Smart Mouth Waitress

Smart Mouth Waitress

By Mimi Strong writing as Dalya Moon

Kindle Price: $2.99

Amazon’s summary:

Perry makes a strong first impression, from her white-girl dreadlocks to her uncensored opinions.

When she combs out her dreads on a whim, she catches the eye of a cute guy who’s a regular at The Whistle, the diner where she works as a waitress. He mistakes Perry for someone completely different: the girl of his dreams.

Perry tries to become that girl.

But it’s so hard to be normal.

And eyebrow piercings are so cute.

With her mother down in LA recording her comeback album, Perry’s in charge of the family household, and things are going to change. She starts with paint colors and moves on to doling out retributive punishments for her fifteen-year-old brother.

What Perry really wants, though, is her first boyfriend. She’s eighteen, and it’s about time!

Boyfriend candidates include: the cute but quiet restaurant regular, the all-too-willing coworker, or the outgoing artist who’s eager to whip off his clothes and model. One of these guys loves Perry exactly how she is, but how can she tell which one?

My Review: 

This is a funny enjoyable quick read book.  I have to say right from the start I wasn’t found of Marc and was rooting for Cooper. This story is an excellent lesson in being who you are and not changing for someone else.  Perry tells it like it is and at times I want to cringe for her.  She can be very naive. She does some stupid things on the way to finding her first boyfriend, but in the end all I believe all works out as it should.

Her best friend Courtney left something to be desired and Courtney’s girlfriend Britain was a character I could have done without. As Perry says though, how many of us can truely say we are still friends with the our best friend from high school.

This was a smart well written book.

Rating:  4

PG-13

Allusive Aftershock

Allusive Aftershock

By Susan Griscom

Amber Glow Books

Kindle Price: $2.99

Amazon’s summary:

A young adult novel about destruction, friendship, betrayal, and love.

What happens when a major earthquake changes life as you know it and the boy you thought you hated ends up saving you? Three times!

Courtland Reese is the guy everyone hates and makes fun of because … well, he is weird. He communicates with animals. Strange or interesting, seventeen-year-old Adela Castielle can’t quite figure out, but when he saves her from being trampled by her own horse, she begins to understand him a little better and wants to learn more about him.

But, Max–her best friend/dream guy/someday-to-be-her-husband-only-he-doesn’t-know-it-yet–hates Courtland with a passion. Adela wants to know why, except neither boy is talking.

When Max leaves her stranded in his parents’ wine cave with his worst enemy, Courtland, after what the experts are calling a “megathrust” earthquake, Adela starts to question her loyalty to Max as steamy kisses in a dark damp cellar only fuel her emotions with more conflict.

But does she really have time to worry about that when fire, destruction and mayhem surround her?

My Review:  This story is entirely about struggle.  From stem to stern these characters are tested.  This story is also about what it means to be human under the worst possible circumstances.  I don’t normally read disaster books.  I prefer teen angst to end of the world when I want mindless entertainment.  In fact I was surprised to find that this wasn’t mindless entertainment at all.  I found myself contemplating what I would do in such a situation or how I would react because there is a near constant onslaught of danger.  I found myself reading late into the night because the characters were always a breath away from meeting their end.  I wanted to know what their next scrape with danger would be.  All of the characters were strong but not over the top.  I really liked it.

Four stars

PG-13

AmberGlowBooks.com

Susangriscom.com

Open Minds

Open Minds (Book One of the Mind Jacking Trilogy)

By Susan Kaye Quinn

Kindle Price: $0.00

Amazon’s summary:

When everyone reads minds, a secret is a dangerous thing to keep.

Sixteen-year-old Kira Moore is a zero, someone who can’t read thoughts or be read by others. Zeros are outcasts who can’t be trusted, leaving her no chance with Raf, a regular mind reader and the best friend she secretly loves. When she accidentally controls Raf’s mind and nearly kills him, Kira tries to hide her frightening new ability from her family and an increasingly suspicious Raf. But lies tangle around her, and she’s dragged deep into a hidden underworld of mind jackers, where having to mind control everyone she loves is just the beginning of the deadly choices before her.

Recommended Reading Order
Open Minds
Closed Hearts
The Mindjack Origins Collection
Free Souls

My Review:

Imaging a future where no one talks to one and other, everyone only reads minds and you can’t hear anything. At first I had trouble with this. Let’s face it that is a little terrifying.  I can’t imagine being the one of the people who cannot hear what everyone else is saying, however, the more I read, the more I enjoyed the book.  I was taken into a world where there are no secrets from anyone and Kira is about to realize she has the biggest secret ever.  Kira can reach into your mind and control what you think and do, and has the ability to only let you hear what she wants you to.

