Book Blitz: Schizo: Hidden In Plain Sight by Ilene B. Benator

Hello, everyone! So, since I've been pretty busy with a few different things in my life, I've been coming up with some new blog posts to entertain you guys and to help me be more active on here since this blog is in need of more of my attention. I'm excited to show you guys what I've been planning but until then, please enjoy this next book blitz hosted by Sage over at Sage's Blog Tours! 

Hope all of my fellow readers who love a good thriller will be interested in this book! Love you guys!

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Add It To Goodreads!

Genre: Thriller, Mystery

An ambitious future surgeon on his psychiatry rotation is assigned a patient who reveals to him information about an organized plot to control the population. His pursuit of the truth leads him to become a psychiatric patient in the same facility.

Dan Greenberg was a promising medical student who was derailed by Catherine—a bizarre schizophrenic patient whose delusions about patients in danger at hospitals all around Chicago were startlingly specific.

Drawn by both curiosity and compassion, Dan investigates, discovering that they were exactly where Catherine said they would be. Who are these people? Why are they in danger? Are they connected with each other? 

While incarcerated, he joins forces with an unlikely ally Jake—who murdered his family during a drug-induced psychotic break, but is also a charming hacker with street smarts who creates a plan to get Dan’s life back. In his attempts to do so, he threatens to uncover a conspiracy to track and manipulate the population by a cabal of influential people who will do anything to keep their plot secret. He will learn just how far powerful people will go to stay in control, and the high price of the truth.

Schizo takes readers on a wildly unexpected journey into the what-ifs of medical science. Written by an Emergency Physician, Ilene B. Benator crafts situations that are terrifying, yet all too believable.

You Can Purchase The Book Here:

Amazon

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About The Author:

A board-certified Emergency Physician, Ilene B. Benator practices in the southeast and also wrote the screenplay adaptation for Schizo, which won a Certificate of Merit in the Los Angeles Cinema Festival of Hollywood Screenwriting Competition, and was finalist in two other screenwriting contests. Also, she is Associate Producer, "Flesh" (2016) Cruell World Productions; Morningstar Productions. After growing up in New York and leaving to attend Emory University for undergrad with a degree in psychology, she then went to medical school in Chicago, and returned to Atlanta to do her training; where she now resides. After her training ended, her writing career began, publishing a non-fiction book for doctors prior to this debut novel. When not working or being soccer mom to her two wonderful kids, plus two cats and one dog, she enjoys architectural photography, camping, skiing, and takes hikes in the mountains with her husband and black fluffy dog Daisy. 

Author Links:

Website

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Twitter

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Review: The Row by J.R. Johansson + GIVEAWAY! (CLOSED)

Hello, my peeps! Today I'm so super darn excited about my stop on the blog tour for The Row by J.R. Johansson hosted by YA Bound Book Tours so a huge thanks to them! I couldn't wait to read this book when I first read the synopsis and I'm so happy I got the chance to review it for you guys.

I was sent an e-copy of this book in exchange for an honest review as part of this blog tour.

Down below if my review of the books as well as all the details on what it's about, the author links and where you can purchase the book for yourself as well as a GIVEAWAY! Who doesn't love a giveaway, right? Be sure to enter and good luck!

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Add It To Goodreads!

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Crime, Mystery

Score: 4.5 Stars

Page Count: 352

Stand Alone

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR)

Published: October 11th, 2016

A death sentence. A family torn apart. One girl's hunt for the truth.

Seventeen-year-old Riley Beckett is no stranger to prison. Her father is a convicted serial killer on death row who has always maintained that he was falsely accused. Riley has never missed a single visit with her father. She wholeheartedly believes that he is innocent. 

Then, a month before the execution date, Riley's world is rocked when, in an attempt to help her move on, her father secretly confesses to her that he actually did carry out the murders. He takes it back almost immediately, but she cannot forget what he's told her. Determined to uncover the truth for her own sake, she discovers something that will forever change everything she's believed about the family she loves.

Review:

PROS:

1. I always love a good crime novel and so when I found this little book, I just had to get my hands on it. It sounded like a book that we just begging me to read it and I couldn't step away from it. The synopsis just sounded so intriguing and since I just love shows like Criminal Minds and Cold Case, there was no way I wasn't going to read it. Here's the review:

2. I seriously loved all of the characters so much. I really thought that Riley was such an independent character and didn't give up on her father no matter what anyone told her. She was very strong even when things got really rough and she wasn't one to back down when things got hard. She was smart, cunning, clever, and a problem solver. I loved her character so much and watching her grow as a character was just so awesome. I also really liked her parents, Jordan, Mathew, Mr. Masters, Detective Vega, and every other character in the book. They were all just so interesting and I never really knew who to trust fully or be weary of. The cast of characters was just so great and it's been a while since I've read a book with such a great group of characters. Jordan was a lot like Riley, Mathew being just so darn cute and lovable and they had me fully invested in the book the entire time I was reading. 

