Review: #GIRLBOSS

Title: #GIRLBOSS

Author: Sophia Amoruso

Publisher: Portfolio

Pages: 256 pages

Format and Source: Hardcover, Purchased from FullyBooked

Buy it here: Amazon

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Goodreads Summary

Sophia Amoruso spent her teens hitchhiking, committing petty theft, and scrounging in dumpsters for leftover bagels. By age twenty-two she had dropped out of school, and was broke, directionless, and checking IDs in the lobby of an art school—
a job she’d taken for the health insurance. It was in that lobby that Sophia decided to start selling vintage clothes on eBay.

Flash forward ten years to today, and she’s the founder and executive chairman of Nasty Gal, a $250-million-plus fashion retailer with more than four hundred employees. Sophia was never a typical CEO, or a typical anything, and she’s written #GIRLBOSS for other girls like her: outsiders (and insiders) seeking a unique path to success, even when that path is windy as all hell and lined with naysayers.

#GIRLBOSS proves that being successful isn’t about where you went to college
or how popular you were in high school. It’s about trusting your instincts and following your gut; knowing which rules to follow and which to break; when to button up and when to let your freak flag fly.

Review

I’d have to say that with everything Sophia Amoruso has accomplished in such a short time, it’s admirable that she even had time to write this book. Despite Nasty Gal’s failure in the past few years, it would be a crime to discredit Amoruso’s intelligence and business acumen. She built her cult following solely on the idea that knowing your customer is the best way to sell fashion and I think that should count for something.

Review: You

Title: You

Author: Caroline Kepnes

Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books

Pages: 422

Format and source: Paperback, purchased from Fully Booked

Buy it here: Amazon

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Goodreads Summary

When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.

There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.

As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder.

Review: Summer Days & Summer Nights

Title: Summer Days & Summer Nights

Editor: Stephanie Perkins

Contributing authors: Leigh Bardugo, Nina LaCour, Libba Bray, Francesca Lia Block, Stephanie Perkins, Tim Federle, Veronica Roth, Jon Skovron, Brandy Colbert, Cassandra Clare, Jennifer E Smith, Lev Grossman.

Publisher: Pan MacMillan

Pages: 384 pages

Format and Source: Hardcover (UK Edition), Purchased from Book Depository

Buy it here: Book Depository

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Most people don’t see the appeal of short stories because there’s no room for characters to grow. I think the best part about living through a novel is getting to see the development the characters undergo from start to finish and we just don’t get that from a 20 page story. But at the same time, I love short stories because we can really experience an author’s maximum talent in being able to weave intricate lives in such a constrained amount of pages and words. Because I don’t want to spoil any of the stories (which is quite easy to do considering the brevity of each), I’ll instead be including some tags or key words from each story so you can more or less get an idea of what individual story is about.

DECEMBER 2015 Wrap Up

The last time I did one of these was way back in July! For the months that followed, I wasn’t able to read as much as I wanted to just because school requirements really made it hard for me to find time for books. However, during my Holiday break I had enough time to bounce back and read 19 books and ultimately complete my Goodreads reading challenge! 

Read on for a full list of the books I read in December 2015:

Review: Better Off Friends

Title: Better Off Friends

Author: Elizabeth Eulberg

Publisher: Point

Pages: 288

Format and source: Hardcover, Purchased from Maxon & Pepper

Buy it here: Amazon

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GOODREADS SUMMARY

For Macallan and Levi, it was friends at first sight. Everyone says guys and girls can’t be just friends, but these two are. They hang out after school, share tons of inside jokes, their families are super close, and Levi even starts dating one of Macallan’s friends. They are platonic and happy that way.

Eventually they realize they’re best friends — which wouldn’t be so bad if they didn’t keep getting in each other’s way. Guys won’t ask Macallan out because they think she’s with Levi, and Levi spends too much time joking around with Macallan, and maybe not enough time with his date. They can’t help but wonder . . . are they more than friends or are they better off without making it even more complicated?

From romantic comedy superstar Elizabeth Eulberg comes a fresh, fun examination of a question for the ages: Can guys and girls ever really be just friends? Or are they always one fight away from not speaking again — and one kiss away from true love?

‘Tis the Season: December Book Haul

Before anything, I would like to apologize for my LOOOONG absence. As in my 3 month long break from blogging because college and life happened. Obviously in during those months, I also didn’t have time to read at all so my reviews would have been sparce but I’m back and I’ve read a bajillion books (only 17, really) during my holiday break in the hopes that I can end this drought. So, to cap off my hiatus here is my December book haul!