Review: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Sarah J. Maas is a master at world building. There, I said it. This is a fairytale retelling loosely based on Beauty and the Beast, heavy on the beauty. The lush descriptions of everything draw you in from the very beginning and you feel like you can see, taste and smell everything Sarah describes in such a fantastically vivid way.

The first two thirds of the book do move at a slower pace, but it helps with the slow burn of the relationship development between our heroine, Feyre, and our beast character, Tamlin. And once it develops, holy moly. The love scenes are pretty darn steamy. We also have the development of the friendship between Feyre and Tamlin's emissary, Lucien. Lucien is a wonderfully sassy character and provides humor and at all the right moments. The friendship he develops with Feyre takes it's time as well, which is nice. There is no kind of insta-love to be found in this entire book.

The final third of the book is action packed and more than makes up for the first part moving slowly. We get tons of intrigue, fairy politics, violence and emotion in such a short burst that you will not be able to put the book down. We also get a pretty dreamy anti-hero with the High Lord of the Night Court, Rhysand. Look out future love triangle since both of these High Lords are completely shippable. If you're a fan of the Vampire Diaries, I'd compare Tamlin and Rhysand to Stefan and Damon. You  have the good guy with a dark side and also the bad guy with a heart of gold. You really can't go wrong either way.

I highly recommend this book as one of the best fairytale retellings out there as it is creative and turns the story on it's head just enough that you don't know where the next book will take it. I for one can't wait to find out!

Review: Between the Lines by Jodi Picoult & Samantha Van Leer

This was just ok for me. I didn't love it, but I didn't hate it either. It was an easy read and followed a Prince from a fairy tale trying to escape his story and get out of the book. The characters could act much younger than their ages at times and a lot of their actions were a bit silly. The premise had a lot of potential to be great since its every readers dream to have their book crush come to life and fall in love with the reader. But, it was executed poorly and played to a  much younger audience than I think it was aiming for. I can imagine a pre-teen girl loving this, but not much older than that. Even though our main characters are supposed to be fifteen and sixteen years old, they acted like they were in middle school and there was definitely a degree of insta-love that wasn't believable at all. Overall, I would say for a middle school girl this is the perfect book, but if you're looking for a gratifying or even interesting love story, this is not the book for you. I have a bit of hope left for the companion novel to this, Off the Page, since it's supposed to follow our characters once the prince has escaped the fairytale. Maybe once it's no longer set in a children's storybook we might get a bit more of an age appropriate tale. Fingers crossed.

SPOILERY Book Review/Discussion: Lady Midnight by Cassandra Clare

If you haven't read The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices yet, I highly suggest you do before you start The Dark Artifices. There will be so many interconnecting stories and plots you won't fully appreciate unless you have. I haven't read Tales from the Shadowhunter Academy yet and wish I had before reading this because I hear there are some storylines that would have also connected into Lady Midnight. I plan to rectify this immediately. Slight spoilers ahead for all the Shadowhunter books that have come before this.

Where to begin...

I'll start with Emma and Julian and their forbidden parabatai love. We saw it coming in City of Heavenly Fire. Like a car crash that you just can't look away from. I adore Julian and how strong he is. He is so young, but from the age of twelve became a parent to his four younger siblings. He was forced to grow up way too fast, but he did it to keep what was left of his family together after the Dark War ripped them apart. We also find out that since Uncle Arthur is a lunatic (per Shadowhunter terms) that Julian has also been running the Los Angeles Institute since he was twelve. That is a lot of stress on a person so young. His only outlet has been his secret love for Emma. Emma is a kick ass shadowhunter who reminds me of Buffy merged with Jace. She's strong and snarky and I just love her confidence in her own skills. She has finally developed the same feelings for Julian, but per the parabatai curse, since it is true love and they are parabatai they will develop warlock powers? Become super, power hungry shadowhunters who will destroy everyone around them? This is not looking good. The only thing this makes me think of is when Jace had the mark on him tying him to Sebastian and Clary cut through it. We know that Cortana can cut through anything. So I have this image in my head of Emma using Cortana, which is one of the Great Swords, to cut their parabatai runes so they can be romantically involved. I don't know if that is possible, but it's what I picture happening in my head.

