Review: The Closer You Come by Gena Showalter

Title: The Closer You Come ( The Original Heartbreakers #1)
Author: Gena Showalter
Genre: Contemporary Romance
Publisher: HQN Books
Published: March 31st 2015
Page Number: 434
Rating: 4/5

Summary:

Just released from prison, Jase Hollister has a dark and twisted past. And now, he has only one goal: stay out of trouble. Strawberry Valley, Oklahoma, sounds like the perfect place for him and his two brothers-by-circumstance to settle down and live a nice, simple life. But model citizen isn’t exactly this rugged bachelor’s default setting—especially when it comes to a certain hot-blooded Southern beauty…

Brook Lynn Dillon has always been responsible. Not that it’s done her much good. The down-on-her-luck waitress is broke, single and fun-deprived. Until Jase comes along. He is dangerous, stunningly protective, breathtakingly sexy and as tempting as sin, and the passion sizzling between them is undeniable. But can it melt her resistance? After all, the right kind of trouble might be just what they both need.  

REVIEW

 

The Original Heartbreakers series was one of those series that I had my eye on for a while. Because they're all adult contemporary romance they were all published within a short time span of each other. So being able to marathon the series was one of the things that attracted me to it. And major factor that made me want to read this series is that Gena Showalter is one of my favourite authors. Her White Rabbit Chronicles series is an all time favourite.

 

The story follows our Heroine, Brook Lynn Dillon and our Hero, Jase Hollister who try the path of love while overcoming all their difficult obstacles. Brook Lynn has been fired from her job, she's basically babysitting her older sister and she's fighting her feelings for Jase and all the while Jase is just trying to overcome his past by hoping Strawberry Valley will give not only him, but his foster brothers a fresh chance at life.

 

Brook Lynn was definitely a fun, fresh and fierce character. She had an obsession with Zombies and believed a Zombie apocalypse was definitely going to happen. She also had a hearing impairment, which meant that she sometimes had to read lips. Jase has a bad past with prison but really he's judge a big lovable guy under all his hard exterior. And one of the things he does best is love fiercely. I loved him and Brook Lynn together. They had the banter that bounced off each other and that made me fall so much more in love with them.

 

There were a few things I didn't appreciate but the one thing that stood out for me against the rest was the use of the word Whoremones. Like being sexually attracted to a guy made Brook Lynn a slut. We can't help who we fall for and who we have chemistry with. Sexual attraction happens and it's just a part of our human mechanisms. It's not something that needed to be a guilty thing.

 

Overall, I enjoyed this one immensely. It was super cute and gave me the butterflies.

 

 

 

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Review: If I Was Your Girl by Meredith Russo

Title: If I Was Your Girl
Author: Meredith Russo
Genre: YA Contemporary / LGBT
Publisher: Usbourne Publishing
Published: June 1st 2016
Page Number: 304
Rating: 2/5

Summary:

Amanda Hardy is the new girl at school. Like everyone else, all she wants is to make friends and fit in. But Amanda is holding back. Even from Grant, the guy she's falling in love with.

Amanda has a secret.

At her old school, she used to be called Andrew. And secrets always have a way of getting out.

 

REVIEW

 

If I Was Your Girl was on the list for one of my most anticipated releases of this year because it was a book about a Transgender girl who's making her way through school and finding love. And since I've not read much LGBT fiction, I was really looking forward to this. Especially since the US edition has a Transgender model on the cover.

 

However. My expectations were way to high for the book and I ended up disliking mostly everything about If I Was Your Girl. I can say honestly that it is an important novel. Meredith Russo is a transgender woman so all the important facts about being transgender (Hormones, etc) were all factually correct. But sadly, Meredith Russo doesn't have the storytelling skills to have show cased the story in the way it needed to be done.

 

Amanda has only recently come out as Transgender and yet she's already passing as a normal teenage girl. Is this realistic? No. According to the author's note in the back of the book the reason this was done is so that people could just see Amanda as a girl. But that kinds of subtracts from the book when the only interesting thing about Amanda is that bold fact she's Transgender. Amanda has no personality, she's very two dimensional. We see snippets into her past but we only just got a little taste and nothing else. It felt forced and almost as if Meredith was lazy and didn't want to add any depth into the story.

