Tag: Creative HeArts

Weddings, Crushes, and Other Dramas (Emily McKay)

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Falling in love with the best man wasn’t on the program.

Willa is happy to be the maid of honor in her dad’s upcoming wedding to uber-celeb Mia McCain. Not as happy about the best man being her soon-to-be stepbrother, the infuriating — and infuriatingly gorgeous — Finn McCain. Every time their paths cross, the attraction simmering between them grows a little harder to ignore. Willa knows all about guys like Finn — they only want what they can’t have. What’s between them isn’t real.

Finn has never felt anything more real than what’s developing between him and Willa. Sure, her dad warned him to steer clear, but it’s not just about forbidden temptation. He’s determined to prove to Willa he’s not going anywhere — and that happily-ever-after will always be worth the risk.

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains a wedding so crazy it’ll make you laugh, a stepbrother so hot he’ll make you swoon, and a heroine so real she’ll make you cry.

A year ago I read How Willa Got Her Groove Back, which started me in the fantastic series about several students at a dedicated Arts High School in Texas. I’ve really really liked these books so far, and this one was no exception. Willa and Finn are AMAZING!!!

The dual POV style of these books never cease to amaze me, if you need a refresher: Willa’s POV is in the first person, while Finn’s POV is on the third. I liked that Finn got a little more page time on this second book 😀 .

I had already loved the characters on the first book about them, but they were simply amazing on this one. There was a lot of character growth, from both of them. Willa accepted that her dad was happy, she learned to admit that she was wrong and listen to others, and she finally started trusting Finn. Finn leaned to show his feelings and how to let go.

It was awesome to see them trusting each other more and more and finally confronting their feelings for each other – something that EVERYONE had already seen.

The plot was simple, with no major drama, but I still loved it. Willa and Finn’s story is all about character growth, and the author nailed it.

I was a bit surprised that this is the last book about Willa and Finn, I actually thought there would be 3 of them! But then, the end has an epilogue, and I don’t think we’re getting more, and I felt kind of cheated. I wish the book had showed some important moments that it didn’t, but I was overall pretty satisfied with it.

I highly recommend this book, and the whole series to be honest. If you just want to read about Willa and Finn, you totally can, but you need to read book 1 first, How Willa Got Her Groove Back.

Also, can we just agree that cover is absolutely gorgeous?!

TEN THINGS SLOANE HATES ABOUT TRU (CREATIVE HEARTS #1)
HOW WILLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK (CREATIVE HEARTS #2)
CRAZY, STUPID, FAUXMANCE (CREATIVE HEARTS #3)
THE SECRET LIFE OF A DREAM GIRL (CREATIVE HEARTS #4)

February TBR

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This month will be crazy! I went a little overboard with my netgalley requests, and ended up getting way too many ARCs for this month, most of them YA from Entangled Crush. Check out my enormous TBR for February.

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  1. There’s Something About Nik by Sara Hantz
  2. The Feeling of Forever (Love Unplugged #2) by Jamie Howard
  3. Weddings, Crushes, and Other Dramas (Creative HeArts, #6; Willa and Finn, #2) by Emily McKay
  4. Any Boy But You (North Pole, Minnesota, #1) by Julie Hammerle
  5. A Thousand Letters by Staci Hart
  6. Making Faces by Amy Harmon
  7. Off the Ice (Juniper Falls, #1) by Julie Cross
  8. Optimists Die First by Susin Nielsen
  9. Cheater by Rachel Van Dyken
  10. You’re Welcome, Universe by Whitney Gardner
  11. Definitions of Indefinable Things by Whitney Taylor
  12. Daisy and the Front Man (Backstage Pass #3) by Rebekah L. Purdy
  13. A Boy Like You by Ginger Scott
  14. Ten Thousand Skies Above You (Firebird #2) by Claudia Gray
  15. The Cad and the Co-Ed (Rugby #3) by L.H. Cosway & Penny Reid
  16. A Million Worlds with You (Firebird #3) by Claudia Gray
  17. Be My Hero (Forbidden Men #3) by Linda Kage
  18. Paper Princess (The Royals #1) by Erin Watt

I doubt that I’ll be able to read all 18 books, and follow this huge TBR, but most of these are ARCs, so I need to read at least those. Wish me luck…

Falling for the Girl Next Door (Tera Lynn Childs)

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Sloane Whitaker never expected to like living in Texas, but after a few months in the Lone Star State, she has to admit she likes the food, the school, and the boy next door. What she doesn’t like is the fact that half her family is still back in New York. Convincing her dad to relocate to Texas requires making their upcoming visit as perfect as possible. The perfect dinner, the perfect daughter…with the perfect boyfriend.

