Boy Toy by Barry Lyga

Josh was molested by his teacher when he was twelve. Now he's a senior and is going to be graduating from college soon. Josh has pretty much ignored his past for years, but now when Eve is released from prison he begins to pick up the pieces of his life and put them all together as he rediscovers who he is.

Boy Toy was a lot to handle. Lyga has a beautiful way which he connects the past with the present. It's a little confusing at first, but after you keep reading you're able to get the main idea and all the other little details begin to fall into place. I loved this book, however dark and disturbing it was.

When Josh describes his past, it's hard to read. It's all so real and you're always on Josh's side. You can understand why he likes Eve because when he describes her, she's really not a bad person. As an outside pair of eyes, you know that she's manipulating him and what they're doing is bad, but when you read as Josh, you can see why things happened the way they did. It was horrible to read about how he says he loves her and tries to protect her.

I fell in love with Josh a little bit. He has that wounded, tortured quality about him that makes you want to get to know him and make him feel better. He's honest, endearing, quick to think, and funny. He's also a baseball player. I kind of have a thing for baseball players lol. And when I say "baseball players" I mean my boyfriend. Their uniforms are way cute and I can actually follow baseball, unlike some other sports (**cough** football **cough**). There's a lot of baseball lingo and references and just general talk about the game, so if you know nothing about how baseball works, you'll definitely feel a little lost at parts and be missing out on a lot of Josh's character. I know the game and how it works, and I have someone I can ask about the slang terms, but even then there were still parts I was a little confused at.

I loved the other characters too, not necessarily because I liked THEM (well I liked Zik), but I liked how realistic they were. This entire story was very realistic, to the point that it was almost scary because you know that what has happened in the book actually DOES happen.

Boy Toy was fascinating and intriguing, however sad and disturbing it was. It's definitely not a light read, but it is told in a way that makes it interesting so it's not all "I'm a victim and my life is ruined." I would recommend it to an older teen, because there are mature topics and problems. I don't remember why I chose to read it, but I could have sworn it was like an LGBT read, but I guess not. So I wonder where I saw it and wanted to read it... Anyway, I loved the story and how it was written and how much I understood Josh. 5 out of 5 stars. Go read it!

Lost Voices (Lost Voices #1) by Sarah Porter

Luce has lived with her alcoholic uncle ever since her father went out to sea during a storm and never returned. Her mother died a long time ago, and she is very alone. She doesn't have any friends and chooses to spend her time alone. She dreads coming home to her uncle, unknowing of what he might do to her. One night, when he uncle is especially drunk and tries to rape her, she runs away and is contemplating jumping off a cliff into the ocean. Before she can think any more, she falls off the cliff. Instead of dying, she is turned into a mermaid who now has a home with a tribe of mermaids who eagerly accept her. These mermaids are all "lost girls", who have been cruelly mistreated. That's why they have become mermaids, so that that they can sing to ships and get revenge on the evil things humans have done to them. Luce has an extraordinary voice and quickly becomes second-in-command to the beautiful, mysterious queen Catarina. Luce is thrilled to have a home now, but she questions the morality of killing humans.

Lost Voices  was captivating! I loved the world they lived in, and I love mermaids, and I loved the whole idea of the story. Especially how they were like EVIL mermaids, and had such a dark side.

The writing is beautiful and haunting at the same time. It's cruel but lovely. I love the descriptions and the whole imagination part of this ocean world. And thumbs up to the author for the "larva". Even though I know they were just baby mermaids and I have no problems with babies, I still felt just as repulsed reading about them as the mermaids felt. The characters are fascinating and mysterious, and I wish the author would have focused on them as well as she had focused on the story. The plot is a bit slow, the exciting parts are mainly at the end. Argh, why do authors do this to us haha.

However, the ending ruined Lost Voices for me. How, you might ask? Well there basically was no ending. I almost felt like there was supposed to be some missing chapter that had fallen out of my book. The ending is a promise for another book, but I the problems of the novel are unsolved and a real let-down. I was very disappointed with how the story ended. Not because I'm impatient and I want to know what happens next (well, that too), but because I believe that books in series should also be a good stand alone novel. Like, if someone wanted to read the first book in a series, they would find a complete story and a promise for more. I felt like I had a missing ending and a promise for more.

The cover is beautiful <3 But if that mermaid is supposed to be Luce, the author didn't read the story because Luce has very short hair. And I adore the title. It goes perfectly with the story.

I really did like this story, but I think I would probably recommend the series in a whole rather that just this book. Because I liked the concept and the writing, but not so much the plot rate and the ending. I am looking forward to reading the other books in this trilogy :) This is a 4.5 star book for the overall concept, but  a 3.5 out of 5 stars for me because of the ending, the rate the plot progressed, and how I wanted more out of the characters. And I'm crossing my fingers for a male character in the next book! **cough** merman **cough**

Happy Reading! :)

Rage: A Love Story by Julie Anne Peters

Rage is a love story, as the title suggests. But this isn't your ordinary boy-meets-girl love story. First of all, it's a girl-meets-girl love story. But it is so much more than that. As the story begins, we meet Johanna, the patient, reliable, go-to heroine. She's in love with Reeve. Reeve is the opposite of Johanna. She's dangerous, alluring, and mysterious. The story proceeds, and we find ourselves learning about Reeve's abusive family, which leads her to abusing Johanna.

I wanted to love this story, I really did! And I did love it in a way. I don't know what it was about the writing, but there was just something that made it hard for me to get into the story. I found Johanna to be a bit weak, because of all the shit she puts up with. All her friends and family try to warn her to keep away from Reeve, because they don't want to see her get hurt. Johanna ignores them, and chooses Reeve over them. She abuses Johanna, but Johanna claims that Reeve really loves her, she's just scared. Johanna is blind, and loves Reeve. She'll do anything for her, whether it's losing the people and things that are important to her, skipping school, or losing her job. I also don't know how much she sees into Reeve's character. All the time she describes Reeve, it seems mostly physical, not about what's inside. I personally think she's in love with the idea of Reeve, not Reeve herself. You have to understand that the situation that she lives in majorly influences this though. Her life is hard, and it's understandable that this is the type of person she is. The characters are very realistic though. It's easy to understand them and see that they're not perfect at all.

I liked the idea of the book, how it was a love story, but it was a lot more than that. It's about relationships, abuse, loss, and family. There were moments I liked, but I found this book a bit difficult to read because I didn't find myself relating with Johanna very much. I liked it because it was unique. Honestly, how many books about abuse are there? And how many of those have LGBT protagonists? And how many of them are teen girls? So this book fills that little spot.

The ending was a bit of a let-down, but I'm glad it was how it was because it was realistic. I wouldn't really classify this book more as a LGBT book, but more as an abuse book. It's about both, but I think it's more the latter.

Rage isn't a happy book, it's a darker one. It's about abuse. Everyone is either the victim or the abuser, or both. It's painful and sad to think about, but possibly a necessary read.

I also felt a bit confused with the end, like I was missing some parts. Such as what was in Robbie's case and the hospice. Everything just seemed a little bit cut off, with no folow up.

I really wanted to like this story, but I'm going to have to go with 2.5 out of 5 stars on this one.