Book Review: Delirium

TITLE: Delirium
Book 1 in the planned Delirium Trilogy
AUTHOR: Lauren Oliver
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: dystopian, romance, drama
PREMISE: A girl finds love in a future where love is considered a disease.
MY REVIEW: What if love was considered a disease? This is the scary reality that Lena lives in. The government declared love a disease and has found a cure for it. When you're eighteen you get cured and Lena can't wait. Being cured means stability and safety and will stop people from looking at her sideways because of her mother who killed herself rather then be cured. Then she meets the mysterious Alex and starts to question the world around her. Is love really that bad?
Okay, I'll admit, the idea that you can get rid of love seems a bit hooky. But that is one small nagging detail in an otherwise very awesome dystopian novel by the brilliant Lauren Oliver. I was afraid that she would have a sophomore slump and was especially wary of this from the summary given (really, that is a bad summary publishers) but I gave Oliver the benifit of the doubt because I loved Before I Fall so much (if you haven't read it yet, you should). I'm glad I did because this has become my favorite book of the year so far (right next to Clarity by Kim Harrington). First off I love Oliver's writing. True, she's not always subtle but she manages to get to you without going over board and has some really great prose in here that are eloquent without being flowery.
But the main reason I dug this was the world-building in here. Again, the love cure does sort of bug me but it is one tiny detail that I can let go of because it creates this really scary future where feelings are repressed like they have never been repressed before. Think Vulcans but worse because it's practically law that you can never show love without getting arrested. Somehow this world seems even more scary to me then The Hunger Games because I seriously would not last in it. I like to express myself too much.
I would have maybe liked a little more buildup to the relationship in here but it's still ten times better then what I've seen in the past and it's rather sweet and given the circumstances I can understand the quickness so again, I'm letting it go. Characters were nicely fleshed out, dialogue was fantastic as always with Oliver, and there was nice pacing. May have dragged in the middle a bit but for the most part this was a fascinating book to me because it just made you think about how much love goes into stuff we do. From family, to our hobbies, to outright living. And I love that this book addresses that.
If you have been wary of this book because of the hype (and the idiot people trying to say this is at all like Twilight. What?) then please ignore all the hoorah. This is a good book. Sometimes they do get it right. I highly recomend it.
WHO SHOULD READ: anyone inclined too pick it up, dystopian fans, fans of Before I Fall
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five books of

Book Review: Forgive My Fins

TITLE: Forgive My Fins
Book 1 in a series
AUTHOR: Tera Lynn Childs
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Mermaids, romance
PREMISE: A teen mermaid finds herself bonded to a guy she hates.
MY REVIEW: A girl who's a mermaid but hides it accidently bonds herself to a guy she hates instead of the hot guy she was after in the first place. Now she has to deal with the consequences including taking him down to meet her father and the fact that he's not as horrible as she thought. Darn.
Here's the thing about Forgive My Fins, it's very clearly written for tweens. Okay, that's cool. Tweens need books too and they could certainly do a lot worse then this one. So with that in mind I can't really complain too much about the juvenile tone throughout the book because I'm honestly not the audience for this book. It also means I can't complain to much about the simple plot and obvious twists or slightly bratty main character either. Because again, I'm not the audience and this was never meant to be high literature.
So all that I can really say is that it wasn't for me and is a tad cutesy. But if you're a tween and into this mermaid business you'll probably love it. Just don't expect it to be amazing and you're good. The second book in the series, Fins Are Forever comes out this summer.
WHO SHOULD READ: Tweens, fans of Disney's Little Mermaid, Mermaid fans
MY RATING: Three out of Five tridents

