# of Pages: 345

Time it took me to read: 3 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 50 pgs

Rating: 5 out of 5

 

Grace, Gretchen, and Greer could not be more different. Grace is a quiet computer nerd who strives to save the environment. Greer is rich, popular, and strives to be a senator someday. Gretchen escaped abusive parents at a young age, and ever since then has dedicated her life to hunting the monsters that appear all over San Francisco…before the monsters can hunt the humans. What these girls do have in common is that they’re triplets, separated at birth, and they all have the power to see the monsters.

Suddenly everything begins to go awry. Gretchen’s mentor, the woman who taught her everything she knows about being a huntress, has disappeared, and the monsters begin to break the rules they’ve always been bound by. Will the sisters be able to see past their differences and work together? Or will the very power that brought them together keep them apart?

Okay, first off, you know that spiel I went on last week about how I like it when YA books transcend their genre? If you don’t, then go back and read my review for Elusion. Anyway, so I gave this book 5 stars, but this book does not transcend genres. This may seem like me going back on everything I said before, but hear me out.

I’ve read several other books by Tera Lynn Childs. Primarily her series about mermaids. And I have to say, that every book I’ve ever read by her has just been amazingly fun to read. Like I tear through her books because they’re very engaging and and fast paced. And her characters are always just plain adorable, and her worlds so magical.

But this book is very firmly in the realm of YA. Like, if you don’t like books that were clearly written for readers aged 14-16, you will not enjoy probably anything that Tera Lynn Childs has written. However, what makes Childs stand out from other YA books that don’t transcend genre is that she doesn’t try to. Childs has found her niche, and she is very, very good at what she does. I mean, I’m 23, but did I still thoroughly enjoy reading this story about long lost triplets who fight mythological monsters? Yeah. But not all 23 year olds, in fact I’m going to hedge the bet and say that most 23 year olds wouldn’t like this book as much as I did. But I’m young at heart, so what can I say?

Alright, age range aside, I’ll get to the reasons why I gave this book a 5 star review. I’m an enormous sucker for any YA book that takes a spin on Greek mythology. Percy Jackson isn’t the only one out there, folks, just in case you were wondering. It’s turning into a whole sub-genre, and one that I could not be more in love with. I also really appreciate that Childs did something pretty unique in terms of the world of YA Greek myth books. Her characters are the descendants of Medusa, the mortal Gorgon best known from the Perseus myth as the monster with snake hair with eyes that turned people to stone.

Well, Childs spins her as a good guy that was totally persecuted by the Gods because they were jealous. It’s something I’ve never seen done before, and I liked it very much. It was very obvious that Childs did her research, but she also took lots of liberties and made the story and the characters very much her own, which I liked a lot. Several of these Greek myth YA books either try and borrow characters and stories too heavily from myth and don’t do enough research and make it nearly painful to read for someone who has studied a lot of myth. Anyway, so far A+ on the mythology aspect of this story.

The writing itself is great, and the pacing fantastic. I read the book in 3 days, 3 work days mind you. That basically means I couldn’t put it down. Were there parts of this story that were fairly predictable? Sure, but there were also parts that surprised me. The characters had a pretty basic story arc for each of them, but they had all of the components of a well rounded, three-dimensional character, so that’s fine.

I’m going to try and not do sequel reviews on this blog any more. That’s right, every book I review is going to be an original. And I do promise to try and get more regular with the reviews coming up soon, it is taking me much longer than I anticipated to get my schedule regulated. But I’m finally done working 6 day weeks, so hopefully I’ll be a little less tired.

If you liked Sweet Venom, try: The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan

Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini

The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter

Forgive My Fins by Tera Lynn Childs

# of Pages: 357

Time it took me to read: 5 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 51 pgs

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

 

Adelice has a gift. She has the power to see and weave the threads that make up everything in her world, a gift that means she will be called by her government to be a Spinster. Though being a Spinster means a life of glamorous parties, decadent food, and unparalleled privilege, it also means that she will have to leave her family and her home behind forever. But being a Spinster isn’t what it seems, and when Adelice arrives at her new home, she knows that she has to make allies, and fast. Because in a world of politics and desperate bids for power, Adelice might not be able to trust anyone besides herself. And if she wants to protect the few people left that she loves, she has to make sure that she has more leverage than the people who are trying to control her.

 

 

First off, I can’t shake the feeling that this book reminds me of the book that I read last week. It’s super weird, the premises aren’t at all the same, the style isn’t particularly similar, and the characters don’t have the same characteristics at all, so I’m not sure what it is. Perhaps it’s because I enjoyed them about the same amount.

 

Author Gennifer Albin wastes no time jumping right into her almost fantasy seeming world, though later it evolves more into a dystopia/sci-fi type universe. Normally I try and talk about some of the good parts of the book first, but I really can’t get past the biggest issue I had with this book, and that was that there were too, too many details. It is very clear that Albin had a clear picture in her head when she was writing this book, and I think that’s fantastic. I also think that she didn’t do the most amazing job transcribing that vision onto the page. Sometimes I had to go back and read a passage two or three times to try and understand exactly what just happened, and every once and a while I still couldn’t understand it after a few passes, so I just moved on. Albin’s concept of Adelice’s whole world of Arras being made up of threads of time and matter that the Spinsters can weave and manipulate is fascinating, I just think that I got lost along the way in the sheer number of details and Albin’s complex way of describing them.