 

And that's not the only thing that was so far fetched. Grant - who's Amanda's love interest - seems to accept her for who she is so quickly after her secret is exposed. And I'm not saying that there won't be people who accept Transgender people, there's tons of them, however. The trust between them was broken and trust takes ages to rebuild but it almost seemed like nothing had been affected between them.

 

I understand that acceptance. We all sort of crave it in a way that makes us seem pathetic, but I just wish that Meredith Russo wrote a book about a Transgender girl who's life was realistic and not fictionalised. I wanted the truth - stripped back, raw honesty that showcases the life of a transgender girl.

 

 

 

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5 Books To Read If You Love 'Stranger Things'.

Stranger Things is a Netflix Original series that blew up instantaneously. The day it released I started watching it and didn't finish until I watched every episode. I'm obsessed. It's honestly one of the best shows on TV at the moment leaving you in constant suspense. Now for those that aren't sure what Stranger Things is about it follows the story of a young boy who goes missing in 1980's Indiana and his friends and family have to tackle terrifying forces to get him back. The series is 8 episodes long and a second season has been confirmed.

So today's post is going to be in celebration not only of one of my new favourite TV shows but also in celebration that we will be getting a 2nd series. So just in case you are having withdrawal symptoms from the series, here are 5 books that I'd recommend if you loved Stranger Things.



1. THE TAKING BY KIMBERLEY DERTING

Just like in Stranger Things our main character, Kyra goes mysteriously missing after she runs off from an argument with her father. A flash of white light is seen and *poof* she's gone. She then wakes up in the dumpster of her local gas station and goes home, however, it turns out she's been missing for 5 years and hasn't seemed to age a day. Her father believes it was Aliens that took his daughter but no one will believe him, including Kyra. Until evidence shows otherwise. This book will have you hooked, I read it in under 24 hours and couldn't wait to find out what happened.




2. MONSTER BY C J SKUSE

Six girls trying to survive spending Christmas locked up inside their boarding school all the while something -  The Beast of Bathory - seems to be stalking the school grounds and is intent on killing off the girls one by one. The only way they can get out alive is if they stick together, but nothing is as easy as it seems. Now there's no Sci Fi in this novel but C J Skuse really has you on the edge of your seat in suspense.





3. REPLICA BY LAUREN OLIVER

So Stranger Things is circulated around government conspiracy theories, which was one of my favourite aspects. Just like Stranger Things, Replica tells the story of two teenage girls who are both connected via a dark past, however. Lyra, also known as #24 is a human model who was raised in a research facility. Once she escapes she meets Gemma and the entire world around them crashes and burns. And what's really cool about this book is that it's essentially two books in one. You can either read Gemma and Lyra's story separately or you can read them both together as one continuous novel.




4. DON'T LOOK BACK BY JENNIFER. L ARMENTROUT

Mystery is one of the biggest elements in Stanger Things and when I thought about that mystery concept my mind and soul went straight to Don't Look Back. Samantha and Cassie are best "frenemy's" who seemingly have it all. They're rich, popular and everyone wanted to be them. That is until the night they both go missing and Samantha resurfaces without a recollection of anything that has happened. She's a stranger in her own life. Samantha starts receiving mysterious letters telling her bit by bit on what happened on that night, but finding out the truth could very well be sinister.





5. THE GIRL WITH ALL THE GIFTS BY M. R CAREY

Melanie's a little girl trapped in a facility with doctors who call her special. And every morning she's strapped to a wheelchair with a gun pointed at her head while she's making jokes that she won't bite. But in this world, Melanie has no idea what or who she's going to be when she grows up. Because Melanie is special. Melanie is unique. Melanie also happens to be dangerous. The Girl With All The Gifts is an incredible read that captures the readers attention with it's incredible action and pace. Oh, and it's also soon to be coming out in cinemas. *Trailer here*






What's your favourite thing about Stranger Things?
Also what other books would you recommend for us Stranger Things fans?
Let me know in the comments!