"The Summer I Turned Pretty" by Jenny Han

"Belly measures her life in summers. Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August. Winters are simply a time to count the weeks until the next summer, a place away from the beach house, away from Susannah, and most importantly, away from Jeremiah and Conrad. They are the boys that Belly has known since her very first summer--they have been her brother figures, her crushes, and everything in between. But one summer, one terrible and wonderful summer, the more everything changes, the more it all ends up just the way it should have been all along."-goodreads

I have had several people recommend I read this book. It looked cute. It looked like one of those very straightforward, predictable, fluffy beach reads. I was in the mood for a light read, so I thought I'd pick this up. I was wrong. I still enjoyed it. It was still a tad light/girly/fluffy at times, but, it was MUCH more. 


Read the description, think of the title, take a look at the cover. You can't tell me you don't think the plot is like this: Girl hangs out with two boys for her whole life. They're friends, but, girl discovers that she'd like them to be MORE than friends. Girl falls in love with one/both of the boys. Yay. It works out. Dundundun blahblahblah happily ever after! However, the people that recommended me this book told me it was a lot more than what it sounded like, and I believed them. I'm so glad I believed them.

There are much deeper issues in this book. The plot is not straightforward. Most importantly, THE WRITING. The way the story was told, just the way it was written, that's probably my favorite part. The whole book takes place in summers. The main part of the book is in the summer where Belly is almost 16, but as the story progresses there are chapters of flashbacks to previous summers, with related stories to what's going on now and I loved that! It contributed so much important back story when it was needed and helped explain how everything was the way it was. The writing itself is really good too, distinct and clear.

I really appreciated that there were deeper themes and problems running through the book, parent's separations, divorces, and the lack of a father figure: complex family relationships. The impact of Belly's ever-since-she-was-little crush on Conrad. Susannah's illness. They all made this book more complicated, in a good way, and brought deep emotions out in all of the characters.


I really don't have anything bad to say about this book. I'm actually not the biggest fan of the main character, Belly, because I thought she was a little bit hard to connect to because she's a little bit whiny and she just had... interesting logic at times, but I think she was still pretty realistically a teenage girl, and her emotions felt real. I didn't mind that Belly annoyed me sometimes, it doesn't really impact my opinion on the book.


Overall, The Summer I Turned Pretty is a beach-y, coming of age sort of novel with actual substance. It's not your average fluffy-girly-beach book. I'm really looking forward to reading the second one. Read it. :)

"Cloaked" by Alex Flinn

"I'm not your average hero. I actually wasn't your average anything. Just a poor guy working an after-school job at a South Beach shoe repair shop to help his mom make ends meet. But a little magic changed it all. It all started with a curse. And a frognapping. And one hot-looking princess, who asked me to lead a rescue mission.
There wasn't a fairy godmother or any of that. And even though I fell in love along the way, what happened to me is unlike any fairy tale I've ever heard. Before I knew it, I was spying with a flock of enchanted swans, talking (yes, talking!) to a fox named Todd, and nearly trampled by giants in the Everglades.
Don't believe me? I didn't believe it either. But you'll see. Because I knew it all was true, the second I got cloaked."-goodreads

I really like Alex Flinn's modern takes on fairy tales, and this is no exception. Cloaked is different than Flinn's previous fairy tale related books, as rather than the book focusing on one or two mainstream sorts of fairy tales, the book contains elements from a lot of different, lesser-known fairy tales. I never would have known that, the book didn't seem like it was slapped together, the plot was combined rather seamlessly. It was very interesting, probably more so that her other books, just in the way that you didn't really know what to expect since it's not like a fairy tale you've ever heard of.

Cloaked was not what I expected it to be. Looking back to before I read the book, I'm not particularly sure what I did expect. I don't mean this in a bad way, but the book just seems a little different then the description. I'm having a really hard time articulating this, sorry. I think the description made Johnny, our protagonist, sound a lot like Jack from A Kiss in Time or a bit like Kyle from Beastly. He was a little bit similar, but I also thought he was a lot different, if nothing else, because Jack seemed a little bit cocky at times just like Kyle. Confident. Johnny wasn't like that. It made the whole story seem a bit different from Flinn's other fairy tale books. This could be my imagination, but this review is for my opinion, right? It wasn't a bad thing, either, just something to note.

