The Friend Zone by Kristen Callihan

The Friend Zone (2015) (self-published)
Kristen Callihan
Grade: A-
Genre: New Adult
Sex scenes: hot
Source: own

Game On: (1) The Hook Up, (2) The Friend Zone

Romance RBC 2015: A new adult book

The daughter of a sports agent, Ivy Mackenzie knows better than to get involved with a football star, especially a guy like Gray Grayson who can’t turn around without bumping into another one of his sexual conquests. But what starts out as just harmless banter and texting while Ivy spends a year abroad with her mother quickly becomes much more when Ivy returns home. Not only have Ivy and Gray become the best of friends and each other’s better half through their endless texting, but the irresistible sexual spark that’s constantly been simmering in the background flares to life when they meet in the flesh. It all makes for an irresistible read: while Ivy is insistent that she won’t follow the cliché and just become another notch on Gray’s bedpost, Gray is similarly determined to seduce the pants off of Ivy – Game On.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

Fangirl (2013) (Macmillan Children's Books)
Rainbow Rowell
Grade: A
Genre: young adult
Source: own

YA Reading Book Challenge 2014: A book with a break-up 

Identical twins Cath and Wren are off to college and to date, have been inseparable. The pair now possess very different ideas about how they want to approach this next chapter in their lives. Wren is looking to use her newfound freedom to meet boys, party and basically let loose. Cath is the shy twin and wants everything to stay the same; she’s more than content to sit in her room writing fanfiction and doing homework, eating cereal bars and ignoring her roommate Reagan and Reagan’s boyfriend Levi. 

Harder by Robin York

Harder (2014) (Bantam Dell)
Robin York a.k.a. Ruthie Knox
Grade: A+
Genre: New Adult
Sex scenes: hot
Source: NetGalley
Caroline & West: (1) Deeper, (2) Harder

YA Reading Bingo Challenge 2014: A book without a love triangle

A year ago, Caroline Piasecki’s life was turned upside down when she became a victim of revenge porn. Thanks to her ex-boyfriend, everyone at college suddenly knew who she was, what she looked like naked, and she was receiving daily explicit messages from strangers taking advantage of her plight. A less-than-conventional relationship with campus bad-boy West Leavitt makes her happier than she’s ever been, giving her the confidence to overcome this hurdle in her life – until family circumstances force West to give up his scholarship and return home to Oregon.

Deeper by Robin York

Deeper (2014) (Bantam Dell)

Robin York a.k.a. Ruthie Knox

Grade: A+

Genre: New Adult

Sex scenes: hot

Source: NetGalley 

Caroline & West: (1) Deeper, (2) Harder

YA Reading Bingo Challenge 2014: A book that made you cry

Warning: intentionally crude language ahead. 

Caroline Piasecki was always the good girl: a good daughter to her widower father, a good student planning to follow her father into the law and a good girlfriend of three years to her high-school boyfriend. That is, until she broke up with Nate the summer before she returned to Putnam for her sophomore year in what she thought was an amicable break-up. When her naked pictures are suddenly all over the Internet attached with her name, home town and college, Caroline’s knows her good girl status is lost forever. Instead, she’s a slut, a whore, a dirty bitch who deserves what’s coming to her. That’s what the anonymous messages all echo and what the refrain in her head drums repeatedly like a broken record: she deserved it.

Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Beautiful Disaster (2012)
Jamie McGuire
Grade: C+
Genre: New Adult
Sex scenes: mild
Source: NetGalley
Beautiful: (1) Beautiful Disaster

This is the sort of book that I should hate. I can’t really identify with any of the characters; Travis is an asshole; it’s much too long; the characters all take the blatantly wrong decisions when it’s clear that it’s the last thing they want, yet continue to pretend to each other that all is merry; and the emotional ping-pong is worse than an Eastenders omnibus. Yet why did I stay up until past 3am to finish it and why can’t I help but like it? Read on …

Abby Abernathy came to Eastern University with her best friend America to make a fresh start for herself, away from everything that surrounds her less-than-perfect past and family life. She’s going to keep her head down, study hard and make something good for herself to erase her ugly past. They she meets Travis Maddox …