This is one of those contemporary ya romances that I really fell in love with.
Beautiful writing and quotes completing a story that pulled on my heartstrings.

I really loved the characters and the fact that it's written in dual pov, as well as the well written family-bond-elements. I feel like that all just adds a good amount of more depth to the overall story.

This is a ya contemporary romance I highly recommend if you're into this genre specific, but also if it's normally not your cup of tea but when the synopsis does look interesting to you. It's a beautifully written story and in my case one that really had me hooked early on in the story and engaged until the very end.

A nice easy read and really relatable. This touches on the subject of bullying and shows the lengths that some people will go to. Fantastic writing style.

*Thanks to NetGalley for providing me an e-ARC in exchange for my honest review*

DNF Page 50/201 - 14/2/2020

I was very interested in this book so I requested it but unfortunately the story was boring and cheesy.

I can usually push through a book I don’t really like for review purposes but I did not care for any of the characters and the pace of the story of to slow for me. I expected a little more to happen in 50 pages. I also think there’s a lot of unnecessary description of characters.

Some notes I highlighted:

*after accidentally taking a random girls coffee (main female character)*

‘The barista’s voice cut through my thoughts as she said, “Her name is Jewel Hart.” She pasted a smile on her lips, the lipstick the wrong shade of pink. Even though the middle-aged woman had gotten her appearance all wrong, she exuded a friendly warmth. She titled her dyed ash-blonde head toward the building next door. She went on to inform me that the lovely creature who’d just departed worked across the street at the law firm in the summer for her parents.’

*Because it’s always a real idea for a random woman to tell a stranger personal information (full name, where their parents work) about another random person*

*Not only is he obsessed about a random stranger he had a two second conversation with at a coffee shop, he is also to eager to get her phone number. They’ve only known each other for about two or three days*

‘“You know it’s already halfway through the week, and I’ve been waiting since we met at the coffee shop to get your number.’”

*Honestly surprised he didn’t just asked the random lady at the coffee shop for Jewel’s number considering she told him her full name and where here parents work*

*Pointless description about a teacher*

‘The clicking of her neon-orange heels on the taupe-speckled vinyl tiles grated at me. Her fiery red hair hung long and heavy like a cheap wig. The blue denim sleeveless blouse she wore revealed the tattoo running from the shoulder and covering three-quarters of her right arm. She had calculatedly used black eyeliner to achieve an over dramatic cat eye.’

*Felt like a lot of Jewel’s inner dialogue as very over dramatic*

‘After all these years, I still couldn’t wrap my brain around why I had become a walking bulls-eye for people to unload their rage on.’

‘School ended and, liberated from my chains, I sprang out of the double doors. My feet were eager to flee the reformatory behind the barricades of those doors.’

*The “You’re not like other girls-esque” comment*

‘“You threaten them. You’re beautiful, charming, and seem to be the kind of girl a guy can be himself around. I don’t know much about you, but it’s my first take on the situation.”
‘“Jewel’s different from most. She’s good. She won’t go for someone like you.”’

*When a guy is a decent human being and is nice to someone*

‘He walked to the counter and handed his tray to the volunteer, an acne-covered Grade 11 student. His polite “Thank you” got my attention, and the wide smile he offered her grabbed at my heart. The volunteer’s face flushed a scarlet red. It was my turn to sit and gape. Maybe Kaiden Carter was a guy of substance? What were the chances?’

Overall, I didn’t enjoy the read and wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

This book was written about how bullying really affects teens, which is a real dynamic that a lot of teenagers and adults experience in various times in their life. It made a point on how serious it can be and how isolating it feels to the victom. What was hard to identify with was Jewel who was continuously described as anice girl, who was pretty, smart and had a loving family. I guess it depends on what you feel inside, but Jewel didn’t seem like the type to be bullied or to have any reason to feel insecure. The fact that her family was supportive didn’t make sense to why Jewel would not discuss her feelings more with them and to take action or stand up to her tormentors. The fact that she was aloof and a loner and she didn't have any real close friends made sense on why she became a target but it was never disclosed why she didn’t have friends until she meets Kaiden. She wasn’t described as ‘shy” or ‘insecure’ which would make more sense to me. The book does portray how serious teens take bullying and how it can drive a kid to extremes because of the shame, hurt and pain they feel because of treatment by their peers. That part is absolutely true and very real. In general,. I was happy for Jewel and Kaiden and their friend Finn, that they all found each other and in spite of some bad things, they became close and stuck together, supporting each other. The best part of this story was Jewel becoming her own person through the love and support of her family and friends.

