Deal of the Day

Hello everyone!

Todays deal of the day is for the Beautiful Creatures series of books. Each book is marked down to $2.99 per book (Kindle edition).
I have not read these books yet, but will be reading them very soon. Many of you may have seen the trailer for the movie made from this book, but here is the plot summary of book one in case you are unfamiliar(taken directly from Amazon.com):

There were no surprises in Gatlin County.
We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.
At least, that's what I thought.
Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong.
There was a curse.
There was a girl.
And in the end, there was a grave.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.

Click here for the Kindle edition of the book, only $2.99.

HAPPY READING!

Relatively Famous

Book Title: Relatively Famous
Author: Jessica Park
1.5 out of 5 Stars

Plot Background:

Dani McKinley is your typical Michigan teen. She loves sleepovers and boys and swoons over movie stars. Her mother, Leila, is in love with her longtime boyfriend, Alan, and although Dani doesn't know her father, she feels that her life is complete without him. She never thought she would meet her father, and she never thought that when she found out who he is, she would bombarded by paparazzi  Dani soon learns that her father is famed action star Mark Ocean, and after much deliberation with a high strung agent, she is swept off to stay for the summer with him in his LA home. Dani is pampered and meets new friends, while learning the truth about old friends, and the LA lifestyle threatens to change Dani forever. She learns the hard truth about her father, just as her father is learning his true feelings about her. Dani also falls in love with a few boys while in LA, but the real love she discovers is her fathers.

My Thoughts:

When I started this book, I knew it would be light and fun, which is just what I needed, but it surprised me in a few ways (not always good). As always, I will start with the good aspects of the book.

The first thing I enjoyed, was just the voice of the writer. I felt this way about Flat Out Love, but the authors voice is clear and it reminds me of my own writing voice. It is light and funny and just in general enjoyable for the reader.

I also liked the title of the book (I know this isn't really a literary aspect, but it was clever!).

One surprise for me, was character development: there wasn't much. In Flat Out Love I remember feeling like the characters were so lovable and developed, so I was expecting that in this book. Unfortunately, the development just wasn't there. Dani is sweet as candy one minute and then the next minute she is an LA diva, and it was like the transition was missing there. I found as well, that the reactions of some characters weren't realistic, but that is just a side note. I also felt like the romance between Dani and Nathan or even Dani and Jason was just missing. We, as readers, really don't get to know either boy, we can tell that Jason is a player, but we don't really see him doing much of that until the end. We know Nathan is cute and nerdy, but there aren't enough interactions between he and Dani to make a love connection. I also felt the same way about Mark and his romances. The characters showed promise, but it seemed like without the right editing they just fell flat.

As a side note: I also felt that it was strange that Renna (the agent) never comes back into the story, I thought maybe she would be in the climax in some way, but she just kind of disappears.

Another surprise for me when reading this book, that was negative for me but might be good to someone else, was the plot predictability. When I began reading the book, I called it. I said to myself "This is what will happen I would bet money." and it did. In other work by Park, the plots are less predictable, but this one was just very happy ending clean cut type of thing. No twists, no turns. I also felt that within the plot, some things turned out just a little too well. I wont give away the end, but I will say that you are a little bit like "Okay nobodys life is that perfect." There weren't even any LA mean girls, which I think could have spiced things up a lot! It was just a little too cutesy for me.

I felt like this book had a lot of potential and promise. I like Jessica Park, I want her books to do well, but I think that she needs an editor to get her work to where it needs to be to really fly. I found spelling errors throughout the book and plot errors or mistakes that would have been caught with a good editor, which is something I find a lot of when reading Kindle self-published books.

In general, this would be a good read for the beach or if you need a light quick and cutesy book to read at the airport. It is only $2.99, so if you are still on the fence it wont break the bank. Click Here for the Kindle edition of this book.

Happy Reading!!!

P.S. Dont forget to like us on Facebook!


Photo courtesy of Amazon.com

Posted by Krista Byrd