Love, Rosie by Cecelia Ahern

“Twice we stood beside each other at the altar, Rosie. Twice. And twice we got it wrong. I needed you to be there for my wedding day but I was too stupid to see that I needed you to be the reason for my wedding day. But we got it all wrong.” 

From the bestselling author of PS, I Love You comes a delightfully enchanting novel about what happens when two people who are meant to be together just can't seem to get it right.

Rosie and Alex are destined for one another, and everyone seems to know it but them. Best friends since childhood, their relationship gets closer by the day, until Alex gets the news that his family is leaving Dublin and moving to Boston. At 17, Rosie and Alex have just started to see each other in a more romantic light. Devastated, the two make plans for Rosie to apply to colleges in the U.S.

She gets into Boston University, Alex gets into Harvard, and everything is falling into place, when on the eve of her departure, Rosie gets news that will change their lives forever: She's pregnant by a boy she'd gone out with while on the rebound from Alex.

Her dreams for college, Alex, and a glamorous career dashed, Rosie stays in Dublin to become a single mother, while Alex pursues a medical career and a new love in Boston. But destiny is a funny thing, and in this novel, structured as a series of clever e-mails, letters, notes, and a trail of missed opportunities, Alex and Rosie find out that fate isn't done with them yet.

From the gifted author of PS, I Love You comes this charming, romantic, addictively page-turning novel that will keep readers laughing and guessing until the very last page. 

I'm finding it really hard to review this book - it has everything I love in a story…love, sarcasm and a socially awkward lead female, but I think the thing that is holding me back from really loving this book, as opposed to it just being good, is that the back and forth between Rosie and Alex just went on a bit too long.  I was almost going to start actually yelling at the book telling them to hurry up and sort their stuff out and, then WHAM! …the book jumped ahead some more years and it ended!

Don't get me wrong, yes it went a bit more in-depth than your typical love story, but the characters were never boring, there was always some dysfunctional thing going on that made me giggle. And the relationship between Rosie and Alex, although frustratingly drawn out, was sweet.

I haven't seen the movie yet, but I think this might be one of the rare times that I prefer a movie over a book!

The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin

A stunning debut about how grief can open the world in magical ways.

After her best friend dies in a drowning accident, Suzy is convinced that the true cause of the tragedy was a rare jellyfish sting. Retreating into a silent world of imagination, she crafts a plan to prove her theory--even if it means traveling the globe, alone. Suzy's achingly heartfelt journey explores life, death, the astonishing wonder of the universe...and the potential for love and hope right next door. 

This is one of those books that I was hooked on from the first few pages. It made me look at grief from another perspective, when you just can't handle reality so you fixate on anything to help distract you and try to create another ending.

Behind the intelligent yet slightly dorky musings of the main characters, Suzy, were some pretty important messages for YA about bullying, the pressure you can feel to fit in, the struggles of High School, and on top of that, there were some pretty cool facts about Jellyfish! (I never realised how interesting Jellyfish were - when I came to the end of the book, I actually spent another 30 minutes googling random facts about them! To me that's a sign of a good story, if it makes you keep thinking about it after you've finished.)

A short but bitter-sweet story (I finished reading it in 2 days!) It left me feeling very similar to Incredibly Loud and Extremely Close and The Age of Miracles with their quirky out-of-place teenage angst and nostalgic for something I can't quite put my finger on. 

Gabriel's Inferno (Gabriel's Inferno #1) by Sylvain Reynard

"Dante was a poet. Beatrice was his muse. He met her when she was very young, and he loved her from afar his whole life. Beatrice was his guide through Paradise." 

Enigmatic and sexy, Professor Gabriel Emerson is a well respected Dante specialist by day, but by night he devotes himself to an uninhibited life of pleasure. He uses his notorious good looks and sophisticated charm to gratify his every whim, but is secretly tortured by his dark past and consumed by the profound belief that he is beyond all hope of redemption.

When the sweet and innocent Julia Mitchell enrolls as his graduate student, his attraction and mysterious connection to her not only jeopardizes his career, but sends him on a journey in which his past and his present collide.

