Book Review:I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang

I Am Not Jessica Chen by Ann Liang
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I Am Not Jessica Chen kinda hit me because when i was in high school (and, well, now) I felt like this for a while, which I felt like it was weird at first, but then the more I think about it, the more I realize that this feels like a diary of some sort, and we're reading the journal entries or stories of a girl who switched bodies with her cousin, and it felt like a Picture of Dorian Gray story, with the cousin, Jenna, living her cousin's Jessica's life, all the while her presence was disappearing the more she was living in Jessica's body.

Jenna Chen is tired of being second best to her perfect cousin, Jessica. She wants to be perfect, just like her, and wants her life and her friends and everything else that Jessica has. One day, while outside with Jessica and Aaron, a shooting star flew over, and Jenna made a wish that she wanted to be like her cousin.

When she woke up the next morning, her wish had been granted.

Jenna is now her perfect cousin Jessica-she's has friends that love her, a school and classmates that adores her....but she also has some hard classes that might hurt Jenna's brain, a childhood friend that she thought was in love with Jessica but it turns out that he's in love with her, and oh...oh. Jessica did a bad thing, and someone is blackmailing her to confess to what she did.

Also Jenna's presence is disappearing from everyone's memories.

Oof.

Jenna is trying to figure out where Jessica went once she made the wish, and she teams up with Aaron to find out what happened and how to get the both of them back, and when she does find out where Jessica was at the end, the two forgave one another, Jenna confronted the blackmailer who wants Jessica to apologize for plagerizing her work, and almost got into a fight with a jealous boy, like Jenna was, with Jessica after she won an award that was named after his grandmother.

I really did like this book because it does hit home in places I didn't think it would hit. This is my second favorite Ann Liang novel, and I want to read more of her books because I found my new auto-buy author.

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Book Review: A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang

A Song to Drown Rivers by Ann Liang
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The first time I read this book, I didn't review it because life happened.

I reread it this time, and I still loved it so much.

This is a retelling of Xishi and how she brought a kingdom and a king down using her charms, wit, and bravery, even when she thought she failed to do so. I liked that she fell for both men but tried to stay loyal to her country of Yue. But falling for a king who immediately gets obsessive with her and pretty much does everything she wants without a care in the world? Not listen to his advisors about what the other side is doing and only wants peace, and gets upset when he's either reminded of his father and how his father hated the Yue Kingdom and wanted it to fall.

But as soon as Xishi came in the court, that's when he fell head over heels for her, and he does everything in the beginning to get her to be with him, and she refuses his advances until he finally comes around and finds out why. Xishi does use her wound she got when she was coming to the Wu Kingdom to get him to come to her, and once he finds out that she lived terribly, that's when everything changed for Xishi and wrapping the king around her finger? Easy like Sunday Morning.

This book was really good and very slow in the beginning, but when it picks up in the middle, it picks up. The book goes on to show how war can affect people, and the ending shows the painful reasons to never trust someone. This book felt like a good C-Drama you just wanna watch over and over again until the end, when you see the minister live on without her until the end.

I will reread this book over and over again because it was that good and I enjoyed myself reading this book.

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