SOCIAL MEDIA

Book Review: Young Jane Young by Gabrielle Zevin

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Tuesday, December 12, 2017

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Author: Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Algonquin Books
Pages: 320
Format: E-book
Published: August, 2017
Price: $9.18 -> Rp121.901 (Amazon)
Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Date started: September 3, 2017 - Date finished: September 9, 2017

Synopsis:
Young Jane Young's heroine is Aviva Grossman, an ambitious Congressional intern in Florida who makes the life-changing mistake of having an affair with her boss–who is beloved, admired, successful, and very married–and blogging about it. When the affair comes to light, the Congressman doesn’t take the fall, but Aviva does, and her life is over before it hardly begins. She becomes a late‑night talk show punchline; she is slut‑shamed, labeled as fat and ugly, and considered a blight on politics in general.

How does one go on after this? In Aviva’s case, she sees no way out but to change her name and move to a remote town in Maine. She tries to start over as a wedding planner, to be smarter about her life, and to raise her daughter to be strong and confident. But when, at the urging of others, she decides to run for public office herself, that long‑ago mistake trails her via the Internet like a scarlet A. For in our age, Google guarantees that the past is never, ever, truly past, that everything you’ve done will live on for everyone to know about for all eternity. And it’s only a matter of time until Aviva/Jane’s daughter, Ruby, finds out who her mother was, and is, and must decide whether she can still respect her.
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Novemberian 2017 Wishlist

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Sunday, October 15, 2017

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[Image source] - edited by me
November is almost here, which means my birthday is coming to town! As you may or may not know, a bunch of friends of mine with the same birthday month as me (November!) do this gift giving/exchange thingy sort of like a "Secret Santa" to each other where we send out a present anonymously to a target and then the target has to guess who gave him/her the present based on the clues we put inside the present.

In relation to that event, since we're all bookish people in a book community what better way to treat each other as with books! So, with this post I am writing in my wishlist to you my giver! Hope you won't get any difficulties in finding any of this.
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Book Review: When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi

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Sunday, August 13, 2017

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Author: Paul Kalanithi
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 228
Format: Paperback
Published: January, 2017
Price: Rp160.000 (Periplus)
Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Date started: August 7, 2017 - Date finished: August 13, 2017

Synopsis:
For readers of Atul Gawande, Andrew Solomon, and Anne Lamott, a profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir by a young neurosurgeon faced with a terminal cancer diagnosis who attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living?

At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor making a living treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. Just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air, which features a Foreword by Dr. Abraham Verghese and an Epilogue by Kalanithi’s wife, Lucy, chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a young neurosurgeon at Stanford, guiding patients toward a deeper understanding of death and illness, and finally into a patient and a new father to a baby girl, confronting his own mortality.

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir.

Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing mortality and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a gifted writer who became both.
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Book Review: The Hating Game by Sally Thorne

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Monday, July 31, 2017

1 comment
Author: Sally Thorne
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
Pages: 384
Format: E-book
Published: August, 2016
Price: $7.99 -> Rp106.235 (Amazon)
Rating: 4 / 5 stars

Date started: June 7, 2017 - Date finished: June 8, 2017

Synopsis:
Nemesis (n.)

1) An opponent or rival whom a person cannot best or overcome;

2) A person’s undoing;

3) Joshua Templeman.

Lucy Hutton and Joshua Templeman hate each other. Not dislike. Not begrudgingly tolerate. Hate. And they have no problem displaying their feelings through a series of ritualistic passive aggressive maneuvers as they sit across from each other, executive assistants to co-CEOs of a publishing company. Lucy can’t understand Joshua’s joyless, uptight, meticulous approach to his job. Joshua is clearly baffled by Lucy’s overly bright clothes, quirkiness, and Pollyanna attitude.

