Review: Just Visiting by Dahlia Adler

Just Visiting by Dahlia Adler 
Series: Standalone
Published: November 17th, 2015
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary
348 pages (eARC)
Genre: Contemporary Young Adult
Acquired this book: From the author in exchange for honest consideration
Warning: May contain spoilers
{GoodReads || Buy this book: Amazon || Chapters/Indigo}

Other books by Dahlia:

{My review of Behind the Scenes || My review of Under the Lights || 

My review of Last Will and Testament}

Reagan Forrester wants out—out of her trailer park, out of reach of her freeloading mother, and out of the shadow of the relationship that made her the pariah of Charytan, Kansas.

Victoria Reyes wants in—in to a fashion design program, in to the arms of a cute guy who doesn't go to Charytan High, and in to a city where she won't stand out for being Mexican.

One thing the polar-opposite best friends do agree on is that wherever they go, they’re staying together. But when they set off on a series of college visits at the start of their senior year, they quickly see that the future doesn’t look quite like they expected. After two years of near-solitude following the betrayal of the ex-boyfriend who broke her heart, Reagan falls hard and fast for a Battlestar Galactica-loving, brilliant smile-sporting pre-med prospective... only to learn she's set herself up for heartbreak all over again. Meanwhile, Victoria runs full-speed toward all the things she thinks she wants… only to realize everything she’s looking for might be in the very place they've sworn to leave.

As both Reagan and Victoria struggle to learn who they are and what they want in the present, they discover just how much they don't know about each other's pasts. And when each learns what the other’s been hiding, they'll have to decide whether their friendship has a future.

Just Visiting is a book that does something rare and wonderful: it focuses on friendship in all its wonderful, messy, complicated, beautiful glory. The book has elements of romance, and the story deals with a lot of other real-life issues, but the main focus of the book is friendship, and I love that.

Victoria and Raegan are very different people. They have different home lives, different hobbies, different goals. They’re both sort of outcasts for different reasons, but when they befriended each other, they found something magical - true friendship, the kind that can get through anything.

The friendship between Vic and Rae was realistic and hit close to home for me in a lot of ways. All of Adler’s books have had some aspect that truly spoke to me on a personal level, and in Just Visiting, it was the main theme of the book: friendship. I'm going to get personal for a bit here...I had friendships similar to Raegan and Vic’s in high school. My best friend and I planned everything around each other and there were times when she practically lived with me because her home life was so crappy. But she was secretive and started doing things behind my back, and it slowly caused cracks in our relationship. We went to the same college, same program and everything...but more secrets, more lies, and she ended up dropping out before the first semester was even over. It was devastating, and things were never the same between us. My other best friend went away for college. We talked all the time and saw each other whenever she came home. Her college course was only a year long, and after that she went to university. She made new friends, had her first boyfriend, and this distance grew between us until we barely spoke or saw each other anymore. But then a couple years ago, we started talking here and there again, and ended up reconnecting and are now closer than ever. We even spent two weeks travelling through Europe together this past summer. Sometimes people’s differences can’t be overcome, and sometimes hurt feelings and anger can’t be overcome. I was glad to see Raegan and Vic work through things, even though it wasn’t always easy. They truly loved each other and wanted each other to be happy. They learned a lot about themselves and each other, and about friendship in general.

Other things in this book I appreciated: how realistic the romance was between Raegan and Dev. It was complicated and caused a lot of confusion, which sums up a lot of relationships when you're a teen. I also really liked how close Vic was to her family. We get something else that’s quite rare in YA: parents who are involved in their kid’s life. Vic loved her parents and they loved her; she actually enjoyed spending time with them and wanted to tell them things. They cared about her education, her hobbies, and wanted her to have friends. It was refreshing after seeing so many absent parents in books. One of my absolute favourite stand-out things about this book was that there was a deaf character. My brother is deaf, as are his in-laws, and we live in a town with one of the few deaf schools in the country, so I’ve been surrounded by the deaf community my whole life. Even though it was a side character who was deaf, it still made me really happy. I also grinned a few times when Vic and Rae said they signed to each other when they didn’t want people to know what they were saying, because I specifically taught some of my friends signs in high school so we could communicate ‘secretly’ when we didn’t want others to know what we were saying.