Book Review: The Splendor Falls

TITLE: The Splendor Falls
AUTHOR: Rosemary Clement-Moore
PUBLISHED: 2009
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Paranormal, fantasy, mystery
PREMISE: A girl gets sent to her aunt for a vacation in a small southern town and discovers ghosts.
MY REVIEW: When Sylvie gets injured her dance career is pretty much over and she's not particularly happy. Especially as she just lost her father a few years ago and her mother just remarried and is shipping her off to a strange aunt she doesn't even know. While there she encounters two boys, ghosts, and starts questioning this heritage her father never told her about...
I liked this book. It wasn't brilliant by any means. Sometimes the writing was eye-roll worthy and I would have liked it if the author had explained stuff a little more because the ending didn't answer all my questions but perhaps that means the author is planning a sequel? I don't know, there hasn't been one announced yet. But overall this was rather decent. It had that nice spooky paranormal book feel and thankfully that was just what I was in the mood for. Characters were interesting though I wish Addie hadn't been quite so two-dimensional. The story was also rather interesting and I found myself absorbed in the history part of it.
So no, the book isn't uber spectacular but this makes for a great beach read I think and it's perfect if you're craving good old-fashioned paranormal stuff. I'm definitely keeping a lookout for the author's next book Texas Gothic which is coming out in July and is also a paranormal book.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of shows like Medium or Ghost Whisperer, paranormal fans, Caster Chronicles fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five cranky ghosts

In My Mail Box (40)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme by Kristi over at The Story Siren that tells people what books we've recieved over the week. All the links in this post go to the books Amazon page if you want more info on them. I only have 2 this week from the library because one of them is very big and also I'm not buying any books till the week after next where my library is having it's annual blowout sale where you can get books for 25 cents! The most expensive books will be two dollars and in some cases you can get a whole bag of books for five dollars. I got quite a good haul last year so I'm looking forward to this sale and consequently am trying to binge read my owned books to get them out of the way.

LIBRARY BOOKS:
Mercy Thompson Book 4: Bone Crossed by Patricia Briggs.-Trying to catch up on this series. 2 more to go after this one!
Vampire Academy Book 6: Last Sacrifice-I was going to wait till I bought this book when it came out in paperback but I discovered it doesn't come out in paperback till November. Well Bloodlines comes out in August so this just won't do so I checked it out.

That's all I have this week. What did you get in your mailbox?

Book Review: Clarity

TITLE: Clarity
Book 1 in a new series
AUTHOR: Kim Harrington
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: Paranormal, mystery
PREMISE: a girl uses her powers to help catch a killer.
MY REVIEW: Clarity, aka Clare has a gift where she can see visions by touching people or objects. Her whole family has gifts like this. Her mom is telepathic and her brother talks to ghosts. In a small town they're great for tourists. But that doesn't exactly make her popular with her peers. Then her ex shows up with a proposition to use her gifts to find a killer.
I freaking loved this book. It helped that it had a bunch of things I loved: avoidance of YA tropes, fiesty heroine who's not over-the-top badass and actually has a personality, murder mystery, paranormal gifts, and small towns with wide varieties of characters who aren't stereotyped to death and NO ANGSTING. Granted there was the obligatory love triangle but this is a love triangle I understand and can tolerate. The three people dealt with it and no one was made out to be a bad guy or annoyance like what usually happens in these love triangles and it was secondary to the plot which was mostly about the mystery. Which is how it should be unless your book is strictly romance.
The writing was decent, the plot was interesting, I wasn't bored while reading it and I loved all the characters who were niceley well-rounded. This is a very good debut book. I can't believe it hasn't gotten more buzz then it has. Oh well, c'est la vie. This is the first in a new series apparently and I must say I can't wait to read the next one. Sadly I have to wait a year ;pouts;
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of Medium, fans of paranormal books, fans of The Mediator series
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five gifts.

