Review of 'When Dimple Met Rishi' by Sandhya Menon

If you want a feel-good book to kick start your January, then this is your gal. When Dimple Met Rishi is funny and heartwarming and eye-opening and just incredible. I'm trying not to sound too much like one of those newspaper reviews, but oh my gosh it's hilariously delightful and will having you laughing and crying along with the characters. Okay, okay, I totally sound like one of those reviews now, but this is how the book makes me feel.

Dimple really wants to become more independent. Her parents are a little overbearing and she's more than thrilled when they finally let her go to a summer program for aspiring web developers. That is until she meets Rishi on her first day - and he thinks he's her future husband??? As it turns out, Dimple's parents really want an arranged marriage with the 'Ideal Indian Husband' aka Rishi, and that's why they let Dimple attend the same summer program that Rishi's at. After throwing her coffee all over him, Dimple is gutted that they've been paired to work together all summer long.

Rishi on the other hand is ... well confused. He dreams of finding the ideal wife and pleasing his parents. Up until the coffee incident, he thought that Dimple knew about the arrangement, and was happy with it too. He's lost all hope of finding a wife over the summer, but there's one small problem: he's in love with Dimple. 

Honestly this book is so  lovely to read. It's been a long time since I've read a YA romance that's been this genuine and realistic. I would love to read anything that Menon brings out in the future; her writing was incredible and I *think* I'm a little bit in love with Rishi.

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Review of 'One of Us is Lying' by Karen M. McManus

Happy New Year everyone! I hope 2018 has got off to an incredible start! I'm excited for all the new reads I'm going to be starting, and I'm setting my new Goodreads target! I'm a little behind on catching up with my reviews, so the next couple will be ones I've read in 2017, and I can't wait to share them with you.

One of Us is Lying is one of my favourite YA reads of 2017. It's a YA thriller loosely based on the Breakfast Club. Five teens enter detention, and four teens leave. Simon has a deadly nut allergy and is poisoned from his water glass. The obvious culprit would be Nate, the one with the criminal background, drug addicted father, and general lack of desire to be at school. But what about Yale-hopeful Bronwyn? Or prom Queen Addy? Or athlete Cooper? Simon runs a gossip site, and all four of them have a big secret that they don't want coming out - but who would kill for it?

This novel had me up late into the night reading 'just one more' page to find out everybody's secrets. I realised who the culprit was a little before it was revealed in the book, but it still made for a great read. I would definitely recommend this if you're into thrillers. 

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Review of 'Our Chemical Hearts' by Krystal Sutherland

I'm still obsessing over YA fiction at the moment, and Our Chemical Hearts is truly a beauty of the genre. I've heard so much about this and honestly it shows mental health in a truer perspective than I've seen it shown in a long time. Usually when I read a book about someone who's struggling with their mental health I get a niggling 'this isn't what it's really like' feeling welling up inside me, until I'm not comfortable with the contents of the book at all. But Our Chemical Hearts brought this idyllism that people create around mental illness up, analysed it and made me fall in love.

Henry Page is an average teenage boy. He's not lost 'the big V' yet, and his last kiss ended up helping his best friend discover that she's just not into men. Not a brilliant track record for keeping on the cool side of the tracks at school. He has cast aside attempts at romance for the time being, instead focusing on becoming the editor of his school newspaper, which he's been working on for the past two years. 

Henry's life is all going to plan, until Grace Town transfers from her old school to his. Her literary reputation at the previous school means that the head of the newspaper wants to make them co-editors for the year. She refuses. Henry reluctantly chases after her, requesting that she works on the paper with him. Despite her boyish clothes, limp and cane, there's something about Grace that lures him in.

Before he knows it, Henry's in love with Grace. But she has good days and bad. On the bad days, they barely speak a word to one another (Grace's choice, not his). On the good days, she might just brush up against Henry whilst they chuckle over a joke, making him blush. 

However, Henry's bothered by the fact that he knows nothing about her past. So, he checks out her Facebook page. At first he thinks he's got the wrong Grace Town. The girl in this profile picture is stunning. She has long hair, the biggest grin and is absolutely beautiful decked out in makeup and girl's clothing. Henry falls more and more in love with her.

Grace knows what's going on with Henry, but she's all too aware of why it can't be. You see, Grace was in an accident with her boyfriend, the love of her life. That's where she got the limp, and where she lost Dom. She's living in his room, and the boys' clothes she wears are his. She's not, nor will she ever completely get over losing Dom. He was her soulmate, and they'd been close since they were five. 

