Miniviews # 4: Obsidian, The Lover's Dictionary & Losing It

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Publication Date: November 23rd, 2011

Publisher: Entangled Teen

Pages: 335

Series: Lux

Source: Purchased

Rating: 4.5/5

This book, this series, is highly gripping and addictive. Yea, it has similarities to Twilight, but holy crap it is just so much better. Katy moves next door to a mysterious brother and sister. And they turn out to be these awesome aliens. And in Daemons case, very hot alien. Katy and Dee start to become pretty close, but Daemon isn't having this. He doesn't trust humans. Katy and Daemons relationship, in turn, is pretty intense. Full of jabs and arguments, but hot. Katy doesn't back down from him and his jackass-ness. She's really feisty(hello Kitten). Get this, she's also a book blogger. I absolutely loved this! The terms and memes and everything that we bloggers do were right there. Awesome! Anyhow, the alien race Armentrout has created is pretty cool. Her characters and character development is near perfect. And the dialogue, especially between Katy and Daemon is spot on and a lot of them time pretty hilarious. Obsidian has it all; action, hot romance, aliens, lovable characters and characters you love to hate. I'm in love!

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan

Publication Date: January 1st, 2010

Publisher: Picador

Pages: 211

Source: Purchased

Rating: 4/5

This is a pretty unique book. Told in dictionary format where every page is a different word that follows a couple's relationship. There're no names used and told from the male's POV I thought it might be hard to become invested in the relationship or the couple. But that wasn't the case. I flew through this. Totally invested. This is an adult book, so, of course, the relationship was very mature. And I came to feel really sorry for the guy. He was in love, but I'm so sure his girlfriend was as in love with him. Great, interesting and quick read. 

Losing It by Cora Carmack

Publication Date: October 12th, 2012

Publisher: William Morrow

Pages: 288

Series: Losing It

Source: Purchased

Rating: 4/5

You know, I totally thought this book would be super cheesy. I mean that title. That cover. Sure it had it's cheesy moments. But in the end, appearances can be deceiving. What I really liked about it was Bliss. She's in college(about to finish) and still a virgin. She feels pressure to just lose it. She's awkward and shy and just a regular girl. She's dealing with college age problems like a regular person would. No one steps in to fix everything for her with a flick of the finger. She gets into a messy situation when she finds our her best friend is in love with her. She doesn't reciprocate those feelings and like in real life it hurts their relationship.

Then she meets what she feels is a pretty perfect guy. Things go far and then the next day she finds out he's one of her TA's. So now there's the student/teacher relationship going down. Of course, they try to stay away But that never works in books. I think Carmack did a really good job at dealing with all the issues Bliss comes to face from her relationship with Garrick. Friends bringing up how she's being favoured. Of course, that leads to uncomfortable conversations. Also Bliss's feelings towards having sex with Garrick. At this point should she ever brother? She's too old, so is she going to be good at it? And so on. Again, I really think Carmack handled Bliss's feelings and the subject matter pretty realistically.  Bliss and Garrick's relationship seemed to grow pretty fast, but now that I think about it, it took place over a 4-5 month period. So I guess it was again pretty realistic. And it is college, so feelings and hormones are still heightened. And Bliss did bring up a pretty good point about love; she was wondering how she was supposed to know if she was actually in love when she didn't even know what she wanted to do with her life. Pretty spot on, though, Bliss. Wished more YA/NA adults had that thinking.

Happy reading!

Brittany