Review: Nebula by L.A. Sees

Title: Nebula

Author: L.A Sees
Release Date: March 25th 2014
My Rating: 4/5 stars

Blurb on Goodreads: Ree Lindbergh’s dream since she was a little girl is a simple one: to one day travel to Earth. Instead, she’s stuck aboard the Omega Centauri, a spacecraft used to patrol the borders of the Milky Way. Having spent her entire seventeen-year existence on board, Ree is a bit restless. But her mission is important: help keep Earth’s newly discovered alien species, the Bufoanthroid, under control.

By day, Ree enjoys spending time with her best friend, Zac Walker. But when night falls, she is continually tormented by memories of her mother, killed by a Bufoanthroid the day Ree was born.

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I was so so SO happy when this beauty arrived in the post. Let's just take a minute to appreciate the awesomeness that is the cover. Like seriously, it is beyond beautiful. I could just sit and stare at it all day!

As the blurb tells, this book is told from the perspective of our MC,  Marie aka Ree. Ree is a sweet, naive and totally adorable girl who had grown up on a space ship on the edge of the galaxy, where they protect the Earth from the threat extra terrestrial life forms that are called Bufoanthroids. Her best friend is Zachary, and they are the only two on board to have never set foot on earth, having been born on the ship. This affects them in completely opposite ways, with Ree living for the dream of one day returning to Earth, whilst Zachary is more than happy to spend the rest of his days manning H12 ships and protecting the Earth from threats in space.

To me, this book covered 3 main themes:family, friendship, and coming of age. It was done in a way that was sweet and innocent, showing simply the beautiful side of love. It was a warm read and even the villains you couldn't help but just feel bad for.

Ree is a sweet girl of 17 that has to deal with the fact that her mother was murdered the day she was born. It affects her in many ways but she is still so innocent, and doesn't harbour that much hate to be honest. The most important thing in her life is her best friend Zac, and she has to learn to figure out just why she feels jealous when he turns his eyes to the hot girl in their class.

The first half was a little slow for my taste, but it really picked up when Ree started to question what she had, or rather hadn't,  been told and goes in search of answers. The mystery behind her mother's murder and the cloudiness surrounding the day that leaves it unclear as to what exactly happened had me intrigued and reading on and on just wanting to find out what had happened. She acts slightly too immature for my taste, in terms of coming across much younger due to her childishness,  but then that's to be expected when she's the baby of the entire ship.

The plot itself wasn't overly complicated but very captivating,  and the writing kept you hooked and wanting to read on. My only disappointment was the rather quick ending, as I found it slightly anti climatic.

The secondary characters such as Blaire and Zac's brothers were so entertaining, and it was so refreshing seeing these adults from a lone teenagers perspective. They definitely added to the story and gave it a lot of its funny scenes!

In terms of the Sci - Fi elements,  I don't happen to be much of a Sci Fi reader and have only just started getting in to this genre, but this book was perfect for me in that sense because it didn't bog me down with two much sci Fi terminology or elements,  but was still futuristic and awesome!

All in all I adored this book, and found it to be a quick, entertaining read. My actual rating would probably be around 3.75 maybe? But what the heck I just rounded up! Especially considering its only the first in the series. So 4 awesome space stars it is!

*This book was kindly sent to me in exchange for an honest review*

Review: Wake For Me by Isobel Irons

Title: Wake For Me
Author: Isobel Irons

Release Date:  15th December 2013

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Blurb on Goodreads: When Viola Bellerose breaks up with her “up and coming” Irish rock star boyfriend, the feisty winery heiress takes it in stride—by making out with a hot stranger and accidentally crashing her Mercedes into the East River. Whoops.

Somewhat unfairly, in her opinion, Viola now spends her days in a coma, trapped inside the prison of her own body. With each passing day, she finds herself becoming more lost in a world of vivid and terrifying dreams, in which a tall and tortured doctor often appears in a romantic role.

First year intern Sam Philips is barely surviving his complicated life, dealing with his older brother’s death, avoiding scary charge nurses and working endless hours--all while competing against his fellow interns. His solace is the time he spends with his favorite patient, the girl he’s nicknamed Sleeping Beauty. Convinced that her coma can’t last forever, Sam spends hours at her bedside, spilling his secrets to the unconscious girl.

But what the outwardly shy Sam could never guess, is that his Sleeping Beauty is actually aware. That she's secretly hanging on his every word, and falling head over heels in love with him. That even as Sam tries to save her, someone else might be trying to kill her.
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When I received this, I just knew I was in for a great read. After reading Isobel Irons' Promiscuous and now Wake For Me, she is undecidedly one of my new favourite contemporary authors. Irons is just so good at writing not only attention grabbing plot lines that aren’t all fluffy and overly lovey-dovey, but also wonderful characters that pull on the heart strings with their compelling back stories and the way they act and think and develop. You can’t help but grow attached to them all! And the plot, well let’s just say I felt like I was watching a hit drama on the telly! I just couldn’t put it down.

Speaking of the plot, let me just explain that to you a little. The story revolves around our two main characters, Viola and Sam, with the chapters alternating between their POVs. Viola is a rich heiress of her father’s very successful wine company. Sam is just your average guy facing his troubles and trying to survive his first year of internship. As fate would have it, they meet one night, just for a moment, and the next day Viola winds up a patient at the place Sam is working, trapped in a coma. Unbeknown to everyone, Viola is actually rather aware during her coma, and can hear everything Sam says as he tells his Sleeping Beauty all about his childhood, his fears, and his life in general. They are surely falling for each other without really realising it and without even having spoken to one another (I don’t count the couple of sentences from the bar haha!). That just a brief summary of what happens in life the first half of the book. Thereafter things become 50 kinds of crazy and…well, you’ll have to read it to find out!

