Taken by Storm By: Angela Morrison

Taken By Storm

by: Angela Morrison

Leesie Hunt has many rules: No kissing. No sex. No dating outside the Mormon faith.
When Michael Walden—a deep-sea diver who lost his parents in a violent hurricane—arrives in town, Leesie sees someone who needs her. They fall for one another, even though his dreams are tied to the depths of the ocean and hers to salvation above.
Will their intense chemistry be too strong to resist?
Leesie and Michael must make the hardest choice of their lives: whether to follow their beliefs or their hearts.
Readers will be swept away by this tale of forbidden romance told in online chats, Leesie’s chapbook poems, and Michael’s dive log. It’s as steamy as Twilight and just as clean.

From Me:

I don't know what to say about this book. Lets start with the things I LOVED. There were elements of this story that were completely original - like the story being told through Michael's Dive Log and Leesie's chap book. That was really entertaining to read, but the story is told throught two different persepectives - Michael's and Leesie's and I deffinately liked Michael's side of the story better.

Michael was messed up. No beating around the bush. He was in grief, and I understand that but I wanted to punch him sometimes...and then give him a hug. He was very confusing to me. He loved her, but then I feel as if his love was more superficial then hers. He didn't have respect for her beliefs and was constantly wishing she would...do things. He wants to show her his love for her - while she wants to know him, and get him to let her in his mind.

They are two completely different people, and I dont know if it was okay for them. I wont deny that I genuinely believed they loved eachother - but I didn't get it.

They are both very clear characters though. I completely feel as if I understand both of them. Michael for his grief, and Leesie for her hopes and aspirations.

I loved them together while I hated them apart. Michael made alot of mistakes - and I can't say I would have forgiven him for them. Even with his issues, I just think he almost set out to hurt her, which is not cool.

I wish the ending was more clear - or maybe I'm just not accepting of the outcome. Either way the ending was beautiful, and poetic...but not one I was expecting.

Overall I thought it was pretty okay. The emotions were clear, the characters felt real, and the writing was very good.

I give it a 8.0

-Christina :]

Going too Far by: Jennifer Echols

Going Too Far

by: Jennifer Echols

All Meg has ever wanted is to get away. Away from high school. Away from her backwater town. Away from her parents who seem determined to keep her imprisoned in their dead-end lives. But one crazy evening involving a dare and forbidden railroad tracks, she goes way too far...and almost doesn't make it back. John made a choice to stay. To enforce the rules. To serve and protect. He has nothing but contempt for what he sees as childish rebellion, and he wants to teach Meg a lesson she won't soon forget. But Meg pushes him to the limit by questioning everything he learned at the police academy. And when he pushes back, demanding to know why she won't be tied down, they will drive each other to the edge — and over....

From Me:

Okay. This book was amazing. Bottom line AMAZING!

I expected it to be good, but not to this degree. The story goes so much deeper then I ever thought it would. From the very first page I was hooked, and I couldn't stop reading.

Not one character in this book was un-important. Each one felt real, and each one reminded me of someone I knew and could relate to. Especially Meg and John. The relationship between these two felt unbelieveably real. I forgot they weren't real, I was so engrossed in their story and what would happen to them.

Their relationship evolved so naturally. It wasn't a sudden occurence which I hate, but rather seemed completely natural - and the ride to get there was one that was so entertaining. Both of their personalities meshed well.

Meg was so original - but then so not. The things she deals with and the way she deals with them kind of made me quirk my head a bit, but then I totally get it, and I understand why. She was such a complex character. Her depth kept building throughout the entire book, and John was no different.

John is without a doubt in my top 5 favorite Fictional boys (along with Rhett Butler, Mr. Darcy, and Edward Cullen guys) but then I dont like thinking of him as fictional - it breaks my heart a little. haha.

I give this book a 20. Yes a 20/10. How is that possible? It just is for a book that was this amazing.

There is nothing I wished was different. Not even in the slightest degree.

Review by Christina!

Find her Website here-

http://www.jennifer-echols.com/

Post Secret. On Monday.

