Tag: high school

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – The Face on the Milk Carton (Caroline B. Cooney)

Posted on by Katie Night

Hey Dearies!

You guys would be proud of how on a roll I’ve been with the book reviews, two weekends in a row! I’m definitely proud of myself with how much I’ve been reading lately, so let’s get onto this review!

So, I’ll be honest, I never heard about this book if it wasn’t for a Facebook reel showing me a clip of the movie, and when I looked it up, I saw that there was a book for it. I haven’t seen the movie yet, since I wanted to read the book first and see what the movie missed versus the book.

Apparently, this is also a series, so I’m not sure if the movie is all of the books combined or if it’s just this first book. I honestly am unsure if I will read the others in the series, but I haven’t made a sure deicison or not.

Anyway, the book is about a sophomore named Jaine Johnson, who happens to find herself looking at a younger version of herself on the back of the milk carton. She then goes down this rabbit hole to find out why her parents kidnapped her and to see where she truly is from, while also being a teen in high school.

Without trying to spoil it, there are a lot of secrets that she ends up uncovering and holes in her parents’ story when she confronts them about it that definitely made the book interesting. At the end of the first book, it leaves it on a cliffhanger when Jaine ends up meeting her biological parents, which makes you want to read the second one to find out.

I did have a hard time getting into it because of the fact that this is in third-person POV. I normally only like first-person POV, but it honestly depends on how the writer writes it. Some I have no problem with, and they do a really good job, but others not so much.

This one was kinda in the middle, in my opinion. I will say the twists and turns did help make it not too bad to read, but some of the other parts sort of dragged or just seemed to be repeated too much.

Like when Jaine talks to her boyfriend/friend, Reeve, about her finding all this information going on, I don’t blame him for being annoyed with it because that’s all she wants to talk about. I get it, it’s a lot of information to really process as a teen, but with how caring her parents are with her, I don’t understand why she didn’t bring all the information she had to them sooner.

The sooner they knew, the sooner she would get better answers and find out what their real daughter, Hannah, actually did when she had Jaine versus her thinking the people that has raised her just straight out took her away from her family.

I honestly don’t think her parents thought about the fact that once Jaine started to get older, she would need her important papers to get her license, apply for college, get a job, etc. I think they should’ve told her as soon as she was old enough to understand, because if I found out that my parents weren’t my biological ones, I would resent them for not telling me that information.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad read, but it’s not something I would reread again. Again, I’m not sure if I will want to continue the rest of the series; it didn’t pull me in as I had hoped. However, the whole mystery about Jaine finding her face on the milk carton and realizing her entire life is a lie that she’s uncovering is a very interesting concept to write about.

Let me know down in the comments if you have read this and what your thoughts are!

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – Flirty Little Secret (Jessica Lepe)

Posted on by Katie Night

Hey Dearies!

I have been on a “trying to read more this year than I did last year kick”. I also have a closet full of books that I’m trying to get through as well, however, I didn’t have this particular book just sitting on my shelf.

I’ll admit I was trying NOT to buy any more books because I’m honestly running out of room and when I saw this one and read what it was about, I was honestly curious to see how it turned out. Most of the time I would just buy the book and then it sits on my shelf because I forget about it, but I was determined to read this one.

Not to mention, this was the first book that has been published by this author, Jessica Lepe, which I never get a chance to find an authors very first published works, I never get THAT lucky.

So, the book is about Lucy, a guidance consulter at a high school who also as an online presents as @TheMissGuidedCounselor on Instagram where she gives out the best advice for her followers that no one really knows who she is. She also struggles with a lot of mental health. Which I can say I related to her so much in this book.

Then, you have Fletcher, who is a teacher who transferred to the same high school Lucy works. Little does he know that he has been also talking to Lucy on Instagram through his online present as @BravesGuy93. Fletcher also has his table of family issues that Lucy has been helping him out with.

Anyway, they have such an awkward cute meet, which I’m not going to spoil any details with that because its just hilarious and I honestly would act like Lucy if that ever did happen to me.

Also, I forgot to mention that the book is different chapters of both Lucy perspective and Fletchers perspective. Which I honestly quite enjoyed because a lot of books that I’ve read, its always based off of one persons perspective, but it was so interested to read both sides.

I don’t want to give out too many details as I think this book would be a great read for anyone who is a teen/young adult. The reason why I would recommend this to that age group is that I think it would benefit a lot to actually read what a modern romance is nowadays, especially if there is also mental health in the mix to all that.

I think a lot of people nowadays don’t want to work on relationships and would rather skip to another new person versus sitting down and working on the problems they have if they truly loved each other. I think this book does an amazing job talking about how mental health can affect you when being in a relationship when you aren’t at 100%.

One of the scenes in the book that I am referring to is the scene where Lucy and Fletcher have their very first date. When Fletcher comes to pick up Lucy, he finds he so overwhelmed with a list of stuff she has been delaying doing because of her mental health and instead of just leaving her to deal with them herself, he cancels the dinner plans and takes her around help her get the stuff she needs done, done.

In my eyes, that not only shows that Fletcher is willing to help Lucy in need, but it shows that he wants to be with her through the good, bad, and the ugly times. If I were Lucy, I would snatch that man up for myself since there aren’t many men that would do that, its slim pickings that will.

Overall, I really liked the book and found that I couldn’t put the book down, especially when the author was going back from Lucy to Fletcher, I wanted to know what happened next. Honestly, I wouldn’t be mad if there was a sequel, but I think how the book ended, it ended in a perfect way there wouldn’t need to be a sequel.

Honestly, I will be following this author because I loved her writing style and I related to Lucy in so many ways, which can be hard to do when sometimes authors want to give us the fairy tale hope of happily ever after, but life isn’t like that and I think Flirty Little Secret showed the side that we really don’t see with relationships nowadays.

Let me know in the comments if you have also gotten a chance to read this or if its on your book list to check out!