If I Fall by Anna Cruise

Title: If I Fall
Author: Anna Cruise
Pages: 322
Publication Date: April 6, 2013
Publisher: Mission Bay Publishing

The Basic Summary: After her parents' divorce, Megan's life completely falls apart. With no one there to help her pick up the pieces, Megan is left to put herself back together. Enter Aidan. He's the perfect boyfriend, he makes her laugh, he makes her feel beautiful, and most importantly, he's the only one that's there for Megan. As time goes on, Megan learns that Aidan isn't what he seems, and as she falls deeper into his lifestyle, she loses herself a little bit more. Can she save herself before she falls in too deep?

My Review: *frustrated sigh* If the author had handled this book differently, it could have been an amazing book, but she didn't, so it wasn't. I've dealt with divorce, so I know how horrible it feels when it happens. It feels like your entire world is falling out from under you, and everything you thought you knew about your life is wrong. Basically, you feel lost. Because of that, it was easy for Aidan to take advantage of Megan. That part I understand, what I don't understand, however, is how easily everyone in her life gave up on Megan.

After the divorce, Megan's mother falls into deep depression and alcoholism. What bothers me about her mother is that NO ONE in Megan's life really bothered to check on her mother or Megan for a few weeks. Her aunt came in once, made Megan's mother get dressed, figured they were fine, and took off. After that, it was a while before anyone checked again. Her Aunt Sara eventually came back, sent Megan's mother to get some help, and moved in with Megan, after Megan got into trouble with her father. Another thing that bothered me about the situation with Megan and her mother was that Megan didn't care about her mother. When she did bring her mother up, it was usually to bring attention to how fat her mother was. The way Megan talked about her mother was awful.

At the beginning of the book, Megan's friends were there to support her through the divorce, but once she started liking Aidan, they gave up on her. They were incredibly judgemental, an dthey didn't really listen to her or care about what she wanted. When Megan finally stopped hanging out with them and started hanging around Aidan and his friends, instead of trying to get Megan back and talk to her about it, her friends started calling her stupid and a slut. Great friends, huh? When my parents got divorced, I pretty much fell apart, and for a while, all I could do was cry. I'm sure I wasn't fun to be around, but my friends never abandoned me. In fact, they went out of their way to make sure that I knew that I was loved. At the beginning of the book, Cruise kept talking about how Megan and her friends were so close, and how they'd known each other for years, but that's not how they acted. If you've been best friends with someone since childhood, and you're very close, they don't abandon you when things get tough the way Megan's friends did. They just don't. I didn't believe in the bonds of their friendship because they weren't really there. We were told that they were there, but we never saw them for ourselves.

What bothered me a lot about Megan was  how quickly she changed. I understand that she was lost, but seriously? One hour she's a good girl hanging out with her friends and just talking, and literally an hour later, she's drinking, lying to the police, and practically having sex in a car with a guy she doesn't know. I don't care who you are, or what happened. No one completely changes in an hour. From there, Megan just gets worse. After the car hookup, Megan goes out with Aidan (the random guy) again the next weekend, they go to a party, get drunk, and he rapes her. The rape itself pissed me the fuck off because the author didn't treat it like rape. Megan said No and Aidan covered her mouth and continued to have sex with her. Afterwards Aidan apologizes for taking her virginity, and she forgives him. She didn't tell him he raped her, she didn't get mad that he took something she didn't want to give. She just went "Well.. He did say sorry." and went home with  Aidan and smoked weed and slept with him again. Megan's transformation from a good girl into a delinquent wasn't at all believable. Cruise rushed it too much, and the entire thing just felt forced. Even more annoying was how Megan transformed from a bad girl to a good girl in a span of minutes at the end of the book, and how everyone acted like her having sex WITHOUT PROTECTION, drinking, breaking things, lying, sneaking out, skipping school, not doing homework, failing her classes, and doing drugs just never happened. Sure she was grounded by her aunt, but her aunt didn't address any of the things that Meg did. It was just "You lied to me and went to a party with your boyfriend, so you're grounded now." After a conversation with Case during her grounding, Megan decided that Case was right and she needed to stop doing all of the bad things she was doing, so she just quit. No, just no. Megan didn't decide for HERSELF that what she was doing was wrong. Case told her, and she basically went "Case said it's wrong, so it must be!" and then changed herself. Megan never actually thought for herself throughout the entire book. She just did everything everyone told her, but Cruise wants us to believe that Meg is a strong character? No.