I love Post Secret, and I used to do this on my Xanga, so I figured why not do it here as well? So this was, in my opinion the best Post Secret this week.

What was yours?

Now I think it would be the most amazing thing to find a pressed flower in a library book...now I want to go and search. :]

Waiting on Wednesday [4]

Waiting for You

by: Susane Colasanti

At the beginning of her sophomore year, Marisa is ready for a fresh start and, more importantly, a boyfriend. So when the handsome and popular Derek asks her out, Marisa thinks her long wait for happiness is over. But several bumps in the road—including her parents’ unexpected separation, a fight with her best friend, and a shocking disappointment in her relationship with Derek—test Marisa’s ability to maintain her new outlook. Only the anonymous DJ, whose underground podcasts have the school’s ear, seems to understand what Marisa is going through. But she has no idea who he is—or does she? In this third romantic novel from Susane Colasanti, Marisa learns how to “be in the Now” and realizes that the love she’s been waiting for has been right in front of her all along.

*How amazing does this sound?! I may be getting a copy soon, but I'm not one hundred percent sure, but you have no idea how much screaming I would do if I found it in my mailbox! It sounds so sweet - and I love sweet stories :]

Song of the Sparrow by: Lisa Ann Sandell : Review

Song of the Sparrow

by: Lisa Ann Sandell

From Barnes and Noble.com:

The year is 490 AD. Fiery 16-year-old Elaine of Ascolat, the daughter of one of King Arthur's supporters, lives with her father on Arthur's base camp, the sole girl in a militaristic world of men. Elaine's only girl companion is the mysterious Morgan, Arthur's older sister, but Elaine cannot tell Morgan her deepest secret: She is in love with Lancelot, Arthur's second-in-command. However, when yet another girl -- the lovely Gwynivere-- joins their world, Elaine is confronted with startling emotions of jealousy and rivalry. But can her love for Lancelot survive the birth of an empire?

From Me:

So when I read this book a few months ago, I had absolutely no idea what to expect. I had read the back before...and put it down. Then I would pick it back up...read the back...and put it down, and this continued for awhile before I finally just decided to read it (I mean look at the cover!).

So I did, and let me just say I'm very happy with that decision.

I was afraid that the writing style would throw me off. The entire story is written through free style poetry, and I wasn't used to that, I didn't think that I would enjoy that, but I was wrong.

We are told this familiar story of King Arthur, but in a way that is not so familiar.

We meet Young Arthur - not this great King and Warrior we know but rather the smaller, fun loving, and much more relateable Arthur to us. We see him as a friend and not as a chracter from legend.

But this story is told from Elain's perspective, and we see everything from her eyes. Everything from her love of Lancelot, to her hatred of Gwynevire, it's all for us to see and wittness as if we were there.

And Elaine is no weakling. She doesn't sit back and watch the action - she's a part of it, which I think is why I enjoyed it. She takes matters into her hands, and she takes control :].

This book reads quickly because of the rhythm and the form in which it is written and it is extremely enjoyable throughout the entire story.

I do have one complaint though - only one and it's small and minuscule. I wanted more romance. What we got was very good...but as always I wanted more haha :]

I give it a 9. :]

By: Christina!

It's all About Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

So yeah I know. We all know it, almost all of us have read it...what does everyone think about it?

I for one will tell you I am a Twilight Junkie...but I find myself to be a "real" Twilight Junkie as I read the books way before the movie...and before everyone decided Rob Pattinson was hot (which he is, but he was hot as Cedric to guys) :]

So yes I've done all of the stuff. I've met Stephenie Meyer, but I did this years ago. Has anyone else gotten annoyed with Twilight lately?

This transition from book to movie really made me hate the transition - just because all of a sudden EVERYONE was reading it and becoming obsessed with it when before me and three others were all I knew, and the others did it for the movie...which saddens my soul a bit.

Maybe nobody else went through this and if you didn't then I'm jealous because I hated every second of it, and I didn't think the movie was bad at all - it didn't touch the book but it was fairly good, but I'm just curious as to if anyone else had this sudden hatred whenever they saw another person reading Twilight - and becoming obsessed with it.

