Where Rainbows End - Cecelia Ahern (2004)

4 stars

After seeing the trailer for this movie, I thought that I would enjoy the book and as excited as I was before I'd read it, now I'm double that excitement level for the movie.

This book is told through letters and messages like emails and instant messages, which makes the timeline of this book very confusing and annoying. The book ranges from when Rosie and Alex are 7 to when they're 50, but I'd say that probably 450 pages of this 550 page book is in their mid-twenties to mid-thirties. I found this book really hard to put down, I don't know whether it was because it was told through letters, or because I was just that invested in Rosie's life, but I read it in 2 days and I'm so interested to see what they cut out in the movie because it had a lot of plot. My favourite character in this book was probably Ruby, but Rosie makes a close second, they were both hilarious and had me constantly laughing. Without their humour and love for each other I don't think this book would hold up because you would realize how frustrating it is that her and Alex just aren't together. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes romance, especially if you like a lot of build up.

Rosie and Alex are best friends living in Dublin, when they're 17 Alex's father gets a promotion and moves his family to Boston. The next year Alex is supposed to come back to Dublin to take Rosie to her debs (I think it's some sort of graduation dance) before she moves over to Boston to go to Boston college but there's a mix up with his flight and he can't make it, Rosie has to go with Brian the Whine, a hated classmate of theirs, and she ends up drinking a lot so she can stand him and winds up pregnant. She raises Katie, her daughter, in her parents house for the first few years and then gets a job in the same building as Ruby, all the while keeping in touch with Alex who is Katie's godfather. Alex marries his college sweetheart Sally, who absolutely hates Rosie and vice versa and Rosie starts dating an older man named Greg who Alex hates. Sally and Alex have a son, Josh and then get divorced while Rosie gets a receptionist job at a hotel and takes Greg back after he cheats on her. Alex comes to stay and leaves Rosie a letter explaining his love for her, but Greg finds it and hides it from her. Rosie finds out that Greg continued to cheat on her even after she took him back and leaves him, planning to head to Boston to stay with Alex, who is excited so he can profess his love for her, but Brian the Whine, who left town when Rosie was pregnant sends her a letter asking to be part of Katie's life and she decides she has to give him a chance for Katie's sake so she stays in Dublin. Alex starts dating Bethany, his high school sweetheart again, who Rosie has always hated and when he marries her because she's pregnant, even though he told Rosie that he didn't love her, he and Rosie get in a fight and they don't talk for a year. Rosie does night school to get her hotel management degree even though it takes her a year longer than planned because her dad dies the night before her final exams. Her mother dies three years later and Greg sends her the letter Alex left her all those years ago, she doesn't do anything because he's married, but because Katie is living in Ibiza DJing she moves into her mum's house and turns it into her own B & B. Years later when she's 50 and Alex has divorced Bethany, they're both IMing Katie because she ran into her childhood best friend Toby and thinks she loves him because she had the "silence" that her mum always told her about (which was a silence she experienced with Alex before she kissed him before his first wedding) and when Alex realizes she felt the silence too he sends her a letter professing his love for her (again). The book ends with a few pages from third person omniscient perspective telling how Rosie had kept all the letters and emails from the few years and had read over them that night waiting for Alex to arrive, she walks downstairs and falls but he catches her and smiles.

We Were Liars - E. Lockhart (2014)

5 stars

I bought this book because I kept seeing everyone rave about it, but I still had no idea what it was about when I bought it but I was definitely happy with my decision.

Although the whole "this book is so great but I shouldn't tell you anything about it" strategy worked on me, I don't think it's the smartest thing in the world because unless you spend your whole life on the internet like me I don't think many people would see it in a bookstore and pick it up. This book is told from the perspective of Cadence, and I kind of enjoy all her fairytales and exaggerated metaphors, and I love the short chapters, if you could even call them that. This book combined all my favourite aspects; summer holidays, good friendships, romance and a bit of mystery, I thought it was a good length too, because any longer with her not being able to remember what happened and I would've gotten really frustrated. My favourite characters in this book are Johnny and Gat, Johnny because he was hilarious and brought some much needed humour to the book, and Gat because I fell in love with him along with Cadence. I would recommend this book to people who like drama and romance, but also like a mystery.