Now up for the same promotion, their battle of wills has come to a head and Lucy refuses to back down when their latest game could cost her her dream job…But the tension between Lucy and Joshua has also reached its boiling point, and Lucy is discovering that maybe she doesn’t hate Joshua. And maybe, he doesn’t hate her either. Or maybe this is just another game.
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Book Review: What I Wish I Had Known (And Other Lessons You Learned in Your 20s) by Marcella Purnama

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Saturday, July 15, 2017

1 comment
Author: Marcella Purnama
Illustrator: Nabila Adani
Publisher: POP (Imprint KPG)
Pages: 208
Format: Paperback
Published: June, 2017
Price: Rp75.000 (Gramedia)
Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Date started: July 14, 2017 - Date finished: July 15, 2017

Synopsis:
I’ve lived my whole life following people and taking their choices as mine. I will dream a new dream, a dream that’s totally my own, and I will work hard to get it.

Ever since her acceptance letter to study abroad arrived at her inbox, nothing in Marcella Purnama’s life has gone according to plan. Instead of choosing Science, like her two older sisters did before her, she steered path to study Arts—a degree so alien to both her families and friends. But as she traveled thousands miles away, struggled with English, had her first byline and went back home to apply for her first job, Marcella realized that plans are meant to be changed. Full of relatable tales of horrific group work, falling in love, first job interview and quarter-life crisis, this illuminating account follows how a young adult grapples with life’s small and big questions, and the lessons learned along the way.
– D I S C L A I M E R –
I was given a copy from the publisher in exchange for an honest review, all opinions stated here are my own.
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Book Review: The Spiral Down (The Fall Up, #2) by Aly Martinez

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Friday, July 14, 2017

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Author: Aly Martinez
Publisher: Aly Martinez
Pages: 242
Format: E-book
Published: May, 2016
Price: $12.99 -> Rp172.845 (Amazon)
Rating: 4½ / 5 stars

Date started: June 13, 2017 - Date finished: June 14, 2017

Synopsis:
Standalone M/M romance.

I was afraid to fly.

He made me soar.


After years of climbing the ladder of success in the music industry, I finally had everything I could want.
Yet I still found myself wandering through life alone.

Captain Evan Roth was the one man I never saw coming. 
Tall, dark, mysterious… Straight. 

We were both damaged beyond repair and searching for something so elusive we weren’t sure it even existed.

But, when two broken souls collide in midair, falling is a given.

I just never expected to crave the spiral down.
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Book Review: Murder on the Orient Express: A Hercule Poirot Mystery (Hercule Poirot, #10) by Agatha Christie

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Sunday, June 11, 2017

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Author: Agatha Christie
Publisher: Black Dog Publishing
Pages: 247
Format: E-book
Published: July, 2012
Price: $6.83 -> Rp90.805 (Amazon)
Rating: 5 / 5 stars

Date started: June 2, 2017 - Date finished: June 5, 2017

Synopsis:
One of Agatha Christie’s most famous mysteries, Murder on the Orient Express was inspired by two real-life crimes and the author’s own experience being stranded on the Orient Express during Christmas of 1931. While traveling to Paris, a wealthy American is stabbed to death in his cabin on the Orient Express. With the train stuck in a snowdrift, there is no easy escape for the killer. Fortunately, detective Hercule Poirot is aboard and launches a clever investigation into the curious assortment of passengers, of whom each seems to have a motive.
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Book Review: Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1) by Sarah J. Maas

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Saturday, June 10, 2017

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Author: Sarah J. Maas
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Pages: 404
Format: Paperback
Published: August, 2012
Price: Rp144.000 (Periplus)
Rating: 4 / 5 stars

Date started: May 25, 2017 - Date finished: May 31, 2017

Synopsis:
Meet Celaena Sardothien. Beautiful. Deadly. Destined for greatness.

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake. She got caught.

Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted?
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Book Review: Always and Forever, Lara Jean (To All the Boys I've Loved Before, #3) by Jenny Han

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Thursday, June 1, 2017

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Author: Jenny Han
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Pages: 320
Format: E-book
Published: May, 2017
Price: $10.05 -> Rp133.675 (Amazon)
Rating: 3½ / 5 stars

Date started: May 31, 2017 - Date finished: June 1, 2017

Other books in the series:

Synopsis:
Lara Jean’s letter-writing days aren’t over in this surprise follow-up to the New York Times bestselling To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still Love You.

