October 27, 2017

Review: Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas


Title: Dangerous Girls
Author: Abigail Haas
Publisher: Simon Pulse
Release date: July 16th 2013

Rating: 5/5

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It's Spring Break of senior year. Anna, her boyfriend Tate, her best friend Elise, and a few other close friends are off on a debaucherous trip to Aruba that promises to be the time of their lives. But when Elise is found brutally murdered, Anna finds herself trapped in a country not her own, fighting against vile and contemptuous accusations.

As Anna sets out to find her friend's killer, she discovers hard truths about her friendships, the slippery nature of truth, and the ache of young love.

As she awaits the judge's decree, it becomes clear that everyone around her thinks she is not just guilty, but dangerous. When the truth comes out, it is more shocking than one could ever imagine...

Dangerous Girls had been in my kindle for a long time, I do not remember where I saw it first, but it caught my eye because it´s a YA murder mystery, but before I start reading it, I did not read the blurb, so I started reading it without any idea what it was about and it really surprised me. From the first page it hooked me (this is another book that I read very fast).

Without going into much detail, because as in all thrillers the less you know the better. the story is about Anna a young woman whom on her spring break vacation goes with a group of friends to Aruba and in the group is her best friend Elise and her boyfriend Tate. And these group of friends go with the idea of ​​having fun without restrictions, so there are alcohol, drugs and sexual encounters with strangers and more, but the fun stops abruptly when Elise is killed and Anna is the main suspect of her murder. So Anna is in another country, where the law is different and where she seems to be the scapegoat of a highly publicized case.

Anna's group of friends is made up of privileged children, whom are children of politicians, bankers, CEOs, etc. and Anna is a new-rich, so she´s new to their world, so her family is not as powerful as that of her friends.

The story reminds me of those murder mystery films, where everyone could have a motive to murder Elise, both her friends and people they meet on the island and I came to doubt many and had several of my suspects. The book begins with murder and little by little there are leaps in the plot between the present and the past, all seen from Anna's point of view, where we see the dynamics of the group and how it was Elise with her friends.

I loved Dangerous Girls! is a dark story about teenagers without limits, but the main plot is the murder mystery and the highly publicized trial against Anna. I have no idea whether the trial is realistic or not, but it seemed that the prosecutor distort the facts to make Anna look guilty.

I highly recommend it, it's mind-blowing, but keep in mind that there are strong themes, so I recommend it for mature YA.

October 23, 2017

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a meme hosted by Book Date.
Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.

Click on the image to look description in Goodreads.

Finished reading

What I´m going to read next?
Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas

What are you reading today?
Leave me your links!

October 20, 2017

Review: This Darkness Mine by Mindy McGinnis

This Darkness MineThe Dem
Author: Cinda 
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Release date: October 10th 2017
Source: Edelweiss
Format: eARC

Rating: 3.5/5

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Sasha Stone knows her place—first-chair clarinet, top of her class, and at the side of her oxford-wearing boyfriend. She’s worked her entire life to ensure that her path to Oberlin Conservatory as a star musician is perfectly paved.

But suddenly there’s a fork in the road, in the shape of Isaac Harver. Her body shifts toward him when he walks by, her skin misses his touch even though she’s never known it, and she relishes the smell of him—smoke, beer, and trouble—all the things she’s avoided to get where she is. Even worse, every time he’s near Sasha, her heart stops, literally. Why does he know her so well—too well—and she doesn’t know him at all?

Sasha discovers that her by-the-book life began by ending another’s: the twin sister she absorbed in the womb. But that doesn’t explain the gaps of missing time in her practice schedule or the memories she has of things she certainly never did with Isaac. As Sasha loses her much-cherished control, her life—and heart—become more entangled with Isaac. Armed with the knowledge that her heart might not be hers alone, Sasha must decide what she’s willing to do—and who she’s willing to hurt—to take it back.

Edgar Award–winning author Mindy McGinnis delivers a dark and gripping psychological thriller about a girl at war with herself, and what it really means to be good or bad.
This Darkness Mine is a Young Adult psychological thriller, quite dark and has an unreliable main character.