In terms of writing style, Irons has not disappointed me. Whilst reading from the POV of Viola whilst she is in her comma, I genuinely felt like I was struggling to differentiate between reality and dream (or nightmare). The images her writing conjured up in my mind were equally glorious and terrifying. I felt Viola’s frustration and battle with the horrific images her mind managed to conjure up, which just shows how brilliant Irons’ writing is! The pace was pretty good, and I loved how the events flowed well, without the feeling of being pulled from one scene and thrown into the next. The only issue I had was the ending, as I felt it was a bit abrupt, like it was cut short. I felt it could have been written in a little more detail as a couple of things weren’t too clear and could have been concluded a little better.

Character wise, Sam had to be my favourite. He was so sweet and innocent, and his constant timidity and need to apologise was adorable (in that annoying kind of way). He was just so kind and caring that you couldn’t help but love him. Viola was a great character, and was definitely one I alternated between loving and hating. I loved her strength and perseverance, her unwillingness to let her coma affect her future and her decided determination to get better, find out what was happening to her and who (if anyone) was after her. Equally, I hated her prissy stuck up attitude which is a result of her rich background, her rudeness towards Sam at times and her using him to her benefit. She became a bit childish at times which bugged me but is kind of to be expected after everything she goes through. Either way she was just written so well. The secondary characters are all extremely likable but aren’t so central to the plot. Sam’s best friend and fellow intern is probably my favourite of the secondary characters and I cannot wait to hear his story!

All in all, this book was a definitely brilliant contemporary read with enough drama and suspense to take it to the next level.  Brilliant addition to the NA genre and I’m just so pleased I got to read this! I would definitely recommend to anyone who enjoys a good contemporary with more to the plot than just the romance. A well-deserved 4 stars!

 

*This book was kindly offered to me in exchange for an honest review*

Review: Third Degree by Julie Cross

Title: Third Degree
Author: Julie Cross

Release Date:  25th March 2014

My Rating: 3.5/5 stars

Blurb on Goodreads: I used to be “Isabel Jenkins, child prodigy.” As lame as that sounds, at least it was an identity. But now I’m not sure what I am. I just failed the most important exam of my life—the emotional readiness test required to get into a medical residency program—and it turns out my parents can’t stand each other. Now I’m trying to figure out how to pick up the pieces of my life, and that means re-enrolling as a college freshman, but this time I’m shutting the books and majoring in being eighteen.But so far, my roommate hates me and I’m not into the party scene. The only good thing about school has been getting to know my insanely hot RA. Marshall Collins makes me wonder about everything I missed while I was growing up too fast. Pretty soon we’re hanging out constantly, but for the first time, I find myself wanting more than a no-strings-attached physical relationship. And the lesson I really need is one Marsh definitely can’t teach me: love. Because I’m going to be alone forever if I don’t learn fast.

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My actual rating was 3.5 stars. This is what I think of as a rare breed of NA fiction. The story doesn't depend on steamy scenes to sell it, the story sells itself. It was far deeper and written so much better than I had expected it to be based on the (terrible) cover! I absolutely loved this contemporary for that reason; because it deals with college-aged people and the scenarios and dilemmas they face.

Being a child genius and having been treated as such ever since she was adopted at a young age, Isabel Jenkins aka Izzy has never really been 'normal' and doesn't even know what that word really means. She's been on the fast track to following in her fathers footsteps and becoming a surgeon since she was first admitted to college at just 12 years of age, and has never stopped to think what she's missing out on. That is until she is stopped dead in her tracks, and refused passage to the final steps to becoming a surgeon when she fails a psych test. According to the shrink, she needs to experience life as a normal teen to reconnect her emotions and be a better surgeon, and the best way to do this is to head back to college and see what she missed out. Here she meets Marshall Collins aka Marsh, who takes it upon himself to ease her back into society and keep her social mishaps to a minimum. But things are never as straight forward as that!

This book was actually a cute, quick, fun read and I thoroughly enjoyed it. The setting was essentially your average college setting, but the story was pretty different. I loved Izzy and her wacky sense of normal. Her high level of intelligence matched with her equally high level of social awkwardness had me smiling, smirking and even cringing on her behalf. As much as her thought process sometimes baffled me and her IQ intimidated others, she was quite relatable in her fear of being alone, her sense of being adrift and not knowing where exactly she belonged. She was easy to like and her development throughout the novel was clear and well done.

Marsh was so super cute! He's one of the sweetest fictional guys, and so far from the standard badboy, tatted up tough guy found in most NA novels. I absolutely adored his devotion to his family, his loyalty to his friends and his selflessness towards just about everybody. I loved how he took Izzy under his wing and made it his job to help her and understand her, and how he learnt to trust her as she learnt to trust him. Together they made it a gorgeous tale of love, belonging and learning to trust. Cross's writing is engaging and entertaining. I really liked the pace set in the book and the way in which all the dilemmas were resolved/saw through. It felt real, and yet happy. As much as these two main characters were well developed and easy to become fond of, I just wish we had seen a little more of the background characters such as Jesse and 'Shirtless Carson'. 

All in all, this book is a great addition to the NA genre and is a super cute, well written contemporary with a substantial plot that was engaging, entertaining and adorable. I definitely recommend it to all you contemporary/NA lovers!

*This book was kindly offered to me in exchange for an honest review*