contemporary – Page 4 – The Constellation of Moon

Undead Girl Gang Review

Posted on August 28, 2018

Undead Girl Gang by Lily Anderson

Mila Flores and her best friend Riley have always been inseparable. There’s not much excitement in their small town of Cross Creek, so Mila and Riley make their own fun, devoting most of their time to Riley’s favorite activity: amateur witchcraft.

So when Riley and two Fairmont Academy mean girls die under suspicious circumstances, Mila refuses to believe everyone’s explanation that her BFF was involved in a suicide pact. Instead, armed with a tube of lip gloss and an ancient grimoire, Mila does the unthinkable to uncover the truth: she brings the girls back to life.

Unfortunately, Riley, June, and Dayton have no recollection of their murders, but they do have unfinished business to attend to. Now, with only seven days until the spell wears off and the girls return to their graves, Mila must wrangle the distracted group of undead teens and work fast to discover their murderer…before the killer strikes again.

Rating:

This novel was a refreshing voice and it made me laugh. It was also quite good to have a witch that is not your usual witch, and I loved it. I also loved how her spells turn out.

I read this in a couple of sittings because it was just fun and cute and I kept wanting to know what Mila was doing and pondering exactly why the girls had been killed and by whom.

The twists made me laugh (mushrooms, mushrooms), and it just felt like a fun book yet it was dealing with death and difficult things happening. People think the girls died by a suicide pact, so with this premise Mila starts trying to prove it wrong, and it is a sad book.

Yes, there are zombies but it definitely isn’t your usual zombie story at all! But it does challenge the mean girls and it challenges Riley and Mila’s friendship and it is good, and interesting.

I think the best way to describe it is a refreshing fun out of the norm book.

Moon recommends

I think you should read Undead Girl Gang. If you like mysteries and thriller like, try One of Us is Lying, or if you prefer something funny, try Heretics Anonymous.

Book Review

I Have Lost My Way Review

Posted on August 2, 2018

I Have Lost My Way by Gayle Forman

A powerful display of empathy and friendship from the #1 New York Times Bestselling author of If I Stay. Around the time that Freya loses her voice while recording her debut album, Harun is making plans to run away from home to find the boy that he loves, and Nathaniel is arriving in New York City after a family tragedy leaves him isolated on the outskirts of Washington state. After the three of them collide in Central Park, they slowly reveal the parts of their past that they haven’t been able to confront, and together, they find their way back to who they’re supposed to be. Told over the course of a single day from three different perspectives, Gayle Forman’s newest novel about the power of friendship and being true to who you are is filled with the elegant prose that her fans have come to know and love.

Rating:

Gayle’s books shine for a few things, and this one doesn’t loose those marvelous pros. Which ones? One, it is an easy read. The writing is easy to read, it doesn’t require you to concentrate like crazy because you may miss something, and it is just quick and easy and enjoyable.

Another one is her view of humanity and gaining introspectives on yourself through watching, interacting and being with others. This particular book shines a lot on that front. Mind you, I say yourself, but it is meant to be the fact that it happens as the characters exist and move along the story, but it affects you too as you go alongside them.

There is usually music involved in one way or another in the narrative which I kind of like because it makes it “normal”, and it makes it a part of everything.

All in all, a nice lovely book about finding your way, and remembering why you are doing things. (It is less punch-y than some of her other books but that doesn’t take away from this one).

Moon recommends

I am not big on contemporary books, but I can recommend I Have Lost My Way, or if you want to try more of her books you can start the If I Stay “series”.

Book Review

It Only Happens in the Movies Review

Posted on July 25, 2018

It Only Happens In The Movies by Holly Bourne

Audrey is over romance. Since her parents’ relationship imploded her mother’s been catatonic, so she takes a cinema job to get out of the house. But there she meets wannabe film-maker Harry. Nobody expects Audrey and Harry to fall in love as hard and fast as they do. But that doesn’t mean things are easy. Because real love isn’t like the movies…

The greatest love story ever told doesn’t feature kissing in the snow or racing to airports. It features pain and confusion and hope and wonder and a ban on cheesy clichés. Oh, and zombies… YA star Holly Bourne tackles real love in this hugely funny and poignant novel.

Rating:

My absolutely favourite thing about this book was the ending. I was buddy reading with a friend and kept commenting on how I didn’t want x or y in the ending, and Holly delivered. It couldn’t be a more perfect ending to the book.