Next, the younger siblings. I love that even though there are a ton of Blackthorn kids they are all so unique and have such different personalities that they each are interesting to read about in their own right. You never find yourself bored with their side stories or hoping to get back to the more main characters. You grow to love them and want to know what's going on with them too. Livvy and Ty are the twins who are just two years younger than Julian, but he treats them like children and acts like he's an adult. They are fifteen and he's just seventeen. Livvy is so fiercely protective of all her siblings, especially Ty, that it's hard not to picture her growing up to be a total badass herself. Ty, who is described as different, reminds me of someone who may have high functioning autism. He is so capable though and throughout the story he tries to prove himself to Julian, who only wants to protect him, but in fact is keeping him too sheltered. Then we have Dru, who is thirteen, but looks older than she is and has curves she shouldn't have yet. This presents a different kind of worry for Julian and rightfully so. Side note with Dru...did anyone else get vibes from Perfect Diego like he might be a possible romantic interest for her down the road? Lastly, we have the baby, Tavvy. He is seven and mostly quiet, but when he does speak he drops bombs on you. It's like they all forget he's there most of the time because he's always quietly playing or sleeping in a corner, but he is listening to everything they say and absorbs it all. Then all of a sudden he's like I know some important stuff and they are all just shocked. I love them all and can't wait to see their side stories continue in the series.

Cristina and Perfect Diego. Well, once we learned about the betrayal of Diego's brother, Jamie, who was meant to Cristina's parabatai, it makes sense why she ran away. I think Diego will end up being a stand up guy and part of Cristina's love triangle with Mark. More on that later. I just love Cristina's BFF vibe with Emma and how they can confide in each other. She has this calm, cool, and collected demeanor that nicely balances Emma's quickness and snark. I love when she says she wishes she could be parabatai with Emma and I feel like this is foreshadowing what will eventually happen. I think if Simon could go from mundane to vampire to Shadowhunter to Clary's parabatai...then these two will end up parabatai later on down the road as well.

Mark...I love Mark! Initially I thought Mark was gay as we learned of his relationship with Kieran. Then we learn that he also likes girls. I just love the diversity we get in Cassandra Clare's books. We have several gay characters, we have different races, different abilities (See Ty), etc. Now we have a bisexual character who is going to cause so much chaos and I can't wait. He is so wild and he really connects with Emma in a way even Julian can't. Her free spirit recognizes the same wildness in his and you can see how they have genuine understanding of that aspect of each other. I don't think it's true love like she has with Julian, but I do see them developing real feelings for each other. This is another love triangle involving Mark I need to talk about...with Emma! So after learning about the parabatai curse, Emma decides that she has to end it with Julian so they don't hurt those they love. She tries, but he's so determined to make it work that the only solution she can think of that she knows will hurt him enough to make him stop trying to pursue her is to date Mark. She know he said that was the one thing he couldn't come back from. But, when Emma proposed this to Mark as a favor and he shuts the door and says why lie? I literally could not wipe the stupid smile off my face for ten minutes. I know he will likely end up with Cristina (and maybe in some brother husband situation with Kieran and Cristina? She did say she felt desire in seeing them kiss. Just saying), but in the meantime, this is one I ship hard.

Moving on to Malcolm Fade. I saw this coming when Magnus first showed up at Malcolm's house and made the comment about how Malcolm and Catarina Loss had experimented with fault lines and then made the side comment to Emma about the convergence. That was the first inkling I had that he was going to end up being the Guardian. Then when he showed up at the Institute to help the kids against the Followers, it all seemed a little convenient how Sterling just randomly died when no one was touching him. Sounded like warlock magic to me. It does make me sad for him, but also afraid of what Annabel is going to be like now that she's back from the dead. Is she going to try to avenge him now? Will she hate her extended family like he did because her immediate relatives, who are long since dead, killed her. Will she want to take it out on the current generation of Blackthorns? So many questions are left with this. I am glad that Jem and Tessa are looking for his body and the Black Book, but shouldn't they be enjoying their lives together now? I know that's not exactly Malcolm related, but that's where that train of thought took me so I went with it.

Kit...the lost Herondale! I had a feeling in the prologue that he would end up a shadowhunter by the end, but I had no idea he already was one. I want to know if Johnny Rook was the Herondale or if it was his mother since we still don't know who she is. Will she end up being someone we already know? It is going to be interesting watching him try to learn to be a shadowhunter at fifteen just like Clary had to. I like that Ty is sitting by his door and feel like maybe having another boy his own age around will be good for Ty instead of just having Livvy all the time. I can't wait to see how his story plays into the rest in the way that only Cassandra Clare can weave different storylines together. It's a beautiful talent of hers. I'm thrilled that we get to see little snippets of our beloved characters from TMI and TID in this series as well. Again, hats off to the master of story weaving!

