Attachments by Rainbow Rowell

I can say, while trying not to be super creepy, I am totally in love with Rainbow Rowell and the characters she writes. This is the third book where I have fallen madly in love with the male lead and rooted for him the entire time, even when his actions were borderline stalker-y. With all the YA I've been reading (for enjoyment and work) I forgot how enjoyable it was to read an adult story. Rainbow is one of the few authors I've seen go back and forth from teen to adult genre without messing up and mixing prose, her talent is so extreme, I fangirl way too hard.

Lincoln O'Neill has moved back to his mother's house and has taken a overnight job where he has to read people's emails. The entire staff at The Courier press was informed their emails would start being monitored so as to deter personal use of their work computers. While most staff stop personal emails or require one or two warnings, Jennifer Scribner-Snyder an Beth Fremont just can't seem to take it seriously. They continue to send each other hilarious and very personal emails daily and Lincoln finds himself absorbed in their lives. Unable to tear his eyes away from their words, he guiltily looks forward to catching their correspondence each night and in time finds himself falling for Beth. A woman he's never met or even seen before, what could he say, "Hi, I'm the guy who reads your email, and also, I love you..." When things start getting to real and close to home Lincoln knows he needs to make a change or his life will never go where he wants it.

Filled with delicious wit and humor, this book had me smiling pretty much the entire time. Despite his actions, you can't help but fall in love with Lincoln yourself and really root for his success. Beth and Jennifer so perfectly capture adult women in their glory it had me thinking of myself and my best friend through most conversations. Sure to please, Attachments is a must read for good laughs and heartfelt moments. I have never before wanted someone to read my emails, but if it was Lincoln, I don't think I'd mind.

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The Boy Next Door by Katie Van Ark

WARNING: In my opinion as a Children's/Teen Lead bookseller I find this book inappropriate for teens under the age of 17 due to sexual content. Reader be warned.

The Boy Next Door isn't my typical kind of read but it'll be an easy favorite for fans of The Boy Who Sneaks in my Bedroom Window by Kristy Moseley or Wanted by Kelly Elliot. This book is a very back and forth, friends-to-more trope that has some heart squeezing cute moments and a palpable chemistry between your two leads. With some steamy scenes it was nice to get a teen book that didn't shame the girl for her sexual interests, but one chapter in particular makes me wary to gear this to a younger teen reader.

Maddy and Gabe have been best friends and skating parents since they were children. This year is their big chance to make it to the world championship, but their new routines shakes things up on and off the ice. Their old routine based off The Incredibles is replaced by Romeo and Juliet, making them think a bit more on a subject they'd been trying to avoid. Maddy has always been in love with Gabe, although Gabe feels the same he has kept his feelings under wraps for a long time. Gabe doesn't have such good luck with dating, within two weeks after they get to home base, the relationship ends. He's afraid he'll do that to Maddy, the one girl he can not afford to lose. Maddy is tired of waiting for Gabe to make a move and won't let his fear of "falling" stop her from getting what she wants. With the new romantic routine and Maddy taking off her kiddie gloves, it doesn't take long for Gabe's feelings to bust through the surface. With twists and turns to make your head spin and your heart stop, they have a long road ahead of them if they plan to take their close relationship to moments off the ice.

Definitely a fun and light read The Boy Next Door delivers a romantic adventure with ups and downs steep enough to make your stomach drop. My one complaint about this book is, because I am not into figure skating I was really lost on a lot of terminology. There were a few paragraphs where I couldn't envision more than the ice rink due to technical jargon. Besides that this book is a feel good story with two characters that love each other deeply and will do whatever it takes to make the other one happy.

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The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

When you were younger, did you ever wish you lived in a land of fairy tales? Well Hazel and her brother Ben actually do, and it is not all it's cracked up to be. Filled with delightfully developed characters, Darkest Part of the Forest features POC, homosexuality, and some more topics sometimes tiptoed around in YA literature. Great for any fantasy or romance lover, Holly Black's latest novel has plenty to offer a large audience looking for a voice in popular YA books.

The town of Fairfold is known far and wide for having humans and fae exist side by side. People travel from all over to visit, but many learn that tourist behavior can lead to a deadly fate. Hazel and her brother Ben have dubbed themselves heroes to protect the land, Ben with his musical magic and Hazel with mighty sword. As they grow into adolescence, they learn being knights may not be as easy as the once believed. With more and more people vanishing and dying they discover their early acts of heroism were child's play and the forest has gotten darker and scarier. An elven prince has lain asleep in a glass coffin for many years with all tourist and townsfolk alike, dreaming of what it would be like for him to awaken. Over the years Hazel and Ben have crafted tales of how mighty their beautiful prince was before put into his slumber, but when he really does wake they learn there is more evil lurking about than they ever dared imagine. Finding hidden truths, deeply deeply buried secrets and personal strengths locked away, these siblings face many battles in the forest they thought they knew.

Holly Black possesses a unique way of writing that is not always popular, however with Darkest Part of the Forest, I think even the most steadfast will buckle to its greatness. Sucked in immediately by the twisted take on fairy tale and fae lore this book will be a force to reckon with in 2015. Holly has really paved the way for this year with fairy tale based YA books and I'll be surprised to see anything keep up. What a shame it isn't out during the holiday's to send off as a great gift. (I have completed the novel and written this review on December 10th 2014 but have complied with a request to withhold my review until January)

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The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

I've been eying this book up for ages and finally caved and bought it and I only regret not getting it sooner. I've heard many mixed reviews for this book so was on the fence for a quite a while, and I can see where both sides are coming from. This novel offers very generic usual teen fluff but has surprising twists and turns that make them entirely acceptable (in my humble opinion). From the start I wasn't much of a fun of Mara, she gets relatively annoying an extremely predictable at parts along with her love interest Noah, he's your usual bad boy with a broken past but that sucks everyone in and if you disagree, you're lying. Six feet tall with an English accent, he is the boy you wished had been in your high school but only existed in books, with his beautiful eyes and mercurial attitude. All that aside, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and am itching for book two.

Mara Dyer has awoken in a hospital bed with no memory of the events that led up to it, but finds she has survived a horrible accident and that her friends weren't quite as lucky. Her loving parents, to help cope with her stress, move the entire family a few states away from Rhode Island to Miami. Mara finds out that no matter how far you run, you can escape the past. Materializing in way of nightmares and daily hallucinations Mara thinks she's going insane from PTSD. At her new school she meets local heart breaking legend Noah Shaw who can't seem to stay away from her, seemingly equally lost and broken the two find themselves inseparable almost immediately. As their relationship progresses they start to learn more and more about each other while a multitude of accidents begin to occur around them. They begin to dig deeper and see what it is that has drawn them so closely together, something much bigger than either could have ever imagined.

As you can see by my above synopsis, predictable, average teen novel that pulls you in and throws you curve ball after curve ball. Just when you think you've got the story down pat Hodkin gets you with a zinger. I avoided the series for a while due to similar information being given to me before, but I wholeheartedly can say to put that aside and read this novel because it truly delivers. I really considered for about 5 minutes throwing on my coat and shoes and flying up to my job to pick up book two, that's how much of a need I have to continue the story. I am very excited to see how this can carry forward with another two books and don't expect to be disappointed. With real life properties, fantasy and romance all mingling together in this book, it has something to offer even the pickiest YA reader.

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All the Bright Places by Jennifer Niven

If you enjoy teen books with real depth, emotion and pain, you need to purchase this book with the utmost of haste. When I started this book, my heart broke for Violet and Finch, your high school student main characters, their pain and sorrow make its way into your own bones and force you to feel it. If you have ever struggled with loss, darkness, fear, these two will be kindred spirits and if you have been lucky enough to avoid such tragedy, they will open your eyes to the battle others go through. I am a big encourager of teens reading books that not only make them feel and think, but also open them up to consequences. Every single day so many people throw out cruel words at another human and laugh, whether alone or with a group, we are each and every one guilty. So many people though, forget that what they do and say affect others outside themselves. This is without a doubt, going to be the book (and then film!) of the year.

First is Finch, chaotic, uncontrollable, volatile, Finch. Awake, as he calls it, for the first time in weeks we meet him up on the bell tower of his school. As he stands upon the edge, contemplating life, looking at the people milling about below, he turns and sees Violet. Violet's story is less of a mystery, a few months ago she was in a car crash that caused the death of her sister and left her lingering with a heavy dose of survival guilt. Finch climbs over and coaxes her down from the ledge, but Violet his too popular for that kind of stigma so Finch protects her by allowing everyone to believe she went up and saved him, Crazy Finch. In their shared class of US Geography, Finch makes Violet be his partner for a project of visiting and documenting the beautiful sights of Indiana. In no time at all, Finch is in love (normally in a teen book this is where I'd groan and yell ALREADY?! but from what we've seen of erratic Theodore Finch, it is the exactly correct time frame for him to fall for someone) and carting Violet all over Indiana, compelling her to get back into living her life, instead of wasting away in her room fading away. As the book goes on and fills you with bubbly happiness and joy for these love struck teens, you start to notice a shift in Finch. Small things you pass over start to sit in the back of your brain and remind you what Finch fights each day. Finch begins to live solely out of his bedroom closet and that is when you start to accept, these are not quirks but a deep issue plaguing a brilliant boy. Violet finally begins to see the red flags and begs him to seek help and tries sending help to him when he refuses. Then, just like that, Finch is gone. Violet is receiving strange text messages and finds their project isn't as complete as she thought.

Painfully beautiful this book really opens your eyes and your heart. I have bawled and screamed and begged and pleaded with this book, praying the words would change but knowing this could not have been more perfectly written. If you were a fan of The Fault in Our Stars, you will be blown away by All the Bright Places. So many people, especially teens, hide away in shame if they know they are different. People that struggle with depression, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, even OCD, hang their heads in shame because in our society if it can't show up with a thermometer, it isn't real. All the Bright Places will help people to make changes, don't call someone fat, freak, stupid, weird, see how much brighter each day is. I will be showing this book to everyone the moment it shows up at my job and I can not wait for the film adaptation so those who don't want to read 400 pages can still get the beautiful message from this masterpiece.

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The Beast Within by Serena Valentino

I picked up The Beast Within the moment it arrived in the bookstore I work at and it has sat atop my ever growing pile waiting for the perfect moment to be read. That moment finally arrived on a Monday night and nothing was able to force me to put this book down. Upon completion of this novel I found myself even more viciously in love with Beast than I have been my entire life.  If you loved Beauty and The Beast and have always felt a longing for more about the beautiful, broken boy this is the book you need to pick up immediately.

The book starts with a slight difference to the Prince's downfall into the Beast visage he later dons by having it be the work of a family of witches that curse him fr breaking the heart of their gorgeous, beloved youngest sister. The Prince scoffs at their threats as idle words of worry and continues on in his search for a bride beautiful enough to be at his arm. When he finds a girl he deems worthy of his presence, he begins drifting into madness - noticing slight changes in his perfect appearance, a more haggard and drawn face, a clear cruelty and violence about his eyes his mean demeanor become more and more prominent. At last he recalls the words of the witched, true love's kiss having the ability to break this vile curse. So he treats his new lady with the utmost kindness and care until the perfect moment he may finally kiss her, only the curse speeds up so he lashes out, banishing the girl from his kingdom and driving her to extremes and destroying her family. Irate, he locks down the castle, refusing guests and keeping to his room until he becomes the Beast we all know so well. Enters Belle to take her father's place as his captive, and more of the story we have all grown to love, but this time with more insight to Beast's feelings and inner thoughts shining a light on the sweet scared boy he is. Ending of course with our fairytale kiss you ride a roller coaster of emotions leading up to that point with more story than one could have ever hoped for.

Putting my extreme adoration for this tale (as old as time HA) aside, it is a beautifully haunting novel delving farther into the psyche of this man than ever before. Even if you weren't previously a large fan of Beauty and The Beast this book weaves a story of romance that will melt any frozen heart and quell any skeptic beast. A quick read that is sure to take even the slowest reader just a short stint of time, it's a light novel that will uplift you and let you walk away feeling even better than before.

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The Cure for Dreaming by Cat Winters

This is the YA novel young girls NEED to have in their personal collections.Witty, brave and unapologetic this book,though based in 1900, holds a lot true for today's woman and girl. After having so loved Shadow of Blackbirds, I was positively flushed at the idea of getting another taste of Ms. Winter's beautiful talent and I must say, I was in no way disappointed. In under 24 hours I started and completed this book with an intense desire to sing it's praises from the rooftops.

We enter the novel meeting young Olivia Mead on her 17th birthday at a hypnotism show, titillated to be terrified by the evenings performance, only to find it would leave her with a bit more. After being called on stage and used in an act, her father has the brilliant idea of keeping her a "good little lady" by having the spark and spunk hypnotized right out of her. Young performer Henri agrees to this challenge for a serious financial need, but as he grows to know Olivia, finds himself unable to keep her silenced or hurt her. The beautiful romance that takes place through the novel rides on an eloquent back burner, not trumping the women's voices as they fight for their rights to be equals. Meeting so many young suffragists amidst some of the worst times to be a woman instills power in your character and in your reader. As Olivia struggles through situations that aren't so far off from instances today,you find yourself rallying for her strength and victory.

When this book came to an end I was almost devastated to let it go, but so proud to see a book directed at young girls that really drives home the views and ideas they need more and more every day. So often our girls are taught you are not worthy without beauty, don't save yourself - a prince will arrive and fix all your problems, but not in the book. Cat has given girls the voice and power to stand on their own and realize they have the strength to fight their own battles. I firmly believe we need a hundred more books like this for our girls, immediately.

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