Cadence is the eldest grandchild of Harris Sinclair, a rich and prestigious man who owns his own island that she and her cousins go to every summer. She and her two other cousins around her age, Johnny and Mirren, along with Johnny's stepfather's nephew Gat, become the best of friends and have a great time together every summer, calling themselves the liars. As Cadence gets older she starts to love Gat and during summer fifteen they declare their love for each other even though Cadence's grandfather doesn't approve. During summer fifteen Cadence has an accident she can't remember along with most of that summer, and when she returns to the island two summers later she has to piece together her memory to work out what happened. She eventually remembers that her mother and her two sisters were fighting over their inheritances and their granfather was manipulating and threatening them all over it so much that summer that the liars decided to do something about it. Cadence remembers that she convinced them all to burn down the grandfather's house on the island while everyone else was out except they didn't plan it that well and Cadence lit her floor too early and Johnny, Mirren and Gat all died.

The Revenge of Seven - Pittacus Lore (2014)

4 stars

I bought this book as soon as it came out because I think this series is so much fun to read, except I found this book took a lot longer to read than any of the others.

This book is told from three different perspectives like the past couple books in the series, and this time it's the perspectives of John, Six and Ella. I've always liked Six's perspective and they're all obviously going to have John's perspective, but I didn't really like Ella's that much, I understand why it needed her perspective as she was separated from the rest of the group and she got a lot of the mogadorian backstory explained, but I think Nine or Marina would be a lot more enjoyable. I think the reason that I took a lot longer to read this book than the previous ones in the series is because it had a lot of build up for the next book, which I think is going to be the last book in the series so the first half, which was good, just didn't grab me like the second half and like the previous few books have. I thought the coolest part of this book was the introduction of the sanctuary, I love how the series keeps introducing new places and people that are all equally important and I thought that the sanctuary was one of the most interesting parts of the book. If I had to pick a favourite character in this book it would be Nine, but I don't think any of the characters had enough time for me to get a proper idea of who was my favourite, I just picked Nine because he always brings some hilarity to every moment. I would recommend this series to anyone who likes fun sci fi series.

The book starts with the Garde in three different groups, Marina, Nine and Six are in the swamp after their battle in the last book, Ella is on a Mogadorian ship with Setrakus Ra, and John is with Sam, Malcolm, Adam and Sarah running from Mogadorians. Adam soon convinces John and the others to make an attack on his father's neighbourhood where a lot of the high ranking mogadorians live and have their base of operations. Adam ends up killing his father to save John's life and then they use the mogadorians computer system to contact Six, Nine and Marina, who have stolen a mogadorian jet, to direct them to the house they're now staying in. They then learn that when the Loric were visiting earth they created a sanctuary that only Loric could enter and where they can recreate Lorien if they use the gems and things from their chests. Six, Marina and Adam head to the sanctuary and Nine, John and Sam head to New York to try to stop the politicians that are in cahoots with Setrakus Ra. John and Nine convince Bud Sanderson to turn against Setrakus and when he and all the mogadorians invade, pretty much minutes later, it doesn't go peacefully like he planned and Ella gets Nine to destroy his staff which was the source of his shape changing ability. Ella then learns that even though Setrakus joined them so whatever hurts him actually happens to her, it doesn't work if she is the one who hurts him. Six, Marina and Adam commit all their stones and pendants to the earth at the sanctuary and then the spirit of Lorien speaks through Eight's body and tells them now he's reawakened there's nothing else he can do and then Eight is briefly back in his body, he comforts Marina and they kiss before he disintegrates. The book ends with John fighting a Piken in New York, and then when he's about to be crushed, Sam using telekinesis to stop it.