Aidan was a douche. There's no nice way to say it. He introduced Megan to alcohol, drugs, and unprotected sex, but Cruise never really tried to make him sound like a bad guy. He was constantly guilting Megan into doing things, and towards the end of the book, he even cheated on her. At the end when Megan tried to leave him, he turned all psycho-boyfriend and told her that "We're not over until I say we're over." This pissed me off too because instead of Megan telling someone about this, she pretty much just went "Eh. I'll try again later." If a guy you're dating tells you that he's refusing to let you leave him, that's a huge issue. That's not something that you just ignore.

The only person I liked was Case, because he was the only person who was actually consistently there for Megan through it all even though she didn't realize it until the end. The one thing I don't like about the relationship between Case and Megan, is how sudden it all was. For 90% of the book, Megan kept insisting that she was in love with Aidan, but at the end, she suddenly realizes she has deep feelings for Case, and that he has deep feelings for her, and they get together. The problem with this is that we didn't see them develop deep feelings for each other at all. Once again, we were just told that they care for each other. We never actually got to see them grow to care for each other.

Basically, Cruise created a plethora of issues for Megan to deal with in this book, but Megan didn't actually deal with them. Megan fucked around for 4/5 of the book, and for the last 1/5th, everything somehow resolved itself with little to no impact on Megan. It just wasn't realistic. If you do drugs, have sex MULTIPLE TIMES without ANY protection, drink, fail your classes, and lie to the people who trust you, there are going to be REAL consequences. Was she grounded? Yes. But considering all of the dangerous things Megan was doing, that consequence is compeltely unrealistic. If you have sex without condoms or birth control repeatedly, you're going to get pregnant. Megan and Aidan had sex without condoms for MONTHS, and nothing happened to her. No STDs, no pregnancy, nothing. She did a multitude of drugs, drank a ton of alcohol, made it sound like she was addicted (she was constantly talking about how she needed *insert substance here* to cope), but she was able to quit all of it cold turkey and never thought about it again. She ditched her classes, failed tests, failed to turn in homework, but somehow none of this was ever brought up again, and it sounds as if there were no consequences for her failing her sophomore year of high school. It just wasn't realistic.

My Overall Opinion: I didn't like this book. I don't think the author handled ANY of the issues she brought up in a good way, and the fact that Megan faced no consequences for all of the things she did that year just makes no sense. If you have unprotected sex, drink, do drugs, and fail school there are going to be consequences. I wouldn't recommend this book to anyone because it's just not a good book. In fact, it's awful.

The Heiresses by Allison Rushby

Title: The Heiresses
Author: Allison Rushby
Pages: 352
Publication Date: May 7, 2013
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin


**ARC provided by Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**
**This review has spoilers, I've marked them so that you can skip over them if you don't want to know**


The Basic Summary: It's 1926, and for three lucky girls, their entire lives are about to change. Mix estranged triplets, and devious half-brother, a fortune, and the excitement of a new city, and you're sure to be in for a wild ride. Join these three sisters as they work to adjust to their new environment, and fight to earn back  a fortune that's rightfully theirs. Just so you all know, that's a lie. But you'll see what I mean later.

My Review: This book was horrid. Everything was just sooooo boring. Ms Rushby could have cut out 100 pages from the book and you wouldn't have missed a thing. I'm not sure if it's just because this was an ARC, or not, but there were some spelling issues, and there were quite a few phrases in the book that made no fucking sense because some words were missing.

The beginning of the book started off well enough I guess. It was mainly the girls finding out that they're triplets and them being sent off to London to go live with their aunt and try to reclaim the fortune that's rightfully theirs from their douchey half-brother, Charles.

