August 2014 – Down the Rabbit Hole

Review: The Secrets of Lily Graves by Sarah Strohmeyer

August 31, 2014August 20, 2015 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

With the intrigue of Pretty Little Liars and plenty of romance, bestselling author Sarah Strohmeyer weaves a story of secrets and lies—set in a funeral parlor.

Growing up in a house of female morticians, Lily Graves knows all about buried secrets. She knows that perfect senior-class president Erin Donohue isn’t what she seems. She knows why Erin’s ex-boyfriend, hot football player Matt Houser, broke up with her. And she also knows that, even though she says she and Matt are just friends, there is something brewing between them—something Erin definitely did not like.

But secrets, even ones that are long buried, have a way of returning to haunt their keeper.

So when Erin is found dead the day after attacking Lily in a jealous rage, Lily’s and Matt’s safe little lives, and the lives of everyone in their town of Potsdam, begin to unravel. And their relationship—which grew from innocent after-school tutoring sessions to late-night clandestine rendezvous—makes them both suspects.

As her world crumbles around her, Lily must figure out the difference between truth and deception, genuine love and a web of lies. And she must do it quickly, before the killer claims another victim.

2.5 Drink Me Potions

The rating above is considered me being generous. The Secrets of Lily Graves wasn’t absolutely horrendous, which is why I rounded up, but it most definitely was nothing special or outstanding.

Lily Graves and her family background provided a very intriguing protagonist to follow in this YA novel. That in itself should have set this book apart….if it had been written well. I honestly tried to really enjoy this book. I love murder mysteries, especially when they have you on the edge of your seat with suspense and horror to the very last reveal. This was not so much the case here. Suspense? Pfft, not present. Romance? (’cause oh yeah, this was supposed to be some suspenseful AND romantic story). Not even. I encountered way too many problems while reading it, and the below are just me ranting out the major ones.

1) Lily Graves herself.
I wanted to enjoy her voice more, considering we’re reading in her perspective. I hate it when I don’t like the protagonist because it makes the story so much harder to continue with. It’s not because she’s different from any typical YA-type main character. She likes to adorn herself in garb resembling Morticia Addams (or whoever else in the Addams family you care to remember); enjoys helping her aunt prep dead bodies for wakes/funerals since she was like, 8 years old; reads fun books like The Tibetan Book of the Dead and despises to be “normal”.

Ok, so she is definitely not a girl you read about very often, but that wasn’t why I didn’t love her. I don’t expect to be able to relate to her (no, I don’t obsess much about all things dead/black….except maybe black lace), but I had hoped to at least understand her and her perspective enough to enjoy her story. But nope. It didn’t happen. This may be more of a JUST-ME kind of thing.

2) Romance?
I say this with a question mark ’cause honestly, was there much of it at all? The story starts off with the fact that Lily and her hot jock guy “friend”, Matt, had already had their history. There are brief flashbacks that Lily provides of when he first approached her for tutoring and that’s where their “relationship” began.

BUT we don’t get to see much of a romance developing/developed AT ALL. It’s kind of like the author was too lazy to put in the details of their budding romance, considering Matt had a girlfriend- who was the one who died by the way- during the events right before the story started so nothing SHOULD’VE happened before that (and if something HAD happened, we wouldn’t know since Sarah Strohmeyer sure didn’t add anything about it). However, you, as the reader, get the distinct feeling that they “like” each other and everything, but there’s never a lot of talk about it. Or how it happened. Why, you may ask?
‘Cause the author was too busy laying down the foundation for a MYSTERY novel to have the time to focus on ROMANCE. Don’t worry, I’ll get back to this point soon.

Let’s just say that Matt was an unremarkable love interest, considering Lily is such a unique character. It also never mentions why he suddenly wanted to get to know her better. I’m very puzzled at that still. A hot jock interested (possibly romantically) in an odd girl yet he still left right away after each tutoring session was over? Hmm, doesn’t make sense to me. I’ll let you puzzle that out yourself.

3) THE mystery?
Oh please. It wasn’t too hard to guess out of the few characters in the book who could have possibly committed the crime. Obviously it’s not going to be some random character to throw out at the end, and not any red herrings the author threw out in the middle of the book. If she had developed/thrown more characters into the story, then it could have made plausible motive difficult to guess out of all of them. Needless to say, that was not the case.

