Sunday Street Team: Brooding YA Hero Guest Post

The Book

Goodreads  Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Ever wished you could receive a little guidance from your favorite book boyfriend?
Or maybe you're just really confused about what "opal-tinted, luminous cerulean orbs" actually are?

Well, popular Twitter personality @broodingYAhero is here to help as he tackles the final frontier in his media dominance: writing a book. Join Broody McHottiepants as he attempts to pen Brooding YA Hero: Becoming a Main Character (Almost) as Awesome as Me, a "self-help" guide (with activities--you always need activities) that lovingly pokes fun at the YA tropes that we roll our eyes at, but secretly love.

As his nefarious ex, Blondie DeMeani, attempts to thwart him at every turn, Broody overcomes to detail, among other topics, how to choose your genre,  his secret formula for guaranteed love triangle success, and how to make sure you secure that sequel, all while keeping his hair perfectly coiffed.

The Author: Carrie Ann DiRisio

Carrie Ann DiRisio is a YA writer and creator of @BroodingYAHero. She lives in Pittsburgh, PA with one large fluffy cat, and is currently pursuing her masters in business, although her true dream is to become a Disney Villainess, complete with a really snazzy gown.
In addition to writing and plans for world domination, she also enjoys running, coffee, Krav Maga, and knitting.

The Guest Post: Favorite YA Tropes

So, it's no secret that Brooding YA Hero's book consists of making fun of a lot of tropes. But like all things, I feel like the best humor comes from something when you really love it, and you can lightly poke fun at it. So, without further ado, I'm going to reveal the top tropes I secretly love.

Number one, enemies to lovers. I simply cannot get enough of the bad guy who turns good, out of the power of love. Whether it's Fandom Draco falling for the good guys or Fandom Zuko falling for Katara. Okay. Look. So, most of my enemies to lovers only exist in the fandom community and aren't canon, but that's okay. I still ship them pretty hard.

​Number two: mistaken identity. There's a part of me that deeply loves all of those tropey movie star and pop star movies where someone gets mistaken for a pop star and they get to have this really glamorous life for a day. However, my favorite example of that is actually with someone a lot less likely to be mistaken for, and that's a lady's maid. Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day is probably one of the cutest, fluffiest movies I've ever seen. In this, a cranky, exhausted old nanny gets mistaken for a lady's maid and gets to have all of the standard makeovers and even finds a love interest based on her mistaken identity.

​Number three: "I love you, but we just can't be together right now." I'm not even sure what this trope would be called, technically, I just know that nothing makes me happier than after characters declare their undying love for each other, some plot related issue keeps them apart, maybe for a chapter, maybe for a book series, maybe for eternity. The pining just fills me with such delicious glee.

​Number four: winter. Okay, that's not an actual trope, but if a book is set in winter and has snowball fights and hot cocoa and snowmen (and isn't the movie Frozen, thank you very much,) I will adore it. Bonus points if it involves snuggling after playing in front of a big bonfire.

Number five: the final trope, I would have to say is the big brooding hero himself. People are often surprised when I reveal how much I love brooding heroes, but like I said, I make fun of what I love because I love it for a very good reason. Give me a handsome man with a dark past and a mysterious secret and I will swoon in seconds. I adore watching the brooding type slowly reveal his good side. It makes me grin every time.

Sunday Street Team: Interview with Laura Silverman + Giveaway

The Book

Girl Out of Water by Laura Silverman

Release date: May 2, 2017

Goodreads  Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Anise Sawyer plans to spend every minute of summer with her friends: surfing, chowing down on fish tacos drizzled with wasabi balsamic vinegar, and throwing bonfires that blaze until dawn. But when a serious car wreck leaves her aunt, a single mother of three, with two broken legs, it forces Anise to say goodbye for the first time to Santa Cruz, the waves, her friends, and even a kindling romance, and fly with her dad to Nebraska for the entire summer. Living in Nebraska isn’t easy. Anise spends her days caring for her three younger cousins in the childhood home of her runaway mom, a wild figure who’s been flickering in and out of her life since birth, appearing for weeks at a time and then disappearing again for months, or even years, without a word. 

Complicating matters is Lincoln, a one-armed, charismatic skater who pushes Anise to trade her surfboard for a skateboard. As Anise draws closer to Lincoln and takes on the full burden and joy of her cousins, she loses touch with her friends back home – leading her to one terrifying question: will she turn out just like her mom and spend her life leaving behind the ones she loves?