Other than that, while telling a different story, I felt that Cloaked was very similar to Flinn's other fairy tale adaptions. I felt Cloaked shared the same strengths and probably the same weaknesses as Beastly and A Kiss in Time. I don't mean this in a bad way as if I felt that I was reading the same thing or that it was boring, they're just similar. Overall, I enjoyed Cloaked and recommend it to anyone looking for a not-so-traditional fairy tale, as I recommend Alex Flinn's other books. I also really want to read Breaking Point, as it's a contemporary un-related to fairy tales (Alex Flinn has several of those.) and I'm interested to see how it is!

"White Cat" (Curseworkers, #1) by Holly Black

"Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago. Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen."-goodreads

I know that Holly Black has come out with a bunch of YA stuff other than the Curseworkers series, but White Cat is the first I've read. I didn't even realize she was coming out with any YA stuff for quite a while. I'm very glad I did find out. I love Holly Black's writing, and I've loved it ever since I was 7 or 8 and picked up her "The Spiderwick Chronicles" series, which I adored. Ate it up. I read all of them, over and over, in VERY short periods of time. I figured, after loving those so much, I'd have to adore her newer stuff. I did!

The crime family of 'workers' situation, a little bit like that of Heist Society by Ally Carter was very cool. The theme of complicated family situations throughout the book was great. The universe where everyone's a worker, or they're not, and that it's wrong, but it's not against the law-- that whole concept was really great. It was so out of the ordinary, yet Mrs. Black managed to make it feel like real life. The whole book felt really real, so real that it's probably an account of something actually happening. That's how real her writing is.


White Cat took a lot of complicated, surprising, sometimes very confusing twists and turns. I really enjoyed all of them as they were almost all VERY surprising, but they confused me at times. Big changes happened in very little time with little explanation sometimes. At first, I didn't like this at all but THEN I really liked it, because it felt very real, and felt very much like I was seeing everything the way Cassel was. He was confused. He didn't expect these things. He wasn't a worker. He didn't know what his family was doing... all of it just illustrated how he didn't know what he was doing, it just all lead back to a gritty real-ness of the whole book. 

Going along with the theme of real-ness, the characters were really complex and believable as well. I really liked Cassel and Lila and pretty much everyone. Barron was a tragic and interesting case. The cat was an interesting character, but I kind of already said that... didn't I? If you read the book you know what I'm talking about. If not, you'll find out.


I loved that it was complicated crime families. I loved that it was modern magic-- no faeries, no wands, no bunnies flying out of hats. A very believable fantasy, where magic is cursing and it effects people-- whether the person doing it knows it- or not. I really enjoyed White Cat and if you enjoyed Black's earlier books or Heist Society and anything else along those lines you'll like it too.

"The Iron Queen" by Julie Kagawa (Iron Fey, #3)

(If you haven't read the first two books and 1.5 in this series, you should probably look at those reviews first! The Iron King, Winter's Passage, and The Iron Daughter.)
"My name is Meghan Chase.I thought it was over. That my time with the fey, the impossible choices I had to make, the sacrifices of those I loved, was behind me. But a storm is approaching, an army of Iron fey that will drag me back, kicking and screaming. Drag me away from the banished prince who's sworn to stand by my side. Drag me into the core of conflict so powerful, I'm not sure anyone can survive it.
This time, there will be no turning back."-goodreads

I thought I liked the Iron King. Then, I thought I liked the Iron Daughter even MORE. I thought The Iron Queen couldn't get much better than those? Right? Wrong! The Iron Queen was way better than the first two, and I adored it! Now, let's talk about why.

SURPRISING TWISTS. Jeez. If nothing else, this series is filled with some pretty epic twists. The end, for example? I did not expect that to happen to Meghan. Then I thought she was dead. Then I was surprised AGAIN. But, that's the thing, because there is WAY more to this series.

The modern world/faery world, that the whole Iron Fey series is set in is very different from anything I've ever read before. As I've said before, the world is probably one of the most fascinating parts. And, naturally, I love Meghan and Ash. Puck is still really funny. I felt kind of bad for him at times, as I did in The Iron Daughter. Also, has anyone noticed that Ash and Will from Clockwork Angel are very similar? They are to me, anyway.

If this review seems kind of random, it's because I'm trying VERY hard to say nothing that will totally spoil at least the first two books. So, it's kind of a mini-review. All I can tell you is that you absolutely must read the Iron Fey series if you want to read a fantasy that's quite different. Love it. The Iron Queen is the best one of the series! Mrs. Julie Kagawa is REALLY awesome. Just saying.

Cold Tom by Sally Prue

There were two things he needed very much to know.
Firstly, why did Edie feel herself under threat from the Tribe?
And, secondly, with all the exists guarded, however was he going to get out?
Tom is one of the Tribe... An elven race that lives in the Common, near the demon- human- city. They avoid the demons at all costs, making sure there's a guard whenever possible.
But one day Tom lets the demons in, and they almost find the Tribe. Tom knows he has to run away, and fast. Who knows what the Tribe would do to him?
He finds himself in the Demon city, the last place he wants to be. Hiding out in a little shack, with a injured foot, he's found by a demon, Anna. She's too loud and too warm and too bulky for Tom. He hates her, and he hates her brother, Joe, even more. He wants to leave. He wants to call on the stars and become invisible, and slip away. He needs to get away, before the demons enslave him. He needs to get away before he grows attached to him. At least his family- even though they're trying to kill him- does enslave them. No, the Tribe is free. Free and full of hatred.
But if Tom doesn't belong with the Tribe... And he doesn't belong with the demons...
What does he do?
"How should I know? It was probably Tom trying to kill me. And he got away."
"Or blown into a million pieces."
"Well, it's not my fault," said Joe irritably. "You don't think I encouraged him, do you? You don't think I said, oh, and how about blasting the shed to smithereens? I mean, that's what I really wanted, wasn't it, having my eyebrows burned off and having to explain to Dad and Evelyn why half the garden's exploded."
I was going through my books yesterday, choosing which ones I wanted to keep, and which ones could go away. I sorted through most of them, but then I found Cold Tom. At first the cover almost made me not read it (I generally think that books with covers like this one has are going to be stupid, kind of like alliterating titles), but then I decided that... Hey... It's a short book. Only 187 pages, short chapters, and big print. I had a half a day to read it before I had to give it away... Why not read it, write a review, and then either decide to give it away or keep, based on how I liked it?

It took me three hours to read.
And I liked it.

Granted, It was very, VERY, predictable. I had predicted the so called "plot twists" miles away from when they came, and the characters weren't very deep. The ending was odd, and I didn't exactly like Tom.
But even though there were so many reasons why I shouldn't like this book, I really did. Weird.
It was interesting, and I haven't read anything like it. I'd give it about three stars.

"Hex Hall" by Rachel Hawkins

"On her 12th birthday, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. Three bumpy years later, after a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, she's exiled to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters.
By the end of her first day, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Then when a mysterious predator begins attacking students, and Sophie's only friend is the number-one suspect, a horrifying plot begins to surface. Soon, Sophie is preparing for the biggest threat of all: an ancient society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her."-goodreads

Hex Hall was a funny, cute book that was a relatively quick read. I enjoyed it, and I liked Sophie, who was a pretty good narrator. I thought it was interesting, with Sophie not really knowing what was going on with her being a witch or anything about her dad. The whole concept of Hecate Hall, where all the misbehaving creatures went was great.


I liked this book, but I admittedly had a problem with some character flaws. Sophie falls for Archer, the gorgeous warlock, which is fine and everything, predictable, but cute. The problem I had is that Archer was pretty mean to her, and regardless of how that suddenly changes, I don't really like it when books go all, girl likes boy, boy is mean, girl still likes boy, and acts like he has no flaws. Also, Sophie swore a lot, which is perfectly fine, I don't care, it was just that she seemed pretty logical and intelligent and everything and then she seemed to say things that didn't go along with that at all. So, those two things got on my nerves, although they didn't ruin the book for me or anything, I still enjoyed it.


My favorite elements of the book were probably the way the story ended up; who the 'ghost' was, how Sophie didn't know about what she was or what her family was, and the whole thing didn't end up the way I thought it would. I thought it was interesting how the school had all these creatures, the fairies, vampires, witches, warlocks, werewolves, and all of them were there because they'd done something or other they shouldn't have.


Anyway, if you're looking for a cute read, or if you need something light to get you out of a reading rut, this would probably be good. As well as if you want a written version of something kind of reminiscent of the Halloweentown movies for older audiences. I'll definitely be reading Demonglass soon. Also, I like the cover, even more so after reading the book-- but I do think it's a bit preppy/young girly looking for the book.