Sunday, September 2, 2012

Review: Unison Spark


Unison Spark
Unison Spark by Andy Marino

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



This book was very confusing and kept losing me. I kept finding myself saying, "Wait, what?" and having to reread to see if I missed something. Nope. It was just completely disjointed. I really tried to like like this book, however it ended up being me just trying to get through the book in hopes that it would all come together. Sadly, it did not.



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Thursday, July 12, 2012

Review: The Awakening


The Awakening
The Awakening by L.J. Smith

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



I was really looking forward to reading this series, but I just wasn't impressed at all. This is one of the few times that I actually prefer the tv show to the book.



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Friday, June 15, 2012

Review: The Rook


The Rook
The Rook by Daniel O'Malley

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



Really enjoyed this book. Thought the concept of a supernatural agency was pretty cool and then to top that the idea of having your memories erased and trying to cover the fact up was kinda awesome.



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Review: Ashes, Ashes


Ashes, Ashes
Ashes, Ashes by Jo Treggiari

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



A post-apocalyptic novel where small pox makes a reappearance and devastates the world's population which is further decimated by a stream of natural disasters.

Lucy Holloway has spent the past year surviving on her own in the wilds. Now her home has been destroyed by a tsunami and she must find a new place to live. The only place she knows to go that might be safe from the Sweepers, the S'ans, and scavengers, is where the boy, Aidan, who rescued her from a pack of dogs lives. However, when she arrives there she learns it isn't safe there either. She must decide if staying with people is worth the pain that comes with becoming involved.

My number one complaint with this book is when Lucy is hunting rabbits with Del and Aidan. How is it physically possible to shoot a bow from your elbows?!? I don't get it. And if they sit up when they do it then why are they laying down on their bellies to begin with? There would be so much noise made sitting up into position that the rabbits would hear and scurry off before you could get your bow strung.

The editing could have been better. I guess when I read a published book I expect it to be without simple reading errors. Del's hair did not have hanks hanging in her face. I believe she might have had hunks, but definitely not hanks. That would just be weird.

I gave this 3 stars because it was entertaining and I didn't hate it. It just was a little lack luster for me and the characters didn't seem to develop. Do they just like each other for their looks? Because I am having a hard time understanding what it is again Aidan and Lucy that makes them like each other.





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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Anxiously Awaiting Arrivals of.....

There are several books that I have been anxiously awaiting the release of and have marked the day they come out on my calendar. I wanted to make a list for myself so I can do a quick check on how much longer I have to patiently wait on these books or if I am getting close to being able to let myself loose and get all excited and have happy fingers. So without further ado and in order of appearance...

Borrowed Ember (Fire Spirits #3) by Samantha Young.................................June 29, 2012
Wilde's Army (Darkness Falls #2) by Krystal Wade.........................................July 4, 2012
The Palace of Stone (Princess Academy #2) by Shannon Hale...................August 21, 2012
The Rise of Nine (Lorien Legacies #3 by Pittacus Lore..............................August 21, 2012
Outpost (Razorland #2) by Ann Aguirre................................................September 4, 2012
Hidden (Firelight #3) Sophie Jordan....................................................September 11, 2012
The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns #2) by Rae Carson.................September 18, 2012
Finale (Hush, Hush #4) by Becca Fitzpatrick............................................October 23, 2012
Rebel Heart (Dust Lands #2) by Moira Young.........................................October 30, 2012
Reached (Matched #3) by Ally Condie................................................November 13, 2012
Sneak Thievery (The Fade #2) by Samantha Young......................................Late 2012????
Through The Ever Night (Under the Never Sky#2) by Veronica Rossi.........January 8, 2013
Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3) by Beth Revis...........................January 15, 2013
Boundless (Unearthly #3) by Cynthia Hand...............................................January 22, 2013
Asunder (Newsoul #2) by Jodi Meadows.................................................January 29, 2013
Prodigy (Legend #2) by Marie Lu.............................................................January 29, 2013
Scarlet (Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer......................................February 5, 2013
Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2) by Tahereh Mafi..........................................February 5, 2013
Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices #3) by Cassandra Clare............March 19, 2013
Untitled (Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth...................................................Sometime 2013
City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments #6) by Cassandra Clare...........March 2014

