Eleanor and Park 
By Rainbow Rowell
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Personal Rating: 5/10

Eleanor is the new girl at school and nothing about her blends in: big red hair, a little on the heavy side, and ridiculous clothing. She's an outcast not only at school but in her family life as well. Park, at first, wants nothing to do with the new girl, but sharing a seat together on the bus slowly brings these two unlikely kids together. Set in the 80s, over the coarse of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed kids trying to understand, and survive, first love.

This book won the Goodreads YA Contemporary award for 2013. I've been avoiding reading this book for a long time, despite all the good reviews, but I received a free copy of it recently and finally read it. I have heard nothing but wonderful things about this book since it came out, but I unfortunately found it over hyped. The characters were definitely unique, and I did enjoy the story overall but it wasn't as spectacular as I have been told. One thing that really ruined the book for me is the fact that there is an obscene about of language. I'm talking about five F-words every other page. It was ridiculous and unnecessary
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Out of the Easy
By Ruta Sepetys
Genre: Young Adult Historical Fiction
Personal Rating: 7/10

Josie Moraine is a seventeen-year-old girl living in the French Quarters of New Orleans in the year 1950. Josie wants nothing more than to escape her past and her reputation as the daughter of a brothel prostitute. She has dreams of attending college, leaving Louisiana, and getting more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. But all her dreams and plans are shaken when a murder occurs in the French Quarter, and Josie's allegiance with her mother puts her in the middle of the investigation. With secret and lies piling up around her, Josie's conscious, morals, and alliances are challenged. And she has to make choices that will shape her destiny.

I am a huge Ruta Sepetys fan because of her first novel--Between Shades of Gray--and while I did enjoy this book, I think my expectations where a little too high. This is a gripping story but it isn't as much of a murder mystery as the synopsis let on. The murder is a big part of the plot, but you know who did it almost right from the start. Mostly, this book is about how Josie handles the situations around her, and how she battles with who she is and the person she wants to become.

While this book is heavily centered around prostitution, Ruta Sepetys handles the topic wonderfully and leaves out all the unnecessary, disgusting details. I loved all the characters in this book--especially Willie, the brothel madam. She's a wonderfully diverse character that secretly has a heart of gold. The pace of the book was a little slow at times and I felt like the ending was lacking a little bit.

While I did not enjoy this book as much as I did Between Shades of Gray, it's still a great historical novel that really sucks you into the 1950's.

We Were Liars
By E. Lockhart
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary/ Mystery
Personal Rating: 8/10

There has been a lot of hype about this book lately and I've been meaning to read it for a long time. It won the 2014 Goodreads Choice Award for the Young Adult Fiction category. The big thing about this book is that you don't really know what it's about until you start reading it, and you don't even know what's really going on until the very end. That's part of the appeal, therefore it's going to be difficult to write a review without spoiling it.

"A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth."
-Back of the book.

E. Lockhart's writing style in this book is very poetic and I was captivated until the end. The mystery aspect was thrilling and I will say that I was not disappointed with the ending. Keep the tissue box nearby, this is a tear jerker. That, unfortunately, is all I can say without giving away too much. I really enjoyed this book but there is some language in it, so it's definitely for an older audience.  

Isla and the Happily Ever After

By Stephanie Perkins 

Genre: Young Adult Contemporary 

Personal Rating: 7/10

This is the the third book in the Stephanie Perkins companion series. It follows the story of two characters we previously met in Anna and the French Kiss: Isla and Josh. Isla has been hopelessly in love with Josh since their fist year at School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan, the two reconnect and fall in love at the beginning of their senior year. This book was written a bit differently from her other books, but it still had all the wonderful Stephanie Perkins charm and humor. The characters fall in love in the middle of the book and the rest of it is focused on the struggles that surround young couples--jealousy, family drama, distance. All the wonderful characters from Stephanie Perkins' other stories--Anna, Etienne, Lola, and Cricket--make an appearance as well,  This book is a bit higher on the PG-13 scale because of language and sexual content, though nothing too graphic. 

Unleashed 
By Sophie Jordan
Genre: Young Adult Sci-Fi
Personal Rating: 9/10

This is the sequel to Uninvited--one of my all time favorite books. This is a duology, so this is the final book in the series. I was very nervous to read this book actually, because from the synopsis it sounded like Sean wasn't going to be in this novel very much, and that confused me because of how the first book ended. Regardless, I did read it and did find there to be a remarkable lack of Sean. Actually, most of the characters in the first book either aren't in the sequel at all or are only apart of a few scenes. We get a bunch of new characters in this book, and while I did really like most of them, I missed the other characters I had already grown to love.

This series takes place in a not so distant future where scientist have discovered a genetic disorder called HTS--homicidal tendency syndrome--and anyone tested positive for this gene is automatically considered a killer. If you want to know more about Uninvited you can read my review of it below. Uninvited, I feel, focuses more on the social issues in the world concerning HTS, and Unleashed focuses more on the individual development of Davy, our main character. I really enjoyed reading about her development and her struggles trying to survive as a refugee, but I do wish we got a little more about what was going on outside of their refuge camps.

Overall, this was a wonderful conclusion to a story I love and I felt like the author was true to her characters and developed them wonderfully.

Red Queen 
By Victoria Aveyard
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy/Sci-Fi
Personal Rating: 8/10

In this fantasy/dystopian wold there are two types of people: people born with red blood and people born with silver blood. The reds are commoners, living in slums, working to serve the silvers, and risking their lives to fight the silvers wars. People born with silver blood rule over the reds and live like gods among them. The silvers are to be feared, and for good reason. People with silver blood have powers. Powers to control fire, to heal the wounded, and to read minds, The story follows Mare Barrow, and average impoverished red. But Mare isn't like other reds, she a red with powers like a silver. When her powers are discovered in front of a crowd of powerful silvers, the king and queen hide the impossibility of it by make Mare one of their own. She is no longer a pickpocketer with red blood, but a silver engaged to a prince. Forced to live among the people she hates the most, Mare does her best to play her part while deciding who can be trusted and who wants change as much as she does. But in a war between bloods, she finds that anyone can betray anyone.

This came out just this last month. There has been so much hype about this book ever since the cover was released last month (and isn't it a beautiful cover?) so I knew I had to read this once as soon as I could. Right from the get-go this book opens up to a whole new and exciting world that is easy to get lost in. Before I read this I heard that there was sort of an X-Men factor in the story because of the powers of the silvers, but most of the powers where unique and set up in a way that didn't make me think of the X-Men at all. Definitely not like how the Shatter Me trilogy by Tahereh Mafi makes me think of that. There are a ton of characters in this book, including a lot of frightfully fascinating  villains, and I loved the main character.

Overall, this was a very good book that i felt deserved all the hype it was receiving. There where a few times where I felt a little lost in the complexity of it all, but it was still a very entertaining read with a lot of powerful themes about power and betrayal.
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