Early Book Review: Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland

Author: Leila Howland
Series: N/A
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Release Date: May 7th 2013
My Rating: 5 cups
Source: NetGalley
Blurb (from Goodreads):


For Cricket Thompson, a summer like this one will change everything. A summer spent on Nantucket with her best friend, Jules Clayton, and the indomitable Clayton family. A summer when she’ll make the almost unattainable Jay Logan hers. A summer to surpass all dreams.

Some of this turns out to be true. Some of it doesn’t.

When Jules and her family suffer a devastating tragedy that forces the girls apart, Jules becomes a stranger whom Cricket wonders whether she ever really knew. And instead of lying on the beach working on her caramel-colored tan, Cricket is making beds and cleaning bathrooms to support herself in paradise for the summer.

But it’s the things Cricket hadn’t counted on--most of all, falling hard for someone who should be completely off-limits--that turn her dreams into an exhilarating, bittersweet reality.

A beautiful future is within her grasp, and Cricket must find the grace to embrace it. If she does, her life could be the perfect shade of Nantucket blue.

When I first saw this book on Goodreads I thought "Man, I miss summer!" It took me a while to look at anything else besides the blue sea in the background or sand. It's true, the cover caught my eye. The story though, it made me fall in love.

Cricket reminded me of being a teenager (yes, it was a bit awkward, 'cause I was an awkward teen :P). It was all there: the endless conversations about the boy you're having a crush on, the plans you make for the future with your BFF, passing notes to one another or caring so much for your friend, you'd do anything and everything for them (even though maybe they don't need/want your help). I honestly couldn't help loving Cricket. She's honest, she's true, she's a loyal friend and she does the things you'd want any teenager to do. And if you take the Cricket from the end of the book and the girl we meet in the first pages, you can see she grew up a lot during the summer.

Some things that happened were a little predictable, but I think it was done beautifully. I loved the story about Cricket's mom and her life in Nantucket. It was very interesting and I think it helped Cricket understand her mother a lot more.

Yes, Nantucket Blue is a book about those famous summer loves, about friendship, growing up, finding out what really matters and what is or isn't important. It's about all that and more. But it's also about something much more important, about owning your mistakes and facing your fears. It's a very beautiful story and I enjoyed it very, very much.

Book Review: Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Beautiful #2
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: April 2nd 2013
My Rating: 4.5 cups
Source:NetGaley
Blurb (from Goodreads):

Finally, the highly anticipated follow-up to the New York Times bestseller Beautiful Disaster. Can you love someone too much? Travis Maddox learned two things from his mother before she died: Love hard. Fight harder.

In Walking Disaster, the life of Travis is full of fast women, underground gambling, and violence. But just when he thinks he is invincible, Abby Abernathy brings him to his knees.

Every story has two sides. In Beautiful Disaster, Abby had her say. Now it’s time to see the story through Travis’s eyes.

Forgive me if I start by ogling...err...staring admiring the prettiness of the cover *drools* *deep breath* Okay I'm back :D

I have to say that I liked more being in Travis's head than in Abby's. For one, we got to understand Travis a lot more. I think the beginning of this book explains a lot about why Travis is the way he is and why he has trouble committing to someone. It also helped me understand why he's so jealous and possessive of Abby. I'm not saying it's normal, but it's a good reason. 

Then there's the part that proves me that I wasn't wrong when I thought Abby wasn't the innocent girl she seems to be. I think Walking Disaster shows how completely irrational she was at times. In certain moments I felt like she was more heartless than Travis was with his previous one night stands. At least Travis was honest with what he was offering those girls he met before Abby and what they shouldn't expect from him. Abby though was all smiles one minute and then the next she was completely opposite. Again, I think that had she been fully honest and talk with Travis and tell him exactly how her childhood was instead of just saying "it was bad" most of the fights and bad moments could have been avoided. Or at least they could have been just a little bit less difficult. 

What I loved was the ending. It was different and unexpected and I think it showed that both Abby and Travis finally matured and had that long talk they needed to have to sort things out. It was unique and perfect for these two. 

Cover Reveal: Bathing Beauties, Booze and Bullets by Ellen Mansoor Collier

Bathing Beauties, Booze and Bullets by Ellen Mansoor Collier
Publication date: April 2013
Genre: New Adult Jazz Age Mystery

Synopsis:

It’s 1927 in Galveston, Texas—the “Sin City of the Southwest.” Jasmine (“Jazz”) Cross is an ambitious 21-year-old society reporter for the Galveston Gazette who tries to be taken seriously by the good-old-boy staff, but the editors only assign her fluffy puff pieces, like writing profiles of bathing beauties. The last thing Jazz wants to do is compare make-up tips with ditzy dames competing in the “International Pageant of Pulchritude and Bathing Girl Revue.”

She’d rather help solve the murders of young prostitutes who turn up all over town, but city officials insist on burying the stories during Splash Day festivities. After Jazz gets to know the bathing beauties, she realizes there’s a lot more to them than just pretty faces and figures. Jazz becomes suspicious when she finds out the contest is sponsored by the Maceos, ruthless Beach Gang leaders and co-owners of the Hollywood Dinner Club, where the girls will perform before the parade and pageant.

Worse, her half-brother Sammy Cook, owner of the Oasis, a speakeasy on a rival gang’s turf, asks her to call in a favor from handsome Prohibition Agent James Burton—an impossible task that could compromise both of their jobs and budding romance. While Agent Burton gives her the cold shoulder, she fends off advances from Colin Ferris, an attractive but dangerous gangster who threatens Sammy as well as Burton. In the end, she must risk it all to save her friends from a violent killer hell-bent on revenge. Inspired by actual events.

