Saving June

By Hannah Harrington

So, straight off, I could tell that this was another cliched book where this girl meets this hot older boy, then in a matter of hours/days, and then they kiss/make out and everything is happy and jolly and such. But, surprisingly, this book didn't bug me.

It's about a 16 year old girl named Harper Scott who's older sister June committed suicide. Her whole family is torn up and her divorced parents want to spit June's ashes. Instead of letting them, Harper decides to bring her sister to California, the one place June always wanted to go. Coming along are Laney, Harper's best friend, and mysterious Jake Toland, who has some odd connection with June who tutored him. Together, the threesome drive in Joplin, Jake's black van, toward the West Coast, encountering idols, odd people, old friends, raging protesters, and romance. Of course there is romance. It is almost a necessity in teen books these days. Which bugs me. But not in this bood, funnily enough.

As stated several times before, this is a really good book. I find it surprising how much I like it even with all the little things I find annoying about it, the biggest complaint of which is how predictable the story line is. Except for a few twists and turns. Also, I find even more bad influence on the youth of this country than in Amy and Roger's Epic Road Trip. They swear and curse a lot, including the F-word dozens of times. And underage drinking, and running away from home, and sex in high school, and smoking in high school. But once you get around that, it's really quite good. At least a 4.

You should read it.

Aphrodite's Blessing

By Clemence McLaren

A pretty decent book. What attracted me to it is the Greek mythology aspect. In the book, McLaren tells the stories of the Greek characters Atalanta, Andromeda, and Psyche, and how they all got their happy endings. Also, she includes facts from actual Greek culture and (as far as I can tell) actually tells the stories of the myths instead of making up a bunch of rambling that sounds good.

There's not much else to say about the book because it was very short. And to the surprise of myself, my friends, and very few of my very small number of readers, I'm not going to harp about how each girl got to end up with the man of their dreams and how that rarely happens. After all, everyone needs their happy ending every once in a while.

This book gets a solid 4. I detracted a few more points in my head for the cliched endings, but it does happen to be mythology and I don't feel like contradicting myself yet. I'm skipping the food part of the review process because I'm too lazy. So enjoy life!

Daughter of Smoke and Bone

By Laini Taylor

      Karou is a girl with blue hair. Unusual in itself, but she didn't dye it that color; she wished it. Raised by demons, Karou has no family that she can remember other than Brimstone, the Wishmonger, Issa, Twiga, and Yasri, helpers in Brimstone's wish shop. She lives in Prague, a 17-year-old art student with her friend Zuzana and ex-boyfriend Kaz, while sometimes running off to run errands for Brimstone: to collect teeth. What started as a normal week quickly descended into chaos.
     Attacked by an angel, or a seraph, in Morocco, Karou went inside the shop, something permitted only because she was wounded badly. Once there, she went through the other door in Brimstone's shop, the one that has always been closed in her presence, never open, until now.  Once through, she found another world, one of constant war, of constant fear and fighting. The world of her family and the seraph that had attacked her.
    Thus unfolds the story of Karou, one with blue hair and wishes to use. She finds her origin and why she feels so attracted to Akiva, her angle.
     A interesting book where hope is more powerful than wishes, it is a 4, only because it reminded me of Twilight in the aspect of two races who aren't supposed to be together connected by the love of one pair. More like a piece of cake that has been promised to you, and has been drawn as the most delicious thing in the world by your friends, then it falls short of that taste that you created in you head. But it was still exceptional.