Review: Swapped by a Kiss by Luisa Plaja

Swapped by a Kiss by Luisa Plaja (review copy) - WARNING! I cannot review this book without spoiling the first book, Split by a Kiss. Do not read any further if you plan on reading Split and don't want to be spoiled.

I wish I wasn't myself anymore.
I wish I was her.
I wish I was Jo.

Rachel hates her life. Wen her on/off boyfriend David goes to a music festival, she decides to surprise him - but she gets a shock of her own. Not only does she find David kissing someone else, but it's their friend Jo! Super-lovely, super-loved, all-round perfect Jo.
Rachel runs away, wishing she could leave her life behind - and she suddenly finds herself in Jo's body! Can she keep this swap a secret? Can she unravel what's really going on? Can she get to grips with Jo's out-of-control curly hair?
And if she discovers that being in someone else's shoes isn't all it's cracked up to be, can she ever be herself again? From the back of the book.

As most of you will know, I am a huge Luisa Plaja fan. I loved Split by a Kiss, the first in this duology, so when I was offered the chance to review Swapped by a Kiss, I jumped at the chance! And just as I expected, I loved it!

Swapped starts a few months after Split ends. Jo is with Albie, Tori is friends with Jo now instead of the popular gang, and most importantly Rachel is with David. Ish. With her fiery personality and raging jealousy, arguments are common between the two of them. One such fight happens before David goes to England for a festival, but when Rachel decides to surprise him by turning up at the festival, he finds him kissing Jo.

Jo splitting in two in the first book was just awesome. Following her down two different paths at the same time was awesome, but watching Rachel in Jo's body, trying to be British and nice was just genius! I didn't really relate all that much to Rachel, as she's hugely into graphic novels, comics and superheroes - not really my bag. But I sympathised with her and her situation. Not only are the guys in Rachel-Rachel's and Rachel-Jo's life "dastards", but there are more serious issues running through the book; identity and self-image.

Before the swap took place, it was heart breaking to read Rachel's thoughts about herself, and about Jo. What it says above in the blurb, "Super-lovely, super-loved, all-round perfect Jo," is exactly what Rachel thinks of her, where as she describes herself as "oversized". She believes she's a nightmare, and if she was Jo, she wouldn't have to deal with the crap going on in her life, and everyone would like her better - especially David. It's just awful having to read about Rachel's low self-esteem and her other issues, and not being able to give her a hug. It's really sad!

However, this is not to say Swapped is hard, emotional reading. Swapped is quite a light, humourous read, and pretty fun. The scrapes Rachel gets herself into in Jo's body are just hilarious. Attempting to use British words, and make up fake swear words - because that's what British people do - is cause for much laughter. Jo's diary entries of conversations she has with Rachel's mum, while pretending to be angry, unkind, and American are also hilarious.

All in all, a great quick, light, fun read that touches on some serious subjects. This would make such a good beach read! I loved it, and I so hope there is going to be another story about these characters. Maybe involving one of the boys this time!

Thanks to Random House for sending me a review copy.

Published: 29th April 2010
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Buy on Amazon UK
Buy on The Book Depository - free international shipping
Luisa Plaja's Website

My review of Split by a Kiss

Other Reviews:
So Many Books, So Little Time
The Book Sloth
I Was a Teenage Book Geek

Continue reading Review: Swapped by a Kiss by Luisa Plaja

Review: Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti

Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti (ARC) - Best friends Lani and Erin couldn’t be more different. Lani’s reserved and thoughtful; Erin’s bubbly and outgoing. Lani likes to do her own thing; Erin prefers an entourage. There’s no possible way they could be interested in the same guy.

So when Erin starts dating Jason, Lani can’t believe she feels such a deep connection with him—and it may be mutual. The more Lani fights it, the more certain she feels that it’s her fate to be with Jason. But what do you do when the love of your life is the one person you can’t have? From Amazon US

When I received this book, I was so looking forward to reading it! Not only does the book sound incredible, but the cover is just beautiful, too. So, understandably, I picked it up to read fairly soon after receiving it, sure I was in for a brilliant read. Unfortunately, I was wrong. I was so very disappointed in this book, I actually feel quite sad about it; there was so much potential, and it all just fell pretty flat for me.

I’ll give some positives first. Lani and Erin are seriously interested in all things to do with fate. Lani will check her horoscope every Monday without fail. Each month, the girls look into a new method of finding out their fate; tarot, palmistry, numerology, dream analysis, the list goes on. When I was younger I was really interested in similar things, and to a smaller degree I still am. I never went to the extremes that these girls did – I never checked my horoscope religiously, or anything like that, but I did think it was all pretty neat, and so reading about it in this book was pretty interesting. Though, after the beginning, where it was explained how interested in all these things they were, it kind of dwindled off, yet Lani kept going on about things happening for a reason, and fate was behind all things, and it got a little tiresome.

