Save the Date (Spoiler FREE) Review

Title: Save the Date
Author: Morgan Matson
My rating: 4.5/5 stars
Date Read: 8/21/18

Do I want to give this book 4 stars or 4.5 stars? I have no idea but I am rounding up for now since I really enjoyed it.

Save the Date has been one of my most anticipated releases of the year and Morgan Matson is one of my favorite contemporary authors. I finally read the book and I am so happy I did read it during the summer since it is the perfect summer read. In fact, all of Morgan Matson's books are perfect summer reads. Just a heads up, I would recommend reading her books in publication order because some characters from her previous books make cameos is her future books.

Save the Date follows Charlie Grant, the youngest child in the Grant family. Her older sister Linnie is getting married and Charlie could not of been happier. Her siblings would be coming home and all be together for the first time and Charlie is determined to make it the perfect weekend as the house that they grew up in has been sold and everything is about to change. The perfect weekend not so much. Leading up to the wedding there are lots of disasters and unlucky things that happen.

When I was reading this book I wished that something would go right because everything was going wrong and I felt so bad for the family. It was stressful at times to because you just want something to go right and gah. But I loved it and the book still made me smile.

I really like how in this book Charlie learns that change is okay and can be good. It is okay to want things to stay the same, but sometimes you have to accept that things cannot always be the same and it is not the end of the world because good things also come with change.

Jesse Foster is a completely unnecessary character in this book and if there is one character I could get rid of, it would be him. I felt like he did not need to be in the story and the story would work with or without him.

I NEVER say this because I rarely watch book to screen adaptations these days, but I feel like this would make the perfect movie. It would be a cute and funny and I feel like I would love it in the form of a movie as well. Who am I saying this because I rarely watch book to screen adaptations these days.

One thing I love about this book is the family aspect of the story and how family played the most important role in it.

Overall I would highly recommend this book. It was cute fluffy, not really romantic (I mean it is a little, someone is getting married) and funny and I loved it so much!

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5 Star Predictions

Today's post has to do with my 5 star predictions. Now, if you know me, I rarely rate books 5 stars. Most of the books I read are between 3-4.5 stars. So in a way I will call these my 5-4.5 star predictions. I have been seeing YouTube videos of others doing their 5 star predictions and it looks like so much fun. I have no idea who started this trend since so many people have done it. Also, I am not including books that are not released at the time I am writing this post. All these books have been released already and I have no idea why I have not read any of these books yet.

These are also in no particular order. I am also trying to avoid putting sequels on the list.



The first book is Strange the Dreamer by Lani Taylor. I read Daughter of Smoke and Bone earlier this year and I fell in love with the story and Lani Taylor's writing. Yes I still need to read the rest of the trilogy which in why I have not started Strange the dreamer yet but the concept of the book sounds so good and I have a feeling Lani Taylor's writing style is perfect for the concept of the book, at least of what I made out the book to be about, and I am so excited to read it and I have a feeling it will be 5 stars.




This book is super popular at the moment. Children of Blood and Bone has been getting so much hype recently and I really want to read it and for some reason have not. It was the Tonight's Shows summer book pick and it has been on the NYT's bestselling list forever. This is a fantasy book with a all black cast. Diversity (and it is a good thing)! I absolutely love fantasy books and the plot seems like something I will love which is why it is on this list.





I know I need to read The Final Empire by Brandon Sanderson. I heard that he writes amazing fantasy books and here I am having read a grand total of zero of his books. I am such a fake fantasy fan, I know. Based on how much fantasy lover's love this book, I have a feeling I will become one of them. I actually have no idea what this book is about but I heard that it is perfect for fantasy lovers so it is on this list!





Because I have fallen in love with every V.E./Victoria Schwab book I have read so far the next book on my list is Vicious. The sequel to this book is coming out soon so naturally I am really excited to read this book. I absolutely love V.E. Schwab's writing style and I am so ready to dive into this book soon and I have a feeling this is a 5 star read obviously.






The final book on this list is Eliza and her monsters by Francesca Zappia. I heard such good things about this book and so many people love it. The main character in this book is the creator of a famous web comic that has over 1 million fans or views. Something like that and I find that so cool and unique in a story. I cannot wait to read this book and I am pretty sure I will love it.





Those are my 5 star or 4.5 star predictions since I rarely give books 5 stars. I really hope I love all these books and I hope to give all of them 5 stars. I will probably to a check in once I read all of these books.

Thanks for reading and hope to see you in my next post!

