Since You've Been Gone

Title: Since You've Been Gone
Author: Morgan Matson
Pages: 449 (hardcover)
Published: May, 2014, by Simon and Schuster
(All links lead to the books' respective Goodreads pages).

Summary: The Pre-Sloane Emily didn't go to parties, she barely talked to guys, she didn't do anything crazy. Enter Sloane, social tornado and the best kind of best friend—the one who yanks you out of your shell.

But right before what should have been an epic summer, Sloane just… disappears. No note. No calls. No texts. No Sloane. There’s just a random to-do list. On it, thirteen Sloane-selected-definitely-bizarre-tasks that Emily would never try… unless they could lead back to her best friend.

Apple Picking at Night? Okay, easy enough.

Dance until Dawn? Sure. Why not?

Kiss a Stranger? Wait… what?

Getting through Sloane’s list would mean a lot of firsts. But Emily has this whole unexpected summer ahead of her, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected) to check things off. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go Skinny Dipping? Um…

My Thoughts: After finishing this book, I had to actively try to find something wrong with it but I ended up pretty much failing. It was such a delightful, cute, and fun young adult contemporary novel! I read Amy and Roger's Epic Detour last year, also by Morgan Matson, and enjoyed it immensely so when I picked this novel up I had high expectations, especially when reading all the high praise it's been garnering. And I have to say, I was definitely not disappointed. I also have to say, I could totally see this book being made into a movie (yes, please).

I would even go so far as to say that this book exceeded my already lofty expectations (gasp!). The more I sit here and think about this novel and how well written, fun, and full-o'-feels it was the more I love it. The characters were fully fleshed out and multidimensional, the plot makes you want to keep reading until dawn, and it wasn't a forced plot and neither was the dialogue, which was very believable and had a natural flow to it.

My only gripe with this book is that sometimes it felt like Emily's family was neglecting her and that she didn't seem all that bothered by it and that sometimes (like maybe twice?) when Emily would be waffling about trying to think of reasons not to do a list item, you would grow frustrated with her. But that's it. I seriously can't think of anything else that would make this novel not deserve a perfect score in my book. Is it a high class, critically acclaimed, world changing, Pulitzer Prize winning piece of art? Probably not. But I don't read to feel intelligent, I read to escape and explore different worlds and to go on emotional journey and this book was perfect for that.

I highly recommend this book to anyone who loves a good coming of age, fun, summery contemporary read, like Matson's Amy and Roger's Epic Detour or anything by Sarah Dessen.  Heck, I'll probably be recommending this to anyone who's willing to listen to me fangirl because it was just that dang cute and loveable. After reading this, all I want in my life now is a life changing, adventurous summer where I make new friends, conquer fears, find love, become brave, go on a road trip, and discover my own inner strength. This book was seriously that inspiring to me and I can definitely say I will be rereading it in the future.
My Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

We Were Liars

Title: We Were Liars
Author: E. Lockhart
Pages: 227 (hardback)
Published: May 2014 by Delacorte Press

Summary: A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.

We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart. 

Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.

My Thoughts: If you've heard about this book, then you may have been told to go into it blind which I'm just going to reiterate to you as well since that's what I did and it made me appreciate it just that much more. Subsequently, this means that this review will be quite short since I don't want to delve into too many specifics. BUT I will say why it got a 4 out of 5 stars and not a perfect score from me because I think that's fair enough.

First off, I don't know if this is how New Englanders or private island owning people talk, but oh my goodness it got pretty annoying at times. For example, before reading this book, I had never heard of the word "natter" before and I don't think I ever want to hear/read it again. It was grating having to read it over and over again and usually when the main character was being whiny about this or that. I mean, the main characters except maybe one sounded, for lack of a better word, a little snooty at times, especially when they became annoyed or cross about something.

Also, another reason why this book didn't get a perfect score was because yes it did hit me in the feels (they're still a little bruised but don't worry chocolate heals all book-caused feels) and yes it was a memorable book, but other than that it didn't wow me. I wasn't completely enthralled until the very end where, if you've read any other reviews of this book you'll know, there's a twist. The writing, however, was beautiful from beginning to end and had a lyrical feeling at certain points. I will definitely be adding some quotes from this book to my list of favorite quotes, because dang were they poetic.

Despite my 4 out of 5 rating, this was an excellent novel. If you like well-written contemporary, beachy mysteries, then this is your kind of book. And to be honest, that's my kind of book, too, which is why I will be on the hunt for more like this one for future reading adventures.
My Rating: 4 out of 5 stars