Lovesick by Tonya Hurley

Name: Lovesick

Author: Tonya Hurley

Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult

General Thoughts: Nice for seat-warmer books.

Rating: 2.5/5 stars.

First Lines

I touch roses. 

Scarlet Kensington knew very well what awaited her when she crossed the Hawthorne High input and suddenly was overcome with a sickening floral and sweet aroma: the same only perceived in the room of a hospital or sanatorium. -Valentine's Day- sighed, partly in relief, partly from fear.

Lovesick is the third and final installment in the Ghostgirl trilogy. In it, Charlotte has finally found what seems like true love, but on the last day of her working at the station, they tell her some news that might not be so good. They have to go back.

Reading this book was kind...bleh. I must admit and give credit to the author, this book was hell of a lot better than the first two. I mean, a lot of the troubles I saw didn't shine as much in this book. They were still there, but not as present as before. But in reality, it was kind of boring and plot-less. I was 100 pages in and I still didn't know what the purpose of it all was. My general thoughts were that this book wasn't really something.

Charlotte isn't as annoying as always. She does make some stupid and unnecessary decisions but I didn't really care about them. Scarlet did become more annoying in this book. She was just in crisis that didn't make sense and I really didn't feel about. And the whole Petula being changed thing was really ridiculous. It was just plain weird.

The narrator constantly telling about things that it shouldn't be saying intensifies in this book. There was a point where I broke and just didn't want to continue reading anymore. But I managed.

And that "plot twist", like, I guessed it at the beginning of the book. It was so obvious.

**SPOILER**

Really, Maddy was behind the girl this whole time. Are you serious? That was so obvious. And stupid.

**SPOILER**

There were some good moments along the book, it had it's moments, and I think this book was the best of the three. But at the same time I felt that it was so dragged on, like, enough, leave Charlotte alone.

Also, the same I-caused-so-many-troubles-and-yet-at-the-end-it-doesn't-matter ending happened and it was a really bad case of it.

I'm just glad I'm done with this series, really, I'm just over with this.

Overall, this book is a nice seat-warmer (there just for boring and no-book-left moments) and I don't think I'll ever read them again.

Homecoming by Tonya Hurley

Name: Homecoming

Author: Tonya Hurley

Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult

General Thoughts: If you really like this romance, whinny type...

Rating: 1.5/5 stars.

First Lines

A thread of Hope. 

Dying of boredom was not an option. Charlotte Usher was already dead. She drummed his fingers on the table fine, impassive, and moved from her three wheels office chair to one side of the cubicle and then the other, craning her neck to see if she could make a better perspective of the corridor.

Homecoming is the second book of the Ghostgirl series, starting right where the first book left off. It tells the story of Charlotte after she and her classmates graduate from deadthology class. But life after dead isn't as great as Charlotte imagined.

This second installment in the Ghostgirl series was as much a disappointment as Ghostgirl was. As full as potential as bad plot development.

The characters continue to be as annoying as they were before. The plot still lacks credibility and congruence. The same tie-knotted finale that doesn't match the hundreds of problems made. The narrator still tells you what character development should tell you and, again, it lacks any.

And probably my major problem with it is that, when you write a second book, you're supposed to learn about it and make improvements. In this book, there were no improvements made, if anything is seemed worse.

In this book starts one of my major pet peeves in books, besides insta-love (btw, this book has it, not a bad case, but still present) and love triangles (again, kind of has it, but not really). I'm talking about those friendship made out of nowhere. I'm talking about those bad thoughts toward someone you've just made. I'm talking about forming ideas out of nowhere that don't have to be. I'm talking about credibility in characters. I'll explain. 

Charlotte and Scarlet so surely affirm that they are the best friends forever in the world. And they even feel like if they missed a part of themselves. When in the reality, they never shared much about themselves, enough for making a "best friend" kind-of friendship. For most of the first book they were fighting and "backstabbing" each other and they never addressed this. or said sorry for it. They never really helped each other that much. So it's really hard for me to believe that they are the best friends in the world. But that's just me.

Another thing that bothered me about this book is the fact that the author changed so much things, like if we weren't going to notice. Like she changed characters completely, changed some details. It felt like it was another book from a different series but with the same characters and starting just where the other book left off. But they're not together. There's a discrepancy of what was set in the first book with what was said in the second book.

A lot of the decisions made in this book where completely incoherent. Like, why did Damen grab Petula and when to the Homecoming. That was just ridiculous and unnecessary. That was probably the moment where I gave up on trying to like this book. And then the whole Maddy thing felt like it was there because no better idea came at the moment, and then the rest of the things will be driven by it.

