Out Of Control by Sarah Alderson

“I need a favour.’

I raise my eyebrows at him in disbelief. What makes him think I’m about to do him a favour? He’s a stranger. And he’s wearing handcuffs.”

This book was thrilling, suspenseful and fast-paced. We are thrown right into the thick of things from the very beginning. Our main character Liva has been having a tough day. Her dad is in Ghana, her mom is in Oman and the couple who were looking after her have ended up dead. Unfortunately everything is far from over. The police station, a supposed safe place is attacked and Liva is forced to rely on a car thief to get her out alive. It is soon realized that someone is out for Liva and they'll do anything to find her.

“So we have twenty-four hours to keep out of trouble,’ he says to me.

I slide a glance in his direction. Judging from the way he’s now grimacing at the sidewalk and the fact that I met him in a police station where he was being booked for stealing a car, I’m guessing that staying out of trouble is not his forte.”

Everything happens within the span of around 24 hours so its a lot to take in. Which includes meeting drool-worthy Jay. Jay brings some much needed light heartedness and humor to an otherwise serious story. Even if Liva is judge mental of him at the start. 

‘Because off-duty cops walk around the city wearing sweatshirts advertising they’re cops all the time, never mind it’s a hundred degrees outside. And never mind you look like the youngest cop ever recruited in the history of policing.’

He tsks at me. ‘Have you never seen 21 Jump Street?”

So with the help of Jay and his family Liva tries to stay one step ahead of her attackers whilst trying to figure out what they want. I thought Liva was a realistic character who was strong and smart but what also flawed in other ways. Everything starts to spiral 'out of control' (hehe see what I did there!) as the book progresses with tons of surprises and revelations in store. 

I really enjoyed this book and it lived up to the standard of Sarah's other novels. It kept me in  complete suspense from start to finish.

Goodread's link

Rules of Attraction by Simone Elkeles

We've all somewhere down the line heard of 'Perfect Chemistry' by Simone Elkeles but I bet a lot of you haven't heard of 'Rules of Attraction,' at least you who don't have goodreads or what not. I must admit when I first read Perfect Chemistry, I myself wasn't involved in the book world as much as I am today and it took me a few months before I heard there was more books in this series.

We all love the bad boy meets good girl, fall in love, can't be together dilemma. It's in us to love that typical story-line but the way Simone Elkeles does it, is downright beautiful. 

Last night as I lay in my dark room I decided I needed a complete and utter typical romance book and that is exactly what I found. 

“I'm in deep shit Alex, 'cause I think I'd like nothin' better than to wake up with her every mornin'.”

Oh how we love you Carlos, brother of the beautiful Alex Fuentos. Carlos has been sent over from Mexico where himself, his mother and his baby brother Luis moved over two years ago when Alex got shot trying to escape the Latino Blood gang. He has started a new school and is crashing on a blow up bed on Alex's dorm floor. He wants nothing more than to find some hot chicas and get high but it's all so much more complicated than that for the drool-worthy Carlos. 

Kiera, a shy girl that has a secret talent for fixing cars. Alex has been helping her out on her vintage car, getting her parts for cheap so she can fix it up. He asks Kiera to show Carlos around the school and she kindly says she will. She doesn't expect what she gets though, he's rude, self-absorbed and out-right mean to her at the beginning but by the end he's sad she won't be showing him to his classes day after day. Kiera and her family end up being there for Carlos when things start to get messy in his life and soon stuff happens that neither of them thought ever would. 

“Fifty percent of all doctors graduate in the bottom half of their class - Hope your surgery went well!”

Now before I talk about how much I need a relationship like the one Kiera and Carlos found in eachother I just have to bring up Tuck. Tuck, Tuck, Tuck Oh that boy made me laugh out loud a few times in this book. His cheeky ways of speaking to Carlos and his straight out words made me smile. He wasn't afraid of Carlos not like some would be and he also wasn't afraid to say what was on his mind. The friendship he and Kiera had was one anybody in their right mind would love to have. In some ways for me Tuck made the book, because he gave it that humour and honesty in which it needed. 

I loved Carlos and Kiera together. Their scenes always made me so jealous, god if only us girls could find a boy like that in real life wouldn't we all be over the moon? The way Carlos could never stop thinking about her made me love him more and how Kiera got nervous around him yet could give him cheek right back that just made their relationship for me. 

This book gets 4 out of 5 stars. It's get four for everything I loved about it Carlos, Kiera, Tuck, the humour, the friendship, the spanish, the love, the family unit everything that was beautiful and drew you in. It loses a star I think for the writing at times wasn't up to scratch. I'm a fussy girl when it comes to writing but this book should be read by all those girls/boys who just love a good romance! 

“There's a point when you have to stop fightin' the whole world.”

Goodread's link

Matched by Ally Condie

Matched by Ally Condie. 

A society that is all about systems. They control who you love, where you live, where you work, what you do at your spare time; even when you die. Control is the main word, yet of course that is not how all see it.

Cassia a girl that always believed and trusted the system. Xander a boy who knew how to survive perfectly within the society. And Ky a boy who they never let out of their sight, who had perfected the art of being right in the middle, not bad nor good just okay.

“Once you want something, everything changes.”

I had been meaning to read this book ever since I laid eyes on it. I thought the cover was simple yet beautiful, but seeing as I get sick and tired of books based in a dystopian future I put it off for a long time. Then on my way to London a few weeks ago I was bored and decided I'd give the book a try. I read it each night without fail but when I got home I left it alone for a while. I finally finished the book and was pleasantly surprised that I loved the ending. 

Ally Condie's writing is not the best writing I have ever come across, but it is pretty. She wrote a society none of us would ever want to live in, yet she made the readers hate but love the world she had created. A world where all were equal, where there were no diseases - a world unlike the one we live in yet lacking all the good qualities we do have, underneath all the hate and war. 

“Is falling in love with someone's story the same thing as falling in love with the person himself?”

Cassia - the main character in this book, and the one who's point of view it is written in. I loved watching her grow as a character throughout this book. She grew from someone who believed and agreed with what she was told, to someone who questioned and disagreed with the society she's apart of. Yet Ally Condie made sure she never lost that teenage spirit that's within all of us.  

It was a beautiful thing watching Cassia fall in love with Ky, almost magical. I loved how Ally Condie wrote the parts about Ky teaching Cassia to write, it made me realise how lucky we are to be able to do something  like write we take it for granted every day of our lives. The way Cassia felt when she wrote with a stick in the mud was something we could never truly grasp as readers, as people who know how to write since we were very small but I think Ally wrote it perfectly. 

I felt heartbroken for Xander in the final pages of this book. The way he loved Cassia unconditionally broke my heart. He was such a beautiful boy with so much to offer the world and everything I had thought about him from day one faded in those final words of his. He changed into someone much more than another brainwashed person the society had created. He was someone who broke the rules for those he loved, he was someone who put aside his jealousy for the sake of others. 

The way Ky had been treated all his life tore me apart. He deserved so much more than how he had been treated. The way he opened up to Cassia through pictures and words made my heart fill with happiness. He was a beautiful, drool-worthy boy that I wanted Cassia to never stop kissing.

“We could have been happy. I know that, and it is perhaps the hardest thing to know.”

I also have not just my English teacher for this year, but this book to thank for the respect I have gained recently for poets and their poetry. It isn't easy to write a story that is less than a page long (usually), that can inspire people and make them feel things they have never felt before. The way Ally brought poetry into this book was something I haven't seen before and it was beautiful. 

This book gets 3 out of 5 stars from me. I can't give it the five because it didn't draw me in, in ways other books have and the book reminded me a lot of Delirium by Lauren Oliver - not saying either of them took stuff from the other but dystopian books always seem to turn out looking a bit alike. 

I would recommend that you all pick this book up and at least give it a try. 

Goodread's link