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Archive for January, 2012

Legend by Marie Lu

Posted in Uncategorized on January 23, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Legend (Legend, #1)Legend by Marie Lu
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Well eighteen months ago I don’t think I had ever read a dystopian novel and now I just can’t seem to get enough. Legend did not disappoint. I picked it up and after getting through to page 50 or so, I was totally hooked and could not put it down (hence my not going to sleep until around 2am!)

I had a great time reading it, I found it fast paced with lots of action, some twists and turns and I found the characters interesting and enjoyed watching them learn things about themselves, each other and the world they both lived in. June and Day were both very similar but because they came from opposite backgrounds (June – rich, privileged and Day – from the slums, poor, a victim) they worked well together.

And the swoon factor (which I just can’t get enough of!!) was nice and just enough 🙂 And now to wait for book two…

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Darkness becomes her by Kelly Keaton

Posted in reviews, tagged , , , , on January 17, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Darkness Becomes Her (Gods & Monsters, #1)Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This wasn’t what I expected. At all. After the first 10 pages or so…. I.could.not.put.this.book.down.

It was like ….Ari is this pretty kick ass kind of chick (foster parents are bounty hunters and taught her to look after herself) and she is heading off to find information about her mother. She finds out she was in a mental hospital, then finds a letter from her mum telling her to RUN and so Ari tries to leave but ends killing a warrior type dude..who ends up vanishing into dust. I asked myself what is going on here. Kept reading and Ari (who I totally have a crush on) is picked up by a 12 year old mail girl and taken to New 2, which it turns out to be New Orleans which is no longer part of the US and is instead owned by 9 families…there were severe storms, cyclones, floods that devastated NEw Orleans and the government decided it was better not to rebuild the city. I was trying to work out what year this was supposed to be and later in the book found out it was 2026. Anyway, back to New 2. There was a little bit of voodoo but then this motley Crüe of misfits that Ari ends up staying with….well I want to invite them all to live with me, especially Violet with her little pet alligator. Each of these characters has some sort of ‘weirdness’ whether it is lighting fires with their fingers or hypnotizing people. And then it turns out the 9 families that run the town are made up of witches, vampires and shapeshifters. So I was turning every page quicker and quicker, getting totally caught up in this world, wanting to find out what was going to happen next. And of course the swoon worthy kisses between Sebastian and Ari were certainly helping me enjoy the story (although I now know the meaning of insta-love… They had only known each other for a short while and didn’t really seem to be friends before all of a sudden they were sharing steamy kisses…but it was still all good!).

And so here I was, loving this book, the writing style and the characters had totally pulled me in, there was voodoo, witches, vampires, mardi gras, a little girl named violet who were masks and had a pet alligator and some swoon…. What more could I want….. And then there was some Greek mythology thrown in to the mix!! OMG… It was a smorgasbord of things I love in a story, and it was done well. Not once did I feel like there were too many things going on, the plot was interesting and intriguing and each of the characters stood out with their own personalities.

*sighs* now I am going to look up book two to see if it has been published… Because I want this story to keep going!

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How to say goodbye in robot

Posted in reviews, tagged , on January 16, 2012| 1 Comment »

How To Say Goodbye In RobotHow To Say Goodbye In Robot by Natalie Standiford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Oh Lordy, how do I describe how this book made me feel? There were smiles, laughs, snorts… There were warm, tender moments, and then there was the ‘rip me open, chew me up and spit me out’ moments. Firstly, I love the title and I love the blurb from Libba Bray which says, ‘….wish that I were part robot so that my heart would stop breaking’.

Bea (robot girl) and Jonah (ghost boy) begin a relationship that makes me think of two people tied together by something so strong they will never be apart. As the back cover tells me, ‘it’s not exactly romance-but it’s definitely love. And it means more to them than either one can ever really know’. I am not saying I loved Bea and Jonah, but they both made my heart break in different ways and at times I did want to gather them up in a giant cuddle because I felt what they were going through. High school, friendships, finding your place in the world, pressure of expectations….it is all covered in this book. Moving onto some of the funny bits, I loved the late night radio program and the regular callers were hilarious. I so wanted to go to the ‘Party for the People from the future’, which was hosted by Kreplax. As he explains, ‘let’s say you’re a young guy in the future, say a hundred years from now. You’re hanging out next to your time machine, bored, and one of your friends says, “let’s go back in time.”…… You scroll through history, looking for a fun time to check out. You see thy a hundred years ago, some people had a Party for People from the future. A party specifically for you! Wouldn’t you want to go?’ hell yes I would want to go!

I know this review is all over the place but after just putting the book down, that is how I am feeling, all over the place. I am so glad that I finally read this though, I think I might need to buy myself a copy to keep on my bookshelves.

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Falling Under by Gwen Hayes

Posted in Uncategorized on January 15, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Falling Under (Falling Under, #1)Falling Under by Gwen Hayes
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

‘Everything changed the night I saw the burning man fall from the sky.’

