Why I Love Just One Day

I've been reading YA (beyond The Hunger Games) for almost five years now. In the fall of 2013, I read what was clearly one of the favorites at the time - Just One Day. And now I'm going to tell you why it's managed to stick with me over the last four and a half years.

1. Europe

I have immense wanderlust, and it was apparently simmering under the surface in 2013 'cause Allyson's travels around England, France, and Amsterdam definitely stirred something inside of me.

2. Shakespeare

I had just taken a year-long class on Shakespeare, so it was very much on my mind. I loved exploring two new-to-me plays and Allyson's Shakespeare class at her university fascinated me.

3. The university setting

YA books set during freshman year of college are becoming more common, but this was one of the first I read, and it's stuck with me.

4. Finding yourself

A fitting plot for college freshman characters is figuring out who you really are, and Allyson is definitely doing that throughout the book. She's figuring out what she wants for herself and what makes her happy, as opposed to what makes her mother happy.

5. The messiness

There is nothing perfect about Allyson, or her relationship with Willem, or her friendships. But she tries and she doesn't want to leave things messy if she can help it.

I'm sure most of y'all have read Just One Day by now, but if you haven't...

Goodreads  Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Around the World Book Recommendations #3

This is the last post in the series, but I've got four more cities for y'all!

LONDON

You should read...

 
 

MOSCOW

You should read...

 
 

BEIJING

You should read...

 
 

WASHINGTON, D.C.

You should read...

 
 


What else would you recommend for these cities?

Top Ten Tuesday: Songs I Wish Were Short Stories/Books

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Are there ever songs you think would make a good story? Or at least a good foundation for one? Well I've compiled a list of seven.

1. "All Too Well" by Taylor Swift

2. "One Fine Day" by The Chiffons/Carole King

3. "Out Of The Woods" by Taylor Swift

4. "I Know Places" by Taylor Swift

5. "The Secret Life of Daydreams" from the 2005 Pride & Prejudice soundtrack

(Basically I want the feeling of this song in a book)

6. "Waiting for Superman" by Daughtry

7. "Roses" by Kelsea Ballerini

What did you talk about for TTT today?

Review: Ash Princess

Ash Princess by Laura Sebastian
Grade: B
Release date: April 24, 2018
An e-galley was provided by Random House via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Theodosia was six when her country was invaded and her mother, the Queen of Flame and Fury, was murdered before her eyes. Ten years later, Theo has learned to survive under the relentless abuse of the Kaiser and his court as the ridiculed “Ash Princess.” Pretending to be empty-headed and naive when she's not enduring brutal whippings, she pushes down all other thoughts but one: Keep the Kaiser happy and he will keep you safe.

When the Kaiser forces her to execute her last hope of rescue, Theo can't keep her feelings and memories pushed down any longer. She vows revenge, throwing herself into a plot to seduce and murder the Kaiser's warrior son with the help of a group of magically gifted and volatile rebels. But Theo doesn't expect to develop feelings for the Prinz. Or for her rebel allies to challenge her friendship with the one person who's been kind to her throughout the last hopeless decade: her heart's sister, Cress.

Cornered into impossible choices and unable to trust even those who are on her side, Theo will have to decide how far she's willing to go to save her people and how much of herself she's willing to sacrifice to become queen. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: At first glance, Ash Princess could come across as a stereotypical YA fantasy. There are many overthrown princesses in YA stories and there's a lot of elemental magic. Yet, somehow, Ash Princess manages to set itself apart, even if it's just a little bit.
I thought there was great character depth. I got to know Theo, Blaise, Søren, and Cress all pretty well. And characters like Elpis, Artemesia, Heron, and the Kaiserein didn't remain two-dimensional either. Listen, the Kaiserein was awesome. She's not a perfect person by any means, but I wish there'd been even more of her, because I felt like she was a very layered character that didn't get explored to her full potential. I am excited to see what we get from Cress in future books because I can tell her story is only just beginning.
The world-building felt a little weak to me at times. Hopefully that'll get extra attention in books two and three, but I wanted a little more development for the various cultures. Theo's kingdom definitely felt Greek to me, and the Kalovaxians read as Germanic or even Russian to me, but that wasn't quite enough world-building for me. The magic system also felt underdeveloped, but I'm optimistic about that being explored further.
There is a teeny bit of a love triangle, and I am nervous about where that will go in future books. I have my hopes for the romance, and the hopes don't involve the prince.
Ash Princess has a fair amount of violence. Theo is whipped regularly, and there are deaths. The Kaiser is definitely not a nice guy.

The Verdict: I enjoyed myself while reading this book. That's always a big plus for me.

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: I'd like to!

Review: The Astonishing Color of After

The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan
Grade: C+
An ARC was provided by Miss Print's ARC Adoption program in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Leigh Chen Sanders is absolutely certain about one thing: When her mother died by suicide, she turned into a bird.

