Where She Went (If I Stay #2) by Gayle Forman

Synopsis: "It's been three years since the devastating accident . . . three years since Mia walked out of Adam's life forever.

Now living on opposite coasts, Mia is Juilliard's rising star and Adam is LA tabloid fodder, thanks to his new rock star status and celebrity girlfriend. When Adam gets stuck in New York by himself, chance brings the couple together again, for one last night. As they explore the city that has become Mia's home, Adam and Mia revisit the past and open their hearts to the future-and each other.

Told from Adam's point of view in the spare, lyrical prose that defined If I Stay, Where She Went explores the devastation of grief, the promise of new hope, and the flame of rekindled romance."

Title: Where She Went
Genre: YA Contemporary, romance
Series: If I Stay #2
Ages: 14+
Pages: 260
My Rating: 4 stars
One Word: Fascinating
Fave Quote: "'How? How, Adam? How could I know that?'
I'm not sure if the question's rhetorical or if she thinks I have a clue to her metaphysical mystery. And I'm in no state to answer either way because I'm crying. I don't realize it till I taste the salt against my lips. I can't remember the last time I've cried but, once I accept the mortification of sniveling like a baby, the floodgates open and I'm sobbing now, in front of Mia. In front of the whole damn world" (210).

Review
Where She Went is a beautifully crafted novel of love. It's fascinating the way Gayle Forman writes the novel so that it falls all in a 24 hour timespan, with memories added here and there just like the first book.

I truly liked this book, and I thought it was better than the first. It really described Mia and Adam's love to an extent where the first book hadn't. However, if I were Adam I would've actually been mad at Mia for putting him through the pain of rejection for three years. And then when Adam shows up at her concert, she just conveniently comes up to him and talks to him. What if Adam never went to that concert? Would she have gone after him? That was the only thing that really bugged me during the book, the thought that Mia may have never told Adam how she felt if Adam never went to her concert.

This book was everything and nothing at the same time. I mean, a 24 hour timespan, how much can you put into a book? Gayle Forman fulfills it's beauty by adding feelings of rejection, memories of the past, and rekindled love. I gave this book 4 stars because of Adam's feelings and how real they felt when I read them and how it made me sympathize for him. Mia, on the other hand wasn't as great as I liked her in the first book.
★★★★

Shatter Me (Shatter Me #1) by Tahereh Mafi

Synopsis: "I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I'm more than human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior."

Title: Shatter Me
Genre: Dystopian, Romance YA
Series: Shatter Me #1
Pages: 338
Ages: 15+
My Rating: 3.5 stars
One Word: INowLoveInsanePeople!!! <3
Fave Quote: “All I ever wanted was to reach out and touch another human being not just with my hands but with my heart.”  

Review

 

This Review is Rated R for Language (oops)After all of the hype on this book, I knew I needed to read it.

And oh fuck.

Adam and Juliette's relationship was so hot, but it wasn't all about the relationship which made me love the book even more. I seriously hate it when dystopian books revolve around the love and relationship when it's supposed to be action-y and awesome like this book! Making the romance more subtle made it SO MUCH BETTER.

"His eyes pin me in place. His urgency ignites my bones. Rivulets of water snake their way down the polished planes of his face and his fingers press me up against the wall.
His lips his lips his lips his lips his lips
My eyes are fighting not to flutter
My legs are fighting not to tremble
My skin is scorched everywhere he's not touching me.
His lips are so close to my ear I'm water and nothing and everything and melting into a wanting so desperate it burns as I swallow it down" (116).

I gotta say, Tahereh Mafi knows how to describe how a girl feelings. SHIT.

Moving on, let's just say I am pretty impressed by this book, and already knowing that people loved it, it had my expectations high. I'm happy to say that I still thought this book was awesome even with my high expectations. Shatter Me had me feeling all sorts of things, I felt everything that Juliette was feeling, and fuck do I want an Adam of my own.

Even Mafi's writing; from the beginning when you can tell that Juliette is just a little insane (with the personification and the crossed out lines where you know she's in denial and going wacko in her head) to when she starts getting normal again after being with civilization. I love this whole storyline and I love Juliette and Adam and James and Kenji and yeah...

not so much Warner AND JULIETTE BETTER NOT START HAVING FEELINGS FOR HIM *ahem*

However, I felt like the suspenseful part where Juliette is trying to find Adam was just a little too coincidental... I was really thinking that they (AKA Warner and Co.) knew where Adam, Kenji, and Juliette were, but in the end it ended well.

The reason I gave this 3.5 stars was because I wasn't really hooked in like other books. The romance was phenomenal, but the action was a little...slow and predictable. Other than that, I really liked the book (especially the insane girl writing in the beginning) and we need more books with an insane protagonist! :D

★★★1/2

If I Stay (If I Stay #1) by Gayle Forman

Synopsis: "Just listen, Adam says with a voice that sounds like shrapnel.

I open my eyes wide now.
I sit up as much as I can.
And I listen.

Stay, he says.

Choices. Seventeen-year-old Mia is faced with some tough ones: Stay true to her first love—music—even if it means losing her boyfriend and leaving her family and friends behind?

Then one February morning Mia goes for a drive with her family, and in an instant, everything changes. Suddenly, all the choices are gone, except one. And it's the only one that matters.

If I Stay is a heartachingly beautiful book about the power of love, the true meaning of family, and the choices we all make"

Title: If I Stay
Genre: contemporary YA, romance
Series: If I Stay #1
Pages: 234
Ages: 13+
My Rating: 4 stars
One Word: heartbreaking, beautifully written
Fave Quote:
"But the you who you are tonight is the same you I was in love with yesterday, the same you I'll be in love with tomorrow. I love that you're fragile and tough, quiet and kick-ass. Hell, you're one of the punkest girls I know, no matter who you listen to or what you wear" (100-101).

Review

If I Stay is one of the most beautifully written books I've read. After watching the trailer for the upcoming movie, I had my own expectations of what the book was going to seem like, but the story surpassed my thoughts. It's beautiful how Mia looks back at her life and tries to make the choice between life and death, feeling that the choice is too hard. She's broke between the death of her family if she stays to the life she'll leave behind if she leaves.

Amazing and mesmerizing, If I Stay has left me with a weak and broken heart. The way the story is written is just amazing. With the timeframes and the memories back to back, I was rooting for Mia to stay, but she was thinking otherwise. I'm so happy and satisfied with the ending, that I'm scared the to read the sequel!
★★★★