That small part was pretty much the only thing about this book I liked. I wasn’t too keen on the characters. Lani felt a little boring to me; she’s a bit of an eco warrior, and although I do my bit for the environment in my own home, Lani’s whole life practically revolves around saving the world, and it’s just not something I’m interested in reading. Erin was ridiculous with her “We’re meant to be!” about her and Jason, and I thought she was a bit superficial. I didn’t feel there was much depth to Jason; other than that he likes mentoring younger kids and walking along no longer in use railway tracks, I couldn’t tell you a thing about him. The only characters that were fairly cool were Blake and Connor, but they weren’t in the book for a huge amount of time. There was practically no chemistry between Jason and Lani, or Jason and Erin.

Another thing I didn’t like about the book was the way it was written. So many times throughout the book I got annoyed during the dialogue. Lani is telling this story, and when she’s telling the reader what some said, more often than not, she will say “And Erin was like ‘Blah blah blah,’” or “Erin was all ‘Blah blah blah.’” It grated on my nerves. There’s also the fact that so much of this novel told, rather than shown. I can’t count how many times Lani would talk about how she, or her and Jason, or her and someone else, did something for an hour/a few hours/the rest of the day. I wasn’t counting as I was reading, but I can only remember actually seeing Lani and Jason kiss twice in the whole book. I just didn’t get to see much of what I wanted to see. Perhaps there would have been more chemistry between them if I actually got to see them do things for more than five minutes.

I was just so disappointed in this book, and it’s so frustrating. However, I am just one person; although I personally didn’t like it, you might find this a really good book. I would definitely check out some other reviews before writing it off completely. I may not have been a fan, but you could be.

This ARC was won in a contest, not received from a publisher.

Published: 4th May 2010
Publisher: Viking Juvenile
Pre-order on Amazon UK
Pre-order on Amazon US
Susane Colasanti’s Website

N.B - Because my review is far from positive, I would like to point my readers in the direction of some other reviews. If you have read and reviewed this book, please leave a comment with a link and I'll link to your review. Thank you.

Continue reading Review: Something Like Fate by Susane Colasanti

Review: Diary of a Crush: French Kiss by Sarra Manning

Diary of a Crush: French Kiss by Sarra Manning New town, new college, new people, Edie's feeling overwhelmed. What if nobody wants to be her friend? But then something happens that turns her life upside down: Edie spots Dylan. Messy-haired, pouty, frustratingly elusive Dylan. It's love at first sight!

Fast forward to the college trip to Paris and things are really hotting up. In between the shopping, the clubbing, the kissing and the making up, something happens between Edie and Dylan that changes both their lives for ever...But do toxic boys like Dylan ever play for keeps? From Amazon UK

Oh, there are no words to describe how much I loved this book! I finished this book yesterday, but I was on too high a buzz to actually form coherent sentences to write the review, so decided to wait until today, but I'm still struggling on how to talk about this book without just repeating "EEEE IT WAS SO GOOD!" in several different ways, and just general unintelligible gushing. But I will try.

I really like the way in which this book was written; there aren't any chapters, it's all diary entries. But these diary entries could be anything from half a page long to several pages long. It
really annoyed me at first, simply because sometimes there were too many breaks after not much being said, and it also left me thinking "just one more chapter" would be pretty hard to judge. But as the story goes on, the diary entries get longer, and become more of what I'd consider an acceptable chapter length, and I actually started to like it! I've read maybe one or two diary-like novels before, but this is the only one where I've actually enjoyed the fact that it was a diary.

Edie was a great character, but she did annoy me a few times. The girl is 16, she's now at college studying her A-levels, so no longer a school girl - yet she seems to have forgotten this. She talks about how "boy shapes" suffer with "boy disease", and I just kept wanting to shake her, and shout "You're not 12!" And a few times she had these angsty, mopey periods over Dylan which I just felt were more the behaviour of a younger teenager, especially when considering all her friends were 19 - surely you would try to act a little more maturer?

I managed to forgive her all that because of Dylan. Who could fail to be all angsty over the gorgeous Dylan? There was so much sexual tension in this novel, you could have cut it with a knife. He's a bit of a bad boy, but not in that he's mean or gets up to no good, just he simply can't make up his mind! He likes Edie, but not enough to to commit to her - yet he can't stay away from her, and always ends up cornering her for a kiss. Talk about mixed signals! The boy wanted to have his cake and eat it, and ohhh, I wanted to slap him so many times! But this is partially why I enjoyed this book so much - it was real. Things like this do happen; girls get angsty, guys can be infuriating, and even though I wanted to slap them both sometimes, when they were together and not arguing, it was just the most sweetest thing!

The other characters in the book were also pretty cool; Nat and Trent, Edie's gay friends, were awesome in that they were always there for her no matter what. They were just lovely! Shona I had trouble working out at first; she was elusive, then she was nice, then she wasn't, then she was. I always thought, until the French trip, that she was up to something. I didn't realise it was actually Mia who wasn't the one to trust. As Edie so nicely puts it, "Mia est une grande vache." (Mia is a big cow). There was one point when even the secondary characters were a little off with Edie, because they thought she went a little far in one argument with Dylan, but I have to say, I was cheering her on so much. Dylan need not have been such a pig at times.

Oh, I really loved this book! It's now official; Sarra Manning is one of my favourite authors. If you haven't read this book yet, you really need to! Now I just have to get my hands on a copy of Kiss and Make Up.

Published: 15th July 2004
Publisher: Hodder Children's Books
Buy on Amazon UK
Buy on Amazon US
Sarra Manning's Blog

Continue reading Review: Diary of a Crush: French Kiss by Sarra Manning

Review: My So-Called Afterlife by Tamsyn Murray

My So-Called Afterlife by Tamsyn Murray (review copy) - "I knew it was time to move on when a tramp peed on my Uggs..." Meet Lucy Shaw. She's not your average fifteen year old - for a start, she's dead. And as if being a ghost wasn't bad enough, she's also trapped haunting the men's toilets on Carnaby Street. So when a lighting engineer called Jeremy walks in and she realises he can see and hear her, she isn't about to let him walk out of her afterlife. Not least until he's updated her on what's happening in her beloved soaps. With Jeremy's help, Lucy escapes the toilet and is soon meeting up with other ghosts, including the perpetually enraged Hep and the snogtastic Ryan. But when Jeremy suggests Lucy track down the man who murdered her, things go down hill. Can Lucy face up to the events of that terrible night? And what will it cost her if she does?
A wonderful debut novel which, as well as being laugh-out-loud funny, is full of insights, compassion, and love. From Amazon UK

When this book arrived, I was really looking forward to reading. A paranormal with a protagonist who had a sense of humour; what could be better? When I read a few reviews that sang My So-Called Afterlife’s praises, I decided it would be the next book I would read, and was excited to get to it. Unfortunately, it didn’t turn out to be what I had expected.

The positives first. My So-Called Afterlife is a really sweet story, where issues of death, murder, and, on a small scale, bullying are dealt with. It has its light moments, with Lucy’s sarcastic sense of humour and her continual digs at Jeremy, and the romance between Lucy and Ryan, but it also has darker moments with Jeremy trying to find out who murdered Lucy. I did like the world building for the ghosts; how they could leave the places they haunted, how they were able to move things, how you could still text in the afterlife, and how a ghost could pass on. It was pretty neat!

Ryan is such a sweet guy, and my favourite scene in the book is when he sings Unintended by Muse at a party. It’s just the cutest scene ever, and even made me look the song up and give it a listen – not bad! Jeremy is a little bit of a weed, not the most charismatic or interesting guy going, but his heart is in the right place, and really wants to help Lucy. Lucy herself, as I said, is pretty funny, and does come out with some brilliant one-liners at times. I felt really sorry for Hep, but I wasn’t a big fan.

However, I did think there could be more. It had so much potential, but there were parts I found a little disappointing. I think this book is aimed more for the younger YA audience than the older, and that’s why there wasn’t more. The story just didn’t seem all that believable to me. For any type of fantasy, you have to just go with it, and accept any of the fantasy elements, and that I don’t have trouble with. It’s the actual realistic elements I had trouble with. I would have liked there to have been more tension between Ryan and Lucy before they got together, or more moments of them alone together. Jeremy, who is 27, didn’t question his sanity enough for me, and I didn’t understand why he spent most of his free time trying to help Lucy and hanging out with ghosts; what happened to his own life? I think there could have been more to Hep’s storyline too, I understood the reason for everything to do with her, but the situation she was in is such a big deal, and I felt it seemed a little underplayed. I would say the same of Lucy’s murder. It seems to me that some of this is to make it less scary, or so it’s not too much, for those younger readers it’s aimed for.

None of this makes it a bad story, it wasn’t. I’m sure there are a lot of people who would really enjoy My So-Called Afterlife, and that’s shown through the number of positive reviews out there. It just seems that I’m not a fan of the younger end of the YA spectrum. However, My So-Called Afterlife is a sweet story, and does ask some interesting questions on what happens after death, and it’s a great book for younger readers! Be sure to check out other reviews before making a decision on this book. It wasn't my cup of tea, but it might be yours. My So-Called Haunting, a companion novel, following new characters, will be Tamsyn Murray’s second novel, so look out for it.

Thank you to Piccadilly Press for the review copy.

Published: 1st February 2010 in the UK, 26th February 2010 in the US
Publisher: Piccadilly Press
Buy on Amazon UK
Pre-order on Amazon US
Tamsyn Murray’s Website

Other Reviews:
Chicklish
Book Zone

Continue reading Review: My So-Called Afterlife by Tamsyn Murray