15. Scrambled Eggs at Midnight

My love for this book cannot be put into words. Suffice it to say that these two authors write perfectly together and that this book is about the mixture of Jesus fat camp and a Renaissance Faire. Also lots of quotable quotes. Loved it.

14. Foreign Exposure: The Social Climber Abroad

As with the first book in this series, I felt that I was a bit older than the target audience. I enjoyed this one quite a bit more, though. Perhaps it was the setting of first Berlin and then London. I do love London. Like the first book, this one definitely took advantage of its European location. I also loved the descriptions of Mimi's job at a gossip newspaper.

13. Wintergirls

A masterpiece by Laurie Halse Anderson. I lovelovelove Speak and I found Wintergirls to be similar to it. They both featured female narrators who were suffering. Both narrators had trouble with what they were going through. In Wintergirls, I particularly liked Lia's voice. She lied to both herself and the reader and the lies were clearly visible by the thoughts she had that were crossed out. I liked the ending - hopeful, uplifting, but not exceedingly happy.

12. Mockingjay

The third book in The Hunger Games series. I finished it with a sense of love for the characters that I haven't felt since Harry Potter. I liked that it wasn't a perfect ending. I liked that the epilogue didn't tie up all the strings with a nice little they-lived-happily-ever-after bow.

11. Catching Fire

The second book in the Hunger Games trilogy. I liked the first one more than the second, but this one was still very good all around.

10. Splendor

The final book in Anna Godbersen's Luxe series.


I loved the series, although this book seemed to be full of a lot more improbable details than the first three.


A great series, all in all.

9. Envy

The third book in Anna Godbersen's Luxe series.

8. Rumors

Finished Rumors, the second book in Anna Godbersen's Luxe series.

An update

Current status of my life: SO. BUSY. Omg. So much work.

Finished reading since last blog post: Rumors by Anna Godbersen; Foreign Exposure: The Social Climber Abroad by Laura Moser and Lauren Mechling; and Scrambled Eggs at Midnight by Brad Barkley and Heather Hepler. (That's books 8-10 of the challenge.)

Currently reading: Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins; Envy by Anna Godbersen; and City of Golden Shadow by Tad Williams

On the to-read list: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins and Splendor by Anna Godbersen.

7. The Luxe

The Luxe by Anna Godberson is the first book in a four-part series. I read this book and about half of its sequel about a year ago, but never quite had the time to finish the series. Last week, I saw all four books of the series sitting together on the library shelf. I knew I had to get them. So I got all four of them. This one took me about two days to read. I've already begun the second.

The Luxe is about the elite society of 1890s New York City. The main characters are two sisters, Elizabeth and Diana Holland; Henry Schoonmaker, Elizabeth's fiancee, who actually loves Diana; Will, a Holland family servant and Elizabeth's real love; Penelope Hayes, Elizabeth's best frenemy, who loves Henry; as well as a host of other minor characters like their servants and friends. Basically, everyone is in love but no one is allowed to publicly be in love with who they actually love. The Holland family is facing financial problems that are threatening to ruin them and their reputation - and in this time period of 1899, reputation is everything. Henry proposes to her because he needs his family to stay in the city's good graces; Elizabeth accepts because her family desperately needs money. As a result, Will leaves the Holland family to seek a fortune in California, telling Elizabeth to join him if she truly loves him. Penelope begins to develop a plan to get rid of Elizabeth so she can marry Henry. Diana doesn't know about Penelope's love for Henry, so she does her best to get Henry for herself. I guess that the entire book is a long, rather complicated love story.

I liked it.

I'm not usually one for love stories, but I liked these characters. I love the use of location in this book and I loved how descriptive it was. I had no problems imagining what the Hollands' dresses looked like or how Penelope's mansion looked.The chapters rotate points of view between the main characters, which I liked. It was interesting to see how the different characters reacted differently to everything that happened. Something I really didn't like was that the flow of the book got confusing at some times. On occasion, a character would say something and then immediately Godberson would spend a couple of paragraphs explaining scenery or an event or something and only then would the other character respond. In some parts, it read very much like a first novel, which it is. I can only hope that Godberson's writing improves over the next three books.

I'd give this book a 4/5. It was very good, but seemed at some time to be filled up with fluff.

Buy this book on Amazon ***** Visit Anna Godberson's website

6. The Hunger Games

What a freaking amazing book. I can't believe I haven't read it sooner. I picked it up on Friday night, round about 8pm and didn't get up until I had finished, at about 11pm. It was that good.

I'm completely exhausted, so I'm not going to leave a review tonight - I'll write it tomorrow.

Long story short: This book is fantabulous.