This is the first novel I have read by Sarah Strohmeyer so I may be wrong when I say the following (please do not get mad at my honest opinion). I don’t think mystery novels are her strong suit. It seems she has written some very successful rom-coms, and in my opinion, those are what she is better at. The story lacked in romance because she focused on grounding out the mystery. It wasn’t all bad. Predictable and not very suspenseful, yes, but it wasn’t a terrible read. Maybe if she tried again, it’ll be better next time, but for The Secrets of Lily Graves both aspects are in much needed work.

4) The ending….
What? That was me at the end of this story. It left such an unsatisfying tinge in my mouth. I swear, the climax and ending/epilogue only took up the last 20 pages or so. It was rushed and left some questions hanging.

Without giving away too much, let’s just say that the motives for why that someone would want to frame Lily is questionable. Sure, you can say they didn’t care much for her, but why? I think it warranted at least an attempt to answer the why. Also, the epilogue was like a summary of what was happening after the events of the climax/arrest, written as if in 3rd person instead of the first person narrative from Lily. It was a bit detached, like she was quickly stating “And this is what happened to the culprit, etc. while Matt and I live happily ever after…The End”. I’d say the end was just short of sounding downright impatient to be finished.

Overall Recommendation:
The Secrets of Lily Graves was nothing remarkable, neither done well as a mystery or a romance novel. It was like the author was trying too hard to do one, so it ended up destroying the other. I would NOT recommend this to any diehard mystery fans out there, as the storyline was mediocre in adding suspense and had a predictable culprit. If you just want to try your hand at a mystery, then give this a shot as it won’t scare you much like other nitty-gritty mysteries may. All in all, this was a story with potential that just fizzled in the middle.

Review: Since You’ve Been Gone by Morgan Matson

August 26, 2014August 20, 2015 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

It was Sloane who yanked Emily out of her shell and made life 100% interesting. But right before what should have been the most epic summer, Sloane just…disappears. All she leaves behind is a to-do list.

On it, thirteen Sloane-inspired tasks that Emily would normally never try. But what if they could bring her best friend back?

Apple picking at night? Okay, easy enough.

Dance until dawn? Sure. Why not?

Kiss a stranger? Um…

Emily now has this unexpected summer, and the help of Frank Porter (totally unexpected), to check things off Sloane’s list. Who knows what she’ll find?

Go skinny-dipping? Wait…what?

4.5 Drink Me Potions

I enjoyed this book a little more than I anticipated. As I kept reading, my rating went up a little more. Yes, Since You’ve Been Gone was rather a long read, and occasionally felt drawn out. There is a chapter titled for every item on the list that Emily wanted to complete to find her missing best friend, Sloane. However, I was kind of glad seeing that there was a whole chapter for each one, as it produced a progression for the summer in how Emily came to find herself.

Character development was one of my favourite things. Emily started off panicky, shy and alone as she found herself best-friend-less at the beginning of the summer. It’s understandable, especially if you have a shy friend like that. But slowly, with each item she crossed off the list, they challenged our protagonist to come out of her scared shell and for once, BE BRAVE. She had to face her fears for many of them. Like come on, she has a fear of horses but has to ride one. If I had to face my worst fear…..my goodness, it would not turn out as well.

I also liked the minor characters, like the friends Emily makes over the span of the summer as she goes through the list. They each had a personality that didn’t make them just mundane pieces to surround her with. This included her family as well. Her erratic playwright parents and adrenaline-junkie little brother were fun sides to the story, although they may not have directly impacted the central plot: follow list, finish list, find Sloane.

I’ll admit, I had hoped for more romance between Emily and Frank for more of the story. He’s had a long-time girlfriend for most of the story, which made it somewhat more bearable to wait. But if you’re looking for an amazing romance here, this is NOT the book for you, I’m sorry. I appreciated their growing friendship and under-the-surface feelings that gradually came. It wasn’t just physical chemistry between them. They were good friends too, and I like a relationship that’s based on more than just attraction between 2 people that may have nothing in common.

As for Sloane, I was very satisfied with the ending. For most of the book, I couldn’t understand why she left, or where she could’ve gone that would inhibit her from responding to Emily’s texts/calls. Hello, 21st century here. It’s not as hard to communicate with people over long distances. But I came to see her point of things and the ending left me with an emotional taste of their friendship that wasn’t just seen in Emily’s flashbacks. I surprisingly actually liked her by the end. Hoorah! She’s not a villain!