Thalia: Thalia is the oldest of the sisters, and she's just.. A piece of work. The only person Thalia cares about is Thalia, and she doesn't care who she has to step on to get what she wants - this includes betraying the people who trust her in order to get the inheritance that she believes is rightfully hers. Notice how I said hers and not hers and her sisters. Throughout the entire book, Thalia is a scheming, manipulative, bratty, arrogant skag, and she finds nothing wrong with her behavior. **spoiler**She drinks, she does drugs, and at one point she was even hooking up with Vincent (the guy that Ro was in love with). Why would she betray Ro like that? She was "helping" her by proving a point. I know what ya'll are thinking because I thought the same thing. What a Skag. Early on in the story Thalia mysteriously comes into a large amount of sums. How large? Large enough that she could buy a car, new clothes, a dog, drugs, and whatever else she felt like. We later find out that she went to Charles, tricked him into giving her the money by leading him to believe that she and she sisters were going to go to the country side. The money Charles gave her was supposed to be for ALL of the sisters. Do you know how much she spent on the sisters? Enough to buy them each a dress. That's it. Like I said, she's a skag.**spoiler** At the end there's a traumatic not really traumatic. It was a faux-traumatic event that was meant to make you suddenly sympathize with Thalia. event and Thalia does a complete character 180 and all of a sudden we're supposed to like her. No. Fuck no. I refuse to believe that Thalia suddenly started caring about the sisters that she was trying to hurt earlier on in the book. **spoiler**Thalia threw a dinner party and invited her sisters with the intention of making them see that they didn't belong in the society they now lived in. While she just wanted to embarass Ro, she really set out to destroy Clio because Edwin (the guy that Thalia liked) liked Clio instead. This pissed me off because:
1) Clio was my favorite sister
2) Clio was always incredibly nice to Thalia even though Thalia was a raging skag
3) Clio was having a hard enough time adjusting without Thalia trying to destroy her already damaged self-esteem**spoiler**

Eratos (Ro): Ro is the middle triplet. Ro is also the book smart one. Of the three, she's the most sensible one, and she's incredibly science-minded (is that even a real phrase? I just made it up. Whatever, i'm sleep deprived. Don't judge) For her entire life, Ro has wanted a sibling, so when she finds out she has not one, but two siblings? She's ecstatic. When Ro finally meets her sisters, she finds that they're not exactly what she thought, and while she's still excited to have sisters, she's just.. Less excited. Of the three sisters, I liked Ro the second best.

Clio: Clio is the youngest of the sisters, and she's also the sweetest one of the three. When the three sisters finally meet, Clio knows right away that there's something wrong. How? She looks nothing like her 2 sisters. Even knowing that there's something different about her, Clio still makes a point of trying to get to know her sisters. I liked Clio the best because she always puts others first. She's always willing to see the best in people (even when they don't really deserve it. See Thalia), and she goes out of her way to make people feel welcome around her. With all of the craziness going on with Ro and Thalia, it was nice to have one character that had a solid understanding of who she was, and nicer still to see that the privileges that she suddenly had didn't change her as a person. **spoiler**I was really happy to see her get her happy ending. She really deserved it.**spoiler**

Hestia: Hestia is seriously the most irresponsible person in the book. I get it. She's never had to watch over anyone before, but that doesn't excuse her negligence in terms of neglecting her nieces. Hestia has the guardians of each girl send the girls off to live with her, but after the first day, she pretty much forgets that they exist. During the rare occasions that she does remember that she's supposed to be caring for her nieces, she's giving them shoddy advice. **spoiler**At one point, Thalia actually has to go into REHAB because of her drug problem, and Hestia had no fucking idea until one of her friends told her.**spoiler**

