#HearOurVoices tour: : Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado

Fat Chance, Charlie Vega by Crystal Maldonado
My rating: Liked
Purchase: (bookshop.org) |Libro.fm

synopsis: Coming of age as a Fat brown girl in a white Connecticut suburb is hard.

Harder when your whole life is on fire, though.

Charlie Vega is a lot of things. Smart. Funny. Artistic. Ambitious. Fat.

People sometimes have a problem with that last one. Especially her mom. Charlie wants a good relationship with her body, but it's hard, and her mom leaving a billion weight loss shakes on her dresser doesn't help. The world and everyone in it have ideas about what she should look like: thinner, lighter, slimmer-faced, straighter-haired. Be smaller. Be whiter. Be quieter.

But there's one person who's always in Charlie's corner: her best friend Amelia. Slim. Popular. Athletic. Totally dope. So when Charlie starts a tentative relationship with cute classmate Brian, the first worthwhile guy to notice her, everything is perfect until she learns one thing--he asked Amelia out first. So is she his second choice or what? Does he even really see her? UGHHH. Everything is now officially a MESS.

A sensitive, funny, and painful coming-of-age story with a wry voice and tons of chisme, Fat Chance, Charlie Vega tackles our relationships to our parents, our bodies, our cultures, and ourselves.

Charlie Vega is our titular lead. Her personality jumps from the page. She's smart, funny, artistic and a go getter. She and her mom. It's about a plus size young woman of color navigating through life. It deals with with being brown in a white neighborhood. Maldonado did a great job fleshing out Charlie and her relations with other people. People at work, school and at home. This title touches on diet culture and how mothers can love their daughters and be toxic at the same time. Heads up on that. I And I'm glad that there wasn't a situation were suddenly everything is okay because that kind of relationship really can’t easily be “fixed”.

I love how the romance and Charlie's friendship had equal importance. It has an HEA and a non white interracial couple, heck yeah.


I recommend Fat chance, Charlie Vega for the lead alone. She truly is the MAIN CHARACTER. Living her MC life and i say this with lots of love. I know that many will fall in love with her

Crystal Maldonado's socials

Website | Twitter

Review: Witch Eyes by Scott Tracey

Witch eyes
by Scott Tracey
Published by Flux
Date of Publication: September 8th 2011
Source: gifted
Rating: 3/5

Synopsis: Braden was born with witch eyes: the ability to see the world as it truly is: a blinding explosion of memories, darkness, and magic. The power enables Braden to see through spells and lies, but at the cost of horrible pain.
After a terrifying vision reveals imminent danger for the uncle who raised and instructed him, Braden retreats to Belle Dam, an old city divided by two feuding witch dynasties. As rival family heads Catherine Lansing and Jason Thorpe desperately try to use Braden's powers to unlock Belle Dam's secrets, Braden vows never to become their sacrificial pawn. But everything changes when Braden learns that Jason is his father--and Trey, the enigmatic guy he's falling for, is Catherine's son.
To stop an insidious dark magic from consuming the town, Braden must master his gift—and risk losing the one he loves

My thoughts

Expectations : Reading from a male’s perspective is always fun. I heard of this book after I had just become part of the Goodreads community. . I love fictional family feuds and the inclusion of witches makes it all the better. I have had it on my wish list for a while and I immediately said yes when a kind popular blogger said she could gift me witch eyes and its sequel.

Cover : I’m not normally a fan of floating heads. But this one isn’t that bad. The Thorpe mansion is shown on the cover with an edge of the belle dam forest behind it. And the picture of the guy is really cute. I’m weird, I know.

Book : Braden hasn’t had the typical normal childhood. He lives with his uncle and exercises loads of magical spells and etc daily. And he is seen as the weird kid with glasses. He has eyes than can unravel spells, memories and emotions etched in places. A splitting headache havocs his mind every time he uses his ‘’gift’’. He left his uncle in the middle of the night to goes to Belle Dam. The place where has a decent clue of his heritage and family and his uncle would stop him if he knew. Braden meets this mysterious and interesting good looking brown shaggy haired guy and finds outs about the feud. Among all the people he meets there is someone who’s more interested than usual in this feud and could be the Big Bad. Finding out who could be difficult because everyone seems suspicious. And will the new love that sprung with Braden and the handsome stranger suffer or bloom in this seemingly across the surface calm town.

Let me start with the positives :
So let the negatives follow. Sometimes you have to take good with the bad. Writing a book is easier said than done and publishing one is even more so. And I congratulate Mister Tracey for that. Quite some people liked or loved witch eyes. I’m not saying it is badly written but nothing really happened in the 1st book of the trilogy. It was like a 2nd title in a series with second book syndrome. The last 3 or 4 chapters were fast paced and somewhat intense but it could not rejuvenate my interest for witch eyes after I got bored with it. I often finish a book no matter how boring.

2. Braden Thorne was an okay leading male, but he was whining quite a lot at moments in this book and being bad tempered and rude when stuff didn’t work out. He was awfully rude to his dad and uncle He redeemed himself a bit in the end. They try to be good parental figures.

3. I could not care that much for the rest of the characters. Expect for Riley, a perky school reporter, and Braden‘s uncle. They were just characters for the sake of being characters that where needed for the plot.

4. The romance was like any other typical paranormal YA romance. A girl and a guy meet somewhere. The guy is so mysterious and they fall and care for in each other in an instant. But in this case it’s two dudes. It was forced and to make it more entertaining make it forbidden. Yep, that’s the whole romantic plotline. Trey was just another pretty boy who was busy being chivalrous by protecting Braden from harm. The only positive were the cute/hot kiss scenes.

That’s all I have to say. My experience with Witch eyes was nothing special but if you want to, read it. Go ahead and give it a try. I don’t know if I would have given book two a try if I did not have it already. If witch eyes was better I would not have given it a 3 out 5.

