Love & Romance

The Chocolate Thief

3 Comments

by Laura Florand
First line: “Sylvain Marquis knew what women desired: chocolate.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy snagged from the ARC shelves at my place of employment.
Content: Very little swearing (in English; perhaps if I knew French, this would be higher), but it’s most definitely a Blush Book. I may never think about climbing stairs the same. It would be in the adult fiction section of the bookstore, if we carried it.

I was pursuing my TBR shelf, looking for something light to read, when my eye caught this. I remember a bunch of YAckers loving it (and plus: CHOCOLATE and PARIS), so I picked it up. It is most definitely light and fluffy. And sexy. And not much else.

Cade Corey is the daughter of a Hershey’s-like family. They’re in the basic chocolate bar business, and own a huge percentage of the market. While she’s not the CEO, she’s being groomed to take over the company. But what she really wants is Parisian chocolates. Artisan chocolates. Sylvain Marquis’s chocolates, since they’re the best. But she quickly discovers that while money can buy a whole lot it can’t buy her Sylvain. He’s much, much too proud of his French chocolates and much much too disdainful of her American crap. So, she does the only logical thing (right.): breaks into his store, and pilfers through his chocolates, tasting, eating, leaving hints of herself behind.

Which totally turns him on.

From there, the plot is immaterial. It’s all sex. sex. sex. and then more sex. Mostly tastefully written (but not-off screen) sex. And there’s chocolate. Descriptions of luscious, rich, delicate, expensive chocolate. I found myself craving chocolate while I read, so I think Florand did her job. I did have issues with the way that Cad wanted Sylvain to control her… part of me rebelled at the idea of a man being SO in charge of sex, of wanting to master a woman, but to each their own. It did what I wanted to do: transport me to Paris (not enough of that, though), indulge me in chocolate, and be eye candy.

I have no interest in reading the others, though. And I may need some non-fiction to follow up on all that candy. But it was enjoyable while it lasted.

City of Heavenly Fire

Leave a comment

by Cassandra Clare
First sentence: “On the day Emma Carstairs’s parents were killed, the weather was perfect.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Others in the series: City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of Glass, City of Fallen Angels, City of Lost Souls
Also helpful to read before picking up this one: Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, Clockwork Princess
Content: There’s violence, some mild swearing, and some sexytimes. The sex is tasteful and protected (yay!), but it is depicted, to an extent. This entire series is in the Teen section (grades 9+).

I’m not even going to try and sum up what has happened up to this point, or even what happens in this book. Coming in at over 700 pages, to say a lot of stuff happens is a major understatement. But, everyone is here: Jace and Clary, Simon and Isabelle, Alec and Magnus, Jocelyn and Luke, as well as hangers on: Brother Zachariah (yay!) and Tessa each play a role, as do Maya and Raphael. And, of course, the big baddie, Sebastian.

It also introduces new characters in 12-year- old Emma Carstairs and her best friend Julian Blackthorn. They don’t really play a huge role in the story; mostly they just play small roles. But they — and their family — are involved enough that we get to know them. And — and this is a complaint I have — they serve as a linchpin for a start of a new series. At some point, one does have to wonder, I think, if Clare can write any stories in a different world. But then, why should she, when this one is so rich?

It was nice to hang out with Clary and crew again, to see how relationships have developed, and follow them as they try to thwart Sebastian’s evil plan. Like always, Magnus was the most interesting character, and I was thrilled to see the way he and Alec’s relationship went. There’s some heartbreaking moments, and Simon even gets to shine with his Dungeons & Dragons references.

It’s a good conclusion (of sorts) and a fun story, even for all its length.

Everything Leads to You

6 Comments

by Nina LaCorr
First sentence: “Five texts are waiting for me when I get out of my English final.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some swearing, including a half-dozen f-bombs scattered throughout. And a mention of older teen drinking. Plus, it’s really a growing-up story. For those reasons, it’s in the Teen (grades 9+) section of the bookstore.

Emi Price is a golden California girl. (Except, for the record, she has a black grandfather and is NOT the blonde thing you see on the cover.) She as loving parents, a cool older brother who has a job as a site scout in a production company, and a fantastic best friend. She has a job as a set-design intern at the same production company as her brother (nepotism works).