The Rise of Nine (Lorien Legacies, #3)Clockwork Princess (The Infernal Devices, #3)Reached (Matched, #3)Finale (Hush, Hush, #4)Outpost (Razorland, #2)The Crown of Embers (Fire and Thorns, #2)Hidden (Firelight, #3)Prodigy (Legend, #2)Wilde's ArmyPalace of Stone (Princess Academy #2)Shades of Earth (Across the Universe, #3)Asunder (Newsoul, #2)Rebel Heart (Dust Lands, #2)Borrowed Ember (Fire Spirits #3)City of Heavenly Fire (The Mortal Instruments, #6)Divergent (Divergent, #1)Sneak Thievery (The Fade, #2)

Wednesday, June 13, 2012

Wilde's Fire by Krystal Wade

Title: Wilde's Fire
Author: Krystal Wade
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult Fiction
Publisher: Curiosity Quills Press
Publication Date: May 13, 2012
Pages: 324 pages
Series:  Darkness Falls
Reading Level: 16+
Content: Cursing, Mild Sexual Content
 
Book Description
“There is no pain in this death, only peace, knowing I am going to die with the one I love the most.”—Katriona Wilde.

Katriona Wilde has never wondered what it would feel like to have everything she’s ever known and loved ripped away, but she is about to find out. When she inadvertently leads her sister and best friend through a portal into a world she’s dreamed of for six years, she finds
herself faced with more than just the frightening creatures in front of her.

Kate’s forced to accept a new truth: her entire life has been a lie, and those closest to her have betrayed her. What’s worse, she has no control over her new future, and it’s full of magic and horrors from which nightmares are made.

Will Kate discover and learn to control who she really is in time to save the ones she loves, or will all be lost?
Review
 

By accidentally stepping through a portal and into another world imprisoned in darkness and war, Katriona comes face to face with the man she has been dreaming about for the past six years. Unsure if she should trust this man she has fallen in love with in her dreams, Kate is left to try to figure out where she is, who she is, and what is so special about her while worrying about her family back home. Not only that, her best friend, Brad, who stepped through the portal with her, now lies barely clinging to life after being attacked by creatures whose presence in this world has plunged it into darkness and Kate needs to find a cure before he dies. 


Krystal Wade's debut novel is a delightful read. Written in the present tense, first person, it was an adjustment, but I quickly became engaged with the story. It seemed the first few pages were quick choppy sentences also. Fortunately, this did not continue throughout the story and the writing became fluid and more enjoyable. (Maybe it was just that I was reading late at night and was too tired to process the words correctly too.) The world of Encardia is nicely built with just the right amount of description so as to give you a vivid picture in your mind while not being over done to make you want to skip ahead to the dialogue. 


Kate, Brad, Arland, and their relationships with each other develop and show growth and change during the course of story which we as readers want to see. I was glad to see Arland and Kate's relationship developed realistically over time. My one complaint with the characters was with Kate and her feelings toward Brad after she discovers he has betrayed and manipulated her. Her black and white feelings are a little too much for me given the situation of him almost dying and then knowing that she is never going to see him again when he is sent back through the portal. 

Arland, Kate's dream boy...literally, and the wonderfully exciting, enticing, suspenseful ending to this first installment of the Darkness Falls series will leave you anxious to get your hands on the next!

Monday, April 16, 2012

10 Ways to Relieve Your Hunger Games Hangover


So you have read The Hunger Games, watched the movie, read the rest of the series, watched the movie again, and are now dealing with the hangover. While you are dealing with the emotional aftermath Hunger Games has left you in, there are other great books to help you get back on your feet. Before you get yourself all worked up thinking that these are read-alike books, you should know that I haven't found anything similar to The Hunger Games. However, these books all have something amazing to offer and several have been picked up to be made into movies. So without further ado, my list of 10 books to help you get over your Hunger Games Hangover:

1.    The Host by Stephenie Meyer

Melanie Stryder refuses to fade away.

Our world has been invaded by an unseen enemy. Humans become hosts for these invaders, their minds taken over while their bodies remain intact and continue their lives apparently unchanged. Most of humanity has succumbed.