What a great first line – I read this and thought, here we go, this is going to be a great read. And I did enjoy it, the story and the characters were enough to keep me reading, but I just didn’t love it. I liked the MC Theia but I didn’t really connect with her. Haden was OK, but again, I didn’t connect with him and I didn’t find myself swooning either! I like the idea of the story and some of my favorite parts were when Theia fell asleep and then…’went under’ and I do have to say, some of the characters from ‘under’ really gave me the creeps (I do get the creeps and scare very easily) and I had images of Tim Burton characters and scenes from the Corpse Bride in my head. And I am curious about Theia’s mother and wondering if she will make an appearance in book two or if I am reading too much into it. I would have to say to this book, ‘its not you , its me’. I just don’t think I was in the right place to love it but it was still an OK read.

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The Future of Us by Jay Asher & Carolyn Mackler

Posted in reviews, tagged , , on January 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The Future of UsThe Future of Us by Jay Asher
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had a great time with this book, maybe because I was a teenager in the 90’s and so a lot of things were just like my own memories! Emma and Josh made me laugh out loud. If you are old enough, imagine it is 1996. You have a computer with windows 95 on it and there is that screen saver of the brick wall maze thing or the pipes (it is all coming back!). Emma is connecting to the Internet for the first time and all of a sudden Facebook appears, except Facebook was actually around back then and so Emma is looking at Facebook 15 years in the future. She gets her friend Josh involved and as they sit there reading through Facebook comments and likes and pokes they are not too sure what is going on. I loved it when after reading comments by Emma about what she was cooking for dinner, about getting a haircut, about seeing a therapist, that Josh is sure it is all a prank. He says something like, ‘Why would people write these crazy things about themselves on the Internet… ‘

There really were two parts to this story, one was the comical, OMG-that-is-my-future part where Emma keeps on trying to change things so she gets a better husband and is happy, but the other part of the story is about Emma and Josh’s friendship and how it got a bit broken but also about how they can fix it.

This was a mixed bag for me, laughing out loud one minute, feeling sad the next minute, wanting to give Emma a bit of a shake to tell her to wake up to herself and then also feeling all warm and fuzzy.

It did leave me thinking though…. I wonder how much we can change the future by doing things just a little bit different now..and also…. What kind of stuff do I put on Facebook!!

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Under the Never Sky by Veronica Rossi

Posted in reviews, tagged , on January 9, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Under The Never SkyUnder The Never Sky by Veronica Rossi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Challenge: Debut Author Challenge

There have been a lot of mixed reviews about this book, I wasn’t too sure what to expect when I started it but in the end, I can easily say I enjoyed it! I found the storyline interesting, imagine living in a world where you could just pop over into a different realm (dinosaurs, Shakespeare, the beach…..) and spend a few hours with your buddies hanging out, except, That nothing is real and with the slogan, ‘better than real’, the people in charge of this world are more than happy with their people not having access to anything real. Aria, who is from this world finds herself shut out and placed in the outside and this is where she meets Perry *swoon* who is an outsider, who can smell peoples emotions! It was good being with Aria as she started to see the real earth, real rocks and dirt and trees. Aria and Perry both need each other in this journey to get what they want and I really enjoyed watching their relationship develop as the story moves along. I liked both of these characters and their interactions with each other made me want to keep on turning the pages to find out what was in store for them. There was action and fighting, a little bit of mystery (what has happened to Aria’s mother and what has happened to Perry’s nephew???) there were a few laughs and as per my cup of tea, a bit of swoon too. Overall, a good story and I will be looking out for the next book in this trilogy

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The Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

Posted in reviews, tagged , , on January 6, 2012| Leave a Comment »

The Statistical Probability of Love at First SightThe Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Challenge : YA Contemporary

I loved this book, loved, loved, loved it. You could say I have a crush on it. I finished it a few hours ago and I am still looking at it lovingly while it sits on my coffee table. Basically I look at it, then sigh with a big smile on my face. It is a great girl meets boy story, there are many cute moments throughout but it also goes a bit deeper than that, looking at how a 17 year old is feeling about her father getting remarried, the anger she is feeling and also the sadness. Everything felt very real to me, all of the characters were authentic and the chemistry between Hadley and Oliver…I wouldn’t say it was sizzling but it was definitely bubbling away. This will stay as one of my feel good books, whenever I need a pick me up, this will do the job!

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Blood Feud by Alyxandra Harvey

Posted in reviews, tagged , on January 5, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Blood Feud (Drake Chronicles, #2)Blood Feud by Alyxandra Harvey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

The Drake Chronicles are a great read…. Really, this is only my second one but it was fun and exciting and had just the right amount of swoon. For me, it was the kind of book that I could pick up and get lost in for a few hours and it easily satisfied my need for a bit of action, a few smiles here and there and some literary eye candy. Imagine a family of vampires, with seven brothers, all drop dead vampire gorgeous!!

