Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus

Between You and Me by Emma McLaughlin & Nicola Kraus
Series: N/A
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Washington Square Press
Publication Date: June 4, 2013

Growing up in small-town Oklahoma, cousins Logan and Kelsey Wade were raised like sisters. Rarely separated, they became each other’s lifelines, escaping into the small joys of childhood to survive the increasing chaos in their family. Then one day Logan woke up and Kelsey and her parents were gone.

Years later, Kelsey has been propelled by her relentless parents to mega-stardom, her voice a radio fixture and her face on billboards worldwide. Meanwhile, Logan is trying to carve out her own life in New York City despite the constant reminders of her cousin’s absence. Though she has long since stopped trying to solve the mystery of their last hours together, the inexplicably fractured memories haunt her.

Then on Logan’s twenty-seventh birthday, she gets the call that she’s been longing for—and dreading. Before she can second-guess herself, she’s on a plane to L.A. to reunite with Kelsey and the parents who ripped them apart, but Logan will soon learn that some family secrets are kept hidden for a reason.

Honestly, the most that I took away from Between You and Me was the fact that I didn't particularly like it. Sadness doesn't even begin to describe how I felt about the familial relationships in this book - it doesn't even begin to cover it at all. I can't imagine having a family that only wanted you because of what you could do for them, which is what Kelsey has. And to tell you the truth, I feel so so bad for her, and I don't even really know how she feels about it - because her cousin Logan is the main character, and there are no alternating points of view.

Logan runs the show, and to be honest I really didn't like Logan. Not to say that she was unfeeling or anything... but girl was a little cold! Not to mention the fact that she had terrible taste in men, only thought about herself, and completely abandoned her immediate family... let's just say that we wouldn't get along.

I just didn't like her. On top of being unfeeling and cold, she was also incredibly dense. Like the kind where you just want to be able to hit them over the head with information - that's how I felt about her.

To make matters worse, I really couldn't follow along with the story very well. There was a lot of skipping around, coupled with unneeded drama. There's no scene where Logan gets hired to be Kelsey's assistant - first few chapters she's just staying there, and the suddenly she's the assistant. I don't understand how we made the jump, honestly. The "fractured memories" didn't even come up until 3/4 through the book, and it was just for added drama. It didn't add to the story in any way - in my opinion, of course.

I feel so much for Kelsey for some reason, but I can also say that I don't particularly care for her personality. She does what she's told, and anything that she does by herself is remarkably immature, because she's been sheltered for most of her life. She behaves like a teenager. Her problems & quasi relationship with Aaron do not bring that up. She still behaves like a teenager. She lets her parents control her without ever fighting for it - and they suck. They push her so hard. So hard. Everything has to be perfect, and if you're sick it doesn't matter sweetie... we've got you covered. This girl is on stage 24/7, and it's obvious that it's starting to wear on her. The more the book progressed, the more I just felt horrible for Kelsey - who is, again, not our main character.

The ending was terrible too - nothing was resolved, and that was what I was counting on. Now I still have no idea what happened, and to be honest I don't really care anymore. It just... ended. All in all, I really didn't enjoy Between You and Me. I would recommend giving it a shot if you enjoyed The Nanny Diaries.

Day One by Nate Kenyon

Day One by Nate Kenyon
Series: N/A
Source: Netgalley
Publisher: Thomas Dunne Books
Publication Date: October 1, 2013

Scandal-plagued hacker journalist John Hawke is hot on the trail of the explosive story that might save his career. James Weller, the former CEO of giant technology company Eclipse, has founded a new start-up, and he’s agreed to let Hawke do a profile on him. Hawke knows something very big is in the works at Eclipse---and he wants to use the profile as a foot in the door to find out more.

After he arrives in Weller’s office in New York City, a seemingly normal day quickly turns into a nightmare as anything with an Internet connection begins to malfunction. Hawke receives a call from his frantic wife just before the phones go dead. Soon he and a small band of survivors are struggling for their very lives as they find themselves thrust into the middle of a war zone---with no obvious enemy in sight.

The bridges and tunnels have been destroyed. New York City is under attack from a deadly and brilliant enemy that can be anywhere and can occupy anything with a computer chip. Somehow Hawke must find a way back to his pregnant wife and young son. Their lives depend upon it . . . and so does the rest of the human race.

I really thought that I would like Day One. I'm a member of the tin foil hat group, so the idea wasn't really that implausible to me, and I thought that it would a great addition to the dystopian genre. I was a tad bit wrong there - unfortunately, I just didn't love this one. It was okay, it just wasn't what I was looking for.

Let's start with our main character, Hawke. I just couldn't connect with him. He was too nervous, too jumpy. I also probably had a hard time connecting with him because he's a guy. Let's just throw that out there. He just wasn't the take-charge, bad-ass guy that I would want around in this situation.

The secondary characters all fell really flat for me as well - they were just names on a page. There was a time when I couldn't even differentiate between them, but as the book wore on... they started to disappear, so it became a lot easier. They weren't any better, but there wasn't near as many.

But I have got to move on from the characters, I'm just depressing myself by talking about them. Let's move on to the storyline - an invisible enemy that can take anyone down with a computer chip. If it has an internet connection, it's on to you. It knows exactly where you're at, and what it needs to do to take you down. Probable.

But let's add this tiny SPOILER-it's just a computer. A computer that is thinking and making decisions for itself - that's the improbable part. I believe that machines are tracking you, and that people can track you using them... but machines just can't think on their own. There is no algorithm that they can be taught that will make them think on their own. There's always somebody behind the desk.-SPOILER END.

That spoiler makes it all improbable. This is where my freaked-outed-ness went downhill. Because at that point, the story just lost all of it's meaning for me. Before the reveal, I obviously assumed that it was a covert government operation or something, when it wasn't.

Another pet peeve of mine [in this book] was the overload of details. I generally like details, but there came a point when it just became too much. The flashbacks were interesting, and they added some depth to Hawke, but I feel like that was their only purpose. I never learned any information that helped with the storyline from these, so I'm assuming that it was only to add depth.

Now I ask... what is the point? Day One ends with a fairly open ending, and I'm honestly not even sure how we got there. All in all, this one just wasn't for me.