Sleepless Nights... Thanks to Good Books by Rose Phillips!

leepless nights, caused by staying up late reading...

It's been a while since I a) stopped the world to devour a book (or two); and b) read a really good YA.

Rose Phillips' two books fit the bill. Plus they got me all teary, in a good way. And also let me forget for a while that I was reading on a Kindle app. No small feat, as I'm usually acutely aware of the medium, in a way that doesn't happen with paper books.

Here they are:

Cutting to the Chase

"How do you fix something you didn't break?
Lizzy certainly doesn't have the answer. All she knows is that she needs to survive senior year, then get as far away from her dysfunctional family as possible. In the meantime, when she can't take the pressure, she eases it with the sharp edge of a razor blade.

But, she's been cutting deeper and her thoughts are growing darker.

Until she meets Michael. With him she finds relief.

Now, maybe—just maybe—she can make it."

I don't like this blurb. I don't think it does justice to the story, or the strength of Lizzy. Her meeting Michael is just the beginning -- things really spiral out of control after that, and some of it is from bits that Lizzy's broken. How she tries to fix things, and the hope at the end, are what really help her to make it. I loved meeting this new cast of characters and dropping into their lives for a little while.

Color Me Gray

"Saying goodbye to friends is hard. Being the only one left behind? Unbearable.
Mags is sure she will suffocate on loneliness when her friends head off to college.
They get new adventures while she gets to live in the same house, on the same street, in the same city she’s been in forever.

When the hottest guy at a party hits on her, she’s convinced her world has shifted,
that between fashion school and the start of a relationship, she too will have a chance at a new life.

She’s right.

Everything changes that night.

Just not in the way she dreamed."

Here's something else I didn't appreciate -- detailed trigger warnings on the Evernight page, which gave away the plot! There has to be a way to include those without revealing key aspects of the story.

Luckily, it didn't matter that much in the end in this case, as the relevant bits happened in the first few chapters, and everything else was a surprise -- I loved the pace at which events kept unfolding. And my favourite, seeing glimpses of characters from the previous book in this one, so we get to find out how their lives are unfolding. I hope that happens with the next book, too, as I'd love to hear more about Mags, and Matt, and Moe, and Madi, and... I'd urge you to go meet all these characters for yourself!

Today is Insecure Writer's Support Group day!

This month's question is: How do you celebrate when you achieve a writing goal / finish a story?

I'm not sure that I do! I tend to have a few projects on the go, and simply keep moving forward on the next one. Plus, I'm not sure anything is really finished until it's been queried and published. I didn't quite celebrate the publication of Summer Fire in December. It feels like receiving kind words from readers who've enjoyed the story has been celebration enough!

What was the last book you stayed up (far too) late reading?