Book Review: The Pact by Jodi Picoult

A few days ago I finished reading The Pact by Jodi Picoult and I wanted to share my review of this book on my blog. First off I want to say that Jodi Picoult is a phenomenal writer and if you haven't read any of her books I encourage you to check them out. I've been so amazed by each book that I've read of hers so far. Now on to my review. :)

For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty-- they've grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other's lives. Parents and children alike have been best friends, so it's no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily's friendship blossoms into something more. They've been soul mates since they were born.

So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There's a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father's cabinet-- a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described

As you can see from the summary this book is about two families who live next to each other and they have been friends most of their lives. Their children grow up together, etc. This book is about Chris and Emily, who were born three months apart and have known each other forever. Basically, they are soul mates. Growing up they were best friends and they eventually started dating, as everyone knew they would. A terrible accident happens one night that no one in each family ever expected to happen. Emily  is dead from a gun wound to the head and Chris was with her. He's hurt and unconscious when the police find them. There was two bullets in the gun that night and Chris claims the other bullet was for him. They had planned on making a suicide pact, but Chris is still alive. So the ultimate question is, were they really going to commit suicide or did Chris Murder Emily?

The book switches back and fourth between the present day and past time. We get to see what is happening now after Emily's death and we go through all the lives of the characters as well. We get to see when Chris and Emily start dating, as well as all the events leading up to her death.  I loved all of the characters in this book and I felt that they were all written extremely well. I had a slight issue with Chris's character towards the beginning though. I thought he was lacking in emotion a little bit but that changed towards the end. I especially loved Emily's character and I loved reading from her point of view when the book went into the past.

I absolutely loved everything about this book. It was such an amazing read that I can't rave enough about. It's hands down one of the best books I've ever read. This book made me feel so many different emotions while reading it. It was definitely a book that left me completely speechless and I couldn't even gather my thoughts about it for a few days because I was just so overwhelmed with emotion. The last 100 pages or so were so exhilarating, especially when it comes down to the end and you finally find out what really happened the night that Emily died. Through this book I was laughing and crying and there were parts where my heart was beating out of my chest! I highly recommend reading this one to anyone who hasn't yet!

I hope you all enjoyed my review and thanks for reading! I'm currently reading Looking for Alaska by John Green, which was one of the books on my fall TBR list! I will be doing a review on this as well when I'm finished.

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Top 10 favorite book series

Hello Everyone, I wanted to share my top 10 favorite book series here on my blog!



1. Harry Potter series by J.K Rowling
Harry potter will forever be my favorite book series of all time.

2. The Gemma Doyle Trilogy by Libba Bray
This is a trilogy made up of three books. A Great and Terrible Beauty, Rebel Angles, and The Sweet Far Thing. This series is completely amazing and everything about it is so magical and enchanting. This is one of the best young adult fantasy series I've ever read.

3. The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare
City of Bones, City of Ashes, City of glass, City of Fallen Angles, City of lost Souls. I also love the prequel series, The Infernal Devices, but I enjoyed the mortal instruments series a lot more.

4. The Vampire Academy series by Richelle Mead
Vampire Academy, Frostbite, Shadow Kiss, Blood Promise, Spirit Bound, The Last Sacrifice. This is a series that I really loved when I was in my 'vampire book' phase. I still love the series despite the fact that I am not into vampire books anymore because it is a really wonderful series! I also like the spin off series Bloodlines.

5. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, MockingJay. This probably comes to no surprise that the Hunger Games is another one of my favorites. It will aways be a series that I love as well.

6. Divergent by Veronica Roth
I also love the 2nd book Insurgent and I believe this is going to be a 3 book trilogy. I can't wait until the third book to see how the rest of the story goes!

7. The Books of Bayern by Shannon Hale
The Goose Girl, Enna Burning, River Secrets, and Forest Born are the books in this series. I'm not exactly sure if I would consider this series to be in the young adult section. They are pretty long books, but I would say they are more lighter reads then your typical young adult book. It is a fantasy series but it isn't harsh or heavy in action, but there is definitely a great story.

8. The Iron Fey series by Julie Kagawa
The Iron King, The Iron Daughter, The Iron Queen, and the Iron Knight. This is the only series about fairies that I've read the I've actually enjoyed.

9. Beautiful Creatures series by Kami Garcia
Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos. I absolutely love this series about caster/witchcraft. I can't wait for the 4th book to come out.

10. The Blue is for Nightmares series by Laurie Faria Stolarz
Blue is for Nightmares, White is for Magic, Silver is for Secrets, Red is for Remembrance, and the graphic novel Black is for Beginnings. This is a wonderful series that I read a few years ago that I often forget about. It's really captivating and a little suspenseful.