Also in this series:

Book 1 purchase links:
Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Flappers-Flasks-Foul-Play-ebook/dp/B008QRJ0XM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1359147380&sr=1-1&keywords=flappers%2C+flasks+and+foul+play
Barnes & Noble: www.barnesandnoble.com/w/flappers-flasks-and-foul-play-ellen-mansoor-collier/1112135350?ean=2940044699434&itm=1&usri=flappers%2c+flasks+and+foul+play+collier

----

AUTHOR BIO

Ellen Mansoor Collier is a Houston-based freelance magazine writer/editor whose articles, essays and short stories have been published in several national magazines. Formerly she's worked as a magazine editor, and in advertising and public relations (plus endured a hectic semester as a substitute teacher). She graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in Magazine Journalism, where she enjoyed both coffee and colorful cocktails. A flapper at heart, she’s the owner of DECODAME, specializing in Deco to retro vintage items (www.art-decodame.com).

Teaser Tuesday #21

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

* Grab your current read
* Open to a random page
* Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
* BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn't give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
* Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

My teaser this week is from Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl

“There was a curse.
 There was a girl.
 And in the end, there was a grave.
I never even saw it coming.”

I really can't find the words to say how much I'm loving this book. I haven't finished it yet, but I love it! Now I just need to buy the other 3 books and I'll be all happy :)

What's your Teaser Tuesday this week?

Sunday Book Soundtrack #9: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Sunday Book Soundtrack is a weekly feature at Ruby's Books, where I share some of my bookish soundtracks. Since I discovered my passion for reading years ago, I've discovered that more and more of the songs I loved remind me of certain books. So I thought I'd share my playlists with you. If you want to listen to the songs, I'll post a link to a Youtube videos for each and every title. No copyright infringement intended! I'll try to find the official videos for each song. There's no set number for each playlist, sometimes I might have 10, sometimes 5, sometimes if I'm one of my moods I'll have 15. If you want to read more about this feature, click the "show more" button below. 

I read with music. If there's no music, I can't read. And not just read, but almost anything, like studying of cooking or doing chores around the house. The only time I don't have music is when I sleep. And during exams, but that's a different story.

Sometimes it happens that a certain song and a book or a scene from the book I'm reading sort of... click. It's like they were made for each other. At least for me. And so I will almost always think of that particular book when hearing that song. I thought I'd share my book soundtracks with you.

Keep in mind that I have a very... weird taste in music. You'll find mostly rock music, country or the 80s-early 90s music in these lists. I might use some "contemporary" songs from now and then, but don't bet on it being something other than those particular genres. Also, not always the songs will be in English. If I have a link to a translation for the lyrics, I'll post it. If you like a song I'm using, that's fine. If not, that's fine too, just don't say I didn't warn you.

The songs aren't always on a book's playlist for their lyrics. Sometimes they're there for an instrument or for a feeling I get when hearing them. Also, I won't always mention what scene I used them for. If it's not a spoiler, I'll share the scene, if it is a spoiler, I'll let you guess.

Anyway, I hope you like my playlists :)

This week's book soundtrack is for Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire (read my review here)

1. Nazareth - Hair of the Dog - I believe this song is perfect for when Travis is fighting :D
2. Lenny Kravitz - American Woman
3. Marilyn Manson - mOBSCENE
4. Evanescence - Bring Me To Life
5. Motley Crue - New Tattoo 
6. Maroon 5 - Daylight (I just heard this version of the song today and I think it's perfect for Beautiful Disaster)

Book Review: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Beautiful #1
Publisher: Atria Books
Release Date: August 14th 2012
My Rating: 4 cups
Blurb (from Goodreads):

The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University's Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

I have a confession to make. Before I read Beautiful Disaster I broke one of my rules and I read some reviews for this book. If you look, you'll see how mixed they are, so I was a little weary.

Based on the reviews I read though, I formed a plan in my head: don't fall for Travis. You know how I love the bad boy heroes. I didn't want to care for him too much. Well, good luck with that! Because, like Abby says, "it's the tattoos". I couldn't do it. But let me get back to Travis a bit later.

Beautiful Disaster and the companion book, Walking Disaster, are proof that there are more sides to a story and that you shouldn't judge one person using only information from one side. I'll tell you about that next week, when I review Walking Disaster.

I felt like both Abby and Travis are broken people. Abby never had a normal childhood and Travis... well, we don't know much about him, really. Because BD is told from Abby's POV I can see why most readers didn't like Travis. I mean, he was acting crazy, he was a little too violent at times (though not physically towards Abby), he was possessive and angry. I'm not trying to make excuses for him, but Abby didn't really come across as innocent to me. She was a little naive at first, but when she figured it out, she wasn't exactly fair to Travis. One moment she wanted him, the next she wanted nothing with him.

I liked America and Shep. They were both good friends for Abby and Travis and their love story was cute. Though at times both America "Mare" and Shep exaggerated at times with some of their fights, I think they'll make it in the end.

The thing I can think about that didn't... well, it wasn't as I'd expected it was. Abby's childhood. We know her dad wasn't great father material, we know she had to do stuff to get him out of trouble, but we're told that, not shown. There's one or two scenes where we actually get a glimpse of what Abby might have gone through in her past. I wish there were more of them or that there were scenes where she would remember something similar. It would've made me understand her more than I did.

I don't know if Abby and Travis would make it in real life. Maybe, maybe not. What I do know is that I liked their story and I think they do have a chance to make it. Oh, one thing I recommend. If you haven't yet read this book, I think you should wait and get both Beautiful and Walking and read them back to back. That's what I did and I'm glad I did it that way.