Diana, while she wasn't such a huge part of this book, has something she's hiding. I for one am really intrigued to find out what exactly she isn't telling the kids. There has to be some big plot twist associated with her and her secret that is going to play into the rest of the story. She seems to genuinely care about the Blackthorn/Carstairs kids so it has to be major for her not to have taken over the institute to help them.

I think that about covers my thoughts on this book. I know this was long, but there was just so much greatness that I needed to gush over. This was a fantastic first book in a series. I admit it did take me a while to get into it, but by the second half I flew through it. I felt like in the very beginning I would find myself wondering about the characters from TMI and TID every time they were mentioned and want to know what was going on with them instead of being able to really invest in Emma's story. However, maybe 100 pages in I was fully invested and caring about our new(ish) cast of characters. The bottom line is that I can't wait for the next book!

Do any of you have any predictions for the books to come? Did you see any of the plot twists coming? Let me know in the comments.

Review: Lola and the Boy Next Door by Stephanie Perkins

 

This was another adorable Stephanie Perkins book. I didn't love it as much as I loved Anna and the French Kiss, but I still could not put it down. Another fast and entertaining read that made me smile. The only problem I had with this one was Lola. She was frustrating in that she knew she was flawed and was making mistakes throughout the story, but then she just kept making them. I liked that she was at least aware of what she was doing and not trying to justify her mistakes to herself. It was like she was compelled the keep spiraling though. Cricket Bell is just the sweetest and most endearing boy next door you could ever imagine. He was the best part of this book for me. All his quirks and his sincerity just made him shine as a character. Stephanie Perkins is a master at creating these love stories with one really likeable character falling for one really flawed character and somehow making it work so that in the end we are completely satisfied. If you are in the mood for a quirky and colorful romance, this is the book for you.

 

 

 



Review: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

Anna knows nothing about France. Her newly wealthy father has decided she needs to spend her senior year at the School of America in Paris and she doesn't want to leave her life in Atlanta behind. Anna is abruptly dropped off and left on her own at her new boarding school and doesn't know what to do. Her next door neighbor, Meredith, comes to her rescue and immediately welcomes her into her small group of friends. Slowly, Anna begins to learn the ropes of life in Paris and also begins to grow closer to one member of the group in particular, the handsome and charismatic Etienne St. Clair.

This book was both absolutely adorable and also completely frustrating. The way Etienne helps Anna really come into her own and she helps him through his difficult family situation is so sweet and the friendship they develop warms your heart. Anna is written as a very realistic teenage girl, who is self conscious and awkward, but also incredibly caring and loyal to her friends. Etienne was the frustrating factor of this book for me. He showed interest in Anna from the very beginning, but refused to break up with his long term girlfriend for so long. Anna was also very open and showed her interest in him several times too, but these two could never be on the same page at the same time and it was like a year of torture watching these two dance around what they both felt. I was on Anna's side the entire time no matter how Etienne justified his refusal to break up with his girlfriend or how he tried to show it was Anna who had given him the signals she wasn't interested. He had a girlfriend! Of course she wasn't going to throw herself at him. When they finally do come together, it's in the cutest way possible when Etienne overcomes his fears to go after her. It was definitely a swoon worthy moment and Anna finally got her happy ending.

This is one of those books that you would want to read outside or at the beach enjoying a beautiful day with a smile on your face. The images created of the French landmarks are so vivid you can easily picture being there and the characters are written so beautifully that you are routing for them the entire time. When they finally get to their romantic climax you will be thrilled and completely satisfied. I highly recommend this one if you are in the mood for love.

Top Five Thursday: Worst Series Endings

The top five for this week are your least favorite series endings. Now for me these range from just disappointing to wanting to throw the book across the room status. What are your least favorite series endings?

1. Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins. I was just left depressed and unsatisfied. I felt like there should have been one more book to really wrap things up in a less rushed way.
2. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo. I felt like there was so much character growth for Alina that where she ended up was a complete let down in the end.
3. Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout. This series was a whirlwind right from the start that was so action packed and intense. The ending was just...meh...for me, anyway.
4. Allegiant by Veronica Roth. I mean...do I need to say anything more? *book throwing level*
5. Delirium by Lauren Oliver. This series right here...this was not an ending! I was so mad when I turned the last page & realized NOTHING was resolved. Not. one. single. thing!!! *book throwing level 10*

If you loved these endings, please feel free to tell me what you loved or if you have different series that you were disappointed with, comment and let me know. Lets all vent together! Have a great Fri-day Eve, everyone.

