I found a young adult romance novel that I like! This is big guys. The Wrath and the Dawn is exciting, it’s heartbreaking, it’s different. When I first started reading this I did think it would be the stereotypical teen romance novel, mainly because the front of the book says “She came for revenge, will she stay for love?” I read that and knew they would fall in love. I was not prepared to be taken on this Aladdin-esque adventure. Continue reading The Wrath and the Dawn by Renne Ahdieh
Tag Archives: Romance
Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Talk about a book getting your hopes up. The whole time I was reading this, I kept thinking, “wow, maybe it will end happily ever after!”. Spoiler alert: it ended with me sobbing into the pages wondering how Moyes could do this to me. Even so, I’m glad I read it and would recommend it. Continue reading Me Before You by Jojo Moyes
Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen
Ok, first
off, you should know that Sarah Dessen is my favorite author. She could write an instruction manual for boiling water and I would read it. But this novel, her twelfth overall, might just be my favorite one. Let’s be honest, I might say that after reading each of them though. Dessen has a fantastic ability to write romance novels that don’t really seem like romance novels. While relationships are forming and you get all happy because the couple makes it, you are also reading about getting through rough times in life, getting your friends through rough times, and finding yourself. Saint Anything is a good one. It’s a story of hope, of finding a place in the world, of being seen as the person you want people to see, and those perfect nights that you will never forget. Deep stuff disguised in a YA novel. Continue reading Saint Anything by Sarah Dessen
Fade by Lisa McMann
The second 
in the Dream Catcher trilogy. Another one that I couldn’t put down, I read it in less than a day on vacation. Although there were some parts that made me cringe, it was such a good book. It’s got jealousy, love, more dream walking, more family drama.
Janie is now working for the police department and is offered a case in her own school. It is suspected that her chemistry teacher is a sexual predator. She wants to take the case but Cabel doesn’t want her wound up in anything like that. So to catch him she helps plan a class party outside of school to catch him in the act. I’ll leave it at that so that you can find out what happens at the party, I will say it’s exciting though.
Out of the three books, this one was my least favorite, even though it is still a good book. The third one is probably my favorite so keep an eye out for that review!
Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell
This book is 
such a mystery and it makes me hate it and love it at the same time. But really I just loved it. It’s too sweet of a story to hate it! There are sad parts and I did hate the ending but overall it was a cute book.
Eleanor has just moved back into her mother’s house with four younger siblings and a step dad that she won’t claim as a father. She meets Park on the bus to school because he lets her sit with him so that she won’t get bullied by his friends. They start to talk eventually because he notices her reading his comic books with him on the way to school. Park starts loaning the books to her and they start dating secretly because her step dad is overly controlling and tells her she is a bad person for dating anyone. When Richie, the step dad, finds out, all hell breaks loose and Eleanor finds out how much Park really cares for her.
Rowell also wrote Fangirl, which is another excellent book I would suggest. Eleanor and Park was a quick read. I did like this book but it wasn’t my favorite one ever. It took me a while to figure out what was going on in Eleanor’s house and how it got to be that way. If you read Fangirl and liked it, I would recommend this one too.
Every Last Word by Tamara Ireland Stone
Stone is an amazing writer. Especially for writing about a disorder that she doesn’t actually have. She wrote this book with the help of a close family friend who has OCD and she did a great job portraying what it is like to live with the disorder. She writes it so that you care about this girl and what she is going through, you want to help her, stick up for her, tell her she’s doing the right thing. It can be difficult to write a character like that, but Stone has done it.
Samantha/Sam has OCD. School is really hard for her and in the summer she is like a different person. This book starts at the beginning of the school year and her therapist wants her to try and be summer Sam during the school year. While trying to stand up to her friends at lunch, she has a panic attack and ends up in the school auditorium and meets Caroline, who tells her to meet her back there later that week for something that will change her life. Turns out to be a Poet’s Corner where she can be herself. But first she has to show the people in the club already that she deserves to be there.
Have you ever had to look around at the friends in your life and decide that they aren’t right for you? Ever given up some friends for that reason? This book shows the courage and hardships that come with realizing who you really are. It’s got parts that will chill you to the bone, and parts that will have you crying for this girl. You might even discover a love for poetry while reading it. Overall, and excellent read.
Wake by Lisa McMann
If you could 
have one superpower, what would it be? It’s a question we’ve all been asked and probably spent some time thinking about. Have you ever picked going into people’s dreams as a power? I know I haven’t. Janie can do just that. Unfortunately, it’s not really a good thing for her.