When Melanie, one of the few remaining "wild" humans is captured, she is certain it is her end. Wanderer, the invading "soul" who has been given Melanie's body, was warned about the challenges of living inside a human: the overwhelming emotions, the glut of senses, the too vivid memories. But there was one difficulty Wanderer didn't expect: the former tenant of her body refusing to relinquish possession of her mind.

Wanderer probes Melanie's thoughts, hoping to discover the whereabouts of the remaining human resistance. Instead, Melanie fills Wanderer's mind with visions of the man Melanie loves—Jared, a human who still lives in hiding. Unable to separate herself from her body's desires, Wanderer begins to yearn for a man she has been tasked with exposing. When outside forces make Wanderer and Melanie unwilling allies, they set off on a dangerous and uncertain search for the man they both love.

2.    Blood Red Road by Moira Young

 Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back. 

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.

Blood Red Road has a searing pace, a poetically minimal writing style, violent action, and an epic love story. Moira Young is one of the most promising and startling new voices in teen fiction.


3.    Divergent by Veronica Roth

In a future Chicago, 16-year-old Beatrice Prior must choose among five predetermined factions to define her identity for the rest of her life, a decision made more difficult when she discovers that she is an anomaly who does not fit into any one group, and that the society she lives in is not perfect after all.
4.    Delirium by Lauren Oliver

 Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the government demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.


5.    Uglies by Scott Westerfeld

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that? Tally is about to turn sixteen, and she can't wait. Not for her license -- for turning pretty. In Tally's world, your sixteenth birthday brings an operation that turns you from a repellent ugly into a stunningly attractive pretty and catapults you into a high-tech paradise where your only job is to have a really great time. In just a few weeks Tally will be there.


But Tally's new friend Shay isn't sure she wants to be pretty. She'd rather risk life on the outside. When Shay runs away, Tally learns about a whole new side of the pretty world and it isn't very pretty. The authorities offer Tally the worst choice she can imagine: find her friend and turn her in, or never turn pretty at all. The choice Tally makes changes her world forever.

6.    The Maze Runner by James Dashner

When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his first name. His memory is blank. But he’s not alone. When the lift’s doors open, Thomas finds himself surrounded by kids who welcome him to the Glade—a large, open expanse surrounded by stone walls.

Just like Thomas, the Gladers don’t know why or how they got to the Glade. All they know is that every morning the stone doors to the maze that surrounds them have opened. Every night they’ve closed tight. And every 30 days a new boy has been delivered in the lift.

Thomas was expected. But the next day, a girl is sent up—the first girl to ever arrive in the Glade. And more surprising yet is the message she delivers.

Thomas might be more important than he could ever guess. If only he could unlock the dark secrets buried within his mind.

 
7.    Under The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Since she'd been on the outside, she'd survived an Aether storm, she'd had a knife held to her throat, and she'd seen men murdered. This was worse.

Exiled from her home, the enclosed city of Reverie, Aria knows her chances of surviving in the outer wasteland - known as The Death Shop - are slim. If the cannibals don't get her, the violent, electrified energy storms will. She's been taught that the very air she breathes can kill her. Then Aria meets an Outsider named Perry. He's wild - a savage - and her only hope of staying alive.

A hunter for his tribe in a merciless landscape, Perry views Aria as sheltered and fragile - everything he would expect from a Dweller. But he needs Aria's help too; she alone holds the key to his redemption. Opposites in nearly every way, Aria and Perry must accept each other to survive. Their unlikely alliance forges a bond that will determine the fate of all who live under the never sky.


8.    Matched by Allie Condie

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

 
9.    Unearthly by Cynthia Hand

In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .
Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has a purpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Unearthly is a moving tale of love and fate, and the struggle between following the rules and following your heart.

10.  Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.


The synopsis from each book was taken from Goodreads.com. A site which I highly recommend for finding out a little bit more about a book you might be wanting to read and for finding new and wonderful books and authors you might never discover on your own. Take for example me, I discovered author, Samantha Young, on Goodreads. She is an amazing self-published author, with several series and novellas. The Fade, Fire Spirits, Tale of Lunarmorte, Warriors of Ankh, are all fantastic series of hers that would also help relieve a hangover. Oh, crap! Does that mean I should change the title to 14 Ways to Relieve Your Hunger Games Hangover?!? Oh, well!