My Life Next Door Review

Samantha Reed has just ended her junior year of high school and is planning out every minute of her summer trying to schedule all her time wisely. Sam has very little down time, but her escape for the last ten years has been to climb out onto her roof and watch the large, noisy and happily chaotic family next door, who her local politician mother loathes. One summer evening, one of the many Garrett kids, Jase, comes over and changes everything. During the height of her mother's re-election campaign, tragedy strikes and it's up to Samantha to sort things out for herself for once. Will she make the right choice?

It turns out Jase has known Sam watched his family for years and he was watching her back. Their relationship developed in such a way that it felt real. They hung out and formed a friendship and she met his family and bonded with them as well before they really started to develop into anything more. It moved at a pace that you'd expect any teenage summer romance to realistically move. I especially loved that they were very responsible when it came to their physical relationship and really talked about it together beforehand. It's not often that teenagers are written as being anything more than hormone addled fiends. I also enjoyed Sam's relationships with all his siblings, especially George. He was such an adorable character to read.

Everything about Jase's family is such a stark contrast to Sam's family dynamic with her rebellious sister running off to spend the summer with her boyfriend and leaving Sam home alone to deal with their selfish mother and her creepy new political advisor boyfriend. Every scene with Sam's mother and Clay (the boyfriend) was painfully uncomfortable to read. I wanted to shake some common sense into her mother and tell her to set a good example for Sam of how a strong woman handled a relationship. Her mother was so unlikeable and Clay was so rude but smooth in his southern style. Then we would see Sam escape next door and see what a really close knit family was like and she blended so seamlessly with them it was refreshing. You feel like you can breathe after being under water in Sam's own quietly smothering home situation.

Sam's oldest friends, twins Nan and Tim, are interesting as well since you form fast opinions about them only to later find out that appearances can be deceiving. We see huge character growth in Tim throughout the story and it's really nice to see him reclaim his lost friendship with Sam. Nan, who had been closer to Sam while her brother spiraled, turns out to be a jealous and bitter person and we never really get any closure with her. Tim's storyline was very satisfying though because he's one of those characters you just want to route for.

I feel over all like the characters were all so well written and were well developed. This is a very sweet contemporary romance and is a perfect spring/summer read. If you are looking for something to brighten you day, this is the book for you. You will immediately be pulled in and fall in love with this story. I recommend giving this one a go any time you need a light and fast read that will make you smile.

The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight Review

Hadley Sullivan is having a really bad day. She just missed her flight to London to attend her father's wedding and now may not make it in time, which she might not actually mind. She's been angry with him ever since he left her and her mother for another woman in he met while teaching at Oxford. As fate would have it, she is now on the same flight as London native,Oliver, who is returning home for an event of his own. The two of them strike up conversation while waiting for their flight, then end up sitting together on the plane as well. They seem to understand each other and help each other work through their feelings on what they are heading towards on their separate journeys. The story takes place during one long day in which both of their lives are dramatically changed.

I found the love story to be cute, but the most emotional parts of this book for me were the scenes in which Hadley was opening up to her father finally. I liked that the main focus wasn't just on the love connection, but also on these two working through difficult family issues. Those were the more poignant parts for me personally because they were written in such a way that you felt the awkwardness and pain, but also the possibility of moving beyond and letting go.

This was a really fast read and if you're in the mood for a cute and fluffy romance, this is the book for you. If you've been in a reading slump or have just finished an epic fantasy and need something on the lighter side to get you back reading again, I would highly recommend this one.

Me Before You Review

Let me start by saying this has just gone to the top of my list of all time favorite books.

This is the story of a girl named Louisa, who is desperately looking for a new job to help support her family, who have fallen on hard times. She is set up with a position as a caretaker for a young man named Will, who is quadriplegic. Will used to live a very big life. He was an adventurer, a successful businessman, always on the move until he was involved in an accident that took away all his freedom. Now confined to his chair, Will needs 24 hour care and Louisa has been hired by his mother. Louisa quickly discovers that Will is a very unhappy man who takes his frustrations out on those around him. She also learns that Will is suicidal and has granted his family a period of 6 months before he follows through on his plans to end his own life. Louisa is determined to change his mind by showing him how good life can be. Over the course of those 6 months she and Will grow increasingly closer and end up falling in love. Will it be enough to stop him?

This book is so heartbreakingly beautiful. The writing style is wonderful and pulls you into Will and Louisa's world immediately. You will laugh and you will cry. Your emotions will be raw by the end, but in the best way possible. This is an absolute must read.