Ash Reads Stuff

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black Publication Date: January 15, 2015 Pages: 336 (hardcover) Genre: Young Adult My Goodreads Rating:  3.5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for. Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once. At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for gen...

The Devil You Know  by Trish Doller Publication Date:  June 2, 2015 Pages:  256 (paperback) Genre:  Young Adult My Goodreads Rating:  5 stars Goodreads Synopsis: From critically-acclaimed author Trish Doller comes a powerful new psychological page-turner perfect for fans of Lauren Oliver and Sara Zarr. Eighteen-year-old Arcadia wants adventure. Living in a tiny Florida town with her dad and four-year-old brother, Cadie spends most of her time working, going to school, and taking care of her family. So when she meets two handsome cousins at a campfire party, she finally has a chance for fun. They invite her and friend to join them on a road trip, and it's just the risk she's been craving--the opportunity to escape. But what starts out as a fun, sexy journey quickly becomes dangerous when she discovers that one of them is not at all who he claims to be. One of them has deadly intentions. A road trip turns terrifying in this contemporary story tha...

The Secrets We Kept  by Lily Velez Publication Date:  November 8th, 2015 Pages:  366 (paperback) Genre:  Young Adult  My Goodreads Rating:  2.5 stars Goodreads Synopsis: One year. That's how long it's been since childhood sweethearts Sully Graham and Cadence Gilbertson broke up, since one adoption and one out-of-state move turned their worlds upside down. Suddenly, Cadence is back in New York City, but something's different about her. The light in her eyes, the music in her laughter, the warmth in her smile—all of those things have entirely vanished. In their place stand the makings of a girl Sully can't even begin to recognize, much less understand. Still, despite the collective history of heartbreak between them, he’s convinced he can win her trust again, and he’s committed to proving the invincibility of their love no matter what it takes. But Cadence is quietly harboring secrets of her own. Dark secrets. Ugly secrets. Secrets that could br...

Vanishing Girls  by Lauren Oliver Publication Date: March 10, 2015 Pages:  368 (kindle)  Genre:  Young Adult My Goodreads Rating:  4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver delivers a gripping story about two sisters inexorably altered by a terrible accident. Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late. In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other. My Review:  I'm going to admit to being a huge Lauren Oliver fan, even t...

Dumplin'  by Julie Murphy Publication Date:  September 15, 2015 Pages:  375 (hardcover)  Genre:  Contemporary/Young Adult My Goodreads Rating:  5 Stars  Goodreads Synopsis:  Self-proclaimed fat girl Willowdean Dickson (dubbed “Dumplin’” by her former beauty queen mom) has always been at home in her own skin. Her thoughts on having the ultimate bikini body? Put a bikini on your body. With her all-American beauty best friend, Ellen, by her side, things have always worked…until Will takes a job at Harpy’s, the local fast-food joint. There she meets Private School Bo, a hot former jock. Will isn’t surprised to find herself attracted to Bo. But she is surprised when he seems to like her back. Instead of finding new heights of self-assurance in her relationship with Bo, Will starts to doubt herself. So she sets out to take back her confidence by doing the most horrifying thing she can imagine: entering the Miss Clover City beauty pagea...

The Anatomical Shape of a Heart  by Jenn Bennett Publication Date:  November 3, 2015 Pages:  304 (hardcover)  Genre:  Young Adult My Goodreads Rating:  2.5 Stars  Goodreads Synopsis: Beatrix Adams knows exactly how she’s spending the summer before her senior year. Determined to follow in Da Vinci’s footsteps, she’s ready to tackle the one thing that will give her an advantage in a museum-sponsored scholarship contest: drawing actual cadavers. But when she tries to sneak her way into the hospital’s Willed Body program and misses the last metro train home, she meets a boy who turns her summer plans upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive, and possibly one of San Francisco’s most notorious graffiti artists. On midnight buses and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who Jack really is—and tries to uncover what he’s hiding that leaves him so wounded. But will these secrets come back to haunt him? Or will the skeletons in her family’s ...

This Side of Home  by Renee Watson Publication Date: February 3, 2015 Pages:  336 (paperback)  Genre:  Young Adult  My Goodreads Rating:  4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: Maya Younger and her identical twin sister, Nikki, have always agreed on the important things. Friends. Boys. School. They even plan to attend the same historically African American college. But nothing can always remain the same. As their Portland neighborhood goes from rough-and-tumble to up-and-coming, Maya feels her connection to Nikki and their community slipping away. Nikki spends more time at trendy coffee shops than backyard barbecues, and their new high school principal is more committed to erasing the neighborhood's "ghetto" reputation than honoring its history. Home doesn't feel like home anymore. As Maya struggles to hold on to her black heritage, she begins to wonder with whom--or where--she belongs. Does growing up have to mean growing apart? In a captivating coming-...