Lara Jean is having the best senior year a girl could ever hope for. She is head over heels in love with her boyfriend, Peter; her dad’s finally getting remarried to their next door neighbor, Ms. Rothschild; and Margot’s coming home for the summer just in time for the wedding.

But change is looming on the horizon. And while Lara Jean is having fun and keeping busy helping plan her father’s wedding, she can’t ignore the big life decisions she has to make. Most pressingly, where she wants to go to college and what that means for her relationship with Peter. She watched her sister Margot go through these growing pains. Now Lara Jean’s the one who’ll be graduating high school and leaving for college and leaving her family—and possibly the boy she loves—behind.

When your heart and your head are saying two different things, which one should you listen to?
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Book Review: Pay For Play (Alphachat.com, #1) by Victoria Ashley and Hilary Storm

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Tuesday, May 30, 2017

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Author: Victoria Ashley and Hilary Storm
Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing
Pages: 223
Format: E-book
Published: June, 2016
Price: $10.99 -> Rp146.420 (Amazon)
Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Date started: March 5, 2017 - Date finished: March 10, 2017

Synopsis:
Alphachat.com – That’s all the info you need to get off in the privacy of your own home, car or hell… even in a public fucking library. 

Whatever gets you wet. 

I never expected a million-dollar business to come out of touching myself on camera, but when you add in nine of your best guys, the women become hungry and the money begins flowing faster than you can spend it. 

You want to see me take my shirt off, I’ll strip it off nice and slow, making you sweat in anticipation.

You want to see me touch my dick, I’ll stroke every hard inch of it, getting you off before you can even feel it creeping up on you. 

Your money.

Your Alpha.

Your demand.

Now I just hope playing for her on camera will pay off enough for me to claim her outside of the computer screen.
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Book Review: 13 Reasons Why by Jay Asher

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Monday, May 29, 2017

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Author: Jay Asher
Publisher: Razorbill
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Published: March, 2017
Price: Rp186.000 (Aksara.com)
Rating: 3½ / 5 stars

Date started: April 19, 2017 - Date finished: April 20, 2017

Synopsis:
THE #1 NEW YORK TIMES AND INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER

**SOON TO BE A NETFLIX ORIGINAL SERIES**

"Eerie, beautiful, and devastating." —Chicago Tribune

"A stealthy hit with staying power. . . . thriller-like pacing." —The New York Times 

"Thirteen Reasons Why will leave you with chills long after you have finished reading." —Amber Gibson, NPR's "All Things Considered" 

You can't stop the future. 
You can't rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.
Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah's recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life forever.
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Book Review: Ready Player One by Ernest Cline

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Monday, April 10, 2017

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Author: Ernest Cline
Publisher: Broadway Books
Pages: 372
Format: Paperback
Published: June, 2012
Price: Rp226.000 (Periplus)
Rating: 4½ / 5 stars

Date started: March 21, 2017 - Date finished: April 9, 2017

Synopsis:
It's the year 2044, and the real world is an ugly place.

Like most of humanity, Wade Watts escapes his grim surroundings by spending his waking hours jacked into the OASIS, a sprawling virtual utopia that lets you be anything you want to be, a place where you can live and play and fall in love on any of ten thousand planets. 

And like most of humanity, Wade dreams of being the one to discover the ultimate lottery ticket that lies concealed within this virtual world. For somewhere inside this giant networked playground, OASIS creator James Halliday has hidden a series of fiendish puzzles that will yield massive fortune — and remarkable power — to whoever can unlock them. 

For years, millions have struggled fruitlessly to attain this prize, knowing only that Halliday's riddles are based in the pop culture he loved — that of the late twentieth century. And for years, millions have found in this quest another means of escape, retreating into happy, obsessive study of Halliday's icons. Like many of his contemporaries, Wade is as comfortable debating the finer points of John Hughes's oeuvre, playing Pac-Man, or reciting Devo lyrics as he is scrounging power to run his OASIS rig. 

And then Wade stumbles upon the first puzzle. 

Suddenly the whole world is watching, and thousands of competitors join the hunt — among them certain powerful players who are willing to commit very real murder to beat Wade to this prize. Now the only way for Wade to survive and preserve everything he knows is to win. But to do so, he may have to leave behind his oh-so-perfect virtual existence and face up to life — and love — in the real world he's always been so desperate to escape. 

A world at stake. 
A quest for the ultimate prize. 
Are you ready?
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Book Review: Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

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Saturday, February 18, 2017

2 comments
Author: Nicola Yoon
Publisher: Delacorte
Pages: 320
Format: E-book
Published: September, 2015
Price: $9.99 -> Rp133.147 (Amazon)
Rating: 4½ / 5 stars

Date started: February 16, 2017 - Date finished: February 16, 2017

Synopsis:
Madeline Whittier is allergic to the outside world. So allergic, in fact, that she has never left the house in all of her seventeen years. But when Olly moves in next door, and wants to talk to Maddie, tiny holes start to appear in the protective bubble her mother has built around her. Olly writes his IM address on a piece of paper, shows it at her window, and suddenly, a door opens. But does Maddie dare to step outside her comfort zone?

Everything, Everything is about the thrill and heartbreak that happens when we break out of our shell to do crazy, sometimes death-defying things for love.
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Book Review: Naughty Boss by Whitney G.

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Tuesday, January 31, 2017

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Title: Naughty Boss
Author: Whitney G.
Publisher: WGW Books LLC
Pages: 127
Format: E-book
Published: December, 2016
Price: $2.99 -> Rp39.943 (Amazon)
Rating: 3 / 5 stars

Date started: January 25, 2017 - Date finished: January 30, 2017

Synopsis:
He definitely wasn't supposed to get that email...



Subject: My Boss.

Have I already told you that I hate my boss today?

Sexy as hell or not, this pompous, arrogant, ASSHOLE asked me to pick up his dry cleaning the second I walked through the door. Then he told me that I needed to take his Jaguar to a car wash that was ten miles outside of the city, but only after I needed to stand in a never-ending line to buy some type of limited, hundred-dollar watch.

I honestly can't wait to see the look on his face two months from now when I tell him that I'm quitting his company and that he can kiss my ass. KISS. MY. ASS.

All those former fantasies about him kissing me with his "mouth of perfection" or bending me over my desk and filling me with his cock are long over. OVER.

Your bestie,
Mya

PS--Please tell me your day is going better than mine...



Subject: Re: My Boss.


No, you haven't already told me that you hate your boss today, but seeing as though you've sent me this email directly, I know now...

Yes, I did ask you to pick up my dry cleaning the second you arrived to work to day. (Where is it?) And I did tell you to take my Jaguar to the car wash and pick up my thousand-dollar watch. (Thank you for taking five hours to do something that could be accomplished in two.)

You don't have to wait two months from now to see the look on my face when you tell me you're quitting. I'm standing outside your office at this very moment. ( Open the door. )

No comment on your "fantasies," although I highly doubt they're "long over."

Your boss,
Michael

PS--Yes. My day is definitely going far better than yours...

A steamy, office-romance novella from New York Times bestselling author, Whitney G.
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Book Review: The Princess Saves Herself in this One by Amanda Lovelace

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Author: Amanda Lovelace
Publisher: CreateSpace
Pages: 156
Format: E-book
Published: May, 2016
Price: $7.99 -> Rp 106.659 (Amazon)
Rating: 3½ / 5 stars

Date started: January 7, 2017 - Date finished: January 7, 2017

Synopsis:
"ah, life—
the thing
that happens
to us
while we’re off
somewhere else
blowing on
dandelions
& wishing
ourselves into
the pages of
our favorite
fairy tales."

a poetry collection divided into four different parts: the princess, the damsel, the queen, & you. the princess, the damsel, & the queen piece together the life of the author in three stages, while you serves as a note to the reader & all of humankind. explores life & all of its love, loss, grief, healing, empowerment, & inspirations.
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Book Review: So You've Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson

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Thursday, January 26, 2017

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Author: Jon Ronson
Publisher: Picador
Pages: 288
Format: E-book
Published: March, 2015
Price: $10.33 -> Rp137.596 (Amazon)
Rating: 3½ / 5 stars

Date started: January 10, 2017 - Date finished: January 22, 2017

Synopsis:
From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame.



'It's about the terror, isn't it?'

'The terror of what?' I said.

'The terror of being found out.'


For the past three years, Jon Ronson has travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work. Once their transgression is revealed, collective outrage circles with the force of a hurricane and the next thing they know they're being torn apart by an angry mob, jeered at, demonized, sometimes even fired from their job.

A great renaissance of public shaming is sweeping our land. Justice has been democratized. The silent majority are getting a voice. But what are we doing with our voice? We are mercilessly finding people's faults. We are defining the boundaries of normality by ruining the lives of those outside it. We are using shame as a form of social control.

Simultaneously powerful and hilarious in the way only Jon Ronson can be, So You've Been Publicly Shamed is a deeply honest book about modern life, full of eye-opening truths about the escalating war on human flaws - and the very scary part we all play in it.
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Book Review: Been Here All Along by Sandy Hall

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Sunday, January 15, 2017

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Author: Sandy Hall
Publisher: Swoon Reads
Pages: 224
Format: E-book
Published: August, 2016
Price: $6.34 -> Rp85.749 (Amazon)
Rating: 4 / 5 stars

Date started: December 26, 2016 - Date finished: December 31, 2016

Synopsis:
Gideon always has a plan. His plans include running for class president, becoming head of the yearbook committee, and having his choice of colleges. They do NOT include falling head over heels for his best friend and next door neighbor, Kyle. It’s a distraction. It’s pointless, as Kyle is already dating the gorgeous and popular head cheerleader, Ruby. And Gideon doesn’t know what to do.

Kyle finally feels like he has a handle on life. He has a wonderful girlfriend, a best friend willing to debate the finer points of Lord of the Rings, and social acceptance as captain of the basketball team. Then, both Ruby and Gideon start acting really weird, just as his spot on the team is threatened, and Kyle can’t quite figure out what he did wrong…
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Book Review: The Book of Forbidden Feelings by Lala Bohang

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Friday, January 6, 2017

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Author: Lala Bohang
Publisher: Gramedia Pustaka Utama
Pages: 152
Format: Hardcover
Published: July, 2016
Price: Rp73.950 (Gramedia.com)
Rating: 2 / 5 stars

Date started: January 6, 2017 - Date finished: January 6, 2017

Synopsis:
I wanted to say, "I would love to know your obsessions, Is it landed house, gadgets, power, domestic life, succulent plants, achievements, money, work, more likes and followers, health, validations, sex, organic food, pets, perfect selfies, children, sports, religion, relationship, minimalism, perfection, muscles, urban toys, shoes, traveling, or fame?" but nobody is prepared for that kind of question on a first date. 
So I said, "You look great."
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Book Review: A Shadow Bright and Burning (Kingdom on Fire, #1) by Jessica Cluess

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Sunday, January 1, 2017

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Author: Jessica Cluess
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers
Pages: 416
Format: E-book
Published: September, 2016
Price: $10.03 -> Rp131.674 (Amazon)
Rating: 3½ / 5 stars

Date started: November 3, 2016 - Date finished: November 6, 2016

 Synopsis:
I am Henrietta Howel. The first female sorcerer in hundreds of years. The prophesied one. Or am I?

Henrietta Howel can burst into flames. Forced to reveal her power to save a friend, she's shocked when instead of being executed, she's invited to train as one of Her Majesty's royal sorcerers.

Thrust into the glamour of Victorian London, Henrietta is declared the chosen one, the girl who will defeat the Ancients, bloodthirsty demons terrorizing humanity. She also meets her fellow sorcerer trainees, handsome young men eager to test her power and her heart. One will challenge her. One will fight for her. One will betray her.

But Henrietta Howel is not the chosen one. As she plays a dangerous game of deception, she discovers that the sorcerers have their own secrets to protect. With battle looming, what does it mean to not be the one? And how much will she risk to save the city—and the one she loves?
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