Review: Lies Beneath by Anne Greenwood Brown

Lies Beneath (Lies Beneath #1)[ add to Goodreads]
by Anne Greenwood Brown

Published by  Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Date publication:  June 12th 2012
Source: netgalley
Rating : 2.8/5

Synopsis:  Calder White lives in the cold, clear waters of Lake Superior, the only brother in a family of murderous mermaids. To survive, Calder and his sisters prey on humans, killing them to absorb their energy. But this summer the underwater clan targets Jason Hancock out of pure revenge. They blame Hancock for their mother's death and have been waiting a long time for him to return to his family's homestead on the lake. Hancock has a fear of water, so to lure him in, Calder sets out to seduce Hancock's daughter, Lily. Easy enough—especially as Calder has lots of practice using his irresistable good looks and charm on ususpecting girls. Only this time Calder screws everything up: he falls for Lily—just as Lily starts to suspect that there's more to the monsters-in-the-lake legends than she ever imagined. And just as his sisters are losing patience with him 

My thoughts 

Cover : What’s that on the surface? Blood? Bloody excellent plus a malicious mermaid. Perfection [ I love green]


Book : Lies beneath was  one mine  10  highly  most anticipated releases of 2012 .  Sad to say it was a letdown.

I expected  a dark book. What the synopsis said it would be. Not that dark at all. Not even grey [ a color joke , I think =^_^=[random meow] TVD[the vicious deep was not that dark but fun . LB  was boring. Link to the vicious deep ]  I dove into Lies beneath . Instead of a tsunami I experienced a tiny ripple.

The plot was slow and I became bored at page 150. The beginning was ok. We  meet  Calder White  and his ‘’sisters’’. Maris [a crazy bitch], Talulah [ a murderous pinky pie, who ‘’accidently’ kills her  romantic flames] and last but not least the native bombshell  Pavati . They request Calder to return home[ cold lake  Superior ]from his Caribbean vacation  to avenge the murder of their mother and kill the  grown up son of the man that did it decades ago. The story lacked that extra something. I did not fall for the characters  or care for them except Calder and Talulah [c’mon she reminds me of pinky pie/ I’m a proud brony]

I have to give props to the mermaid lore. Some what creepy . They feed off of the energy of happy humans, they transform in water which allows them to travel on land, and their bodies radiate signals to draw innocent souls to the water.
And to lily for being suspicious  and not falling for Calder at first sight. The romance was weak but ok

I was disappointed when  I had finished Lies beneath. At least Calder’s  narrative help my trough it. Sad to say  I did not love it. Maybe I’ll continue the series. Read  my review with a grain of salt. A lot of people liked it even some blogging comrades of mine , maybe you will too

trailer

 one of my favourite trailers and a soothing voice. To lure, to kill
sad i did not love Lies Beneath 

WAKE by Lisa Mcmann, left me a bit sleepy

Wake by Lisa Mcmann
Published by Simon pulse
Date published March 4, 2008
Rating 3/5
Synopis
For seventeen-year-old Janie, getting sucked into other people's dreams is getting old. Especially the falling dreams, the naked-but-nobody-notices dreams, and the sex-crazed dreams. Janie's seen enough fantasy booty to last her a lifetime.
She can't tell anybody about what she does they'd never believe her, or worse, they'd think she's a freak. So Janie lives on the fringe, cursed with an ability she doesn't want and can’t control.
Then she falls into a gruesome nightmare, one that chills her to the bone. For the first time, Janie is more than a witness to someone else's twisted psyche. She is a participant






My toughts: 


Cover: THis is one of my beloved covers. A pillow , a purple one on a bedsheet and the background. LOVE'd the cover the first time i saw it on goodreads, this year in februari i think. sad did not lived to my expectations.


Book: This book was not for me. Before i begin i'm not bashing the author i can imagine her blood sweet and maybe tears writing the dream catcher series , this is book 1 out of 3. Great name for a series. Now that's out in the open here i begin .  Ready, set go


When i got it i was so excited. Love this cover. Though please don't suck. It. The writing was different. So far i know this is my first book that i've read with a 3th person present tense. I think that ruined it for me. I felt like a bystander watching them and not as a friend. In other words did not feel emotionally connected to the secondary or even main characters


What i loved was the chapter in Cable Strumheller's pov . the main leading male chapter. This was not in the book it was more like the addendum or something like that. I felt more connected to Janie and cable in that chapter than trough the whole book. If cable were ''speakin '' so to say i think it would be as least a 4. My opinion. 
Plus the the excerpt let me in to thinkin maybe book 2 will be better.
Loved his dreams , how ever they there ##spoilerish maybe## twisted and janie helped him when she got a hold of her ability and helped people in their dreams###son goodread you can read it cause i don't know how to hide maybe spoilers here 


What i disliked. OK janie is a girl who not voluntary  was sucked into people's dreams. She hates it actually since she was 8. Did not feel connected to her. There was no romance and if there was i didn't feel it. Did not hated her but did not like her either.


secondary characters ; Mom , she is a drinking !@#$ or to say a alcoholic.That's where Janie gets her taste for alcohol. Ok Janie is on the lower classes in society when a bit sorry for her. Dylan's mom makes her mom angelic. Here is her mention . 


I can't even remember the names of her friends(how little she had) or people in her school or where she had a job. In a elderly home. 


Plot was very slow but the last 70 pages where enjoyable. said a goodfrend used her money to buy it for me.It was a gift . Should have asked for something else. A lot of people loved it a coupple of my goodreads frends did. Will read book 2 and 3 but only if i win it.  Was not my cup of tea. lov tea. lol


Here is the booktrailer. Its really good