The first book was mainly about Nick, this one was Logan….I am looking forward to book three, I wonder which brother will be featured in that one?

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Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John

Posted in reviews, tagged , on January 3, 2012| Leave a Comment »

Five Flavors of DumbFive Flavors of Dumb by Antony John
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Quote, p187: I would have cried too, but then I pictured Jimi bringing his guitar to life, his whole body transported by the pure power of music. And he didn’t look sad or regretful – he brimmed with energy, savoring every stolen moment of untainted joy. Live in the moment, he seemed to be saying. And for once, I heard the words perfectly. Live in the moment. I could do that. We could all do that.

So, this book wasn’t about Jimi Hendrix. It was based in Seattle and so Jimi and Nirvana both got a few mentions but I just had to add that quote because I love it. And I also love this book. I always enjoy books that have anything to do with music and this one didn’t disappoint. You find out at the beginning that Piper is deaf, and also that she has landed herself in the role of Band Manager for DUMB, the local high school band who are coming off a win at the Battle of the Bands. The first half of the book, I found it to be more about Piper and her relationship with her mother, father, younger brother and baby sister. The band members are hovering around the story and don’t get me wrong, it is a good story and Piper is a great character but I wasn’t really connecting with her.

And then somewhere in the middle it was like BANG, I was emotionally invested in her and her father and her mother and her brother and..the band. Now the band – Will didn’t really feature for me until the end but his role was so very important. I found Tash to be a proud, tough girl but it was all part of her exterior. Josh was….well there had to be a Josh and I held out hope for the entire story that he would be the kind of lead singer that I wanted him to be….Kallie was a bit like Will for me, although she was definitely a part of the story she didn’t really feature until the end and then there was Ed. A sweet, kind, coffee making drummer. I can’t leave out Finn, Piper’s younger brother who was like the invisible cord that bound the story together for me. And Piper, she had a few issues she was dealing with but I loved watching her discover music and how it can make you feel. So, this was a great book. A book about music, a book about relationships, about friendships and a book about a band (and i guess because I secretly wish I was in a band, this book really did it for me!).

Quote, pg 332: With a final deep breath I leaped in the air and began throwing my body back and forth, my right hand yanking the strings of my silent guitar like I needed my fingers to bleed. And when I closed my eyes, it wasn’t out of fear. It was because what I was feeling right there on that stage consumed me. I felt every part of that animal music, felt it eat me up and spit me out, and what emerged was a me a thousand times more powerful that Piper Vaughan. I was Piper Vaughan, guitar hero – spiritual descendant of Jimi Hendrix and proponent of pure anarchy. And I ROCKED.

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Firelight by Sophie Jordan

Posted in reviews, tagged , on January 2, 2012| Leave a Comment »

A hidden truth.
Mortal enemies.
Doomed love.

Marked as special at an early age, Jacinda knows her every move is watched. But she longs for freedom to make her own choices. When she breaks the most sacred tenet among her kind, she nearly pays with her life. Until a beautiful stranger saves her. A stranger who was sent to hunt those like her. For Jacinda is a draki—a descendant of dragons whose greatest defense is her secret ability to shift into human form.

Forced to flee into the mortal world with her family, Jacinda struggles to adapt to her new surroundings. The only bright light is Will. Gorgeous, elusive Will who stirs her inner draki to life. Although she is irresistibly drawn to him, Jacinda knows Will’s dark secret: He and his family are hunters. She should avoid him at all costs. But her inner draki is slowly slipping away—if it dies she will be left as a human forever. She’ll do anything to prevent that. Even if it means getting closer to her most dangerous enemy.

Mythical powers and breathtaking romance ignite in this story of a girl who defies all expectations and whose love crosses an ancient divide.

Hardcover, 323 pages
Published September 7th 2010 by HarperTeen
Firelight (Firelight, #1)Firelight by Sophie Jordan
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Reading the blurb for this, and then the first twenty pages and I was excited. A story about draki, people which are descendant from dragons..cool right. In the first few pages The main character, Jacinda, manifests into a draki (dragon/human) and goes for a bit of a fly with her sister before being chased by hunters and then to protect her sister she creates a diversion in which she is shot in the wing and ends up hiding in a cave. A hunter, the tall, good-looking Will then finds her, still in her draki form, but instead of killing her, he lets her live and their romance begins. *swoon*

I liked the story, learning about the draki, learning about the hunters, a few twists and turns and a fair bit of romance…. I know Will shows up at Jacinda’s house at 1am, just to find out where she lives, after getting her address for the school records but this is fine with me (I was also never bothered by Edward Cullen sneaking into Bella’s house to watch her sleep!). There was a fair bit of back and forth with their relationship, one minute they were all over each other then the next minute they were ignoring each other, but again I don’t mind this kind relationship tension. If anything, I probably would liked a bit more in the story about the draki, but this might be part of book two. I am glad I read it, a good story…..not much else to say.

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