The story: Meh. That's really all I have to say about it. The story itself was mostly about Thalia being a skag **spoiler**All she did was drink, do drugs, throw parties, and betray the trust of her sisters.**spoiler** Not what you were expecting, right? That's how I felt. Towards the end the story starts focusing more on what the book was ACTUALLY supposed to be about, but up until then? Nope. Mainly just Thalia and her exploits. The story was just soo boring. At first it was interesting to see them adjust to their new environment, but there are only so many parties and stupid acts of drunken debauchery that a girl can take before she just wants to scream. 100 pages could have been cut out of this book and you wouldn't have missed a thing. In fact, I wish 100 pages had been cut out. I would have rather read a 200 page story about 3 (Okay, 2. Thalia didn't really help) girls trying to get back a fortune that's rightfully theirs, than a 300 page story about the stupid actions of one greedy sister with a little bit of fortune stealing-backing I KNOW IT'S NOT A REAL WORD. LEAVE ME ALONE! thrown in to keep things interesting. Normally I can get through a 300 page book in under 2 days. In fact, I did. I read another book while I was reading this one and it only took me ONE DAY to finish it. This book just dragged on and on and on and on and on and.. okay. I'm sure you all get it. Maybe I'm just being too nitpicky. Either way, I didn't really like this book.

I was going to originally give it one star, but I've decided to bump it up to two because I loved Clio and Ro so much.

My Overall Opinion: I just couldn't get past Thalia. She was just such an obnoxious character, it annoyed me that the book mainly revolved around her and her antics. Aside from Thalia, the book itself wasn't that good. If the summary says that the book is about 3 sisters attempting to take back their fortune, that's what I expect the book to be about. If the summary had said that this book was about 1 sister betraying the people depending on her, I wouldn't have touched this book with a ten foot pole. If Thalia sounds like your kind of  character, go ahead and read the book. But if you're like me and you expect the book to be about what the summary says the book is about, this book is not for you.

Sweet Peril by Wendy Higgins

Title: Sweet Peril (The Sweet Trilogy, #2)

Author: Wendy Higgins

Pages: 371

Publication Date: April 30th, 2013

Publisher: HarperTeen

The Basic Summary: Anna White used to be your typical good girl. Now? Not so much. After finding out that her father, Belial, is a demon, everything she thought she knew about herself and the world has changed. In order to keep herself safe, Anna must carry out her father's work - mainly tempting others into sin by getting them to drink. Anna, however, is different from the other Nephilim. How? She's prophesied to be the girl saves the world, and defeats the demons. Join Anna, Belial, and old and new friends as they continue on their quest to save the world.

My Review: I can't tell if the writing got worse, or if I've just gotten more critical of the books I read. Either way, this book was just kind of.. Average. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't anything that would stick out in my mind. I'm writing this review a day after I finished reading this book, and I'm already starting to forget what happened. There were a few spots that had some very unexciting action, but mainly this book was about Anna and Kaidan denying their love for each other until they finally suck it the hell up and work things out. I honestly don't have much to say about this one because it was boring. I was so disappointed after reading this because it just didn't live up to the amazingness that was Sweet Evil. The entire book basically went:

Anna parties with people
Anna feels guilty about partying with people
Belial sends Anna and Kope to go recruit Nephs for their cause
Anna pines after Kaidan
Kaidan tells Anna to screw off
Anna does something that Kaidan finds offensive. Awkwardness follows.
Anna continues to pine after Kaidan
Anna visits Kaidan
Anna and Kaidan pine after each other not so secretly
*spoilery stuff that I won't share. Read the book ;D*
Kope and Kaidan go on a mission
*lots and lots of drama. This scene actually made me sad. When it happened, I was just like "NO BABY COME BACK! LET ME LOVE YOU!"
HAPPILY EVER AFTER! Sort of.

So basically it's kind of like Sweet Evil but watered down and not as exciting. I think that I built this book up in my head, and by the time I finally got the book, I had it on such a high pedestal that there was no possible way that this book wouldn't disappoint me. While I think this book was boring, I do take full responsibility for my part in the disappointment. Either way, read it and tell me what y'all think about it.

My Overall Opinion: I didn't hate this book, but I didn't love it either. It was just a meh for me. Even then, I'd still recommend the book to anyone who asks for an angel story that doesn't read like a bad Stephenie Meyer novel *AHEM* FALLEN was that mean? That was mean. At least the concept of the book is original, and the writing is eloquent enough that it can keep you interested.

