The Kari AnnAlysis

Posts Tagged ‘book’

Anna is devastated! She’s entering her senior year in high school, but not with all her friends, and not even on the same continent as her friends and family. The former Georgia peach is now in Paris, the city of love, with no friends and no grasp of the French language, other than oui. But it doesn’t take long for Anna to meet new people. She instantly bonds with a group of already friends. Two guys, two girls, including Etienne St. Clair. Bad news? He has a girlfriend who is in college. Good news? There’s an undeniable bond between them.

The tension is so thick, it’d take a butcher knife to cut, but throughout her senior year, Anna and St. Clair’s relationship takes off, hits turbulence, lands with a bump, then takes off again. And that’s a trend that starts early on and keeps pace until the very end.

First of all, I absolutely loved the scenery in this book. I felt like I was in Paris and feel like if I went now, I’d says “Oh, I remember that from Anna and the French Kiss” and “Oh, that’s exactly how it was described in Anna and the French Kiss.” It was very descriptive and made me want to pack my bags and catch the next plane out.

I was annoyed a few times in this book. It started when Anna was whining and sulking around about being in Paris. Yes, I understand it’s her last year to be with her friends in high school and next year every one’s going to college, but still, it’s Paris. And maybe that’s the luxury of being an adult, I know that life will go on. I probably would have sulked a little too, but I would have loved to spend a year in Paris. I went to France, Niece to be exact, for a day or so on my senior trip and wish I could’ve spent the entire trip there. There’s just something about it, the language, the beauty, the food. It’s just a place that makes you swoon.

Now I also got annoyed with Anna and St. Clair. JUST GET TOGETHER ALREADY! But, I couldn’t tear myself apart from the book. I just kep reading and reading and needing to know what was going to happen. Are they going to end up together? Is he going to stay with his original girlfriend? Is she going to get together with the boy she liked at home? Goodness there were so many possibilities!

In the end though, I really liked this book. It was a quick read and definitely a senior year I could have seen myself in. I think that Stephanie Perkins did a great job of really embracing the teenage mindset in this book. They were seniors, and living in Paris, so of course most of them were a little more mature than a regular high school kid. But they still have the same feelings and questions and troubles that all teenagers have. This was one of my favorite lines in the book, because I think we’ve all been there:

Pg 333 “I’ve spent my entire senior year suffocating between lust and heartache, ecstasy and betrayal, and it’s only getting harder to see the truth. How many times can our emotions be tied to someone else’s – be pulled and stretched and twisted – before they can snap? Before they can never be mended again?

I know that even out of high school I felt those emotions and tried to explain it, but never could do so quite so eloquently and to the point.

I give Anna and the French Kiss 4 book marks.

ISBN: 978-0525423270
Published: December 2, 2010
Author Website
Kari got this book from Around the World Book Tours

Gwen is a dance through and through. Some kids like video games, others like basketball, Gwen’s passion is dancing and choreographing dances. Pretty deep for a teenage girl. But all of that is risked when she and her father go skiing one early morning and come face-to-face with an avalanche. Now Gwen takes the blame she and her father’s injuries and has an intense pain in her leg that may sideline her for good.

Avalanche Dance is a very quick, fast paced story of friendship through the rocky times. Gwen’s former BFF is spending time at Gwen’s house, but not because they’re being chummy. It’s because she got into a heap of trouble and is doing her community service at Gwen’s house. At a time like this, sometimes it’s best to put your faulty past on the back burner and move on with someone who really cares.

This book is a little deeper than some of the other YA books I have read this year, which is always a good thing. It’s not about boys and drama, it’s more a story of a girl overcoming pain and regret.

There were a few times I had a conflict with the characters. I wanted to tell Gwen to get off her butt and do something. Yeah, she’s feeling guilty, but sitting around, looking out the window isn’t going to help. I also feel bad for her friend Molly at time. Molly did ditch Gwen for the party kids, but there are a number of times in the book she reaches out to Gwen and is shut down, but doesn’t quit trying.

I give Avalanche Dance 4 bookmarks.