The Author-Laura Silverman

Laura received her MFA in writing for children from the New School. She loves books and dogs—okay, and quite a few people too. She currently lives in Atlanta, Georgia. You can say hello on Twitter at @LJSilverman1.

Find her on: Tumblr Twitter Goodreads

The Interview

Emma: Anise is an athletic character, as is Lincoln. Why was it important for them to both have a sport to participate in?

Laura: It was their connection! Anise was a surfer from the start, and it made sense she’d gravitate towards a new sport stuck in landlocked Nebraska. Thankfully Lincoln is there to guide her ☺

E: Are you in any way similar to Anise, Lincoln, or another character from Girl Out of Water?

L: I’m probably most similar to Tess – Anise’s best friend. I’m really loyal and honest with my friends (hopefully! I think!). Like Lincoln, I can definitely nerd out about things other people might find boring. And Anise and I are actually pretty different but we both share/shared that fear of losing friendships to distance.

E: One of the best parts of Girl Out of Water is the focus on family - not just parents and children but also cousins and aunts. What are some of your favorite other YA books that have strong focuses on family?

L: *screams Jenny Han’s books from the rooftops* I’m so flattered some early reviews have compared our books because I absolutely love her focus on family.

E: What's been the best part of your debut author experience?

L: EVERYTHING. It’s honestly hard to pick one thing. Signing that contract. Holding my ARC for the first time. Signing ARC copies. Holding the real book for the first time. All of the relationships! Meeting amazing writers and readers and people who work in publishing! And of course – the biggest perk – all the books!

E: What would be the best kind of book swag for Girl Out of Water? (Like, if you had no budget restraints, what would you love to give as a preorder promotion prize?)

L: Ooh! Probably like a two-week trip to California and Nebraska. With tours guided by Anise and Lincoln because they’re real people in this fantasy, right?

E: What's the weirdest writing advice you've ever received?

L: The “only write what you know” advice has always struck me as odd. Am I only supposed to write about girls growing up in Georgia who go to the University of Georgia for college and study English and Advertising and have never gotten on a surfboard?

E: Cake or pie, and what kind?

L: Oreo cheesecake ☺ Also apple pie with vanilla ice cream, though. Also why is dessert so good?

The Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunday Street Team: Becky Allen Guest Post

The Sunday Street Team

The Book

Bound by Blood and Sand by Becky Allen

Release date: October 11, 2016

Goodreads  Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Jae is a slave in a dying desert world. 

Once verdant with water from a magical Well, the land is drying up, and no one remembers the magic needed to keep the water flowing. If a new source isn’t found soon, the people will perish. Jae doesn’t mind, in a way. By law, she is bound by a curse to obey every order given her, no matter how vile. At least in death, she’ll be free. 

Elan’s family rules the fading realm. He comes to the estate where Jae works, searching for the hidden magic needed to replenish the Well, but it’s Jae who finds it, and she who must wield it. Desperate to save his realm, Elan begs her to use it to locate the Well. 

But why would a slave—abused, beaten, and treated as less than human—want to save the system that shackles her? Jae would rather see the world burn. 

Though revenge clouds her vision, she agrees to help if the realm’s slaves are freed. Then Elan’s father arrives. The ruler’s cruelty knows no limits. He is determined that the class system will not change—and that Jae will remain a slave forever.

The Author

Becky's website

Becky's Twitter

Becky's Tumblr

Becky's Instagram

Becky Allen grew up in a tiny town outside Ithaca, New York, and graduated from Brandeis University with a major in American studies and a minor in journalism. She is the website director of TheBody.com, an online HIV resource, and loves New York, brunch, and feminism. Becky lives in New York City.

The Guest Post: The World-Building of Bound by Blood and Sand

Way back in middle school, one of my favorite fantasy series was David and Leigh Eddings’ THE BELGARIAD. Think: farmboy turns out to be a lost king, epic clash of nations, the villain is a full-fledged dark god. This, my middle school brain said, is fantasy. So I was absolutely thrilled to death when, a few years later, the writers released all of their worldbuilding notes in a giant tome -- almost 500 pages! It was full of histories (thousands of years worth), religious texts, notes on the economies, government, etc, of dozens of countries. It was amazing. I was utterly overwhelmed.

This, my high school brain said, is how you build a world. I proceeded to spend the next few years trying to do exactly that for a few fantasy projects I was noodling around with -- writing out histories, making up holidays, creating an index of important historical characters. But it never really worked. Sure, I came up with a lot of stuff, but none of it felt very organic -- none of it had much of anything to do with my actual characters or the stories I was trying to tell. I just thought that was what you were supposed to do when you wanted to write fantasy.