Sweet Evil by Wendy Higgins

Title: Sweet Evil
Author: Wendy Higgins
Pages: 454
Publication Date: May 1st, 2012
Publisher: HarperTeen

The Basic Summary: Anna Whitt is your typical good girl. You know, the one who calls her adoptive mom to let her know she's safe, the one who turns in her homework on time, every day. She's the girl who Just Says No to drugs, an it's a good thing she does, because her well being, and the well being of the ones she loves depends on it. Anna has always known that she's, shall we say, different from everyone else. She can see the "colors" of everyone she meets, a secret she reveals to no one. When Anna meets Kaidan Rowe, everything she thought she knew about herself, and the world changes, and she's left struggling to keep the ones she loves safe.

My Review: I actually enjoyed this book a lot. Lately, I've been reading a lot of fallen angel books, and this one is by far the best I've encountered. At first, i wasn't particularly fond of Anna, she was just too.. Good. But as I continued reading, she evolved as a character, and by the end I was rooting for a happy ending. Basically, Anna encounters Kaidan ("Kai, like Thai, but yummier." Anna's words, not mine) while at a concert with her best friend, and she's immediately drawn to him. As the relationship develops between the two, Anna learns about a whole world she never knew existed, and is introduced to a life she neither wanted, or is prepared for. While there were parts where Anna was naive to the point of stupidity, she was an overall likable character, as was Kaidan. Kaidan is the bad boy of the book. As the son of the Baron of Lust (oh yes, they're not called demons in this book, the head honchos are called Barons of whatever particular sin they're supposed to tempt people to), his job is to tempt unwitting teen girls into his bed. At first, Kaidan enjoyed his role, and he excelled at it; but once he met Anna, all of that changed. This is actually one of the few things that annoyed me about the book- it's completely unrealistic that he'd sudden have a change of heart so quickly after meeting Anna. I wish that Higgins had given it more transition time instead of having Kaidan meet Anna and about a week later, suddenly having a change of heart about what he does.


My Overall Opinion: I really enjoyed this book overall, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who asked.

My Life Next Door by Huntley Fitzpatrick

Title: My Life Next Door
Author: Huntley Fitzpatrick
Pages: 304
Publication Date: June 14th 2012
Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers

The Basic Summary: If you didn't know her, it would seem that Samantha Reed has the perfect life. She's pretty, does well in school, and her family has money. Samantha should be content, but she's not. Samantha often finds herself on her room, spying on the neighbors next door. The Garrett's are everything that Samantha and her family are not. Loud, close, and numerous. For years, Sam has been spying on the Garrett's, watching them interact and grow with each other, dreaming about what it would be like to be a part of a family like that, and one night, she gets a chance to know. What happens after that is crazy and wonderful and confusing- it's her life next door.

My Review: Another book that I absolutely adored. If Samantha had attended my school, she's one of those girls who I would've written off as a snob. It's not because she's rude, in fact, she'd incredibly mild tempered. Samantha Reed is, for all intents and purposes, incredibly socially awkward. It's not that she's weird (she's actually quite normal), she just has a hard time relating to people, which is why she was not only an interesting character, but one I could relate to. The same goes for all the Garrett's. Each member of the Garrett family was oddly endearing and it quickly becomes clear why Samantha was so drawn to them. Samantha's mother, Senator Grace Reed, is a different story. I realize that she isn't exactly supposed to be liked, but Fitzpatrick may have gone a little overboard with the bad mother character. Grace has every negative personality trait anyone could possibly dream up for a fictional mother. She's vain, controlling, distant, but worst of all, she has a hard time owning up to her mistakes (this becomes quite important towards the end of the novel). Through all of this, Samantha still manages to come out relatively unscathed by her mothers poor choices, and for this, I am glad. I really enjoyed the romance aspect of this novel, and I am SO glad that Fitzpatrick didn't pull a classic YA romance move (you know, the one where the characters meet, and within 3 days are completely head over heels in "love" with each other?) Overall, this was a pretty good book, the story was convincing enough, and while it was primarily a novel about a romance between Samantha and Jase, Fitzpatrick still managed to cover other topics (addiction, friendships, making difficult decisions) and deal with them in a convincing way.

My Overall Opinion: I would definitely recommend this book to someone else, in fact, I'd gladly read it again, something I usually don't do with books.