Luke's Book Reviews #5: Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa

Realistic fiction has always been one of my biggest staples when it comes to reading. Sure, I like fantasy worlds and futuristic societies, but books about real life experiences set in the modern day will always stay close to my heart, especially now that I'm growing up. That's why most of the books I read are in this genre, this book included.

I was immediately sucked into reading this book via the tagline: "This is a story of a girl, her gay best friend, and the boy in love with both of them." The possibility of a bisexual love triangle was calling out to me, and the actual plot itself sounded interesting. Books about characters breaking out of their shells are always fun to read, and when I got this book from the library, I was ready to become a fan of Fans of the Impossible Life.

What exactly happened in Fans of the Impossible Life? Was it a rewarding, satisfying read that followed interesting characters and a heartfelt character arc? Or was it an average, run-of-the-mill realistic fiction novel that did nothing to stand out?

Luke's Book Reviews #4: Cut Both Ways by Carrie Mesrobian

Out of all the LGBT fiction books out there, bisexuality really hasn't made much of an appearance. From my perspective, half of the LGBT books have been focused on gay couples, 1/4 on lesbians, and 1/4 on the others, bisexual and transgender characters included. Don't get me right, I will be all over gay romance YA books in a heartbeat (and yes, I'm not ashamed to admit that), but there's always more room for diversity, you know?

When I first read the synopsis for Cut Both Ways, I immediately hit the TBR button on Goodreads. I mean, I rarely see bisexuality in any of the books I read, and from the way the synopsis sounded, this sounded like a perfect self-discovery book for someone my age to read.

I've had my own confusions about my sexuality, and sometimes I turn to books to see how authors write their own characters in situations like my imagination. So, without much further thought, I put Cut Both Ways on hold at my library and waited patiently for it to come in. Once I got it, I was already flipping through the pages.

Now comes the difficult part. How was Cut Both Ways? Was it a moving book that was written well and had a character that I could like? Or was it the exact opposite of what I wanted?

Luke's Music Reviews #1: E•MO•TION by Carly Rae Jepsen

Who has heard of "Call Me Maybe"? Pretty much everybody? Alright, I was predicting that outcome.

The song that I just mentioned threw Carly Rae Jepsen into the spotlight in 2012 after her debut off Canadian Idol and a debut album, giving the Canadian singer-songwriter a 9x platinum designation here in the US (which is crazy). The album that the single appeared on, Kiss, was nice, but I never really found it to be remarkable. The songs are cute and sweet (not to mention most are undeniably catchy), but I found it kind of odd for a woman in her late 20's to sing about love like she was still a teenager. Some of the instrumentals were also very sugary, and none of the songs really clicked together to make a strong album statement,

Sadly (and unfortunately), the only really successful single off Kiss was "Call Me Maybe", and although more singles were released (including the sneaking-behind-the-lovers'-backs song "This Kiss" or the accurately named "Tonight I'm Getting Over You", not to mention the collaboration with Owl City on "Good Time"), none of them made the splash that "Call Me Maybe" ever did. As a result, Carly Rae Jepsen mostly faded out of the spotlight, and most of the American public was left to assume she'd be left as a one hit wonder.

And then along came March 2015, when "I Really Like You" first dropped, the lead single to a new album from Jepsen. I was surprised when I found it on Spotify the first Tuesday of March, and I immediately attached onto it. Sure, the naivete of "Call Me Maybe" was still present, but the beat was much more lush and extravagant, perfectly fitting that person teetering on the precipice of falling in love but not being quite there yet.

After listening to "I Really Like You" several times, I knew that Carly deserved another chance. Maybe I needed some more of that cuteness that had felt at times lackluster during Kiss; maybe I would find some of that simpler Carly that had been on songs from her debut album, Tug of War (which I haven't listened to all of yet, but all of the tracks I've heard have been great). At the same time, I was thinking that it would be similar to Kiss in that it would be juvenile in some aspects, so I went in with mixed expectations.

So how was E•MO•TION? Was it as I expected? Or did it succeed my expectations and turn out to be a surprisingly great album?

Luke's Book Reviews #3: Burying Water by K.A. Tucker

New Adult is one of those genres that has popped up a lot in the past couple of years. The term was coined to signify novels in the age group of about 18 to 22 year olds (and a little above that) to provide a middle ground between young adult and adult fiction. The genre includes mostly college aged people finding love, and romantic scenes are a lot more explicit than in YA (they're probably close to the level of some erotic adult romances).

Although there are some that are light and fluffy, others have a bit of an edge to them. Examples that immediately pop into my head are After by Anna Todd (which I gave up on around the halfway point because the book wasn't that great) and Confess by Colleen Hoover (which I read and thoroughly enjoyed). The former focused on an on-and-off relationship that was abusive at some parts, while the latter was more attentive to a budding relationship with an artist and hairdresser (both with their own secrets). But there are definitely other ones than the two I mentioned, and I definitely believe this would fall onto that list.

I first found Burying Water at Barnes & Noble on a Realistic Romance endcap. Reading the synopsis made me very intrigued, as I realized that it was more of a romantic suspense novel than just a plain romance. I later discovered that this book is actually the first in a (so far) four book series (the books are unrelated and could be read out of order or randomly, but are read best in order because characters from previous books are mentioned, show up, or are explained) which has different forms of water in the titles (hence why I will name this series the Water series). Knowing that, I was further convinced that I would start here in the lines of books in K.A. Tucker's collection, instead of beginning with Ten Tiny Breaths (an originally self-published book that managed to be picked up by a major publishing company and made her a household name).

So, how was Burying Water? Did it keep me on the edge of my toes, but did it also have me swooning? Or was most of it boring and dull, with the romance having no real drive to make it interesting?