Book Review: Bloody Jack

TITLE: Bloody Jack
Book 1 in the Bloody Jack series
AUTHOR: L.A. Meyer
PUBLISHED: 2002
CATEGORY: Young Adult
GENRE: adventure, historical fiction, drama
PREMISE: A girl dresses as a boy and goes off to sea.
MY REVIEW: Bloody Jack is about a girl who due to various circumstances ends up dressing as a boy and becoming a cabin boy for a ship. That's pretty much all there is to this book to be honest. I don't really have that much to say about it. It was just okay for me. Which is wierd because I normally adore books where a girl poses as a boy (if you haven't already done so, read Alanna: The First Adventure by Tamora Pierce). But I don't know I just wasn't feeling this one. It honestly wasn't even because the book was bad or anything either because there were some very good things in here.
It was nicely written, had great historical research, I could picture everything that was happening. It was nice having a female who took care of herself for a change and it was nice having a book that wasn't about a love triangle or the angstyness of high school.
But I just wasn't into it for some reason. Maybe I wasn't in the mood? Or it could be because I kept staring at Last Sacrifice that is now on my shelf from the library...Yeah, that's probably it. So this is a nice book, I just didn't feel it but other people probably will.
WHO SHOULD READ: Tamora Pierce fans, pirate fans, Treasure Island fans
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five tattoos

Book Review: Iron Kissed

TITLE: Iron Kissed
Book 3 in the Mercy Thompson series
AUTHOR: Patricia Briggs
PUBLISHED: 2008
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: Urban fantasy, romance, mystery, werewolves
PREMISE: Mercy tracks down a murderer and finally deals with Adam and Sam.
MY REVIEW: In the third Mercy book, it's business as usual as Mercy tracks down a killer who killed someone and framed Zee for it in the hopes of starting a anti-faerie war. Meanwhile, she finally sits down and makes a choice: Adam or Same?
Here's the thing. I enjoy the Mercy series however, I wish it would get better. It never upped it's game for me like Women of the Otherworld did. It's fun don't get me wrong, and I love that we have a level-headed heroine and that she deals with stuff in a mature manner (mostly). The world-building is also really interesting. However, I'm not fully hooked on it like I am with Sookie Stackhouse or the Parasol Protectorate series and I'm honest to god stumped as to why.
It's still a decent series though. I just wish it would get...better. I don't know, one of those wierd things with me. Perhaps now that the annoying love triangle is solved (I hope) the series will be more interesting.
WHO SHOULD READ: Those that have read the first 2 books, shifter/werewolf fans, urban fantasy fans

Book Review: Blameless

TITLE: Blameless
Book 3 in the Parasol Protectorate series
AUTHOR: Gail Carriger
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: urban fantasy, historical fiction, drama, romance
PREMISE: Alexia travels to Italy to see the Templars in the hopes of finding answers for her surprise pregnancy.
MY REVIEW: In the latest installment of the excellent Parasol Protectorate series Alexia has been cast out from the wolf pack because Conall believes she cheated. Her family and the rest of society follows suit. Determined to find answers (and prove Conall wrong) Alexia, along with Floote and Madame Lefoix travel to Italy to meet the Templars who might give her answers and to flee public scrutiny as well as vampires who suddenly want her dead. Meanwhile poor Lyall has to deal with a drunk Conall as well as a mysteriously missing Lord Akeldama.
For some reason people on Goodreads say this is a let down in the series and that it's gone down hill since book one. Um...what? How on earth is this series going downhill? I will give that the pregnancy thing was slightly dragged out and silly but it still played out much better then similar plots in other series such as say Twilight with Breaking Dawn. Plus this book had one or two interesting twists such as what happened with Biffy (can't wait to see the fallout that comes from that. Hopefully this means more Lord Akeldama/Professor Lyall interaction? ;is a shameless shipper of these two;). Now if you're reading this series purely for Alexia/Conall action then yes, this book is probably a let down because they hardly interact at all until the very end. But I think there's tons more reasons to enjoy this book other then just that relationship. Such as the fantastic writing that is hilarious, many many awesome side characters (such as Madame Lefoix and Professor Lyall) and really interesting world building.
So sorry, but I think this was yet another great installment. While one or two things might have been better off changed it's still the fun, hilarious, awesome series I fell in love with in book one. I cannot wait for the fourth book, Heartless which comes out in July.
WHO SHOULD READ: Those that have read the first two books, Jane Austen fans, urban fantasy/steampunk fans
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five frilly dresses

