Scarlett Epstein Hates it Here
By Anna Breslaw
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Personal Rating: 4/10

 Scarlett is a fanfiction writer. She spends most of her time with her online friends, writing about fictional characters.It may not be a very popular activity, but it makes her happy. Then her favorite TV show is canceled and her long time crush is sucked into the dark hole that is the popular group. Feeling alone with no TV characters to rant about, Scarlett turns to writing fanfiction about her classmates. It seems harmless at first, but what happens when the people in her stories find out what she really thinks of them?

Overall, this story is very hilarious. I was immediately intrigued by this synopsis, it sounded like that old Disney Channel show, Read it and Weep. And I did actually enjoy the fanfiction part of this book, it was a story line I would actually read. However, I felt like what should have been a big part of the story climax was just a short part of the book. I felt like the author was trying really hard to make these characters seem unique, but it ended up with them just seeming outrageously unrealistic to me. I felt like this is a book where the author was just trying to stuff as much diversity in as she could, whether it related to the story or not. This is a very modern book, so there are a lot of modern pop culture references, and while it added to the humor, I think all the references just really dated the book. I can't see it being relevant past the end of this year.

I would have liked to give this book a higher rating, but in the end it just focused too much on subjects I didn't agree with, and was full of unnecessary vulgar language and inappropriate slang.

Stolen
By Lucy Christopher
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary
Personal Rating: 8/10

When Gemma was sixteen-years-old she was kidnapped. Stolen from an airport, drugged, and taken to a remote house in an Australian desert. Her captor, Ty, has been watching Gemma for a long time, waiting for the opportunity to take her, to "save" her from the world. Her new life in the wilderness has been years in the making. Ty is no stereotype--he's young and fit. He won't let Gemma leave, but he doesn't hurt her either. All Gemma can think about is escape, but the beautiful wilderness and her wild captor have ways of getting to her.

This book is written in second person point of view, with Gemma writing this as a letter to her captor. I was hesitant to start this book at first, because I didn't want to read anything too disturbing, but actually this is a very well written book and, while does handle a scary topic, it was nothing traumatizing. There were a few cases of strong language, including the F-word, but nothing graphic or disturbing. Overall, I actually really liked this book. There where so many moments where I wasn't sure exactly who or what I was rooting for. The characters where so dynamic and real, and the writing was enjoyable to read. The setting was beautiful and I loved how the rustic house and land were described. It was a lot of fun to see exactly what it would be like to survive in an Australian desert.

Overall, I would highly recommend this book. I thought the story was thrilling and terrifying, but also very beautiful and heart-wrenching.

The Crown
By Kiera Cass
Genre: Young Adult Dystopia
Personal Rating: 6/10

The last book in the Selection series. At lease I hope so. I do love this series and I was really looking forward to reading this spin-off. However, The Heir was quite disappointing, and this book wasn't much better. I feel like the concept of a selection is only interesting in the point of view of a contestant. Because reading about Eadlyn's selection was honestly very annoying at times. Though that may just be because she is an annoying character. Also, the romance that does eventually occurs between Edalyn and another character felt too sudden. There was another book to get to know him, but their feels just turned too abruptly to seem real to me. Kiera Cass's books usually lack in plot but make up for it with great characters and romance. This one didn't really have a great love story, and the plot was still flat.

There are some enduring characters in this book, but I found myself only wanting to hear about Maxon, America, Aspen, and basically just all the original characters. Even though we got two books to get to know the characters, I didn't feel any connection to any of them by the end of the book. This wasn't a terrible book, but it just fell short of what I hoped for. It didn't ruin the Selection series for me, but it didn't really add to it either.