She just broke up with her off-again/on-again girlfriend, though, and that’s getting her down. And so, when her brother leaves his posh Venice apartment to Emi and her best friend, Charlotte, for the summer with the one catch — do something amazing here! — she feels hopeless.

Then she and Charlotte discover an old letter written by a famous actor Clyde Jones (think John Wayne) that is a clue to a mystery: he had a daughter. And a grandchild. And so, Emi and Charlotte set out to find them and deliver the letter.

That’s really only the beginning of the book, and perhaps the least important part of it as well. It’s much more about Emi figuring herself out. The letter helps, but it’s also this job on an indie movie that she lands, thanks to her ex-girlfriend. And when they find Clyde’s long-lost granddaughter, that opens up a whole new avenue for Emi.

I loved this book. Wholeheartedly and unabashedly. I loved the peek into the way movies work, the facts behind the fantasy. I loved the way Emi thought about characters and set design. And I loved how sometimes she let fantasy overtake her reality. The characters were so real, so deep, so complex, that I couldn’t help but be drawn into their lives.

An absolutely perfect summer book.

Re-read: Graceling

2 Comments

by Kristin Cashore
First sentence: “In these dungeons the darkness was complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s some tasteful sex, a lot of violence, and you need to be somewhat more mature to understand what Leck is capable of in order for it to have its full impact. It’s in the Teen section (grades 9+) of the bookstore, but I wouldn’t hesitate to give it to an 8th grader who was interested.

For June’s YAcker book, we picked Bitterblue, but one thing led to another, and we ended up making a summer project of reading Cashore’s trilogy. I’m not one for re-reading books, but since I hadn’t picked this one up in 5 years, I thought, in order to be an intelligent participant, I needed to reread it.

And, oh, it was just as wonderful as it was the first time.

I don’t have much more to say (the above link takes you to my initial review) that won’t be said when the YAckers post our discussion. But let me say this: I love Kasta. Her fierceness, her depth of emotion, her contrariness. And I love her with Po. I love their team, I love their relationship. I love how Cashore describes them together.

And I love Bitterblue. I’d forgotten that, not having reread this when Bitterblue came out. But, she’s so small and so fierce, and I love her.

The Geography of You and Me

3 Comments

by Jennifer E. Smith
First sentence: “On the first day of September, the world went dark.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy sent to my boss by the Little, Brown people, and she passed it off to me.
Content: There’s kissing. And a wee bit of swearing. Mostly it’s just sweet. It was in the Teen section (grades 9+) but after finishing it, I moved it to the YA section (grades 6-8) and it fits there just fine.

Lucy is the youngest child of well-off parents, living in an upscale apartment in Manhattan. Owen is the only child of parents who were once drifters, and whose mother recently died in a freak accident. His dad — who isn’t doing so well — is now the superintendent of Lucy’s building. They would have never met, except they were both in the elevator when the power went out. It was a chance meeting, but one that expanded into a night spent wandering a darkened New York City, and then falling asleep on the rooftop.

The next morning, though, Owen is gone when Lucy wakes up, and they never really quite connect again. Lucy’s parents move her to Scotland; Owen’s dad is fired and they’re headed west, looking for jobs. They figure they’ll never see each other again. Except, Owen starts sending her postcards. And so, they start a tentative long-distance relationship. One with its ups and downs.

It’s not a spoiler to say that this one has a hopefully ever after. It’s not happy, per se — Lucy and Owen still live a great distance away — but it’s hopeful that they can make it work. And it’s not a spoiler to say that it’s not a terribly deep book. There’s no issues, really, and no angst. It’s mostly just a sweet journey of two people figuring out they really really like each other.

It’s enjoyable fluff, though. Sweet and charming. And I found that’s exactly what I needed to make me smile.

We Were Liars

Leave a comment

by E. Lockhart
First sentence: “Welcome to the beautiful Sinclair family.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Release date: May 13, 2014
Review copy snagged from the ARC shelves at my place of employment.
Content: There were multiple f-bombs and some mild swearing. It’s also a very intense book, emotionally, so be prepared for that. It will be in the Teen section (grades 9 and up) of the bookstore, but I think a mature 13-year-old could handle it.

There is a problem with writing a review for this book. It’s best if you know absolutely nothing going in. Nothing. Nada.