ISBN: 978-0887769580
Released: October 12, 2010
Author Website
Kari got this book from LibraryThing

The best thing about summer vacation for Dani is collegiate baseball and the Ragland Rattlers. She’s gone to every practice and every game since the team first came to town and this year, she has a plan to date one of the baseball players. She and her best friend Bird both talk their parents into being host families and letting players stay with them. The only rule is you can’t date your host player. That may be harder than it sounds though when Dani’s player is the starting pitcher and the boy of her dreams.

The Boyfriend League is a very quick, cute summer read. The characters are like able, the plot is cute and although the girls are young and a tid bit immature, I didn’t hate them.

One part of this book that stood out in my mind, and made me not like the girls for a bit was when they decide to walk out of the stands during one of the games and go to the dugout to talk to the players. Maybe this is something that is ok during a collegiate baseball game. but I just can’t imagine two high schoolers going and talking to players while they were to be focused on a sport. Maybe I am being petty, but being an athlete myself growing up, I felt like this showed a lot of immaturity.

On the other side, you have to hand it to these girls for coming up with such a brilliant idea to getting a boyfriend on the baseball team. If ou host a player, you will be friends with them and get a chance to spend time with the other players. They may be smarter than what I wanted to give them credit for. I, for one, never devised this smart of a plan to get a boyfriend.

This isn’t the first Hawthorne book I have read. I read Snowed In as part of my Christmas challenge last year. It was really cute. I also have Island Boys and Girls on my bookshelf to be read. I think the thing I like most about these, other than the cute plots, is that the covers are always super cute and girly. It’s something I will definitely keep in mind if I ever finish writing a book.

I give The Boyfriend League 4 bookmarks.

ISBN:  978-0061138379
Published: June 26, 2007
Author Website
Kari got this book from BookMooch

It’s been 14 years since Zarah Mitchell’s heart was broken and in the blink of an eye, the love of her teenage life, Bobby Patterson, is in the same room with her again. Neither ever married, but both have a horribly wrong perspective on what really happened the summer they broke up. Now that they’re living in the same town, attending the same singles group at church, and having both of their grandparents yearning for grandchildren, fate may be working it’s magic. But when Bobby is investigating Zarah and the historic preservation society that she works for, their love will have to wait, again.

I read this book online, from NetGalley.

Where to start? This was absolutely one of my favorite love stories of all time. Both Zarah and Bobby had their hearts broken when they were young, they never healed and now they have a chance to rekindle it. It’s the kind of love story you only read about and see movies about, but Kaye Dacus made it believable for me. I am a romantic, and I’m sappy when it comes to love, but some stories I read are just too out there. This wasn’t one of them.

Dacus did a fabulous job of bringing out what’s important in life including religion, family, friends, love, values, morals. You name, it’s in this book. I cannot wait until more of the “Matchmakers” series comes out. I will definitely keep my eye out for them.

This was a very quick and fun read. It wasn’t necessarily easy. There was religion thrown in, which can be tough if you don’t know a lot about the Bible. There was also some technical stuff about the historical preservation society, that I had never even heard of and sounded like Blah, blah, blah when I read it. But, I read 250+ pages of this book on Sunday and couldn’t put it down!

I give Love Remains 5 bookmarks.

The book’s publish date is 8/01/10 – To order a copy, click here!

Liza Kelly left Hollywood to get a break. She went from a publicist to the stars to Liza K, Sudoku specialist for an Oregon newspaper. Only when she returns to LA for a Sudoku tournament does her life get back in the fast lane. One of her good friends is killed after he tells her he thinks there are clues to some crazy news stories embedded in the Sudoku puzzles. Now, she takes the puzzle by the horns and is forced to help once it gets personal. Along with her editor, her estranged husband and her high school boyfriend, she has to get down to solving business before more people die.

I picked up this book because I love Sudoku. My dad got me hooked on it a few summers ago. I don’t just stop at Sudoku though, I love crosswords and word searches and you name it, I’ve got a book for it. I was actually surprised how much I learned about the number puzzle in this book. There were solving tips and little explainers on how to get the hard ones. And that was on top of the drama and death.

I definitely liked this book and will pick up the rest of the series. It was written well, kept me on my toes trying to figure out the murders and the puzzles and made me feel like less of a nerd knowing there are other goobers out there who are puzzle dorks.

I give Death by Sudoku 5 bookmarks.