That is not what I did for BBB&S.

The very first thing I knew about BBB&S was that it was going to take place in a desert that was losing its water -- the conflict, and thus the whole story, hinged on that. So yes, I started with some pragmatic stuff, like what the temperature would be, what plants and animals there would be. I made a couple of quick lists as I wrote, and in my draft I noted places where I wanted to come back and fill in more details… once I knew what the details were.

One thing about BBB&S is that it hinges a lot on the backstory, events that happened generations before my characters. That wasn’t something I knew going in, though, so when I realized it as I wrote… well, I just kept writing. The first version didn’t make a lot of sense, but it gave me a beginning. I knew that the Well (the magic that keeps the desert’s water in place) and the Curse (the horrible magic placed over my protagonist) were somehow tangled up together, but not how. So after that draft, I spent some time figuring that out. I may have jotted that down in a document somewhere, but the most important place it lived was on the page, in the next draft.

The thing that worked for me about building up world that way, inside out instead of outside in, is that it gave everything I built context within the story. There wasn’t history for the sake of history; there was history that directly affected the characters.

The same thing carried through in other ways. One thing my editor asked me about in revisions was art and culture -- there are four castes in the book, though really only the Closest (bottom caste) and Highest (guess which one they are) were all that important. She asked if I could differentiate the two by showing more of their differing cultures, such as their art and music. So I thought about it -- what kind of art would the Closest have?

The Closest are slaves, who don’t have much in the way of possessions, or free time. So I gave them art that was subtle -- simple drawings in the dirt or done with ashes on a wall. They are easy to overlook, and easy to erase and start again. Nothing permanent, because these characters have nothing. Once I knew that, it was easy to build up a contrast among the Highest: since the Closest worked only with muted, dark colors, everything the Highest do is bright and flashy. Brilliant colors all over the place! So what had been a sort of generically beige-y stone house where most of the story takes place was suddenly covered in brightly colored mosaics all over the place.

Once again, the worldbuilding details were all things that came from what the story needed. Pieces I discovered as I wrote, that wove themselves into the story I was creating. And I’ve realized, this is the method that works for me. Building up too much ahead of time makes me feel like I need to to shape a story to fit a world -- when the truth is that the worldbuilding should serve the story.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunday Street Team: A Shadow Bright and Burning Guest Post

Sunday Street Team

The Book

Henrietta Howel can burst into flames.
Forced to reveal her power to save a friend, she's shocked when instead of being executed, she's invited to train as one of Her Majesty's royal sorcerers.

Thrust into the glamour of Victorian London, Henrietta is declared the chosen one, the girl who will defeat the Ancients, bloodthirsty demons terrorizing humanity. She also meets her fellow sorcerer trainees, handsome young men eager to test her power and her heart. One will challenge her. One will fight for her. One will betray her.

But Henrietta Howel is not the chosen one. 
As she plays a dangerous game of deception, she discovers that the sorcerers have their own secrets to protect. With battle looming, what does it mean to not be the one? And how much will she risk to save the city—and the one she loves?

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble  Amazon

The Author: Jessica Cluess

Follow Jessica on Twitter

The Guest Post: Favorite Fantasy Heroines

Choosing just one or two favorite fantasy heroines is nearly impossible. There are so many funny, strong, terrifying, vulnerable, compassionate, intelligent, fearsome, and downright incredible leading ladies in the genre that it’s one of those situations where your mind shuts down when you’re asked. That’s the kind of question where you go find the collected works of Tamora Pierce, plop them in front of the person who asked, shrug, and walk away. So instead of creating a list of umpteen billion women, I’m going to name two ladies whom I really love, and explain why I love them.

The first girl is Sophie Hatter from Howl’s Moving Castle. The reason I love Sophie is because she isn’t your standard fantasy heroine. In fact, in the beginning of the book, she’s resigned herself to a life of drudgery and boredom because she’s the eldest of three, and going by fairy tale logic, nothing remarkable will ever happen to her. Sophie does her work in a hat shop, knows how to cook and clean, but there’s nothing about her that screams ‘badass magic girl.’ And that’s the reason I love her. Sophie’s adventure is made the more real because she herself is a relatively “real” girl. I mean, sure, she’s got the whole curse that makes her look like an old woman going on, but that’s just the catalyst that gets her out the door. As much as I love women in fantasy who barge in with a sword strapped to their backs, a dagger between their teeth, and a prophecy sitting on their shoulders, I love girls like Sophie because they remind us that adventure and excitement isn’t just for the anointed. It can happen to all of us, if we’re brave enough to answer its call.

The second fantasy girl is Lyra Belacqua from His Dark Materials. When I was younger, I was fairly certain I was going to name my daughter after Lyra. She’s a twelve-year-old girl who swans around with aeronauts and armored bears, has an animal familiar that talks, and knows how to outwit people five times her age. I don’t care that she’s a kid: I’d still love to be her. Lyra is the unlikable girl protagonist. For the first book in the series especially, she’s a lying, manipulative child who is sassy to an almost unbelievable degree. She’s headstrong to a fault, and has zero control…because she’s twelve years old. Usually when we see young girls in fantasy, they’re made to be either entirely too sweet and demure, or so skilled and wise that you don’t believe for a second they’re not yet twenty. Lyra feels like a real, honest to god tomboy, and that makes her journey—and her eventual sacrifice—so painful and so pure. She’s allowed to develop and grow in great and horrible ways throughout the series. That kind of growth is rare in any character, let alone such a young kid. But that transformation makes her into one of the great fantasy heroines, as far as I’m concerned.

There are, like I’ve said, too many incredible girls to name. And if we’re lucky, even more incredible, flawed, brave, and true young women will be gracing the pages of fantasy books in the future. That would make naming them all even more difficult, and delightful.

Sunday Street Team: All the Feels Quotes + Giveaway

Sunday Street Team

The Author

Danika's website

Danika's Twitter

Danika's Facebook

Danika's Twitter

Danika Stone is an author, artist, and educator who discovered a passion for writing fiction while in the throes of her Masters thesis. A self-declared bibliophile, Danika now writes novels for both adults (The Intaglio Series and Ctrl Z) and teens (All the Feels). When not writing, Danika can be found hiking in the Rockies, planning grand adventures, and spending far too much time online. She lives with her husband, three sons, and a houseful of imaginary characters in a windy corner of Alberta, Canada.


Ms. Stone is represented by Morty Mint of Mint Literary Agency.

The Book

All the Feels by Danika Stone

College freshman Liv is more than just a fangirl: The Starveil movies are her life… So, when her favorite character, Captain Matt Spartan, is killed off at the end of the last movie, Liv Just. Can’t. Deal.

Tired of sitting in her room sobbing, Liv decides to launch an online campaign to bring her beloved hero back to life. With the help of her best friend, Xander, actor and steampunk cosplayer extraordinaire, she creates #SpartanSurvived, a campaign to ignite the fandom. But as her online life succeeds beyond her wildest dreams, Liv is forced to balance that with the pressures of school, her mother’s disapproval, and her (mostly nonexistent and entirely traumatic) romantic life. A trip to DragonCon with Xander might be exactly what she needs to figure out what she really wants.

The Quotes

For today's blog tour post, I'm sharing my three favorite quotes from All the Feels!

"All right, I'm over on the dark side. You'd better have the cookies I've been promised."

“She stared, wide eyed as glass-walled elevators shot up fifty-two floors like pods in a launch tube. Everything - from the glaringly bright carpet swirling with psychedelic lines; to the hotel's open ceiling ringed by storey after storey of balconies, the distant roof so high it made her head spin; to the people decked out in cosplay - was torn from a science fiction novel. It seemed Liv had spent the last eighteen years in search of her people, and in one sudden explosion of fate, they'd all been brought together in this place in time. Her eyes filled with tears as a sudden awareness filled her.

They were all nerds.” 

"It was as if every television and movie character from 1960 onward had spontaneously reappeared in a single room. The only people who stuck out were the ones who weren't in costume. And Liv, for the first time in ages, felt completely at ease because no one had recognized her."

The Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunday Street Team: Outrun the Moon Review + Giveaway

Sunday Street Team

The Author

Website

Twitter

Stacey Lee is a fourth generation Californian with roots in San Francisco Chinatown. Born in Southern California, she graduated from UCLA then got her law degree at UC Davis King Hall. She has lots of experience with earthquakes, having skinned her knees more times than she wants to remember diving under tables. One day she hopes to own a hypoallergenic horse and live by the sea.

The Book

Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee

San Francisco, 1906: Fifteen-year-old Mercy Wong is determined to break from the poverty in Chinatown, and an education at St. Clare’s School for Girls is her best hope. Although St. Clare’s is off-limits to all but the wealthiest white girls, Mercy gains admittance through a mix of cunning and a little bribery, only to discover that getting in was the easiest part. Not to be undone by a bunch of spoiled heiresses, Mercy stands strong—until disaster strikes.