Janie can’t control when she goes into the dreams, she just gets sucked in and doesn’t know how to get back out. Still, she gets to see what people are dreaming about, right! Nope. She has to see all the high school dreams. Including the quarterback of the football team dreaming about being on the field naked at homecoming. The important one though is Cabel’s dreams. She keeps getting sucked into them during study hall and sees his abusive father until he turns into a monster and attacks back. Then one day Cabel sees her in his dream. He realizes it is her on a school trip when she can’t get out of everyone’s dreams on the bus. After they go through a lot of high school relationship drama, Cabel takes her to his job at the police station. The police chief decides to use her to solve a case and lets her know another lady was employed by them before as a dreamcatcher.
This is just the first in a trilogy and I can tell you the next two are just as good. It’s a quick read, but one I would recommend. Now go read it!
Bunheads by Sophie Flack
I found this book in a really awesome new bookstore I found by my house and got it because it looked like something my friend would tell me to read. As it turns out, it was her favorite book. It is about a professional dancer in New York City. I’m not a dancer, at all, so I didn’t understand all the dance terms the author used, but I loved this book. It was inspiring in an unusual way. I can’t say how it was inspiring because it would give the story away, so you’ll just have to read it to see.
Hannah started at the Manhattan Ballet Company when she was fourteen years old. She picked up her life and moved to New York by herself to dance. That is dedication right there. One night after a performance she strangely decides to get something the eat at her cousins restaurant, where she meets Jacob. A pedestrian as the dancers call them, meaning a non-dancer. Hannah immediately feels a connection to Jacob but knows she cannot do anything about it because on her time off she sleeps or goes to extra studio classes, or goes to yoga classes, or goes to the gym. Basically she eats, sleeps, and breathes dance. Until she meets Jacob and her convinces her to live a little outside of the theater. Like I said, I can’t say anything else without giving away the ending, so go read it! It’s a fantastic book.
To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before by Jenny Han
I was originally nervous about reading this one because it could go one of two ways, really good or just like every other teen romance out there. Lucky for me, it was a good one. Throughout the whole book, I thought I knew how it was going to end in one chapter only for my opinion to be changed the next one. I couldn’t figure out how it was going to end.
On the romance part of the novel, Lara Jean always writes love letters to the boys she loved. Five in total, none of the boys know about the letters or Lara Jeans love for them. Until the letters get sent out. One of the guys gives her back the letter and seems to forget about it until she literally leaps into his arms in the school hallway to get another one of the guys off her back about it. Unfortunately the other guy is her older sisters ex-boyfriend and her next door neighbor. Lara Jean comes up with a plan to fake date one of the guys in order to stay off the subject with the neighbor. I’ll let you guys read the book to find out what happens with that.
Family was also a big part of the book. Lara Jean and her sisters, Margot and Kitty, are all very close since losing their mom when Kitty was three. They are all close with their dad too, and they all regularly have family dinners and are really just best friends. When Margot goes off to college in Scotland, Lara Jean has to step up and run the house. And try and fight her feelings for the boy next door since he was Margot’s boyfriend. Don’t worry though, I’ll give you a spoiler…the book ends with a crazy sister fight that ends in hugging and crying and admitting they still love each other. Happy ending for them!
Overall, such a good read, I would recommend it to anyone. There is a sequel, called P.S. I Still Love You and I will be finding it and reading it soon. I’m sure it’s just as good as the first one!
We Should Hang Out Sometime by Josh Sundquist
If you’ve 
ever felt embarrassed or awkward read this book and you will feel like nothing you have ever done was embarrassing or awkward. This is a book that you will be laughing out loud while reading it. You will feel for this boy who just can’t get it together and find a girlfriend. You’ll want to tell him what he’s doing wrong and explain to him how a cell phone works (we’ll get to that later). At the same time, you’ll relive all the awkward middle school, college, and life experiences you have had.
Josh Sundquist is a 25 year old leg amputee who has just discovered that he has never had a girlfriend. What is really sad about this fact is that he was under the impression that he had a girlfriend when he found this out. Awkward. So he decides to be all scientific and interview all his old “girlfriends” to find out what went wrong. Enter all the said life experiences we all try and forget about. Prom, mini golf dates, gross food eating contests at youth group, calling a girl every single day of summer until we learn what caller ID is…wait that one was just Josh. All he really figures out after reviewing what happened and then speaking to the girls is that there is not one specific thing that he was doing wrong. I won’t give away the ending except to tell you it’s a good one.
What I wasn’t expecting from this one was the lesson that we all need to stop questioning what other people are assuming about us, we need to accept who we are and love that person before we expect another person to love us. Now, go read this book and let me know what you thought of it!