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Review: Near and Far by Nicole Williams

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Near and Far by Nicole Williams

Near and Far by Nicole Williams
Series: Lost and Found #2 (full reading order below)
Publication Date: July 28th 2013
Purchase: Ebook • Paperback

There’s optimistic. And there’s Jesse Walker.

If he wasn’t so charming, his sunny disposition and incessant grin would get old. Fast.

Falling in love with the broken girl who had at first seemed immune to anything resembling love was the best thing to happen to Jesse since the Walkers adopted him when he was five.

As Jesse’s life continues at the ranch and Rowen begins making her mark in the Seattle art community, they wonder where the middle ground is. Or if there even is one.

As push comes to shove, they’re forced to make choices neither are eager to make, and Jesse and Rowen have to face what their lives might look like without the other.

Can two people with such tragic pasts and different presents expect a promising future together? Whatever the answer, they’ll need a lot more than love to make it.

Sigh. I just love Jesse. He’s my favorite nice boy/cowboy (okay, so he’s the only nice boy/cowboy I know, but whatevs). I had just finished reading book 1, Lost and Found, when luck would have it that Near and Far was released! I was so, so glad that Jesse and Rowen’s story wasn’t quite over yet. And I love that in Near and Far, we get alternating chapters of Rowen and Jesse’s POVs. WE GET TO BE IN JESSE WALKER’S HEAD!!! AHHH!!! *SWOONS*

Ahem, where was I… yes, so you can be sure that I was SO excited to be reading Lost and Found’s sequel, because I LOVED that book, and I needed more Jesse! And I knew that I wouldn’t wouldn’t be disappointed, because it’s Nicole Williams (whom I adore) and hello, Jesse! I am definitely not one to turn down a sweet and sexy cowboy. And while I can’t say that I LOVED Near and Far (at least as much as the first book), I absolutely enjoyed reading it and thought it was a great way to end Rowen and Jesse’s story.

So summer is over and Rowen has to leave the ranch and Jesse, and has to start college. Jesse is still working at the ranch, and rarely has time to visit Rowen, so they have to deal with having a long distance relationship. Throw in a TA who might have a thing for Rowen from her art class and a new working girl at the ranch who definitely has her eyes on Jesse, and the drama unfolds.

Most of the book is about the main couple dealing with their long distance relationship. It’s not easy. As much as they love each other, and they do, very much, time away from each other takes its toll on both of them. Both Jesse and Rowen become a little insecure about themselves and about their relationship. Neither of them thinks they are good enough for the other. They don’t see that they are perfect for each other, and their relationship gets a little strained. It was mostly because of this that I couldn’t put my full attention to Near and Far. It’s not that I was bored-more like the book just couldn’t hold my attention. And because of that, I couldn’t love the book fully.

The best thing about Near and Far, besides Jesse of course, is seeing how much love Jesse and Rowen have for each other. No matter how much their relationship gets battered, their love for each other is strong and unwavering. I was swooning so hard every time Jesse talked about Rowen, because you just know that that girl is everything to him. And the same goes for Rowen.

We never really got to read about Jesse’s past in full detail in Lost and Found, but it’s all out there in Near and Far. And it was horrendous. We finally find out the full extent of how neglected and abused Jesse was during his childhood, and my heart went out to him. But it just makes it all the more incredible that despite Jesse’s terrible upbringing, he has found the ability to love and is loved in return, and he has such a heart of gold. He tries to see the good in everyone even knowing that some people are so bad they are unredeemable.

The second best thing in the book was GARTH! I totally fell for this dark, bad boy, his sarcasm and his inner goodness. Because underneath his bad boy facade lies a good guy underneath. He cares about Jesse and Rowen, as much as he pretends he doesn’t, and I absolutely CANNOT WAIT for his book, Finders Keepers.

I loved the ending of Near and Far. It was so sweet and heartfelt, and even a bit sad since Rowen and Jesse’s story has come to its end. But I’m hoping we get to see glimpses of them in Garth’s book! I highly recommend reading this series, or anything by Nicole Williams. Her books are just fantastic, and never disappointing!