Book Review: Cryer's Cross

TITLE: Cryer's Cross
Book 1 in the new Cryer's Cross Trilogy
AUTHOR: Lisa McMann
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: horror, paranormal, drama
PREMISE: teens start disapearing from the small town of Cryer's Cross.
MY REVIEW: Cryer's Cross is rather hard to explain. It mostly revolves around a girl named Kendall who lives in the small farming community of Cryer's Cross where nothing much happens. Then a girl disappears. She's never found and life goes on but then her best friend disappears and things change. Mostly the book deals with Kendall and how she deals with her best friend disapearing and then a few spooky scenes at the end and wham we're done.
For the most part, I liked this a lot. McMann's writing has vastly improved since Wake. Kendall was a nice well-rounded character, it was free of annoying YA tropes, it was nice and spooky but also had drama. It was a solid book and I'm definitely going to read the rest of it. However, I'm a tad confused about the ending. I don't know if that's the author's fault or mine either. I'm just confused by it and I'm not sure why this needs to be a trilogy unless the next two books are going to be about answering some of my nagging questions in which case great, bring them on.
But this is definitely a solie book. If you liked Wake you'll like this one probably. It's also a good one for kicking off my annual paranormal spooky books summer reading. During the summer I like to read paranormal books. I don't know, it's a thing with me.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of the Wake Trilogy, paranormal fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five school desksp

In My Mailbox (39)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren that tells people what new books we've gotten over the week. All the links in this post go the book's Amazon page if you want more info on them.

Just library books this week:
Forgive My Fins Book 1 by Tera Lynn Childs-Book I meant to read last year and am now reading due to my curiousity in this mermaid thing. The second book comes out next month for those who don't know.
The Splendor Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore-YA paranormal that recently got rereleased in paperback. I figured this would be the jumpstart to my paranormal summer reading.
Clarity Book 1 by Kim Harrington-YA 2011 Debut that looks interesting.

Well, that's it for me. What did you get in your mailbox?

Book Review: Kindred

TITLE: Kindred
AUTHOR: Tammer Stein
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: angels, drama
PREMISE: an angel from heaven gives premonitions to a girl while her twin brother gets missions from angels from hell.
MY REVIEW: For the sake of readers I've decided to try and add more description of books because after reading my blog a bit I realize I have the tendancy to jump right into reviews and the premises I give tend to be short. So from now on first paragraphs will be me trying to describe books to you. So Kindred is about a girl who starts getting random premonitions from an angel. She goes about trying to follow these vague visions and ends up kind of screwing up. Meanwhile her twin brother has been visited by agents of hell and he's now in their corner doing favors for them. Confliction between the two ensues because while they are now on different sides, they still love each other cause they are twins.
I admit I am still not totally sold on this angel thing. I really liked Unearthly, Fallen and Hush Hush have become guilty pleasures for me and I completely hated Halo, but for the most part I'm pretty passive on the angel business because I honestly don't get it. For the record I have not yet read Angelfire though I plan too cause it looks right up my alley. But Kindred? I really got into it. It is not a totally perfect book. Sometimes it dragged, romance came totally out of left field, and ending was slightly abrupt and a tad dissatisfying but I'm hoping that's because there's going to be a sequel in the future (please author?) also writing was random, sometimes it was good but sometimes I did an eyeroll at a bad description.
But on the whole this book is honestly what I've been wanting from the angel genre I think. For starters the author did research into angel mythology. It also goes into angel mythology from the jewish religion side of things. Yes, that's right, the jewish religion has angels too, it's not just a Christian thing. Who knew right?
It was also nice seeing a book free of the usual YA tropes. The girl has involved parents, no love triangle, slight angsting but it's kept to a minimum and is about legit worries, no whining, and no wimpy heroine falling for a bad boy who's a jerk with a heart of gold.
In short this book was refreshing. Now there is a lot of talk about faith in it but it doesn't preach to you. There even is some minor theoretical stuff in it that was rather interesting. If you don't mind stuff like this then I definitely recomend this book to you.
WHO SHOULD READ: angel book fans, those interested and not afraid of books talking about faith
MY RATING: Four out of Five angel wings

