Sleepless by Cyn Balog

"Eron DeMarchelle isn't supposed to feel this connection. He is a Sandman, a supernatural being whose purpose is to seduce his human charges to sleep. Though he can communicate with his charges in their dreams, he isn't encouraged to do so. After all, becoming too involved in one human's life could prevent him from helping others get their needed rest."-goodread synopsis 

This wont be a long review because Sleepless isn't a long book. I believed it was rocking somewhere around the 150-200 pages mark. Sleepless had one of the best concepts I've heard of/read in a long time, but the concept wasn't enough to make up for the few issues I had with it.

The two main characters, through likable, both are lacking in subsistence. Neither ever feel fully fleshed out. Julia is a nice character, but that's it. She just nice. Her thoughts are realistic and funny but there's not really much else going for her. Also though it is possible I didn't fully believe that 3, yes 3, guys could be head over heels freakishly in love with her. That leads me to Eron, our other POV and main character. Eron is a sandman. He sounded super sweet, but again, that's it. He too was highly lacking in depth. Both characters appearance wise sounded nice, but we also only got a tiny description of the two. When it comes to the side characters Julia's boyfriend and best friend, I had no real feeling towards them what so ever.  Neither were anything to write home about.

The plot of Sleepless could have really been something. The start of the book has this nice steady pace that matches most other books in it's genre. The middle of this book is 100% the strongest part. When things actually start happening, and it gets a little more spooky I was hooked. I was really excited to see how things were going to play out and what direction the author would take it. I was starting to get into the characters and started too feel like I was getting to relate to them. Sadly, this was short lived. The ending was a little anti-climatic. We had all this build up, things were setting up, characters were developing, relationships were forming, events were really coming together... then nothing. The ending is all shoved into a handful of papers and ended up being mundane and predictable.

Overall Sleepless is a nice light read it just had all this wasted potential. I wish the concept behind this book would have plated out better than it did. Sleepless wasn't the worst read ever, but wasn't the best. If this book had maybe had 100-200 pages more it could of used the extra space to fill it with more action and really highlighted more.

2/10 Stars 
-Angela 

Until Friday Night by Abbi Glines

Two years ago, Maggie Carleton’s world shattered when her father murdered her mother. And after she told the police what happened, she stopped speaking and hasn’t spoken since. She remains silent even after moving in with her Aunt and Uncle. West Ashby has secrets of his own. When they become to much he decides he needs to talk to someone, and who better to talk to than someone who wont reveal it. 

Until Friday Night is Abbi Glines newest release, so this makes like what her 50th book or something insane like that?? It's also the first Ya book I've ever read by her. I didn't even know she wrote Ya. Anyways, when I read what this book was about all I could think of was how sweet it sounded. Then the reviews started pouring in on Goodreads and all of them were either one star/listed as DNF or five stars/listed as a favorite. This is ultimately why I decided to pick this up. I wanted to read for myself why so many people were torn about this one and I totally get it too.

UFN follows high school student Maggie Carleton, who after having a traumatic experience has decided not to talk. Our other main character is West Ashby, (whose name is completely adorable btw). He is Mr. jock-popular-high school-man slut (of course right). Maggie is shy, timid, and polite. While West is the complete opposite. Maggie between the two is the character I liked right away. Her thoughts are strong and she's intelligent. West however wasn't as enjoyable. It took me a long time to like him. He would think these strong sweet thoughts, but then would do these horrible nasty gross actions. Without a doubt him and his friends are the reasons people were putting this book down (Ill get to that in a minute). These two of course start falling for each other. With Maggie's cousin Brady being on the same football team as West automatically says that she is off limits for any of his friends. This doesn't stop the two from constantly being drawn to one another. 

As far as the plot goes on, it heads exactly where you think it will. There's no wicked plot twist or event that you wont see comings and to me this was completely okay. However this story flaws lie with a lot of events that played out in the first half of this book. I'll just kind of rattle off why I know people couldn't push through this, but why they should. People kept bringing up "sexual harassment", I think that's a really strong word to use, but at the same time I get it. The guys in this book are huge DICKS! I also think it gives jocks a terrible name. I don't know if since I wasn't cool in high-school and didn't really hang out with "jocks" that I might not get this, but I don't remember anyone ever saying they were anything like this. I could be wrong though, like I said I didn't really have any sporty friends in school. The things these guys would say and do... Vomit straight vomit. The way they treated people, especially Maggie, was awful. West would just continued to fuel my hate fire for him as well. He would say what one of the guys did was "being too cold" towards someone but then would do something worse! In one scene he hears his mother crying and he's like "this is why I can't be nice to girls"... Let me be clear it has nothing to do with his mom being a nasty person or in a nasty relationship... So when this happened I seriously screamed "WTF WEST THAT MAKES NO SENSE!!!!!! HER CRYING IS THE REASON YOU SHOULD BE SWEET TOO GIRLS AND TREAT THEM LIKE THE PRINCESSES THEY ARE!!!!! YA DICK!"... Plus things with his Ex girlfriend were annoying and the way he turned into a stage 5 clinger wasn't helping his case either... Seriously though don't even get me started on his ex girlfriend... laksfl;aksj;lfkas;kldjf SO ANNOYING AND OVER THE TOP!!!!

