All the Lovely Bad Ones by Mary Downing Hahn

I’ve had this book for a while and I’ve heard good things about the author, so I decided to finally read it. It’s about two kids, Travis and Corey, who are spending the summer at their grandmother’s inn in Vermont. When she tells them that the inn doesn’t get much business and that it’s also featured in a book about haunted hotels they decide to play pranks around the hotel to get guests talking about the “ghosts” and accidentally awaken the real ghosts on the property.
The characters are written well and the ghost activity is well written, but the story wrapped up a little too neatly for me. This is a kids book though. Some parts are repetitive and certain words (like “twittering”) are really overused.

Dead Lucky by Andreina Cordani

I really enjoyed this! It was a random Book outlet purchase, but it worked out. It’s about four influencers on an app called Playmii in the UK: Ed, Maxine, Leni and Xav. When Xav is murdered live on camera, Maxine is given the task of finding a file of secrets he was keeping about his fellow creators, or else.

I enjoyed the author’s writing style, the pace of the story and the commentary on what life is like for influencers. Each character is given a distinct voice and the book has mental health and LGBTQ representation. I didn’t figure out who did it, so that was fun. I would recommend this to people who like murder mysteries and books about influencers and/or online culture.

4 stars.

Don’t Let the Forest In by C.G. Drews

This book is about two boys who are best friends and attend a boarding school together. Shy, anxious Andrew writes dark fairy tales to cope with the world and artsy, brash Thomas illustrates them. One night Andrew follows Thomas into the woods behind the school, which are off limits, because he thinks he’s been secretly meeting up with Andrew’s twin sister, Dove, there. What he sees is even more shocking, Thomas’ drawings have come to life! They vow to fight them each night to protect the school, but how can they stop them?
The descriptions and writing in this are amazing and beautiful. I could picture the monsters so vividly that they could’ve walked off the page (Kindle), but I’m happy they didn’t! I figured out the twists before the end, but this was still a good read. A bunch of topics are covered in this book such as: mental health, sexual orientation, bullying, child abuse, homophobia. and obsession. If any of those bother you, this may not be the book for you. Otherwise, I recommend it to fans of spooky horror.
I received a copy of this book for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

New Kids on the Block: 40th Anniversary Celebration by Selena Fragassi

This book has a lot of great pictures of the New Kids throughout their career with fun facts and stats throughout the book. You can tell the author really did her research.

The entire career of the group itself is chronicled here as well as chapters on each member’s career when the group broke up. I liked learning about how the group began, their rise to fame and the members themselves.

I’d recommend this to any fans of 80’s or 90’s pop music, fans of any of the members and, of course, Blockheads. Thank you to NetGalley for providing me with a free copy of this book. All opinions are my own.

Wish You Weren’t Here by Erin Baldwin

This is about two frenemies, Juliette and Priya, who have been stuck with each other for their whole lives. They called a truce, so they’re nice to each other and won’t talk about each other to their friends, but they still aren’t fans of each other. All Juliette wants to do is spend summer at Fogridge Sleepaway Camp, a place she can be herself. She’s already sad that it’s her final summer there and then Priya shows up.

I like both of the main characters, especially as we learn more about them and they learn more about each other. The side characters are all well done and nobody is “just there.” I’ve never had a summer camp experience, but I can see that resonating with a lot of people. The romance was well done and not rushed.

I’d recommend this to anyone who likes books about being at summer camp, former or current theater people and readers who like lgbtq+ books.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own. The book comes out on June 4, 2024.

Amplified by Tara Kelly

Amplified is about a girl named Jasmine who moves to Santa Cruz, CA to try to make it as a musician, despite facing opposition from her dad and dwindling finances.

I like that the book is a realistic look at what it’s like to chase your dream and struggle to make it. Jasmine really is struggling in this book. Her car breaks down, she barely has a home or a band and half the time she doesn’t know if she has friends. Her relationship with her dad is rough too. I really enjoyed the parts about her playing guitar and playing with the band.

The book was pretty good up until the last 100 or so pages when I felt like too many side stories were added in. Most of them weren’t really dealt with, so it just took away from the story for me. I gave this a 3.5 and I’d read the sequel.

Les Be Honest by Sarah Robinson

Les Be Honest is about a woman named Yasmeen trying to open a lesbian bar that also does haircuts. I really liked that concept. She meets and unexpectedly falls for the property manager, Tyler, along the way. They face some opposition and drama and try to work through it. It just felt very dragged out at times.

I honestly thought I was going to like this more, but I just ended up having issues with it. The main character over explains a lot and (it might be me) is stuck on what race everyone is. She’s been to her Filipina friend’s house, the old people are the “palest of the pales,” her gf is “melanin deprived.” I don’t know if the author didn’t know how else to describe the other characters or what, but I was like ok… Also, the sex/fooling around scenes were cringey.

I really like Yas’s relationship with her family. It was very cool to see a family who was accepting of an openly gay family member. Her friend group was cool too, especially Isa. She was amazing. That was the highlight of the book for me.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. This is a 2/5 stars from me.

Femme (Lorimer Sidestreets) by Mette Bach

Femme is a hi/lo book for struggling readers that I received for free from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own.

It’s about a girl named Sofie who isn’t doing very well in school. She’d rather spend time on the internet, play Candy Crush and hang out with her boyfriend, Paul. When she’s paired with smart over-achiever (and out lesbian) Clea she finally starts applying herself and things change for her.

I feel like the book tries to tackle a lot of subjects in a short amount of pages and just kind of touching on each of them, which has been my issue with all of the Lorimer books that I’ve received. Some of the issues that are talked about in this book are expectations (personal, parental and societal), labels (from society and oneself), bullying/cyberbullying, friendships, coming out, relationships and graduating. The bullying here is basically done and over with once they find out who did it. It’s not quite realistic.

I do like how the relationship between Sofie and Clea develops. I think that part of the book was well done and realistic.

Love is Love by Mette Bach

The characters in this book, with the exception of Jude, are ridiculous. The book starts off with Emmy hooking up with a classmate because she thinks it’ll make her popular (it doesn’t) and arguing with her mom, who sends her to live with family in Vancouver. Emmy lives in a closet at their house and her snotty cousin, Paige, introduces her to Jude, who she instantly falls for.

There are a lot of issues in the book and none of them really get resolved. It’s mentioned that Emmy’s taking anxiety medicine, but she “comfort eats,” over-analyzes everything and stalks Jude online. As someone with anxiety, I don’t think that’s anxiety. Then there’s her cousin, the stereotypical mean girl, who keeps misgendering Jude and saying he’s bad and crazy. Nobody ever explains what bad things he does or has done and it’s just really rude.

I feel like more could’ve been done with this story. I do like that Emmy was accepting of Jude.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. All opinions are my own.

Same Love by Tony Correia

This book is a quick read, but I really didn’t like it. It’s about a boy named Adam who gets sent to a Christian camp by his parents after he comes out. It’s really stereotypical and the characters are really bad. There’s rampant homophobia, racism and slut shaming throughout the whole book. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.

I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. All opinions are my own.