 

Something that I also thought was interesting was that in the beginning of this story, I thought this was going to be an interesting gender power swap kind of book, where the women actually have all the power. And while that is technically true, women are the only ones that have the capabilities to be Spinsters, it is actually the opposite in terms of who holds the power in this world. Because while the women do the important work and wield the power of weaving the threads, the men have the true power in this story. They keep the women placated with fancy parties and beautiful gowns, while the male politicians make all the real decisions.

 

Adelice figures out the power structure pretty quickly, to her credit, but can’t do a whole lot initially to fight it. She rebels in her own smalls ways, and gets punished fairly severely for it. It doesn’t stop her, though, and I admire that kind of tenacity in a character. In fact, as protagonists go, I don’t have a lot of problems with her. Sometimes it takes her a while to figure things out that I, as a reader, understand a lot quicker, but I guess I understand that some things can’t be revealed until later for plot reasons. But I guess that if I were writing this story, I would have made things slightly less obvious so it didn’t make Adelice seem totally oblivious for not seeing them sooner.

 

I’m definitely going to pick up the sequel pretty soon here, because the end of this book left me with a lot of questions. I have high hopes that Albin will reign in her writing style a little bit in the second book, and that I’ll have a bit of an easier time understanding the “science/magic” behind the power that Adelice possesses.

 

This book was definitely a brain candy kind of book, and I think that it’s books like this book, and like Incarceron, that give YA a bad name among those who don’t know better. Don’t get me wrong, I think that brain candy books like this are just fine, for entertainment’s sake. I enjoyed reading this book and Incarceron, but they certainly weren’t perfect, and I don’t think that they were particularly substantial, and perhaps that’s why I was getting a kind of de ja vu while reading Crewel.

 

YA is my favorite genre, and I feel like day by day, the genre itself is becoming more and more cutthroat in who gets published, because YA has got to be one of the most highly monetized genres in publishing. I’m into it, because I have a lot of feelings about why YA is the most important genre because it is written for an age group where people commonly fall out of reading for fun, particularly in this age where digital media is on the rise and becoming more and more accessible. Okay, end rant. But if you ever want to have a conversation about this kind of stuff, hit me up! I have a lot of opinions and would love to hear yours!

 

As much as I hate to have this kind of thought process going in, I have a feeling that my book for this upcoming week is going to leave me with much the same feeling, but here’s to hoping that I’m wrong and it’s spectacular. Stay tuned!

 

If you liked Crewel, try: Incarceron by Catherine Fisher

The Maze Runner by James Dashner

Maximum Ride by James Patterson

After the End by Amy Plum

# of Pages: 442

Time it took me to read: 5

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 63 pgs

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

Incarceron is a prison unlike any other. It is a conscious, living organism that keeps its prisoners locked away. There are no windows and no doors, and no one goes Outside, ever. Because everyone is born in Incarceron, and they die there, too. But Finn knows that he came from Outside, even if he doesn’t have any real memories from being there. But with the help of an extraordinary device, Finn is able to contact Claudia, who claims to be Outside, and that her father is the Warden of Incarceron. Finn and Claudia must work together to piece together the mystery of Incarceron before anyone can thwart their plan to Escape, because many obstacles stand in their way: the Warden, the Queen, and even Incarceron itself.

 

Hi everyone, sorry that it has been a minute since I’ve posted a review. This was the craziest moving week of my life, but the dust is finally settling and I have a little time to sit down and write this review. But even though my life has been totally cuckoo, I have still been reading! I’m just a little bit backlogged. But I I should be back to my regular schedule of posting my reviews on Sundays this coming Sunday.

 

But for now, here is the review for Incarceron. I just have to start out by saying that this was a pretty funny book for me to be reading as I’m starting my new job. Because Incarceron is alive, but it’s a machine: It has some organic parts, but it’s basically artificial intelligence gone wrong. And I now work as technical support at an artificial intelligence software company. Luckily, all our AI does is help people sell cars, not keep them trapped in an inescapable prison.

 

Anyway, this book was super unique and interesting conceptually. And its uniqueness really made it so that this story was very unpredictable. Which is nice, as I like to be kept on my toes. I really liked Claudia as a character: whip smart, skeptical, and independent. All traits I like in my female protagonists. Honestly, I thought that Finn fell a little flat as a character in comparison. Finn felt more defined by the side characters around him, which I was far more interested in, anyway.

 

The book was basically split into two different narratives: Claudia’s story, which took place Outside, and Finn’s story, that took place inside Incarceron. And while I thought that Claudia’s story was quite fast paced and interesting, Finn’s was dull in comparison.

To summarize, in my opinion this story was unique and had a lot of potential, but was not as well executed as it could have been.

 

I know it probably seems like I didn’t like it very much, I’ve been focusing a lot on the negatives, but I did have fun reading this book, which is why it still earned a solid 3.5 out of 5 from me.

