REVIEW | Ask the Passengers by AS King.

Ask the Passengers by AS King was read 19 of 2016, and I gave it a 4 out of 5 stars!

I really enjoyed listening to the audiobook for this book as I drove to Yallwest a few weekends ago.  I was really in the mood for a contemporary and needed a break from all the fantasy and nonfiction I've been focusing on! This was an excellent choice!

Ask the Passengers focuses on a girl named Astrid Jones, whose family is from New York but have been living in a small town for a few years now.  Astrid's best friend is the most popular girl in school, with the perfect boyfriend, except that's not true at all.  Only Astrid knows that Christina and Justin are actually in relationships with other people... of the same gender.  Its a story full of secrets and closets, as Astrid is also dating a girl from work, and nobody knows.

I personally connected the most with the antagonist of the story, Astrid's mother, and the mother-daughter relationship between them.  Its not that I have this relationship with my mother, not at all! But I nonetheless found it a very realistic expression of a mom who thinks she is open to to nontraditional situations, but overreacts when she has to deal with them.

I did have an issue with how simply everything wrapped up, which I won't go into detail with.  But it just seemed too easy for everyone that was important in the story.

With that being said, I still would highly recommend this book, especially with its LGBTQ aspects! This is the first book I think I've ever read with a lesbian character and I felt that a lot of the situations our characters dealt with were realistic in the ways they played out.

I hope you guys pick this one up! Let me know if you enjoyed the book or why you didn't!

Until next time, 

MissSassyKassie

OWLCRATE UNBOXING | April 2016

     In April, I was so excited to be offered a chance to review Owlcrate's April box! I did post a video of my initial reactions of the unboxing, and what I thought of each item, and you can see that here.

I wanted to do a blog post so you could see a close up of each item that was in the box!

First off, this was the card that explained what each item in the box was, and what store or company they were each from.  I really loved the card itself though, and got a kick out of the poster on the right side in particular.

The first thing I grabbed out of the box was this beautiful coaster that says "I spent my life folded between the pages of books," inspired by Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi.  The coaster was designed by Evie Bookish.

Next is my personal favorite item from this box, and its a little unlined notebook from Manuscript that has 1984 by George Orwell on the cover, one of my favorite dystopian books I've ever read!

Pictured here is a Mocking Jay bracelet from The Geeky Cauldron and a Mocking Jay magnet from Half Blood Prints. I love the pop of light blue on the bracelet.  There were two different styles of magnets for this box, and I still really want to know what the other one looks like! I do love this one though!!

Shailey Ann Designs created a decal (it'll be pure black when its actually stuck somewhere) based on The Maze Runner series.  This isn't my favorite book/series of all time, but I still really think the whole idea of WCKD is really cool!

Before we get to everything actually related to the book that was in the box, there was a little poster with a quote from The Star Touched Queen, and it is BEAUTIFUL! I'm going to put it up on my wall once I've moved into my new place next month.

And finally: the book! Flawed by Cecelia Ahern is a dystopian YA novel about a girl named Celestine who has the perfect life, and lived in the perfect world until she makes a mistake and is branded as Flawed.  I absolutely LOVE the cover of this book.  I love that you can see the photo on the hard cover through the dust jacket, it is gorgeous!  There was also a copied note written by Cecelia Ahern about her excitement for the publishing of her book and it was so sweet to read!

I hope you guys enjoyed this post, and the video. SORRY for it being so late!!

Until next time,

MissSassyKassie