These events along with a lot of others ones had me considering not finishing this either... But I really hate not finishing books so I pushed forth. Thank God I did too. Once West actually starts hanging out Maggie things take a very dramatic turn. He turns from a sour grape to a ripe peach. He starts treating himself and others the way they should be treated. Starts realizing that he was being a creepy jerk turd and starts to change his act. This was the West I was waiting for the whole time! Once he changes to, he goes from zero dark crazy too a total swoon worthy book boyfriend. He's not the only one who has a ton of development either, Maggie herself takes on new life. Once she starts standing up for herself and not taking crap you'll start falling more into the story as well. All these changes really jump start the plot and gets this love story going. 

I wish the first half of this book was as strong as the last half. I consider the first half a one star/dnf but the second half a 5 star/favorite read. If you pick up UFN, get into it, and then think about putting it down, please reconsider. It does get better. By the end I was completely sold and was thankful for pushing through. Until Friday Night might not be the strongest book ever written, but it was a quick fun read that I think some are being a little hard on. I also easily think this could be made into a cute movie.


8/10 Stars 
-Angela 
 

Dark Wild Night by Christina Lauren

Lola and Oliver's marriage might have only lasted a handful of hours, but even after they ended it their friendship remained. Both are so comfortable around each other and see their friendship being perfect... So why ruin a good thing?

I feel like I say this every time I read one of their books... But this just became my favorite Christina Lauren book. 

Dark Wild Night continues to follow the story of what happens after three friends go to Vegas and end up marrying three men they met while there. This time we follow Lola and Oliver.

I can't even start to express how much I loved these two characters. Lola is completely different from any other female lead they have given us in the past. First off Christina Lauren often write these bubbly strong in your face leading ladies you love, but this time they give us Lola. She is a shy-timid-a tiny bit antisocial writer of a recently opted for film graphic novel. Like serious, how can I not like her!?! She reads and writes badass comics! Speaking of comics it brings us to our lead male... Oliver. The steamy Aussie that owns his own comic book store. Y'all not only is Lola my favorite female, Oliver is my favorite male. He is perfection! He had me realizing that we don't have nearly enough nerdy leading guys in books. The last time I got an adorable nerdy boo was Simon and that was way back when City of Bones came out... LITERARY WORLD WE ARE LACKING IN NERDY MALE LEADS PLEASE CHANGE THIS!!! Because Oliver yall... GOOD GOD, is so yummy. Has me head over heels!

The relationship between these two is next level lovey. I love that it's usually the girl having to work around the guys hectic work schedule in books like these, but in this one they flipped it and strayed away from a pattern that would be easy to fall into. They have a leading lady who is owning her job and her success and a man who is fully ready to support. Plus they highlighted something so very important, feminism. Yeah you read that right! They manage to bring up feminism in a new adult romance book, and they do it flawlessly! Lola stances on how people interview her had me wanting to jump straight into this book and high-five the shit out of her! Bold move CL, very bold move; loved it. Oh and major props on the massive amount of comic book references! They had me so giddy about all the little bits they added in. Everything from the Sex Criminals reference to the hilarious DareDevil movie joke completely sealed the deal. They also continue to break the norm by giving us a leading man who isn't an A-hole turns nice guy. Yeah, I love those stories as much as the next, but it's great when the nice guy doesn't finish last. Oh and I know that most of the secondary characters are ones we've seen before but I can't post this review and not talk about Not-Joe. He has to be one of my all time favorite side characters. Every scene he is had me dying!!!! Every bizarre comment that leaves is mouth kills and brings the best comic relief.

This story is such a feel good read and keeps that feeling the whole time. All the sexual tension will have you frantically flipping through pages to find out what will happen next. From page one you'll be cheering for these two love birds and their unique flirty friendship too turn into something more. I loved that this book took a different direction plot wise than the two previous ones. It wasn't about waiting for a plot twist bomb to drop, it was all about the building of a relationship. All about taking a friendship to the next level. I know how much people love the Beautiful Bastard Series but in my opinion the Wild Season Series surpasses it. It has such a hilarious concept and then these two back it up. These two writers get romance and have yet to let me down.

I loved this friends to lovers second chance romance story. This is a summer must read.

10/10 Stars
-Angela