Wonderfully written, with a great message. I will defiantly want to check out more by this author after reading this.

I was very eager to read this book because it dealt with bullying, which is a matter I'm incredibly into, since it's very relevant and I want to delve into it's causes and it's aftermath as much as I can. I think this book does a very good job of portraying how a victim of bullying navigates high school and how affected by it this person is, even out of school, when he/she is supposedly safe from the harmful comments and the mean behavior.

What impressed me most, was how amazing Jewel's family is. And by amazing I don't mean that they did anything extraordinary, they were simply an ordinary caring family, that only had Jewel's best interests at heart. I think it's important to portray good family models in books, because especially in young adult and contemporary fiction, I rarely see a family that's united and where the kids don't have problems with the parents, etc. It was very refreshing to see Jewel's family interact and I think it promotes a very healthy model of how families should be: close-knit, loving and supporting towards one another.

I had two problems with this book: 1) it was too short and 2) there was some stereotyping of characters and situations. Let me explain what I mean.
By "too short" I mean that I wanted more detail in a lot of stuff and I also wanted some situations explored more thoroughly. For example, we are told that Jewel sings, paints, does horseback riding, but we only read about horseback riding. It was like the other two hobbies were just mentioned to make her more interesting. Also, after a certain event, Jewel and Kaiden said that they wanted to take a more active role in preventing bullying and that they would organise speeches and stuff like that, which never happened and after a few pages the reader just reads that they work they did on that area was very successful. But I wanted to see what they did, I wanted to read about Jewel giving a speech, I wanted more from the book, because in my opinion that would make it more wholesome.
Now to my second point, there were some stereotypes being mentioned and I would love it so so much if they weren't there. For example, the "nerdy" guy had his glasses taped with white tape in the middle, which is such a stereotype for someone that's more studious than most. Why couldn't the "nerdy" guy have piercings? Or be super hot? Don't these people exist? Or the definition of someone who studies a lot and loves science is only what we see in high school movies?

Kaiden and Jewel's relationship was so sweet and not toxic at all and I was very glad for that. It was far from the typical high school romance and Kaiden was exactly what Jewel needed to help her get through another difficult high school year. Kaiden had such a nice and charming personality, even though he himself had been through a lot and I was very happy to see them together, because they fitted each other very good!

All in all, "Cascading Petals" is a very nice book about bullying that can be read in a breeze, as it is very engrossing and has interesting characters. It's a book that I would read again and would recommend to anyone who wants to get glimpse about bullying.

Emotional, and raw. I was looking for something in the vein of "Thirteen Reasons Why", and this is definitely a good choice.

This was such an intense book. It was full of some very serious subject matters but I thought the author wrote an amazing emotional, intense, and unexpected story. I found myself reading this and putting myself in the mindset of a teenager once again. I found myself crying a few time, yellow and swearing. The surprises where fantastic.

Honestly, I really enjoyed this book. Although it is a book based on the romance between two young people who are completely different from each other in the way of being and acting, the main theme addressed in this book is something that is currently a very serious problem in our society: bullying.
Jewel is a young girl in her final year of high school. She is beautiful and intelligent, although she does not consider herself like that. Until she meets Kaiden, but we will be there soon enough.
Jewel has always been chased at school. She always walks alone and is the target of her colleagues, especially Lexi and Jess, who torment her all day and make her want to give up of everything. However, because he has a solid and loving family, she is able to cope with all the bullying. The bullying that is ignored by adults and guardians that don't want to do nothing about and prefer to pas it over and over again.
When Jewel meets Kaiden, something inside her changes. Kaiden manages to break down the wall and the defenses she created for her own physical and mental health. He is attractive, sensitive and affectionate and makes her feel as if she is someone unique and special. It made her feel loved and appreciated for what and who she really was. The momment Kaiden had seen her, he'd fall in love for her, and the more he knew her, the more he clung to her. Generally, it is always the girl to be charmed first. In this case, it was the boy.
Someone like him is not easy to find, much less someone as solitary and reserved as Jewel who would not let anyone down. I loved to see Jewel grow up with Kaiden and how, little by little, she was getting friends, few but good, like Amy and Finn.

