The Devil's Intern by Donna Hosie

"How did you die?" It's the most popular question in Hell, and Mitchell Johnson has been answering it ever since he was hit by a bus and ended up in the Underworld.

"I  just love books about guy's who are working in the accounting department of Hell as the Devil's intern and then over hears about a way to get out and get their life back by using time travel..." said no one ever! However, that is only because nothing like this has ever been written. The Devil's Intern was a really great surprise. 

When I first heard about this book I only knew that it was full of dry humor (my fave) and about a boy who was working as, yes you guessed it, the Devil's intern. I had no idea about all the other little nuggets that would be thrown into it.

First the characters were amazing. Each one so different than the next. First we have our main man Mitchell Johnson. The witty, nerdy, funny, hungry, guy who got hit by a greyhound and is now interning in Hell. Then you get the side characters: Medusa, Mitchell's best friend. Alfarin the surprisingly sweet Viking Prince. Then the 17th Century peasant Elinor. The banter between these characters is so much snarky goodness. Their relationship is so bizarre that it makes it work in the most perfect way. This is all before you throw in the element of the Devil himself... who happens to be a total drama queen who doodles black hearts around evil plans and hates Vegans. 

“Can we go back and sit down? Dancing is for girls.”

“I am a girl, Mitchell,” replies Medusa, “and try telling The Devil that.” We both look over at the master of Hell, who has cleared the dance floor with his moshing.”

Reading the four of these characters together would be reason enough to pick up this book, but I haven't even mentioned the plot. 

The plot falls just below "fast paced" and hit a new level that I don't even know if there's a word invented for it... I'll just say perfect for now. The pace is perfect. From the moment we are introduced too not only Mitchell's character, but to the world itself, is just non-stop. There is always something happening. The fact that she has it so Hell is kind of like the real world will have you cracking up. Hell sounds a lot like living in the south. It's insanely hot, traffic jams are never ending, and everyone's just working for the weekend. The big thing I need to mention is the clear elephant in the room.. The time traveling aspect. When I was reading and this started coming into play, I will not lie I became super nervous. Thank the dark lords that I kept reading. It was the biggest and best surprise. It starts happening and I was still so/so about it, then the closer it came to the end of the story the more impressed I became with it. The more time travel we got the more all these hidden treasures come out. It didn't hurt that with a lot of these scenes the author managed to nail her comic timing. There's one scene when they go to like a KFC and send Alfari the Viking to order their food and he pulls a total Thor and it had me in stitches.
 

Even when the plot calls for things too get a little heavier and more serious, Hoise makes the story flow and work. At one point in time I was getting teary eyed and was floored by the emotional turn the book took.  From start to finish The Devil's Intern was one surprise after another. A genius idea for a book, a well played out story line, characters you will fall in love with, and twist you wont see coming. All in all when I picked this book up I wasn't excepting anything more than a quick quirky read, but what I got was a well thought out, warm, hilarious, and fun read. The Devil's Intern had me laughing, crying, and on the edge of my seat. I can't wait to get my hands on the next book in this series.... Yeah another surprise right? Sounds like a total standalone, it's not! And lets just say with how it ends I can't wait to see where she takes this story.


10/10 Stars 
-Angela 

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

Hadley is having a pretty bad day. Every little thing that can happen happens which cause the perfect storm of a series of unfortunate events that lead her to miss her plane by four minutes. It's not like she was super pumped to get on the plane in the first place, though. She is supposed to be on her way to London to be a bridesmaid in her dad's wedding to a lady she has never met, a lady who he left her mom for, and more importantly a lady who he left her for. She is going on this trip against her will, because both of her parents think it is for the best. Unfortunately she missed her plane and now she is stuck in the airport for three hours until she can catch the next flight to London. While in the airport, she meets Oliver. Oliver is a sweet British guy who offer to watch her bag for her and eats dinner with her since they are both stuck in the airport. As fate would have it, Oliver and Hadley also are sitting a seat away from each other on the plane. When a sweet old lady gives up her seat so Oliver can sit next to Hadley, they spend the next seven hours chatting and getting to know each other. Things feel perfect until the plane lands in London and their little fairy tale is over. They get separated in customs and end up not seeing each other again. The rest of the book follows Hadley as she deals with her dad's wedding, learns a lot about love and herself, and does a lot of growing up in a very short time.

