Review: Crashing Into You by B. D. Rowe

Title: Crashing Into You

Author: B. D. Rowe 

Publishers: B. D. Rowe

Date of Publication: Oct 3rd, 2013

Genre: NA, Contemporary Romance

Formats Available: Paperback, E-book 

Length: 310 pages

My Source: Ebook (epub)

Bookish college sophomore Sydney Baker wants Evan Taylor with every ounce of her being. The hottest stud on campus, Evan is six foot four, ripped, stacked with muscles. He's even easy to talk to. There's just one problem: he's her roommate Melanie's boyfriend. But when Melanie tragically dies after a night of wild partying, Sydney and Evan turn to each other in a time of intense grief. And it doesn't take long for their close friendship to blossom into something more. Unfortunately for Sydney, secrets from the past soon put her relationship with Evan to the test. Especially when a sexy blonde freshman makes her way into Evan's life, and tries to rip away everything Sydney holds close to her heart. 

 **Mature Situations and Sexual Content - Recommended for Ages 17+**

I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review, as part of a blog tour. I generally choose ARCs very carefully, but now I wonder what made me choose this book!

The cover seemed to be pretty interesting, I admit. I've read only a few NA contemporary romance novels before so I had thought I'd give it a try. I wish I hadn't.! It’s less about romance and more about physical intimacy.

Sydney, a college sophomore (who is designated as 'bookish' in the synopsis, but I don't understand why!) is hopelessly in love with a hot guy Evan Taylor who happens to be her roommate Melanie's boyfriend. Evan is friendly, and sometimes even flirty with Sydney, but he is 'loyal' to her girlfriend until Melanie dies mysteriously in her hostel room. And then the inevitable happens, Evan and Sydney fall in love with each other. After spending an awesome summer together, they rejoin college to find that Melanie's sister, Michelle, who looks eerily similar to Mel has joined as a freshman and she apparently is after Evan, the other way round too. One night Sydney discovers Evan in Michelle’s room and a drunk Michelle claims that Evan was the cause of Melanie’s death (Melanie died for over drinking and Evan was supposedly the one to put her in such a situation) and then after a number of super-dramatic events Evan and Sydney stays together.

The story is disgusting, if it could be considered as a story at all. There are descriptions of love-making, at least ten times, whenever Evan and Sydney got into bed together. Things are all same and extremely boring after a few chapters and it took me great efforts to finish the book. *Phew*

One astonishing thing about the story is that Sydney is strictly against people getting drunk and drive after that because in high school her boyfriend James had died in an accident whereas she survived miraculously (and both of them were drunk at that time). The accident expensed the lives of a 9 year old boy and his mother so Sydney’s reaction to drunkards is more or less justified. The thing that surprises me is that she never mourns over the death of James. If James was responsible for his own death, so was she, equally responsible for that accident. But all her grief was for the other victims, which is okay, but nothing at all for James!

The story-telling is lucid but the unfortunate thing is that there wasn’t much to tell. I liked the character of Lukas, Sydney’s nerd, intelligent, sensible (and homosexual) best friend. But frankly speaking I didn’t adore either of Sydney and Evan’s character. To cut things short if you’re eyeing some erotic elements in a book, pick this one. But if you’re looking for a good story, I’d recommend you not to choose this book.

B.D. Rowe is a Sacramento native with a penchant for crafting tales of romance, mystery, and intrigue. Crashing Into You is B.D. Rowe's New Adult debut.

Goodreads Page of Author

Review: Wicked (Pretty Little Liars: Book Five) by Sara Shepard

Title: Wicked

Author: Sara Shepard

Series: Pretty Little Liars #5

Publishers: Harper Teen

Date of Publication: 25th Nov, 2008

Genre: YA, Suspense

Format: Library Binding

Length: 312 pages

My Source: E-book

Synopsis

In idyllic Rosewood, Pennsylvania, four very pretty girls just can't help but be bad. . . . Hanna will do anything to be Rosewood's queen bee. Spencer's digging up her family's secrets. Emily can't stop thinking about her new boyfriend. And Aria approves a little too strongly of her mom's taste in men. Now that Ali's killer is finally behind bars, the girls think they're safe. But those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it. And they should know by now that I'm always watching. . . .

Review

I am actually very disappointed after reading this book. I loved the mystery that surrounded the previous books of the series, but after reading this one, I've lost the interest to read the sequels. 

As the last book "Unbelievable" revealed the identity of A and Alison's killer (presumably wrong though!), I was wondering what happens next in the story. That's why I started reading this one.

From the very beginning, it was BORING. At some point I thought I might not be able to finish the book but thankfully I did, though it look much more time than usual. The prequels have already built the characters of these girls- Spencer, Aria, Hanna and Emily, so it was monotonic to read the same kind of things over again. 

