Tag: family
All These Beautiful Strangers by Elizabeth Klehfoth [BOOK REVIEW]
★★★★
A beautiful story about families, love, betrayal, the difference between the rich and poor, and a girl that tries to discover what happened to her missing mother, while discovering herself.
Charlie Calloway has a life most people would kill for – a tight-knit family, a loyal set of friends, and top grades a privileged boarding school. But Charlie’s never been interested in what most people want. Like all Calloways, she’s been taught that she’s different, special – better. So when her school’s super-exclusive secret society extends a mysterious invitation, Charlie’s determination to get in is matched only by her conviction that she belongs there.
But their secrets go deeper than she knows.
Charlie finds herself thrust into the centre of a decades-old mystery – one that implicates her family in not one terrible crime, but two. Uncovering their past may destroy everything she knows – or give her the answer she’s always craved: Who or what was behind her mother’s disappearance ten years ago?
I haven’t heard about this book until I received it as a birthday gift from my sister. The cover is just – gorgeous! You can feel the raindrops on the cover, and the sides are painted black, and you can read out ”I KNOW”. They have been thinking of all the little details.
The story is a bit slow at the beginning. It took me a while to get into it, as they delay the plot for a while, but once you get past that little hill of boredom, it gets better and better. I could imagine myself climbing a mountain with my bike, struggling while climbing, just so I can enjoy the great fast downhill and wind in my face.
The story is told by many people’s perspective, and it changes after each chapter. The amazing thing was, the stories go back in the past as well, but the story keeps flowing in one direction, event by event, which I really enjoyed. If this was poorly made, the book would’ve been so confusing, but fortunately, it wasn’t.
Even though I didn’t expect, this turned out to be a great mystery-solving novel, with wonderful and unexpected plot-twists, and a cliffhanger until the end. Is the mother dead or alive?
Many of the topics covered are very relatable. The difference between children raised in rich families versus the children raised in not-s-rich families. Their thoughts and mindsets, their beliefs, and the people they hang out with. And when a girl like Charlie, who has a father from a rich family and a mother from a poor family, is on the cross-road, it is amazing to see this character develop and make choices for herself, that reflect on both her backgrounds.
A lovely read, fast-paced novel, with a beautiful cover and even more beautiful reading material, this is one of the stories that I would recommend for you to read on a rainy day, covered in a blanket, with a hot chocolate – despite the summer theme on the cover, this was a winter book for me.
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The Frightened Little Flower Bud – Renée Paule, G R Hewitt [BOOK REVIEW]
I don’t usually read Children’s Books. I used to love them when I was a kid, and of course, those were the books on which I learned how to read. Those are the stories that I will always remember with happiness in my heart and they will always have a special place in my heart.
I was lucky enough to win The Frightened Little Flower Bud on a giveaway from Booklikes, and I couldn’t be happier! This is a short, cute story about one flower, and the process of how it blooms.
Before it blooms, it has many fears as to what is going to happen, it fears that the sun will dry it, and the rain will drown it, and that it won’t be as beautiful as the other flowers out there.
It reminds me of the fears that us people have every day before we go out of the door. We fear this and that, without realising to enjoy our lives, and live them like they are our last. A perfect description of how fear and doubt can let us down, but also a perfect example of what happens when you actually get the courage and go out there, and realise that yes – you can be the prettiest flower out there.
I liked how there are questions at the end of the books, to engage the little readers after reading it. However, in all honesty, I believe that the images inside the books won’t keep a kid there for very long, and they might not be the most exiting this in the world.
Read and Gone – Allison Brook [BOOK REVIEW]
This is the second book of the series, and even though I haven’t read the first part, I was able to follow this book quite easily. There are a few references to the past and you can quickly realise what happened. Though, if you wish to read the series, don’t start with #2, because there are a few spoilers here that you wish you hadn’t read if you read book #1. I won’t be reading #1 because the spoilers kinda ruined it for me. But I am sure it’s an amazing story as well.
Carrie works in a library and has a cat that brings with her at work. Her father is a famous bad guy, that spent all her childhood in jails. One day, he returns to town, trying to get his share of a box of jewellery that he stole with another man. But a murder changes everyone’s plans, and Carrie has to make some dangerous decisions. It is a wonderful story about family, love, Christmas and tragedy that ends well.
This is a book full of mystery and crime, but it also is warm and family-oriented. I loved the mystery – crime part of it, I loved the scenes where everyone, mostly Carrie plays out to be a detective, but there were also scenes where things were so obvious, and she made terrible choices that made me cringe.
I struggled a lot to understand and like Carrie – I didn’t like the way how she gets quiet and doesn’t talk and just cries, and suddenly when she leaves the situation, she bitches about everything and how things should’ve been done differently. WELL WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SOMETHING WHEN YOU HAD THE CHANCE, THEN? But then, there were also moments when she would come up with some interesting hypothesis and actually succeed into making a right choice, and I would think – YEAH, that’s my girl.
All in all, definitely a beautiful read, with a few tweaks here and there. I would love to read something similar to this, and for you that love chick-lit and detective stories, you would most probably enjoy this read 🙂
Thank you to NetGalley and Crooked Lane Books for giving me a free ARC copy in exchange for an honest review.
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