While Kira struggles to uncover if this is a new ability or something that’s been around since everyone changed she is taken way out of her element and thrown into a world she didn’t know existed.  Then there is Raf her best friend and Simon the boy at school who is just like her. Her secret love for Raf and her need for Simon have her confused and scared.

If you’re looking for something different this is your book. I haven’t read the next one yet, but I definitely will be.  I really enjoyed it.

Rating:  4

PG

Ember/Ember X Dual Review

Ember

By Jessica Sorensen

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

Amazon summary:

What if you knew when someone was going to die?

For seventeen-year-old Ember, life is death. With a simple touch, she knows when someone will die. It’s her curse and the reason she secludes herself from the world. The only person who knows her secret is her best friend Raven.

Then she meets Asher Morgan. He’s gorgeous, mysterious, and is the only person Ember can’t sense death from. So when he pushes into her life, she doesn’t mind.

But when unexplained deaths start to haunt her town, Ember starts questioning why she can’t sense Asher’s death and what he may be hiding.

Lynn’s Review:

I should start by saying that I love Poe.  I mean to say that I love his work.  I have never gone to the extreme of having his picture on my wall.  That does not mean that I don’t have a framed post card of Oscar Wilde in my library though.  As I always say however never say never.  I love the vibrancy of Poe’s work there is a vitality to it that only Poe could ever have bestowed.  There was a hint of that vitality in this book.

I read the YA version and I really liked it.  Ember is likeable and there was a real sense of urgency in her struggle.  She goes from not knowing who she is to learning that the road ahead of her is going to be along and twisted one.  Jessica and I talked at length about our joint review for this book.  I haven’t read the new adult version.  I think I would be tainted by having read the very excellent first version of this book and honestly I would be crushed if I didn’t like the second version as much as the first.  From the beginning I was on the fence about Asher and Cameron.  I wasn’t sure who was who and I wasn’t sure who I wanted to be who.  I of course I knew that one of the boys was good and the other one bad but as bad as Cameron behaved I got the sense that he did it out of loneliness.  I got the sense that he was a little boy surrounded by all of his broken toys.  I’ll be excited to find out what happens next because I really don’t want Cameron to be gone.  I liked Asher but he appears a little too perfect.  I was convinced of that when he almost kissed her in the art room.  He tells her: “You have beautiful eyes, but there’s so much sadness in them.”  You want that in real life but in fiction you want to hear about the damaged boy.  I found that I wanted to read about Cameron burning ants with his magnifying glass.  I guess that would be trying to convince Ember to join him.  Which I guess means for him to try and drive her crazy.  I also want Ember to win.  She is an excellent underdog.  These are well crafted characters.  I can’t wait for the next book.  I’ll be willing to give it a try even if it is new adult.

Rating: 4

PG-13 :Violence

 

 

 

 

 

Ember X (Book 1 in the Death Collectors Series)

By Jessica Sorensen

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Smashwords

**Mature Content Advisory**
Recommended for readers 17+ due to sexual situations and language.

Amazon’s summary:

For nineteen-year-old Ember, life has always been about death. With a simple touch, she can see when someone will die. It’s her curse and the reason she secludes herself from the world. The only person that knows her secret is her best friend Raven.

But that changes when she meets Asher Morgan. He’s gorgeous and mysterious and is the only person Ember can’t sense death from. The silence he instills in her mind and body allows her to feel things she’s never been able to before, so despite her initial reservations, Ember lets Asher into her life and lets herself to get close to him. But the closer they get, the more Ember realizes that Asher is keeping secrets from her.

When unexplained deaths begin to surface in her town, Ember questions why she can’t see Asher’s death and what it is he’s hiding from her.

Jessica’s Review: 

I enjoyed this book.  It kept me interested the whole way thru and made me wonder about the characters. I felt drawn into Ember’s world and felt sorry for her. I wanted her to be happy.  I wondered almost all the way thru about Asher and Cameron.  There mystery was wonderfully created.

It took me about 2 days to finish it, so it was a quick read. The newly added adult content is definitely not for the young.  After discussion about the original book and this one it appears the story is the same as it was just with adult content.  It does beg the question though what will Jessica Sorensen do with the next one that comes out in the series.

Rating on a scale of 1-5:  4

R – Content not suitable for children under the age of 17.  There are sexual situations.