The Accident Season  by Moira Fowley-Doyle Publication Date:  August 18, 2015 Pages:  304 (hardcover) Genre:  Young Adult  My Goodreads Rating:  4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  Every October Cara and her family become inexplicably and unavoidably accident-prone. Some years it's bad, like the season when her father died, and some years it's just a lot of cuts and scrapes. This accident season—when Cara, her ex-stepbrother, Sam, and her best friend, Bea, are 17—is going to be a bad one. But not for the reasons they think. Cara is about to learn that not all the scars left by the accident season are physical: There's a long-hidden family secret underneath the bumps and bruises. This is the year Cara will finally fall desperately in love, when she'll start discovering the painful truth about the adults in her life, and when she'll uncover the dark origins of the accident season—whether she's ready or not. My Review:  I really enj...

Act Like It  by Lucy Parker Publication Date:  November 30th, 2015 Pages: 199 (kindle) Genre: Contemporary Adult/Romance My Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis :  This just in: romance takes center stage as West End theatre's Richard Troy steps out with none other than castmate Elaine Graham. Richard Troy used to be the hottest actor in London, but the only thing firing up lately is his temper. We all love to love a bad boy, but Richard's antics have made him Enemy Number One, breaking the hearts of fans across the city. Have the tides turned? Has English rose Lainie Graham made him into a new man? Sources say the mismatched pair has been spotted at multiple events, arm in arm and hip to hip. From fits of jealousy to longing looks and heated whispers, onlookers are stunned by this blooming romance. Could the rumors be right? Could this unlikely romance be the real thing? Or are these gifted stage actors playing us all? My Review:  As ...

Love Letters to the Dead by Ava Dellaira Publication Date: September 29, 2015 Pages: 352 (paperback) Genre: Young Adult  My Goodreads Rating: 3.5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  It begins as an assignment for English class: Write a letter to a dead person. Laurel chooses Kurt Cobain because her sister, May, loved him. And he died young, just like May did. Soon, Laurel has a notebook full of letters to people like Janis Joplin, Amy Winehouse, Amelia Earhart, Heath Ledger, and more -- though she never gives a single one of them to her teacher. She writes about starting high school, navigating new friendships, falling in love for the first time, learning to live with her splintering family. And, finally, about the abuse she suffered while May was supposed to be looking out for her. Only then, once Laurel has written down the truth about what happened to herself, can she truly begin to accept what happened to May. And only when Laurel has begun to see her si...

Signs Point to Yes  by Sandy Hall  Publication Date: October 20, 2015 Pages:  288 (paperback) Genre: Young Adult  My Goodreads Rating:  3.5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  If only Jane’s Magic 8 Ball could tell her how to get through the summer. With her “perfect” sister, Margo, home for her “perfect” internship, Jane is not going to be able to spend the summer writing fan fiction, as she had planned. And her emergency babysitting job requires Jane to spend the whole summer in awkward proximity to her new crush, Teo, a nerdy-hot lifeguard with problems of his own. With his best friend out of town, Teo finds himself without anyone to confide in…except Jane. Will Jane and Teo be able to salvage each other’s summer? Even the Magic 8 Ball doesn’t have an answer… but signs point to yes. My Review:  I've been craving fluffy reads this weekend, so I was pretty happy when I finally picked this one up. I don't really think the summary paints a...

The Way We Fall  by Cassia Leo Publication Date:  February 20, 2015 Pages:  309 (kindle) Genre: Romance/Women's Fiction My Goodreads Rating:  2.5 Stars Goodreads Synopsis:  Five pages. A letter holding a secret buried for more than five years. A secret neither of them wanted to know. Five years after their messy breakup, Houston and Rory are forced to work together opening up a new wine bar. Despite their tragic past, they find themselves once again drawn to each other, unable to deny their potent attraction. But the secret of the letter hangs like a guillotine over their heads. And soon, Houston finds himself in the same position he was in five years ago, choosing between the truth and the only woman he’s ever loved. My Review:  I picked this book up as a freebie and was looking for something short and fluffy to read this weekend, just to get my mind off the work week. Well, I chose wrong because this book is anything but fluff...

Liars, Inc. by Paula Stokes Publication Date: March 24, 2015 Pages: 268 (kindle) Genre: Young Adult/Mystery My Goodreads Rating: 4 Stars Goodreads Synopsis: It all starts with one little lie… Max Cantrell has never been a big fan of the truth, so when the opportunity arises to sell lies to his classmates, it sounds like a good way to make a little money and liven up a boring senior year. With the help of his friends Preston and Parvati, Max starts a business providing forged permission slips and cover stories for the students of Vista Palisades High. Liars, Inc. they call it. Suddenly everybody needs something and the cash starts pouring in. Who knew lying could be so lucrative? When Preston wants his own cover story to go visit a girl he met online, Max doesn’t think twice about hooking him up. Until Preston never comes home. Then the evidence starts to pile up—terrifying clues that lead the cops to Preston’s body. Terrifying clues that point to Max as the murderer. Ca...