In fact, the back of the ARC says “If anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE.”

I will tell you this. Cady is one of the Beautiful Sinclairs, an old-money family in Boston that vacations every summer on a small island near Martha’s Vineyard. Her grandfather is the patriarch of this family but her mother and her two sisters have not really lived up to the family name. Cady is also one of the four Liars: she, her cousins Johnny and Mirren, and Johnny’s mother’s boyfriend’s (Indian) nephew, Gat. Something happened two summers ago, and Cady lost her memory. No, the summer that she’s 17, she needs to figure out what happened.

I will also tell you this: read it. Just read it. Lockhart is amazing. This book is haunting and so gorgeous in its simplicity and so powerful.

I promise that’s not a lie.

Fangirl

2 Comments

by Rainbow Rowell
First sentence: “There was a boy in her room.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There’s quite a few f-bombs, and some insinuations of sex. Plus a lot of underage (and overage) drinking. Also, it’s about college freshmen, a subject which I’m not sure younger readers want to read about. It’s rightly in the teen section (grades 9 and up) of the bookstore.

Cath and Wren are twins. Wren is the outgoing one, the pretty one, the fun one. And Cath stays home and writes Simon Snow (think Harry Potter) fanfiction. She’s really good at it: her stories get thousands of hits, and are widely talked about on the fanfiction sites.

But none of that is going to matter now that they’re freshmen at the University of Nebraska. Cath wanted to go the safe route by rooming with Wren. But, for Wren, that wasn’t an option. So Cath is forced to branch out. Experience things. Actually have a life.

In many ways, this is a love story to those who write fanfiction. Yes, Cath is an introvert, and no she doesn’t want to engage in what most people call “living”, but in no way does Rowel make Cath seem pathetic. She puts her in contrast to Wren, who spends weekends (and some weeknight) partying until we hours (the “normal” college experience) and lets us choose on our own. Perhaps some readers will see Cath as pathetic and without a life, but I never did. (Perhaps, too, that’s because I’m an introvert and I have a nerdy family who actually read — and write — fanfiction.)

It’s also a traditional love story. Cath’s roommate, Reagan, has a boy, Levi, kicking around. Cath thinks they’re dating, but eventually realizes that it’s really her Levi is interested in. And it’s their romance that made the book for me. Levi is so danged good and it was a pleasure watching the good guy get the girl. (So often it’s the “bad” one.) I loved the banter, I loved the push and pull, and I loved watching Levi draw Cath out of her shell, while simultaneously wholly accepting her for who she is.

The ending was a bit pat, I thought, and all the drama with her parents (dad’s a bit on the manic side; mom walked out on The 9/11, and Cath is understandably resistant to her attempts to reconnect) was a bit over-the-top. And while I appreciated that Rowell was reaching out to those who immerse themselves in a fandom, including pages and pages of Cath’s fanfiction was a little boring for me.

Even with the quibbles, though, I thoroughly enjoyed reading this one.

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

2 Comments

by Holly Black
First sentence: “Tana woke lying in a bathtub.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: Lots of violence, some of which is graphic. Very little swearing, most of it mild, and no sex (though there is some talk of it). It’s in the teen section (grades 9 and up) in the bookstore, but I’d let a 12- or 13-year-old who was interested in vampires read it.

I’m going to start this one off by saying this is, hands down, the best vampire book I’ve read in AGES. (I’m not going to add that it’s basically the only vampire book I’ve read in ages.Oh, wait.) It’s dark, it’s gory, it’s bloody, it’s creepy and yet so very awesome. It’s everything a vampire book should be.

Tana Bach, 17, lives in a world where vampirism is a plague. It’s a disease, and there is a cure — to starve oneself of blood for eighty-eight days — but there are enough vampires running around to make it necessary to set up Coldtowns, places where vampires, and humans who are attracted to that lifestyle, can live without endangering the rest of the population.

Except that they sometimes do.

Tana wakes up on the morning after a huge party to find a houseful of corpses. Somehow she managed to sleep through a terrible vampire bloodbath, though she’s not the only survivor. She stumbles into the back bedroom and finds her ex-boyfriend, Aidan, newly infected, and a vampire chained nearby. She does the only thing she could do: saves them. Thus starts her terrifying adventure.