Grace knows what Henry doesn't want to admit, even to himself: he's not in love with Grace Town, he's in love with an idyllic version of her. He craves the 'good Grace' days, and can't handle her on the bad ones. He wants to fix her; he doesn't really want to be with the Grace in front of him.

The rest of the story is about a struggle for love that's based on an illusion. This is exactly what I meant when I said that the book doesn't shy away from the realities of mental illness. I was completely 100% suckered into Henry's love for Grace, and how noble it was, until Grace pointed out that it wasn't. Then I saw what was happening: he was in love with the girl without the mental illness. I realised that I'd overlooked the depression coming out of her grief, and I was waiting for Grace to miraculously get better, and become the girl that Henry was lusting after. But mental illness doesn't work like that. Loving someone can't cure them. 

If you're interested in YA fiction about mental health and love, then I'd really recommend this!

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Review of 'Fangirl' by Rainbow Rowell

Do you ever come across books that you just completely connect with on a personal level? I felt this so much with Fangirl, to the extent that I had to put it down a few times to take some breathers, because well, fuck, the book was really impacting me. In some ways, I wish I had come across it when I was 18, but in others I think it would have hit far far too close to home, and been too intense for me to handle. Retrospectively, I can see how much it would have upset me to read it, but I can also see how similar my life was to a couple of the characters, in particular Wren. 

Cather and Wren's mum didn't know she was having twins when they were born, and she had only one name in mind: 'Catherine'. So, they became Cather and Wren. The girls have been inseparable since birth, especially as their mum didn't stick around for too long. They were left to pick up the mess that was their dad, and everything that happened just served to bring them closer. They even share their number one passion: Simon Snow books (and the movies of course). Think Harry Potter but with vampires too. 

Magicath and Wrenegade are their online alter egos, fangirls of the Simon Snow tribe. They've been writing fanfiction together for years, but Wren's starting to pull away. Soon it's just Magicath writing, and she gathers a following of over 35K readers. Cath's no longer just writing for herself: she can feel the weight of a whole community on her shoulders.

When the pair head to university, Cath is distraught because Wren decides that she wants a new roommate. She cuts her hair short, gets rid of her glasses, and Cath feels alone in a world that she's always been paired in. As Wren embraces university life with parties, drinking and new guys, Cath becomes more introverted, and struggles to even find her way to continue writing fan fiction.

Fangirl is all about how everything changes at the start of university, but also tells us that it's okay for everything to change, even if it's scary.

I loved this novel, and would definitely recommend it to any YA fiction fans! Have you read it?

Review of 'Frozen Charlotte' by Alex Bell

I haven't read a modern horror book in YEARS. So long in fact, that I'm pretty sure the last one I read would have been part of the Goosebumps series. FYI, I loved that, but somehow I fell out of love with all things creepy. I'm just not a horror sort of girl. Scary films overwhelm me and give me nightmares, and I'm more of a fan of a classic Gothic novel than anything written this century. It's far too close to home. But, Frozen Charlotte was part of 2016's Autumn Zoella book club and I couldn't resist giving it a try. Despite being totally petrified by the plot of the novel, I found the whole adrenaline rush of reading something that scary incredible. I definitely will be keeping an eye out for more Alex Bell books in the future.

Frozen Charlotte begins with a ouija board app. Two friends, Sophie and Jay decide to try and contact the dead from Jay's phone in their favourite cafe. They pick Sophie's dead cousin, Rebecca, who passed away in a tragic accident when she was seven. As they attempt to contact her, the lights in the cafe go out, and a waitress is badly burnt by hot cooking oil. Sophie thanks Jay for holding her hand when it all got a lil scary, but Jay denies touching her. His last question to the board was 'when will I die?'. The reply? 'Tonight'. 

Jay doesn't make it through the night, and Sophie needs answers. Was her cousin's spirit responsible for Jay's death? She heads to the Isle of Skye to visit her uncle and Rebecca's brother and sisters, Cameron, Lilias and Piper. From the offset nothing sits right. Cameron's no longer the sweet boy she remembers, and Lilias is constantly spooked. Within the first few nights, Sophie starts having extreme nightmares and feeling unsafe in the house. And the tiny porcelain 'frozen Charlotte' dolls in her dead cousin's room don't exactly help either ...

