Review: Facade by Nyrae Dawn

Facade by Nyrae Dawn
Series: Games #2
Publisher: Forever (Grand Central Publishing)
Source: Netgalley
ISBN: 9781455576302
Release Date: July 2, 2013
Pages: 192

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Can love save them?

After her father commits a crime that shatters her family, eighteen-year-old Delaney Cross is tired of pretending everything is alright. Packing up her car, she sets out to find the people her father hurt. Her search leads her to places she's never been--and into the arms of Adrian Westfall.

To the outside world, Adrian is a sexy, charming ladies man. But his playboy persona is just an act. Secretly his soul is tortured by a memory too painful to share. Only Delaney seems to see through his façade to the real man underneath. And for the first time in his life, Adrian feels he can begin to open up about his past.

Together, Adrian and Delaney share a passionate, carefree love they never expected to find. Yet both still harbor their own secrets. When the dark truth is finally revealed, will it bring them closer together, or tear them apart forever?

Façade absolutely blew me away. Within pages I was hooked. Adrian and Delaney’s story was so sad, but with each page I wanted needed to know more. How much I enjoyed this book really came as a surprise to me. I’ve been finding lately a lot of New Adult books are just blending together, but this one was different. It was well written and I adored the characters.

One evening four years ago, Adrian was watching his nephew, Ashton. While Ashton was playing in the front yard a distracted driver jumped the curb and killed him. Adrian has never forgiven himself for this as he felt it was his only job to watch out for him and blames himself for his death. Adrian has never even allowed his sister to forgive him. After the accident Adrian took off and hasn’t been in contact with her since the day it happened. Now he hides from his past and puts up a front so no one can become close to him again.

"When I was young, I was the quiet kid who didn’t talk, but left his heart on paper. Now she’ll see me as the flirtatious, fucked-up guy with a hidden depth that’s not really there. It’s nothing, but an optical illusion."

Delaney is also racked with guilt, but a different kind of guilt. Her father was the one driving that night and killed Adrian’s baby nephew. Delaney wants to make amends and thinks finding Adrian and talking about it will help him move on. She recently did so with Adrian’s sister, Angel, but needs to amend things with Adrian too. After that night both families changed. Adrian’s family lost their baby and Delaney’s was torn apart from her father’s mistake. Her mother starts to become depressed, spirals downward, and has several attempted suicides.

"An anchor lands on my chest, weighing me down with a million tons of guilt – for what my father did and the fact that Adrian doesn’t know."

The beginning of Façade was intense with the back story and on top of it you slowly find about Adrian’s childhood with an abusive father too.

When I was eight I saw my dad force himself on my mom for the first time. It’s the first memory I have of vomiting. Seeing her tears as she couldn’t look me straight in the eye and hearing her say, “It’s okay, baby. Close the door.” But it wasn’t fucking okay. I puked right there in the hallway, pizza from lunch all over my shirt and the floor.

Right away you feel the chemistry between the two characters. Even if Adrian was only trying to get into Delaney’s pants you could see he wanted to know more about her. He becomes protective of her and doesn’t want her to get hurt. I loved Delaney’s older brother Maddox. I definitely will be reading the third book to find out more about him. Maddox and Delaney are best friends and they support each other even when one thinks the other is making a bad decision (like starting a relationship with the person who their father killed a member of their family). I didn’t connect with Colt or Cheyenne at all. They just seemed like filler, even though I know they were from the first book. Maybe it was because their story was already complete? As the story progressed you want Delaney to tell Adrian the truth, but she doesn’t and the further the story went on without her admitting the truth the more you fall in love with them. But the whole time you’re thinking this is not going end well at all.

Oh the ending! The ending had me crying, and not just a little tear, but big ugly tears. I haven’t cried from a book like that in a while, but when the final truth about the night of the accident comes out I was bawling. I just wanted to hug Adrian so bad!

My Rating:

Review: Hopeless by Colleen Hoover

Hopeless by Colleen Hoover
Publisher: Atria Books
Source: Bought
ISBN: 9781476743554
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Pages: 406

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Sometimes discovering the truth can leave you more hopeless than believing the lies. In this #1 New York Times bestselling novel by Colleen Hoover, author of Slammed and Point of Retreat, Sky meets Dean Holder, a guy with a reputation that rivals her own. Holder has the ability to invoke feelings in Sky she's never had before. In just one encounter he leaves her terrified yet captivated and something about him brings up a rush of memories from the past that she’s worked so hard to bury away.

