WHAT LIGHT By Jay Asher

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

WHAT LIGHT By Jay AsherWhat Light by Jay Asher
Published by Razorbill on 10/18/16
Genres: Contemporary, Romance, Young Adult
Pages: 259
Format: Ebook
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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Sierra's family runs a Christmas tree farm in Oregon—it's a bucolic setting for a girl to grow up in, except that every year, they pack up and move to California to set up their Christmas tree lot for the season. So Sierra lives two lives: her life in Oregon and her life at Christmas. And leaving one always means missing the other.

Until this particular Christmas, when Sierra meets Caleb, and one life eclipses the other.

By reputation, Caleb is not your perfect guy: years ago, he made an enormous mistake and has been paying for it ever since. But Sierra sees beyond Caleb's past and becomes determined to help him find forgiveness and, maybe, redemption. As disapproval, misconceptions, and suspicions swirl around them, Caleb and Sierra discover the one thing that transcends all else: true love.

Short and Sweet Review

Sierra’s parents own a Christmas tree farm in Oregon but around the holidays her family packs up and goes down to California to sell the trees. Sierra feels like she lives two lives the one she’s used to for 11 months a year and the other she lives during Christmas time. This time around in California, Sierra meets Caleb but he has a past that most others won’t forget about and warn Sierra to stay away from him, but Sierra is willing to look beyond what happened in the past.

This is the third holiday book I’ve read and I’m just striking out. My problem with this book is that it’s one note and predictable. Sierra meets Caleb he has a bad reputation, she ends up spending more time with him and learns about what he did but she knows the person he is now so she isn’t trying to focus on the past. We see those closest to Sierra try to warn her against him but she wants to change everyone’s opinions about him. Anyway the plot of this book is something I’ve seen before it wasn’t original and I was bored. I’m glad the book was short because if this went on I don’t know what I would have done. Sierra isn’t a great character, she’s not a girls girl and she becomes obsessed with Caleb after meeting him for a few minutes and after that she can’t stop thinking about him and blows off her friends. Also when you find out what Caleb did it’s not hard to understand why others in this small town are so wary of him. I’m trying to think about something that was good about this book for you all. The only good thing about this book is that people got Christmas trees.

Overall, I don’t want you guys to think I don’t like Christmas or the holidays but the books I’ve been reading haven’t been getting me in the spirit and they’re really not doing it for me and I feel like the grinch. What Light was an attempt at a holiday book about forgiveness and not judging people but it really missed the mark.

THIRTEEN REASONS WHY By Jay Asher

I received this book for free from Reviewer Purchase in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

THIRTEEN REASONS WHY By Jay AsherThirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Published by Razorbill on 6/14/2011
Genres: Contemporary, Realistic Fiction, Young Adult
Pages: 288
Format: Paperback
Source: Reviewer Purchase
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ReviewedbyDani

You can’t stop the future. 
You can’t rewind the past.
The only way to learn the secret . . . is to press play.

Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker—his classmate and crush—who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why.

Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and as he follows Hannah’s recorded words throughout his town, what he discovers changes his life foreve


Short and Sweet Review

Clay comes home to find a box on his doorstep. In the box are seven tapes with thirteen reasons why his classmate Hannah Baker committed suicide. Now Clay needs to listen to the tapes and find out why she recorded them and where he is on the tapes. To find out why Hannah Baker killed herself Clay has to listen to the tapes, and its not the most exciting thing to do. Clay learns about his other classmates secrets through these tapes and these classmates actions are what Hannah considers to be what led her to do what she did. I found this book compelling and suspenseful it was almost like I couldn’t put it down, due to the fact that I wanted to know what was on these tapes and what Clay did to be on them. Clay our main character is clearly shocked first he gets a box of tapes recorded by a now dead girl and then he learns all of these secrets about his classmates. Hannah on the other hand comes across as selfish and a little too sensitive, but I did sympathize with her when I was picturing what she went through. While Clay was listening to the tapes I feel like he kept questioning whether he could have saved Hannah’s life, I don’t know why Hannah sent the tapes because it seemed to make the one person who truly cared for her feel worse about what happened. I will say I did like hearing the tapes with Clay but once I got to the ending I wasn’t impressed, I feel like more could have been done with it.

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