4 hearts!
4-hearts

Ladies, I present to you, Jesse Walker (or his back at least):

Jesse Walker

Just LOOK at that sexylicious back. Like, hot damn. I can’t even handle it. *fans self*

lacey

Reading Order: Lost and Found series

Lost and Found by Nicole Williams Near and Far by Nicole Williams
Finders Keepers by Nicole Williams Losers Weepers by Nicole Williams Heart & Soul by Nicole Williams

#1 ~ Lost and Found: My Review • Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#2 ~ Near and Far: Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#3 ~ Finders Keepers: My Review • Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#4 ~ Losers Weepers: My Review • Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#5 ~ Heart and Soul: Goodreads (June 16, 2015)

Review: Dare You To by Katie McGarry

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Dare You To by Katie McGarry

Dare You To by Katie McGarry
Series: Pushing the Limits #2 (full reading order below)
Publication Date: May 28th 2013
Purchase: Ebook • Hardcover • Paperback

Ryan lowers his lips to my ear. “Dance with me, Beth.”

“No.” I whisper the reply. I hate him and I hate myself for wanting him to touch me again….

“I dare you…”

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all….

Guys. HOLY FREAKING CRAP. I LOVED THIS BOOK SO SO MUCH OMG I LOVE RYAN WITH ALL OF MY HEART WHY CAN’T I BE IN HIS GROUP OF FRIENDS T_T AND THE BOTTLE OF RAIN OMG.

At the beginning I wanted Isaiah and Beth to go out because COME ON. After reading Pushing the Limits, how could they not be your OTP!? BUT I WAS WRONG. BECAUSE RYAN AND BETH ARE SERIOUSLY SO SO PERFECT TOGETHER YOU DO NOT EVEN UNDERSTAND.

Beth totally came off as a really tough and “do not mess with me” type of girl in the beginning of this book as well as in Pushing the Limits, but she’s seriously so sweet and has the best intentions for everyone and HER ATTITUDE IS SO BADASS I LOVE IT.

Anyways, I feel like I really enjoyed this book because it had the typical sporty jock guy, and the other girl, and I JUST LOVE BOOKS LIKE THAT. So I feel like that’s why I loved this one slightly more (actually just kidding, I don’t even know if I like it more than Pushing the Limits.) It was just… It felt like my type of contemporary book. But in a way, it’s also so much more than that because of both of Beth and Ryan’s family problems. I STILL LOVE ISAIAH THOUGH DON’T GET ME WRONG. I just like Beth with Ryan together more hehe. And I love that we see a different side of Beth than we did before!

OBVI.

5 hearts
shirley

Reading Order: Pushing the Limits series

Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry Crossing the Line by Katie McGarry Breaking the Rules by Katie McGarry
Dare You To by Katie McGarry Crash Into You by Katie McGarry Take Me On by Katie McGarry

#1 ~ Pushing the Limits: Ebook • Hardcover • Paperback • Goodreads
#1.1 ~ Crossing the Line: Ebook • Goodreads
#1.5 ~ Breaking the Rules: Lacey’s Review • Ebook • Goodreads
#2 ~ Dare You To: Lacey’s Review • Ebook • Hardcover • Paperback • Goodreads
#3 ~ Crash into You: Lacey’s Review • Ebook • Hardcover • Paperback • Goodreads
#4 ~ Take Me On: Ebook • Hardcover • Goodreads

Review: Lost and Found by Nicole Williams

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Lost and Found by Nicole Williams

Lost and Found by Nicole Williams
Series: Lost and Found #1 (full reading order below)
Publication Date: May 7th 2013
Purchase: Ebook • Paperback

There’s complicated. And there’s Rowen Sterling.

After numbing pain for the past five years with boys, alcohol, and all-around apathy, she finds herself on a Greyhound bus to nowhere Montana the summer after she graduates high school. Her mom agreed to front the bill to Rowen’s dream art school only if Rowen proves she can work hard and stay out of trouble at Willow Springs Ranch. Cooking breakfast at the crack of dawn for a couple dozen ranch hands and mucking out horse stalls are the last things in the world Rowen wants to spend her summer doing.

Until Jesse Walker saunters into her life wearing a pair of painted-on jeans, a cowboy hat, and a grin that makes something in her chest she’d thought was frozen go boom-boom. Jesse’s like no one else, and certainly nothing like her. He’s the bright and shiny to her dark and jaded.

Rowen knows there’s no happily-ever-after for the golden boy and the rebel girl—happily-right-now is a stretch—so she tries to forget and ignore the boy who makes her feel things she’s not sure she’s ready to feel. But the more she pushes him away, the closer he seems to get. The more she convinces herself she doesn’t care, the harder she falls.

When her dark secrets refuse to stay locked behind the walls she’s kept up for years, Rowen realizes it’s not just everyone else she needs to be honest with. It’s herself.

