***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

The only reason this book wasn't a nightmare for me was because it was strangely addictive and it was more comically bad (in my opinion), than rage-worthy bad.

Grace is a young, rich, privileged, lady who chose to go to a boarding school in South Korea because she wants to get away from home. Then she proceeds to complain about all the things in Korea that are not up to her standards and how she misses home. Now, I understand cultural shock. Believe me, I do. But I have no sympathy for Grace. Especially since she chose to go to South Korea. If she was going to be so whiny, I would have advised her to choose a location more like the UK or Australia so could be far from home and not have to deal with language barriers and other cultural barriers. She does get a little better over the course of the book, but never enough for me to truly like her or feel bad for her.

Her love interest is also a douche. Talk about moody bad boy. Who even likes moody boys these days? (I am sorry if you do! I don't mean to offend you!) I don’t like moody. I don’t like boys who cannot make their mind up about whether or not they like a girl. And I certainly do not like boys who are assholes to girls they supposedly like. Jason does get better over the course of the novel but I never felt it. Why couldn’t he just be nice without, you know, having to fall in love to be nice? Wouldn’t that be nice?

Their relationship is also just weird and I never really understood that progression. Suddenly they were bffs and I never even saw them have any real conversations except for when they talked about music!

Let’s not even talk about all the ways this book can be offensive. That would be opening a can of worms I do not want to get into. Especially since it really just depends on who the reader is and how they interpret the way things are being said.

This is a book I’d recommend only to readers who are willing to overlook pretentious main characters (who admittedly do get better over the course of the book), asshole love interests and some clichés.

To conclude this review, I’d like to quote something my favorite character in the book said about American money.

“All the bills are the same color and have old white men on them.”

YOU TELL THEM YOON JAE.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

Duplicity is a book I can easily classify as brain candy. I had a lot of issues with the book itself but the premise just made it so much fun to read about even if the main character and  I didn’t get along at all.

This book is fantastically imagined and the fact that I am not a computer programmer and barely understand HTML, did not hinder my understanding. The author never left us technologically challenged people out of the loop (at least I felt that way) and gave explanations instead to make the whole idea behind the book seem more plausible (because it is a little bizarre at first and takes some getting used to).

Which is why this book was so fricking fun to read. I was already drawn in by the premise and hoped the book would blow my mind but sadly that did not happen.

My no.1 problem in this book appears to us in the form of a lovely (sarcasm) character named Brandon. Aka the main character. Aka a self-centered, attention seeking, asshole. It was just so ridiculously hard for me to take this guy seriously. He is kind of a sexist jerk, demeaning most of the girls around him except for his one true love. *gags*. I CANNOT. I was so enraged by some of the comments he made and the things he said. He is bad boy who acts the way he does, does the things he does, because he wants his parents to pay attention to him and he actually admits to this. Which just makes it impossibly hard for me to like him. I found myself wishing he would be more mature but he wasn’t and it bothered me. I went in expecting him to be some badass hacker and he is just a sad puppy of a hacker. I will say that he does undergo character development over the course of the book but it wasn’t nearly enough to satisfy me and make me want to forgive him.

My next problem was the romance. It was so unnecessary and random. I felt like if this book hadn’t had any romance in it, there would be so much more room for Brandon to evolve as a character and for there to just be more badassery within the book. It could revel in it’s own awesomeness instead of just being a shadow of what it could be.

The romance is your typical bad boy meets good girl and decides he cannot be with her because he isn’t good enough and cannot understand why the fuck she would like him (and in this case, I kind of agree!). My problems with the stereotype aside (oh how I don’t like it when people do a 180 in their personalities for someone), I think one of the reasons why I never bought the romance was because we never really got to see the relationship. We were told the sparks were already there but since we never really saw their romance develop it was just all kinds of weird and awkward to read about. Emma was also just not a good love interest. She was incredibly boring and she was kind of just there. We never saw enough of her for me to form any sort of emotional attachment to her.