Leigh, who is half Asian and half white, travels to Taiwan to meet her maternal grandparents for the first time. There, she is determined to find her mother, the bird. In her search, she winds up chasing after ghosts, uncovering family secrets, and forging a new relationship with her grandparents. And as she grieves, she must try to reconcile the fact that on the same day she kissed her best friend and longtime secret crush, Axel, her mother was taking her own life.

Alternating between real and magic, past and present, friendship and romance, hope and despair, The Astonishing Color of After is a novel about finding oneself through family history, art, grief, and love.

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: For me to buy into the fantastical of a magical realism story, the protagonist has to be one I can connect with. Or at least, their voice has to be click. Unfortunately, I felt like Leigh was always one step away from being a protagonist I truly loved. Caro and Leigh's mother, Dory, felt the most fully-formed, and there were so many layers to both of them that I loved.
I also wonder if sometimes the setting felt a little too contemporary and on the precipice of having enough description? That might be keeping me from buying into the magical realism aspects.
The last 13% was perhaps the strongest. I wish the rest of the book had been that good.

Content warning: A little bit of foul language. There are a bunch of probable triggers for depression and suicide.

The Verdict: By no means a bad book. I just think it didn't quite reach its potential.

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I add this book to my library?: Likely not.

Random Friday: Cute Animal Pictures

Want to participate in Random Fridays? Just do the following:

• Include the above image in your post and link back to my blog.
• Blog about this week's topic (or a variant of it).
• Add the link to your Random Friday post at the bottom of this one.

Somedays, my blog just needs cute pictures of animals.

If y'all want more cute animal pictures and videos and you follow my Tumblr, my tags are "precious little fluff" and "precious little darling" (and the plurals of both). Enjoy!

Review: Not If I Save You First

Not If I Save You First by Ally Carter
Grade: C+
An ARC was provided by Miss Print's ARC Adoption program in exchange for an honest review.
Summary: Maddie thought she and Logan would be friends forever. But when your dad is a Secret Service agent and your best friend is the president's son, sometimes life has other plans. Before she knows it, Maddie's dad is dragging her to a cabin in the middle of the Alaskan wilderness.

No phone.
No Internet.
And not a single word from Logan.

Maddie tells herself it's okay. After all, she's the most popular girl for twenty miles in any direction. (She’s also the only girl for twenty miles in any direction.) She has wood to cut and weapons to bedazzle. Her life is full.
Until Logan shows up six years later . . .
And Maddie wants to kill him.

But before that can happen, an assailant appears out of nowhere, knocking Maddie off a cliff and dragging Logan to some unknown fate. Maddie knows she could turn back- and get help. But the weather is turning and the terrain will only get more treacherous, the animals more deadly.

Maddie still really wants to kill Logan.
But she has to save him first. 

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: Ally Carter was one of my first forays into YA, and to this day her Heist Society trilogy holds a special place in my heart. And while I'll read anything else she writes, her recent novels haven't met my expectations.
Something has shifted in her writing style, I feel like, which I've noticed since the first Embassy Row book, All Fall Down. I can't quite put my finger on it, but something about the writing style feels too basic. Maddie's voice in Not If I Save You First was distinct from Grace's in Embassy Row, but the style still seemed too similar. Additionally, Maddie and Logan sounded too similar, in my opinion so the jumps between their POVs within the same chapter didn't transition like they should have.
The climax spiraled too fast, and the denouement was too short. 
I did like that Stefan had depth. Maddie did, too, but I felt like I was always on the edge of actually knowing her. She felt too cut and dry for a protagonist. 
The romance between Maddie and Logan felt a bit expected, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but I would've liked Carter to do something to develop it that wouldn't have been expected.

Content warnings: violence (some gunshot wounds, an explosion, various other fights and injuries).

The Verdict: I'm sad. This is the first Ally Carter book I haven't loved (or at least liked, in the case of Embassy Row.)

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I add this book to my library?: For the first time ever, I don't really want an Ally Carter novel.

Top Ten Tuesday: Books I Liked But Will Probably Never Reread

Hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl.

Oh man, this week's topic happens way too often to me. I like certain books a lot, often well enough to buy them...and then I just lose the motivation to ever reread them. For this post, I specifically chose books I've reviewed because it was easiest to find candidates by looking through that Goodreads shelf. There's nothing necessarily wrong with these books; I guess I just liked them less than I thought I did.

1. A Million Miles Away by Lara Avery

2. Midnight Thief by Livia Blackburne

3. Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman

4. For Real by Alison Cherry

5. Girl in the Blue Coat by Monica Hesse

6. Golden by Jessi Kirby

7. In Real Life by Jessica Love

8. When the Moon Was Ours by Anna-Marie McLemore

9. The Trouble with Destiny by Lauren Morrill

10. You Bring the Distant Near by Mitali Perkins

11. One Past Midnight by Jessica Shirvington

12. The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White


What books made your TTT this week?