Source

3. I think this book has so many twists and turns that at one point, I just gave up trying to figure out for myself who the real killer might be. My suspicions on the characters were all over the board and while it had me asking a million questions about the cases, the characters motives, and their actions, I still really loved reading every single page just wanting to find out what was really going on and who actually committed the murders that Riley's father has been wrongly convicted of, or so the family thinks. This book seriously had me going back and forth on so many things, thinking maybe they already had their criminal behind bars, that the real killer framed Riley's father for some reason, that Riley's father knew more about the murders than what he lead everybody to believe. This book had my brain getting some extra exercise while reading.

4. I just loved how the plot and storyline played out and continued to unfold new secrets, lies, and truths that sent Riley on a chase for the truth and turned her world upside down again and again. Riley quickly finds out that the people she thought she knew better than anyone are keeping a lot more from her than she could possibly imagine and the plot and pace really make the book so exciting and addicting to read as the story progresses and it gets better and better as it goes on. I could probably talk forever about how much I really loved this book and I highly recommend it if you love a good mystery or crime novel that's part psychological thriller.  

The reason I didn't give this book a five-star rating is because it did take a little bit to get into the book as it was a little slow in the beginning but nothing too bad that it bored me. This book picks up the pace quite quickly about 75 to 100 pages in and it's a roller coaster ride from there. 

You Can Purchase The Book Here:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Kobo Books

Google Play

Books-A-Million

IndieBound

Chapters Indigo (CA)

Overstock

Powell's

Target

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About The Author:

J.R. JOHANSSON is the author of the Night Walkers Series (INSOMNIA, PARANOIA and MANIA) as well as standalone novel, CUT ME FREE. Her books have been published in a dozen languages and more than twenty countries worldwide. She has a B.S. degree in public relations and a background in marketing. She credits her abnormal psychology minor with inspiring many of her characters. She lives in Utah with two sons, a wonderful husband, three cats, and a hot tub named Valentino. 

Author Links:

Website

Blog

Facebook

Goodreads

Twitter

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Review: Made You Up by Francesca Zappia

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Contemporary, Mental Illness, YA Fiction

Score: 4 1/2 stars

Page Count: 448

Stand Alone

Publisher: Greenwillow Books

Published: May 19, 2015

 

Alex fights a daily battle to figure out the difference between reality and delusion. Armed with a take-no-prisoners attitude, her camera, a Magic 8-Ball, and her only ally (her little sister), Alex wages a war against her schizophrenia, determined to stay sane long enough to get into college. She’s pretty optimistic about her chances until classes begin, and she runs into Miles. Didn't she imagine him? Before she knows it, Alex is making friends, going to parties, falling in love, and experiencing all the usual rites of passage for teenagers. But Alex is used to being crazy. She’s not prepared for normal.
Funny, provoking, and ultimately moving, this debut novel featuring the quintessential unreliable narrator will have readers turning the pages and trying to figure out what is real and what is made up.

 

Review:

PROS:

1. Over the past couple of weeks, I fell out of a contemporary mood because of all the ones I was reading in June. I kind of got tired of that genre but I still really wanted to pick this one up. I decided to try just one more contemporary and read it and see what it had to offer. I was more excited to read this one because of the fact that our main character has a mental illness that I haven't seen in a book, like, ever. Maybe that's just me but hey, I wanted to shake things up a bit! That and I'm a sucker for that type of story. Here's my review:

 

2. Obviously, I was really impressed with the set of characters in this book. I really loved them for many reasons. One was that our main character, Alex, is schizophrenic and has to try her best to hide her "problem" from the rest of the school including her new friends. I really loved seeing a character with a mental illness that I've never actually seen before in a YA fiction and that was what originally made me want to pick this book up in the first place before it was released. Alex has to struggle with her illness and decide what was real and what was purely her hallucinations. I also fell in love with her friends and family. Her friends were those that I wished I could have in my life. They were very loyal and goofed around a lot with each other and just made a really awesome group of supportive friends. Alex's parents were also very supportive and loving towards her and her sister and that was really nice to see. Usually I don't get attached to a character's parents in books but her mom and dad were quite a different case.

 

3. This book was completely character driven but also had a bit of an interactive element to it. The character development was so great that the entire book could've lacked a plot and I still would've probably loved it. Other than the development, the book was also part mystery and a psychological read. You as the reader had to follow Alex as she tries to determine what she imagines and what's really reality and had it's incredibly surprising moments that literally had my mouth hanging open. I really loved getting to not only get to know the characters so much more with each chapter, but it also kept me incredibly entertained trying to figure out the mystery of what Alex and her friends had to uncover in this book. It was a contemporary with a little bit of edge if you will.

 

4. I really loved how everything in this book came back around to Alex being schizophrenic. Alex tried to hide her illness from her friends because of it and she also had to struggle with training herself to see the difference between imagination and reality. Even the romance and mystery that played big roles in the book came back to the fact that she was schizophrenic which was awesome because you never forgot that about Alex. I love that I constantly reminded me of her illness and I guess that's why Alex was such an interesting character to me in the first place. She was constantly doubting herself and her theories because of her illness and she was also driven by it as well. I loved that the book stayed to the theme of Alex and didn't wander off into a weird layout.

 

5. I loved the way the entire story played out and how it wrapped up as well. It was a bit of a roller coaster ride with all the mystery, surprise, heartbreak, shocking truths and also a bad case of the feels going on but it was fabulous nonetheless. It was a seriously entertaining read that I know I'll be picking up again in the future. It's a perfect summer read and also a great rainy day one. I recommended this to any YA lover who's looking for something a little different for a contemporary. The mystery was intriguing, I read it in just a couple of sittings and the romance was sweet and gave me so many feels that I couldn't even deal. Yep, it was that good!

 

The reason why I didn't give this book a five star-rating was because I want more. I need more of this book, like, right now. Sequel anybody?

 

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I hope you guys enjoyed this book review! If you have any other book requests you would like me to review, just leave a comment or send me an email! Read on bookworms! See you in the next chapter!



Review: Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

Vanishing Girls by Lauren Oliver

Rating: PG-13

Genre: Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Contemporary

Score: 4.5 stars

Page Count: 377

Standalone Novel

Publisher: HarperCollins

Published: March 10, 2015

 

Dara and Nick used to be inseparable, but that was before the accident that left Dara's beautiful face scarred and the two sisters totally estranged. When Dara vanishes on her birthday, Nick thinks Dara is just playing around. But another girl, nine-year-old Madeline Snow, has vanished, too, and Nick becomes increasingly convinced that the two disappearances are linked. Now Nick has to find her sister, before it's too late.
In this edgy and compelling novel, Lauren Oliver creates a world of intrigue, loss, and suspicion as two sisters search to find themselves, and each other.

 

Review:

PROS:

1. This book pretty much had me from the beginning when I first heard about this book back in January. I love psychological thrillers especially in book form and even though I don't read many of them, I was excited to get my hands on this one since not only is it a psychological thriller, but it's also in the category of YA which is something you don't see very often. I read this book in just two sittings so I loved it needless to say! If you loved We Were Liars by E. Lockhart, this is perfect for you. Here's the review!

2. The characters in this book really stood out to me, specifically our main characters, Dara and Nick. The story follows the two sisters as they recall what happened before the night of the accident that caused the two to become estranged, but also followed them through the summer, a few months after the accident. It was really interesting to see just how different the sisters were from each other, how Dara and Nick were complete polar opposites from each other. Dara is more of the wild-child and loves being in the spotlight and constantly craves the attention from people around her. Nick, however, couldn't be happier waiting in the sidelines and almost never does anything to count as being wild other than staying up past bedtime. The diversity between the two sisters was great to read since you got to know both characters in different ways.

3. The writing in this book was very interesting and very cool when it came to the layout. The story is written in two POV's, one Dara and the other Nick, but it also had another story going on while theirs played out, which was the story of Madeline Snow and her disappearance. I loved reading this book because not only do we read from Dara and Nick's POV, but we also get journal entries from Dara in the book, e-mails, internet chats and even a webpage taken from the website made to keep people updated on any new developments on Madeline Snow in the book. It felt very real as the book also had a picture of the young girl and even had pictures of Dara and Nick as well as pictures from FanLand where Nick works. It was a really cool book to pick up and I don't regret doing so.

4. The last thing I really loved about this book was the epic plot twist towards the end of the book. After reading it, I had to stop reading for a minute to quickly go over the entire book as everything fell into place again when I thought it was already in place to begin with. It was really mind blowing and had me in shock. Of course, if you read a lot of psychological thrillers, you might be able to guess what the plot twist will be when reading the book. I didn't catch on because the story and characters were built up so well for me that nothing seemed all that suspicious until a few pages from the plot twist. For me, it was probably one of the best that I've read ever so far and hands down the best this year. If you love psychological thrillers and mysteries, I definitely recommend this one!

5. This book also deals a lot with broken relationships and how everything can sometimes get complicated in just a single moment. I loved that the book had a deeper meaning and appreciated how the book was about two sisters who are completely different from each other, don't always get along and even might be jealous of the other but are still friends and are there for each other no matter what comes in between them. I loved how the book was also about forgiveness and what exactly you're willing to do and how far you're willing to go to protect someone you truly love and care about. Having a sister myself, I related a lot to this story and recommend this book to anyone who has a sister or knows someone with a sister.

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I hope you guys enjoyed this book review! If you have any other book requests you would like me to review, just leave a comment or send me an email! Read on bookworms! See you in the next chapter!