Review: Ask Again Later

I always give a pat on my back when I finish a book in a few hours. Ask Again Later by Liz Czukas is one such book, it hardly took me 12 hours or less. I think I found this book on my recommendations list on GoodReads. Never heard of the author before and she’s done a good job for a debut novel. It was a very fun, easy read. I’m liking contemporary YA lately.

The book revolves around Heart LaCoeur, a girl who is determined to get her name changed once she hits 18. Oh and she has a no-dating policy. The entire story happens on a prom night. Heart is asked out to prom by two guys, both of whom she is unable to reject because of their current circumstances. One of them is Troy, her brother Phil’s friend, who got ditched by his girlfriend so Phil gave his word that Heart would be Troy’s date. The other is her French classmate Ryan who is gay and is in the closet so he needs a date to prom. Heart already has plans to go out as a group with her No Drama Prom-a crew aka all her close friends which includes Schroeder – Chase Schaefer. Heart flips a coin to find out who she should go with since she can’t decide it by herself. Heads – Troy; Tails – Ryan. So the story branches into two paths. Head – if she went with Troy; Tail – if she went with Ryan. So we don’t know if it was head or tails(at least I didn’t) but we get to read both stories. Both the plots take us to Heart finding out that Chase likes her and realises she likes him back and breaks her no-dating policy. So that’s all the book is about.

Heart is not an annoying character which is a big relief. She’s just a normal teenage girl and the high school plot though has a lot of cliches and drama is funny and bearable. I think i’m being too hard on my review now but I enjoyed reading it. So you can give it a go even if you are allergic to YA/high school dramas/contemporary. I did like the chapter names. I felt one of the Head/Tails chapter got swapped since after a point, there’s only Ryan in both the plots but I didn’t feel the need to go back and check for myself.

Rating: ✮✮✮1/2

PS: I messed up the font for this post since I copy pasted this from WP and it bothers me so much but I'm just going to leave it anyways.

-S.

Review: Ashes to Ashes(Burn for Burn #3)

Hi again,

I finished reading Ashes to Ashes just yesterday. Even though I reviewed it on goodreads, I thought I'd share it here as well since I'm not sure when I'll finish the book i'm currently reading. It's not very professional but its still something. So here goes:

P.S. Please do not read it if you haven't read the book and plan on reading cuz, once you find out the main spoiler, the book won't be of interest to you.

**Spoiler Alert**
Started reading this book today, right after finishing Fire with Fire. Proud to say I finished it in less than 10 hours. Gotta give credit to the authors Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian cuz not even for a second did I suspect that Mary wasn't a living person. With her mentioning her suicide, the crazy stuff that her aunt was doing, and the supernatural shit she pulled at homecoming and other few incidents, the thought that she could be a ghost didn't occur to me at all. I mean I guess it must be pretty easy to connect? Like I'd really like to know if others figured it out sooner. I thought it was her aunt's doing. That she was trying to make Mary feel better thru witchcraft. So brownie points to the authors for that part. I found Burn for Burn to be silly. Did not like the book at all but I couldn't put down the other two and liked them much more than I thought I would. So lets now talk about everything that pissed me off in this last book. First off, I did not like that Kat found out about Mary only towards the end. She had so many opportunities to find out earlier. That one scene where Kat is at the cemetery much earlier in the book and sees the Zane cemeteries; working at the preservation centre, she could have found some details about Mary because of their mansion; or when she was looking up Mary's name in Ms. Chirazo's computer and no results came up. There could have been a little more that Kat could have done there since she had no idea where Mary could be. One thing that was absolutely annoying in book 2 was how literally every male character had a crush on Lillia. From the descriptions of Kat, she seems to be much hotter and a badass but ofc the one that looks the least attractive even in the book cover is who everyone finds hot(rme). I just found it to be very unfair writing, solely concentrating on Lillia and making her some sort of Jar Island princess. So I couldn't tolerate when Alex kept flirting with her over and over when he knew there was something going on with Lillia and Reeve. That part was exasperating to read every single time. I know some people might have disliked Llillia for getting together with Reeve, but surprisingly I wasn't. It was completely understandable. They fell for each other and the line between reality and fiction was blurring even for readers. So i don't blame her at all for falling for him. Cuz even when she did, she was still guilty about Mary and Rennie. Next, all the pity I had for Mary until this book, went right out the window when she decided to avenge Lillia and Kat. Lillia I understand because of Reeve but Kat has been nothing but a great friend to Mary. And she sees them sitting together at a table and starts doing terrible stuff to her? I was ready to flounce the book at that point. Also Kat and Lillia were always worrying about Mary, thinking about her or mentioning her to each other so why didn't ghost Mary not hear that? *snort* Finally, this book made me realise that I could loathe a book you loved in the last page. This is the shittiest epilogue i've ever read. Why would they completely destroy it like that? After everything Lillia and Reeve went thru, the love they had for each other, and finally coming thru all the mess they don't end up with each other?????? what sort of sorcery is this? Sooooooooooo pissed at this. The authors could have let them be. Absolutely no reason to break them and pair up Alex and Lillia. Such bullshit. and Kat losing her father too. Really its such a stupid epilogue. They could have said goodbye to their book after that last chapter. One page is enough to make you hate the entire book. I would have given 4 strs for this book but 3 for that wrecking ending. I'm warning you Jenny Han don't you dare pull something like this in PS. I still love you!!!!


I wish I could talk more about this book, that is not mentioned in the review above but I'm still trying to find time to do it. Hope you give this series a try. I can guarantee you that you wouldn't be interested to continue the series after finishing Burn for Burn, but Fire with Fire and Ashes to Ashes are very good.

-S.

New beginnings

Bonjour!

Welcome to my book blog*waves*. So I decided just 2 hours back that I should have a book blog. So here I am. Since I'm still in the process of customising my blog, which i'm positive is going to take at least a week(?!!) as I won't be able to work on it continuously, I thought I'd go ahead with my first post. I was very much satisfied with having just a Goodreads account but I realised a book blog would help me out in more ways. So here I am. If you're stopping by, hope we can share our passion for books!

Have a great week ahead!

-S.