But when her not-so-perfect boyfriend Tru Dorsey is suddenly not-so-available, Sloane has to find another dad-impressing guy to show off at dinner. Tru himself suggests enlisting the help of a fake boyfriend, but the reality of another guy with Sloane on his arm might be more than Tru can manage. Add in a mysterious blackmailer and a divided family, and Sloane and Tru’s relationship might not be able to handle the heat.

Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains a bad boy next door, the good girl who snags his heart, and one epically disastrous ruse-gone-wrong. Join the fun at your own risk.

I keep loving this series!

After reading Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru, I was excited to keep reading their story, and this one most definitly did not disappoint. Actually, this book was deeper and heavier than the first one, and I really appreciated that.

Once again, I really enjoyed the writing, and I especially liked that Tru’s POV was deepened a little. In fact, this is a huge book in regards of Tru, given that it deals with him coming to terms with his addiction and seeking help for it.

Both characters show maturity while dealing with Tru’s problem, with him realizing that he wants to be his best version of himself, and that it isn’t fair to Sloane what he’s doing to their relationship. And Sloane by giving him time and space to sort himself out. Yeah, both these things come to a crash eventually, but they both have enough maturity to solve out everything.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the “fake-boyfriend” thing here, though it did make me love Finn even more, and now I can’t wait for his and Willa’s book. But I didn’t feel it was really necessary the overall scheme of things. Also, Sloane needs to chill about her parents! A parent that doesn’t answer your calls, is clearly more interested in something else more than he is about you, so the whole plan of making her dad move to Austin, didn’t sit well with me, because I never saw a way that it could happen.

I keep hating all the parents in this story… I have moments when I like Sloane’s mom, but they need to actually have a meaningful conversation at some point in time, right? I thought the plot on this book was a little rushed, and the time frame was a little short. I would have liked for them to take their time.

I’m excited for the last book about Sloane and Tru, because I want to see all the loose ends being tied up. I want Tru to let go of his father, I want Tru’s mom to do more, I want Sloane and her parents to actually discuss something important, I want her art public, and I want them going off to college together :D.

Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru (CREATIVE HEARTS #1)

HOW WILLA GOT HER GROOVE BACK (CREATIVE HEARTS #2)

CRAZY, STUPID, FAUXMANCE (CREATIVE HEARTS #3)

THE SECRET LIFE OF A DREAM GIRL (CREATIVE HEARTS #4)

Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru (Tera Lynn Childs)

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This Entangled Teen Crush book contains vandalism in the name of art, art in the name of love, and love for a boy too charming to ever hate. 

When life gives you a blank canvas, make art.

Sloane Whitaker hates everything about moving to Texas. She hates leaving behind her friends and half her family in New York, starting over senior year at Austin’s NextGen Academy, and having to say she lives in Texas. Most of all, she hates that it’s all her fault. If she wants to earn her way back to the Big Apple, she has to prove she can still be the perfect daughter.

Which means no vandalism art, no trouble at school, and absolutely no Tru Dorsey, her serial screw-up neighbor, who loves nothing more than pushing her buttons.

But from the moment he vaults onto the roof outside her bedroom, there is something about him that makes her want to break every rule. Suddenly it’ s not the ten things she hates about Tru that are at the top of her list. It’s the ten reasons she doesn’t want to be without him.

It’s no secret that I love these entangled crush YA romances, but somehow I had skipped this one, even though I read the rest of the series so far. With book 2 hitting Netgalley and coming out tomorrow, I thought it was about time I read the first book in the Creative HeArts series. This series is unique in the way that each couple is written by a different author, and each couple also gets more than one book.

This was my first book by Tera Lynn Childs and I really enjoyed it. Again, the book is told in an unusual POV – this is a common feature of the whole series – where the main POV, the girl’s, is told in the first person, and we get little short chapters from the guy’s POV, on the third person. When I first read this on Willa, I thought it was kind of weird, now I absolutely love it. The writing is easygoing and  fun, and it and the good pacing, made the book flow well and super fast.

I really liked both characters. Both Tru and Sloane have a lot going on in terms of family life, and it has a lot of stake on how they think and behave. They’re both so strong and facing kind of impossible situations… I can’t wait to read more about it.

The story is very well constructed and I really liked how slow things evolved between Sloane and True, and how they forged a good friendship (sort of), before letting go.