The book itself takes place over the course of 24 hours. Since the book is on a timeline, I found myself really stressing out when things would happen and hours would tick by. It gave a really unique angle for the story and it made me feel like I was right there with Hadley dealing with the longest, best/worst day of her life. Overall, I really enjoyed this book. It's sweet and cute and a very easy read. If you have ever watched any Rom-Com ever then you can predict where everything is going to go, but it was enjoyable regardless. I have been really digging contemporary YA romance lately, so this fell perfectly into that category. Not life changing, but definitely a great fluffy read. If you're looking for a good beach or pool read, this will keep you occupied for an afternoon and you will get out of it exactly what you think you will.

What really pushed me to finally read this book was when I found out that Hailee Steinfeld and Robert Sheehan have been cast as Hadley and Oliver. Going into the book with those two in my head was PERFECT. The casting is spot on, and I am absolutely ecstatic to see how this goes from page to screen next year. The things that Oliver says made me absolutely swoon, and when you put Robert Sheehan's face with those beautiful words..... All I can say is: Panty dropper. Hailee Steinfeld is going to be so funny and quirky as Hadley. I think she will really bring the character to life and be able to show all of the moments that can only be described as being a seventeen year old girl. So even if contemporary YA isn't your thing, I would still encourage you to read this if only to see how it is in the book before it becomes a movie (it's always way more fun than way!).

“He’s like a song she can’t get out of her head. Hard as she tries, the melody of their meeting runs through her mind on an endless loop, each time as surprisingly sweet as the last, like a lullaby, like a hymn, and she doesn’t think she could ever get tired of hearing it.” 

4/5 stars

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...

I'll Give You the Boys Giveaway

It's giveaway time!!!! Our Hush Hush giveaway went so well we figured it'd be about time to do another one. There will be different rules this time around. First this giveaway isn't going to be international. We plan on doing a huge giveaway at the end of the year and that one will be open to everyone. Below will be a list of what will be included and all the rules.  You must do all the following to be entered to win.


ITEMS: 

• One hardcover copy of I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson 
• One hardcover SIGNED copy of To All the Boys I've Loved Before by Jenny Han
• Two collectors buttons for Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas
• One mystery item  

RULES: 
Like we stated above, sadly this time the giveaway wont be international it'll only be for US and CAN. Promise the one at the end of the year will be worth following and waiting for if you can't enter into this one.

•  Follow our instagram page- @southernbredbooks
• Re-post the picture using the tag #illgiveyoutheboys 
• Subscribe to our blog (picture to right shows how)

Again this is only for US and CAN and you must do all those things to win. Pretty simple and easy. Once our instagram hits 2k in followers that will be when the cutoff for the giveaway ends.
May the odds be ever in your favor.

xoxo
-A&L 

Darkfever by Karen Marie Moning

When MacKayla's sister is murdered she ventures to Ireland in search for answers. The quest to find her sister’s  leads her down a path she never expected and is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn what's going on and figuring out what she is. 

So rather late than never, right?? I've put off reading this series for a while, and I figured since I've been getting deeper into longer series lately and with the 7th book coming out this year that I would finally pick this up and get into it. That being said I'm going too have to be honest... I'm having a little bit of mixed feels about this. My rating might be a little higher than what I think it actually should be, BUT I have a reason for it. The reason? It's addictive and the writing style is something in it's own.

