Review: The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker

 The Queen of Kentucky by Alecia Whitaker

• Reading Level: Young Adult 
• Paperback:  384 pages
• Publisher: Poppy 
• ISBN-10:   0316125067  
• ISBN-13:   978-0316125062
• Received From: The DAC ARC Tour.

   From Goodreads:
Fourteen-year-old Kentucky girl Ricki Jo Winstead, who would prefer to be called Ericka, thank you very much, is eager to shed her farmer's daughter roots and become part of the popular crowd at her small town high school. She trades her Bible for Seventeen magazine, buys new "sophisticated" clothes and somehow manages to secure a tenuous spot at the cool kids table. She's on top of the world, even though her best friend and the boy next door Luke says he misses "plain old Ricki Jo."

Caught between being a country girl and wannabe country club girl, Ricki Jo begins to forget who she truly is: someone who doesn't care what people think and who wouldn't let a good-looking guy walk all over her. It takes a serious incident out on Luke's farm for Ricki Jo to realize that being a true friend is more important than being popular.


My Thoughts:
This book was a very fast and easy read. It was also very adorable and very realistic as well. The main character is fourteen years old so she is a tad annoying but who isn't when they are that age. So when I was reading this book I had to remind myself, a few times, that she was only fourteen and therefore allowed to be a little annoying. Because when you are that young nobody has who they are figured out. 


I enjoyed reading this book and I would probably reread it again sometime in the future. I don't really have any critiques about this book because I think the author did a very good job at realistically portraying a fourteen year old girl trying to fit in at a new school. So overall I give this book 4 Quills.

<3 Shannon

Review: Possess by Gretchen McNeil

Possess by Gretchen McNeil

• Reading Level: Young Adult 
• Paperback: 384 pages
• Publisher: Balzer + Bray
• ISBN-10: 0062060716
• ISBN-13: 978-0062060716
• Received From: Won in a contest at Candace's Book Blog

From Goodreads:
Fifteen-year-old Bridget Liu just wants to be left alone: by her mom, by the cute son of a local police sergeant, and by the eerie voices she can suddenly and inexplicably hear. Unfortunately for Bridget, it turns out the voices are demons – and Bridget has the rare ability to banish them back to whatever hell they came from.

Terrified to tell people about her new power, Bridget confides in a local priest who enlists her help in increasingly dangerous cases of demonic possession. But just as she is starting to come to terms with her new power, Bridget receives a startling message from one of the demons. Now Bridget must unlock the secret to the demons' plan before someone close to her winds up dead – or worse, the human vessel of a demon king.

My Thoughts:
Creepy books are usually not my cup of tea so I wasn't really expecting to like it as much as I did. McNeil wrote this book really well, there was one part that had me so creeped out that I wanted to stop reading it but I am glad that I did not. During the middle of the book I was a little bit confused but things eventually came together. The ending of the book really takes off and has you at the edge of your seat. 

The relationship between Bridget and her 8 year old brother Sam is really endearing and softens Bridget's hard edges and makes her more relatable to the reader as well. Bridget's love interest Matt is such a nice guy and their relationship progresses at an actual real pace, even though Matt's over protectiveness was a bit weird at first.. Also Bridget's best friend, Hector, was definitely my favorite character in the book!

All in all this was a pretty good book and it was very well written. McNeil also put a lot of time in researching the demon part of the book and that is what really pushed this book over the edge. So overall I give this book 4 Quills!

Happy Thanksgiving!!
<3 Shannon

Review: It's Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han

It's Not Summer Without You by Jenny Han

*Book 2 of the Summer Series

•       Reading level: Young Adult
•       Paperback: 304 pages
•       Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
•       ISBN-10: 1416995560
•       ISBN-13: 978-1416995562
•       Received From: I bought it

From Goodreads: 
Can summer be truly summer without Cousins Beach?It used to be that Belly counted the days until summer, until she was back at Cousins Beach with Conrad and Jeremiah. But not this year. Not after Susannah got sick again and Conrad stopped caring. Everything that was right and good has fallen apart, leaving Belly wishing summer would never come.
But when Jeremiah calls saying Conrad has disappeared, Belly knows what she must do to make things right again. And it can only happen back at the beach house, the three of them together, the way things used to be. If this summer really and truly is the last summer, it should end the way it started--at Cousins Beach.

My Thoughts:

This is a really good teen contemporary book and I have enjoyed the series so far. I love both Conrad and Jeremiah as characters; they each have something very special about them. Jeremiah is that super sweet boy that would make the perfect boyfriend and nobody has a bad thing to say about him. Conrad, oh how I love him! He’s super smart and yes he can be annoying but he’s the type of person who you have to earn his trust for him to open up to and I can totally understand that because I am the exact same way. I have a love/hate relationship with Belly; sometimes she can be so childish and I just want to shake her but every once in a while she does do something to redeem herself. Belly gives up too easily, if she really tried she could break down Conrad’s defenses but she doesn’t. Instead she basically throws a tantrum trying to get him to give in but it never works. Also at the end of this book, I do not like her decision because she takes the easier option and that irks me. Oh and Laurel is freaking bad ass when she wants to be!

The only real problem that I have with this book is that the love triangle is pitting two brothers against each other. I hate that I have a terrible relationship with my own sister so this unnecessary conflict between Conrad and Jeremiah just gets under my skin. However, I enjoyed reading this book and I read it in 6 hours and overall I give it 4 quills.

 <3 Shannon