 

Unrelated, but I got a total of $75 to Barnes and Noble for my birthday recently, so I’ll be making a trip there coming up soon, and I’ll have lots of new and amazing books to review. Thanks again for being patient with my wonky schedule. Like I’ve said in other posts recently, once my life straightens out, I’ll be doing my reviews regularly, and I should be doing more daily stuff on this blog throughout the week. So stay tuned, and thanks for reading!

 

If you liked Incarceron, try: The Diabolic by S.J. Kincaid

The Looking Glass Wars by Frank Beddor

The Broken Hearted by Amelia Kahaney

The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

# of Pages: 393

Time it took me to read: 5 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 56

Rating: 3.5 out of 5

(Statistics above are for The Forever Song)

 

Hey everybody, just a quick life update. Like I mentioned last week, I started a new job this week, and it’s been a big challenge, so while I did read a book this week (The Forever Song), I really don’t really want to review the last book in series I’ve already done two reviews on. I’d rather review a book that’s unique. So that’s why I’m going to talk about Three Dark Crowns, because that was a book that I read just before I started this blog, and I’d like to review.

I’ll say a few things about The Forever Song first, just to sort of wrap up the Song of Eden series. I think that The Forever Song was sort of the most predictable of the three, but not in an entirely bad way. Just the two or three main plot points of the book I definitely saw coming, but as a reader I was satisfied because I like happy endings and strong character arcs. And all of these characters certainly grew and progressed and became more than they were in the beginning. And the whole story had good resolution, which I like. No loose ends, which always bugs me when a series ends, even if the author wants to argue that it’s more “realistic” that everything isn’t wrapped up in a neat bow. In my opinion, a vampire dystopia doesn’t need to be particularly “realistic”. I do recommend this series overall, I think that if you want to read a vampire series that is unique in it’s dystopic universe, it’s a good choice. But if you want the best of Julie Kagawa, the Iron Fey series for sure. Also she’s got a new series about dragons, but I’m not super into dragons, so I probably won’t pick them up (at least not until I get some sort of confirmation that they are excellent).

 

For generations in the Queendom of Fennbirn, three royal sisters, triplets always, are separated at a young age, knowing that one day they will grow up and have to attempt to kill each other to take the crown as their own. Each sister has her own unique form of power, one a poisoner, one a naturalist, and one an elemental. They are raised by foster families that teach them to use their power, hoping that one day their sister will be Queen and rule them all. For generations the poisoners have ruled Fennbirn, but there are whispers that this will be the year a new power will rise. Fate, family, and prophecy affects each sister differently, but doesn’t change what they all know to be true. There is one crown only, and the last one standing at the end of their sixteenth year will be Queen.

Anyway, now I’ll talk a bit about Three Dark Crowns, but I’m going to be pretty brief, because I did read it a couple of months ago, and because I’m running short on time and energy. I appreciate the patience of anyone who reads my blogs weekly, because I know these last couple of weeks have been a little sporadic on timing and quality of blogs. But I am human, and I can only really do what my life allows right now. But when things slow down, I promise I’m going to do more daily post stuff, maybe even more than one review a week. I’d love to start a throw back Thursdays for book recommendations, and maybe a compilation of recommended books by genre.

Sorry, back to the point. Three Dark Crowns was a book I ended up liking a lot more than I thought I was going to. I’d rate it a solid 4 out of 5 stars. The fantasy world that Blake has created is immersive, and the powers that the characters possess are original and capable of moving the story along in unpredictable ways. Original books such as this are usually far less predictable, and this book was no exception. One of my favorite parts is that I didn’t like any sister more or less. I didn’t want one of them to win, or one in particular to lose. All three sisters have their strengths and weaknesses as characters. It’s difficult, because as a writer I think that it would be fabulous to actually have two of the sisters die and one win supremacy, because even though that’s the premise of the book, I kind of  think that these sisters will find a way to break the cycle of sororicide (the killing of one’s sister). As a reader I hope that will happen in the next book, because I like all of the sisters, and I don’t want any of them to die in the end.

I think that the best part of this book is the power that they give women. All of the rulers of Fennbirm since the beginning of time are Queens, not Kings, and the women tend to have more magic in this realm. All of the main characters are women. The men, if not merely plot devices, are obviously all secondary counterparts to the women of this story. In fact, I think that if all of the male characters were taken out of this story, not a whole lot would change. The romantic subplots of this story are few, and clearly secondary to which woman is going to take power.

The one reason that I took a star away is because it starts slow. Even though the premise is interesting from the start, it really didn’t grab me until about a quarter of the way in.

Okay, anyway, I promise that next week I am going to have a fresh book for you, on time, that is a full and comprehensive review. And more good stuff will be coming for this blog, like I said above. Sorry again for the inconsistency, I just have to get my life on track. But just remember, even though I’m currently working six day, 48 hour weeks and getting ready to move, I still have time to read a book a week, and you do too.

P.S. Normally I’d put an “If you liked” down here as well, but since I read and talked about two very different books this week, I’m not going to put anything. Which feels lame, I know, but I promise it’ll get better. Please stay tuned!

 

 

# of Pages: 459

Time it took me to read: 5 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 66

Rating: 5 out of 5

(Author’s Note: the review below is actually for both Now I Rise (the book I read this week), and And I Darken, it’s prequel, which I read last year. There are some light, unfortunately necessary spoilers for the first book in this review, but there wasn’t a lot I could do. If you absolutely cannot abide by spoilers of any kind, I’d skip this review.)