Basically this book redeemed my quickly draining love for contemporary books (as I get older and read more and more, the less I like contemporaries, they are just meh and feel like the same book over and over with minimal changes. Holly however gave me something different and wow me!)

Also, it was great to see more of the family in a way and how things weren’t great for Audrey and she couldn’t do much about it (because sometimes that’s life and it sucks).

Moon recommends

Cheek It Only Happens in the Movies, oh and get some popcorn with it, you’ll crave it!

Book Review

Words in Deep Blue Review

Posted on June 23, 2018

20180618_074815

Words in Deep Blue by Cath Crowley

This is a love story.
It’s the story of Howling Books, where readers write letters to strangers, to lovers, to poets.
It’s the story of Henry Jones and Rachel Sweetie. They were best friends once, before Rachel moved to the sea.
Now, she’s back, working at the bookstore, grieving for her brother Cal and looking for the future in the books people love, and the words they leave behind.

Rating:

This is a book about grief, and about the power of words. And as such it was a beautiful read. It took me a few chapters to really get into it, but once I did, I kept wanting to read, and I wished for a Letter Library close by.

As I read it, I was reminded of all the times I’ve found little gems in library books or second-hand ones, one of them contained a dollar bill, another had a letter, some have had receipts or train tickets, and there have been beautiful dedications or author signatures on them. The joys of used books indeed.

But it isn’t just about books, it is about processing grief (not just the kind of loosing someone but also of dreams broken and lost) and living as best as you can, a bit like connecting the dots between the you before the event and the you that exists now, and it was beautiful.

It definitely shows the power and beauty of words in it. Even if I wanted to smack Henry with a book at times, and Rachel too. But it was cute, romantic and sweet. A light read despite the heavy topics.

Moon recommends

After I finished Words in Deep Blue I couldn’t help but think of Letters to the Lost, so that is my recommendation this time around.

Book Review

Emergency Contact Review

Posted on April 22, 2018

Emergency Contact was a spur of the moment purchase, it sounded interesting, but I hadn’t committed to it and then suddenly I made the decision to preorder it and that was that.

Emergency Contact by Mary H.K. Choi

For Penny Lee high school was a total nonevent. Her friends were okay, her grades were fine, and while she somehow managed to land a boyfriend, he doesn’t actually know anything about her. When Penny heads to college in Austin, Texas, to learn how to become a writer, it’s seventy-nine miles and a zillion light years away from everything she can’t wait to leave behind.

Sam’s stuck. Literally, figuratively, emotionally, financially. He works at a café and sleeps there too, on a mattress on the floor of an empty storage room upstairs. He knows that this is the god-awful chapter of his life that will serve as inspiration for when he’s a famous movie director but right this second the seventeen bucks in his checking account and his dying laptop are really testing him.

When Sam and Penny cross paths it’s less meet-cute and more a collision of unbearable awkwardness. Still, they swap numbers and stay in touch—via text—and soon become digitally inseparable, sharing their deepest anxieties and secret dreams without the humiliating weirdness of having to see each other.

Rating:

Warning, I usually avoid spoilers as much as possible in my reviews but this one may include some. I will still try to keep them to a minimum.

I am not the biggest fan of contemporary books, and if I do read them I tend to prefer more “magical realism” or something like that, which this does not have. However, the idea of having an “emergency contact” for panic attacks was a lovely thing (I think it is one of the things that made me preorder this book, not sure but it definitely would’ve since I have had panic attacks).

And both Sam and Penny aren’t perfect, are struggling and are learning to be “adults”, so it was refreshing to read from them, and hey look at that, the parents aren’t conveniently out of the way as such (yes it happens while Penny is in college/university but her mum is definitely a big part in this story).

I was shook when Penny’s “secret” was revealed, not because it was a bad secret but rather because it touched me as I had gone through something similar and I could understand her too well.

All in all, the book left me feeling happy to be alive, wanting to fall in love slowly and just needing an emergency contact.

Moon recommends

Reading Emergency Contact, I literally said to my friends they had to read it because it was so good! Another good book that is contemporary and gave me similar vibes is When My Heart Joins The Thousand, so I recommend reading it if this sounds interesting.

Book Review

Windfall Review

Posted on February 5, 2018

This was lent to me by Nikki and I grabbed it last weekend for a quick read. It did not disappoint on that front.