Another common reaction to Adler’s books: me crying at the end. With her last book, Under the Lights, I happy-cried through the last 10% because it was so perfect and beautiful. With Just Visiting, I cried in the epilogue because, again, it was perfect. It was bittersweet but realistic and I was glad to see the girls happy and doing what was right for them.

Just Visiting is a realistic look at the trials and triumphs in friendship. It captured that feeling of uncertainty about the future when you’re a teenager and getting ready to set out into the ‘real world’. I would definitely recommend Just Visiting to fans of contemporary YA.

Have you read Just Visiting? What did you think? If you haven't read it, do you plan to? What are some of your favourite books with strong friendships? Let's talk here or on Twitter!

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Review: Under the Lights by Dahlia Adler

Under the Lights by Dahlia Adler 
Series: Behind the Scenes #2
Published: June 30th, 2015
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary
Genre: Contemporary upper YA/NA
Acquired this book: Via NetGalley in exchange for honest consideration
Warning: May contain spoilers
{GoodReads || Buy this book: Amazon || Chapters/Indigo}

{Read my review of Behind the Scenes || Read my review of Last Will and Testament}

Josh Chester loves being a Hollywood bad boy, coasting on his good looks, his parties, his parents' wealth, and the occasional modeling gig. But his laid-back lifestyle is about to change. To help out his best friend, Liam, he joins his hit teen TV show, Daylight Falls...opposite Vanessa Park, the one actor immune to his charms. (Not that he's trying to charm her, of course.) Meanwhile, his drama-queen mother blackmails him into a new family reality TV show, with Josh in the starring role. Now that he's in the spotlight—on everyone's terms but his own—Josh has to decide whether a life as a superstar is the one he really wants.

Vanessa Park has always been certain about her path as an actor, despite her parents' disapproval. But with all her relationships currently in upheaval, she's painfully uncertain about everything else. When she meets her new career handler, Brianna, Van is relieved to have found someone she can rely on, now that her BFF, Ally, is at college across the country. But as feelings unexpectedly evolve beyond friendship, Van's life reaches a whole new level of confusing. And she'll have to choose between the one thing she's always loved...and the person she never imagined she could.

Under the Lights was one of my most anticipated reads of 2015, and I’m happy to say it didn’t disappoint! I read the first book in this companion duology, Behind the Scenes, shortly before reading this one, so I was excited to see where things would go with Josh and Vanessa.

Under the Lights deals with a lot of issues while still managing to be a fairly light, amusing, and overall positive read. Despite the two main characters being actors in Hollywood, they deal with ‘real life’ things, which I loved. Things like parental issues, falling in love, friendship problems, coming out, racism, sex, and just growing up in general. They experience the fun, glamorous aspects of Hollywood life you’d expect, but they feel like real teens you can relate to.  

Josh is one of those characters that a lot of people probably hate. He’s not supposed to be likeable - he’s a dick, and he’s the first to admit it. I kind of loved Josh, though. Or at least loved to hate him. In a weird way, I understood him, and I appreciated that he was who he was and he didn’t give a crap what anyone thought. His growth was one of my favourite aspects of the book, because I didn’t necessarily expect it. It could have gone horribly wrong and felt forced or cheesy, but it felt so natural and within character. Adler did a fantastic job of taking a difficult character and making him...slightly less difficult. He was still Josh, just a little more evolved.

Vanessa was easy to connect with, too. She loves acting and likes being a part of Hollywood, even if it means having decisions made for her, like pretend-dating certain guys because it looks good for their careers. She goes along with it, because it doesn’t take a whole lot of effort, and she knows it’ll help her image. She wants to be a role model, someone people can look up to, and also a beacon of hope in a way, to show other people of colour that it's possible to get roles in Hollywood and be successful. Like with Josh, I loved Van’s growth. A lot of that came once she befriended Bri and their relationship started to evolve into something more. She started wanting things she never knew she wanted (like hot tattooed redheads), and things she knew she wanted, but didn’t know how to achieve (like independence from her strict, controlling parents). I really enjoyed watching her relationship with Bri progress, and I appreciated that there were realistic complications and obstacles, and things didn’t happen easily. And, not gonna lie, I also appreciated that it didn’t shy away from the hot girl sex!