It’s one where she meets a lot of people, some nice — like Jameson and Valentina and Winter — most not so nice — like Gavriel, the vampire she saved. And yet, it’s not a black-and-white book. It’s wandering around in the murky shades of grey, where everyone is out to protect themselves. And Tana… oh, boy does she shine. She is AMAZING. Not in a superhero way, but in that human, flaw-filled, and yet awe-inspiring way. She faces her demons, in a most literal sense, and comes out on top.

Yes, there is a romance between a 130-year-old vampire and Tana, but, as I keep telling people in person, it’s not creepy. And while it’s there (and there’s this great sexy non-sex scene), it’s also something that’s not the focus of the book, which, perhaps, is why it’s not a creepy thing.

At any rate, I couldn’t put this one down, and having finished it, I wish it wasn’t due at the library so I could start it all over again.

Audio Book: Daughter of Smoke & Bone

3 Comments

by Laini Taylor
read by Khristine Hvam
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Content: There is some talk about sex (though all the actual sex is off screen), a lot of violence, and some mild swearing. Is in the teen (grades 9 and up) section of the bookstore, though I didn’t have any problems with C (now 14) reading it.

I’ve been wanting to reread this (and Days of Blood & Starlight) in anticipation of Dreams of Gods & Monsters coming out. And so, when I saw that this one is out in audio, I snatched it up. (You should have seen me; I was fangirling all over the place. Kind of like when a customer came in to preorder Gods & Monsters. We were just gushing.) Anyway. I don’t have much to add about the story that I didn’t already say when I first read this.  But the audio was glorious. Hvam captured all the voices perfectly. To a spunky Zuzanna (love her best still) to Akiva and Karou, to the various chimera and seraphim that run throughout the book. (Brimstone is EXACTLY like I heard him in my head.) It was a joy to listen to. And one of those books that made you want to sit in the car, listening for hours on end.

If you haven’t had a chance to experience Taylor in all her awesomeness, you need to. And with the third coming out, take a weekend and splurge and read all three. You won’t regret it.

Landry Park

2 Comments

by Bethany Hagen
First sentence: “Two hundred years ago, America found itself at a crossroads.”
Support your local independent bookstore: buy it there!
Review copy snagged from the ARC shelves at work.
Content: There’s some talk of violence, though it’s all offscreen; a few mild swear word; and an illusion to an affair. It’s in the YA section (6-8th grade) of the bookstore, but I’d have no problems giving it to a younger child if they were interested.

Madeline Landry has grown up in a luxurious world: she’s the only child of an elite family and surrounded with opulence. She’s not particularly happy: she has struggles with her father over her education. She wants to got to university; he (and his will, not to mention the law) wants her to stay home, get married, run the estate, and pop out an heir. But she’s not entirely unhappy either: she loves her family and her home and the life. That is, until David Dana — the un-landed son of a gentry — comes into her life. Then, the things that have been skirting around her life — the class issues, the environmental concerns, especially with the lowest class, the Rootless — come front and center. Not to mention that David’s pretty dreamy.

In many ways, Hagen is treading the same ground as every dystopian book before her. America falls to the Eastern Empire, only managing to hang on by a thread. In the aftermath, a class system is formed — not based on race, as Hagen is so careful to point out — based on money and influence. And at the bottom are the Rootless, who handle the nuclear charges the gentry’s energy — and much of the wealth, especially the Landry wealth — comes from. And they’re getting restless. Where Hagen’s dystopian diverges from the pack is in the focus: Madeline is one of the elite, not the underclass. And when she has her eyes opened, she stands to lose everything. And I respected that.

I also really loved the world Hagen built, even though she never really gave us an explanation why the women were corseted and shoved into ball gowns and paraded around like it was Victorian England. I’m sure I could come up with some hypotheses — fancy dresses are synonymous with wealth? the women are as shackled as the Rootless? — but they are just that. No matter: Hagen is tackling issues that aren’t (readily, I think) usually seen in dystopia. Also, she doesn’t have a Romeo & Juliet love story going on here: both Madeline and David are from the gentry, and have to come to terms with their increasingly dissenting opinions.

It’s not a perfect beginning, but it is an intriguing one. I’m going to be curious to see where the rest of this series goes.