Daughter of the Pirate King (Spoiler Free) Review

Title: Daughter of the Pirate King
Author: Tricia Levenseller
Series: Daughter of the Pirate King #1
My rating: 4/5 stars
Date Read: 8/09/18

It has been forever since I read a book because I wanted to and not because school said I should and I think that is the reason why I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought I would originally.

I first heard about Daughter of the Pirate King around it's release date and nothing much after that. I do still see the book pop up on my Instagram feed once in awhile. Going into the book I knew nothing about it other than the main character was the daughter of the pirate king and was probably a pirate. When I started the book I was surprisingly hooked from very early on in the book.

In this story we follow Alosa who is the daughter of the pirate king and is sent to look for this legendary map and in order to do so she has to get herself captured by her enemies to get an opportunity to search their ship.

I really liked the main character Alosa and how strong she is physically and mentally. She is a character you do not want to mess with ever. I thought the author did a good job on the main characters character development. I also found myself liking some of the side characters in this book as well. As for the love interest, you immediately know who it is from the beginning and I did not hate him but he was not my favorite character. I will say this book is not instalovey as well.

I wanted a bit more world building in the story about the places outside the ship but we did get some world building to understand the world but I wanted more.

The writing was good and at times I would say the book is sort of funny but it was not laugh out loud funny but it still made me smile. The writing style went well with the story making my experience reading it a lot more enjoyable.

I will say that I did predict some things that happened in this book but it was also unique in the sense that it is a pirate book and I rarely read books with pirates in it. I will be continuing on with this duology. Overall this was a fun read. It had a lot of action and I was never really bored when reading. This book is also slightly over 300 pages making it the perfect book to read during a readathon. If you are in a reading slump I would also give this book a chance because it was just fun. I do recommend this book and it is definitely and under hyped read!

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August Wrap-Up 2018

It has been a while since I have done a wrap-up since I have not been reading a ton lately. This month I read 6 books which is the most I have read in awhile. I read one book for school, one audiobook, and 5 physical books. I also DNFed a book that was also required reading since I only was required to read up to chapter 14. That book is The Jungle and I hated it and I will not be talking about it later.

The book I read for school is All Souls: A Family Story from Southie by Michael Patrick Macdonald. I did not like this book that much which is very disappointing. Maybe it is because I was required to write a paper on it. I usually do not like required reading because I like to choose what I read. Onto the more fun books.

The first book I finished for fun in a long time is Daughter of the Pirate King by Tricia Levenseller. I love this book and gave it 4 stars. I think I enjoyed this book as much as I did because of the timing that I read it. I love the main character Alosa and how strong and smart she is. I did like the Romance in this book which is a rare thing I say. If you like pirates you will probably enjoy this book. I did predict some things that happen but it did not affect my enjoyment of the book. I will be reading the sequel and I am so happy I picked this one up and I wish I read it sooner. Highly recommend this story and it is an underhyped book.



The next book I read as the Hating Game by Sally Thorne which I gave 3/5 stars. I did enjoy this book but it was not my favorite book I read. This is an adult romance book which is a genre I usually will not reach for but I heard great things about it and I love a good hate to love romance. One thing I wished from this book was that we also got the character Josh's POV and not just Lucy's. I did like it and I would recommend the book. I just do not have that much to say. I did like the characters but they were not my favorite.



Another book I read is one of my most anticipated 2018 releases and that is Save the Date by Morgan Matson. I gave this book 4 stars. This was the perfect summer read and I absolutely love the characters and how important family was in the book. Charlie, the main character's, mom is a comic strip artist of the comic strip Grant's Central Station. I really wished we got to see more of the comic strips throughout the story. This book takes place within a few days and Charlie's older sister is getting married. Everything that could possibly go wrong goes wrong during the wedding. I honestly felt so bad for them but at the same time it made the story more entertaining.


I also reread Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows on audio. I usually do not like audiobooks because I am so picky about the narrator but I actually really like the narrator for the Harry Potter books. As most of you know this is the seventh Harry Potter book and I highly recommend this series. Rereading it again was so much fun and brought back so many fun memories. Still not over some deaths though.




The final book I read in August was another reread and that is City of Glass by Cassandra Clare the third book in The Mortal Instruments series. I gave this book 4.5 stars. I did lower my rating by .5 stars since I did not enjoy this reread as much as the first time. Clary was more annoying in this book than I remember. The Mortal Instruments series is my least favorite out of the shadowhunter series and Clary has a lot to do with it. I still love Izzy, Alec, and Simon and they are my favorites in the series. I do hope to finish my reread of all the shadowhunter books before Queen of Air and Darkness comes out.


That is it for my August wrap-up! What is your favorite book you read this August? Thank you for reading and I will hopefully see you in my next post.

Pivot Point (Spoiler Free) review

Title: Pivot Point
Author: Kasie West
Series: Pivot Point #1
My rating: 3/5 stars
Date Read: 4/24/18

I read several other Kasie West books before and I really enjoyed most of them and I did like half of this one. Kasie West is known for cute contemporary books. This book though is slightly different from her others.

This book takes place where the people with powers live in the compound. No one knows that they have powers and they are basically isolated from the rest of the world but not really at the same time. They can leave they just have to promise they are not going to tell any outsiders that they have these abilities. Our main character Addie has some sort of clairvoyant power. Her parents are getting a divorce. She can either stay in the compound with her mother or move to the outside with the norm people (normal people with no abilities) with her dad. She looks into the future and this story shows her the outcome of both situations to help her choose. The chapters alternate one where she stays and the other when she leaves.

I really liked the story when she left the compound so much more than when she stayed. I liked the characters more and I liked the story more. I did not hate the other story, I just did not care that much about Duke and Addie in this reality.

This is a duology and I am definitely continuing on with it. I am excited to see what happens to Addie next. The thing I love about Kasie West's book is that they are so addicting. This book is no exception to that.

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My Oxford Year (Spoiler Free) Review

Title: My Oxford Year
Author: Julia Whelan
My rating: 3.5/5 stars
Date Read: 6/3/18

This book was not exactly what I expected. Not in a bad or good way. Honestly I just found it eh though it did have its cute moments. I have not heard a lot about this book but I read the first few sentences on the back cover summary and it sounded good so I decided to pick it up. This book follows a girl name Ella who spends a year in Oxford on a Rhodes scholarship. That was all I knew going into this book and I did wish I read the entire summary so I had a better idea what the book was about.

Honestly at the same time I am glad I did not read the entire summary because it also seemed a bit spoilery and I probably was not going to read it.

It had some tropes and actually reminded me of another book which I will not say but that book is YA.

The writing is not the best. It felt average and it is hard to explain it. It was simple and easy to understand. Nothing was wrong with it it just was not a wow factor of this book but the writing did not effect my enjoyment of the story.

I did like the characters and I felt like it made the story more enjoyable. I enjoyed reading from Ella's POV and I liked seeing her thoughts. I feel like as the story progressed she developed into a better person and character. Jamie Davenport was ok. I mean not really swoonworthy but eh. Maggie, Charlie, and Tom. I love how Ella's friends still play an important part of the book though I do wish that they were in the book more. I really like them. Cecelia was interesting. I did not like her in the beginning of the story but really liked her at the end. I did want more information about something in her life and I felt like could add to the story if she talked to Ella about it. I cannot say what.

If you read the book or the back cover summary full, it is very predictable that my least favorite trope is in this book. For some reason though it did not bother me as much as usual which is strange. I think it is because (view spoiler)[ he does not teach halfway through the book anymore (hide spoiler)] Overall I did enjoy this book. Could be better but enjoyable and I am glad I read it.

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The Sims Book Tag

It has been such a long time since I have done a book tag so I felt like it was time to do one. After browsing the internet to see what book tags existed I decided to do the Sim's book tag. I never personally played the sims but I love watching Dan and Phil from DanandPhilGames play the sims. This tag was created by Hailey in Bookland (click for original video) her channel is also amazing so if you have not checked it out yet you should. I was not tagged by anyone but I am doing it anyways!

🚨 means spoiler. Skip question to avoid spoilers

1. The original Sims: the best author debut.

There are so many debut novels that I absolutely love. It is so hard to choose the best one so I decided to pick a recent one which is The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan. TW for suicide and depression in this book. This book follows a girl name Leigh who is half white half Taiwanese. Her mother committed suicide and she is convinced she turned into a bird. Leigh travels to Taiwan to visit her grandparents on her mother's side which she has never met before as well. I am half Taiwanese (half Chinese) seeing Taiwanese representation in this book was amazing and it was accurate. The author is also Taiwanese so it is own voices. The writing was so good and the story was very intriguing, both past (flashbacks) and present. It was such a good debut novel and one of my all time favorite books.


2. The grim reaper: the saddest character death. 🚨 (SKIP IF HAVE NOT READ BOOK TO NEXT Q)

There are so many books with sad character deaths that it is so hard to just pick one. I think one of the saddest was in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows. Dobby and Fred. Dobby is completely innocent and does not deserve to die and how cold you separate the twins. It is cruel. My heart still hurts to this day.