This is my top 10 favorite series and they are ones that I've recommend a lot of people to read. I am also planning of doing another blog post of my top 10 favorite stand alone novels as well. As you can tell all of my favorites series are in the fantasy genre, but none of my favorite stand alone novels are! I hope you enjoyed reading this post, and look forward to my favorite stand alone novels! :P

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Book review: Identical by Ellen Hopkins

Hey all, today I'm going to be doing a book review on Identical by Ellen Hopkins. I've been contemplating on how to do this review for a day or two because I wasn't really sure how to get started with it. I feel like this story has a lot of mature content in it and I wasn't sure how to go about that or if I should even do a review on it at all. Regardless here I am doing the review because it was a book that I truly did love and enjoyed reading.

Summary
Do twins begin in the womb?
Or in a better place? Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical down to the dimple. As daughters of a district-court judge father and a politician mother, they are an all-American family -- on the surface. Behind the facade each sister has her own dark secret, and that's where their differences begin. For Kaeleigh, she's the misplaced focus of Daddy's love, intended for a mother whose presence on the campaign trail means absence at home. All that Raeanne sees is Daddy playing a game of favorites -- and she is losing. If she has to lose, she will do it on her own terms, so she chooses drugs, alcohol, and sex. Secrets like the ones the twins are harboring are not meant to be kept -- from each other or anyone else. Pretty soon it's obvious that neither sister can handle it alone, and one sister must step up to save the other, but the question is -- who?


First off I want to say that as much as I really did love this book it was a bit hard to read because of the relationship the main character Kaeleigh shared with her father. It was disturbing and it made me sick to my stomach at times. Like I said before, this book has a lot of mature content it in and if you can't handle reading it then this book is not for you. I think that out of all the Ellen Hopkins books that I've read so far this one had the most mature content in it. Maybe that's just me and my own opinion though but I feel strongly towards it.

The main characters Kaeleigh and Raeanne are identical twins. A terrible accident that happened has torn their family apart and in the aftermath each twin has their own dark secrets they deal with. Their mother is usually absent and focusing too much on her work. Their father turns to alcoholism and pills to deal with the tragedy, all the while dealing with his own secret past of pain and abuse. Kaeleigh and Raeanne have two totally different personalities and deal with their pain in different ways. Raeanne uses drugs and sex as an escape from life. Kaeleigh is more of a quite and passive person who turns to cutting and she deals with having an eating disorder. She suffers silently while she attracts the wrong kind of attention from their father, which makes Raeanne Jealous.

This story for me kept me very anxious while I was reading it. I could not put this book down until I was finished. This story sparked a number of emotions in me. Like I said before, this book made sick to my stomach at some parts and it also made me angry at some times. I wanted Kaeleigh to be a stronger person and get help. I wanted to punch their father in their face. I hated their mother for not knowing what was going on in their home. I wanted Raeanne to help her sister and vice versa. I was a bit confused on why each sister never talked to each other but the ending gave explanation of that. Also the ending of this book was totally amazing. So many things made since and it just made the book complete. (Possible spoiler alert) Mental illness is something that really interest me, so I think if it was anything different in the book I wouldn't have liked it as much. Overall I think this book was insanely wonderful and I think it's on the top of my favorite Ellen Hopkins books!

Thank you all for reading. I'm sorry if this review was kind of jumbled, it was a bit hard to gather my thoughts and emotions for this one. Plus I'm still new at this whole blogging/reviewing thing :p

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Book Review: Notes to Self

Hello everyone! Today I'm going to be doing a book review on the book Notes to Self by Avery Sawyer. I read this book on my kindle, and it was a book I've never herd of previous to reading it. I believe it was only $3.99, but I'm always unsure of what to expect when buying cheap/free kindle books. I was surprised to find out that I really enjoyed reading this one. It was a quick and easy read which is exactly what I was hoping for.  Here is the summery to the book:

Two climbed up. Two fell down. 

One woke up.

In the aftermath of a traumatic brain injury, Robin Saunders has to relearn who she is and find out what happened the night everything changed.


The book starts off with the main character Robin being in the hospital with a brain injury after her and her best friend climbed up an amusement park ride and fell down. Robin has no recollection of the fall, or why she and Emily climbed up in the first place. Now Emily is in a coma and is not waking up. Robin is deviated and needs her best friend to come back to her. Her friends at school start to blame and bully her for the accident. With Robin having a brain injury, she forgets how to do simple normal things in life and all she knows that there is something important she needs to remember.

The whole time I was reading this story I was so anxious to know what was going to happen next. It's such an easy story to get wrapped up in and feel all the emotions that Robin feels and I found myself hoping that Emily was going to wake up every time Robin talked about her. I found the story to be well written and very engaging. The plot was original and I have not read many stories about brain injuries or amnesia. I found all of the characters to be likable and easy to connect with as well. Even the little bit of romance that was in it was enough to make me all giddy! I gave this a 4/5 of starts on goodreads only because towards the middle of the book it went slightly slow and took a while for something exciting to happen again. I definitely recommend this book for anyone to read!

Thanks for reading!

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