Review: A Different Blue

Stars: 4
Author: Amy Harmon
Publisher: CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform
Genre: New Adult
Amazon


This might have been a five star read had I read it before The Law of Moses (also by Ms. Harmon), but I didn't, and so some of it felt recycled. Although, in retrospect, I guess Moses was a recycled from this book not the other way around since this was published first...

This is my third Amy Harmon book and I wasn't disappointed. She is writing some quality new adult literature in a landscape that can sometimes be bleak. Her books are pretty tame: closed door love scenes, very little swearing and always a bit of religion thrown in. I don't like inspirational fiction, but Harmon usually doesn't enter into that territory.

Blue is a quality character. Other reviews said they found her hard to like. I can understand that, but she worked for me. I get tired of characters with really crappy lives that are all timid wallflowers hiding behind horrible outfits. Blue deals with her issues using a sexy persona and false confidence. It was interesting watching her peel away her layers as she gets to know Wilson.

The other thing I liked about this book was that even though there is a teacher-student thing going on here, it isn't a taboo book about a clandestine romance. It is a romance, but that doesn't really begin until Blue is fully an adult, making her own choices and no longer a student.

I also liked that Blue is Native American and she's an artist-- but not a painter-- she carves wood, now there is a cool talent.

The reason this wasn't a five star read for me was that there is the...

SPOILER

 accidental, unwanted pregnancy which makes up a big part of the conflict.


END SPOILER

While I appreciated that that was absolutely a situation Blue could have gotten into, I was annoyed since the same thing had happened in The Law of Moses.

There was also an incredible amount of will-they-won't-they? between Wilson and Blue which could have been cleared up by either one of them actually using WORDS and expressing their FEELINGS, but of course neither of them could do that. It takes the WHOLE damn book for them to figure anything out, so don't go into this book thinking that you are getting a full-on romance because you are not.

Review: Making Faces

Stars:  4 stars
Author: Amy Harmon
Genre: New Adult

Publisher: Smashwords
 
After reading review after review of people who read an Amy Harmon book and were hooked I figured it was time to pick one up.

This is a very sweet, but heart-wrenching story. Since the blurb talks a lot about Ambrose coming back from war and having to face life again after losing four friends and being disfigured, I thought the story would dive right in there and begin with the romance between Fern and Ambrose, but it doesn't. In truth the story reads more like a YA book than either New Adult or romance. The romance between Fern and Ambrose is a strong central element to plot but much of the story is the back story of Ambrose, Fern and Bailey growing up in a small town in Pennsylvania.

Bailey, Fern's cousin, is also essential to the story. He is Fern's best friend and confidante. Bailey has Duchenne's muscular dystrophy. Bailey's character was one of the most important parts of the story for me. I have personal experience with a friend with muscular dystrophy and felt Bailey's struggles keenly.

Without spoiling it, Harmon does a good job of introducing all the elements and characters she needs for the ending of the book early on, but it isn't a standard romance. The plot, flow and overall feel of the book are more young adult than romance. I liked that about it, because it was very PG, sweet and thoughtful.

Review: Believe (True Believers)

Rating: 2.5 stars
Author: Erin McCarthy
Genre: New Adult
Publisher: Penguin Group

I'm just not sure what to make of this book. I don't think it's a bad book. In fact, I think a lot of people will probably like it. There were just a lot of things that didn't work for me.

I read this book because it was on sale, had a catchy synopsis, and a compelling cover. It's NA and I've been on a winning streak lately with NA, reading pretty good stuff which is sort of unusual for this genre.

The streak is now officially over and I have to blame Believe. Like I said, I think a lot of others will like this.  For me, it was too fast, too superficial and too inconsistent.  

We are told that Robin was a party girl in the first few pages. She literally tells us. Explaining that she spent most of college going to parties, making out with random guys and getting drunk. A few pages in and she sleeps with her best-friend's boyfriend while black out drunk.  Post-sleeping-with-boy-disaster she's a hot mess. She feels terrible, and naturally friend's boyfriend turns out to be a total creeper. 

The problem for me here was that she tells us that she used to be a party girl, but we never get to see it, so it's hard to believe that it is part of her character. Telling just isn't as effective as showing. Yes, we see that she slept with her friends guy, but that's all. That isn't enough to establish her as a reckless and out of control character, which is what the rest of the book is predicated upon. 

Robin does a completely 180 after her mistake. The Robin the reader actually gets to know is reclusive, unconcerned about her looks, and depressed. The opposite of a party-girl. That's all we see for the rest of the book. 

When Phoenix steps into the picture, fresh out of jail, I got back on board. So what if the heroine is tepid? A hot bad boy is all a story really needs. He was attractive and interesting. Nothing like a bad boy with tattoos to spice a book up. So we find out he's had a hard life (haven't they all?) and of course he and Robin hit off immediately.  I do mean IMMEDIATELY. Within days of knowing each other, really within seconds of kissing each other, Robin is ready to go all the way. That's also fine, if that worked for her character, but it just didn't resonant with me. They moved too fast. Sex doesn't always equal love, but since the premise of the book is that these two characters are falling in love, I didn't think leaping into bed was the way to do it. Especially since Robin had just freaked about her latest sexual escapade. Also, they declare their love for each other WITHIN PAGES. Insta-love really only works when it is in a paranormal and the supernatural beings are not suppose to follow normal human emotional patterns. Even then it gets dicey. So I was annoyed. Insta-love is no bueno.

Oh and lest I forget, to add to the insta-love ridiculousness, Phoenix is a tattoo artist (because that is what bad boys do these days) and he decides, in the tradition of Maddox from Beautiful Disaster by Jamie Maguire, to get a tattoo.  Not just any tattoo, but you guessed it! a portrait of his one-true-love (well at least his true love of the last three days) on his ribs.

(Don't worry, Robin ALSO gets a tattoo-- of a blue bird. Because her name is Robin and in Phoenix's tattoo of her she is wearing a blue bird necklace that she doesn't actually possessed. So this was clearly the right choice for Robin to get on her to represent Phoenix on her body.  Yes, I'm confused too.) An

Moving on, Phoenix and Robin are in love and want to be together. Then comes the baggage. They've each got a lot and they have to get over it-- together. That all worked too.  

The next thing that didn't work for me was that Phoenix and Robin are both clean. Phoenix has always been drug and alcohol free because of his junkie mom. Okay, I can buy that. But he came off sounding like a public service announcement at times, even though the obligatory, "you can do what you want, it doesn't bother me, I just have chosen to live my life this way," comments were thrown in.

Then we're expected to believe that Robin has also gone clean and now essentially considers herself an alcoholic. Again, that's fine, maybe she was making poor choices with alcohol and I applaud her decision not to drink, but it got a little over the top.  

SPOILER ALERT:

By the end Robin in a her darkest moment has basically chugged a bottle of tequila and winds up in the hospital with alcohol poisoning. Then she decides she is an addict and goes to rehab?! I'm just not sure how this series of events played out. One minute she had made some bad choices and needed to cut back and the next she is sitting alone in her apartment chugging straight from a bottle?! A lot of disconnect going on here. She got to the lowest place an addict could go within the span of like an hour and there was no gradual downhill slide, there was just fine and then REALLY NOT FINE? So the message is that if you ever make a bad choice with alcohol you have a problem with it? Even in college when kids are likely to make a lot of really bad choices before they wise up and make good ones? I think not. I think she could probably have just called it quits for a bit, rehab was overkill. Really the whole thing just seemed like overkill.  

All that just overshadowed the rest of the story for me. 

Review: This is What Happy Looks Like

Rating: 3.5 stars
Author: Jennifer E. Smith
Genre: YA Romance
Publisher: Headline
Goodreads
Amazon

More of a 3.5 rating. I really liked the beginning of this book. It started off gangbusters-- I was pulled right into the writing and the characters. I think beginning the book with emails was a great move, different and interesting. Smith does a nice job with the movie star meets and falls in love with-one-of-the-common-folk trope. Graham and Ellie were both very three-dimensional characters. The setting, a small coastal town in Maine was gorgeously done. 

In other books where the hero is a famous person, I've never really "gotten" why it was so rough to be in their shoes. I usually think, yes it sucks that they are being chased around by the press and that they have to live under a microscope, but really, wasn't that what they signed up for when they decided to become celebrities? With Graham though I could understand how he was feeling and why he was feeling this way. The fame just sort of snuck up on him all of a sudden. One thing led to another and suddenly, sort of without warning he was famous-- and lonely and isolated. I really felt for him. 

Ellie...well I felt for her as well, but not as much as Graham. I understand the "secret" bad idea, and why she felt she had to keep it a secret, but it got old for me pretty quick. After her first angst filled decision to back away from Graham and his fame for personal reasons I was behind her, but when she kept doing it, again and again, it got old. 

The reason that this book got demoted from a five-star read to a three point five star was that even though Graham and Ellie came to really understand each other by the end and got their happily ever of a sort, but I didn't really feel it. There was something lacking the whole last half of the book with regard to their connection. After their first encounter and all their emails, I was expecting them not to be so typically teen-angsty, all muddled in their own emotions. In the last half of the book, they kept finding reason after reason why they couldn't see each other and had to keep rushing off to deal with other things in their lives. The things they were dealing with, especially Ellie, were no doubt important, but it seemed to detract rather than add to the central plot which was the story between Ellie and Graham. I guess I got the rationale for why the author included these things, but it wasn't the direction that I thought the story should go in. It stopped being the happy little love story and tried to go in a different direction-- one that I just wasn't feeling.

Just the same it was a pleasant little read and I recommend it.