How Hard Can Love Be?
by Holly Bourne

Summary:

All Amber wants is a little bit of love. Her mum has never been the caring type, even before she moved to California, got remarried and had a personality transplant. But Amber's hoping that spending the summer with her can change all that.

And then there's prom king Kyle, the guy all the girls want. Can he really be interested in anti-cheerleader Amber? Even with best friends Evie and Lottie's advice, there's no escaping the fact: love is hard.

Teaser Tuesday: How Hard Can Love Be? by Holly Bourne (TT #1)

Photo: Kaboompics

Teaser Tuesday is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of A Daily Rhythm. Grab your current read, flip to a random page, share two teaser sentences, but avoid spilling spoilers!

I am currently halfway reading through How Hard Can Love Be? by Holly Bourne. It is Book # 2 of the Normal series. This continuing story of the Spinster Club girls focuses on tall and ginger, Amber.

Review: What We Saw by Aaron Hartzler

What We Saw
by Aaron Hartzler 

Summary:

Critically acclaimed memoirist Aaron Hartzler, author of Rapture Practice, takes an unflinching look at what happens to a small town when some of its residents commit a terrible crime. This honest, authentic debut novel—inspired by the events in the Steubenville rape case—will resonate with readers who've ever walked that razor-thin line between guilt and innocence that so often gets blurred, one hundred and forty characters at a time.

The party at John Doone's last Saturday night is a bit of a blur. Kate Weston can piece together most of the details: Stacey Stallard handing her shots, Ben Cody taking her keys and getting her home early. . . . But when a picture of Stacey passed out over Deacon Mills's shoulder appears online the next morning, Kate suspects she doesn't have all the details. When Stacey levels charges against four of Kate's classmates, the whole town erupts into controversy. Facts that can't be ignored begin to surface, and every answer Kate finds leads back to the same questions: Who witnessed what happened to Stacey? And what responsibility do they have to speak up about what they saw?

Stacking the Shelves (STS #5)

Image: Kaboompics

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews. It's all about sharing the books added to our shelves, may it be physical or virtual.

Hey, it's my first book haul post for 2016. This week sucks for me (and maybe for many of you, too) because of David Bowie and Alan Rickman's passing. I am literally angrily shaking my fist to Death and all his friends and screaming, "Noooo, why?!" I admit I don't know these great guys personally but they somehow became a part of me through their works. At least two David Bowie songs are familiar to me: 1.) "Heroes" which was the song used for that "infinite" moment in the movie adaptation of "The Perks of Being a Wallflower"; 2.) and "Under Pressure", an anthem that I blast on whenever I can't deal with life and stress. These songs have lifted me up and helped me through some tough times that it's a sad thing that world is now without the person who sung them. My sorrow for Alan Rickman is of another level for the obvious reason that for me, he was and will always be the flesh and face of Professor Severus Snape. Twenty-one gun salute to you, Sir. You made the Slytherin House proud.

My 2016 #RockMyTBR List

In my last post, I announced the various challenges that I'll be participating in for 2016, one of which is #RockMyTBR hosted by Sara of The YA Book Traveler. I already got the chance to skim over my bookshelf and came up with a list of books (mostly YA) that I intend to finish for this challenge. I will post my list here so other readers can check if we have some books in common that we could buddy read with. Also, this list will be my way of tracking my progress with the challenge. I'll update this post from time to time to cross out those ones that I've already knocked off from my TBR pile.

My 2016 Reading and Blogging Challenges

Yesterday, I made a post resolving on a lot of things related to reading and blogging. I imagine that it will be a lot of hard work and I'll need a lot of support and prodding from the reading community so I decided to join some challenges.  Here they are:

Goodreads 2016 Reading Challenge Probably the reading challenge with the most number of participants. Maybe it's popular 'coz it's so easy to join. As long as you have a Goodreads account, just set a number of how many books you want to read for the whole year and you're done! Also, you can re-set the number of your reading goal anytime. You know, so when it's already in the middle of the year and you feel that you set the bar too high for yourself, just tinker down that number and you're right back on track. For 2016, I doubled up my goal from twenty in 2015 to forty books this year. Let's see if I get to the end of 2016 without tinkering down that number. How about you? Have you set your Goodreads reading goal yet? If not, I think you should do. And while you're at it, you should also add me as your Goodreads friend. Here's a link to my account.

2016 Book Blogging Resolutions

Yay, it's the first day of 2016, Happy New Year! Secretly, I wish 2015 did not come by so swiftly because of this eternal nagging feeling that I haven't read enough in the past year. So moving on, I thought that I need to improve on a lot of things and I need to write them so I can remember to do them. Stick with me for a while, here goes my book blogging resolutions for 2016, in no particular order: