Hello Bookish Friends :)
Happy Wednesday! I hope you're all having a great week so far. Mine has actually been really good, other than work being super crazily busy as we move into the last few days of summer here. I've recently started a new project which I've been talking about on my Instagram stories (@preppybookqueen), of redoing our library. It's never truly been a functional space before, and has more been a storage room with bookshelves in it, and I can't wait to get it all finished, and a have a cozy reading space just in time for fall. I've always dreamed of having my own library in my house. Lol I think watching Beauty and the Beast as a young child kind of influenced that dream. And I decided it was finally time to stop talking about it, and actually get to doing it.
Once I get it all finished, I'll share a blog post about the finished product, but in the meantime if you're interested in seeing some of the process check out my Instagram.
Long intro aside, I've got another book review to share with you guys today.
This year I've really been trying to read a lot of the books that I own, as it seems some of them have been sitting on my shelf for ages and ages.
One such book was Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig, a book that I'd bought a few years ago from Book Outlet, and I decided it was high past time to finally pick it up and read it.
Today I'd like to share with all of you what I thought about it.
Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig:
Source: Bought For Myself
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: March 13th, 2012
Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary
Series: Pretty Crooked
Synopsis:
Willa’s secret plan seems all too simple: take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones.
Yet Willa’s turn as Robin Hood at her ultra-exclusive high school is anything but. Bilking her “friends”-known to everyone as the Glitterati-without them suspecting a thing, is far from easy. Learning how to pick pockets and break into lockers is as difficult as she’d thought it’d be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are ostracized just for being from the “wrong” side of town, is way more fun than she’d expected.
The complication Willa didn’t expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, Valley Prep’s most notorious (and gorgeous) ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her-evening the social playing field between the have and have-nots. There’s no time for crushes and flirting with boys, especially conceited and obnoxious trust-funders like Aidan.
But when the cops start investigating the string of burglaries at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could he wind up being the person that Willa trusts most?
*****synopsis from goodreads*****
My Review:
Pretty Crooked was a book that I had recommended to me many, many times as it's often compared to Ally Carter of who's books I'm a huge fan. Add to the fact that it was being touted as a modernized Robin Hood story, and I was definitely interested in giving this one a chance, and went into it with decently high expectations.
Willa Ford has lived most of her live wandering from place to place with her free spirit, artist mother. However, after her mother makes a pretty nice chunk of cash from selling some of her paintings, she decides to make a permanent home for Willa and herself in a privileged area of Arizona. Willa is soon caught up in the glamorous world of the popular girls at her school known as the "glitterati", and soon she's enjoying shopping sprees, gossip sessions, and spending more money than she's ever done before. However, one issue is starting to bother her-the way that some of the less fortunate students are treated at her prestigious school by the rich kids. Her plan? She'll steal from the rich kids in order to provide the less fortunate kids some things that will help them fit in better, and in the process she'll be able to better level the playing field.
Now unfortunately right from the start I had a hard time getting into this one. Willa was not a likeable character, and it annoyed me throughout the entire story that she could have done more to help by standing up to her snobbish friends about the girls she was trying to steal for in order to help. She seemed perfectly content to live her life associating with the glitterati for quite some time, and even decided to turn a blind's eye to many of the mean girl esque behaviors they tend to perform throughout the course of the story. It also felt like Willa wasn't truly stealing for the right reasons, and that it became more of a personal vendetta for her, than it was actually about trying to help someone else out.
I also was not a fan of the implausibility of the book's whole premise. We're led to believe that Willa becomes an expert kleptomaniac, even going so far as to start breaking and entering into vehicles and houses, and making it all the way to the television news, and yet all of her skills are taught to her by her friend Tre, who hasn't even tried most of the tricks and tips he's teaching her himself. Most of her interactions throughout the story, aside from the glitterati or her mother, are with Tre, and yet the reader is supposed to buy her sudden infatuation with trust fund bad boy Adian. I never felt this romance element was believable, as there was no build up to it, and he seemed to stand for everything she claimed to be against.
I really wanted to like this one, but the plot was slow moving, the romance was unbelievable, the premise was implausible, the writing wasn't the greatest, and I didn't appreciate the inclusion of teen partying and et cetra with no consequences. Unfortunately, this one fell really short of my expectations, and I don't understand the Ally Carter comparison at all.
Final Rating: ⭐⭐
I'd personally recommend giving this one a pass, as there's so many other young adult books that are much, much better.
Thanks so much for reading guys! I'll see you all again soon.
This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The photo does not belong to me, and all rights to the respective owners.
Happy Wednesday! I hope you're all having a great week so far. Mine has actually been really good, other than work being super crazily busy as we move into the last few days of summer here. I've recently started a new project which I've been talking about on my Instagram stories (@preppybookqueen), of redoing our library. It's never truly been a functional space before, and has more been a storage room with bookshelves in it, and I can't wait to get it all finished, and a have a cozy reading space just in time for fall. I've always dreamed of having my own library in my house. Lol I think watching Beauty and the Beast as a young child kind of influenced that dream. And I decided it was finally time to stop talking about it, and actually get to doing it.
Once I get it all finished, I'll share a blog post about the finished product, but in the meantime if you're interested in seeing some of the process check out my Instagram.
Long intro aside, I've got another book review to share with you guys today.
This year I've really been trying to read a lot of the books that I own, as it seems some of them have been sitting on my shelf for ages and ages.
One such book was Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig, a book that I'd bought a few years ago from Book Outlet, and I decided it was high past time to finally pick it up and read it.
Today I'd like to share with all of you what I thought about it.
Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig:
Source: Bought For Myself
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: March 13th, 2012
Genre: Young Adult/Contemporary
Series: Pretty Crooked
Synopsis:
Willa’s secret plan seems all too simple: take from the rich kids at Valley Prep and give to the poor ones.
Yet Willa’s turn as Robin Hood at her ultra-exclusive high school is anything but. Bilking her “friends”-known to everyone as the Glitterati-without them suspecting a thing, is far from easy. Learning how to pick pockets and break into lockers is as difficult as she’d thought it’d be. Delivering care packages to the scholarship girls, who are ostracized just for being from the “wrong” side of town, is way more fun than she’d expected.
The complication Willa didn’t expect, though, is Aidan Murphy, Valley Prep’s most notorious (and gorgeous) ace-degenerate. His mere existence is distracting Willa from what matters most to her-evening the social playing field between the have and have-nots. There’s no time for crushes and flirting with boys, especially conceited and obnoxious trust-funders like Aidan.
But when the cops start investigating the string of burglaries at Valley Prep and the Glitterati begin to seek revenge, could he wind up being the person that Willa trusts most?
*****synopsis from goodreads*****
My Review:
Pretty Crooked was a book that I had recommended to me many, many times as it's often compared to Ally Carter of who's books I'm a huge fan. Add to the fact that it was being touted as a modernized Robin Hood story, and I was definitely interested in giving this one a chance, and went into it with decently high expectations.
Willa Ford has lived most of her live wandering from place to place with her free spirit, artist mother. However, after her mother makes a pretty nice chunk of cash from selling some of her paintings, she decides to make a permanent home for Willa and herself in a privileged area of Arizona. Willa is soon caught up in the glamorous world of the popular girls at her school known as the "glitterati", and soon she's enjoying shopping sprees, gossip sessions, and spending more money than she's ever done before. However, one issue is starting to bother her-the way that some of the less fortunate students are treated at her prestigious school by the rich kids. Her plan? She'll steal from the rich kids in order to provide the less fortunate kids some things that will help them fit in better, and in the process she'll be able to better level the playing field.
Now unfortunately right from the start I had a hard time getting into this one. Willa was not a likeable character, and it annoyed me throughout the entire story that she could have done more to help by standing up to her snobbish friends about the girls she was trying to steal for in order to help. She seemed perfectly content to live her life associating with the glitterati for quite some time, and even decided to turn a blind's eye to many of the mean girl esque behaviors they tend to perform throughout the course of the story. It also felt like Willa wasn't truly stealing for the right reasons, and that it became more of a personal vendetta for her, than it was actually about trying to help someone else out.
I also was not a fan of the implausibility of the book's whole premise. We're led to believe that Willa becomes an expert kleptomaniac, even going so far as to start breaking and entering into vehicles and houses, and making it all the way to the television news, and yet all of her skills are taught to her by her friend Tre, who hasn't even tried most of the tricks and tips he's teaching her himself. Most of her interactions throughout the story, aside from the glitterati or her mother, are with Tre, and yet the reader is supposed to buy her sudden infatuation with trust fund bad boy Adian. I never felt this romance element was believable, as there was no build up to it, and he seemed to stand for everything she claimed to be against.
I really wanted to like this one, but the plot was slow moving, the romance was unbelievable, the premise was implausible, the writing wasn't the greatest, and I didn't appreciate the inclusion of teen partying and et cetra with no consequences. Unfortunately, this one fell really short of my expectations, and I don't understand the Ally Carter comparison at all.
Final Rating: ⭐⭐
I'd personally recommend giving this one a pass, as there's so many other young adult books that are much, much better.
Thanks so much for reading guys! I'll see you all again soon.
This is not a sponsored post. All thoughts and opinions are my own. The photo does not belong to me, and all rights to the respective owners.
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