Confessions Of A Vi3tbabe

Title: Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2) [Goodreads][Amazon]
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Format: eARC
Release Date: May 28, 2013
In My Opinion: Must. Read. NOW!
One Line: With a headstrong female lead and a swoon-worthy guy to tame her, Dare You To has all the makings of an incredible story and so much more.

“I dare you…”

If anyone knew the truth about Beth Risk’s home life, they’d send her mother to jail and seventeen-year-old Beth who knows where. So she protects her mom at all costs. Until the day her uncle swoops in and forces Beth to choose between her mom’s freedom and her own happiness. That’s how Beth finds herself living with an aunt who doesn’t want her and going to a school that doesn’t understand her. At all. Except for the one guy who shouldn’t get her, but does….

Ryan Stone is the town golden boy, a popular baseball star jock-with secrets he can’t tell anyone. Not even the friends he shares everything with, including the constant dares to do crazy things. The craziest? Asking out the Skater girl who couldn’t be less interested in him.

But what begins as a dare becomes an intense attraction neither Ryan nor Beth expected. Suddenly, the boy with the flawless image risks his dreams-and his life-for the girl he loves, and the girl who won’t let anyone get too close is daring herself to want it all….

Katie truly knocked my socks off with this companion novel to her debut hit, Pushing the Limits. It was pretty hard to find a book I loved more than Pushing the Limits last year and it’s safe to say Katie didn’t disappoint with Dare You To this year. As with her last book, Dare You To is really character-driven and being able to get inside these characters’ heads is what really makes her books so unbelievably incredible. Katie’s ability to make you truly empathize with her characters is impeccable.

Beth is a very troubled teen with a devastating past that was a lot deeper than I originally imagined. You kind of knew she had a crazy family after reading Pushing the Limits, but you didn’t know just how crazy until you read Dare You To. With a nonexistent father and a worthless mother whose abusive boyfriend make life a living hell for her, Beth had it pretty hard growing up. She couldn’t count on anyone and used drugs and meaningless hookups to fill the void. In swoops her caring and long-lost uncle who she thought left her for dead, and things slowly start to change for Beth. It was definitely hard to break through the walls of Beth’s character, which is understandable given how she had to grow up, but as I got to see the inner Beth, I really felt for her and her situation. I loved how she was so strong and tough on the outside, but that she was so damaged on the inside. Watching her learn to trust in Ryan and her uncle, learning to let go of the baggage in her life, and watching her fall in love – that made for an exceptional story that I devoured.

The best part of the book? Ryan. Oh, Ryan! What can I say except he is the sweetest guy ever. Yes, he has some flaws, but what I liked most about him was once he realized how he felt for Beth, that was it. There was no changing things and he was pretty determined to get Beth. I like it when a guy knows what he wants and fights for it. Being a star baseball player with incredible talent, his future was pretty much mapped out for him from the start. But, as he slowly realizes he can have so much more in his life, like possibly a career as a writer, he struggles with following the path he thought he wanted or building a new one. I loved Ryan’s character development in this. Although not as intense or deep as Beth’s, it was still great. I think Beth’s was violatile enough that Ryan’s was like a balance to hers in this book. His relationship with Beth is very rocky at first, but as feelings start to emerge, you see a truly sweet and caring side of Ryan and I loved him so much.

I hope this doesn’t come off as too spoilery, but I’ll never look at rain water the same way again. That is all I’ll say on that matter.

Dare You To is filled with angst, drama, romance, and emotion. Her characters will leave you feeling all the feels and have you so invested in them and their stories, it’s hard to imagine they’re fictional characters. Katie’s ability to create such memorable characters truly makes her stand out from the crowd and I seriously can’t wait to read Isaiah’s story.

Title: Hopeless [Goodreads][Amazon]
Publisher: Atria Books
Format: eARC
Release Date: May 7, 2013
In My Opinion: Add to cart!
One Line: A very emotional and deep story of love, family, and trust.

Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies…

That’s what seventeen-year-old Sky realizes after she meets Dean Holder. A guy with a reputation that rivals her own and an uncanny ability to invoke feelings in her she’s never had before. He terrifies her and captivates her all in the span of just one encounter, and something about the way he makes her feel sparks buried memories from a past that she wishes could just stay buried.

Sky struggles to keep him at a distance knowing he’s nothing but trouble, but Holder insists on learning everything about her. After finally caving to his unwavering pursuit, Sky soon finds that Holder isn’t at all who he’s been claiming to be. When the secrets he’s been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky’s life will change forever.

Going into Hopeless, I didn’t think it would be as deep and emotional as it really was, and I think that’s what I loved about it. That aspect sets Hopeless apart from all the others nowadays that share the same plot line. As I read, I connected deeply with the characters and even though I knew what was going to happen, seeing it all play out brought up powerful emotions. Colleen created such a great story about two long-lost friends with troubled pasts who learn to heal and come to terms with their issues together, all while falling in love in the purest of ways.