Buy this book on Amazon ***** Visit Suzanne Collins's website

5. The Name of the Star

Okay, so I'm a little bit late on this review, but that's okay. I've just been crazy busy lately, especially since Yom Kippur was yesterday. Anyway. This is the first book in the Shades of London series. It's a paranormal story, which I'm not usually very fond of, but considering my love for MJ, I bought it. And not only did I buy it, but I pre-ordered it from Books of Wonder in NYC and received a signed copy of the book, a magnet set made by MJ herself, and a pin reading 'YA Saves.' To be quite honest, if not for the gifts and the excitement of having a book signed by MJ, I would have waited until the book was published, borrowed it from the library, and then buy it if I liked it enough. I would have bought it. I absolutely would have bought it.

I don't really like paranormal books. They're usually too Twilight-esque, with vampires and werewolves and stupid girls falling in love with said vampires and werewolves. There were no vampires or werewolves to be found in The Name of the Star. There were, however, plenty of ghosts, murders, and BRITISHNESS. I've talked before on this blog about how much I love location. This book most definitely made good use of its location in London, UK.

So it's about this girl named Rory from Louisiana who is going to school in London for a year while her parents do a residency at an English university. Everything is all fine and dandy and British until this serial killer shows up. He's murdering people in exactly the same way as Jack the Ripper did in 1888. The biggest problem is that even though there is a plethora of CCTV cameras around each murder site, no murderer is seen. I don't want to say anymore, for fear of ruining the rest of the book ;]

I had a couple of issues with this book that I've noticed before in MJ's books. There are occasions where the narrator mentions something that happened as a result of something else, except I don't remember reading about the first thing. Case in point: At some point in the book, Rory says something about her throat hurting from the vomiting. I had to flip back several pages to find the line where she was sick. It's not a big plot point, there wouldn't have been anything wrong with ignoring it and continuing the book, but I had to find the line where Rory first vomited. I don't know if this is an MJ problem or a me problem, but it bothered me nonetheless. Another problem I had with the book was cliche - the idea of having a British boarding school with a fun, quirky roommate, a mean girl who has some kind of power, and a hot British love interest just seems so overdone. But I still love those books. I can't put them down. It's just overdone.

Okay. This book gets a 4/5. I would recommend it to anyone who likes paranormal books that are not romances. Also anyone who likes YA literature.

Buy this book on Amazon ***** Visit MJ's blog

Berlin Nightlife

The train finally pulled into our station, and [Dagmar and I] stepped out into Ostbahnhof, a succession of brightly lit streets thrumming with elegant couples and teenage girls in short, expensive-looking dresses. On every street corner, men stood behind little carts, peddling aromatic pretzels. Though Mom and the Meyerson-Cullens were still in the same city, or at least one of its unprepossessing suburbs, right then I felt very far away from them, delightfully so.

The scenery grew dingier as we neared Friedrichshain, where nineteenth-century limestone buildings gave way to tan apartment complexes and shabby minimarkets. We passed a few places that seemed sool, including the Lee Harvey Oswald Bar, which was painted red and white and filled with monitors playing a loop of Kennedy's assassination. "That's where all the Americans conspire," Dagmar said with a note of disgust.

A few blocks later, I flipped for the Astro-Bar, a little hole in the wall with ancient computers hanging from the ceiling. "Look!" I said, peering inside. "This is so geeky - I love it! Can we go in?"

4. The Rise and Fall of a 10th-Grade Social Climber

Okay, so this was kind of a cute book. I gotta admit, I'm a sucker for books that take place in exclusive private schools. And this one does feature a private school pretty heavily, although it's more ultra-progressive than exclusive. (No grades, people. No grades.) I also love that it used its setting of NYC so prominently.

So the book is about this girl, Mimi, who moves from Houston to NYC to live with her dad. She starts going to this school called Baldwin. She makes a bet with her childhood friend, Sam, to befriend the cool girls at Baldwin. So Mimi does just that, skipping school, smoking pot, drinking, and buying a fake ID to get herself into the good graces of the popular girls. She also keeps a journal of her endeavors - predictably, this journal ends up published online. But of course, Mimi is forgiven by the end of the book and it all ends happily ever after.

I really liked Mimi's difficult relationship with her mother; although it was very, very difficult, it was, to me, one of the most realistic parts of the book. I also liked that the popular girls at Baldwin didn't have the typical blonde, all-American look that popular girls in books usually have. Instead, they were very diverse. However, on the flip side, they had the same typical problems that rich girls in books always seem to have - f'ed-up family life, drug problems, etc. Not one of these girls was at all realistic. Also, secretly? I think Mimi's dad was gay. But that's just me.

My favorite character was Quinn, Mimi's dad's assistant. I also love that Mimi's dad is a photographer; I'm not sure why, but I really liked it.

All in all, I think this book gets a 3/5. It was a quick read and funny, but also very predictable.

Buy this book at Amazon ***** Visit Lauren Mechling's website 

(Can't find a website for Laura Moser now. Will update when I have one.)