 

In a world that continues to crumble and darken each day, two siblings must rise. Lada Dracul has chosen to leave her only brother, Radu, and the man she loves, Mehmed, sultan of the Ottoman Empire. She has known since she was a child that her native country of Wallachia is her destiny and that she belongs on the throne. With a group of ex-Ottoman soldiers at her back, she leads the charge to take the throne she knows she deserves. But the roads are paved with blood and blades, and Lada must make decisions she never anticipated to emerge victorious.

 

Radu was a vulnerable child, always the opposite of his fearsome sister. Now that she is gone, his loyalties lay only to Mehmed, the sultan he loves but knows he can never have. Given a dangerous mission outside the Ottoman capital, Radu travels to Constantinople with his loyal wife Nazira, who use each other to shelter the true nature of their affections. Their companion is Cyprian, the charming cousin of Emperor Constantine, and during Radu’s time in the city, he must abandon everything he has ever known in order to survive.

 

Hi guys, sorry this is posting late this week. I started a new job yesterday and things have been hectic for the last little bit.

 

Anyway, this book feels a little bit tough to review. Only because it’s a sequel, and I read the first book over a year ago, so it was never reviewed on this blog. I really don’t want to post any spoilers for the original book, though I kinda had to do it in the blurb above. So gosh, I guess I’ll give a quick summary of the first book below, and then talk as much as I can about the sequel so that it makes sense.

 

The first book, And I Darken, is a historical fiction piece that turns Vlad the Impaler, one of history’s most famously bloodthirsty characters, into a girl, Lada. It tells the story of her and her younger brother, Radu, a gentle soul, as they are forced to leave their native land of Wallachia to be royal hostages to the Ottoman Empire. This first book tells of the coming of age story of Lada, Radu, and their friend, Mehmed, a son of the sultan by a concubine, unlikely to ever see the throne. With Lada’s ferocity, Mehmed’s cunning, and Radu’s personality, the three are a deadly team that do what they must to survive in the beautiful but dangerous court of the Ottoman Empire. But hearts will be broken and loyalties tested when it turns out that three children who were once a team grow into adults who have very different paths.

 

I’m not doing a particularly good job of really describing what these books are about,  but I’m really trying to be vague and non-spoilery. These books a set in a rich, well-researched historical background, but are so fantastical it’s almost impossible to believe that much of the historical narrative, at least, is true. I have to admit, this isn’t a historical period that I know much about, but I had a morbid fascination with Vlad the Impaler when I was about fourteen and did a lot of research on “real life” vampires. I wish I could remember the name of that great book I read that had short histories on real vampire myths and historical figures that were feared as vampires, like Vlad the Impaler and Mary Bathory.

 

The book I’m actually trying to write about, Now I Rise, is just as well written and researched as its predecessor. Lada is a wickedly fun character to read about, as bloodthirsty and deadly as her historical inspiration. She somehow manages to maintain her humanity, however, which is an astounding feat. Radu is sensitive from the start of his life, but grows useful politically as he ages. In Now I Rise, Radu becomes trapped in the city of Constantinople during the Ottoman siege. Radu has to abandon all his morals and qualms and sensitivities if he is to survive. Each must learn to think like their sibling, which Radu manages with some success, and Lada tries, but struggles with. Anyway, not only those two, but all other characters, such as Mehmed, Constantine, Cyprian, Nazira, and Bogdan are rich additions to the story of the Dracul siblings.

 

The only thing that I have to say against this book, and it’s not even necessarily a negative, is that it’s really heavy. I found the sequel easy to read, but that was only because I knew the characters from the first book. And I Darken is dense with historical references and backstory, but it’s all very interesting and important, it just took me a little bit to get through because, as someone who a) doesn’t read a lot of historical fiction, and b) knows very little about this period in history, it was a lot.

 

But I absolutely recommend this series, 100%. It is a wonderful reimagining of a fascinating period of history. It’s a rich, heavy, decadent bite of literature, but absolutely worth the slightly slow, foggy feeling that accompanies it.

 

Sorry again about the delay, I hope to be timely this week. See you next time!

 

If you liked Now I Rise, or And I Darken, try: Paranormalcy by Kiersten White

The Historian by Elizabeth Kostova

Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare

The Amulet of Samarkand by Jonathan Stroud

 

# of Pages: 601

Time it took me to read: 3 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 86

Rating: 5 out of 5

 

Elloren Gardener has a lot to live up to. She is the only granddaughter of the Black Witch, the savior of her people. Elloren has been raised by her gentle uncle and her two brothers out in the countryside, away from the politics of the Western Realm. But when her aunt, an official in her country’s government, comes to collect her and take her to the University, the world will suddenly become much bigger and more complex. Because though Elloren has always known she has no magic, people expect certain things of her. Elloren struggles to learn the difference between what her people tell her is the right thing, and what she feels in her heart is the right thing. History is set to repeat itself, because a new threat is rising, and a new Black Witch must rise to face it. Elloren must make alliances fast, because she can’t do it all on her own. But all alliances come with a price, and Elloren must make the decision to do what is easy, or what is right.

