(I received a free copy of this book in exchange for a review).

(This review may contain spoilers).

I did feel the concept of this book was very interesting and although there wasn’t anything paranormal until right towards the end of the book, I did feel there were hints and clues left throughout that something was going on.

I empathised with Olga really easily in this book. It was nice to see her perspective (and for the author to just stick to the one first person POV). I could understand the guilt she felt and it was awful to see how people treated her after what happened with Connor. The first part of the book was really quite depressing to read.

I was really hesitant when Olga saw Nate for the first time, because the thoughts that went through her head upon her first glimpse of him struck me as the same as every other young adult book that has a love-at-first-sight theme… which is a depressingly large amount. I was relieved that the author did spend time developing the relationship between them.

The concept about the eighteen things to do is a really neat one and I felt that the idea about having it featured in the news article was a pretty cool one, too. The references to Star Wars were really good, though I felt they got really corny by the end of the book.

I found it interesting to learn more about Tammy’s life and how she was much more than the awful, popular cheerleader she originally came across as. It was good to see her and Olga develop a friendship, even though Tammy still kept her slightly off-colour personality.

I do plan to read the second and third books in this trilogy. Although the paranormal aspects don’t come in until much later in this book, I found it really easy to read and a unique concept. There was something I did see coming… but I still really liked this book. I feel there’s a lot more of this story to be told and it will be good to see where the characters end up next… even if I do have the feeling book two will contain one of my pet peeves.

(I received this book for free as part of Goodreads First Reads giveaways).

(This review may contain spoilers).

This book was one that I found really difficult to read. It was really well-written and the character of Missy was quite an intriguing one. There was a love triangle in the book that I actually didn’t hate so much, though I do wish less authors would use them because, like vampires, love triangles are over-used.

It was funny, but I didn’t realise I’d won this book until a month after the giveaway had ended. I’m not sure if there were issues with the algorithm or something, but yeah. I’d forgotten I’d even entered to win this.

I liked that this book was written in first person and Missy was a character who was really easy to relate to. This book did deal with a couple of major issues that many people in reality face. Although it was difficult to read in places, I felt that the author handled the issues really well. But it raised a lot of my own personal issues.

I was surprised (in a good way) by Josh’s faith. I liked the comments made by his pastor. It was a really interesting concept to read about and made me want to point the passage to my dad for him to use as an illustration in one of his sermons.

When I read the first chapter of this book, I assumed that meant I was going to know how the story ended. It was good that there were still a lot of surprises all the way through, though, and although I knew some of the ending, the three guys weren’t all that obvious.

I didn’t really like Missy’s mother, possibly because there were a lot of aspects that reminded me of my own mother. I thought Crystal was particularly sweet and I liked the descriptions of the life on the island.

I wasn’t particularly keen on a lot of the minor characters in this book, especially Sam. But I could empathise with Missy having a crush on someone who was technically untouchable. I would probably read more books by this author in the future. I was drawn into Missy’s life easily and I really felt for her through a lot of the book.