Book Review: Pushing Perfect by Michelle Falkoff

Title: Pushing Perfect
Author: Michell Falkoff
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: October 25, 2016 

 

A girl’s quest for perfection results in dangerous consequences in this layered, suspenseful YA novel by the author of Playlist for the Dead.

How far would you go to be perfect?

Kara has the perfect life. She gets perfect grades. She never messes up. Until now. Because perfection is an illusion, and Kara has been struggling to maintain it for as long as she can remember. With so much pressure to succeed, it’s hard not to do whatever it takes.

But when Kara takes a new underground drug to help her ace the SATs, she doesn’t expect to get a text from a blocked sender, telling her to follow a set of mysterious instructions—or risk her dark secret getting out. Soon she finds herself part of a group of teens with secrets of their own, who are all under the thumb of the same anonymous texter. And if they don’t find a way to stop the blackmailer, their perfect futures will go up in flames.

This dark, emotionally resonant contemporary YA novel is perfect for fans of We Were Liars and The Secret History.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review. No payments made between me and the publisher.

First of all thank you for this copy which I received via Edelweiss. I saw this while I was browsing the website and I think it was a good book. The book itself looks plain simple but the content of it is something more.  

The book itself has a simple story, high school life who thinks of the future, college, universities and so on. Kara (the main character) thinks she should always be perfect in the eyes of her parents, friends and teachers. To her perfection will do you good but then some thing happened to her during her swimming practice, she's been allergic to pool water ever since that day and she didn't tell it to her friends, aside from that she keeps having panic attacks when she's attempting to take her SATs. To solve that, she became part of the group of teens who do the underground drugs, she never imagined that she'll become a pawn until somebody tried to blackmail her. She and her new friends found a way to solve the mystery and Kara didn't expect the drug dealer is someone close to her.

I think the lesson I got from this book is that, don't try to be perfect because nobody is. It was okay to make mistakes and it is better to be yourself for you to gain true friends. It is harder to be with people who only see your outer side not the inner ones so I guess, Kara really made big mistake when she didn't even try to explain her situation to her friends and parents. 

This book also applies to the society we have nowadays, we don't know who suffers the same thing to Kara but I guess this book will help the readers to be aware of what can happen to a person. Maybe teens nowadays must be more open to their parents because they know what to do, if not a trusted councilor will help.

Ratings

Michelle Falkoff's fiction and reviews have been published in ZYZZYVA, DoubleTake and the Harvard Review, among other places. She is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and currently serves as Director of Communication and Legal Reasoning at Northwestern University School of Law.

Source: http://michellefalkoff.com/

Book Review: The Secrets We Keep by Deb Loughead

Title: The Secrets We Keep
Author: Deb Loughead
Publisher: Dundurn
Published: December 10, 2016

First she blamed herself. Now she doesn’t know who to trust.

When Kit disappeared at a party and was found drowned in the quarry the next day, Clem knew who to point the finger at: herself. She was the last person to see him alive, the last person who could have helped. If she had just kept a closer eye on him instead of her crush, Jake, maybe Kit would still be here. She knows she made a mistake, and wishes she could just forget about it — but Clem’s friend Ellie says she’ll expose Clem’s secret if she doesn’t play along with Ellie’s lies.

Jake seems to have his own difficult secrets, and when he and Clem start to talk, they make a plan to help themselves move on. But when an unexpected discovery at the quarry makes everyone question what they thought they knew, Clem and Jake decide it’s up to them to uncover the truth.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book in exchange of an honest review. No payments made between me and the publisher.

First of all I want to thank the publisher for the opportunity to read this book. I was intrigued when I saw this on NetGalley so I immediately requested this. The blurb and book title was catchy. I do want to know what were their secrets so...I decided to proceed reading this one.

I don't read much mystery related book but this one is an exemption, I enjoyed reading this. It was confusing at first but the story changes fast and the reader will be able to catch up right away. If you'll look at the details closely you'll be able to pick up the clues from what happened that night when Kit disappeared. The story wasn't that long either and it was straight forward mostly it was focused on finding how Kit died. 

Another thing I loved about this book was how Clem, Jake and Ellie found closure with each other. After all the things that happened to them, they still had each others back. 

My Rating

 

Deb Loughead, a Toronto author, poet and workshop leader, has been writing since she learned how to read. In fact, she’s saved everything she’s ever written, including her very first composition entitled “A Narrow Escape for a Mouse” which she often reads during her classroom visits! As of 2015, Deb has published over 35 books for children and Young Adults.  

Source: Website

Book Tour (Spotlight): Hell Holes Donald Firesmith

Author: Donald Firesmith 

Book: Hell Holes 

Genre: Science Fiction /Fantasy/Paranormal

When hundreds of huge holes mysteriously appear overnight in the frozen tundra north of the Arctic Circle, they threaten financial and environmental catastrophe should any more open up under the Trans-Alaska Pipeline or any of the many oil wells and smaller pipelines that feed it. An oil company sends a scientific team to investigate. But when the  geologist, his climatologist wife, two of their graduate students, a local newspaper reporter, an oil company representative, and a field biologist arrive at one of the holes, they discover a far worse danger lurks below, one that threatens to destroy all of humanity when it emerges, forcing the survivors to flee south towards Fairbanks.

 

↓Buy Links↓

 

Amazon.com 

iTunes

BookLife

Indigo 

Smashwords 

A geek by day, Donald Firesmith works as a system and software engineer helping the US Government acquire large, complex software-intensive systems. In this guise, he has authored seven technical books, written numerous software- and system-related articles and papers, and spoken at more conferences than he can possibly remember. He's also proud to have been named a Distinguished Engineer by the Association of Computing Machinery, although his pride is tempered somewhat by his fear that the term "distinguished" makes him sound like a graybeard academic rather than an active engineer whose beard is still slightly more red than gray.

By night and on weekends, his alter ego writes modern paranormal fantasy, apocalyptic science fiction, action and adventure novels and relaxes by handcrafting magic wands from various magical woods and mystical gemstones. His first foray into fiction is the book Magical Wands: A Cornucopia of Wand Lore written under the pen name Wolfrick Ignatius Feuerschmied. He lives in Crafton, Pennsylvania with his wife Becky, and his son Dane, and varying numbers of dogs, cats, and birds.

You can learn more about the author by visiting his website: http://donaldfiresmith.com

His magical wands and autographed copies of his books are available from the Firesmith’s Wand Shoppe at: http://magicalwandshoppe.com.

Visit him at:

Website: http://donaldfiresmith.com

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FiresmithAuthorFanPage

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DonFiresmith

Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/-/e/B001HQ006A

Home of a Book Lover Celebrates it's 4th Anniversary

Hi everyone!!! Today I celebrate my blog's 4th birthday! Thank you so much to all of my readers and to the publishers and authors who keep trusting me with their books for me to review. To all the new friends I've met during the book signings and other events, you guys are awesome! I can't thank you enough you are all amazing!

Well... in return, I have a present for my blog giveaway winner. I won't reveal my prizes yet though here's the clue, I have a box with me which will be filled with stuff it is book related of course, some will be random things that I think will be helpful for your reading time AND there will be a book which I won't tell what will it be.

Sorry international followers, this mystery box will be available for PHILIPPINES only. I promise I'll try to arrange a giveaway like this next time. 

Sooooo who's up for this giveaway? Good luck!!! :)

** PS. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram and Twitter to check the giveaway updates, I might reveal some of the items there :)

 PHILIPPINES ONLY

a Rafflecopter giveaway