As always I'll talk about our characters first. Our two leads are MacKayla Lane (aka Mac) and Jericho Barrions. I was really surprised by these two characters. First off I thought I was going to hate Mac, because lets me honest her name is dumb, but I actually really liked her. She was witty, funny, and spoke to her age. My favorite thing about her was that she was "average". Besides the obvious "powers" she has she spoke and thought to someone who was twenty-two. I liked that she wants and average life and really isn't looking to be some special star. Also her loyalty to her sister was a massive plus. Next we have Jericho, who everyone made out to be the biggest heartthrob in history... And sadly I was a little disappointed in his character. Though I did enjoy the mystery surrounding him, I also felt like we get very little out of him. Until the last few chapters I didn't think he was really anything to write home about (those last like two chapter though, swoon). I just don't know if I'm in love with this fictional mystery guy just yet. I hear as the series goes on and more surfaces about these characters that people fall more in love with them.

Without giving away anything too revealing about the plot line Mac is basically pulled into a whole new world. A place where objects hold dark powers, murders are a normally un-blinked at event, and  people alive and dead have powers beyond belief. Though this might make the tale out to sound really gripping there are only a handful of action packed moments. My belief is that this book really is setting up the others to be over the top with "omg" moments. This is a snowball of a book. At first starting slow and then working it's way to a really interesting and cliffhanging ending. I will warn the first half this book, though interesting, isn't as action packed as the last half. The characters are interesting along with the story line. If it wasn't for Moning's writing and verbiage I might not have given this novel the rating I did. However, the way she presents even the most random and odd events won me over (seriously, there are a few moments I was so thrown off by what was happening, and really had to scratch my head). Another thing I have to confess is I thought that this book was going to be a lot more smutty than it was, and it wasn't. I'm still confused as to why it was in the romance section because I feel it is way heavier in the paranormal/fantasy room than it is in romance. I feel this series is setting up to be epic.

Am I looking forward to reading the rest of this series? Yes. Am I completely sold on it... 

8/10 Stars 
-Angela 

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl Movie Review

Recently Leah and I had the pleasure of sitting in on the Papertowns panel with John Green, and while we were there he said something that just stuck with me about books that become movies. He said that a great book to film adaptation, though the book and film will without a doubt be compare, however can stand on it's own. That you should leave the theater loving it as a movie and try not too completely compare the two. As avid readers and girls who constantly see books that become films there are two things I can say about that statement: that it is completely correct, but that it is really hard to do. When it comes to Me and Earl and the Dying Girl this statement took new life for me. This film holds it's own.

Leah and I just left the theater and I knew right away I needed to come home and talk about the film we just saw. If you read either of our reviews on the book than you know that both of us just thought the novel was alright. It was comical, light, but the ending I think is what kind of let both of us down. It's comparison to TFIOS was off, the high remarks on goodreads had us both a little confused, and there was just something we both felt was missing. I think I can speak for the both of us when I say that we now know what was missing. Me and Earl, and the Dying Girl movie gave us everything we wanted and more. The film had so much more emotion and depth than the novel. I know that everyone who sees the trailer is thinking "wow didn't we just dehydrate ourselves and spike Kleenex sales enough last year with TFIOS", please don't think that. The only thing that they have in relation is a sick girl. That's it.

This film blew me away. It's a film following quirky, interesting, and relatable characters. Best part is that it's a film about making films... Which would have most thinking this would lead to an awkward play-out, but it actually gives this film something so unique. The characters though quirky are ones you will be cheering for and falling in love with. Greg (Thomas Mann) is cruising through life, trying to keep a low profile, and just make it out of high school. His only real friend, though he wont admit it, is Earl (RJ Cyler). The bad boy loner from the poorer side of town. The two have been friends forever and making parodies of movies since they met. Making films like "A Sockwork Orange" and "Rosemary's Baby Carrots". The relationship they

have though odd has always worked out for the two of them. That is until one day Greg's mom forces him to hang out with his classmate Rachel (Olivia Cooke) who has been diagnosed with cancer. As you can probably guess Earl and Greg are asked to make a movie for Rachel. This starts the blossoming friendship of three loners. Thomas Mann, RJ Cyler, and Olivia Cooke nailed the characters. They took characters that in the book I felt no real connection too and made them into characters that brought me to tears by the end of the film. That is not the only thing that changed from the book. There are several scene changes that also made the movie a heck of a lot better than the book. It's as if J. Andrews listened to the readers reviews took them in and made the changes needed while keeping the things we loved. So happy that the accidentally drug scene was left in as well as the pillow masturbation talk. Another very present change is the over all connection and friendship between Greg and Rachel. In the book Greg and Rachel really don't have much of a friendship in my opinion. In the film however their relationship and friendship is something so beautiful. So having the characters take a different direction made it easier for audience to connect with them. My favorite change however was the complete change of the ending.

