Review: First & Then - Emma Mills

Devon Tennyson wouldn't change a thing. She's happy watching Friday night games from the bleachers, silently crushing on best friend Cas, and blissfully ignoring the future after high school. But the universe has other plans. It delivers Devon's cousin Foster, an unrepentant social outlier with a surprising talent for football, and the obnoxiously superior and maddeningly attractive star running back, Ezra, right where she doesn't want them first into her P.E. class and then into every other aspect of her life.

Pride and Prejudice meets Friday Night Lights in this contemporary novel about falling in love with the unexpected boy, with a new brother, and with yourself.

Emma Mills is not a new name to me, I've long been a fan of her YouTube channel Elmify and I was very intrigued when she announced the publication of her first novel over 18 months ago. Emma's online presence is, unjustly in my opinion, over shadowed by bigger YouTube stars and I was initially worried that her book would be too. However, I needn't have worried;  First & Then is a fantastic novel that easily outstrips many others I've read this year.

Review: The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight - Jennifer E Smith*

Who would have guessed that four minutes could change everything?

Today should be one of the worst days of seventeen-year-old Hadley Sullivan's life. Having missed her flight, she's stuck at JFK airport and late to her father's second wedding, which is taking place in London and involves a soon-to-be stepmother Hadley's never even met. Then she meets the perfect boy in the airport's cramped waiting area. His name is Oliver, he's British, and he's sitting in her row.

A long night on the plane passes in the blink of an eye, and Hadley and Oliver lose track of each other in the airport chaos upon arrival. Can fate intervene to bring them together once more?

Quirks of timing play out in this romantic and cinematic novel about family connections, second chances, and first loves. Set over a twenty-four-hour-period, Hadley and Oliver's story will make you believe that true love finds you when you're least expecting it. 

This book has been on my TBR for a while and with a long-haul flight coming up I decided to save it to read on the plane. I know, I'm too cool for school, right?

Top Ten: Young Adult Fiction

As my deadlines are still looming I 'm still starved for reading time, so here we go with another "time-saving" blog post (actually, it probably took me longer to think about my top ten books than it would have taken me to read and review a new book!).

Who doesn't love a good bit of YA fiction and at the moment the spotlight has never been more focused on this budding genre, jumping on the bandwagon I thought I'd share some of my favourite YA books. 

Review: Fangirl - Rainbow Rowell

 

A coming-of-age tale of fan fiction, family and first love.  

Cath is a Simon Snow fan. 

Okay, the whole world is a Simon Snow fan . . . 

But for Cath, being a fan is her life — and she’s really good at it. She and her twin sister, Wren, ensconced themselves in the Simon Snow series when they were just kids; it’s what got them through their mother leaving.

Reading. Rereading. Hanging out in Simon Snow forums, writing Simon Snow fan fiction, dressing up like the characters for every movie premiere.

Cath’s sister has mostly grown away from fandom, but Cath can’t let go. She doesn’t want to.

Now that they’re going to college, Wren has told Cath she doesn’t want to be roommates. Cath is on her own, completely outside of her comfort zone. She’s got a surly roommate with a charming, always-around boyfriend, a fiction-writing professor who thinks fan fiction is the end of the civilized world, a handsome classmate who only wants to talk about words . . . And she can’t stop worrying about her dad, who’s loving and fragile and has never really been alone.

For Cath, the question is: Can she do this? 

Can she make it without Wren holding her hand? Is she ready to start living her own life? Writing her own stories? 

And does she even want to move on if it means leaving Simon Snow behind?

For anyone who read my review of Eleanor & Park it will come as no surprise that I am a big Rainbow Rowell fan and couldn't wait to read her latest novel. Excitingly, I read Fangirl as part of the launch of Tumblr's first official book club, Reblog Book Club, and have posted a few long winded thoughts as part of that that you can read here.