Day: April 15, 2015

Guest Review: Breathe Into Me by Sara Fawkes

Posted April 15, 2015 by Tracy in Reviews | 0 Comments

Breathe Into Me by Sara FawkesTracy’s review of Breathe Into Me by Sara Fawkes

How did my life get so broken?  It’s a question Lacey St. James asks herself every day. Stuck raising her little brother in a trailer park while she works a dead end job at a grocery store, she has a stalker ex-boyfriend, a bad reputation, and no way out.

And then she meets Everett, whose presence changes her entire existence.

Everett is an outsider to her small community, in town for the summer house-sitting one of the grand mansions off the Mississippi coast. When he saves her in a bar one night, she’s grateful but wary of his intentions. Lacey doesn’t trust most men in her life, but for reasons Lacey can’t understand, Everett is completely captivated by her. He’s determined to show her that life can offer more than she’d ever hoped for, if only she believes in herself. As she works with him to free herself, Lacey desperately yearns to trust him, to move on and perhaps start fresh.

But what happens when she finds out that everything he’s told her about himself was a lie?

Lacey has had a hard life. Until she was 15 she lived in Oregon and had a good life with her mother, father and then eventually her little brother. Then when she was 15 her father died and she found out he was her step-father. Her mother moved them into her maternal grandmother’s trailer in Mississippi and then proceeded to drink herself silly. Lacey has to deal with her now non-existent mother (as she’s usually drunk and passed out) as well as her incredibly belligerent grandmother who treats Lacey like crap.

When the story begins Lacey – age 19 – is with her boyfriend Macon and from his first appearance on the page we can tell that’s he’s a complete ass. Controlling and physically abusive are just two of his finer traits. Ug. Lacey is headed out to a night on the town with a friend when she meets Everett. She’s attracted to him but with all the crap in her life she knows she should really remain friends. After an altercation with Macon at the club Everett gives her a ride home and that begins their friendship.

Lacey is hopeful that she can get her GED and get the hell out of town. She never finished high school after she was roofied and raped. Of course the small town spread rumors about her that make her out to be a slut who asked for what she got. She’s ready to stop being the social pariah but Everett makes her look at herself in a new light and they soon become more than friends. Unfortunately Everett’s not entirely truthful with Lacey as to who he is and why he’s in Mississippi (he’s from New York) and when that truth comes out it may be the end of their relationship.

Breathe Into Me was the story of two people who have serious issues individually finding each other despite their misery. I was happy that both Everett and Lacey had someone to go to that understood their pain and the story was well written but I honestly wasn’t thrilled with the book.

Lacey’s situation was heart-wrenching yet seemed SO horrible it was almost unrealistic. I guess I felt it was over the top – not saying this doesn’t happen in real life as I’m sure it does – and I found it to be a bit much to take. It’s horribly on paper – the only father she knows dies, she’s taken from everything she knows and has to live in a place where she’s hated just for being alive. Her mother turns into an inattentive drunk and then as if that’s not bad enough she’s roofied and raped and then painted as a whore as no one believes her THEN she has a physically abusive boyfriend who’s a controlling jerk? Wow. Just…wow. Everett helped her considerably, and Lacey did grow during the book but I felt the author just laid too much on one character.

Everett had his own issues with his family but I felt that in some circumstances there was no need to lie to Lacey or evade her questions. So he used to live their as a kid and was rich – why was he hiding that? IDK and couldn’t figure it out. He was a good guy though, for the most part, and I was happy he could help Lacey and in turn she could help him.

Overall it was a high drama/high angst story. I couldn’t get invested in the characters too much and that put a damper on my overall enjoyment of the book.

Rating: 3 out of 5

This title is available from St. Martin’s Press. You can buy it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


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Review: One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin

Posted April 15, 2015 by Rowena in Reviews | 0 Comments

one of the guys
Rowena’s review of One of the Guys by Lisa Aldin.

Tomboy to the core, Toni Valentine understands guys. She’ll take horror movies, monster hunts and burping contests over manicures. So Toni is horrified when she’s sent to the Winston Academy for Girls, where she has to wear a skirt and learn to be a lady while the guys move on without her.

Then Toni meets Emma Elizabeth, a girl at school with boy troubles, and she volunteers one of her friends as a pretend date. Word spreads of Toni’s connections with boys, and she discovers that her new wealthy female classmates will pay big money for fake dates. Looking for a way to connect her old best friends with her new life at school, Toni and Emma start up Toni Valentine’s Rent-A-Gent Service.
But the business meets a scandal when Toni falls for one of her friends–the same guy who happens to be the most sought-after date. With everything she’s built on the line, Toni has to decide if she wants to save the business and her old life, or let go of being one of the guys for a chance at love.

My favorite kind of books are contemporary stories filled with regular every day people who are living their lives and going through things. I love seeing characters evolve over the course of a book and seeing them come out on top at the end. This was one of those kinds of books.

Toni Valentine is starting her senior year with a bunch of strangers, in a new school and not with her best friends back at her old school. She’s attending an all girls school for her last year of high school and it’s her own fault because she thought it would be great to moon the principal while he was out on a date so her step-dad thought it would be a good idea to send Tom Boy Toni to Winston Academy.
Winston Academy for Girls isn’t ideal for a girl who burps as loud and as often as teenage boys do and who would rather hunt for monsters on the lake with her three guy best friends but it’s Toni’s reality for the next school year. Being at a new school is hard enough without adding keeping your grades up and making new friends but Toni is having a hard time with not seeing her old friends all that much. They’re all going in different directions and Toni is having a hard time letting go.

When Toni meets Emma at school, they strike up a friendship that takes Toni by surprise because Emma is a girly girl and Toni…is not. When Emma needs a fake date to open her ex-boyfriend’s eyes, Toni talks her friend Loch into helping out. Their plan works so well that Toni Valentine’s Rent-a-Gent opens up for business. Her friends Ollie, Cowboy and Loch all need money for different reasons and Toni feels that her Rent-a-Gent service for the Winston girls will bridge the gap between her old world and her new world and everything will go back to being as normal as she can make it.

Toni has always been closest with Loch and when he becomes the most popular date, feelings start creeping up that takes Toni by surprise.

This was a fun book. It was cute and fun and I enjoyed getting to know both Toni and Loch. Their story revolved around the best friends to more plot and I thought Aldin did a great job of telling their story. Toni was a normal teenage tom boy who wasn’t all that fond of change and learning that life changes all the time. I enjoyed getting to know Toni and what drove her to do the things that she did. She was a young girl with a big heart, who loved those in her life with all she had and was trying to make room for everyone and everything. I loved that her relationship with her step-dad Brian was touched on in this book. Loved seeing Toni grow closer to him and deal with the loss of her father.

Loch was a great guy from the very beginning. When they were in that boat at the start of the book, I knew that he was going to be the love interest because he was just interesting. I loved that he understood and accepted Toni as she was and didn’t all of a sudden open his eyes in her direction when she started wearing skirts and going to the All-Girl school. His feelings for her were real and the little bits that are revealed about Loch throughout the book made me all swoony. What a cutie pie he was.
There were times when I wanted to smack some sense into Toni, like when it took her so long to figure out what she felt for Loch and the whole running away from him on their weekend away together with that dumb girl from school but aside from that, I liked Toni. She was great.

Overall, this was a great debut from Aldin. This book had all of my favorite things and I zipped right through it. I definitely recommend this to readers who are looking for a cute, contemporary YA with great characters and witty dialogue.

Grade: 4 out of 5

This book is available from Spencer Hill Press. You can purchase it here or here in e-format. This book was provided by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.


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