The Luxe Series

The Luxe Series by Anna Godbersen
Rated: 3/5 stars

Overview: The beautiful young Holland sisters, Elizabeth and Diana, rule Manhattan society. Or so it appears. When they discover their status is far from secure, everyone—from the ambitious socialite Penelope Hayes, to the debonair bachelor, Henry Schoonmaker, to the Holland's dour maid, Lina Broud—threatens the girls' golden future. When Elizabeth's carriage overturns near the East River, her glittering life, well-known for lighting up the city's gossip pages, is swallowed by the rough current. Then the question on everyone's lips is this: Who will take Elizabeth's enviable place?

My Review: When I first picked up this book, I was an avid watcher of the TV series Gossip Girl, so as you can imagine this book drew me in immediately. I also liked the pretty girl in the gorgeous dress in the picture. When I realized it was a series that so far consisted of three books, (the fourth one hadn't some out yet) I knew I was ready to take on another series. The character Diana was automatically my favorite, she liked novels, she was a wild child, and was also very independent. Henry Schoomaker came next, he was very interesting, reminded me a lot of the character Chuck Bass. Constant drinking, parting, and lots of pretty girls. When he was first engaged to Elizabeth I knew they weren't going to end up together, partly because of how long the series was, and because their personalities didn't seem to match. Not to mention it was an arranged marriage. What I didn't expect was him and Diana to get together, at first I didn't like them together, I don’t know why, but they just didn’t seem right for each other, but they soon grew on me. Elizabeth and her story line was also one to cheer for even though she may have wined a little too much, she still had the guts to leave her hometown and run away with her true love, which was Will Keller. Throughout this book we got the bad guys, Penelope, we got the good guys, everyone else. Then there was Caroline Broud, or should I call her Lina. She was not bad but not good, just a maid trying to make it into the social world. She had a pretty good story line too. At the end of the series though it left me a little disappointed, there were couples that ended up not together that I wanted to be together, and there were some relationships that began that should have never happened. I mean, she built up the whole story line for nothing really. I mean there was no be, huge, shocker. I gave it three stars because I fell in love with the characters, they were very well developed, and she had very good descriptive writing, but the story line in the end lacked a lot. The characters sort of got out of character in the end. The end seemed like it was rushed, and she didn’t care what happened to her characters. So basically I would recommend it if you have nothing else to read, but I wouldn’t consider it an amazing read. She is a good writer though. I hope this helped!

The Anatomy Of Wings

The Anatomy Of Wings by Karen Foxlee
Rated: 4/5 stars

Overview of what the books about: A ten year old girl, Jenny, retraces the last year of her teenage sisters life in an effort to understand what appeared to be Beth's decent into moral degradation but was perhaps her acceptance of martydrom after seeing an angel.

My Review:The story is told a year after Jenny's sister, Beth's death, it looks back on all the signs that pointed to Beth killing herself, and how that slowly affected their family, and Jenny, the youngest.
The first thing that attracted me to this book was its cover picture and the title. When I read the inside of the book it also looked very interesting. When I began the book I could already tell that this book was different, part of it was the writing, and part of it was the story line. The writing was very poetic and that was part of what kept me going throughout the book. Another part that kept me reading was the character development, Beth was very well introduced, even though the story was told from her ten year old sisters point of view the story still projected her character better than the rest. During this book I was intruigued to find out how Beth died, and it was facinating looking into the mind of a girl who would later commit suicide. These were the pro's of the book. Unfortunatly there were also many cons. The first thing that struck me as odd, and personally not right was how old these girls were and the things they were doing at that age. I am sixteen and the oldest daughter, Beth, was fourteen, and I can assure you that I have not done half the things she had. Not to mention she sounded more like a seventeen year old than a fourteen year old. Smoking, alchohol, and sex aren't exactly a top priority for girls that age, I would highly doubt most of them would know what that stuff was. Another problem I had was the whole "she talks to angel's" story line. Somewhere in the story it made it apparent that Beth indeed did talk to angel's, but as the story came to a close it never really came full circle with that subject. What did that story line have to do with Beth dying? That part was very confusing and unorganized. The book was also very sad and depressing, when I read books I like to feel like there is hope for a character, even though I knew Beth was already going to die, I felt that the whole family including Jenny was already a lost cause. And when I read a book, when I lose hope for a certain character the whole book just seems less interesting. There were hardly any happy or light parts, it was just gloom and dark. I realize that that was what the story was going to be about, a girl who kills herself, which is why I will lighten up a little. But there was no reason for Jenny to give up hope, she could have built her own life. And near the end you see that, which is why this book semi ended well for me. You see her family slowly start to recover from the death of Beth. So overall this book was an amazing coming of ago book, it teaches you about sex, drugs, and lies. How that can minipulate your life, it is also a good family book. It shows you paths you should never follow, and breaks down the life of a girl and how she came to kill herself. I would recomend this book to older audiences, mainly for the content and it may be a difficult read. So for me it was a good book, it was heart breaking and poetic, and can really open your eyes to tragedy. I couldn't give this book five stars due to the cons I listed above, but it was a fanastic read and I would recomend it.