An intriguing and sinful exploration of seduction, forbidden love and redemption, "Gabriel's Inferno" is a captivating and wildly passionate tale of one man's escape from his own personal hell as he tries to earn the impossible...forgiveness and love.

Wow…SNORE!

The first 40% wheld promise of an exciting story, and it was enough to keep me hanging on in hope that it would pick back up again, but unfortunately it just seemed to draaaag on and moved so slow. At times I was skim reading the text thinking blah blah blah in my head. 

It kinda went like this: "Are you ok? No, are YOU ok??; Did that please you? Yes, very much thank you; I love you more. No, I love you more; ARGH! Never before have I been so bored while reading supposed passionate scenes. 

Another spectacular example of how boring it was - when they FINALLY did the need (at the 98% mark) he was putting lubricant on himself and her response? "You're very kind" I mean, WTF!!!??

And not only was it allow moving, but the lead female (whose name I already can't remember, that's how forgettable she is) was so wimpy and self conscious that I'd feel like slapping her just to get a reaction. 

Don't waste your time reading this…unless of course you have trouble getting to sleep, then this will probably be your cure.

Wonder by R.J. Palacio, Raquel Jaramillo

“It's like people you see sometimes, and you can't imagine what it would be like to be that person, whether it's somebody in a wheelchair or somebody who can't talk. Only, I know that I'm that person to other people, maybe to every single person in that whole auditorium. To me, though, I'm just me. An ordinary kid.” 

“Here’s what I think: the only reason I’m not ordinary is that no one else sees me that way.” - August

You can't blend in when you were born to stand out.
My name is August. I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.

August Pullman wants to be an ordinary ten-year-old. He does ordinary things. He eats ice cream. He plays on his Xbox. He feels ordinary - inside.

But Auggie is far from ordinary. Ordinary kids don't make other ordinary kids run away screaming in playgrounds. Ordinary kids don't get stared at wherever they go.

Born with a terrible facial abnormality, Auggie has been home-schooled by his parents his whole life, in an attempt to protect him from the cruelty of the outside world. Now, for the first time, he's being sent to a real school - and he's dreading it. All he wants is to be accepted - but can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, underneath it all?

Narrated by Auggie and the people around him whose lives he touches forever, Wonder is a funny, frank, astonishingly moving debut to read in one sitting, pass on to others, and remember long after the final page.

This was a really touching story. I loved that August was so positive (mostly) and that he had a great personality. I think an important great message in this book is that with the right attitude, you can overcome many obstacles. 

Don't get me wrong, there were parts of this book that really broke my heart (*sniff sniff, the Halloween incident) but by the end of it, I was feeling optimistic with my belief that in general the majority of people are good, still in tact.

This is a book I would recommend every YA should read, and hopefully it will help them feel a bit more empathy and show a bit more kindness for those who are different to themselves. Being a teenager is hard enough as it is, there is so much pressure to be 'cool', and that can often mean that even the nicer kids can be not so nice at times (eg Jack's brother in this particular story). 

A short, but sweet story. I loved it.

The Last Anniversary by Liane Moriarty

“Sometimes a girl has to stop waiting around and come up with her own fairytale ending.” 

Sophie Honeywell always wondered if Thomas Gordon was the one she let get away. He was the perfect boyfriend, but on the day he was to propose, she broke his heart. A year later he married his travel agent, while Sophie has been mortifyingly single ever since. Now Thomas is back in her life because Sophie has unexpectedly inherited his aunt Connie's house on Scribbly Gum Island -- home of the famously unsolved Munro Baby mystery. 

Sophie moves onto the island and begins a new life as part of an unconventional family where it seems everyone has a secret. Grace, a beautiful young mother, is feverishly planning a shocking escape from her perfect life. Margie, a frumpy housewife, has made a pact with a stranger, while dreamy Aunt Rose wonders if maybe it's about time she started making her own decisions. 