On April 18, an historic earthquake rocks San Francisco, destroying Mercy’s home and school. With martial law in effect, she is forced to wait with her classmates for their families in a temporary park encampment. Mercy can't sit by while they wait for the Army to bring help. Fires might rage, and the city may be in shambles, yet Mercy still has the 'bossy' cheeks that mark her as someone who gets things done. But what can one teenaged girl do to heal so many suffering in her broken city?

The Review

Grade: B+

An e-galley was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

I can't tell y'all how much I love historical fiction, especially when the author gets me invested in the story and characters. Stacey Lee is great at creating strong characters that I care about: first Samantha in Under a Painted Sky and now Mercy in Outrun the Moon. Mercy is driven and doesn't give up easily. She fights for her happiness, and she is kind, even if she is careful with her kindness. She mainly reserves it for her family, especially her brother, and those who have earned it, but she also helps the headmistress of St. Clare's, even when many would say the woman doesn't deserve Mercy's help.

I loved the Mrs. Lowry plot thread. It added depth to Mercy's character and was such a great motivating factor. The best part of the St. Clare's storyline is that I probably would've read a whole book about just that. I even forgot the earthquake was going to happen because I was so invested in Mercy at the school. I liked how the earthquake shook up (pun intended) the dynamics of the girls at the school. Disasters create strong bonds that might not have happened otherwise, and that's certainly the case here. The earthquake also meant we got to know the supporting characters a little better, and I appreciated that development for a lot of them. 

The earthquake also caused a lot of sadness and, not gonna lie, there was one moment where my heart sank and I wanted to hug Mercy. I didn't cry, but I don't cry during a lot of books. On another note, the romance in this book is minor, and I think it needed a little more attention to make me care about Tom with Mercy.

The Verdict: Really good. There just wasn't that extra oomph to make this a five-star favorite read of mine.

Ma says we can measure our lives by our pain. There is the pain of our first steps, and of losing our first tooth. The pain of a parent's anger, and the disappointment when something doesn't go our way. Each advances us in some way, leading us further into the experience of being human. (from Outrun the Moon by Stacey Lee)

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: Yes! I've already preordered it.

The Giveaways

(must provide transportation for the first two)

San Francisco Getaway:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Show Me San Francisco:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Hand-Knit Shawl:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunday Street Team: The Love That Split the World Review

Sunday Street Team

The Author

Emily Henry is full-time writer, proofreader, and donut connoisseur. She studied creative writing at Hope College and the New York Center for Art & Media Studies, and now spends most of her time in Cincinnati, Ohio, and the part of Kentucky just beneath it. She tweets @EmilyHenryWrite.

The Book

The Love That Split the World by Emily Henry

Natalie Cleary must risk her future and leap blindly into a vast unknown for the chance to build a new world with the boy she loves. 

Natalie’s last summer in her small Kentucky hometown is off to a magical start... until she starts seeing the “wrong things.” They’re just momentary glimpses at first—her front door is red instead of its usual green, there’s a pre-school where the garden store should be. But then her whole town disappears for hours, fading away into rolling hills and grazing buffalo, and Nat knows something isn’t right.

That’s when she gets a visit from the kind but mysterious apparition she calls “Grandmother,” who tells her: “You have three months to save him.” The next night, under the stadium lights of the high school football field, she meets a beautiful boy named Beau, and it’s as if time just stops and nothing exists. Nothing, except Natalie and Beau.

Emily Henry’s stunning debut novel is Friday Night Lights meets The Time Traveler’s Wife, and perfectly captures those bittersweet months after high school, when we dream not only of the future, but of all the roads and paths we’ve left untaken.

The Review

Grade: C+

An ARC was provided in exchange for review consideration.