 

Oh my gosh, I love, love, LOVED this book. I know I said Carry On was my book of the year for 2017 so far, but I think this one might have it beat. I don’t know, I can’t say, I’ll decide at the end of the year, but I absolutely devoured this book. I read a six hundred page book in three days, and honestly, I read probably about 350 pages of it on the last day when I had the most time.

This book is the pure essence of what fantasy should be. It is packed with magic, dragons, elves, and all other manner of creatures. But it is also, without a doubt, the most relevant and relatable fantasy book that I have ever read.

When I first started reading this book, I was immediately sucked into the world and how it worked. It is clear that Forest put a lot of effort into creating her sometimes recognizable, but totally unique take on fantasy creatures, and into her world’s rich history, including unique religions and belief systems for her different cultures, and politics and rituals that are totally distinctive and absolutely riveting.

However, though the world had me sold from page one, Elloren frustrated the living hell out of me. Why? Because she is quite possibly the most naïve and ignorant main character I have ever read. Like I was irritated with her almost to the point of being enraged. Because this book is about politics, history, and racism. Like modern, legitimate racism, fitted to the fantasy world. Elloren is a part of the race, named after her distant relative, the Gardenarians. These are a race of mages that are extremely religious and conservative, but are the only race that is capable of wand magic. And their holy book teaches them that they are the superior race because of this, and that they are the rightful leaders of the Western Realm because they have a long history of being oppressed and they overcame that (thanks to the help of Elloren’s famous grandmother, the Black Witch).

I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to get over how little I thought of Elloren as a character, but then I had a breakthrough. Her ignorance is brilliant and necessary. In fact, I think most main characters should be as shaped by their environments as Elloren is. She is raised by her kind hearted uncle and her sweet, loving brothers, so she’s a good person, at her core. But she has also been raised to believe that her grandmother was the savior of all of her people, a saint who was a martyer to the cause of bringing the Gardenarians to their rightful position as the superior race of the Western Realm. Their religion even tells her that the Gardenarians are the righteous children of the Ancient One, so of course she’s going to believe what she’s told. She’s never had an experience that told her a different side of the story. Until she goes out in to the world. I don’t want to spoil anything, because I think that ANYONE who is a fan of fantasy should read this book. Because it is so relevant to our society. Like, Elloren has to learn all about historical bias, which is something that most people I know could stand to learn something about. History in our schools is taught with such a bias toward the American side of things, it’s insane. It’s a real problem in our world, and it’s a real problem for Elloren.

Seriously, seriously, I cannot rant and rave enough about how IMPORTANT this book is. Because this book is a viciously fun read that totally has applicable lessons for our every day life, but it doesn’t preach them or shove them in your face. Like I remember getting about two hundred pages in, reading a certain part of the book, looking up and saying out loud to no one, “Oh my god, this book is about RACISM!” And it is. Like I could honestly sit here and summarize for hours why this book is a triumph in that regard, but I’m going to try and talk for a while about the many other reasons why I loved this book.

The cast of characters was so enormous, and each character was so different. Typically I think that books that have this many relevant characters can get a bit bogged down. Like, how am I supposed to remember all these names and who everyone is. And there are a few moments in this book where I kind of felt that way, but the thing is, they’re all important! No two characters in this book serve the same purpose, and that’s an insane success. All of the people who surround Elloren in this story have a very specific purpose, something that they teach her. Sometimes it’s obvious, but often times it’s subtle.

I’ll use a non-spoilery example. Echo Flood is a young Gardenarian who goes to school with Elloren, and who Elloren’s aunt wishes her to befriend. She is married (or “wandfasted”) already, dresses conservatively, and comes from a good family. At first, Elloren really likes Echo. She feels like Echo is nice to her when few others, even those of her own race, aren’t. But then Echo pulls away from Elloren, and she wonders why. She later overhears her saying something along the lines of “well, I just couldn’t be around her anymore because she insisted on hanging out with half-breeds”. She means a childhood friend of Elloren’s, a Gardenarian who has an unusual coloring of his hair that means he might have impure blood.

Now, Echo is not that important of a character in the overall scope of things, and there are other characters that give much more obvious examples of the racism in her world, but even I liked Echo in the beginning, until her true colors showed. She was a truly well written character that really was just one of the many nails in the coffin of the racism lessons of this book.

Just to quickly summarize my super ranty points: amazingly unique and detailed world, incredibly engaging religions and political systems, main character that is so singularly ignorant and a total product of her culture, huge cast of amazingly different and important side characters, well-paced from the start, and plot that is super complex and interesting. And of course, how totally woke this book is. Honestly, I’d give it higher than a 5 out of 5 if I believed in that sort of thing. I have never read a book like this, and all I want is more! But I have to wait until next year, and I’m depressed about it.

Please, please, please read it so I can talk about it with people. If you can’t afford to buy it, try using your local library. I used it though so much of my childhood, but haven’t used it so much in my adulthood, but I’m getting back into the habit. As much as I like to own books, I’m also pretty poor, and going to a wonderful world where books are free and they have every book that I could even conceive of, is pretty amazing. Wow, they should be paying me.

Anyway, I’ll sign off now. If you’ve read this book, please send me a message or post a comment because I know literally nobody else who’s read it yet and I’m dying. See you all next week!