Book Review: Wither

TITLE: Wither
Book 1 in the new Chemical Garden Trilogy
AUTHOR: Lauren DeStefano
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: dystopian, science fiction, romance
PREMISE: In a future world where the human race is dying out a girl is forced into a marriage to a man she doesn't love.
MY REVIEW: I'll be honest I'm split on this book. Some things I loved about it, others not so much. Once again, we have a book that was most definitely overhyped and I must say bloggers STOP THIS. Please. It starts to set up people's expectations higher then they'd normally be and then they get disappointed when no, actually the book is rather average. Which, I'm sorry Wither is. Not phenomenal like everyone keeps saying, but not horrible either.
The Good stuff: the author's writing. For a first book, this is some rather good writing, a few bad description words aside. I really look forward to when her writing matures and is more polished because then I have a feeling she'll be more in the phenomenal category people are putting her in now. Everything is explained clearly, she tries to think outside the box, there are some morally gray areas in here and she tries to get you to think. For a first book it's not that bad.
HOWEVER the world building is really sloppy. Yes, she explains things clearly however the stuff she comes up with makes very little sense once you think about it. I mean for one thing how does a third world war cause the entire earth aside from North America to sink underwater? Details please. Also, where have I heard this premise before? Oh yes, a little thing called The Hunger Games perhaps you've heard of it? Second in this supposingly advanced medical world where we've cured cancer they haven't figured out one thing about this virus in fifty years? Really? Then I find it REALLY hard to believe that a advanced society like this would perfectly accept poly marriages as the norm. Please. Some sure, but you can bet feminist groups and even christian women would be like "um, hell no." I'm sorry, I think she just did this idea for shock value and while the relationships with the sister wives were mildly interesting it was just really hard to believe that people in a modern America would let this become normal. Especially as with society dying out wouldn't it be more logical for single marriages to be more popular instead of poly marriages? Especially as the women die first here?
I think the key to enjoying this book is to just not think about the details too much. Because once you do, it tends to derail it. Once I stopped letting the details nag me I was able to mildly enjoy this. Like I said, it's a very decent first effort. I just wish the world-building and small details made more sense. I also wish there was less focus on the oh-so-obviously predictable "love triangle" in here because that was frankly the least interesting thing about it. But this is YA so of course that's going to be the focus because apparently we're not supposed to care about anything else. Sigh. I like romance as much as the next girl but I like it as a SECONDARY PLOT. But apparently I'm alone in this.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of dystopian books
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five barred windows

Book Review: Dime Store Magic

TITLE: Dime Store Magic
Book 3 in Women of the Underworld
AUTHOR: Kelley Armstrong
PUBLISHED: 2004
CATEGORY: Adult
GENRE: urban fantasy, mystery, drama
PREMISE: Paige deals with raising Savannah which is not easy as now a prominant sorceror family is after the girl for her powers.
MY REVIEW: This is one of those series that is getting better and better. I was just sort of into the first one, I liked the second one a lot, and now I'm fully on board with this series. It probably helps that now it's about Paige who I find much more enjoyable then Elena and it's about witches this time and I'm sorry no offense to werewolfs but witches are where it's at for me. Now this book is not without it's issues. Sometimes it got repetitive, Paige had her annoying moments, and sometimes Savannah felt like an annoying Mary Sue but I chalk that up to her being 13 (and in her menstral cycle and with a lot of stuff going on). So it's not perfect and sometimes the prose were cringe-worthy.
However, this series makes up for it's flaws with just being outright enjoyable. It's nice to have a series that's not focused on romance for a change. That's not about a vampire and the wimpy heroine who loves him (Paige would probably stake a vampire before falling for him). I also appreciate the deep world-building in this series. THIS is how you world-build authors! YA authors please take notes.
I am now really into this series, especially now that they got rid of the skanky covers. I applaud this move. Especially since Paige looks nothing like the woman on the previous covers. She is mentioned to be a bit curvy. Now I just wish Briggs would do the same to her Mercy books because Mercy never dresses like the woman on the covers of those books (and the woman on those books is not Native American looking either). Sorry, this is a pet peeve of mine. Anyway, I highly rec this for any who are into urban fantasy.
WHO SHOULD READ: those that have read the first 2 books, urban fantasy fans, Mercy Thompson fans, Darkest Powers Trilogy fans
MY RATING: Four out of Five pentagrams