Overall Recommendation:
A mix of a fun and emotional read, Since You’ve Been Gone is a wonderful story on best friends and finding new friendships. With memorable characters and a protagonist with strong development over the course of the book, I swear, you’ll have a lot of fun following Emily and her friends as they complete the list. What an epic summer! Oh, and a bit of underlying romance thrown into there as well. It’s a complete package!

Review: #scandal by Sarah Ockler

August 4, 2014August 20, 2015 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Lucy’s learned some important lessons from tabloid darling Jayla Heart’s all-too-public blunders: Avoid the spotlight, don’t feed the Internet trolls, and keep your secrets secret. The policy has served Lucy well all through high school, so when her best friend Ellie gets sick before prom and begs her to step in as Cole’s date, she accepts with a smile, silencing about ten different reservations. Like the one where she’d rather stay home shredding online zombies. And the one where she hates playing dress-up. And especially the one where she’s been secretly in love with Cole since the dawn of time.

When Cole surprises her at the after party with a kiss under the stars, it’s everything Lucy has ever dreamed of… and the biggest BFF deal-breaker ever. Despite Cole’s lingering sweetness, Lucy knows they’ll have to ’fess up to Ellie. But before they get the chance, Lucy’s own Facebook profile mysteriously explodes with compromising pics of her and Cole, along with tons of other students’ party indiscretions. Tagged. Liked. And furiously viral.

By Monday morning, Lucy’s been branded a slut, a backstabber, and a narc, mired in a tabloid-worthy scandal just weeks before graduation.

Lucy’s been battling undead masses online long enough to know there’s only one way to survive a disaster of this magnitude: Stand up and fight. Game plan? Uncover and expose the Facebook hacker, win back her best friend’s trust, and graduate with a clean slate.

There’s just one snag—Cole. Turns out Lucy’s not the only one who’s been harboring unrequited love…

4 Drink Me Potions

I wasn’t sure what to expect when I first started #scandal. I have read some of Sarah Ockler’s previous works, and I can see some of her unique writing styles in this one too. Has anyone else ever wondered why she gets the protagonist to narrate what an animal/pet in the story might be thinking in certain situations? Beats me.

Anyway, this story surprised me, though I’m starting to think that’s the trend with Ockler’s books. It may seem like just another romance story, with the big “OOPS, I broke the unspoken rule of never going after a best friend’s ex” kind of theme. Reminded me in areas of The Unwritten Rule. However, she always turns the story into something more than just melodrama. It looked into cyberbullying, a very real threat in this present day and age of social media. The anonymity of the internet provides an outlet for people to say and do things that would deter them if they had to do it face-to-face. It was interesting, and of course, sad to see how Lucy, our protagonist, would deal with it.

Although I was looking forward to a fun, light read, #scandal still had its merits.
1) There was the underlying intrigue throughout the story of who ACTUALLY posted up the incriminating picture(s) and got Lucy into trouble. Who that turned out to be may or may not be so obvious to you, unless you’ve read/watched as many mystery plots as I have.
2) The relationship and sideplot of Lucy’s famous (albeit scandalous) older sister was an interesting look into family relations. You don’t have to like the sister, but she felt real and her character does develop over time.
3) The new friends that appear out of this darkness are all different, quirky and unique. A cute French Canadian dude who follows Lucy with a cute puppy-dog kind of love? A not-so-bad stoner known as 420? A crazy group of anti-vanity social media (ie. Facebook/Twitter) led by a leader in a wheelchair? Man, what a variety of characters! Not to mention, our own protagonist is an ass-kicking warrior/princess/mystery girl—that is, if you’re a zombie on her game.

I do wish that there were more Cole-Lucy moments. The story could have centred on them a bit more. I know (hypothetically, in their world) it made sense to lay low in the public eye from each other, but in MY world, come on! I was waiting to see him pop up whenever he could, though there were not enough dreamy moments with just him. Le sigh.

Overall Recommendation:
#scandal is many things all at once. A sweet forbidden romance at one moment, and a pulsing anger of betrayal in the next. From friendships forming to cyberbullying (and physical bullying) from the school population, this book covers it all. So I hope you jump into this knowing that it is way more than what it first appears to be. Reminiscent of The Unwritten Rule, it considers the consequences of being in love with your best friend’s guy, and finally standing up for yourself.