Mini-reviews: The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen and The Secret History by Donna Tartt

I use Grammarly's plagiarism checker because plagiarism is one of those "ism"s that is just not cool. Ever.

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It's the end of the week and I thought I would post mini-reviews of some of the books I read this year but never got to reviewing! One thing these mini-reviews have in common is that they are of books by amazingtastic authors: J.K.Rowling, Sarah Dessen and Donna Tartt!

Publication date: April 30th, 2013

Publisher: Mulholland Books

Stars: 4.5/5

Links: Amazon|Goodreads

Source: Bought

A brilliant debut mystery in a classic vein: Detective Cormoran Strike investigates a supermodel's suicide.

After losing his leg to a land mine in Afghanistan, Cormoran Strike is barely scraping by as a private investigator. Strike is down to one client, and creditors are calling. He has also just broken up with his longtime girlfriend and is living in his office.

Then John Bristow walks through his door with an amazing story: His sister, thelegendary supermodel Lula Landry, known to her friends as the Cuckoo, famously fell to her death a few months earlier. The police ruled it a suicide, but John refuses to believe that. The case plunges Strike into the world of multimillionaire beauties, rock-star boyfriends, and desperate designers, and it introduces him to every variety of pleasure, enticement, seduction, and delusion known to man.

You may think you know detectives, but you've never met one quite like Strike. You may think you know about the wealthy and famous, but you've never seen them under an investigation like this.

Introducing Cormoran Strike, this is the acclaimed first crime novel by J.K. Rowling, writing under the pseudonym Robert Galbraith.

REVIEW

The Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith (also known as J.K.Rowling) made me feel all warm and happy inside; a feeling I haven't gotten since I finished reading the final Potter book. I must warn you though, that the similarities between The Cuckoo's Calling and Harry Potter end here. JKR couldn't have deviated more from her previous genre of choice. From The Cuckoo's Calling, you cannot expect magic, beasts and other curious creatures or even a "muggle" reference.

What you do get, though, is a solid murder mystery, JKR's inimitable style of writing, well-fleshed out characters, accents and quirks. What makes it a worthy series to invest in is that the main character Cormoran Strike is worth rooting for. He has good sense, is not flashy but still has an interesting past! I'm already waiting for the next Cormoran Strike novel and I'm so glad JKR is not done writing! She does it like no one else!

Publication date: June 4th, 2013

Publisher: Viking Juvenile

Stars: 3/5

Links: Amazon|Goodreads

Source: Bought

Luke is the perfect boyfriend: handsome, kind, fun. He and Emaline have been together all through high school in Colby, the beach town where they both grew up. But now, in the summer before college, Emaline wonders if perfect is good enough.

Enter Theo, a super-ambitious outsider, a New Yorker assisting on a documentary film about a reclusive local artist. Theo's sophisticated, exciting, and, best of all, he thinks Emaline is much too smart for Colby.

Emaline's mostly-absentee father, too, thinks Emaline should have a bigger life, and he's convinced that an Ivy League education is the only route to realizing her potential. Emaline is attracted to the bright future that Theo and her father promise. But she also clings to the deep roots of her loving mother, stepfather, and sisters. Can she ignore the pull of the happily familiar world of Colby?

Emaline wants the moon and more, but how can she balance where she comes from with where she's going?

Sarah Dessen's devoted fans will welcome this story of romance, yearning, and, finally, empowerment. It could only happen in the summer.

REVIEW

The Moon and More by Sarah Dessen was a bit of a disappointment, to be honest. It is not a comfort read like Just Listen was, nor does it shine like The Truth About Forever. It didn't provoke me enough like Dreamland. On the other hand, it wasn't that bad either. I found the family dynamics heartbreakingly charming at times, despite the presence of discord. When it comes to the elements of a typical Dessen novel, it has it all: the Dessen Girl, the locale and this time the (not-so) Dessen boy.

However, the formula started to feel a bit worn out. While it is a quick, breezy read, and I'll always love Sarah Dessen and her books, this one didn't work for me.


Publication date: April 13th, 2004

Publisher: Vintage

Stars: 3.5/5

Links: Amazon|Goodreads

Source: Bought

Richard Papen arrived at Hampden College in New England and was quickly seduced by an elite group of five students, all Greek scholars, all worldly, self-assured, and, at first glance, all highly unapproachable. As Richard is drawn into their inner circle, he learns a terrifying secret that binds them to one another...a secret about an incident in the woods in the dead of night where an ancient rite was brought to brutal life...and led to a gruesome death. And that was just the beginning...

REVIEW

The Secret History in five words: sex, money, youth, scandal and the not-so-perfect crime. Once I started reading the book, I could not stop. At times, I could barely breathe for the fear of making the events set in motion in the book even worse. The is a nail-biting at-the-edge-of-your-seat novel about an outsider who befriends these rich, seemingly untouchable Greek students in a private college. There's lust, hate, fear and enough paranoia to go around. If you're a fan of rich-kids-in-prep-school novels, this is one of those; only it's much darker and set in college.

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This post is sponsored by Grammarly. All opinions expressed in the mini-reviews are my own. 

Two Minute Reviews: Good Oil by Laura Buzo and The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay by Rebecca Sparrow

I've decided to start Two Minute Reviews as a way to feature books I either read months ago and never got to review or books I feel could be reviewed together! For instance, take these two really cool books written by Australian authors that are both simple, sweet and awesometastically awesome. They are both also very coming-of-age and I highly recommend reading them! It fills you with this warmth that some books just don't achieve in spite of doing everything right.

I'm talking about Good Oil by Laura Buzo and The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay by Rebecca Sparrow!

Good Oil by Laura Buzo

from goodreads
'Miss Amelia Hayes, welcome to The Land of Dreams. I am the staff trainer. I will call you grasshopper and you will call me sensei and I will give you the good oil. Right? And just so you know, I'm open to all kinds of bribery.'

From the moment 15-year-old Amelia begins work on the checkout at Woolworths she is sunk, gone, lost...head-over-heels in love with Chris. Chris is the funny, charming, man-about-Woolies, but he's 21, and the 6-year difference in their ages may as well be 100. Chris and Amelia talk about everything from Second Wave Feminism to Great Expectations and Alien but will he ever look at her in the way she wants him to? And if he does, will it be everything she hopes?

Review: 

Amelia is worth more than she thinks she is. At fifteen, she experiences a plethora of firsts- including hopelessly crushing on Chris, her co-employee at Woolies who is much older than she is. It is easy to see how any fifteen year old would fall for Chris! He seems like The Guy Who Knows Everyone and is funny and even appears to be wise. While I thought the book was mainly going to be about Amelia, I was surprised to find out that it was also about Chris! The story is told in both Amelia and Chris's perspectives- voices that feel so different as they both have different obstacles to overcome. Obstacles that come with being fifteen and twenty one respectively!

My thoughts? It's such a gorgeous book. I loved how, despite being nineteen, which is neither fifteen nor twenty one years old, I got lost in both Amelia's and Chris's worlds and could relate to both of them. Amelia's  story made me feel nostalgic while Chris's problems were something I could anticipate. I'm thankful for the way the book ended. I honestly can't see it ending any other way.

Publication date: August, 2010

Publisher: Allen & Unwin

Source: Bought

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

The Year Nick McGowan Came to Stay by Rebecca Sparrow

from goodreads

Seventeen-year-old Rachel Hill is the girl most likely to succeed. And the girl most likely to have everything under control . . . that is, until her dad invites Nick McGowan, the cutest boy at school, to live with them. Rachel worries that this could only be a recipe for disaster, but her best friend Zoe thinks it’s the perfect opportunity for lurve. Sparks start to fly for all the wrong reasons. Nick finds Rachel spoiled and uptight and Rachel dismisses Nick as lazy and directionless. But a secret from Nick’s past draws them together and makes the year Nick McGowan came to stay one that Rachel will never forget.

Review:

The cover is adorable! The Prologue was cute. The Epilogue wraps things up neatly. The middle is light, quirky and engaging all at once! I had so much fun reading this book! The writing was good but more than that, I fell in love with the quirky characters! Nick was awesome but he was kind of overshadowed by goody-goody yet amusing Rachel Hill! I liked how worked up Rachel got when she realised the school's hottie, Nick McGowan, was coming to live with her family. I liked how she took down her posters and made every effort to look cool- as embarrassed as she was by her efforts. (And as annoyed as she was that Nick was coming in the first place). I would've done the same thing at her age!

And Zoe, Rachel's best friend had me snorting every few minutes! I adore her! Most of the time, she stole the show! Rachel and Nick were amusing and by the time we got to know all there was to know about Nick McGowan, I adored them both! Please go read this book now! I loved that it was set in the late 80s (go cordless phones!) and the overall warm-fuzzies this book gave me!

Publication date: 8th April, 2008

Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Source: Bought

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars