Sorry I'm like a week late! School started the last week of August and I honestly forgot about finishing this post until like two days ago;; But anyway, since school's started, I'm hopefully gonna have more books in the upcoming posts! I've already finished two books in school within the past two weeks, so that seems promising.
Among the Nameless Stars by Diana Peterfreund, finished 8/4. I read this because I found it online for free. It was a little hard for me to get back into the world of For Darkness Shows the Stars, but I think it was interesting to show what Kai went through. That said, I wasn't all that impressed with the first book in the series, so the little novella / short story didn't seem all that impressive, either.
Across a Star-Swept Sea by Diana Peterfreund, finished 8/7. Surprisingly, I loved this book a lot more than I loved its prequel! Maybe it was just the setting and how it affected the storyline -- I really loved the tropical, Polynesian-like-ness of it. I also think the concept of both the main characters hiding secrets from each other worked out pretty well. I kind of wish that there was more to the book, especially since I think there's still so much of the world that could be explored, but I also think it ended nicely. The technology like flutternotes and the Helo Cure were pretty cool, too.
The Slanted Worlds by Catherine Fisher, finished 8/14. I liked that there was more of the concept of time travel in The Slanted Worlds, especially since in Obsidian Mirror it seemed like mostly world-building and angst. The way the book was set up was a little confusing, what with Alicia's diary and the split 3rd person narration, but it did work well in terms of creating suspense. There are still a bunch of things I'd like to know, though, so I'm hoping that the final book will cover that. Unfortunately, Goodreads lists its publication as 2015...
Emerald Green by Kerstin Gier, finished 8/20. I've gotta be honest -- up until about halfway through Emerald Green, I kept wondering why I continued reading this series. That said, once I reached about the halfway point, it got good really quickly. Like, almost whiplash fast. There were at least two plot twists pretty close to each other. I really wish that sort of action had been spread throughout the other two books as well; the end of Emerald Green was the most captivating the series had been for me. All of the questions I had were wrapped up almost simultaneously, and I can kind of understand why it took two and a half books to get to that point, though it had been long enough between the past two books that I'd forgotten a bunch of details that had been established in them. I'm planning to go back and re-read the series at some point, hopefully all at once, because from what I can remember, the series was set up well. It just took a while for it to be apparent.
Catch a Falling Star by Kim Culbertson, finished 8/23. Plausibility-wise, I'm pretty sure Catch a Falling Star is like 99.99% impossible, but it's a pretty cute, fluffy love story. Though honestly that's a little more depressing when you take into account that technically Carter is being paid to like him. I have no idea if any of the details about Hollywood business and stardom life are accurate; it did seem kind of weird for some random girl to just get paid to act as an actor's girlfriend. The character building seemed pretty good though, even if the story followed a typical fluffy-romance kind of setup. It wasn't exactly something to stand out, but I appreciated the fluff.
Life in Outer Space by Melissa Keil, finished 8/29. I wasn't actually expecting much when I picked this up, so I was really surprised by how much I ended up liking it. I honestly really loved how the romance was slowly built up, and that it wasn't even apparent by, like, halfway through the book. The characters were all really interesting and more multi-layered than I'd expected. It took me a little bit to figure out where it was set, but other than that, I don't think I honestly had any problems or complaints? I think I'd definitely read it again sometime. Also, I think it definitely deserves mentioning that one of the side characters identified on the LGBT spectrum and wasn't treated out of the ordinary. I really liked that.
