Transitive Verve

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it) Allison, along with her twin sister Jade, is a succubus, just like their mother and her  twin sister were as well - it's a family curse. They can't so much as kiss a man (or boy, in Allison and Jade's cases) without draining their life energy and rendering them bedridden, and at worst, as was the case with their parents, intimate contact would bring death. Since their succubus powers make them exceptionally beautiful and attractive to men (as well as "addicted" to life energy the more they take it from others), Allison has decided to squelch her tendencies by dressing "goth" (like, "80's Cure fan" goth), hiding out at the library, and spreading rumors about herself that she summons demons and bites the heads off bats. Jade, on the other hand, has decided to fully embrace who she is, making out with tons of ...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) 18-year-old Londoner Clara has spent the last 8 months traveling around the world, running from her broken life and some tremendous guilt over something that happened a long time ago. While on a flight to Minneapolis, she ends up seated next to a strange, paranoid, spectrum-dwelling young man named Elias, who accidentally takes her bag when they land (because they're identical). Clara is determined to seek him out because 1) he has all her stuff, and 2) he has drawn something in his sketchbook that relates to her past, when there was no possible way he could have known about it, and it's freaking her out. When she finds him, he has no memory of meeting her at all. At least, for the time being - Elias has Dissociative Identity Disorder, so sometimes he's the sweet, charming Elias who had answered the door, and at other times, he's...

Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Aza Ray Boyle has been dying since she was born. It's some sort of lung condition so rare that it's actually named after her, because she is the only person who has it. She has spent the entirety of her life in and out of hospitals, taking medication, being stuck with needles, etc. What makes it bearable is her loving family and her best friend Jason, who is just as smart and weird as she is. In the week before her sixteenth birthday, she starts hallucinating a ship sailing through the storm clouds. She wakes up with a feather in her lungs. She hears distant voices calling for her. "Magonia," Jason tells her. Her hallucination reminds him of things he's read, about a mythical land existing in the skies, sailing here and there, masked by the clouds. And after she finally passes away, five days before her birthday (not a spoiler), Jason is the one who spots the ship in the sky above her funeral. Aza wakes up abo...

Thoughts at a glance:   **** (I really liked it) Violet Markey and Theodore Finch - they meet on the ledge of the school bell tower. Violet is still having trouble coping with the death of her sister nine months ago, and Finch is preoccupied with the idea of suicide and different ways to die, in between life with his broken family and his reputation around school as being a freak. At that particular moment, they both realize that they don't want to jump, and a connection has been forged. Inexplicably (to everyone else at school), they pair up for a project that requires them to wander around Indiana and experience all the interesting sites, and in doing so, they find themselves falling in love. It's Finch who helps Violet work through her trauma, and it's Violet who helps Finch find a spot of happiness. But their time together is drawing to a close, and not just because high school is ending. I'm seeing this book compared to The Fault in Our Stars , and consider...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it) Seventeen-year-old Kai doesn't know much about her past. She has been living in the poorest district of the city of Ninurta with Reev, who found her at the river's edge when she was a kid and has raised her as if she were his sister ever since. All she knows is that she has the ability to manipulate time - and it's a dangerous secret to have, since no one in the entire city is supposed to have magic. Her daily life consists of making mail deliveries for the White Court (the palace ruled by the all-powerful Kahl Ninu), visiting her handsome friend Avan, and taking care of Reev. Then Reev disappears mysteriously one day, and her world gets turned upside-down as she and Avan go on a quest to find him. I actually have the digital galley for the second book in this series too, so I will be continuing on anyway :) If I didn't have to review...