Sky is an interesting and fun character. I loved the banter and interactions between her and Holder. You could tell they clicked easily and the attraction was sizzling right from the start. I really liked all of the characters, actually. Six and Breckin, Sky’s best friends, were hilarious and great sources of lightness and humor in an otherwise serious and emotional read. When you learn exactly why Sky seems to be so numb to everything, it really breaks your heart. Sky’s past is pretty crazy, all things considered, and as the story unravels, I got a lot more than I expected, which is pretty amazing because it just made me love this story more. I swear, when I read glimpses of her past and what really happened to her, it stirred some serious emotions in me and I was riveted.

Hopeless will have you feeling a ton of emotions and get you seriously invested in these memorable characters. It will surprise you with its gripping tale of family, love, and trust and have you glued to the pages until the bittersweet end. I loved the way Colleen told the story, too, inserting bits of the character’s past as Sky & Holder’s relationship develops, so that the reader can learn and discover things as the characters do and get a better understanding of exactly what they went through. Hopeless was very well-written and I would highly recommend this to all readers.

Title: Towering (Kendra Chronicles #3) [Goodreads][Amazon]
Publisher: HarperTeen
Format: ARC
Release Date: May 14, 2013
In My Opinion: Worth a try!
One Line: Not as great a retelling as I was hoping for, but it was okay.

At first, I merely saw his face, his hands on the window ledge. Then, his whole body as he swung himself through the window. Only I could not see what he swung on.
Until, one day, I told my dream self to look down. And it was then that I saw. He had climbed on a rope. I knew without asking that the rope had been one of my own tying.

Rachel is trapped in a tower, held hostage by a woman she’s always called Mama. Her golden hair is growing rapidly, and to pass the time, she watches the snow fall and sings songs from her childhood, hoping someone, anyone, will hear her.

Wyatt needs time to reflect or, better yet, forget about what happened to his best friend, Tyler. That’s why he’s been shipped off to the Adirondacks in the dead of winter to live with the oldest lady in town. Either that, or no one he knows ever wants to see him again.

Dani disappeared seventeen years ago without a trace, but she left behind a journal that’s never been read, not even by her overbearing mother…until now.

I really wanted to like Towering a lot more than I did. I have to admit, this wasn’t one of my favorites from Flinn. You have to know right from the start that Kendra does not make any appearances in this book at all. I was seriously expecting her to show in some way, shape, or form since this is part of the Kendra Chronicles. I loved Kendra in Beastly and Bewitched and was deeply disappointed that Flinn couldn’t somehow weave her character into the story. That being said, Towering is a modern, yet magical take on Rapunzel that has some entertaining points, but in the end, fell kind of flat for me.

I think the plot itself was pretty interesting as it centers around this mystery of missing teens and a possible murder. Wyatt is shipped off here after a tragic incident that happened to his best friend, which shattered his world. Even though the story is told from both Wyatt and Rachel POVs (and a little bit of Dani’s), there was definitely more of Wyatt’s perspective than anything else. I didn’t really care too much for Wyatt and Rachel’s relationship as it was pretty much insta-love. Everything kind of fell together too well and too quickly in a cute, fairy-tale way, which I suppose, is how the story should be, but I just expected a bit more angst and realism from Flinn than what I got.

There were some plot holes that bugged me though like how we don’t really know anything about Rachel’s father. Maybe he’s not significant to the story so Flinn doesn’t include him, but I still would’ve like to know what his thought process. He basically just comes, impregnates Rachel’s mother, and then leaves. That’s it and we never hear from or of him again. That irritated me a lot. There was also no substance to Wyatt and Rachel’s relationship. They’re supposed to have this ethereal connection and we kind of get that and are supposed to believe it without any real explanation. They were both a bit too naive and immature to me and it didn’t fit with depth of the love they were trying to portray to the reader. Flinn also doesn’t go into enough detail with Rachel’s hair. She does explain, somewhat, why it grows like it does, but I just don’t think it was enough or that enough emphasis was put into describing Rachel more.

One thing I did like about the story overall, was that I never could really tell who “Mama” was. There are so many factors that come into play in Rachel’s story and as things progress, I kept thinking it was this person, then it was that person, but then thinking maybe not. It was good that Flinn kept me guessing until close to the end.

Towering is a decent retelling of Rapunzel and I liked how Flinn keeps the core of the fairy tale in the story, even if some of the details were mediocre. I was as invested with this story as Flinn’s previous works and there were definitely moments where I starting to lose interest in the story, but it was still an okay read. I think that things didn’t mesh well enough between the magical and modern aspects of the story. Add that to the fact that I couldn’t really connect with the characters, overall, I was a bit disappointed and highly underwhelmed.