3. Sims getting stuck: a character that just got in the way. 🚨 (SKIP IF HAVE NOT READ BOOK TO NEXT Q)

I think this question means a character that was in a way intruding something or just complicated things. I am confused because this could mean a number of things. So I think I will go with a character that kept interrupting something. Do you get it. Hopefully and for this one I will have to go with a character from P.S. I still love you. John Ambrose McClaren. I think that is his name. He kept getting in the way of my ship. I ship Lara Jean and Peter so when I new love interest was introduced in book two I was already done with the love triangle drama and it honesty made my reading experience with this book a lot worse. So he did get in the way of my ship and this is how I am going to answer this question.


4. Simlish: a book with amazing writing.

The answer to this question has to go to the one and only Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Lani Taylor. I love Lani Taylor's writing and am so mad I did not read this book earlier. This book is actually the only book I read so far by this author and I really need to read her other books and finish this series because it is also so good. Lani Taylor's writing flows very well and nothing is very choppy. It was very poetic in a way. The writing is also unique compared to a lot of the other YA books I read in the past so it was a very pleasant surprise.






5. Expansion packs: a series where the books kept on getting better.

The perfect answer to this question is to one of my all time favorite series which I have not read the last book yet whoops. That is The Falling Kingdom Series by Morgan Rhodes. In my opinion each book just gets better and better. I am so scared to read the final book. This series is a high fantasy YA series often compared to Game of Thrones as the YA version. There are a lot of similarities between the two but there are also a lot of differences. Every time I finish a book in The Falling Kingdoms series, I needed the next book pretty much immediately. And the next book never disappoints and is better than the previous fom what I remember.


6. Sims romance: the worst case of insta love.

Okay this book has insta love because of the title but it still was executed so badly it was one of the worst cases I have read about. This book is The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith. I hated this book actually because of the way it was executed and the writing style. So obviously this book has insta love ad I was prepared but it was done so badly that I just did not like it at all and it just made me not like the book more when I was already not liking the book for numerous different reasons. Overall not for me but hopefully if you read it you will enjoy it more than I did. I did enjoy some of her other books though. This book could totally go to the net question too.


7. Cheats: a book that was entirely unrealistic. (not fantasy)

Like I said, The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight for this prompt too but I want to feature a different book so for this one I am going to say One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus. I did enjoy the book but I also had problems with it. Fist off I hated the ending but that is not the point. The one thing that I found super unrealistic is that if there is an app or website posting things that are hurting people and invading their privacy in a way, the administration should be addressing the issue because it is their responsibility or would the parents try to do something about it? I feel like the lack of adult interference in this book is kind of unrealistic.




8. Needs fulfillment: a character who made all the wrong decisions.

For this one I am going to have to go with Clary Fray in City of Lost Souls. I will be honest, she did make some good decisions but she made this one decision that drove me absolutely crazy in this particular book that made me not like her even more than I already did. If you follow me on my Instagram @andreasbookishthoughts you would know that Clary is not one of my favorite character. She makes unrational decisions throughout the series as well but there was a particular scene where she made a certain decision in this book that annoyed the crap out of me.



9. Error code 12: a series that started off great but went downhill from there.

We are going old school and I am choosing the Divergent series by Veronica Roth. If I reread the books today, I probably would give Divergent (book 1) 3 stars or even two. I know I would not like it as much as when I was younger. I loved Divergent when I first read it and it instantly became a favorite. After reading so many better books this book has been removed from my favorites shelf but it still has a special place in my heart. Insurgent was still really good and I liked it a lot but it was not as good as the first one. Then Allegiant came along. I did not like this book at all. I surprisingly did not hate the ending of Allegiant, the book was just boring and in a way not for me.


10. The Sims vortex: a book/series that completely engrossed you.

There are so many books for me to choose from but for this one I think I will have to go with Renegades by Marissa Meyer but I love all of Meyer's books. The Lunar Chronicles are also on my all time favorites list! I read Renegades earlier this year and I absolutely fell in love with the story as soon as I started it. I love the characters, I love the story line, and I love the writing. I could not stop thinking about this book for a long time after I finished. It was that good and definitely my favorite read of the year so far.


11. Who do you tag?

This is an old tag so IDK but if you want to do it then I tag you.

Thank you so much for reading. It has been way to long since I have done a tag post and I really enjoy doing these and want to do more in the future. Until next time bye.