Publisher: Sourcebooks Fire

New Release Review ~ Someone I Used to Know ~ Patty Blount #2018NewRelease

New Release Review ~ Someone I Used to Know ~ Patty Blount #2018NewRelease

  Every once in awhile a young adult book comes along that is so profound I want to shout from the rooftop about its greatness. Someone I Used to Know is such a book. Revolving around rape culture in America, it depicts the impact of rape on the victim, the victim’s family, and the community. Blount did this in a way that was relevant, meaningful, and packed an emotional punch. Ashley, a high school freshman at the time, was raped. By a senior football player. In an effort to score points in a “game” the players historically participated in during homecoming week. Following the rape, the football program was cancelled. Now, two years later, it’s been re-instituted with a new […]

Posted 24 September, 2018 by Brandee @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 24 Comments
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Review: The Heart Forger – Rin Chupeco

Review: The Heart Forger – Rin Chupeco

The Heart Forger is an amazing fantasy story, and I have to say I’m surprised by how much I loved it! Story: I was so curious about The Heart Forger, even if I didn’t fall in love with The Bone Witch, I was very curious as to what would happen in this second installment. And I was wowed! Tea has grown so much as a character, and the pace was much better. There was a lot of action, through flashbacks, and the tale the Bard told as it was shown to him by Tea. There were many surprises, and the ending left me completely out of breath! I need more, and I need it now. In The Heart Forger, Tea […]

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Review: Before I Let Go – Marieke Nijkamp

Review: Before I Let Go – Marieke Nijkamp

Before I Let Go is a very strange story – dealing with grief, a touch of something maybe paranormal, and friendship. Story: Corey is just getting ready to go back home, to her small town in Alaska to see her best friend. However, her friend isn’t around to be seen anymore. Kyra dies before Corey makes it back, and Before I Let Go shows all the different emotions Corey goes through. She feels a lot of guilt, because she hasn’t written to Kyra as often as she had said she would. She is also very sad. And a bit angry. And most of all, she just can’t understand how Kyra could have died that way. Once Corey arrives in Lost […]

Posted 7 February, 2018 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 24 Comments
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Review: The Bone Witch – Rin Chupeco

Review: The Bone Witch – Rin Chupeco

The Bone Witch had a very slow pace, and felt more like a prequel disguised as a novel than an actual novel. It’s like its whole purpose was to set up the next book in the series. Story: There are dragons. There are necromancers. There are monsters, and monarchs. The Bone Witch had a lot of potential, but didn’t completely live up to it in my opinion. The switching between the present and the past could have been smoother, for example, because both gave me some very good insights to what might be going on. In a world where there are different kinds of witches, there is, of course a hierarchy among them. And Tea is kind of both at […]

Posted 17 October, 2017 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 23 Comments
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Review: The Cabin – Natasha Preston

Review: The Cabin – Natasha Preston

The Cabin had a lot of potential, but it really didn’t work for me. At all. There were times I wanted to put it down, but I also kind of wanted to see how the story would end. The Cabin had a lot of the tropes that I don’t enjoy when it comes to young adult novels. Like MacKenzie falling instantly in love with Blake, and her inner musings trying to justify that. Insta-love is very hard to get especially in the circumstances that were a part of this novel. A group of friends going to a cabin for a weekend in the summer between school and uni, and where one of the guys was more or less hated by […]

Posted 14 November, 2016 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 12 Comments
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Review: One Was Lost – Natalie D. Richards

Review: One Was Lost – Natalie D. Richards

Books like One Was Lost is one of the reasons why I’m terrified of camping in the woods! (That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it…) One Was Lost follows a group of teens as they are on a school trip in the forest, where they have to survive with the means they have with them. We get to know Sera better than her school mates, as the story is told from her perspective. And one of the themes in this story really has to do with perception and perspective! What do we think of other people, and what do we base our “judgement” of them on? One day, at the beginning of their trip, the weather is getting much […]

Posted 18 October, 2016 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 11 Comments
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Review: Anything You Want – Geoff Herbach

Review: Anything You Want – Geoff Herbach

Anything You Want is a strange little story where the narration reads like a stream of consciousness from Taco’s point of view. Taco is the kind of youth that seems too naive and simple-minded to function fully in the real world. My 14-year-old boy is much more mature and critical than Taco was! And the fast pace where Taco shared every single thought going through his mind at the time was exhausting! If I had been in a room with Taco, I think I would have asked him to shut up after a couple of minutes, that’s how his word-debit (not to say word-womit) affected me! And don’t even get me started on his girlfriend, Maggie! At the start of […]

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Review: Wild Swans – Jessica Spotswood

Review: Wild Swans – Jessica Spotswood

Realizing there’s more to family than first imagined is something Ivy has to do in Wild Swans, which is a tender story about truly growing up. Ivy has lived most of her life in a small town, where both she, and everyone else knows that her mom left her when she was very young. Since she was two, she’s never seen her mom, but she’s had a stable and good life with her grand-dad and some good friends. Wild Swans unfolds over the span of just a couple of weeks in the summer before Ivy’s senior year at high school, and she has a lot of choices to make about her future. Alex, her best friend and the boy next […]

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Review: This Is Where It Ends – Marieke Nijkamp

Review: This Is Where It Ends – Marieke Nijkamp

This Is Where It Ends is an intimate account of what happens in a high school in Opportunity when a former student comes back and locks all his friends and teachers in the auditorium before he opens fire. In the news, school shootings are far too common, and it becomes like a media circus, both while it is happening, and in the aftermath. This Is Where It Ends manages to tell the story of a school shooting from four different students’ point of view, three of them on the inside of the school, and one just outside, training for track instead of being at the assembly. The fact that the story is told in these different perspectives, each in first […]

Posted 12 January, 2016 by Linda @ (un)Conventional Bookworms in Reviews / 28 Comments
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