Review: 10 Things I Hate About Pinky

10 Things I Hate About Pinky by Sandhya Menon
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pinky loves to be the champion of the underdog and the best part is when her stuffy lawyer parents are cringing.  Samir has been homeschooled by his overprotective mother and has learned to love lists and schedules.  It is now summer and Pinky needs to get her parents off her back.  She has come up with a great idea … Samir (whose summer internship just fell through) will pretend to be her boyfriend and spend the summer with her family in Cape Cod.  They have always been sort of friends and kind of enemies, yet when the summer continues, they begin to feel something more.  Will this tremulous relationship change into something stable? 

10 Things I Hate About Pinky is the third book in the Dimple and Rishi series.  These three books are told in chronological order, but are actually companions.  Readers can enjoy them as singletons or as a series.  I have loved spending time with these varied characters and have nothing but praise to say.  The characters are dynamic and the romances all have a different feel.  I love that the romances are clean and appropriate for most readers.  Each novel has a social issue that is addressed and readers will be challenged in their own thoughts and views as these young people explore the issue at hand.  I loved this third book and hope there will be a fourth companion story in the years to come.

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Review: Terraformer

Terraformer by Colleen Houck
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Astra has a secret that her family has hidden her entire life.  Her mother even went so far as to forge documents for Astra to join a terraforming ship to a new planet.  This voyage is not normal though.  Her mother is stopped from boarding and Astra discovers upon waking that her father died in transit.  It is now just Astra and her brother in a strange new world.  After the ship lands and the crew begins the tasks they trained for, Astra’s supervisor is killed and that means there is a murderer among them.  Astra has two boys going after her heart, but is there something on the planet that is going after her mind?  Who can she trust on this new planet?

Terraformer is the first book in a new science fiction series by Houck.  Although Goodreads does not have it listed as a series or trilogy, Houck has posted on her blog that she is writing at least a sequel.  This is different than most of Houck’s other series since it isn’t primarily based on a myth, although, readers could see some “creation” myth weaved into the story … that is not the primary plot.  Terraformer has a little bit of romance and a lot of intrigue nestled throughout its pages.  The underlying drama slowly builds until everything is revealed during the last few chapters.  Readers who get to the end will know that there must be a second book and it will be exciting to see where this story goes next.

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Review: The Lost City

The Lost City by Amanda Hocking
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Ulla has always wanted to know where she is from.  Since she was abandoned as a baby and raised by strangers, she has very limited clues to help her in her search.  Her greatest chance to find her mother and information about her family comes when she is accepted into an internship program at the Mimirin.  She will work for free for most of the day and have the opportunity to search their archives after her shift for personal research.  She learns early on that there is a chance her mother is connected to the Omte royal family.  Some may feel that is a good thing, but since the royal family is very private, Ulla finds her research blocked at every turn.  Will Ulla find out anything about the mother that left her behind?  What distractions will she need to overcome during her search?

The Lost City is the first book in the Omte Origins series.  This is a companion series to the Trylle series, yet readers can fully enjoy this story whether they have read the other two series or not.  Hocking has taken the world she has already built in the previous stories and captured a new storyline that is easy to love.  This story kept me pulled inside the entire time and I can’t wait for the next book, The Morning Flower, set to be released in August 2020.

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Review: Take Me with You

Take Me with You by Tara Altebrando
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Eden, Eli, Ilanka, and Marwan all receive a notification from a teacher to meet in a classroom after school.  They all arrive, yet there is no teacher … just a small cube resting on the desk.  They aren’t sure what they should do or why they were called to this classroom, but then the cube lights up and gives them some rules:  they aren’t to tell anyone about the device, they should never leave the device unattended and they need to take the cube with them.  They don’t know if this is a prank or some sort of experiment, but they follow the rules … or at least try to.  The cube keeps adding new rules that make the group interactions even more complicated.  What is this cube and what will it eventually expect from these teens?

Take Me with You is a stand-alone novel that is part thriller, part science fiction, and part coming of age story. Just like the cube doesn’t fit neatly in these teens' preconceived ideas, this novel doesn’t fit any one genre either.  Altebrando has created a story with so much potential, yet it just falls flat.  The ending was anticlimactic and I lost interest about halfway through.  It wasn’t a long read, so I don’t feel like it was a waste of time, but it isn’t a book I can strongly recommend to everyone.  A fun read, just not a great read. 

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Review: Girl, Unframed

Girl, Unframed by Deb Caletti
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Sydney is growing up and that means her body is changing too.  She has started noticing that boys and men both are giving her attention and she starts to wonder where the line between flattery and obsession is.  Sydney is supposed to spend the summer with her mother, but since her mom is the famous Lila Shore, Sydney knows that she will not be on the top of her mother’s plans.  Will Sydney be able to decipher when attention is good and when it is bad?  Will Sydney be able to keep herself safe when so many young ladies before her could not?

Girl, Unframed is a standalone realistic fiction story that covers many truths about growing up in today’s society.  The actions that take place in this book may have been extremes from the entertainment industry, but that does not mean they only happen there.  Caletti gives hints about what may or may not be coming with titles of what seems to be evidence of proof … of what; you must read further into the book to find out.  Although this book is listed as a thriller, it is the story BEFORE the action with the mystery being dangled in front of the reader during the majority of the book.  A good book, but requires a little bit of perseverance. 

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