As I said above, when reading the book when it came to the ending I was highly letdown... When it came to the movie it was my favorite part. The unique composition, the beautiful cinematography, and the way it was taken to a new emotional depth that we didn't get out of the book. When I say a new depth I mean oceans

deeper than what the book gave. This went from a mediocre book to an absolutely stunning film. And saying stunning is truly an understatement. A strong indie movie with a casting of new comers really gave this film everything it needs to be a knock out. The filmmakers truly deserve a round of applause for taking a trope filled genre that has recently been increasing and becoming a bit tired and giving it new life. This film deserves way more hype than it is getting. Every movie mark was hit: perfectly placed dry humor, great casting, unique elements, and a film that could have easily been dark was made light and loving. It's been a long time since we've seen a movie that made us laugh till we cried and then just flat out cried.

Me and Earl and the Dying Girl is a film more about the journey than the destination and it is well worth the climb. This is a summer must see. This review only gives a light shade of how I felt towards the film. Simply put: This movie was how book to film should be done.

10/10 Stars 
-Angela 

Clipped Wings by Helena Hunting

Tenley and Hardin are complete opposites when it comes to life. Yet they boy share one thing in common... They both have past they wish to keep secret.

This is a case of the right book at the right time. I felt myself slipping into a slump with the other book I was reading so I set it down and picked up Clipped Wings. I think my favorite thing about new adult books is that they are some of the best to pick up when you need to get out of a reading slump. Though Clipped Wings is overall your basic NA novel, I did enjoy that there was a little something different about it, and something that surprising related rather close to me.

Clipped Wings is about a rocky secret keeping relationship between Tenley and Hayden. Tenley is a college student working on her thesis while working at the book store she lives above. Hayden is the bad boy with the dark past who has now straightened out his life and is working/owning a tattoo parlor across the street from his aunts bookstore... So you see where this is going. After several visits to the store Hayden takes a liking to Tenley and after a series of events talks her into coming in for a tattoo session. Tenley though shy and guarded at times still managed to be both funny and charming. As far as leading ladies went I was really pleased with her, and how she is written. Hayden however was the character I oddly ended up relating to the most. Not only is he a total babe, but also a total sweet heart. The reason however I contacted with him was because much like him I am often discriminated against because of the amount of tattoos I have. People see them and then automatically assume you're up to no good. So naturally I felt a connection to him and how he sees the world seeing him. I also can't mention Hayden without mentioning his love of cupcakes and how much it made me love him. But, too be completely honest I really enjoyed everything about his character. He turned out to be a lot more swoon worthy than I originally thought he would be. At first I thought I knew how his character would be, but once he started to actually to reveal himself and start to win over Tenley I was completely sold. That sweet tattooed dreamboat stole my heart.


The story line is told in dual POV which I digged. I enjoyed getting to see both of their struggles along with hearing both of their thoughts on one another. I also liked how the book, though it's deeper message was about working through struggles and learning that its okay to lean on people, still found a unique way of bringing tattooing into the picture. Hot guys, talks about tattoos, and a story line that wasn't choppy had me sold. Though the plot is rather predictable it was still written so well that I was able to set that aside. The plot keeps a steady pace through-out the novel and the romance is always on point. I will say I thought this was a stand-alone but it turns out there is a sequel. With an ending I did see coming, I still wasn't disappointed because it does leave it off so the next book is actually a mystery. Really looking forward to seeing how this series ends because right now I'm so clueless and curious about how everything will wrap up.

 

8.5/10 Stars 

-Angela