‘The Starburst Effect’ by Kelly Oram

4 stars!

Book Blurb:

 
“Lily Rosemont lives next door to the biggest jerk in high school. Noah Trask has bullied Lily for years, and now he’s ruined her senior year by making her a target and turning the whole school against her. On top of that, her parents are getting divorced, and her world is falling apart around her.

After an accident on the football field leaves Noah with a traumatic brain injury, shattering his life as he knew it and leaving him with a whole heap of new disabilities, he’s no longer at the top of the high school food chain. In fact, he’s right down at the bottom with Lily.

In a cruel twist of fate, if Noah wants to graduate high school on time, he needs Lily’s help to complete a project—a book he wants to write about his experience. Lily’s not sure she can put aside her anger and hate for the boy who destroyed her senior year, but she desperately needs this project to get a scholarship to college.

It doesn’t take long for Lily to realize that the Noah who got injured is not the same Noah who survived the accident. He’s different. Way different. Slowly, Lily softens to this new Noah, but can she find it in her heart to forgive him? Can the two most unlikely people find friendship in adversity and help each other pick up the pieces of their broken lives? “

My Review:

What happens when the school’s quarterback and biggest bully is shunned by the in-crowd and made fun of after a football injury?  What happens if the girl next door was his biggest bullying target, but everything changes after his injury?  Dig into this well-written YA Contemporary to find out!

The Starburst Effect is both the title of the book, and another way to say concussion, or Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI).  Noah, the love interest, was the captain and quarterback of his high school football team until he got knocked down really hard during a game, resulting in a concussion and Traumatic Brain Injury.  Author Kelly Oram does a great job showing how serious the TBI is and the many ways it creates challenges in Noah’s daily life.  The concussion is handled realistically and it respects the fact that Noah has retained his knowledge, it’s just being accessed differently.

The TBI, and all its cognitive and psychological challenges, give Noah a new perspective on everything in his life, and he doesn’t mind that his former friends turn on him.  The in-crowd and top bullies in the school, his ex-girlfriend and fellow football teammates, now laugh at his expense, at how different he seems.  But it doesn’t bother him.  It’s when Noah gets close to Lily, the girl living next door to him, that the bullying bothers him – because his former friends are bullying her.

Lily has never done anything to the high school jock living next to her; she has no idea what won his attention and contempt.  It seems that being neighbors put her at the disadvantage of being nearby when the school’s most popular crowd comes and goes from Noah’s house, and Noah himself starts the most vicious of all the bullying – right before getting injured on the football field.

Lily is facing multiple challenges all at once, she’s losing friends due to the bullying and she’s taking care of her younger brother, all while trying to pretend that her parents deciding to get divorced doesn’t bother her so much.  She may even be losing scholarship opportunities for college because she’s closed herself off in order to cope with it all.  She desperately wants to go away for college and escape all the bad things happening all around her, so she joins forces with Noah in a school sanctioned Independent Study, to help him write a book about his TBI experience.

As Lily gets to know post-accident Noah, she realizes that his values and priorities have truly changed.  Despite her best efforts, sparks fly between the two of them, and the PG romance that follows is sweet and heartwarming.

Grab a copy on June 20^th!

#TheStarburstEffect #NetGalley - I voluntarily read a Review Copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely my own and no one else’s. 

'Fireworks' by Alice Lin

4 stars

"A pitch-perfect K-pop rom com! Fame and friendship can get complicated, especially when there are more than platonic feelings at play.

Seventeen-year-old Lulu Li has her last summer before college all planned out. But her plans go awry when she learns that Kite Xu, her old next-door neighbor and childhood friend, will be returning home from South Korea.

Lulu hasn't seen Kite since eighth grade, after he left the country to pursue a career in K-pop, eventually debuting in the boy group Karnival. When Karnival announces that Kite will be taking a break from K-pop activities for mysterious reasons, the opportunity to rekindle their friendship arises.

Star-struck and nostalgic, Lulu tries to reconnect with Kite. As they continue to bond and reminisce over the past, Kite's sister, Connie, warns Lulu not to get too close to her brother. The harder Lulu tries to deny her feelings, the stronger they get. But how could a K-pop star ever fall for a nobody from home? And even if he did, is there any way for their relationship to end but badly?

Underlined is a line of totally addictive romance, thriller, and horror paperback original titles coming to you fast and furious each month. Enjoy everything you want to read the way you want to read it."

My Review:

Very cute YA contemporary about when the boy next door becomes a K-pop star in another country and then comes home for the summer. Childhood best friends and neighbors, Lulu and Kite have not seen each other since the end of eighth grade. Kite is now firmly established as a member of a K-pop group and Lulu and her friends just graduated from high school. I enjoyed watching as they caught up on all the things they missed over their years apart, and how their friendship turns into something more, slowly and sweetly.

‘Fireworks’ lights up bookshelves on June 7, 2022.

#Fireworks #NetGalley - I voluntarily read a Review Copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely my own and no one else’s.

'Misrule' (Malice Duology #2) by Heather Walter

4 stars!

Book Blurb:

“Did they break the curse, or begin one? Sleeping Beauty's dark sorceress reclaims her story in this sequel to Malice.

The Dark Grace is dead.

Feared and despised for the sinister power in her veins, Alyce has spent 100 years wreaking her revenge on the kingdom that made her an outcast. Once a realm of decadence and beauty, Briar is now wholly Alyce's wicked domain. No one escapes the consequences of her wrath.

Not even the one person who holds her heart.

Princess Aurora saw through Alyce's thorny facade, earning a love that promised the dawn of a new age. But that love came with a heavy price: Aurora now sleeps under a curse that even Alyce's vast power cannot seem to break, and their dream of the world they would have built together is nothing but ash.

Alyce vows to do anything to wake the woman she loves, even if it means descending into the monster Briar believed her to be. But could Aurora ever love the villain Alyce has become?

Or is true love only for fairy tales?”

My Review:
 
What if Sleeping Beauty *did* sleep for a hundred years? What if Maleficent spent that time trying to wake her? Author Heather Walter has crafted a detailed High Fantasy novel to help us find out. Once again, we follow Alyce's lovely and flowing narration as she allies herself with Demons, Shifters, Imps, and other Vila to transform Aurora's Kingdom of Briar into the Dark Court. When Aurora is finally awakened from her hundred years' slumber, everything about her world has changed around her. Oh, and there's a pesky Prince.

Highly recommended for fans of all fairy-tale retellings and F/F pairings. ‘Malice’ and 'Misrule' will also likely appeal to readers who enjoy vivid descriptions of palaces, court wardrobes, makeup, and food, such as in ‘The Selection’ series.

Grab a copy on May 10^th

#Misrule #NetGalley - I voluntarily read a Review Copy of this book. All opinions stated are solely my own and no one else’s.