I feel like I'm being mean. I should be happy that they're reading it...but I don't know. I'm just glad it's finally calming down.

(For a funny story about a Twilight event that happened at a recent youth Lock In at my church leave a comment and I'll be happy to share the story I think it was the begining of my Twilight end so to speak haha)

But I Love the Twilight Series I really do. To this day the story is one I re-read often. I would just like to have kept it to myslef a bit longer.

Waiting on Wednesday [3]

Breathing

by: Cheryl Renee Herbsman

Savannah would be happy to spend the summer in her coastal Carolina town working at the library and lying in a hammock reading her beloved romance novels. But then she meets Jackson. Once they lock eyes, she’s convinced he’s the one—her true love, her soul mate, a boy different from all the rest. And at first it looks like Savannah is right. Jackson abides by her mama’s strict rules, and stays by her side during a hospitalization for severe asthma, which Savannah becomes convinced is only improving because Jackson is there. But when he’s called away to help his family—and seems uncertain about returning—Savannah has to learn to breathe on her own, both literally and figuratively.

I can't express how absolutely compltely excited I am about this book. The cover is gorgeous, the summary sounds amazing - ahh. I'm in heaven just thinking about it. This is probably the only book (besides Along for the Ride) that I get sad when I see people with ARC's of it. It just makes me want one so bad...but then I can't have one yet :[

So depressing so I'm going to stop now.

And yeah. This is my pick. What is everyone else waiting on?

Book Quiz. :]

Okay so I stole this Quiz from Amy at ..

1) Bold the books you have read.
2) Tally your total at the bottom.
3) Put in a note with your total in the subject

1 Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
2 The Lord of the Rings - JRR Tolkien
3 Jane Eyre - Charlotte Bronte
4 Harry Potter series - JK Rowling
5 To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee
6 The Bible S
7 Wuthering Heights - Emily Bronte
8 Nineteen Eighty Four - George Orwell
9 His Dark Materials - Philip Pullman
10 Great Expectations - Charles Dickens
11 Little Women - Louisa M Alcott
12 Tess of the D’Urbervilles - Thomas Hardy
13 Catch 22 - Joseph Heller
14 Complete Works of Shakespeare
15 Rebecca - Daphne Du Maurier
16 The Hobbit - JRR Tolkien
17 Birdsong - Sebastian Faulks
18 Catcher in the Rye - JD Salinger
19 The Time Traveller’s Wife - Audrey Niffenegger
20 Middlemarch - George Eliot
21 Gone With The Wind - Margaret Mitchell
22 The Great Gatsby - F Scott Fitzgerald
23 Bleak House - Charles Dickens
24 War and Peace - Leo Tolstoy
25 The Hitch Hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
26 Brideshead Revisited - Evelyn Waugh
27 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky
28 Grapes of Wrath - John Steinbeck
29 Alice in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll
30 The Wind in the Willows - Kenneth Grahame
31 Anna Karenina - Leo Tolstoy
32 David Copperfield - Charles Dickens
33 Chronicles of Narnia - CS Lewis
34 Emma - Jane Austen
35 Persuasion - Jane Austen
36 The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe - CS Lewis
37 The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
38 Captain Corelli’s Mandolin - Louis De Berniere
39 Memoirs of a Geisha - Arthur Golden
40 Winnie the Pooh - AA Milne
41 Animal Farm - George Orwell
42 The Da Vinci Code - Dan Brown
43 One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
44 A Prayer for Owen Meaney - John Irving
45 The Woman in White - Wilkie Collins
46 Anne of Green Gables - LM Montgomery
47 Far From The Madding Crowd - Thomas Hardy
48 The Handmaid’s Tale - Margaret Atwood
49 Lord of the Flies - William Golding
50 Atonement - Ian McEwan
51 Life of Pi - Yann Martel
52 Dune - Frank Herbert
53 Cold Comfort Farm - Stella Gibbons
54 Sense and Sensibility - Jane Austen
55 A Suitable Boy - Vikram Seth
56 The Shadow of the Wind - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
57 A Tale Of Two Cities - Charles Dickens
58 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
59 The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time -Mark Haddon
60 Love In The Time Of Cholera - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
61 Of Mice and Men - John Steinbeck62 Lolita - Vladimir Nabokov
63 The Secret History - Donna Tart
64 The Lovely Bones - Alice Sebold
65 Count of Monte Cristo - Alexandre Dumas
66 On The Road - Jack Kerouac
67 Jude the Obscure - Thomas Hardy
68 Bridget Jones’s Diary - Helen Fielding
69 Midnight’s Children - Salman Rushdie
70 Moby Dick - Herman Melville
71 Oliver Twist - Charles Dickens
72 Dracula - Bram Stoker
73 The Secret Garden - Frances Hodgson Burnett
74 Notes From A Small Island - Bill Bryson
75 Ulysses - James Joyce
76 The Bell Jar - Sylvia Plath
77 Swallows and Amazons - Arthur Ransome
78 Germinal - Emile Zola
79 Vanity Fair - William Makepeace Thackeray
80 Possession - AS Byatt
81 A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens
82 Cloud Atlas - David Mitchell
83 The Color Purple - Alice Walker
84 The Remains of the Day - Kazuo Ishiguro
85 Madame Bovary - Gustave Flaubert
86 A Fine Balance - Rohinton Mistry
87 Charlotte’s Web - EB White
88 The Five People You Meet In Heaven - Mitch Albom
89 Adventures of Sherlock Holmes - Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
90 The Faraway Tree Collection - Enid Blyton
91 Heart of Darkness - Joseph Conrad
92 The Little Prince - Antoine De Saint-Exupéry
93 The Wasp Factory - Iain Banks
94 Watership Down - Richard Adams
95 A Confederacy of Dunces - John Kennedy Toole
96 A Town Like Alice - Nevil Shute
97 The Three Musketeers - Alexandre Dumas
98 Hamlet - William Shakespeare
99 Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl
100 Les Miserables - Victor Hugo