 

If you liked The Black Witch, try: Sea of Shadows by Kelley Armstrong

Cry of the Icemark by Stuart Hill

Poisen Study by Maria V. Snyder

Wild Magic by Tamora Pierce

 

 

 

# of Pages: 399

Time it took me to read: 3 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 57

Rating: 4.5 out of 5

 

Allison has become the monster that she always feared: she’s a vampire, and there is no way for her to control her need for human blood. But she has promised herself that she’ll never lose her humanity. She delivered the humans she was travelling with to Eden, their safe haven, and now she must go after her vampire sire, Kanin, who’s distress calls to her in her dreams. 

During this thrilling sequel to The Immortal Rules, Allison will find unlikely allies and run into shadows from her past. But in the vampire world, Allison will discover that it is often difficult to determine who is the hunter and who is the prey.

 

Hi everybody, so this is my first review of a sequel to a book I’ve already read, so this will be kind of interesting. This review may technically contain spoilers to The Immortal Rules, so if you are wanting to check that one out, maybe skip this review for now. You’ve been warned.

Anyway, I really liked this book, a lot more than I liked the first one. And for me, that’s always what I’m looking for when I read series. I look for books that get better and better as the series goes on, and so far Kagawa is delivering.

At the end of the last book, Allison had to leave her humans, including Zeke, behind in Eden so she could go look for Kanin, her vampire mentor, who had been kidnapped and was being tortured. I was really hoping this book wouldn’t go too long without having Zeke come back, and all I’ll say is I wasn’t disappointed.

A lot of my problems with the first book were resolved in this one. I feel as if Allison was a lot more consistent as a character, she wasn’t as all over the place as she was in the first book. Also, the story picked up a lot more quickly in this one, there wasn’t as much backstory to trudge through. Though, to be fair, in this story a lot of the stuff that I assumed was fairly useless backstory became pretty relevant to the plot in this sequel, so even though it was super heavy on the background in the first book, much of it came into play during this one.

This book continues Kagawa’s trend of writing a unique world of dystopia. It’s typical in the way that monsters outnumber the humans, but unique in that the main character is one of the monsters, and in this book, Allison never tries to deny that she is a monster, which I think is some really great character development for her.

My favorite thing about this story, I think, is that there is this one character, Stick, from Allison’s past, that used to be her friend. He goes through this crazy transformation and basically becomes her enemy, and I thought that by the end they would maybe reconcile at least, if not end up working together. But by the end, there was no redemption arc for him at all, and it was totally brutal and vicious, but I thought it was a daring choice and I liked it a lot.

I guess I should probably justify why this book isn’t getting a full five stars, and, you know, it’s kind of difficult to put into words. I think it’s just because this book, even though it really is paced much better than its prequel, is still a little bit slow for me. It doesn’t grip me and keep me flipping pages rapidly. Like I could basically put that book down at any point during the climax and not be dying to know what happens, and that’s one of my favorite things about reading.

In the end, I’d absolutely recommend this series. Even though the first book didn’t get a totally favorable review for me, I think that you should definitely give it a try, particularly if you like either dystopia or are looking to read a very unique vampire story. And I can’t wait to read the last book in the trilogy, I’m sure you’ll hear from me about that soon.

Typically, I’d post four other similar books that you should read if you enjoyed The Eternity Cure, but it would basically be the same ones I recommended for The Immortal Rules, so I’m going to skip that this time.

If you missed my review for The Immortal Rules, click the link and it’ll take you there. See you all next week!

# of Pages: 357

Time it took me to read: 4 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 51

Rating: 4 out of 5

The war between the Greeks and the Trojans has been going on for ten years. The citizens of Troy are besieged in their own walls and everyone from the lowliest servant to the king himself is hungry and tired, ready for the war to be at its end. And though there is no one inside the walls that isn’t affected by the war, sisters Marpessa and Xanthe have other problems of their own. Marpessa is a servant dear to Helen, the face that launched a thousand ships, while Xanthe is nursemaid to Astyanax, son of Andromache and Hector, crown prince and hero of Troy.

One day while Xanthe helps tend to the wounded soldiers, she is unable to escape Eros’ arrow and falls hard for Alastor, one of her patients. And that moment, while it may not change the outcome of the war, will change the lives of both sisters and many others just trying to get through each day as the Trojan war goes on and on.

 

When my friend Emily handed me this book in Barnes and Noble a few weeks ago, I knew instantly that I couldn’t leave the store without buying it. I am a huge fan of the Greek classics, you know, Iliad and Odyssey and Athenian tragedy. I’ve been to Greece twice now, it’s my favorite country ever. Anyway, whenever I see any sort of book in the YA section that has anything to do with Greek mythology, I’m sold before I even read the blurb. A book called Troy, when my favorite myth is the Trojan War? Yeah, I actually don’t even think I read what it was about before purchasing it.

I can basically rant for a hundred years about the tragic death of the Greco-Roman classics. Years ago, in the 20^th century, the classics were required reading material for most schools. Basically everyone had read at least the Odyssey, if not the Iliad and maybe even some Aeschylus and Euripides. But nowadays? Squat. And it’s a damn shame because the classics are still important and relatable, and if you get good translations, not even that difficult to read. I’m convinced the only reason we read Shakespeare still but not the Iliad is because Shakespeare is shorter.

