Fictional Book Boyfriends pt 8

The month of Freedom is here!!! And you know what that means... Suns out Guns out. Tank tops will be out in full force! God Bless living in a southern beach state am I right??? This also means that it's another month we get to talk about our favorite topic; fictional book boyfriends. Some also refer to these as dream-cast or as of most recently Iflist. We get to slap some mandsome faces to some of the fictional leading guys in the books we've been reading. To see reviews for these books all you have to do is their titles and to see our past post just click here. 

The Wrath and the Dawn by Renee Ahdieh 

King takes a different bride every night and then kills her the following dawn.

Nicolas Simoes as Khalid

Swoon! What a lady killer!!!...  Wait? Too soon???

Velvet by Temple West 

Girl gets vampire bodyguard who thinks dating is their best cover story.

Nick Palladino as Adrian

Wouldn't mind a flash-back to 1999 and doing a Drive Me Crazy movie theme with this hottie.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
The smutty and oh so good version of Beauty and the Beast.

Drew Van-Acker as Tamlin

Feel free to perform whatever freaky earth replenishing ceremony you want on us.

Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider

Guy suffering incurable disease gets sent to live in a home with others suffering.

Evan Peters as Lane 
*cough cough* suddenly feeling a little ill.

 Just Listen by Sarah Dessen 
Reformed truth obsessed bad-boy helps girl face old friends. 

Max Irons as Owen
 Seriously what girl doesn't like a bad boy...

Angela's June Wrap-Up

Broken Juliet- Leisa Rayven
Because of Low- Abbi Glines
While it Last- Abbi Glines 
After We Collided- Anna Todd
After We Fell- Anna Todd
After Ever Happy- Anna Todd
Velvet- Temple West
Stargazing at Noon- Amanda Torroni
Hunted- Abi Ketner and Missy Kalicicki 
The Martian- Andy Weir  
Ugly People Beautiful Hearts- Marlen Komar  
The Wrath and the Dawn-  Renee Ahdieh
A Song of Ice and Fire- George R.R. Martin

I'm actually really surprised by the number of books I managed to read in June. If you follow me on any social media then you know that I've spent most of June ridiculously sick. So, I spent a majority of my time trying to sleep and watching Criminal Minds marathons. Just didn't have the energy to do anything else even read... So yeah that's how you know I was really sick. The only good thing that came out of only reading a select few books this month was that it left very little room for suck. 

My June favorites were After Ever Happy, The Martian, and The Wrath and the Dawn. Still kind of freaks me out every time I say I like The After Series, and that After Ever Happy makes the top of any kind of list I have... but I don't care. Of all Anna Todd's books After Ever Happy was my favorite and I loved how it tied up and ended the series. The addictive qualities her books have overshadow anything negative I would have to say. The Martian was another book that had something so addictive about it. The writing style and main character were written to perfection. A science fiction book that could easily fall into so many other genres. So excited to see this one play out on the big screen. The Wrath and the Dawn is hands-down my top pick for June. Such an amazing re-telling and unique book that added something new to the ever growing Ya scene. It was an absolutely breathtaking read. I still can't get over the hook that really draws you in... A king marries a different girl every day then the following dawn kills her. Such a brilliant idea! This is a 2015 and summer must read.

 As far as picking my June fails, like I said above I really don't have any. There was only one book that I wish I would have gotten more out of, and that was Because of Low. I found the relationship between the two main characters a little unbelievable. That being said I still really enjoyed the book. I just felt it was a little rushed and could have played out a little different. Plus it was rather predictable. I honestly only read it so I could get more background story before reading While it Last, since it's becoming a movie next year.Good call on my part. That's basically it. Sorry I don't have more for you this month but hopefully I'll kick this extreme chest infection and we able to tackle everything I have planned in July.

xoxo

-angela

Velvet by Temple West

After losing both her parents before the age seventeen, aspiring Caitlin Holte feels like her whole world has been turned upside down. Things only get weirder when she is saved from a storm from her hot supernatural neighbor.

I will start right away by saying two things: one I didn’t read anything about this book before purchasing it, just simply cover lusted and bought it and two: you should know from the get go that this is Twilight meets The Lux Series with a touch of White Hot Kiss. I’m not a hater of Twilight but neither am I a fan, but I am a lover of Lux…. This put me in a weird predicament when it came to Velvet. For all the reasons I loved Lux were the reasons I loved this book. It was a sweet romance, with great banter between our leads, and a story line I found additively well written.  For all the reason I hated Twilight were the same reasons I disliked parts of Velvet. Until the twist happened towards the middle I was almost positive was re-reading Twilight. Once that twist happened, one I didn’t see coming, I changed my mind. The first half of this book just had some many similarities between those two books that I was thankful the last half mixed it up for us.

I really enjoyed the two leads in this book. Caitlin at first wasn’t my favorite; but by the end grew on me. I really loved her personality and how she’s kind of “whatever” about everything. The big thing that kept me from liking her at first was that she was so ungrateful for so long. I get the whole angry at the world thing, because I’ve been in her shoes before, but I still couldn’t connect to how hateful she was being.  I was beyond ecstatic when she stopped being such a brat.  As far as Adrian went, I have absolutely zero complaints about him. I loved everything about his character. Everything from his looks to personality worked for me. He was what set this book apart from the others. I like my mystery men sweet, sarcastic, and caring; trust me when I say he hits all those nails right on the head. At one point I had a hard time reading because my eyes had literally turned into hearts. Hands-down one of the best fictional guys I've read in awhile.

The scenes that he weren’t in had me praying there would be some kind of excuse for him to come into the picture. The relationship between these two was also grand. Seriously so freaking sweet!!!! Definitely swoon-worthy. However I did hear that this book was supposed to be super steamy, and I will say I was a tiny bit let down when it wasn’t. I wanted more hot and heavy moments. The sweet moments we got however were great.

The best part about Velvet was that it was a light read with great writing. The writing never seems forced or too youthful. The storyline though a little predictable, was still fast and fun. I also really enjoyed the new spin on Vampires. The best part about this book was that it had more of a contemporary feel to it than it did super-natural. I’m not a big contemporary reads person, but I really enjoyed that that’s what it felt like.It made me feel like I was getting something I usually miss from contemporary reads.

Overall I was really happy about this read. It's some good time chick-lit with a light heartedness that I think most will enjoy.  It may look like a winter read but I think it fit perfectly into my summer.It's hard to believe that this is Temple's debut novel. I look forward to book two and reading whatever she puts out in the future.

8/10 Stars
-Angela