Book Reviews: January

This January I decided to participate in Erin's Challenge again which pushed me to read some really great books before school started up at the end of the month.  I hoped to finish the challenge this month (10 books), but it didn't end up working out for a number of reasons.

This book was recommended to me by my sister.  I was slightly hesitant to read another Sarah Dessen book because I just could not get in to the last one.  Luckily, this one had me hooked from the beginning and was probably my favorite of hers. I loved the supporting characters, I loved that she didn't just gloss over some of the difficult-to-talk-about issues (I think she handled them very well), and I loved Owen.  I also loved that you could see Annabel grow and realize things about herself that she needed to change and work on.  Overall, a very well done story.

(4/5)

I really, really wanted to like this book, but I'm sad to say that I really didn't.  The first probably 50 pages were good and I had high hopes for it, then came the unexpected magical realism.  Usually I like magical realism but I don't think it worked for this book and it kind of ruined it for me.  I expected this to be about the characters journey out of their home country and the struggles of migrating from a war torn country, but it definitely was not.  Also there were a whole bunch of random vignettes throughout the book which didn't tie into the story at all.  The worst for me was that I didn't connect with the characters at all, I didn't care about them and wasn't invested in their story.  Honestly, I probably would have DNF'd this if it wasn't one of my books for Erin's Challenge.  Overall, extremely disappointing. 

(2/5)

This was a strange book.  It's a newberry award winner, but I really don't think I would have liked it as a kid.  It's a bit dark, and really slow paced.   The first half of the book was super slow and I really couldn't get in to it, but the last 100 pages were enjoyable.  There were a lot of things that really didn't make sense in the story but it didn't bother me if I didn't overthink.   This book was just OK - I wouldn't say don't read it, but I wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it either.

(3/5)

I have no words for how much I loved this book.  Ever since I watched the Dirty Dancing spin off Havana Nights, I've been fascinated by Cuba.  I learned so much about the Revolution and modern day Cuba reading this book, and ended up doing my own research about different events mentioned in the book.   I really loved both the past and present stories (though, I did love the past one more).  Elisa is the kind of character that I love because she was completely realistic.  I found part of the ending of the present day story a little hard to believe, but other than that I loved every bit of this book.   If you love historical fiction, go get this book right now! 

(5/5)