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'Lying About Last Summer' by Sue Wallman

I've really been digging YA fiction at the moment. So much so that next time I write up a book haul for y'all it's going to be pretty YA heavy. I've been interspersing them with a lot of dense classics, so it makes for a nice, easy reading break between all the kind of books that you're 'supposed to read'.

Lying About Last Summer is the second book from 2016's Zoella book club that I've read so far, and I loved it almost as much as the first one. It's a bit of a thriller, and we all know how much I fell in love with those last year, so I was naturally a big fan.

Lying About Last Summer is all about Skye's ability to deal with her sister's tragic death. One year previous to the novel, Luisa, her sister, was killed. And Skye was present. But, heeding her sister's advice and paralysed by fear, she did nothing until it was too late. 

Skye's life used to revolve around her swim team and badgering her older sister to spend time with her. But Luisa drowned, and Skye can't step foot into a pool without a panic attack. Her parents can no longer cope with living in the house that they lost a child in, so the family move and Skye becomes more isolated than ever.

Fast forward to the next summer, and Skye's parents have sent her to a camp for bereaved teens in an attempt to help her recover from Luisa's death. All is going well (or at least as well as it can do), until she opens up the old app, Message Hound, that her and Luisa used to chat on. They're the only ones with the passcode for their messages, so they used to use it for things they didn't want their mum to see. When Skye messages her sister, the last thing she expects is a reply ...

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'I Was Here' by Gayle Forman

As soon as I found out that Zoella was doing a book club with WH Smith I knew I wanted to look into it more, I won't lie. I've now ended up with almost all of the range, and this is the first one I've read. It was the one I was most excited for, after looking a little into the plot of each of the eight novels in the book club. It feels like forever since I read a YA novel, and it was SO comforting to read one again.

I was completely obsessed with the plot of this book, and finished it in just over a day, which is something that never rarely happens anymore. It was a 'stop everything' kind of novel, that I just had to finish.

I Was Here is all about a girl named Cody, who's best friend Meg killed herself suddenly, and with no real explanation. Cody thought they told each other everything, but she didn't know that Meg was even struggling with life, let alone that she wanted it to end. 

Meg and Cody have been inseparable for years. Cody's mum works all hours to support the pair of them, and she's never met her dad, so Meg's family feels like her own. When Meg dies, Cody feels cut off from everything. She wants to go and see the Garcias, but it's not the same without her. When Meg's parents ask Cody to travel to Meg's university and pack up her things for them, Cody's only too glad to get out of the small town they live in. 

When Cody arrives at Meg's dorms, she realises that there's a LOT going on that she didn't know. Like the fact that Meg was harassing her ex-boyfriend. Or that she rescued two kittens. Soon Cody realises that her and Meg did fall out of touch in the few months before Meg took her life. Still though, Cody can't believe that Meg made the decision to die alone. What if she didn't? 

We follow Cody on a course to track down other people who may have had a hand in Meg's death, and it becomes a complete page-turner as we do.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Review of 'Abandon' by Meg Cabot

This is the first YA fiction book I've read in ages, and one that's actually been on my shelf waiting to be read since it first came out a couple of years ago. I have to say, I love the illustration on the front cover, and really think it's something that has the potential to draw a lot of readers in. I LOVED Meg Cabot as a teenager: The Princess Diaries series was basically what my dreams were made of, and even when I branched into her adult novels I was enthralled. This book really brought me back to how much I loved her writing, and after ending on such a cliffhanger I'm definitely going to have to pick up the next in the series (Underworld) asap!

Pierce's life is nowhere near normal, and not just because she lives on Isla Huesos, aka the island of bones. Just before she moved to the island, Pierce died ... and then came back to live, but not before she took a trip to the Underworld. There she was given a necklace that she was told would protect her from evil, but the problem is that Pierce doesn't just want to protect herself, she wants to protect the people she loves. After returning to live with a completely new perspective on things, she is soon branded as trouble and her uber rich parents are determined to make sure she doesn't completely make a fool of herself and more importantly them.

So, when she goes to Isla Huesos, Pierce hopes that she'll be able to finally make her mum proud again, and become a 'normal' girl. Yet, fate has other plans. Her necklace becomes a bigger problem than she'd ever imagined, and her captor in the underworld who gave it to her keeps showing up. The biggest problem? She thinks she might be falling for him.

Have you read it? What did you think?

Steph x