As Sophie's life becomes increasingly complicated, she discovers that sometimes you have to stop waiting around -- and come up with your own fairy-tale ending. 

As she so adroitly did in her smashing debut novel, Three Wishes, the incomparable Liane Moriarty once again combines sharp wit, lovable and eccentric characters, and a page-turning story for an unforgettable Last Anniversary.

It was refreshing to read a 'love' story that seemed a bit more realistic of our modern times (for a fiction of course). Ok, so I don't actually know anyone that has inherited a house on a remote island, but other than that I could relate - people have their heart broken; make poor judgement mistakes; get depressed; get drunk; keep secrets; have crazy family members; want things they can't have. Life is messy and very rarely does your path go in a straight line where you think it should, and it was nice to read a book that made me laugh for those very reasons. 

It was easy to get engrossed in the story and I wish I could be real-life friends with Sophie, she sounds hilarious! 

Liane Moriarty can do no wrong in my opinion. I've loved every book of hers that I've read and if/when she releases a new one, I'll read it straight away and probably love that too. 

The Silkworm (Cormoran Strike #2) by Robert Galbraith (Pseudonym), J.K. Rowling

Private investigator Cormoran Strike returns in a new mystery from Robert Galbraith, author of the #1 international bestseller The Cuckoo's Calling.

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days—as he has done before—and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home.

But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a manuscript featuring poisonous pen-portraits of almost everyone he knows. If the novel were to be published, it would ruin lives—meaning that there are a lot of people who might want him silenced.

When Quine is found brutally murdered under bizarre circumstances, it becomes a race against time to understand the motivation of a ruthless killer, a killer unlike any Strike has encountered before…

I found this book just as hard to put down as The Cuckoo's Calling. The subject was quite gory at times but it was so cleverly written that it didn't phase me or seem out of place at all. It so easy to get immersed in what was happening that I felt like I was travelling around London.  

The only thing that I found negative was that the references back to the first book were slightly irritating. I understand why they were there, but it still got annoying. I did like the book quotes at the top of each new chapter though.

Why We Broke Up by Daniel Handler, Maira Kalman (Illustrator)

“There are so many movies like this, where you thought you were smarter than the screen but the director was smarter than you, of course he's the one, of course it was a dream, of course she's dead, of course, it's hidden right there, of course it's the truth and you in your seat have failed to notice in the dark.” 

Min Green and Ed Slaterton are breaking up, so Min is writing Ed a letter and giving him a box. Inside the box is why they broke up. Two bottle caps, a movie ticket, a folded note, a box of matches, a protractor, books, a toy truck, a pair of ugly earrings, a comb from a motel room, and every other item collected over the course of a giddy, intimate, heartbreaking relationship. Item after item is illustrated and accounted for, and then the box, like a girlfriend, will be dumped. 

At the beginning  I thought Ed was a jerk, then as the story unravelled, I became completely enamoured with their blossoming love.  Even though they are so different, their love was so sweet. 

I honestly didn't see the ending coming. I mean, I know the title kind of gives away the ending anyway, but I was so engrossed with the love that I forgot to try and figure out the real reason they broke up. And I was surprised! That so rarely happens to me, I'm usually really good at picking what's going to happen before I finish the first paragraph.

The whole jock-falls-for-nerdy-girl has been done so so many times before (I'm thinking fondly of Freddie Prince Jnr in 'She's all that')  but I've never read it from this perspective. Usually they both are able to overcome their massive differences and have a happy ending walking off into the sunset, but this is a detailed look into why it couldn't work, item by item. We all have a few relationship relics lurking around the house somewhere, things you just can't bring yourself to throw away, that have strong memories of a failed relationship tied to it.  

The writing is really very clever. The banter between the characters is very witty and intelligent for teenagers, but it just works. There were even a few one-liners that made me chuckle out aloud. I wanted to check out a few of the musicians and films that Min referenced throughout the book, and they were all made up! They were written so well that it was so believable - another reason why Handler is a talented writer.

It's not a very long book - I finished it in a single weekend - but I would read it again, and would recommend it to most people.