“We’re all a bit bad. We all have things in our lives that bring us shame and regret. Things that have hurt our souls or hurt the people we love. But ‘re all a bit good too. i reckon we’re mostly good actually. And life is about trying to learn the balance, plot our place on the continuum… We’re not just made up of good and bad: we’re everything else too.” – 2.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: old stories, tattoos, ink, procedures, public markings, new jobs, secrets, crows, witches, public readings, best friends, funerals, skin books, family trees, and blank skin.

There are no secrets in Saintstone.

From the second you’re born, every achievement, every failing, every significant moment are all immortalized on your skin. There are honorable marks that let people know you’re trustworthy. And shameful tattoos that announce you as a traitor.

After her father dies, Leora finds solace in the fact that his skin tells a wonderful story. That is, until she glimpses a mark on the back of his neck…the symbol of the worst crime a person can commit in Saintstone. Leora knows it has to be a mistake, but before she can do anything about it, the horrifying secret gets out, jeopardizing her father’s legacy…and Leora’s life.

In her startlingly prescient debut, Alice Broadway shines a light on the dangerous lengths we go to make our world feel orderly–even when the truth refuses to stay within the lines. This rich, lyrical fantasy with echoes of Orwell is unlike anything you’ve ever read, a tale guaranteed to get under your skin…

I’ve had this for so many years on my TBR! As a dystopian fan, as soon as I read the synopsis for this book a few years ago I was convinced this story was something I would like to binge on.

I still think the concept behind this book is very unique and interesting. A society that makes you tattoo every important mark on your skin and when you die, the skin is saved as a life book? A society that sees non-tattooed people (or blanks, as they call them) as outsiders and rebels with souls that will be lost? Sounds like a cool story to me!

Unfortunately, it wasn’t the amazing story I thought it would be. There were a lot of things that didn’t work out, but the most important one for me was the execution – it was not good. This plot was an absolute mess and the world-building is severely underdeveloped. It was such a slow-paced story to the point where it felt like it barely progressed. There are a lot of scenes that don’t make a lot of sense, and at the end of the day, it was difficult to find the reason why they hated/feared the blanks so much?

A big thing about this story is that the portrayed society created its foundation on old tales. They have these stories that they use to explain why things are a certain way. So a few chapters are dedicated to telling these stories to the reader. Even though I liked the fables and understood their role in the story, they stole the attention from the actual plot and story – and trust me, they really needed the spotlight more!

Now the characters! As a main character, Leora is very childish, annoying, and has a superiority complex that it’s difficult to read at times. It’s difficult for me to root for a character like that. But she wasn’t the only weird character! It was really weird to see the interactions between the characters because you couldn’t understand why they did the things they did. I’m not a writer or anything (obviously), but I think the story would have benefited from a simpler plotline with more… common sense.

In conclusion, this was a flop to me because there was barely any character development, the characters were bland and acted with unclear motivation, the story lacked structure and there was so much nonsense. It just felt… flat. Either way, I still have the intention of continuing the series. I hope the other two books will be a little better and the story picks up. We’ll see!

“Sometimes there is such beauty in awkwardness. There’s love and emotion trying to express itself, but at the time, it just ends up being awkward.” – 3.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: drawings, beets, scurvy, genocide starvation, Baltic countries, Stalin, deportation, and labor camps.

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they’ve known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin’s orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously—and at great risk—documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father’s prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives. Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

This book has been on the back of my mind for years! I followed a YouTuber a few years ago named Joana Ceddia – you may have heard of her -, and she mentioned this book in a video, saying this was her favorite book of all time. Since then this book has been on my TBR. I finally picked it up this month, and even though I didn’t love it as much as Joana did, I still liked it!

It’s a work of fiction based on what happened to the Baltic states after the Soviet Union annexed and occupied their countries. The people from Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia were deported and imprisoned, and many of them ended up in Siberia doing forced labor. This story in particular follows a teenage girl named Lina who was deported from Lithuania, along with her mother and brother. She was an artist, but her dreams were put on hold the moment the soviet soldiers broke into her home and forced them to leave with them. It’s a heartbreaking sad story, as you can imagine!