Someone like him is not easy to find, much less someone as solitary and reserved as Jewel, who would not let anyone get in . I loved to see Jewel grow up with Kaiden and how, little by little, she was getting friends, few but good, like Amy and Finn.
It took a tragedy, someone who put an end to her own life because she could not stand the attacks she was targeted at school, to things would start to change. Jewel, Kaiden, and the other friends she had succeeded in doing, would go through terrible and painful phases of loss and impotence. Jewel will often feel guilty and responsible for everything bad that happens to her and her friends and it will take another brutal event to give her the notion that she does not control everything and can not even do it, in what says respect to those she loves and without which she can not live.
I really enjoyed the writing of this author and the way she puts the emotions in the right place and makes us feel all that the characters felt, were good things or bad.

By the end, I really loved this book. It took a bit at first to be hooked. I felt, at the beginning, that the situation we are dropped into, with a senior in high school being so severely bullied, for seemingly no reason, was a bit unrealistic.

Jewel is constantly bullied all her years of school. This is despite her being beautiful, smart, and coming from a good, healthy family, and a large enough school, that not everyone knows everyone else. In small schools, I can *maybe* see a situation like this (at the start of the book, Jewel’s status in school) happening, but I feel it’s very unlikely. There’s seemingly NO reason for anyone to not like this girl! She’s written this way purely to make the plot work. After the first quarter to third of the book, the cheesiness and unrealistic details are finally not so prominent, and it gets much better.

One thing that irks me a bit is this “insta friend/love-ship” desire. The new boy initially runs into her at a coffee shop by accidentally grabbing her coffee, instead of his own, and taking a drink of it. He immediately apologizes, buys her a new one, and while waiting, he asks a total of 4 questions, 2 of which concerned the coffee. The other 2 were about if she went to the local high school, and if he’d see her around later. All of which she was very stand offish, and answered with short, one word answers, and left. Anyone else would have written it completely off and figured nothing of it, but for some reason, he’s *enthralled with this gorgeous girl* and can’t stop thinking of her. Pah-lease. AND THEN, the barista just informs this random stranger of her full name!!! On the first day of school, when they run into each other, they make easy, joking conversation like they’re friends already. They just come into that easy friendship way too easily and quickly for reality. And I don’t know why, but I did not like it at all. ANYways…

There are **MAJOR TRIGGERS** for bullying and suicide, also a little self harm.

For my minimal knowledge in such subjects, I feel like this book does a really good job of showing how bullying can affect teenagers, and how that alone, just words or direct injury, can lead someone to committing suicide. It also covers, at least a little bit, how suicide is a selfish thing that doesn’t consider the pain of those on the outside goes through, afterwards.

This book was pretty good, a little trite in the story line, but a good lesson about how bullying really affects teens and how serious it can be. Jewel was a really nice girl, pretty, smart and had a loving family which is why the girls in her high school picked on her and bullied her. I guess it depends on where you live, but I think that the reasons she was bullied in this book seem a little implausible. In spite of my opinions on why she was bullied, she was and she didn't have any real close friends until Kaiden moves to town and takes a shine to her. She learns what it is like to have a person who cares about her and wants to be with her and stands up for her, and she learns to stand up for herself as well. The book does portray how serious teens take bullying and how it can drive a kid to extremes because of the shame, hurt and pain they feel because of treatment by their peers. That part is absolutely true and very real. In general, I think this is an important book because it does in fact accurately portray much of high school lief today. I was happy for Jewel and Kaiden and their friend Finn, that they all found each other and in spite of some bad things, they became close and stuck together, supporting each other. Thanks for the ARC!!!

A hard but well written take on bullying and teenage suicides. Jewel seems like she has it all, but at school she's dealing with a bully that makes her miserable. I felt like the author didn't try to milk this topic and over sensationalize it, but to show a realistic take on it.