In My Mailbox (38)

This is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi over at The Story Siren that tells people about what new books we've gotten over the past week. Since, I missed last week due to family vacation this post will include last weeks library books as well as this weeks. As always the links in this post go to the book's Amazon page if you want more info on them.
BOUGHT:
Darkest Powers Book 3: The Reckoning by Kelley Armstrong-I can't wait to read this! I bought the first one in paperback because I wasn't sure if I'd like it (I hadn't read anything of Armstrong's at that point) and I'm anal about having all my book series match so I had to wait till the other books came out in paperback. However, as soon I finish this I'm getting The Gathering. No way am I waiting for that one.
Airhead Trilogy Book 3: Runaway" by Meg Cabot-Can't wait to get my hands on Abandon next.
LIBRARY BOOKS:
Mercy Thompson Book 3: Iron Kissed by Patricia Briggs-Trying to get caught up on this series this year.
The Chemical Garden Trilogy Book 1: Wither by Lauren DeStafano-I'm about halfway through. Not as enamoured with it as I wish I could be, though the writing is good for a first book.
Cloaked by Alex Flinn.-2011 book, I'm giving Flinn one more chance because I wasn't super impressed by Beastly.
Cryer's Cross Book 1 by Lisa McMann-2011 new series by the author of the Wake Trilogy (which I still need to finish, opps)
Bloody Jack Book 1 by L.A.Meyer-I've been wanting to try out this series. It's about a girl disguised as a boy (my favorite trope) who is a pirate.
Kindred by Tammar Stein-angel 2011 book that's actually pretty good so far.

That's all I got this week. What did you get in your mailbox?

Book Review: Spirit Bound

TITLE: Spirit Bound
Book 5 in the Vampire Academy series
AUTHOR: Richelle Mead
PUBLISHED: 2010
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: vampires, adventure, romance, drama, urban fantasy
PREMISE: Rose sets out to find a way to turn back Dimitri, but simply turning him back doesn't automatically make everything all right...
MY REVIEW: Yay, finally a book I can get excited about this week. I'm sorry I've been Debbie Downer over here on books lately but I've had rotten luck this year for some reason, every other book this year has been mediocre to outright bad to boring. I'm hoping it's just a beginning of the year slump or something. Besides I haven't gotten the ones I'm excited about anyway so maybe that's the issue. Anyway, like all of Vampire Academy I adored and was excited by Spirit Bound. Seriously, I love this series. Admittedly it is sometimes eye-rollworthy and I get definite Buffy flashbacks while reading this. But I happen to love Buffy so this is a point in the author's favor. Oh and she could stand to not summarize as much.
But for the most part this series is awesome and it's one of those that get better as the book series goes on. Rose is developing, not just in skill but in maturity as well but she's still the same awesome Rose too. In fact all of these characters are given development of some sort. There are multiple plots aside from the Dimitri/Rose romance angle to keep you interested and honestly, Rose and Dimitri aren't even really center of the universe in this series (which I adore because I tire of "oh our love is so epic, the world counts on us being together!"). Plus, it has characters I actually LIKE. The writing is maybe a tad average but the author is great with weaving plots together and has phenomenal dialogue.
With that cliff hanger I am not waiting for Last Sacrifice to get into paperback. I'm going to try and get my library's copy. Besides that way I'll be all caught up in time to read Bloodlines! Which is apparently about Jill and Sydney who is a character I adore so I can't wait.
WHO SHOULD READ: those that have read the first 5 books, Buffy fans, vampire book fans, fans of Twilight, fans of House of Night
MY RATING: Four and a half out of Five silver stakes

Just a note, I now have a Tumblr where I will post about various fangirly things such as tv, movies, and of course books. Come visit and if you're on tumblr let me know, I'll give you a follow!

