Review of "Flirting Games" by Stella Wilkinson

The Flirting Games by Stella Wilkinson
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I was actually quite excited to read this. Both because of the title, the blurb and the fun-looking cover.

Are you tired of having the hot-heartbreaker-guy sifting through your friends? Let him fall for you! It's sure to end well...

Ellie is this book-typical character that's fun, exciting, has any guy to choose from, and is protected by her big brother's reputation.

I liked her. For the most of the book, and while I could add in my own reasoning as to why she chooses to act the way she does, then I found that it would have been more enjoyable if I hadn't needed to.

Nate is the boarding school's resident bad-boy, and he's good at the love 'em and leave 'em approach.

Together, they make up a somewhat sweet duo. I particularly enjoyed their study-sessions.

What I didn't enjoy was the many shifting point of views. I mean, I get that Nate and Ellie was useful for the book, but to have her big brother--who wasn't even in the book, but only mentioned--to appear as a main character annoyed me. Especially since the book was so short.

I would recommend it to anyone who wants a light-fun read.

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Review of "The Hazards of Skinny Dipping" by Alyssa Rose Ivy

The Hazards of Skinny Dipping by Alyssa Rose Ivy
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

If I could, I would give this book 4,5 stars. However, I rounded down, rather than up because of the things that bothered me.

  Warning: May contain spoilers.

What to do when you discover that your crush has extremely poor skills in the bedroom?

Innocent Julie is going away to college. Her cousin, Amy, gives her a list of challenges to do in order to prepare for the full college experience.

Her story starts as travels up to her family's beach house, to cross off the last challenge: skinny dipping. A little nervous, she jumps into the water, only to see that her neighbor is arriving while she's still naked.

Dylan is hot, preppy and a few years older than her. When he sees her, he promptly jumps in the pool with her, and things heat up from there. It doesn't take long before Julie is in his bed, incredibly unsatisfied, and finally, she skips out on him.

Unfortunately for Julie, Dylan thinks she rocked his world, and as she starts college, he quickly claims her as his girl. Julie, who has had an idol-crush on him for years agrees hoping his skills in bed could be improved. Only they don't, but as time goes on, it takes additionally months before she realizes that Dylan is a controlling ass. In the mean-time, she joins a sorority, get a job, and makes some new friends.

One of the things that bothered me about this book, was how Julie was described both as innocent. I kinda would have wished she was more awkward around Dylan, since that would explain her hesitating to dump his poor-skilled ass. Or maybe, if every guy didn't try to bang her, that could have been awesome as well.

I also think that Julie's reaction to Amy and Reed's friendship was waaay overdone. It almost seemed melodramatic compared to how she dealt with other issues throughout the book.

Nevertheless, it was a fun read. I laughed at some parts, and I can't say I'll never read it again. However, I didn't particularly find any of the side-characters interesting enough to want to continue the series.

Would recommend to anyone who likes a light-read about the college-experience.

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Review of "Stardust" by Mimi Strong

Stardust by Mimi Strong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Food-girl meets Wannabe-Vamp-Guy.

NOTE: If you're low on naughty-bits synonyms, this book offers you classics like "taco shop", "hotdog stand", "cucumber" and "peaches".

Stardust is an light-read with a few good lines, some amazing side-characters, and a seemingly good plot. It continues in the sequel, ending on a cliffhanger.

We meet Peaches Monroe, a sassy, smart-but-boring, plus-sized girl. In an attempt to cover up an air vent leading to a bakery, she stands on a stool when super-famous Actor Dalton--who plays a vampire on TV--stumbles into a bookstore, knocking her down so she literally falls into his arms.

After that, the glorious Dalton invites himself to accompany Peaches to her cousin's wedding.

Over the course of the next 200+ pages, we find out that Dalton Deangelo is perfect . He has a perfect body, perfect face, perfect hands, his ears are perfect, his lips, perfect, his touch is perfect. Everything is perfect.

All while Peaches is boring, sassy, low on self-esteem--but confident--she is book-smart, but boy-dumb. And apparently her exposure to super-star Dalton Deangelo makes her hooha tingle with excitement for any action.

And so forth, every single character trait she has, she has the exact opposite whenever she needs it.

Example: She is book-smart, often telling how high grades, and how many books she's read. Now, I'm no librarian myself, but whenever I read books, I often find myself comparing them to my real life. If she's so book-smart, then even though she's boy-dumb, she should be able to recognize a cheesy line when delivered. Of course, that's just me.

Another example is her low confidence. She's obviously gorgeous--or in any case do-able--seeming how every guy wants a piece of her. And she knows this, flirts back and show off her assets, but two pages later she's in her closet, crying because she can't fit her jeans, and she's so fat, ugly and disgusting, for then to change back to frisky, sexy Peaches who don't mind sexing it up at all.

Also, Peaches really loves food. And not just in a food-critic fashion, but in a let-me-compare-everything-especially-genitalia-with-fast-food-names way. I mean, I get it, she's on a diet--it sucks.

Mimi Strong has an engaging voice, and the book is for the most part okay. There a few cutesy moments and hilarious lines. But it's rarely the times that are intended to be fun(the fun names for sex, the side notes, the excuses in parenthesis or the forced flirtation)

My most favorite part of the book was the character Adrian Storm. Somehow, as annoyed as I was for Peaches flirting with him, gushing over how hot he was(especially since she was with Dalton) then I didn't really mind--they were that natural.

Peaches friendship with her roommate is good too--except when Peaches again can't decide her character traits and acts either melodramatic, or bitchy.

I really can't stress the fact how confused Peaches made me. I wanted to like her so badly, but then she ends up turning me completely off from her character with just a sentence.

Dalton... He has potential, but I just thought his behavior was too rehearsed, cheesy or erratic. Half of the time he annoyed me more than else.

All in all. An Okay book. I wouldn't say it blew my mind. It had some entertaining moments, but didn't make me roll around laughing. I've read better, but also far worse books. Not bad for a weekend read if nothing else is pulling at you.

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