Reading this book was tiring really and I don´t think I enjoyed anything of it. But I do think that some of the things said, very few ones, like the conversation between Petula and Virginia, made some sense. And once again, the design is really beautiful. Those made the star and a half.

Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley

Name: Ghostgirl

Author: Tonya Hurley

Genre: Paranormal, Romance, Young Adult

General Thoughts: Good when you're young, bad when you're old

Rating: 2/5 stars.

First Lines

Have you ever felt invisible?

Charlotte Usher briskly crossed the parking lot towards the front door of Hawthorne High, repeating her positive mantra: "This year is different This is my year". Rather than remain forever etched in the memory of his school as the girl who just took up space, space-holder, which sucked the precious air that could well have been used for another much more helpful utility, this year will begin with another foot, a foot clad in the most exclusive and most uncomfortable shoes that money can buy.

Ghostgirl is the story about Charlotte, a seventeen year old girl who's been invisible for her whole life. The summer before her last school year she decides to change things, and comes back with the new resolution of becoming popular. But everything changes when on the first day, she dies.

I read this book when I was 10 years old or so. I tough they were really good. They brought this new idea of how was life after death, specially life after dead for teenagers. And I'm not going to lie, I fell for it. The whole idea was very attractive to me, the characters where awesome, they listened to good music, the book itself was very beautiful, amazing art job. And I must confess, I did something that it's kind of a sin, but back them I didn't know. I read the second book first. You see, my dad gave me this book as a gift, because I asked, but he didn't know anything about it and back then I didn't know about Goodreads or Booktube or anything like that, so I read the book and only after I finished it did I realize that it was the second book. A year later, I read this book.

The overall idea of this book is really nice, very interesting and kind of unique. It's about Charlotte and her life after dead, and how she has to deal with unfinished business and growing up and letting go. It really is a very good idea. And I would have loved it, if it wasn't for the execution. Wow, really, was I blind back when I started reading.

This book has one of the most annoying, not believable, very frustrating characters content I've ever read. They're so immature it's ridiculous, they do this things that don't have a reason to be and think stuff so ludicrous and ridiculous. And Charlotte is just plain annoying. She just makes decisions without thinking about anyone else and then says "Oh, poor me, I'm so lonely, nobody likes me, it's all my fault" and then does it again. And then we have Scarlet. She is actually one of the best characters, i believe. I think she's ok, I don't have much to say about her. The only thing I do hate about them is that they claim so fiercely that they are best friends and that they are forever when I doubt they ever talked for more than 10 minutes about themselves and they have literally nothing in common. Then we have the others like Petula and her friends. Oh, for God's sake WTF. Really. That it just plain ridiculous and stupid. And lastly, Damen (typical high school hottie name), if he's so nice, why is he with Petula? Just going to leave it there.

Then we have the plot. Like I said, the idea is interesting, but the execution? The plot is based in one stupid decision behind another and all turns around the high school prom. Apparently, that's the only thing that matters. And the whole book increasingly fills with problems and more problems, and when the end comes, it all just ties together like if nothing ever happened. It all worked out just perfect, even though she kind of screwed a lot of people lives and pissed almost all of them. We all love each other at the end. Yeah, right -.-'''

One thing that really annoyed me is how the narrator tells you everything. Like "She was a quiet girl, the kind that does this and that and she probably didn't know about this, but she likes her anyway, etc" and I'm just sitting there like "NO!", you're supposed to tell me about all of this through character development, which it has none by the way. And it continues to do this trough out all the book. It's like having a constant interruption for things that are unnecessary, have nothing to do with plot or I already knew, or all of them.

I liked a few things, like the concept of teenagers having to pass a class before going to heaven because of the unfinished business. That's really original. I liked it. Also, all those quotes at the beginning of every chapter. Those were really cool. And also the physical decoration of the book is beautiful. It really is.

At the end, a book that was unique and fun to read when I was younger, is now a very badly written book with annoying characters and unrealistic moments. The most I can recommend is for you to read this when you're younger, not after.

Monthly Bookmark - August

Oh, August, I'm so ready for you.

Yeah, I know, I'm late. But better late than never! This month I plan on reading a whole lot of bunch of books I've been meaning to read for such a long time. It'll be kind of a mix, mostly consisted of Historical Fiction and so, but I'll also be reading some Young Adult and some classics. And if everything goes as planned, this is what I'll be reading.