Moreover, the incidents were way too predictable. 

Like Spencer's parents being mad at her for confessing the truth about the Golden Orchid thing (it was obvious! What did she think? Her parents would be proud of her for being honest? Duh! Even after finding out the truth the Hastings insisted on keeping the secret safe, they didn't even rebuke Spencer for stealing Melissa's essay. So it was obvious their reaction would be like this, if not worse!). Being unmentioned in her grandmother's will, Spencer finds out that she is adopted child, that too with the help of Andrew Campbell!

Hanna is all the same- typical, annoying-wanting to be popular. Kate wants to befriend her and she agrees and ends up being friends with Naomi and Riley; only to realize later that Kate's proposal was not quite fruitful for her (as usual!). And this bitch ignores Lucas for all these stupid popularity thing after all that Lucas has done for her! So damn irritating!

Aria is stuck with her mother's boyfriend Xavier. 

And Emily is now attracted towards a boy! 

I loved the character of Lucas. He is thoroughly adorable and seems like the only sensible human being. 

As things turn out to be, it ends in a note where they found Ian dead, so obviously, Ian's not Ali's killer. So who is it? (Personally I think its Jason, Ali's brother. Its just intuition).

Also the girls are getting texts from new A again. So who the hell are sending those creepy notes?

I don't know and I won't know for some time now as I've no plan to read the next book soon. I feel like it'd have been better if I abandoned the series after book 4.

About The Author

Sara Shepard graduated from NYU and has an MFA from Brooklyn College. She currently lives in Tucson, Arizona. Sara's Pretty Little Liars novels were inspired by her upbringing in Philadelphia's Main Line.

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Review: Obsidian (Lux Series: Book One) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

How I Came to Know About this Book: Through Goodreads.

Format of The Book: Ebook (epub version).

Genre: Paranormal Romance/ Young Adult

Length of The Book: 335 pages (for paperback)

A Short Synopsis: Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I'd pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring.... until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something...unexpected happens. 

The hot alien living next door marks me. 

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon's touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I'm getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades. 

If I don't kill him first, that is. (Goodreads Description). 


Characters of The Book: Katy, Her mother, Daemon, Dee, Dawson, Bethany, Lesa, Carissa, Ash, Adam, Andrew, Matthew, Simon.


My Review: Initially it felt like I was reading a carbon copy of Stephanie Meyer’s “Twilight”.  To my disgust, it was all the same.

3 years after the death of Katy’s father, her mom decided that they should move on. And for that they shifted from Florida to West Virginia, just like Bella left Phoenix and went to Forks. Well, reasons may be different but the thing is same. They move to some rarely populated small town and come across some extra-terrestrial creatures! I was annoyed as I wasn’t ready to read a replica of “Twilight”. But the names, both “Lux” and “Obsidian” restrained me from terminating the book midway.

From the beginning it was certain that Daemon wasn’t going to be a vampire- then what was he? I needed the answer, so I kept reading. And I’d say it was worth reading as finding out the truth about them was quite fascinating. The concept of Lux, Luxens, Arum, and Obsidian was fresh and adorable. 

The extraordinary things the Luxens could do were amazing actually. 

But other than that it was so much comparable to "Twilight", IN EVERY RESPECT! Like,

Daemon = Edward (Why not? Apart from belonging to different species (or whatever), they are basically the same.)

Katy = Bella (Do I even need to explain this?)

Dee = Alice (Aren't they alike?)

Luxen = Vampires (of different kinds, but with super powers and all that mysterious behaviours!)

Arum = The "Anti-Cullen" vampires. (The Arums travel in four and the vampires too travel in groups. The Arums seeking revenge for the death of their brethren reminded me of Victoria hunting for Bella to take revenge of James's death! So so similar!!)

And Katy's trace or the glow of light around her whenever she is saved by Daemon from some sort of danger (which is obviously damn frequent) is similar to the vampiric smell Bells carries for hanging out with the bunch of Vampires! Ridiculous!!

Another flaw was the predictability of the story. It was predictably throughout, all the incidents. Towards the end things looked a bit better to my relief and that's why I could complete the book.

Another thing (apart from what is said before) I liked about the book is Katy and Daemon's chemistry. I kind of loved the "Jerk Daemon" and his kick-ass attitude- for me, it was the essence of the story. The oh-they-have-almost-kissed moments were enjoyable and when they finally did kiss, I felt it was worth waiting so long, splendid and romantic. 

Other than that Dee's lively presence kept up the pace of the story. 

And I think if I hadn't read Twilight already, probably I'd have liked it much more.

Actually with the kind of reviews I had seen for this book, the expectation was very high. In that comparison, this was a huge disappointment! 

Rating: 

My Reaction: