Transitive Verve

Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Summary:  Devon Tennyson admits that she leads a pretty unremarkable life, and that's probably why she's having trouble thinking of what to put in her college essay. She's perfectly happy not  getting involved in extracurricular activities, hanging out (and crushing on) her best friend Cas, and avoiding thinking about the future. But as her senior year begins, her younger cousin Foster comes to live with her family and demonstrates a remarkable talent that makes him an unlikely athletic star. Finding herself spending more and more time around surly football hero Ezra Lynley, Devon starts to learn that she's not as ordinary as she once thought either and that no one is simply how they seem on the surface. Thoughts:  This book was billed as " Pride and Prejudice  meets Friday Night Lights ," but I don't think I would describe it that way. I mean, yes, there are lots of Jane Austen references, since Devon i...

Disclaimers: while my blog post itself does not contain any graphic sexual content, this book does. This is a review for a book that is meant for mature audiences, and therefore is unsuitable for minors.  This book was provided to me for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Summary:  Cole Sharpe is a shoe-in for the new Senior Editor position at Oxford  magazine - he's been a freelance writer there for quite some time, and he's good friends with all the guys (and the ladies as well!) - but things take a turn when he finds out that he actually has competition, in the form of Penelope Pope. Penelope recognizes a charmer when she sees one, and Cole is definitely a charmer. Despite being competition, they hit it off immediately and become friends, the ladies' man and the tomboy. But as their attraction and connection become undeniable, they both have to decide whether an office romance is a good ...

Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Summary:  It's the summer after graduation, and Margie is getting ready to go to Paris for college to get a degree in management and then to go to culinary school when her parents drop the bomb that they will be returning to the small wealthy community where she grew up, bullied to the point of inducing PTSD and requiring six years of therapy. She is determined to avoid any run-ins with her childhood bullies when she finds out that she will be working alongside one of them, the handsome and wealthy Zach Robinson, for the summer. Zach swears that he's not the same person anymore, and that he's trying to be a better person after the death of one of his friends. Fighting him every step of the way, Margie eventually comes to realize that if she deserved a second chance, he should too. Thoughts:  I can't remember what originally made me purchase this book, but it's been sitting on my Kindle a while, and when I recent...

This book was provided to me for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thoughts at a glance: ** (It was okay) Katie Willfield and Drew Reilly are of course destined to be enemies, as her father is the Republican candidate for President, and his mother is the Democratic candidate. Also, they seem to be complete opposite - Katie lives and breathes politics, while Drew just wants to be a normal kid. But when a morning show interview throws them together, sparks fly between them, and as Katie helps Drew adjust to life in the spotlight, Drew helps Katie loosen up and be a normal teenager. However, things get interesting when the media catches wind of their relationship right when they break up, and things get even more  interesting when both parents want them to continue their relationship for the cameras. (This story is told in alternating viewpoints.) Spoiler alert: You won't know who wins the election. So... I felt like this book had a lot of potential. T...

This book was provided to me for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) That morning, Kady Grant broke up with her boyfriend, Ezra Mason. That afternoon, both of them were scrambling for their lives as mega-corporation Bei-Tech bombed and destroyed their tiny planetary settlement. While Ezra is conscripted as a pilot aboard the battlecarrier  Alexander , Kady puts her computer skills to use aboard the science vessel Hypatia  as a series of mysterious and suspicious events occur, decreasing the number of survivors at a steady rate: a dangerous virus begins to spread aboard one of the other ships in the fleet, and the Alexander 's AI system may be more sentient (and dangerous) than anyone could have imagined. As Kady uses her hacking skills to wade deeper and deeper into the truth, she finds that the fleet's commanders are covering up something huge, and Ezra is all that she has left, as Bei-Tech closes in o...

This morning it was announced that the 10th anniversary edition of Twilight  would include a genderbent version called Life and Death , in which Bella is now Beau, and Edward is now Edythe. As you can probably imagine, a lot of the Internet response has been pretty disdainful, as most discourse has been regarding anything having to do with the series, including Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, who have since moved on with their lives to do other awesome film projects. I'm not going to lie - I can be snarky about Twilight  sometimes too. It's very easy to do so - there are a lot of problematic elements within the book series itself, and then add to it the fandom fervor, the gossip headlines, etc., and it's a perfect storm of mockable elements ripe for the picking. There has been a lot written and said about what is bad about Twilight . So I'm going to talk about what I  like about it instead. At the time that I first read Twilight , which was well after t...

Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) I'm filing this under "book to movie adaptations," though it is actually a book and not a movie. This is because it's a sequel to a book based on a series that is an adaptation of a book. Wow. That sounded complicated. Okay, some backstory: Pride and Prejudice  is my number one favorite book. The Lizzie Bennet Diaries  is a modernization of P&P, and is framed as a series of vlogs posted by Lizzie, who is a 24-year-old grad student getting a degree in Mass Communications. Her life consists of her two sisters, Jane and Lydia; her best friend, Charlotte; and her upcoming senior thesis project. And then all of a sudden, rich med student Bing Lee moves to town, with the even-richer William Darcy in tow, and everyone's life changes. On camera. On the internet . Full disclosure: I am a SUPER fan of this series. I mean, not super enough to have befriended the cast members and creators, but some of them actually ...