I’m really on the fence about the parents on this story. I have specially a huge problem with Tru’s mom… without giving much away, Tru’s dad sucks, but the fact that his mom, knowing what goes on inside the house, badmouthed her son to her best friend? I hate that!

Either way… I’m starting book 2 now, because I want to read more about these two, and probably suffer a bit more when the book feels incomplete again by the end, and I have to wait another year to get book 3… 😀

Have you read this series? YOU SHOULD! Check out my reviews of the other titles:

How Willa Got Her Groove Back (Creative HeArts #2)

Crazy, Stupid, Fauxmance (CREATIVE HEARTS #3)

The Secret Life of a Dream Girl (CREATIVE HEARTS #4)

November TBR

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I did awesome with my TBR from last month. From the 15 books I’d said I’d read, I read 12 of them (and then I read 8 more). So I’m pointing for 14 books this month that I really need to read, mostly because they’re ARCs. Also… WOW! Half of my TBR is YA… o_O

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  1. Stroked Hard (Stroked #3) by Meghan Quinn (which I already finished and it’s so GOOD!)
  2.  The Homecoming by Stacie Ramey
  3. The Romantics by Leah Konen
  4. Decidedly Off Limits by Stina Lindenblatt
  5. Ten Things Sloane Hates About Tru(Creative HeArts #1) by Tera Lynn Childs
  6. Crazy Pucking Love (Taking Shots #3) by Cindi Madsen
  7. My Unscripted Life by Lauren Morrill
  8. The Bad Boy Bargain by Kendra C. Highley
  9. Slammed (Slammed #1) by Colleen Hoover
  10. Born a Crime by Trevor Noah
  11. Falling for the Girl Next Door (Creative HeArts #5) by Tera Lynn Childs
  12. The Keeper by Jillian Liota
  13. On the Fence by Kasie West
  14. Did I Mention I Miss You? (The DIMILY Trilogy #3) by Estelle Maskame

October Book Haul

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Once again, I didn’t haul that many books this month… mostly eARCs. 🙂

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June Book Haul

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Let’s just say that I might have used and abused the request button on netgalley… But I didn’t get any physical book 🙂 .

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The Secret Life of a Dream Girl (Tracy Deebs)

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Disclaimer: This Entangled Teen Crush book contains adult language, references to drinking and drugs, and a kiss so steamy it’ll fog up your ereader.

Hiding in plain sight is harder than it looks…

Dahlia Greene — aka international pop superstar Cherry — is undercover as a normal high school student. She just wants to experience what real life is like, so when she overhears hottie Keegan Matthews nervously talking about liking a girl, she sees the perfect opportunity to live a real life and play a little matchmaker. What was not part of the plan was falling for a guy she can never tell the truth.

Keegan Matthews has been secretly crushing on Dahlia ever since she started at his school. Sure, Dahlia thinks he’s crushing on some other girl — not realizing his Dream Girl is actually her — but he figures, play along with her tips to woo someone else, let her get to know him, and then make his move. But with so many secrets in the mix, their romance is doomed from the start…

A little while back I read How Willa Got Her Groove Back, which is the second book in the Creative HeArts series, and then I read  (the second one) and I loved both books so much. But I have to say that I think this one is my favorite!

Once again, the book is told between two POVs, where Dahlia’s POV is told in the first person, and Keegan’s POV is told in the third person. I do like this formula! The difference to the 2 previous books, is that we get A LOT more of Keegan’s POV, which was fabulous in my opinion. The writing was amazing. I thought it was a bit more complentative than the other books, but it was also funny and light at the same time, and it fitted both these characters so well, because they were both going through so much.

I absolutely loved Dahlia! It’s such a smart concept to use a pop star, ex-Disney sweetheart, going through those motions of hyper sexualization and managing to get a step away from it, and what it might mean for herself and her career. I really like how smart and strong she was, though I’m scared to where this will lead in the next couple of books.

Keegan was so amazing! Having a business guy in the middle of all those artists is brilliant, especially because it also makes you think how important what he does is to the whole artist vibe of his friends. Also, he’s Jacen’s BFF, and while Jacen is not my favorite guy, their friendship is pretty awesome. He also treats Dahlia like she’s precious. They both have so many layers! I love them both :D.

The plot was really simple and great. We get to see them becoming close, friends somehow, and then something a bit more, while they both struggle through a lot, and in the end I think they’re there for each other, and that’s really important. I do hope the next 2 books will be nice to them, because they don’t deserve to hurt, at all.

It was really great to see little glimpses of the characters of the other books, especially Finn, who keeps getting better and better throughout the books.

If you haven’t read this series yet, you definitly should!