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Review: Light of Day by Allison van Diepen

December 2, 2015 Lily B Review 34 ★★★

Light of Day by Allison van Diepen
Series: Stand-Alone
Published by HarperTeen on November 24th 2015
Genres: Young Adult Contemporary
Pages: 320
Format: Hardcover
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
Rating:
Heat Rating: one-flame

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Like any other Saturday night, Gabby Perez and her best friend, Maria, are out dancing. But this isn’t just another night. When a mysterious stranger warns Gabby their drinks have been drugged, she hurries Maria home. Sure enough, the next day, Maria can’t remember a thing. Gabby’s shaken by their close call. And she’s not going to stay quiet about it.
She opens up the airwaves on her radio show and discovers an even worse truth: the guy who drugged them was going to force them into prostitution. Then Gabby’s friend Bree never makes it home from a party, and Gabby fears the worst.
Gabby reaches out to the guy who saved her, the gorgeous stranger she knows only as X. As they dive into the seedy underworld of Miami, searching for Bree, they can’t ignore their undeniable attraction. Until Gabby discovers the truth about who X really is and the danger that surrounds him. Can their love survive the light of day?

This was an interesting story and an interesting concept. It basically follows Gabby an aspiring DJ, who is saved from being drugged at the club by a mysterious handsome stranger named ‘X’ and somehow gets tangled up into a darker world of girls getting kidnapped, pimps and sex trafficking.

The story was a quick read for me. I think in a way the author was trying to spread awareness about this issue that’s so big in this world right now, I just felt as far as the story went, it was a bit unrealistic. Entertaining, but unrealistic.

For me, all the steps that Gabby took felt dangerous and if this was taken by a girl her age in the real world, the girl would be long dead and probably would have hurt a lot of girls in the process for being so reckless. As nice and cleaned up the ending came out, there aren’t a lot of happy endings for a lot of the girls going through this.

In the book, Gabby was trying to find and rescue a girl from her school named Bree, so she uses the radio to spread awareness and is forward about the pimps and actually mentions the name once or twice. Somehow everything works out for Gabby, no one she cares about get’s hurt, only the bad guys. Unfortunately, this is not how it works. If anyone did what Gabby had done, it would never turn out the way it did.

Are there people out there like ‘X’ looking and rescuing the girls that are kidnapped and forced into the sex trade? I don’t know. I did not do a lot of research on that. I do know that sex trafficking numbers are high, that most of these girls never get a happy ending because they are never found, and if someone in real life announced the pimp’s name on the radio - the pimp would probably have disappeared into the night with these girls.

In truth the statistics are real and frightening. I wish the story was handled better, but nonetheless, it was entertaining and I am sort of glad that someone took a bold step to write about this. I just wish the actions of the main character wasn’t so reckless, uninformed and dangerous. Even the messy situation that she gets herself into in the end, she somehow comes out unscratched.

I gave the author 3 brownie points for at least trying.

The Statistics behind sex trafficking from http://www.equalitynow.org:

At least 20.9 million adults and children are bought and sold worldwide into commercial sexual servitude, forced labor and bonded labor.²
About 2 million children are exploited every year in the global commercial sex trade.³
Almost 6 in 10 identified trafficking survivors were trafficked for sexual exploitation.⁴
Women and girls make up 98% of victims of trafficking for sexual exploitation.⁵

Review: Strange Girl by Christopher Pike

November 30, 2015 Lily B Review 16 ★★★

Strange Girl by Christopher Pike
Series: Stand-Alone
Published by Simon Pulse on November 17th 2015
Genres: Young Adult Fantasy, Young Adult Mystery
Pages: 432
Format: Paperback
Source: Publisher
Buy on Amazon
Goodreads
Rating:
Heat Rating: one-flame

I received this book for free from Publisher in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

From #1 New York Times bestselling author Christopher Pike comes a brand-new fascinating and seductive new novel about a girl with a mysterious ability—but one that carries an unimaginable cost.
From the moment Fred met Aja, he knew she was different. And she was.
Aja had a gift. But her gift came with a price.
After a shocking sequence of events, Fred must look back at their relationship, and piece together all of their shared moments, so he can finally understand Aja’s precious gift…and its devastating repercussions.

I have to admit, from the moment I read the blurb, I was sold on this book. A girl with special abilities that carry an unimaginable cost? Yes, please.

I wanted to love this book, I really did. I was so hooked on the blurb I couldn’t wait to read it, but it ultimately fell a little short for me.

I want to talk first about what I liked about the book. I really liked that it felt like it was written as a sort of memoir told of the events of Fred’s life and how he met the mysterious girl named Aja. I really loved the way it reads. The idea behind the story was interesting enough, just I guess not what I expected and honestly I liked Aja more than I liked Fred.

There was romance in the story, but it did nothing for me. Honestly, it was kind of meh. Maybe it was because I honest to goodness disliked Fred. I did not like his attitude, I did not like some of the things he said or thought about Aja and overall I just did not love his character. I just could not connect on the romance, it was sudden, it was odd, and overall a bit boring.

The plot was interesting, but I felt like there was a dig at religion in a way. This is a YA novel I felt like that could have been left out of it.

The story progressed quickly, characters offered up the info quickly. Fred was annoying and boring, and flew off the handle way too easily. Honestly, I felt like the author was bored with his own writing because the twist that was added at the end felt out of place and so random my head was spinning. (Also, someone watches too many action movies - cough)

There was an interesting take on people being selfish and greedy, especially in the end and what it cost. I wanted to throttle the character for asking Aja for what she did, I did not think it was fair, it was greedy, and I guess a bit part of the human nature.

I wanted to love this book, I did and I tried, but it just fell quite a bit short with me. I did give it three stars because I did enjoy it, to an extent. Just some things did not work for me.