Nicole Williams, I love you. You are one of my absolute favorite authors ever. I fell completely in love with your Crash series (Jude!!! <3) and when I found out about your new book, Lost and Found, I absolutely had to read it! And goodness gracious, it did not disappoint! I wholeheartedly loved every bit of Lost and Found. It’s got incredible characters who you can’t help but love and care for. My heart just went out to Rowen and Jesse, the Walker family, and even Garth. Nicole Williams writes characters that are just so well-written, and a story that is sure to entertain.

Rowen is who you would consider a bad girl. She’s slept with tons of guys, done drugs, gets into tons of trouble, etc. But she’s funny as hell, and I love her every time she cracks a joke. She’s just graduated high school, and is sent to work at a ranch by her mother (who is a total bitch and hag-bleh) to what she calls “Hicksville, USA.” Really, it’s just Montana, but there’s pretty much no difference to a city girl like Rowen. And she doesn’t expect to meet the one and only Jesse Walker, hottie and cowboy extraordinaire.

The fantastic thing about Rowen is that she’s easily relatable. Even though she’s what some would call “bad,” she’s still real and down to earth. She’s blunt and honest, and even a little lost. She doesn’t know who she is, what her purpose is in the world, and during her time at the ranch, she discovers parts of herself she never knew existed. Her self-discovery and self-awareness are what make Lost and Found so much more than just a bad girl meets a good guy (I’ll talk more about this yummy good guy later ;)). Rowen’s a teen just like any other who is struggling to find her place in the world. And she gets the chance to change her bad girl ways thanks to a heartwarming and welcoming family who shows her what it means to love and be loved.

Ahem. So. What do you get when you have a gorgeous blond, blue-eyed boy who’s also an all-around nice guy, and is a cowboy? Jesse Walker. *fangirls* I honestly can’t think of another book who has a guy as nice and good-natured as Jesse is. And I LOVE him for that. It’s endearing and sweet and wonderful how good he is. He has a heart of gold, but don’t worry, he’s not entirely perfect either. He’s got some secrets of his own, but they’ve done nothing but make him into the incredible man that he is. He’s the type of guy you wish existed, because he’d make the world a better place with his optimism and goodness. Not to mention the hot bod he’s got going on. *sighs* He’s a cowboy-so it’s muscles galore! 😉 Rowen falls for him so hard (how can you not?), and it’s the sweetest thing to see them growing to love each other more and more, to see Jesse break down that tough-girl wall Rowen has erected around her heart.

The characters and the story are just incredible, and I could go on and on about how much I loved this book, but I won’t! Just read this book!

5 hearts!
5-hearts

lacey

Reading Order: Lost and Found series

Lost and Found by Nicole Williams Near and Far by Nicole Williams
Finders Keepers by Nicole Williams Losers Weepers by Nicole Williams Heart & Soul by Nicole Williams

#1 ~ Lost and Found: Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#2 ~ Near and Far: My Review • Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#3 ~ Finders Keepers: My Review • Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#4 ~ Losers Weepers: My Review • Ebook • Paperback • Goodreads
#5 ~ Heart and Soul: Goodreads (June 16, 2015)

Review: Frigid by J. Lynn

Posted in 3.5 hearts, Reviews by

Frigid by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Frigid by J. Lynn
Series: Frigid #1
Publication Date: July 15th 2013
Purchase: Ebook • Paperback

For twenty-one-year-old Sydney, being in love with Kyler isn’t anything new. They’d been best friends ever since he pushed her down on the playground and she made him eat a mud pie. Somewhere over the years, she fell for him and fell hard. The big problem with that? Kyler puts the ‘man’ in man-whore. He’s never stayed with a girl longer than a few nights, and with it being their last year in college, Syd doesn’t want to risk their friendship by declaring her love.

Kyler has always put Syd on a pedestal that was too high for him to reach. To him, she’s perfect and she’s everything. But the feelings he has for her, he’s always hidden away or focused on any other female. After all, Kyler will always be the poor boy from the wrong side of tracks, and Syd will always be the one girl he can never have.

But when they’re stranded together at a posh ski resort due to a massive Nor’easter, there’s nothing stopping their red-hot feelings for each other from coming to the surface. Can their friendship survive the attraction? Better yet, can they survive at all? Because as the snow falls, someone is stalking them, and this ski trip may be a life-changer in more ways than one.

I have to admit that I’m a huge, huge fan of the friends-to-lovers trope. Whether the couple is best friends already or become close friends during the book, it doesn’t matter to me. If it’s done well, if I’m rooting for the couple to end up together, then I’m going to love the book. In this case, Frigid is the story of best-friends-since-they-were-younguns Sydney and Kyler. So of course I had to read this book.

When I pick up a book by Jennifer L. Armentrout (or J. Lynn, her pen name), I know that I’ll for sure be enjoying the book, if not loving it. And though Frigid isn’t one of my favorites of her books, I did have a fun time reading it. I love the way Jennifer writes, which is so real, full of heart, and humorous. Unfortunately, I couldn’t connect with either Sydney or Kyler, so I couldn’t love the book very much. That’s not to say I didn’t like the book at all, because I did! Frigid was never boring, though it did get slow at times.

Sydney is the goody-two-shoes girl who’s always had to watch her best friend Kyler go through his manwhoring ways. And Kyler is one serious manwhore. I don’t really have an issue with guys who have slept with a ton of girls, but I did keep wondering why Sydney kept on loving Kyler even seeing him with hordes of girls. And eventually you get to see a sweeter side of Kyler that he never shows any girl but Sydney. The book is told from both their POVs, though most of it is told from Sydney’s POV, and it’s obvious to the reader that they’re in love with each other. The best part of Frigid is seeing Kyler and Sydney finally realize the depth of their feelings for each other, and yet still keep their friendship intact. They still argue, banter, and do everything that they did as best friends, but they also add the intimacy of being in love with each other.

The book was kind of weird, in that it moved too slow and too fast at the same time. Or I should say that Sydney and Kyler progressed to the hot and heavy stuff really quickly, too quickly for me, and yet their realization of their feelings for each other was just too slow. Most of the time, I was just wishing for them to just get a clue and admit their feelings for each other, because they honestly had no clue how one felt about the other! Of course, this is probably an important factor in stories with the whole friends-to-lovers thing, but still, Kyler and Sydney were just too clueless and oblivious.

There’s a bit of a suspenseful theme to the story that blows up towards the end of the novel, and I was really surprised that the suspense actually got that big and far. But besides this, the rest of the book is pretty lighthearted. If you’re looking for a sweet romance with a couple who is best friends, then Frigid is for you!

3.5 hearts!
3.5-hearts

lacey

Review: The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

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The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen

Series: Standalone
Publication Date: June 4th 2013
Purchase: Ebook • Hardcover

Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo’s sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.Emaline’s mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he’s convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?

Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she’s going?

Sarah Dessen’s devoted fans will welcome this story of romance, yearning, and, finally, empowerment. It could only happen in the summer.

OHMYGOODNESS YA’LL. I DONT KNOW IF YOU GUYS KNOW OF MY OBSESSION WITH SARAH DESSEN’S BOOKS????? BUT YOU’RE ABOUT TO FIND OUT.

So throughout my reading career (hehehhhh), I have religiously read all of Sarah Dessens’ books thoroughly. Ever since 8th grade, I have been in L O V E and hooked. HOOKED. LIKE A WORM HOOKED ON A…HOOK.

Obviously, I expected this book to be absolutely amazing. AND IT WAS. Although I didn’t cry, which is really weird for me since I cried in every single Sarah Dessen book, it was an amazing book and I’d definitely categorize it as a chick-lit.

OKAY TIME TO GET INTO THE NITTY GRITTY STUFF (do people even say this, what does it mean).

Sooooo. Personally, I think Luke and Emaline are SO CUTE TOGETHER OMG. CAUSE LIKE THEO IS PRETTY CLINGY AND ANNOYING. SERIOUSLY. At first it was like Awwww he’s such a cute romantic! but afterwards it was just like, boy. PUH-LEEEAASE. LUKE IS LIKE AWAAHHAHHHH<3 HE’S SO CUTE OMG. LIKE HIS ABS OHMYYY. but what he did was like mmM. nope, bye.

Emaline’s name is so pretty too like HOW DO YOU COME UP WITH THAT? And her step-brother is possibly the cutest thing that has ever walked on this planet. I’m glad that the book ended the way it did, and for SOME WEIRD REASON, as I am typing this review, I keep thinking about Second Chance Summer. Is that weird? Like I keep thinking about The Moon and More, but it’s actually Second Chance Summer. I’M GETTING ALL OF MY FACTS MIXED UP.

If you guys love Dessen too, this is a MUST READ.

And also, I love how Sarah Dessen always finds a way to put the title in the book. “I LOVE YOU TO THE MOON AND MORE” she’s amazing guys.

10/10 would recommend.

5-hearts

shirley