Righteous by Kim Lehman

Author: Kim Lehman

Author website

Publisher: Lucky Stars Publishing

First published: June 1 2013

Re-release: Feburary 24 2015

 

Introduction

       Righteous is down-right fed up with every aspect of her life. Her mom seems to care more about her messed up boyfriends, that she picks up at the bar, than about her, the only person she confides to about anything is an old lady with Alzheimers. She just wants her senior year to go as smoothly as possible, sick of the predictable, boring hallways of high school. When she lands herself in the principles office on the first day, things aren't off to a great start. Things get worse when she meets Colt Jackson. The boy who may or may not have killed his best friend back where he came from.  All Righteous wants is a smooth senior year, but Colt Jackson looks like he's going to get in the way of that.

Righteous "Ria"

       Righteous wasn't a terrible character, but I found her kind of predictable. She'll get angry at her mom, leave for a few days, have a run in with her principle to tell her to make good decisions, go back home, realize that her mom hasn't changed and the cycle repeats. 

       Righteous doesn't really have any friends, and she doesn't want any. I guess she believes that the easiest way to not get your heart broken is to pretend you don't have one. I can sympathize with that, but just because you don't want friends, doesn't mean you have to blow off every body that talks to you.

Colt

       Colt's story was interesting--the story of if he really did kill his best friend--He was a more interesting than Ria, but I didn't still didn't like him very much. The romance that bloomed between them didn't interest me either. Speaking of the romance that bloomed between them. I think Colt has some kind of Edward Cullen thing going on, with the way that he just conveniently shows up whenever Ria needs help. Or the way that he shows up in the middle of the night when she's sleeping, just to make sure that she's okay, of course.

Cecile   

       Cecile has been trying to become friends with Ria for years, but every single time Cecile tries to make plans with Ria, Ria hits he with the same answer "Can't today. Sorry." Honesty, if I was turned down for years, I would have given up, so props to Cecile for sticking with it.

        I knew from the moment I started this book, from the first moment I knew that the protagonist was named "Righteous", I knew somebody was going to hit her up with a self-righteous b*tch comment. But for Cecile to be the one to do it? I wasn't expecting that. So again, props to Cecile. This time for being my favorite person in this book.

Conclusion.

       In all honestly, I thought that I would enjoy  this book a lot more than I actually did. I didn't really connect well with the characters. Usually I can, but I just didn't with this book. With this book being contemporary, not connecting with the characters is a big problem. 

       

Finding North by Allyson Gottlieb

       
Author: Allyson Gottlieb
Author website 
Publication date: January 29 2015


Introduction 

       Kathrine "Kat" Zova, joined the war as a medic on the side of the Alliance to stay with her boyfriend, Tyler. Now, with Tyler dead after being shot, Kat is living with crushing grief. She walks with haunted eyes during the day, at sleep offers no escape from her despair. While she and a small team of soldiers are out in the field, they get captured by the enemy, all of them hauled off to prison. Except her. The leader of the group that attacked them has requested that Kat be taken to his room. The leader of the small group that attacked them, is the son of Alistar Craverly, the head of the enemy army. Now, Kat lives in a mansion inhabited by the Craverlys. They have a reputation for being cruel, but as Kat spends time with Reynan, she learns that like-father-like-son may not always be true. With Kat battling demons, it's possible that Reynan is too.

Kat
       
       Kat is dealing with the death of her boyfriend, Tyler, one day at a time. I didn't mind Kat. Much. Sometimes she just decided that she wanted to be alone, which I can totally understand and sympathize with until she decides to wander through the Vegas strip. Alone. At night. Most of Vegas is uninhabited, but sometime soldiers can be found wandering, visiting some of the few operational casinos, or doing something slightly more sinister in "abandoned" hotels. It was in which, that Kat got herself into a few dangerous  situations. I'm sure you can figure it out...She's a girl...she ran into some to some boys...in abandon hotel...You would think after a situation like that, you wouldn't just run away from the mansion and not go wandering alone at night again, right? Wrong. It was slightly aggravating that she didn't lean the first time.
        Kat is living in a mansion. Alistar's masion, but a mansion, nonetheless. In the book she mentions feeling guilty about how she's safe with Reynan in a mansion with pretty much everything she could need while her friends are in prison, but I wasn't quite sold on the fact that she felt guilty. Every time it was mentioned it was so fleeting. She would feel guilty for about two seconds, and then go back to thinking about Reynan.


Reynan
       
       Finding North is told in dual first person. I liked Reynan's point of view more than I liked Kat's. Reynan doesn't truly believe in what he fights for, and he doesn't have the best relationship with his father. He's sick of people judging him because of who hi father is, who he really isn't anything like. Reynan kind of reminds me slightly of Four from Divergent by Veronica Roth and a little like Warner from Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi.He seems kind of mean, kind of spoiled, kind of an asshole, but he's really just misunderstood, and the kind of life he has isn't one that would be chosen deliberately.


Oliver
      
       Oliver is one of the few friends that Reynan has that gets introduced in Finding North. He usually fights alongside Reynan in the field and he offers some comic relief, which I enjoyed.


Helena
      
       Helena is another one of Reynan's friends who quickly becomes Kat's friend as well. Helena works as Reynan's maid/cook and lives in the mansion as well. Helena has a history that I found interesting, the story of where she was before Reynan took her in was fun to uncover.


Story progress
       
       I found that the story progressed at a slow pace, and at some points, nothing was really happening at all, sometimes it was entire chapters where nothing was happening. I never felt that I wanted to put the book down and take a break from reading it for a few days but there were times when I wasn't really interested.


Ending (I'm going to try not to spoil things here.)
       
       The decision that Reynan made regarding Kat was very abrupt. He didn't really think about what he was about to do. He just woke up and acted. There as nothing leading up to it. It was so abrupt that I was almost doubting that it was really happening. It didn't even feel like a plot twist. It was too quick. Poorly thought out, in my opinion.


Conclusion
       
       Despite the ending. I did enjoy reading this book and would like to read the second installment. Originally thought that Finding North would be more of a dystopian, but it was mostly romance. So if your looking for a YA romance with hints of dystopian aspects here and there, I would recommend this book to you.