Under the Lights is a highly entertaining, emotional, sexy read about friendship, love in its many forms, and self-discovery. I cried happy tears through the last 10% of the book because everything came together in such a natural, beautiful, perfect way. I was proud of these characters and felt like I was a friend who got to watch their growth and cheer them on from the sidelines. I have now officially read and loved all of Dahlia Adler’s published books, and I can’t wait to see what she writes next.

Have you read Under the Lights? What did you think? If you haven't read it, do you plan to? Do you have a favourite YA or NA f/f book? How about a favourite character you love to hate? Let's talk here or on Twitter!

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Review: Behind the Scenes by Dahlia Adler

Behind the Scenes by Dahlia Adler 
Series: Daylight Falls #1
Published: June 24th, 2014
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary
328 pages (ebook)
Genre: Contemporary Young Adult
Acquired this book: Bought
Warning: May contain spoilers
{GoodReads || Buy this book: Amazon || Chapters/Indigo}

 

{Read my 5-star review of Last Will and Testament}

High school senior Ally Duncan's best friend may be the Vanessa Park - star of TV's hottest new teen drama - but Ally's not interested in following in her BFF's Hollywood footsteps. In fact, the only thing Ally’s ever really wanted is to go to Columbia and study abroad in Paris. But when her father's mounting medical bills threaten to stop her dream in its tracks, Ally nabs a position as Van's on-set assistant to get the cash she needs.

Spending the extra time with Van turns out to be fun, and getting to know her sexy co-star Liam is an added bonus. But when the actors’ publicist arranges for Van and Liam to “date” for the tabloids just after he and Ally share their first kiss, Ally will have to decide exactly what role she's capable of playing in their world of make believe. If she can't play by Hollywood's rules, she may lose her best friend, her dream future, and her first shot at love.
 

I had my fair share of celebrity crushes as a teen (oh, who am I kidding, I still have a ton of celeb crushes and I’ve been out of my teens for ages), so a book about a regular teen girl dating a hot celebrity totally appealed to me. I liked that Adler put a new twist on the trope by having Ally actually live in Hollywood and be friends with a rising starlet, so her meeting/dating Liam wasn’t a chance encounter or a case of ‘girl stalks celeb, celeb happens to notice her, they have a meet cute, and start dating’. The story was also about a lot more than just their romance and the angst surrounding it; it had all the elements of what I adore most in YA: friendship, family, real life issues, genuine emotion, and character growth.

I really liked Ally. She was smart, funny, and driven. She knew what she wanted and wasn’t afraid to go after it. I enjoyed her relationship with her family, especially her dad. I really connected with her on that, since I lived through two years of my dad being in and out of hospital with cancer before he died. Her fear and uncertainty came through really well, and it broke my heart whenever she thought of the future without her dad, because I had so many of the same thoughts when my dad was sick. I also really liked her friendship with Vanessa. It was great to see them maintaining a friendship despite Van’s bursting schedule and rising popularity. Like a lot of Ally’s life, her friendship with Van couldn’t be ‘normal’, but they made it work. I loved how loyal they were to each other, how they stood up for each other, and considered each other in so many decisions, big and small. 

And then there was Liam. I loved Liam. He was the kind of celebrity I would have crushed on as a teen and hoped he was as awesome in real life as Liam actually was. He was smart, patient, and sweet, and he cared so much about Ally.

It’s hard to explain how I felt about certain parts of the book. On one hand, I understood Ally’s reservations and issues about dating Liam, and why she got upset about some things. But on the other hand, she said from the beginning she didn’t want anything to do with people in Hollywood other than Van, and she didn’t want to date a celebrity because she wanted a normal life, a normal boyfriend., etc...but she starts dating Liam and then gets upset that they can’t have a normal relationship, even though she knew that would be the case. She drove me nuts at times because she knew how things were and how they needed to be, but she kept freaking out. And yet, I could always sort of rationalize her behaviour in a way, between her age, and the fact she really liked Liam and wished things could be different. It was the weirdest feeling while reading - being incredibly frustrated with Ally while going ‘well she is eighteen, it’s hard enough being a teenager, then throw all this other crap in...’ Despite those odd and sometimes confused mixed feelings on my part, it didn’t take away from the fact that Ally was a good person, and I appreciated that she was flawed and realistic.

