it, because I've been more drawn to anything and everything with ballet references as of late.

Theo is a normal teenager on the surface, dedicate to her love for ballet and doing well enough at school, going out to parties with her friends, and with one or two not so unhealthy habits. But very soon we see there's so much more in the past that we don't know, and the façade of Theo doing well starts crumbling once a ground-shaking event happens, her best friend Dononvan who was abducted/kidnapped 4 years ago, when they both were 13, has been found and returned home.

With Donovan's return and the revelation of who his captor was, Theo has her world shaken to the foundation, and she finds herself slipping to an already known spiral for her, the same one she fell into 4 years ago, when her then boyfriend left without a trace and her best friend disappeared.

This book deals with a lot of tough subjects and doesn't pull any punches when it comes to bad language, eating disorders, sexual relationships, drug usage, rape and abuse. It also has positive relationships with friends and parents, safe environments and a main character that undergoes a lot of growth all through the book.

Theo is not a perfect character by any means, she has many unresolved issues and the one that requires more work is the fact that she doesn't see herself as a victim, even if her eating disorder was a desperate bid for control when she felt she had none, she always kept her secret and she refused to think that there was anything wrong with it, and once it really sinked in for me what had been going on between her and her "boyfriend"... I felt like I had been punched!

This book is definitely gritty and shows us a face that might one to ignore, the fact that teenagers do have sex, that even regular good teenagers that do have a drive and love for something so demanding like ballet can still do drugs occasionally, can be at risk in ways their parents can't suspect no matter how they try to protect them, and one of the best lessons from this book is how Theo's parents may not know what is going on, but they do take action, they are there for her daughter and remind her of that, they're not oblivious, but if you don't feel like you need help or if you don't know if you deserve the help... you are the one that will need to take the first step and you need to confide in someone at some point.

Despite what a tough book this is, it ends with a lot of hope, with Theo being the one to ask for help once she realizes she needs it, Theo learning to be strong enough on her own and not expecting someone else's appreciation to make her special. She decides that no one can heal her unless she does it herself, and that is a wonderful message of hope.

A brilliant debut, so tough, beautiful and poignant, very well deserved of 4 to 4.5 stars for sure! I'll be looking forward for more books from this author!







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Mark This Book Monday: ARC Review of Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley!!!

Hello guys! Happy Monday!

I work night shift today, so althought I do have to work, I get to sleep in and spent most of my day at home!
I'm starting the week for Mark This Book Monday with a tough read and a wonderful book all rolled into one, one I cannot recommend enough for everyone to read and then stop and think.

This is one book that will be better if read with someone, and that's why I'm so happy I was doing a buddy read for it with the very awesome Becca of Pivot Book Reviews and Pivot Book Totes! You can read her review of the book HERE.

I got approved for it by Harlequin Teen that are usually wonderful to me like that via NetGalley! As an ARC it is part of my 2014 Review Pile Reading Challenge and also my ARC August challenge!

Lies We Tell Ourselves by Robin Talley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This was one tough book to read, at least the first third of the book was extremely heartbreaking to read. But, this is one of those books that I think everyone needs to read, we all need a reminder about what the perpetuated lies and standards of "us vs them" really are.

This a great example that if we are looking for diverse reads they are out there, this is historical fiction set in more modern times, of the long and very tough journey of integration.

The story is told from two points of view: Sara, the black girl that is for the first time enrolling into an all white school; and Linda, the white girl whose father is the main opposer of integration and equality in their town, and the more vocal, given that he runs the local paper.

The book starts with Sarah's POV, and there was a point I wasn't sure I could continue reading. The amount of hate and humiliating stuff they go through was upseting, saddening, maddening and made my blood boil. I was feeling as anxious and my heart rate got higher with the tension and anxiety that Sarah went through. Really amazing how the narrative made me feel so much!

Then we switch to Linda's POV and we see things from her side, and lil by lil see her thinking for herself and finding out that maybe those beliefs she thought she had weren't so right or as strong as she thought they were. It was a fantastic example of how reality differs from theory and how when "them" as an abstract entity becomes a real human being in front of you, the differences are not so big.

This book is mainly about the differences or lack thereof about being black or white, but then adds yet another layer and it can be just about being different in a way that society as a whole, or a chunk of society seems to disapprove of, for no other reason than being different, fear and hate just turning it into an " us vs. them" fight once again.

Hope and finding the right way to live life the way you want to, making sure you don't have to hurt others but not letting them making your choices for you would be the very positive message by the end of the book. So be warned but not be discouraged at all, this is a must read of a book! 4 to 5 stars for this one, I can't seem to be able to pick a rating for it!



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