Tag: high school

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – The Teacher (Freida McFadden)

Posted on by Katie Night

Hey Dearies!

Okay, so before I begin the review, I just wanted to post a little side note:

If you see me suddenly stop posting blog reviews in the next few weeks, it’s because I had my baby boy! He’s due October 7th, so any time around then, if you notice either little to no blog posts, that is why I disappeared. In the meantime, I’m going to be trying to get as many book reviews as I can get done and have them scheduled out, just so you guys have something to look forward to on Sundays!

Now, back to the review!

Yes, I have another review from Freida’s library again! This one came up as a suggestion from Kindle Unlimited for me and a few others, but I wanted to give this one a go and see what she came up with for this one.

Before I go further into the review, I wanted to mention that this does have an underage romance between a student and a teacher. Now, from what I’ve read and heard, a lot of people had a hard time getting into the book because of it, which I completely understand. I was a little iffy about reading it as well because of that.

Anyway, the book has a few different people that you read about from their POV. Eve’s is the first one you start out with, and it goes between her and Addie, who is a high schooler who has both Eve and Nate as teachers; then lastly, you’ll get Nate’s POV.

It starts out by talking about what Eve and Nate’s relationship is, which is pretty basic since they are high school teachers. Eve teaches Math, while Nate teaches English. The only other thing you find out is that Eve has been having an affair with someone that she sees regularly.

Then you have Addie, who is a high school student who had a rough year before; she not only had her dad pass away, but she was accused of sleeping with another teacher, who ended up having to leave the school because of it. Although it doesn’t really explain or say if she did it, the only thing the teacher did was give her a ride home and tutor her with math. Eve ends up running into that teacher, and he warns her that Addie is a troubled girl.

Of course, Eve and Nate both have Addie as a student for this year, as she is a junior. Eve gives Addie a hard time in class, as the teacher she was accused of sleeping with was someone who was a mentor to her. Nate, on the other hand, thinks she is a struggling student who needs guidance.

On top of one of her teachers giving her a hard time, Addie is also getting bullied by one of the popular students, as well as the entire school, because of the whole situation she caused last year. Plus, her mother is also giving her a hard time about making friends, but the only people who wanted to be her friends were those who wanted to know more about the rumors.

So, Addie turns to writing as a way to release the emotions that she has bottled up. Nate happens to find her work very interesting and invites her to work with the newspaper club so that she can get one of her poems published in the paper.

This is when Nate and Addie start to get closer, more than just student and teacher, but more than that. Addie ends up losing her virginity to Nate, as Nate tells her she’s his soulmate and wrote a poem just for her about how amazing she is to him.

They start falling head over heels for each other and meet up frequently after school to have sex. Of course, Eve starts to suspect that something is going on with Nate and Addie as Nate starts to stay later at the school more. She also then accuses Nate of that and threatens to expose him to the principal.

I really did have a hard time trying to understand why Nate would go after Addie, but as a spoiler alert, she wasn’t the only high school student that she has slept with. Addie does find out that the girl who bullies her, Kenize, also slept with Nate as he got to her too, but she doesn’t tell her until later on in the book.

Anyway, Addie tries to visit Nate after Eve threatens to expose them, and Addie ends up knocking out Eve, but Nate makes her think that Eve is dead, which freaks Addie out. I honestly thought Eve was dead too, but as Freida does, she keeps you on your toes and has Nate freaked out over finding Eve’s favorite shoes randomly all over the house.

Overall, it was another quick read, but I get why a lot of people were uneasy about the whole “student-teacher romance”. Thankfully, there are only like two or three scenes where they kiss or have sex, which made it easier to get through. I will say, I don’t think I would randomly pick this one to read again, just because of that.

I swear that every time I read one of Fredia’s books, I think I know exactly who the murderer or trouble marker, but then you find out you were way off. For example, I thought Nate was innocent and Eve was the one who was going to kill either Addie or him, but nope!

What did you think about this book? Did you read it, or was this one of her books you didn’t want to read because of the student-teacher love affair? Let me know in the comments below.

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – Regretting You (Colleen Hoover)

Posted on by Katie Night

Hey Dearies!

I did finally take a break from thrillers! (I know you are shocked!)