My favorite character in this book was Seb. When Seb came onto the scene, I was torn between being creeped out and wanting to cheer Seb on. Basically, Seb is made of awesomeness. I loved the twists that came with their character and I enjoyed their creepiness. I enjoyed never knowing if Seb was pycho or not. I just really enjoyed reading about Seb. They made the book SO much more funner and definitely breathed some life into it!

The plot was also fantastically developed. It was fast paced and even when Brandon was bothering me, it gave me the will to continue flipping through the pages trying to get to the bottom of the mystery.

All in all, I think this was an okay read for me which makes me sad. I think a lot of that has to do with the fact that I had high expectations and went in expecting my mind to be blown away when that did not in fact happen. Many of the details amazed me but Brandon was such a hard main character to get behind that I found myself feeling withdrawn from a lot of the awesome happenings. So much could have been done with his character and it wasn’t and that made me sad.

I would recommend this if you are looking for a read to take your mind off of other books, or if you’re having a massive book hangover and just want something that is light and will encourage you to pick up more books.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

This book was incredibly infuriating yet at the same time, it let me down. It could have been incredible yet it wasn’t . All that potential down the drain.

Doesn’t the idea of a girl who has no idea who she is but knows she cannot die intrigue you? Doesn’t it make you want to know more? Let me tell you, you do NOT want to know more about this girl and the drama that is her life.

For starters, I just want to rant about the amount of materialism in this book. I don’t know if materialism is the word I want to use but let’s just roll with it. Brooke is this vampire who doesn’t really like Cessie (so she likes to call herself) because she is after her man yet, she takes her shopping to buy her all these things she doesn’t fucking need. THEY LITERALLY BUY CHRISTIAN LOUBOUTINS because she’ll need them some day. WHEN? WHEN YOU’RE ON THE FUCKING RUN? She also buys all these pricey things including a Chanel winter coat. You might be wondering why this bothers me though? Why am I so anti this girl spending a lot of money? This is a girl that is used to living on minimal things, yet as soon as she gets her hands on money, she goes cray. Of course, it’s not that she wants these things as we are reminded, but then Brooke tags her along and it would be weird to refuse to waste money on such trivial things. I cannot even.

That’s just a little bit of an insight into her character. She isn’t all that strong. She is incredibly jealous and cannot make her fucking mind up about which boy she wants (more on that later though). She’s also very dependent on people and cannot seem to connect the dots. There are things that are so glaringly obvious but she has her head stuck in the sand so it’s impossible for her to acknowledge these things about her that she should have acknowledged ages ago.

Moving on to the love triangle or I should say love square. I want to start this off by saying that if you’re looking forward to reading this book and love triangles discourage you, you might just be able to justify this one and not let it affect your enjoyment of the book. In fact there is a way the love triangle can be viewed to make it so you don’t hate it as much as I did. I personally don't like them in any form which is why I wasn't convinced by the explanation but that depends on personal tastes. The most annoying thing about this love triangle is that on top of the fact that there are two guys interested in the girl, there are other girls interested in the guys too and it just makes this whole thing a dramatic mess. I just don’t understand why.

Plus on top of that, none of the love interests are particularly appealing. One is creepy stalker who stares at her while she changes (and she blushes instead of being creeped out) and is generally very pushy and rude. If I met someone like that in real life, I wouldn’t hesitate to place a restraining order on him. Gabriel on the other hand wasn’t nearly as unbearable… in the beginning. What changed things was his inability to just tell her to truth. He just let her jealousy fester until he had no choice but to tell her things. It’s really annoying when he refuses to tell her the truth because he doesn’t believe she is ready. Who is he to tell her if she is ready or not? Her father? Seriously.

The plot was actually interesting, or would have been if it weren’t overshadowed by the drama in Cessie’s life.  I mean, they were on the run, but they spend a ridiculous amount shopping so that kind of took from the plot.

There was definitely some interesting world building and I would go so far to say that it makes the book stand out from all those typical angels/demons books but alas this cannot make up for the other faults that had me shaking my head and yelling at my kindle.

The weird thing is, in spite of everything, I want to read the sequel. I have this crazy hope inside of me that things will get better. Considering the fun synopsis, I want things to get better; I want to love the book.