Sasha is a 17 year-old girl, in her senior year of high school, she´s the valedictorian, is the first clarinet in her school and her goal is to enter the Oberlin Conservatory, so she practises her clarinet for hours every day, in addition to having the perfect boyfriend to match her image, but everything changes when Sasha starts to not remember some periods of time and Isaac a rebellious classmate begins to talk to her as if they know each other and he makes comments of things that can not be possible. Besides her heart accelerates every time he´s close and she knows things about him that she shouldn´t know. And the things in her life become stranger when she discovers that she had a twin who died in the womb and that she absorbed her (vanishing twin syndrome) and Sasha begins to doubt that her twin sister has completely disappeared and that she´s a part of Sasha.

This is the fifth book of the author that I´ve read, so I already have an idea about what to expect, since her books are typically raw and dark. Where the main character isn´t necessarily a nice and likeable person, but usually they´re strong, intriguing and malicious when necessary, they do everything to survive, something that I enjoyed in her books, but it can be a little shocking for those who are not accustomed to her way of telling stories.

Overall, it´s an interesting, intriguing, dark and twisted story that hook me and couldn´t put down. I read it relatively fast, since I had to know what was going to happen with the main character and when I finished reading I did not know if I liked it or not ... It´s a weird story and I had to process it. In the last chapters there are several shocking twist and has an interesting ending.
And due to certain scenes I recommend it to mature Young Adult.

October 9, 2017

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading?

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is a meme hosted by Book Date.
Each week we spotlight the books we are reading, planning on reading or just finished reading.

Click on the image to look description in Goodreads.

Finished reading
This Darkness Mine by Mindy McGinnis (3/5 stars)
Shine (Shade #3) by Jeri Smith-Ready (4/5 stars)

Currently reading

What I´m going to read next?

What are you reading today?
Leave me your links!

October 6, 2017

Review: Halfway to the Grave by Jeaniene Frost


Title:  Halfway to the Grave (Night Huntress #1)
Author: Jeaniene Frost
Publisher: Avon
Release date: October 30th 2007
Reading level: Ages 18 and up

Rating: 4.5/5

Buy onAmazon | B&N | BookDepository
Half-vampire Catherine Crawfield is going after the undead with a vengeance, hoping that one of these deadbeats is her father - the one responsible for ruining her mother's life. Then she's captured by Bones, a vampire bounty hunter, and is forced into an unholy partnership.

In exchange for finding her father, Cat agrees to train with the sexy night stalker until her battle reflexes are as sharp as his fangs. She's amazed she doesn't end up as his dinner - are there actually good vampires? Pretty soon Bones will have her convinced that being half-dead doesn't have to be all bad. But before she can enjoy her newfound status as kick-ass demon hunter, Cat and Bones are pursued by a group of killers. Now Cat will have to choose a side . . . and Bones is turning out to be as tempting as any man with a heartbeat.

Halfway to the Grave is the first book in the Night Huntress series, which consists of 7 books, plus several spin-offs and the main character is Cat Crawfield a 22 year old woman, she hunts and kills vampires because her mother feels a great hatred against vampires (because she was abused by one of them), so she taught Cat at a young age to hate such monsters. That´s why night after night Cat goes out to hunt them with the intention of killing them until one night she meets with Bones a vampire who is not so easy to kill and in which she´ll forge an alliance where he would teach her a little more of the supernatural world .

Because Cat is half vampire and half human, she´s stronger, faster and has better senses than a human, something that she uses in her favor when she fights the monsters, but Bones will slowly demonstrate to her that not all vampires are villains, and that among humans there are also monsters, something that initially she doesn´t see because of her hatred so ingrained to vampires.

The romance develops slowly due to Cat's prejudices and also Bones doesn´t try to seduce her immediately, but takes his time to gain her confidence, although it´s obvious that there is attraction between them.

Overall, Halfway to the Grave is a very good beginning of a series, with romance, action and has an cliffhanger ending that hooks you to continue reading the series. This is the second time I read the book and I really enjoyed it again. I recommend it for fans of paranormal romance novels.