From Goodreads: Riley Cavanaugh is many
things: Punk rock. Snarky. Rebellious. And gender fluid. Some days
Riley identifies as a boy, and others as a girl. The thing is ... Riley isn’t exactly out yet. And between starting a new school and
having a congressman father running for reelection in uber-conservative
Orange County, the pressure - media and otherwise - is building up in
Riley’s so-called “normal” life. On the advice of a therapist,
Riley starts an anonymous blog to vent those pent-up feelings and tell
the truth of what it’s REALLY like to be a gender-fluid teenager. But
just as Riley’s starting to settle in at school - even developing feelings
for a mysterious outcast - the blog goes viral, and an unnamed commenter
discovers Riley’s real identity, threatening exposure. Riley must make a
choice: walk away from what the blog has created - a lifeline, new
friends, a cause to believe in - or stand up, come out, and risk
everything.
My Rating: Somewhere between 3 and 3.5 hearts
Symptoms of Being Human will be released on February 2, 2016 by Balzer + Bray.
In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Harpercollins) via Edelweiss.
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From Goodreads: Seventeen-year-old
Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but
only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin.
Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over
with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the
perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself. Keeping
what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy - so far. Her
absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’
extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela,
won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes
doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and
wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what
she can do in bed. When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart,
she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her
heart really belongs in the process.
My Rating: 1.5 hearts
Thoughts on the Novel: Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn isn’t a
book I’d normally read because I tend to avoid books where there’s cheating.
However, I decided to give it a try for two reasons: 1) Flynn is a Canadian and
2) there aren’t too many YA books that deal directly with sex. Unfortunately,
while there are some good quotes in Firsts about sex, I just couldn’t connect
with its main character, who’s basically a spoiled girl that tries to justify
the fact that she has sex with guys in committed relationships to cover up her
own issues.
Firsts was released by St. Martin’s Griffin on January 5, 2016.
In exchange for an honest review, this book was received from the publisher (Macmillan) via NetGalley.