But onto the book. The initial thing that I liked so much about it was that it wasn’t as predictable as I thought it was going to be, and that is because the author did something really smart. She made up her own characters. Sure, these characters were servants to heroes like Hector and Paris and Helen, characters that most know the fate of, if you know the story of the Trojan war at all, but Xanthe and Marpessa? They’re not in the myth, you don’t know what is going to happen to them. So the lack of predictability was a big win for me.

I also liked the approach that she took to the classic characters. That’s one of my favorite things about this trope, the personalities of these famous characters totally depend on where the writer’s “sympathies” lie: with the Trojans or with the Greeks. If you’re a Trojan, Achilles is a monster, but if you’re a Greek, he’s your hero. And even with that, you can write Helen as petty or even villainous, or you can write her in a more sympathetic fashion, like Geras chooses to here. But she’s not totally sympathetic, in fact I think she is actually one of the more complex side characters in this story.

Which brings me to another aspect of this story that I liked a lot: the side characters. There a lot of characters in this story, some of them more important or complex than others, but all of them very present in the story. Polyxena, for example, is a character that I liked a lot, though she was little more than a two-dimensional plot device. She was an important two-dimensional plot device, but not particularly complex. Not like Helen and Andromache. This book was very heavily centered on the women of Troy, which earned many thumbs up from me, because too often these kinds of books are focused on the men, the warriors. Which does make sense, to be fair, because this is a story about a war.

Okay, now to my criticisms. The gods were very involved in this book, in a way that I thought was interesting, but was a bit overused. The gods (every single one besides Demeter and Hestia), kept showing up to mortals in the story and telling them important things, but then the characters would forget them every time (except Marpessa, who has the power to recognize the gods when she sees them). I think that it was a very good concept, but I think it was overused. And the gods appeared way, way, way too many times to inconsequential characters like the three kitchen gossips of the palace. And while I get that it was used to convey important information to the reader that couldn’t really be conveyed in a different way, I still say it was kind of useless for the gods to keep popping in, revealing stuff, and then having the characters forget about the whole interaction.

My other criticism is a little nitpicky thing, but I’m very fussy about my dialogue. As a writer, I spent a long time learning how to write effective dialogue that sounds like real people talking. When I was in school, that was one of the main critiques I gave to my fellow writing students: your dialogue has to sound organic. And in some places in this book, it was a little stiff. Some may argue that it was just a more formal style, but I would say that there is a difference between writing your dialogue in a more formal style and having it be stiff. The dialogue wasn’t consistently “formal” enough for it to be on purpose, so I think that if I had been this author’s editor, I would have circled at least ten spots in this book where the dialogue could have been worked. But again, it didn’t take away much from the book, I just noticed it because it’s a pet peeve of mine.

 

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I think that anyone who read this book would certainly have a respect for the classics, if they didn’t already, and I would absolutely recommend it to anyone who loves Homer. I’m going to recommend below a few of my absolute favorite historical fiction pieces, if anybody else is interested in that sort of thing.

If you liked Troy, try: The Song of Achilles by Madilene Miller

The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman

And I Darken by Kiersten White

Gates of Fire by Steven Pressfield

 

# of Pages: 301

Time it took me to read: 3 days (1 Day)

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 43

Rating: 5 out of 5

 

Evelayn is the crown princess of Eadrolan, and she has always known her duty. She is to be the next in a long line of rulers of the Kingdom of Light, and must maintain the balance between her kingdom and Dorjhalon, the Kingdom of Darkness. When she comes into her power on the day of her eighteenth birthday, she knows she must train in the art of using her magical abilities so that she can help her mother the queen defeat King Bain, the dark ruler who has become greedy and seeks to control both lands, upsetting the balance of their world.

When the war shifts and Evelayn is suddenly thrust into far more power than she expected, she must quickly decide who she can trust, both with her kingdom and her heart. For treachery lurks in the air, but Evelayn knows that she will do whatever it takes to protect her kingdom and her crown—no matter the cost.

 

I am absolutely loving this whole “fairytale retelling” trend that is in YA these days. Okay, I know, technically Swan Lake, which this book is based off of, isn’t a fairytale, it’s a ballet, but it’s a story that is just as well known as most fairytales. But a big part of what I loved so much about this book is that it isn’t that closely based off of the original Swan Lake story, these characters and the plot are very much unique (keeping the book unpredictable), however it certainly maintains the tragic air of the ballet.

It was totally by accident that I stumbled upon Defy, the first book in the trilogy that introduced me to the works of Sara B. Larson. The main character of that series, Alexa, is brave, strong, and loyal, and is sort of a Mulan-type character. Evelayn, the lead character in Dark Breaks the Dawn, also has many characteristics of a strong, well-written female lead. Evelayn is powerful, stubborn, and faithful to her country. But she is also flawed, in that she is arguably more loyal to her crown/duty as a monarch than to any of her loved ones, and that though she possesses immense magical power, more than anyone else in her kingdom, there are still certain things that she should be able to do, but can’t. These flaws are what make Evelayn such a strong character, because it is pretty easy to make a badass female character, but it’s harder to make one that has the proper flaws that make her human, as well as your hero. This is something I’ll often notice when watching movies or reading books about “badass female characters” that are written by men. It’s just laziness in my opinion. You wrote a strong lady character, good for you, but she’s two dimensional, which is almost as bad as writing a female character that is noticeably weaker than her male counterparts, or even not writing one at all.