I believe the target audience for this book is young adults, but I have to warn you there is some violence in this book, so keep that in mind when you decide to read this. Still, for a YA historical book, this was a good book. 

And yet, I kept thinking about why this didn’t grab my attention like I thought it would. After some thought, I think I finally found out the reason why! The author did a great job creating a very atmospheric read, but I feel like the tragic events were toned down (a lot) because at the end of the day… it’s still a YA book. I just had this constant feeling that things were way worse than what the author was describing. And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that – I just prefer a more realistic, true approach to historical themes. Again, this is a YA book and I’m not exactly in the targeted age, so that’s on me.

I wasn’t mind-blown by this book, but it was still an okay story for me. I personally didn’t know a lot about this situation, so it was nice to learn about the history behind the fiction. I ended up doing some research on the topic after reading this book – and that’s exactly what I consider a positive impact from a book!

It’s an informative book for youngsters, so I would still recommend this if you are in the age range and want to learn a little more about the topic through a work of fiction.

“For some reason, I always thought adults made decisions with purpose. That they knew what they were doing all the time. But maybe adults are just like teens, bumbling around aimlessly, unsure if they’ve gotten it right.” – 4.5/5 stars!

Attention! This book contains: prom nights, time travel, new siblings, yoga studios, car hide-and-seek, wedding plans, dangerous ladders, that one move from “Dirty Dancing”, and mac and cheese.

Planning the perfect prom is one last “to do” on ultra-organized Charlotte Wu’s high school bucket list. So far, so good, if not for a decorating accident that sends Charlotte crash-landing off a ladder, face-first into her obnoxiously ripped archnemesis J. T. Renner. Worse? When Charlotte wakes up, she finds herself in an unfamiliar bed at thirty years old, with her bearded fiancé, Renner, by her side.

Either they’ve lost their minds or they’ve been drop-kicked into adulthood, forever trapped in the thirty-year-old bodies of their future selves. With each other as their only constant, Charlotte and Renner discover all that’s changed in the time they’ve missed. Charlotte also learns there’s more to Renner than irritating-jock charm, and that reaching the next milestone isn’t as important as what happens in between.

Navigating a series of adventures and a confounding new normal, Charlotte and Renner will do whatever it takes to find a way back to seventeen. But when―and if―they do, what then?

It has been a while since I’ve last picked up a contemporary YA that I actually loved. This was the one to break the curse because I had so much fun reading this! I wasn’t even planning on reading this anytime soon, but I just randomly grabbed it out of my TBR and I’m glad because I had a wonderful time.

Charlotte, the main character, is in school and she always plans for the future – she even has a bucket list! She has her future entirely planned out and she is focused on her goals and what she wants to achieve. But while she was decorating for prom, she fell over her nemesis, Renner, and woke up when she was 30. The surprising thing is that her life is not as she thought it would be – she’s married to the guy she hates, she doesn’t talk with her best friend anymore… and that’s just the tip of the iceberg! Let’s just say she learns the hard way things do not always happen the way we want them to! It was such a well-made, creative story. It reminded me a lot of the movie “13 Going on 30” with Jennifer Garner, with a few differences. The main difference is that she’s not the only one that time travels, but the guy is also trapped with her! So as you can probably tell, this is essentially a romance book and let me tell you: if you like the enemies-to-lovers trope, you are in for a treat. I loved the love/hate relationship between Charlotte and Renner! The characters were endearing and sweet, and I couldn’t get enough of them.

I wouldn’t say this is fully a contemporary book because there’s a fantasy element of time traveling. And yet, I just can’t call this fantasy. It always makes me nervous when the time travel element is added to books, but I have to say this was done perfectly here! Of course, you don’t know why it happened and there’s some mystery there, but I didn’t see any major plot holes so that was a plus.

I didn’t know how much I was missing a good quality YA romance book until I read this! It’s a very easy book to go through, and it’s a relaxing, cozy, fun read! I loved it and I’m curious to read more from this author.