Mini-reviews: Tormenting Lila by Sarah Alderson and Ditched by Robin Mellom

Tormenting Lila by Sarah Alderson
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication date: 1st July 2013
My rating: 4 stars

 

When Lila and Alex sneak off for a romantic weekend away, Lila’s hoping she’ll finally have a chance to work on Alex’s resolve. But just as things start heating up news reaches them of a serial killer at loose on the island and it isn’t long before their intimate weekend away is interrupted. A mind reader, a projector, a protective older brother and a serial killer. One of them is going to find Lila first. She's hoping it's the serial killer.  

I am so pleased that Sarah Alderson has decided to continue to provide us with amazing novella stories from the Lila series. Not only do we get the chance to great insights into the wonderful characters that Sarah Alderson has created. But we also get the chance to spend more time with such great characters that I’ve become hugely fond of in the last year and a half.

In Tormenting Lila we join Alex and Lila whilst they’re on a small break in Nantucket. They’ve finally got time to themselves with no one from Demos group and Lila wants to make most of her time alone with Alex. Let me just say Sarah Anderson sure knows how to kick off a story, Alex and Lila’s appreciation and need for each other is instantly apparent. They were so perfect for one another that I was finally glad they were getting their time together. Any series with Alex’s hot abs and I’m there. But once again something always crops up to dash the moment.

Despite something interrupting the moment it was enough to keep me satisfied with my Alex fix. Fans of this amazing series will not be disappointed. There are some great appearances from characters I have missed for so long. They each bring so much entertainment and fun to the story. I won’t be revealing which characters make an appearance, but the wait for this novella was so worth it.

Tormenting Lila was a perfect read, it was full with hilarious moments, some swoony scenes and we’re left hanging with a great mystery. Don’t worry fans of Alex, there is still more to come with a Alex and Lila x-rated scene planned for January 2014.

Make sure you guys stop by the blog on Thursday where I will have a special guest post and giveaway in anticipation of the release of Tormenting Lila!

Ditched: A Love Story by Robin Mellom
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Publication date: 12th January 2012.
My rating: 3.5 stars 

There's a girl. Justina Griffith was never the girl who dreamed of going to prom. Designer dresses and strappy heels? Not her thing. That said, she never expected her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her. And there's a boy. Ian, who always passed her the baseball bat, handle first. Ian, who knew exactly when she needed red licorice. Ian, who promised her the most amazing night at prom. Then there's a ditch. But when Justina is ditched, figuratively and literally, she must piece together--stain-by-stain on her thrift store dress--exactly how she ended up dateless...with only the help of some opinionated ladies at the 7-Eleven. To get the whole store, Justina will have to face the boy who ditched her. Can losing out at her prom ultimately lead to finding true love?

Reading Ditched felt like I was unravelling an onion with so many intricate layers incorporated into the story, the book at times felt highly like a mystery novel rather than a contemporary YA (not that I’m complaining). I enjoyed uncovering the story behind what was meant to be Justina’s biggest night in high school and discovering why it ended up going disastrously wrong instead. 

Justina had finally decided to take the plunge with her date Ian on prom night, they had been good friends for the last couple of months and although unsure of his feelings Justina decided to make the first move. But before she knew it her plans started going horribly wrong. Maybe it was a bad idea to get her mum to pick out her prom dress and dye her matching shoes, so she decided like a blueberry compared to everyone else who was glammed up. And from then it just got worse and worse.

I liked the mystery aspect of this book; how the beginning of each chapter started off with Justina noticing another stain on her dress, which would lead to unravelling a story behind the meaningful mark. Poor Justina had it all to deal with; all she wanted was a few quick moments with Ian, but something always ended up getting in the way. My relationship with her in this book was a topsy- turvy one, with the little clues were given along the way, I was hoping that she hadn’t gone back to the way she was before; the reputation that everyone expected of her, but she always made me assume the worst about her. And as the book progressed she didn’t become the easiest person to like, she was quick to jump to assumptions about people before really knowing what they were like based on snippets of information she had overheard. The decision she made at the end was the best possible one she could make and it did show greater character progression, but part of me wished she’d opened her eyes and realised what was before her a lot sooner. But I guess without the stumbling around in the dark there would have been a huge chunk of fun missing out of this book. 

Ditched was a lot different to what I had been expecting, I enjoyed how each character sucked you in with a different story of Justina’s eventful prom night. There were some cute and unexpected road bumps along the way which made Ditched quite an addictive read. But I wish we had the chance to get to know some of the characters a lot more especially Ian. But overall Ditched was a fun book which I thoroughly enjoyed.