This one was actually recommended to me through Kindle Unlimited, and I did know there is also a movie for it. I saw the trailer for it, and when I saw it was based on a book, I wanted to read it before I saw it. I tend to see movies before I find out they are based on a book.

Plus, my friend had read the book and seen the movie and said it was definitely worth giving it a go. Mind you, this was the same friend who recommended all the thrillers I’ve been reading!

Before I go any further, I will be comparing both the book and the movie, so if you haven’t read or seen either one, a spoiler alert is in place!

The book first starts out with Morgan, Chris, Jonah, and Jenny when they were teenagers. Morgan is dating Chris, while her younger sister Jenny is dating Jonah. You can tell that Jonah has feelings for Morgan, and to be honest, they seem more compatible with each other than Chris and Jenny.

Anyway, Morgan finds out she’s pregnant after she graduates high school; Chris and her get married and raise their daughter, Clara, together. It fast-forwards to Clara being 15; Morgan and Chris are still happily married, and her sister, Jenny, ends up having a baby with Jonah, and they are engaged to be married.

It starts back out at Morgan’s birthday, where they are all gathered to celebrate. While they are waiting, Clara is running late because she helped her crush, Miller, get home. He was moving the speed limit sign closer and closer to his grandfather’s house, just so they would be able to get pizza delivered.

Clara ends up calling her Aunt Jenny to tell her all about it, just like any other teenager; they would rather tell anyone else but their parents because, in their minds, they don’t understand what it’s like to be a teenager.

Which is something I used to say to my mother when I was a teenager. Granted, when I look back now, she did understand, to a point; however, she was a teenager in the 90’s while I was a teenager in the 2010’s.

Moving forward to the following day, Morgan ends up watching her nephew since Jenny is going back to work, as her maternity leave is over, since Morgan is a stay-at-home mom. So, Chris, Jonah, and Jenny all go off to work. It’s all fine until Morgan gets a call saying that Chris has been in an accident.

When she gets to the hospital, she sees Jonah there, and she finds out he was called because Jenny was in a car accident. Come to find out, Chris and Jenny were both in the same car that killed them both.

At first, both Morgan and Jonah were confused about why they were in the same car together because they thought that Jenny was going back to work today at the hospital and Chris was going to work as well.

However, after they got calls from the hotel saying that Chris’s vehicle was still there and Jenny’s bag was waiting to be picked up, they found out that Chris and Jenny were having an afair that no one knew about. Of course, Morgan doesn’t want to believe it and tells Jonah not to tell Clara why Chris and Jenny were in the car together.

As a mother myself, I understand exactly why Morgan wanted to keep that information hidden from Clara. She always thought of her dad and aunt so highly, and if she found out that they died in a car crash because they were having an affair, it would crush her. However, telling her what happened would’ve prevented Clara from acting out against her mother.

Since Morgan didn’t want to tell Clara the truth about what happened, she started to resent her mother. This is when Miller comes into play. At first, he has a girlfriend, but is off and on with her until it finally ends; that’s when they start getting closer, not just as friends, but more.

So doesn’t Jonah and Morgan- Jonah finally confesses that he’s always had feelings for her and that he knows deep down she did too as well. Of course, Morgan is too stubborn to admit them, but over time she finally does. Clara ends up catching them kissing and thinks that her mother and Jonah were having an affair, and ends up convincing Miller to have sex with her for the first time.

Which I give props to Miller because he asked several times before they got ready to do the deed, and she just told him yes. Of course, Clara wasn’t ready, and Miller was more mad that any time her mother pissed her off, she would use him to get back at her. Which any other guy would just leave and not talk to her about it, but he ends up staying with her and comforting her.

Finally, both Morgan and Clara sit down and talk about what really happened between Jenny and Chris, not to mention that the “baby” Jonah and Jenny had, Chris was actually the father. They really had a heart-to-heart about it.

Now, the movie does follow the book fairly well; the only thing that it missed, which I’m glad it missed, was the film project Miller and Clara were working on. I honestly didn’t really care about it when I read it, but the prom video Miller made for Clara was perfect.

Overall, both the book and the movie were really good. I honestly loved the mother-daughter relationship and them both learning how to cope with not only the death of their loved ones, but also having to learn to move on without them in their lives.