If you’re looking forward to reading the book, don’t get discouraged, there is a good chance you might still like it, but if what I am saying doesn’t make things sound fun, you might want to  give this book a pass.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

Vivian Divine is Dead is so bad that it’s almost comical. I was craughing after finishing it. No joke. With its clichés and "coincidences", this book is like a big fat joke. This is something that would be a million times better on TV than on paper. When you write a book, it’s important you close all the loop holes or at least attempt to. Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen in this book. What we have here instead are dramatic twists that are so predictable they just make you want to bang your head on a wall.

Vivian Divine came from a perfect family. Her mother was voted Hollywood’s most beautiful woman 3 times in a row. Her dad's one of the best directors in Hollywood and she herself was the youngest person to be nominated for an Oscar. She had a perfect boyfriend and a beautiful best friend (throw in some self-image issues, too, when she compares herself to her bff) but then her mother died (6 months before the start of the novel) and her father tried to commit suicide. They are trapped in a bubble of grief and no one can seem to catch a break. Her boyfriend cheats on her with her best friend (there’s that trope), her life is in danger (ooh, another one) and now she must go on the run (YAY! Another one, too).

The one thing extremely off with the situation is how her bodyguard lets her go off on her own into the wild without any backup. NO ONE lets celebs go on the run on their own, never mind a celeb who's not even an adult (she is like 16!). I cannot believe Vivian never questioned that. She must have lived a VERY sheltered life.

Which is kind of evident from the fact that Vivian doesn’t even understand the seriousness of the situation she is in. The police may or may not be trying to hunt her down and she is on her way to another country to take refuge, yet she still manages to be self-important and goes around expecting everything to be handed to her on a silver platter. Welcome to the real world, hon. But you know what? She is not ‘that’ bad; she realizes that the real world is completely different because like there are people who go to churches with enough gold to buy Beverly Hills but cannot afford to buy shoes. So, so sad. *sigh*

Vivian Divine also feels like people owe her. She commands people to help her, strangers that have no obligation to do so but should because she ‘wants’ them to.  *shakes head*. She is a flip flop of a character. I cannot actually decide what the author wants us to feel. Are we supposed to like her or are we supposed to be annoyed? Hell, what does Vivian even want herself? I GOT NO IDEA because she cannot make her bloody mind.

The author tries to create a contrast between the environment and where our main character comes from, but the author takes it to the extreme, like to the extreme-extreme. It’s kind of ridiculous.

Her family is surprisingly normal (like before everything went down the shitter) and I have no idea how I feel about that. On one hand it's a positive portrayal of  families and doesn't follow the 'bad parents' stereotype (except her dad is overworked and doesn't give her enough time) but on the other hand, I feel like it just seems so weird that they are these famous Hollywood people and yet they appear extremely normal. This could be a result of my own bias but I definitely found the normalcy somewhat odd.

That wasn't the only thing that struck me as odd, though - the romance was off-the-charts weird. It was horrible. For the first day there seems to be hope that you might see a somewhat developed romance, but then the next day the L words are thought and it’s just like a wtf moment. This book has a tendency to make you go:



Chloe would look pretty damn awesome as the cover of the book. That also happened to be my reaction to the plot.Plot? What plot? This is a soap opera with dramatic twists that can be seen coming from MILES away. It’s not so much unpredictable as it is question mark inducing.

Vivan seems to arrive at the right places and strangers always seem willing to help her. She even compares this to how ‘back home’ people won’t help an old lady cross the road and everyone seems to be nice here. Wait, wait, hold on a second; is this supposed to be the real world because where the fuck is the real world? COINCIDENCES LIKE THESE DON’T HAPPEN.

With all that said, the ending was actually pretty nice. I said that. Go ahead. Throw stuff at me (I have a tendency to do this). I was surprised by it but it did nothing to redeem the book. The book still sucked and I wished I could have my time back.

In all honesty, I really wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone. It’s a waste of time and unless you’re really bored and cannot find any books to read, skip this and read something that’s been on your shelf since the dawn of time.