Book Review: Fallen Grace

TITLE: Fallen Grace
AUTHOR: Mary Hooper
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: historical fiction, drama
PREMISE: 2 girls struggle to survive in Victorian England.
MY REVIEW:Yet another book I wasn't blown away by. In this book's case it wasn't that it was horrible. It was just that it was so DULL. There is some very nice writing in here, particularly when the author describes the historical scenes. But other then that and a good beginning I was just bored with this and waiting for it to be over.
Part of the problem is that it's predictable. Another part is that it's so repetitive. The sisters go through bad circumstance after bad circumstance and of course get rewarded at the end by getting a huge inheritance and everyone's happy! Really?
Again, this book does have some nice writing and if you just want a atmospheric historical novel but don't care about the plot persay then this book is for you.
WHO SHOULD READ: historical fiction fans
MY RATING: three out of five teacups

Book Review: Across the Universe

TITLE: Across the Universe
Book 1 in a planned series
AUTHOR: Beth Revis
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: science fiction, romance, drama
PREMISE: a girl gets frozen and then wakes up over 250 years into the future on a ship that's headed back to a ravaged Earth.
MY REVIEW: I really wanted to like this as much as everyone else did. Believe me, I am very tired of being the naysayer about popular books. It's not fun and despite what it may seem like lately is not what I've set out to be. Unfortunately I review my books honestly so I will just say that this book is...mediocre but shows promise.
There is some nice writing here, especially for a author's first book so yay author on that point. She explained things clearly and I was able to picture everything. She also did try to think outside the box and throw in some thought-provoking stuff and try to make the book interesting. Unfortunately she didn't try enough because everything in this book felt familiar.
Now I know there isn't a lot of sci-fi on spaceships in YA right now so maybe that's why people are so giddy about this and I agree I am intrigued by that and a girl stuck in the far future. However, the whole frozen and waking up in the future has been a staple of sci-fi for years so it's nothing new. Also not new is the guy falling for the girl practically overnight and for no real reason other then she's "different". Also there's a lack of character developement, or even character personality at all. No, author, throwing in random hobbies for your girl MC does not make her a character. Also, while stuff was explained, the stuff explained...didn't make a whole lot of sense. The plot also didn't make much sense and the ending was predictable. Honestly it just felt like a mish-mash of every other sci-fi stereotype out there (I even felt a few allusions to Wall-E in there).
The book isn't completely hopeless like I said. There are some good things in it and I think it's good starting point for getting YA readers more interested in sci-fi (if any of you haven't read it, I rec Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy if you want more of this). It's just that it's yet more of the same old same old and didn't really grab me like everyone else. But if you don't happen to read a lot of sci-fi this may be interesting to you. Just please know, the hype is overdone.
WHO SHOULD READ: Twilight fans, those not really into sci-fi but looking to get started
MY RATING: Three out of Five spaceships

Book Review: Shadow Walkers

TITLE: Shadow Walkers
AUTHOR: Brent Hartinger
PUBLISHED: 2011
CATEGORY: Young adult
GENRE: glbt, paranormal, mystery, drama
PREMISE: A boy tries to find his missing brother via astral projection with the help of another boy.
MY REVIEW: This book was so short I honestly have very little to say about it. It's one of the first YA glbt books I've read so it's gotten me slightly interested in reading more. Oh, and just so we're clear any bigoted homophobic comments I may get for reading glbt will not be tolerated. Your comment will either be ignored, mocked, or deleted depending on my mood and how rage inducing your comment is.
Like I said this book was short. It was sweet, mystery went by fast, and the mechanics of the astral projection were interesting. It's just that it isn't very memorable, you know? I'd rec this book for open-minded people looking for a quick read.
WHO SHOULD READ: fans of glbt books, fans of Geography Club
MY RATING: Three and a half out of Five incense sticks