Overall, I really enjoyed Behind the Scenes. Ally had a great, authentic voice, tons of growth, and was easy to connect to. She had great chemistry with Liam (who’s one of my new favourite swoony book boyfriends), and her relationships with her family and Vanessa added so much to the story. This book made me giggle, tear up, and swoon. If you’re a fan of contemporary YA, especially ones that explore a relationship between a celebrity and a non-celebrity, be sure to pick up Behind the Scenes!

Have you read Behind the Scenes? What did you think? If you haven't read it, do you plan to? Do you have a favourite book about a 'regular' person dating a celebrity? Who was your biggest celeb crush as a teenager? Let's talk here or on Twitter!

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Wanderlust Wednesday Review: Swimming to Tokyo by Brenda St John Brown

 

Check out my previous Wanderlust Wednesday posts.

I'll be honest: visiting Japan has never really appealed to me. I'm not sure what it is - the fact it's so far away, or maybe just because I've always been interested in (*cough* obsessed with) the UK and Europe. But after reading Brenda St John Brown's Swimming to Tokyo, I feel like I've actually been to Tokyo. For that reason, I'm pausing from Wanderlust Wednesdays dedicated to my trip to London, Paris, and Rome, and doing a special review edition of Wanderlust Wednesday.

Swimming to Tokyo by Brenda St John Brown
Series: Standalone
Published: July 28th, 2014
Publisher: Spencer Hill Contemporary
235 pages (ebook)
Genre: Contemporary New Adult
Acquired this book: Bought
Warning: May contain spoilers
{GoodReads || Buy this book: Amazon || Chapters/Indigo}

The rules for swimming are simple:

Rule #1: There is no lifeguard on duty.

Since her mom died three years ago, nineteen-year-old Zosia Easton’s been treading water. Living at home. Community college. Same old Saturday nights. So when her father breaks the news he’s taken a job transfer—and by the way, it means renting out the house that’s been her refuge—a summer in Tokyo feels like it just might be a chance to start swimming again.

Rule #2: Beware of unexpected currents.

Finn O’Leary has spent God knows how many years trying to drown out his past. Juvenile detention. Bad decisions. Worse choices. He’s managed to turn it around – MIT, Dean’s List, a sexier-than-thou body with a smile to match – at least on the surface. When his mom asks him to spend the summer with her, Tokyo seems as good a place as any to float through the summer.

Rule #3: Swim at your own risk.

Swimming to Tokyo wasn’t what I was expecting. I’d heard great things about it and many of my blogger friends loved it, but for some reason I didn’t expect to love it as much as I did. I don’t think the synopsis does it justice; this book is emotional, funny, sexy, sweet, and swoony. It incorporates all the things I love best about New Adult books, and does it in a fascinating setting that’s different from the typical European or US summer vacation books.

This is a story that starts out quiet and kind of sneaks up on you. It didn’t take long for me to get sucked into Zosia and Finn’s story and fall hard for them. St John Brown managed to take a trope I’m mostly tired of seeing - tortured hero who doesn’t believe he’s good enough for the heroine and doesn’t want to be with her for her own good - and turn it on its head. Finn completely stole my heart. He was serious and intense, but had all these unexpected sides to him, and so much depth. He was flawed, believable, and genuine. He was damaged and it affected his life and relationships, but Zosia had this unexpected way of getting past his defenses and making him lower his guard. I loved these two together, whether they were exploring Japan, hanging out, driving each other crazy, or having super steamy sexytimes (the way the physical relationship was handled was one of my favourite parts of the book, and was beyond sexy). I thought the progression of their relationship was believable and it was a pleasure to watch. 

I also really enjoyed watching Zosia grow up in a lot of ways. She’d been through a lot and was trying to cope with the heartache she’d experienced. I liked her relationship with her best friend and grandmother, and found the dynamics between Zosia and her dad interesting and believable. I loved watching her become independent, stand up for herself, and forge her own path.

Swimming to Tokyo has well fleshed-out characters, an interesting setting, and manages to bring both the feels and the swoons. It has a lot more emotional depth than I expected, and I love that it had the ability to make me grin, laugh, and tear up. This is one of my new favourite NAs, and I'm eager to see what Brenda St John Brown writes next. In the acknowledgments she says she'd love to write a book set in Paris, and let me just say I am so here for that!

Have you read Swimming to Tokyo? What did you think? If you haven't read it, do you plan to? Have you ever been to Japan? Let's talk here or on Twitter!

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