22

Gah That's Depressing. I was hoping for a much larger number. I've got some serious reading to do.

New Header!

Yes I got a new header (to replace my previously non-existent one) and Isn't it soooo cute?!

Sophie at Mrs. Magoo Reads made it and it's just amazing.

You should check her out here - http://www.mrsmagooreads.com/ because she has a great Blog - complete with a store guys, how cool is that?!

So check it out for sure!

Perfect You by: Elizabeth Scott [Review]

Perfect You

by: Elizabeth Scott

Kate Brown's life has gone downhill fast. Her father has quit his job to sell vitamins at the mall, and Kate is forced to work with him. Her best friend has become popular, and now she acts like Kate's invisible.

And then there's Will. Gorgeous, unattainable Will, whom Kate acts like she can't stand even though she can't stop thinking about him. When Will starts acting interested, Kate hates herself for wanting him when she's sure she's just his latest conquest.

Kate figures that the only way things will ever stop hurting so much is if she keeps to herself and stops caring about anyone or anything. What she doesn't realize is that while life may not always be perfect, good things can happen --

but only if she lets them....

From Me:

Oh Man did I love this book. Completely and utterly loved it. I have read Elizabeth Scott and have alway's been obsessed with her books, so why pray tell did I wait until now to read Perfect You?! I can't answer that question but I can tell you what a completely adorable story this is.

I read it in one day - which isn't exactly new for me (I read the Twilight Series complete in Three) so I mean it's not a new thing but it had been awhile since a book has captured me like that.

Kate's life has gone downhill fast. She has a crazy family - complete with a Dad who quite his well paying job to sell vitamins.

Crappy Vitamins.

And he somehow wrangled her into helping him, so she sits there, surrounded by unbought vitamins while her father is in a Bee Suit, every single day.

But then there's Will. Gorgeous Will. I loved their chemistry. From the very beginning their conversations had me laughing out loud, and they're not out of place. They are believable and I could see two people having those conversations which is important to me.

The situations that Kate found herself in were sometimes funny, and then other times hit me hard as experiences she has had I have gone through myself.

I loved it and recommend it. Go buy it. Now.

You won't be sorry. Yet again Elizabeth Scott has made my week. :]