I did watch the movie with my mom; she didn’t read the book, but she liked the movie as I did. We both ended up crying at the end too. I actually preferred the movie over the book. The book also was slow getting into it, and it did take me longer to really get into versus other books that I’ve flown right through.

What did you think about the book? Or did you see the movie first and then read the book? Let me know in the comments down below!

Posted in Books, Reviews

Book Review – If He Had Been With Me (Laura Nowlin)

Posted on by Katie Night

Hey Dearies!

I’m so sorry for missing last week’s post! We had a beautiful weekend that I couldn’t pass up, and plus, I hadn’t finished a book yet either, I completely forgot! Don’t worry, I’m back! I’ll make sure I have some others pre-planned just in case I space it again!

Since I got Kindle Unlimited, this title came up as a recommendation, and I figured, why not? I’ll give it a go. Then, when I mentioned to one of my friends that I was reading this, she was like, “Oh man, you are going to lose it when you get to the end.”

Mind you, I just started the book, and the way the beginning started, I kind of figured out what might be happening. Then she showed me some TikToks of people absolutely losing it when they got to Chapters 84 & 85. When I mean they were losing it, I mean like balling uncontrollably.

I also had no idea this was even popular. I don’t have TikTok, never installed it, or signed up for an account because anything that was shown on TikTok showed up on Facebook or YouTube, so I didn’t see the need to have it. Plus, most of my book recommendations come from Pinterest or Kindle Unlimited.

Anyway, this book wasn’t what I was expecting, but it is something I would reread again. So, it’s about Finn and Autumn, how their mothers were best friends and pretty much were raised together. Its best friends turned to lovers, but it doesn’t happen right off the bat.

The book is completely in Autumn’s POV, so you start to see that he’s more popular than her, and she backs away from their friendship, which can happen, especially during middle school and high school. That’s when you start finding groups of friends more like you.

By the way, this only happens when Finn kisses her, and she doesn’t know how to react and doesn’t want him to use her, which I completely understand, but she basically pushes him away and stays with her little group of friends.

Then, at the beginning of freshman year, you see Finn start dating Sylvie, eventually Autumn meets Jamie, and they start dating as well. They still see each other a lot, but this distance has been created, which makes it difficult for them to co-exist and still be the best of friends that they once were.

Without trying to spoil the entire thing, they don’t confess their feelings until the summer that they graduated, and that’s when they both realized that Finn had been in love with her since they were 11. Autumn didn’t start feeling it until 2 years before, but doesn’t say anything since she’s with Jamie.

One thing I want to point out about Jamie is that he had so many red flags that she just ignored, but I do understand because of the fact that they were in high school, and when it’s your first love, you tend to look over everything.

Anytime he didn’t agree with something she said, he would argue with Autumn about it, as if he didn’t care about her opinion. Kept pushing her to have sex with her when she told him she wasn’t ready. He was a douche bag anyway because of what he did to Autumn in the end.

I was waiting for her to break things off with this guy from the moment he started treating her like crap. Then again, you do dumb stuff when you’re young and have to learn from your mistakes. Plus, I’m pretty sure he was love-bombing her too.

Of course, when the book starts in the beginning, I kinda had a feeling that something happened with Finn, that we weren’t going to know for sure until the end. If you have read as much as I have, then you would be able to put two and two together about what happened.

I did get teared up when I read Chapters 84 & 85, but not as bad as I saw others do. Which is shocking because when I read that part, my 1-year-old was sleeping on my chest and my eyes watered, but I didn’t full-blown cry over it. I’m also pregnant, so it really didn’t hit me as hard as I expected.

It could have had to do with the fact that the TikToks kind of gave it away, which is one of the reasons why I don’t have it, because it spoils a lot of books for people. I mean, I get ideas from Pinterest on different book suggestions, but I haven’t run into a pin that has spoiled it for me.

Overall, it wasn’t a bad book; the writer’s style was something to get used to, but it was readable for sure. I highly recommend it, although once you finish that one, there is a sequel that gives you Finn’s POV for a few chapters, which gives you more of an inside on how he was feeling about Autumn.

What did you think of this book? Did you happen to read it because it was on TikTok, or were you like me and happened to have it recommended? Let me know in the comments!

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!