Windfall by Jennifer E. Smith

Alice doesn’t believe in luck—at least, not the good kind. But she does believe in love, and for some time now, she’s been pining for her best friend, Teddy. On his eighteenth birthday—just when it seems they might be on the brink of something—she buys him a lottery ticket on a lark. To their astonishment, he wins $140 million, and in an instant, everything changes.

At first, it seems like a dream come true, especially since the two of them are no strangers to misfortune. As a kid, Alice won the worst kind of lottery possible when her parents died just over a year apart from each other. And Teddy’s father abandoned his family not long after that, leaving them to grapple with his gambling debts. Through it all, Teddy and Alice have leaned on each other. But now, as they negotiate the ripple effects of Teddy’s newfound wealth, a gulf opens between them. And soon, the money starts to feel like more of a curse than a windfall.

As they try to find their way back to each other, Alice learns more about herself than she ever could have imagined . . . and about the unexpected ways in which luck and love sometimes intersect.

Rating:

On the quick read front, if definitely was a quick read, and easy to read. Nothing complicated, nothing too difficult. On the other hand, there wasn’t anything wow to leave me wanting more or really anything like it.

It is a brilliant filler and a good “I don’t want to think and just need a nice book to read, thank you very much”.

Teddy wins the loterry thanks to a ticket Alice gets him, and as much as the premise here says about an adventure, most of the book isn’t exactly that. It is more a “we are all trying to figure ourselves out because this whole money thing has changed things and also college and life”.

One of the things that frustrated me a little is that I didn’t really want Alice to end up with Teddy. As Swayer says, he doesn’t deserve her. And it was frustrating to see him hurt her then apologise and everything is fine and all good. No, that is not good, that can become toxic, please don’t do that.

However, one of the things I really liked is the relationships between all characters. Teddy and his mother, Teddy and his gambling father. Alice and her uncle and aunt. Alice and Leo. Leo and Max. It is interesting.

Moon recommends

This book felt a little along the lines of Here We Are Now or Everything, Everything, easy reads that are more about relationships between family and friends or boy/girl so any fo them will do nicely.

PS. I don’t have lottery tickets so YALC queue tickets is all I had…

Book Review

Here We Are Now Review

Posted on January 14, 2018

This lovely book was provided to me through bookbridgr. So here is my honest review.

Here We Are Now by Jasmine Warga

Despite sending him letters ever since she was thirteen, Taliah Abdallat never thought she’d ever really meet Julian Oliver. But one day, while her mother is out of the country, the famed rock star from Staring Into the Abyss shows up on her doorstep. This makes sense – kinda – because Julian Oliver is Taliah’s father, even though her mother would never admit it to her.

Julian asks if Taliah if she will drop everything and go with him to his hometown of Oak Falls, Indiana, to meet his father – her grandfather – who is nearing the end of his life. Taliah, torn between betraying her mother’s trust and meeting the family she has never known, goes.

With her best friend Harlow by her side, Taliah embarks on a three-day journey to find out everything about her ‘father’ and her family. But Julian isn’t the father Taliah always hoped for, and revelations about her mother’s past are seriously shaking her foundation. Through all these new experiences, Taliah will have to find new ways to be true to herself, honoring her past and her future.

Rating:

The premise of this book is relationships. And in that aspect it excels. It touches on friendships (between Taliah and Harlow), f/f (Harlow and Quinn), what happens when your best and only friend has a girlfriend, mother/daughter (both for Taliah and for Lena, Taliah’s mother), father/son (Julian and Tom, and in a smaller way Toby), father/daughter (Julian/Taliah). It is all in all packed full of the complexity of family and friends, and it is fun to read but also emotional.

However, it starts full of questions, and ends full of questions (different ones to the ones at the beginning) which was not great. The reveals made the ending feel rushed and too open. It left you with more questions than you started with and it isn’t exactly like this is planned as a series.

It was a quick read and I loved the music aspect of it and the whole “dreams and who you are” exploration too.

Moon recommends

I am not a big reader of contemporary mostly because I’d rather escape to another world, but in a way this reminded me a tiny bit of Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, so I’d suggest you read that one and if you have, why not read Here We Are Now?

PS. The props used are not sponsored, they just are the ones I had nearest to me when I took this picture.