Have you ever liked a book, but then struggled to put your thoughts into words? The Love That Split the World is one of those books for me. It was one of my most anticipated reads of 2016, so I obviously thought I would at least like it.
The one thing I struggled most with in this book, besides the amount of foul language, was how God was treated. My faith affects how I read books and I can read atheist and agnostic characters but this...this was a bit much for me. I did like the inclusion of Native American legends and I appreciated that the author didn't make Natalie half Native American just for diversity. It was actually part of the story. But it felt weird to me, to include God like he was so...yeah.
A lot of the science-y things flew over my head, which I think lessened my enjoyment. I'm not a science/science fiction person at all (except for a few sci-fi books), so if there's complex physics or psychology, I'll start skimming. 
I liked Natalie's relationship with her brother and sister, and I appreciated that she mainly just felt awkward around her parents, that she didn't dislike them. The romance was, well, pretty much an insta-love. Emily developed it in a lot of ways, but it surprised me how quickly Natalie and Beau were into each other. I didn't buy into their chemistry and I love swoony ships, but theirs wasn't one of them.
There's a lot of things I want to talk about in this review, but they are definitely spoilers and unfortunately, almost everything I liked about The Love That Split the World is a spoiler.
Finally, I wasn't a big fan of the underage drinking or the swearing.

The Verdict: All I can really say is, if you like science fiction, Doctor Who, and other trippy books, The Love That Splits the World is probably for you.

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: Probably. Maybe. Still deciding.

Sunday Street Team: The Possibility of Now Spotlight + Giveaway

The Sunday Street Team

The Author

Kim Culbertson is the author of Catch a Falling Star; Instructions for a Broken Heart, a Northern California Book Award winner; and Songs for a Teenage Nomad. When she’s not writing young adult novels, she teaches high school creative writing. Kim lives with her husband and their daughter in Northern California. For more about Kim, visit www.kimculbertson.com.

The Book

The Possibility of Now by Kim Culbertson

Mara James has always been a perfectionist with a plan. But despite years of overachieving at her elite school, Mara didn't plan on having a total meltdown during her calculus exam. Like a rip-up-the-test-and-walk-out kind of meltdown. And she didn't plan on a video of it going viral. And she definitely didn't plan on never wanting to show her face again.

Mara knows she should go back, but suddenly she doesn't know why she's been overachieving all these years. Impulsively, she tells her mom she wants to go live with her estranged dad in Tahoe. Maybe in a place like Tahoe, where people go to get away from everyday life, and wiht a dad like Trick McHale, a ski bum avoiding the real world, Mara can figure things out.

Only Tahoe is nothing like she thought. There are awesome new friends and hot boys and a chance to finally get to know Trick, but there are also still massive amounts of schoolwork. Can Mara stopping planning long enough to see the life that's happening right now?

The Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sunday Street Team: For the Record Review

Sunday Street Team

The Author

Charlotte Huang is a graduate of Smith College and received an MBA from Columbia Business School, which is clearly something every aspiring writer should do. When not glued to her computer, she cheers her two sons on at sporting events and sometimes manages to stay up late enough to check out bands with her music agent husband. Charlotte lives in Los Angeles and is the author of For the Record (Delacorte, 2015)

The Book

For the Record by Charlotte Huang

Chelsea thought she knew what being a rock star was like . . . until she became one. After losing a TV talent show, she slid back into small-town anonymity. But one phone call changed everything 

Now she’s the lead singer of the band Melbourne, performing in sold-out clubs every night and living on a bus with three gorgeous and talented guys. The bummer is that the band barely tolerates her. And when teen hearthrob Lucas Rivers take an interest in her, Chelsea is suddenly famous, bringing Melbourne to the next level—not that they’re happy about that. Her feelings for Beckett, Melbourne’s bassist, are making life even more complicated.

Chelsea only has the summer tour to make the band—and their fans—love her. If she doesn’t, she’ll be back in Michigan for senior year, dying a slow death. The paparazzi, the haters, the grueling schedule . . . Chelsea believed she could handle it. But what if she can’t?

Grade: C+

An ARC was provided in exchange for an honest review.

I went into For the Record expecting something a bit like Open Road Summer, except more from Dee's POV and with a different type of music. And I didn't really get that. There was a lot of angst with Chelsea feeling like an outsider and unwanted and the romantic tension. It was still a fairly enjoyable story, but it wasn't quite as perfect as I expected. While I didn't dislike Chelsea, I didn't love her. I really didn't like her best friend or Lucas Rivers. The whole plotline with Lucas was a bit cliche. I much preferred Beckett, even with all his faults. I actually really enjoy when bandmates fall for each other, so I mostly liked how that played out. And I did like the idea of the band. I would've liked a little more setting and imagery of all the places they were playing. It would've grounded me in the story better.

There's a lot of kissing and talk of sleeping together. There's a fair amount of foul language.

The Verdict: I still recommend reading For the Record, I really do. But it wasn't quite what I wanted, so that's why I'm not in love with it.

Buy: Read Between the Lynes  Barnes & Noble

Will I be adding this book to my library?: Eh, probably not.

The Giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway