5 Stars |

Book Review – Kaleidoscope Hearts by Claire Contreras

Posted on June 11, 2015 by charmouabb

I have been in a reading/reviewing abyss. Sure I’ve read this and that, I’ve even read some pretty great books. But I haven’t read anything a quite a few weeks that has had me needing to review it…. Until now. Kaleidoscope Hearts has broken my book slump! Hurrah!

He was my older brother’s best friend.
He was never supposed to be mine.
I thought we would get it out of our system and move on.

One of us did.
One of us left.

Now he’s back, looking at me like he wants to devour me. And all those feelings I’d turned into anger are brewing into something else, something that terrifies me.
He broke my heart last time.
This time he’ll obliterate it

This story devoured me. I was hoping for heart squeezing intensity and I got that and more. The last time I had such a major case of the FEELS over a book was when I read BATM by the super talented Penny Reid…. So for this book to take me to that place was beyond expectation.

The first boy I fell in love with used to regale me with stories about kings and queens and war and peace, and how he hoped to one day be somebody’s knight in shining armor. I lived vicariously through his late night adventures, watching the way he swung his hands animatedly as he told his stories, and loving the way his green eyes twinkled when I laughed at his jokes. He taught me what it feels like to be touched and thoroughly kissed. Later, he taught me the pain one feels at the loss of someone that you’ve grown attached to. The one thing he forgot to teach me was how to deal with the way my chest squeezed after he broke the ghost of what heart I had left. I’d always wondered if it had been a missed lesson. Now I wonder if maybe he’d been trying to figure it out for himself, or if he just never felt anything at all.

I loved LOVED LOOOOOVED these two main characters, Elle and Oliver. These two have possibly ruined me for this genre for a wee while… Elle has been through a lot, she’s suffered loss and heartbreak, she’s not all together whole. She is perfectly broken, endearing in all of the right ways. I commiserated with her, I was angry and sad with her, I felt her hope and her passion, I felt her happiness and above all I felt her reawakening. This is a female character worth investing in. No attention to detail was spared when the author sat down to write about Elle and her story and I really appreciate this, if you’re going to read about a character who has been through so much and has so much emotional cleaning out and organizing to do you want to be able to buy it…

Oliver was written in much the same careful way, whilst maintaining that mysteriousness that we all love to see in our leading men. This guy has joined my super selective book boyfriend list. How could he not? A paediatric doctor who I’m sure leaves drooling women in his wake while being his effortlessly cool self, no he’s not without his quirks and not so fabulous bits, but it wouldn’t be a novel if he was perfect would it!

Life is short, and brutal, and painful, and it takes loved ones away from us as quickly as it brings them into our lives, but it’s also beautiful.

I think a big part of why I felt I got such a well rounded complete picture of these two characters and their story is the clever use of flashback chapters… These little gems were carefully sprinkled throughout the story and the combination not only provided a complete timeline of their romance, but also their own personal stories of growth and discovery. Love doesn’t need to be completely co-dependant, there is a beauty to watching characters grow and change and come into themselves as adults before the strings of a relationship start to pull tight.

So as you can tell I completely and utterly fell in love with this book. I would definitely read this again, and probably again after that! This book was a very lucky random find on one of my endless Amazon browsing missions. Claire Contreras can expect me to be reading pretty much anything she puts out next and I intend to go through her prior releases while I’m at it. So get ready Claire… There’s a new fangirl around and she’s super grateful to you for ripping her out of her book slump!

Book Review – Attraction (Elements of Chemistry #1) by Penny Reid

Posted on April 22, 2015 by charmouabb

One week.
Private beach.
Invisible girl.
Jerk-faced bully.
What’s the worst that could happen?
Kaitlyn Parker has no problem being the invisible girl, which is why she finds herself hiding in various cabinets and closets all over her college campus. Despite her best efforts, she can’t escape the notice of Martin Sandeke—bad boy, jerkface bully, and the universe’s hottest, wealthiest, and most unobtainable bachelor—who also happens to be Kaitlyn’s chemistry lab partner.
Kaitlyn might be the only girl who isn’t interested in exploiting his stunning rower’s build, chiseled features, and family’s billionaire fortune. Kaitlyn wants Martin for his brain, specifically to tabulate findings of trace elements in surface water.
When Kaitlyn saves Martin from a nefarious plot, Martin uses the opportunity to push Kaitlyn out of her comfort zone: spring break, one week, house parties, bathing suits, and suntan lotion. Can she overcome her aversion to being noticed? Will he be able grow beyond his self-centered nature? Or, despite their obvious chemistry, will Martin be the one to drive Kaitlyn into the science cabinet of obscurity for good?

I actually read this first instalment of the Elements of Chemistry series twice. I’m not usually a huge NA reader, in fact I find it quite hard to find a book in that genre that really captures my full attention so pre-Attraction I was a little unsure… Also to be honest, I didn’t know how I felt about the name Martin? But very quickly I was totally immersed in the world of Kaitlyn Parker and Martin Sandeke AND I realized that actually Martin as a name was more than fine, also more specifically, I was super excited to discover that even when Penny Reid ventures into the NA genre she still creates characters that you can’t help becoming infatuated with.

Kaitlyn (Parker) is quirky, freaking hilarious and everything that is amazing about Penny Reid creating characters. She is more than just a quiet nerdy type college girl. She is sweet but feisty, she is inherently good, she is instantly likeable, yet she still is a bit of a puzzle, even to herself at times. Parker does her best to keep out of the way of pretty much everything going on outside of classes at college. Until she is unwittingly privy to an ugly plan which could really hurt her lab partner Sandeke… And you know, being inherently good and all that, Parker knows she needs tell him what she knows.

In hindsight, I realized I’d been acting like a crazy person. Proximity to Martin made me lose my sense. I’d been senseless. Without sense. Not any sense. No sense. Nonsense.

But what she doesn’t know is Sandeke has had her on his radar. Martin Sandeke is someone who is used to getting exactly what or who he wants. Hot, popular, domineering, charismatic and completely in control (seemingly) he isn’t used to girls being unaffected by him, in fact, he isn’t used to a lot of what Kaitlyn is all about. But the heart wants what it wants and by sheer determination he manages to convince Kaitlyn to go away over spring break with him.

What follows is a week of so many things. SO MANY THINGS! Kaitlyn is convinced that there is no way on this earth they would ever work together, so Martin really has his work cut out for him. Cue all of the ups and downs you would expect to follow when a bunch of college students are on a luxurious island… What prevents this from reading like another non-descript NA is the quirk, not enough can be said about the importance of being truly original. When the main character is talking about a (figurative) Bunsen burner in her pants you know you’re reading pure Penny Reid!

As long as I live and breathe, as long as I have a shred of humanity left, as long as I have it in me to care, I will be here for you. Always.

So while this book does contain a lot of the ‘usual’ NA type plot points, it didn’t read as though it did and I certainly didn’t eye-roll my way through it. I really appreciate that Penny Reid has made an effort to mix it up and challenge what we think of particular genres, I for one know that’s what I needed. My only serious complaint is I seriously felt like angry slapping a certain someone at the end…Rarrrrr!!!

ARC received from author in return for an honest review ❤