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

Catching Fire by Suzanne Collins

Sarah's Key by Tatiana de Rosnay

The Distant Hours by Kate Morton

The Island of a Thousand Fountains by Sarah Lark

The Titan's Curse by Rick Riordan

The Battle of the Labyrinth by Rick Riordan

The Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

Sense and Sensibility by Jane Austen

This are the books I plan on reading this month. It's very ambitious of me to try to read all this books, but I think I can manage. I don't really care if I don't read them all, but I do care for some books, they're the "important" ones, the ones I must read, doesn't matter what it takes. City of Souls is one of them, I need to finish the series now (at least what I own) because I need to move on from it, I feel kind of unease about not completing a series, specially one that I don't personally like as much so I don't really want to read it that much. But it's just gives me this feeling of uneasiness that I can't shake. So that's a must. Also, the Percy Jackson books, I want to finish rereading them now, I'm so excited for the books to come, and I'm already late for the read-a-long of two books a month. But they're short and supper fast paced, so I'll do it fast. I'd like to reread Catching Fire now, so I'm not that busy when Mockingjay Part 1 comes, because I plan on rereading Mockinjay for it, and those months are going to be quite full for me. And lastly, Sense and Sensibility is part of a project I'm starting called "Austenland Project" and I will talk more about it in my next post.

This TBR is very ambitious, but also flexible and it´s diverse and I think that's going to make August a great reading month. Again, I really doubt I´ll make through them all, but a girl can dream.

This month's bookmark theme is Catching Fire because it's one of the books I plan on reading this month and I just love Catching Fire that much. Also, with all the posters and the sneak peaks I'm just really excited about Mockingjay because I think they did an amazing job and it's all going to go amazing. And yeah, I did just drew a Mockingjay, and no, it is not pretty at all.

Anyway, I hope August is a great reading month for you, I know we're getting close to coming back to school, so take advantage of this time and read like if your life depended on it (like if it didn't already) and just have a great time before hell school starts.

Once again, thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful, full of books, non-spoiler day!

July Bookmark Wrap Up

And the most wonderful month of them all is over. Let us cry.

In all seriousness, July is over, another reading month has passed, my birthday passed as well. We also had the BookTubeAThon, which was a major failure for me. I went through some up and downs but I managed to get through it reading 5 books in total, which isn't much, but I'll take it. So without further ado, this are the books I read this month.

City of Glass by Cassandra Clare

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

Ghostgirl by Tonya Hurley

Homecoming by Tonya Hurley

Lovesick by Tonya Hurley

My first read this month was City of Glass. I though this book was good, definitely the best of the first three in the series. It was more action packed and had some pretty awesome stuff going on. But it was only good. Yet again I find myself annoyed at most of the characters, I don't really feel attached to any of them. A lot of the scenes didn't make sense, as in, they were saying and reacting to things in a completely different way as they should. This kind of things really bothers me in books, and I can't get past it. Also, it was highly predictable, I knew half the things that were going to happen at chapter two and the major plot twist was pretty obvious too. But it was better in a lot of senses. At the end I gave this 3.75 on Goodreads and left me feeling slightly better about wasting my time reading this series.

After that I followed the series reading City of Fallen Angels. This book, was just, meh. I didn't like it at all, I though it was plain boring, just some whining teenagers whining around and then doing stupid things and out of the blue, and then tortured Jace was just too much to me to handle, I really hated him in this book. He was starting to sound like Edward. Yeah, this Edward. Once again, highly predictable and really disappointing. And that ending was just ridiculous. I spent half the book rolling my eyes and the other thinking about anything except the book. It did have some good stuff to it, but they're too little to be highlighted.

Next I read the complete Ghostgirl series (excluding the novella, because I've had enough of this shit) which are Ghostgirl, Homecoming and Lovesick. I read the first two books back in 2011, maybe more, not really sure. And I remember I though they were kind of cool, really amazing and I was super excited to read the third. But it was a really long time until I got the third one, and when I did I decided to read them all as a marathon. That time is now. And I really can't remember what did I like so much about this books that made me read them and seek for the third. Seriously, they're kind of superficial and full of flaws and pet peeves of mine. Once again, this are the moments where you realize how much you've grown. The overall rating of the series would be two stars and a half out of five stars. Not really going to much into it because I have the reviews coming up soon, where I talk long and hard on them. But I did give the third book a three out of five stars on Goodreads. It was slightly better.

After that I read around 100+ pages of The Titan's Curse, I'm currently reading it, so it'll be on my August TBR. And somewhere between Ghostgirl and City of Fallen Angels I read forty or so pages of City of Lost Souls. I don't remember shit anything about them so I'll start reading it from the beginning, again, part of my TBR.

That's all the books I've read this months. It was kind of a poor reading month, but I'm not really sad about. But I do expect to step up my game this month, since I'll be a hell of a lot freer than last month.

And as always, thanks for reading and I hope you have a wonderful, full of books, no-spoiler day!