Sky knows Holder is nothing but trouble and tries to keep him at a distance, but he is adamant about learning everything he can about her. Sky finally caves to his unwavering pursuit, but she soon finds out that Holder isn't the person he's been claiming to be. When the secrets he's been keeping are finally revealed, every single facet of Sky's life changes forever.

Hopeless took me by complete surprise and engulfed me in the story. The prologue blew me away. I needed more and couldn't put the book down. This was one of my late night just a "few" more pages reads. I just couldn't stop reading I needed to know what happened next. It was beautifully written and ripped my emotions to shreds along the way.


I loved Sky. She was real. She wasn't flighty or weak. She was strong and brave. She was weary of happily-ever afters and believed in real endings.

It's real, Six. You can't get mad at a real ending. Some of them are ugly. It's the fake happily-ever-afters that should piss you off.

The amount of stuff that she goes through in the novel was crazy, and in such a short time period too. Sky had this innate ability to let the mean girls' insults roll off her back. When the bitchy clique girls filled her locker with dollar bills I was cheering for her to pocket the money and flip them off. And did!

Holder was her downfall at some points. She knew he was intense and didn't know if she could trust him. After Six, Sky's best friend tells her that Holder apparently went to juvi for beating up a boy that was gay, Sky still lusts after him. This is questionable of her judgment and Holder as a person. Luckily, Holder completely redeems himself and the rumor was greatly exaggerated.

Dean Holder was a mystery for most of the book. He was intense, scary, sweet, funny, a bit of everything. Sometimes you didn't know what you would get next from him.

I hate that I can't read him. Most people are easy to read. They're simple. Holder is all kinds of confusing and complicated.

Holder confused and excited Sky at the same time. But when she needed him, he was there. Supporting and protecting her.

The last half of the book I read in one sitting. I couldn't put it down. Everything that I thought I knew in the book changed so quickly. It took me for surprise after surprise. The prologue is a chapter later in the book and with more information it comes across in an entirely different context. I just did not see the reveal coming or what happened afterwards. There were parts where I was just stunned and I had to stop reading and breathe in order to comprehend what just happened.

I do wish Six was in the book more as her friendship with Sky was so strong. They had such a solid relationship, but she had to go through her journey alone and it wouldn't have been them same if Six was there.

My Rating:

Review: Unwind by Neal Shusterman

Unwind by Neal Shusterman
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Source: Bought
ISBN: 9781416994961
Release Date: June 2009
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Connor, Risa, and Lev are running for their lives.

The Second Civil War was fought over reproductive rights. The chilling resolution: Life is inviolable from the moment of conception until age thirteen. Between the ages of thirteen and eighteen, however, parents can have their child "unwound," whereby all of the child's organs are transplanted into different donors, so life doesn't technically end. Connor is too difficult for his parents to control. Risa, a ward of the state is not enough to be kept alive. And Lev is a tithe, a child conceived and raised to be unwound. Together, they may have a chance to escape and to survive.

"We have a right to our lives!"

"We have a right to choose what happens to our bodies!" 

"We deserve a world where both those things are possible— and it's our job to help make that world."

This book was simply amazing. I actually slowed down reading it near the end because I just did not want to finish it. Throughout the novel, I had so many questions. Something would happen and I would have ten questions pop up in my brain. But, what is so great about this book that I feel other young adults books doesn’t have is that the author actually answers all your questions as the book progresses.

Ronald was one of my most hated characters, but in a good way. I just despised him. He was a great villain and his character was well fleshed out. He was a bully, but a brilliant one. He didn’t use force (for the most part) to get his way. He slowly manipulated kids into following him. And that’s what was truly terrifying about him. No one had the guts to stand up to him and it took Connor a long time to grow and become the hero to do it.

Connor and Risa had great chemistry together. Even though they may have been thrown together under bad circumstances, they become a dynamic duo. Risa made Connor think before he acted. At the start Connor is rash and reacts to situations without thinking things through. The first time it happens Risa freaks on him and he learns to control his impulses as the book goes on. Connor changes quite a bit during the book. He matures and other kids start to look up to him and rely on him for guidance.

Usually, I’m not a fan of multiple point of views, but in Unwind it really aided in pushing the plot forward and with the character development. Each character who well developed and had their own voice. I didn’t get the characters mixed up (which happens a lot when I read multiple POVs).

My Rating: