Tag Archives: love

Geek Girl

By Holly Smale, published by Harper Collins

Geek Girl

“My name is Harriet Manners, and I am a geek.”

Harriet Manners is the geekiest girl of the school. She gets picked on by mean girl Alexa, and ‘GEEK’ graffitied on all of her property. One day, she is forced on a school trip to a fashion show with her best friend, who dreams of getting spotted and becoming a model.

But when Harriet herself in spotted instead, she jumps at the possibility of changing her lifestyle. It will mean stealing her best friends dream, lying to her mother, flying to Russia, and more. But wouldn’t it be worth it to become popular, and change from being a geek? With the support of Geeky-stalker-boy Toby and Harriet’s easily excitable, very enthusiastic father, she embarks on a hilarious journey to pursue a modelling career. Can she make it, and impress super-cute model boy Nick?

This is going to be one of the hottest debuts of the year, I just know it!

The story follows Harriet as she gets a crush on a cute model boy, struggles with bullies and friendships, and experiences the ups and downs of being a (pretty clumsy) model, ultimately discovering that it’s fine to be a Geek. It’s a hilarious, brilliantly written novel which also reflects on the teenage life of the author: As Holly Smale got scouted herself as a teenager!

Harriet is a brilliant main character, your stereotypical, clumsy geek who knows more than enough facts. I fell in love with her story right from the beginning! I actually think she was a bit like me; being called ‘ginger’ when she has Strawberry-blonde hair, amongst many other things. I really related to her, which was great. The other characters were awesome too; all of them funny, but I think my favourite has to be Harriet’s agent (Who reminded me of Louis Spence)!

I really loved this. It’s a brilliant story; comedic yet full of heart and personality, a great read for young teenagers, and young adults alike!

Overall, a stunning first novel from a new author who definitely has a great writing career ahead of her. I couldn’t believe this was her first book, and I can’t wait to see how the sequel turns out!

*Note- look out for the geek girl blog tour, with great, geeky posts appearing on lots of YA blogs, including mine! My post will be on the 26th of February.*

Unremembered

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By Jessica Brody, published by Macmillan

Unremembered (Unremembered, #1)

“The only thing worse than forgetting your past… is remembering it.”

Sixteen year old Sera is the sole survivor of a plane crash in the middle of the ocean. She wakes up, nicknamed Violet for her purple eyes. She can’t remember anything at all, and she has no family looking for her. Then a mysterious boy called Zen arrives in her hospital room, and tells her that she is called Sera, that she needs to remember that she is part of a secret scientific experiment, and that she is not to trust anyone.

She is adopted by two foster parents and their son, Cody, but upon incidents that make her seem ‘supernatural’ and ‘like a robot’ to the people around her, she decides that she must uncover her real identity and sets off on a dangerous journey with the help of thirteen year old Cody to try and remember her past life. On the way she meets Zen again, and another mysterious person. Who can she trust in this new dangerous world? What is Diotech and what did they do to her? And is she falling for Zen? Read this great book to find out!

I absolutely loved this. It’s everything I hoped for; a lot of gritty action, a brilliant main character, a sci-fi based storyline, and a little bit of romance, too. Unremembered is full of exciting, and unpredictable plot twists which kept me on the edge of my seat whilst reading; and the plot in general really was brilliant. I ended up reading this in about a day, but I wish it could have been a little longer (There will be a sequel though! Yay!) .

Sera made a great leading character, and so did Zen, the love interest. I liked the ‘undying love’ between them, how she had had her memory wiped of him so many times but he was still determined to make her remember him again and never stopped loving her. I also found Cody, the thirteen year old foster brother, one of my favourite characters-He’s just so cool, a nerdy boy with a serious crush on his ‘amnesiac supermodel’ step sister!

…And now we come to the ending. THE ENDING. Possibly one of the most frustrating, most effective cliff-hangers of all time. It absolutely terrified, upset, and excited me, and now I am eagerly awaiting the publication of the sequel!

*QUICK UNRELATED NOTE- Yep, this is my third post in the space of about half an hour. I’m off ill with a cough, and sorting through forgotten, unfinished reviews and posting them! woo!*

The Beautiful and the Cursed

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By Page Morgan, published by Hot Key Books

Ingrid Waverly and her sister Gabby move to Paris with their mother, escaping the memories of the accident Ingrid caused- setting fire to a house. They had sent Ingrids twin, Grayson, ahead of them to France to scout out a new home. They arrive at an eerie looking Abbey guarded by stone gargoyles but Grayson is nowhere in sight. Locals say he went missing. like the french girls who have been kidnapped.

