Bombshell (Hollywood A-List) - CD Reiss
This was a departure of what I'm used to with CD Reiss, but I really enjoyed it. The drama, the overtop parents, the sex...it was like watching reality TV.
I was glad that Brad got his head out of his you know what and made things right with his daughter. I'm also glad he got to keep Cara as well. The epilogues were adorable. :)
This is supposed to be first in a series, so I'm interested on seeing where the series is headed.
Well, that was interesting! I put things together before the big reveal, but I didn't think it was such a big secret that needed to be protected so much.
I wasn't a huge fan of our heroine but I came to see where she was coming from a bit more. Brant and Lee...well that's just a whole other rant.
LOL, i won't spoil anything but this one was definitely unique and interesting.
I think I enjoyed this one more than the first. Poor Buck. He just couldn't get anything right. I felt so bad for him. But, I also though that Sunny was being unreasonable at times. Especially when it came to the camping trip. I totally sided with Buck on it.
Anyway, he seemed to get hisself together in the end. He definitely deserved to get the girl after everything he went through!
The Hate U Give - Angie Thomas
*5 STARS*
OMG, the feelz I get from this book are indescribable. I had such a whirlwind of emotions when reading this book. It was hard for me to get through, and I even had to put the book down a few times and step away.
And it wasn't because I was outraged or put off or anything like that. It was that 16 year old Starr was ME in 1992. The girl straddling two worlds not really fitting in to either one. I so identified with her "Williamson Starr" and her "Garden Heights Starr". `
I also identified the utter sense of helplessness when you see injustice taking shape all around you but you don't think you have the tools to make a difference. But as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, "The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy."
This book was so well-written and was so well done that I want to scream from the roof top about how everyone should read it. No matter what your perspective is.
Starr's story was one that we hear about a lot in the news, but it was so good to see it from the inside. A young man is shot, but all we hear about is that he has a rap sheet, or he's "a real bad dude". But, why does it matter what he did last week, last year, or even yesterday. In that instant he was an unarmed man who was gunned down in the back and the perpetrator who did it got away with it because he happened to have on a uniform.
Because I see that as an injustice does that mean that I don't think that cop lives matter as I see those bumper stickers cropping up on cars around my neighborhood? No, what it means is that I don't think that that a young black man's life is so insignificant that it doesn't rate more than a passing glance when he's laying dead on the street, shot down by people who are supposed to protect.
Look, I get that this is a fictional story, but for so many of us it is not. It is life. It is everyday when we kiss our husbands and our sons goodbye and we pray with everything in us that they don't get pulled over. It is everyday when I have look my loving, open, but naive brilliant son in the face and tell him that it doesn't matter that other kids were doing it. But because his skin color is different than everyone else, he's going to stand out more. And yeah, it sucks to have to have those conversations with your kid but it's better her learns it from me that have to be slapped across the face with it when he's caught aware.
As I sit here trying to type this review with tears streaming down my face, I still have hope. I have hope that books like these will start a dialogue. And one that can start at an earlier age than mine now. That young kids can make this problem better. That we can talk about social justice without the tone deaf response from either side. That we start trying to have empathy instead of stubbornness. I'm hoping one way we can get there.
The conversation that Starr had with her Dad, Maverick, about what Tupac's T.H.U.G.L.I.F.E. meant was a poignant one. It laid it out--what people mean when they talk about institutional racism. Why it's so frustrating to hear people disparage the inner cities. It's amazing to me that the man (with all of his faults, let's face it) that many of us listened to with zealous fervor growing up in the 90's is still so relevant today. Does that mean we've made that little progress in 30 years?
I'm going to end this now because I'm ranting, but this is one of those novels. One of those books that will stay with me for years. That will be on my lips to recommend when I'm trying to get a point across that I just can't do justice with my mere words.
I discussed letting my 13 year old son read this book with my husband, but I was hesitant because of the language and some sexual situations, but I think that the content is worth much more than those. I'm going to have him read this for summer reading and I hope it will open some dialogue between us too. I fear for him, I do. But I also want to light a fire in him so he wants to be on the front lines with me fighting for social justice. Each one of us has a part to play in making things better, and I want his to start now. Just like Starr.
This book was bittersweet for me. It was the end of a series that really got me into reading erotica again. When I found the Rough Riders Series I felt like a new world opened up for me. The books were hot but they had a storyline and characters that I immediately fell in love with. The McKays became a staple in my reading lists for the last seven or so years. And I will miss them. Miss them terribly.
It's one of the reasons I put off this novella for so long. I read COWBOY TAKE ME AWAY finally after waiting quite some time, but I just couldn't bring myself to reading this final piece of the original McKays.
I couldn't put it off forever though and so I bit the bullet and read LONG TIME GONE and I wasn't disappointed in the least. I thought the author stayed true to the characters and it just seems so interesting to the "parents" as young adults.
Kimi and Cal certainly didn't make things easy but I have a lot of respect for him in the fact that he let Kimi go spread her wings. I loved that they were able to find their way back to each other. I just wished that they were able to get more of a story once they got back together. I had a smile on my face from what I did get of them and loved their story even though I was closing the book on the Rough Riders Series.
I listened to the audio at the beginning but wasn't a huge fan of the narrator so I ended up giving up about half way through and read the rest of the book.
Log in with Facebook 