Determined to find their brother, Gabby and Ingrid begin a search, but stumble across a scary new side to Paris. The gargoyle which sits on top of their abbey was once a human; Luc; and was turned into a beast, who is sentenced to protect whoever shelters within the abbeys walls. Also, Demons exist- and so does an ‘Alliance’, who pledge to protect people from the Demons. On their search for their sibling, Gabby will fall in love with Detective Nolan, and Ingrid with their Gargoyle Luc, but can they protect each other, and save Grayson, on top of stopping the evil force behind the kidnappings?

Move over, sparkly vampires- the magic gargoyles have arrived! This book was amazing. As soon as I saw the cover I knew this was going to be a great, Gothic read. It was thrilling from the beginning, with scary murder cases and supernatural secrets and evil demonic hell-hounds… So much awesome stuff. There was so much action, so much drama, packed into the pages, and I loved it.

I thought that the main focus would be on Ingrid, seeing as that’s the character on the cover, and even though most of the limelight was on her, her sister Gabby was also a main character. I loved Gabby and Ingrid, they were great protagonists; brave, courageous, adventurous 19th century girls. Luc made a great character too; a Gothic, half human gargoyle sentenced to protect the people that live in the abbey but accidentally falls in love with the eldest girl? How cool!

I didn’t think there was going to be a love triangle, but then one was introduced on the last few pages which was really unpredictable. I’d like to see it develop a bit more in the sequel out soon (The Sweet and the Savage), but I hope it won’t overpower the action!

A Month with April-May

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By Edith Bulbring, published by Hot Key Books

A Month with April-May

‘Life is not a bowl of cherries. Suck it up.’

April-May February is the unfortunately named daughter of two recently split up parents. When she joins a new school, she instantly gets on the wrong side of her teacher! She wears bright stripy socks, and the wrong bag- which means trouble when her evil teacher miss Ho sees! April-May makes friends with the mouth breather Melly, but soon loses her clothes to a homeless person and joins Seb and his gang, when she gets all mushy lovey dovey feelings for him…what ever will happen next?

Watch out Georgia Nicholson… there’s a new comedic girl about! I found this book brilliant; it’s packed full of laughs and tears (Mostly from laughter, but from sad bits too)! It’s one of the funniest books I’ve read in a while. I really loved the character of the April-May February; her story is a funny one but it pulls at your heartstrings, as she tries to ignore her parents’ dilemmas and tries to become a normal girl in her crushes’ gang. Although quite short, this book was awesome and comical. I would recommend it to any teenage girl; you’ll really love it! I can’t wait to hear more from South African bestseller Edith Bulbring in the near future!

Dear Dylan…

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By Siobhan Curham, published by Electric Monkey.

“A first crush. An unexpected friendship. A dream come true…”

Georgie is a fourteen year old girl who lives with her mum, little sister, and much-hated step-dad, Tone-Deaf, as she calls him behind his back. She has a major crush on actor Dylan Curtland, and one day decides to email him in the hope of becoming e-mates. But an unexpected twist leaves her emailing his mother, and they become very close friends, and help each other get through their bad times. Georgie is dealing with a first crush, her abusive stepfather, and her real Dad’s buried secrets, whilst Dylan’s mother Nancy is dealing with the death of her husband and her abandonment of her acting career.

First and foremost, I would like to say a VERY big sorry to Siobhan Curham, who sent me her book a while ago and I misplaced it, and couldn’t find it. But upon finding it yesterday, I just had to put all current books aside and read it!! Trust me, it was worth it. This is one of the best real-life-situation YA books I have ever come across. Dear Dylan is a really thought provoking, emotional roller-coaster of a book! Georgie, the protagonist, is such a great and love-able character, I really felt for her and rooted for her throughout the book.

I really loved the format too, despite being written in emails back and forth from the two main characters, the book has a great amount of detail and emotion packed into the pages. Siobhan has developed two very different characters, and brought them together in a brilliant way, tying in very serious situations like Domestic Violence and Grief.

I really loved it, and I’m sure Siobhan’s next novel, ‘Finding Cherokee Brown’ will be just as brilliant!