But my favorite, favorite thing about the way that Larson writes her leads is that she truly does not hold back on making them suffer. Alexa, from the Defy trilogy, loses her parents, her twin brother, and many close friends throughout her journey. Evelayn doesn’t get it any easier, either, as she loses her share of loved ones throughout the story. And the way that both of these characters deal with loss is to get back on their feet, entirely more ferocious than they were before.

Anyway, back on track, because Larson has a whole cast of likeable characters, along with several who are well-written also, but not so likeable. Lorcan is the eldest son of King Bain, the ruler of the Dark Kingdom, and the story will flit to his perspective every once and a while. There are times where you want to like him, a little bit, because he is totally abused by his megalomaniac of a father, and apparently doesn’t want to see him succeed. But still, he seems to like the idea of his kingdom ruling over the whole land, so in my eyes he still lands firmly on the “evil” side of the spectrum. I can’t get too into my opinions of Lorcan, cause spoilers, but if you’ve read the book and wanna talk about it, send me a message!

Anyway, another great thing about this book was the absolutely unique world that Larson has created. This is something that I really admired in the first series that I read by her, but she takes it a step further here, in my opinion. She writes beautiful, detailed descriptions of ceremonies for funerals, betrothals, transfers of power, the whole shebang, not to mention that her characters are all so unique looking, I can picture them so clearly in my mind. Evelayn, with her blonde and lilac hair, violet eyes, and diamond conduit stone embedded in her chest, and Lorcan, with skin dark as shadow and hair pale as snow, and a ruby conduit stone in his forehead. And the style of magic is so, so cool! I don’t want to go into it too much, because that’s a big part of the plot and I really want people to read this book.

Pacing, as I’m sure anyone who has read my reviews before will know, is a big factor for me. I think this book was paced pretty well, without wasting much time at all to get into the backstory and origins of the world. That information was there, for the most part, but it was interwoven with the plot, which was fast-paced throughout. You’ll see that at the top, I said that this book took me three days to read. Well, technically I started it a few days ago, got 53 pages in, and then read the entirety of the rest of the book today in like under four hours. I mean, it helps that the novel is relatively short, but I basically read the whole thing in one day, which is good pacing in my book.

Overall, I struggled a little bit about whether to give this book 5 stars. Not because I didn’t thoroughly enjoy it, because I did (I am literally heartbroken over the end and agonizing over the wait for the sequel). But I didn’t love it in the same way that I’m totally obsessed with Carry On, my book from last week, or even The You I’ve Never Known, my book from the week before. I almost gave this book 4 stars, but then I started trying to figure out a reason to take away a star, and I couldn’t find one. This book hits all my markers for a well-written, enjoyable read, so I figured, hell, I’ll give this one 5 stars too, three books in a row. I’m on a roll!

If I had to find a flaw in the story, it’s that there were a few little questions that I had that weren’t answered. Not like plot holes or anything, just little stuff (which I’m going to ask the author on Twitter and see if she’ll respond to me). P.S. If you wanna follow me on Twitter, I’m @sarahs-shelf. Also I’m on Instagram at sarahs_shelf_blog. I’m trying to do more on social media for this blog, so hopefully I’ll do some cool stuff in the future.

Anyway, if you’re a fan of great heroines, worlds full of magic, and a wonderfully quick read, you’ll love Dark Breaks the Dawn (though if waiting for sequels is hard for you, maybe wait six months or so before picking up this book. This is going to be a long wait for me.)

 

If you liked Dark Breaks the Dawn, try: Defy by Sara B. Larson

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake

Nightshade by Andrea Cremer

# of Pages: 517

Time it took me to read: 5 days

# of pages a day to finish in a week: 74

Rating: 5 out of 5

Simon Snow is different. Well, he goes to a school for magicians, so that’s pretty different, but he’s even more different than his peers. He is supposed to be “The Chosen One” the magician to save the whole World of Mages from the Insidious Humdrum, the magic-eating villain that seeks to destroy them all. But even as Simon returns to his final year at Watford School of Magicks, he still can’t control his magic and might just be the worst magician in their year. But it’s not like he can focus anyway, what with his lifelong nemesis and roommate, Baz, missing and probably plotting his demise. Everyone is counting on Simon Snow, but time is running short and, well, it’s not like Simon asked to be chosen.

 

I’m super excited guys, this is my second 5-star review in a row! Hopefully all the books I read in July are this good, but I seriously doubt it. No kidding, this is probably the best book I’ve read in 2017 so far.

Teachers and friends have been recommending Rainbow Rowell to me for years, but whenever I’ve seen Fangirl or Elenor & Park on shelves, I always find myself getting distracted by something else. But let me tell you, Carry On caught my attention right away. The blurb makes it sound sort of like a spoof of Harry Potter. And if anything is at all related to Harry Potter, I am so down.

This book is brilliant for a lot of reasons, but the one that really hooked me is that the beginning part of the book is totally similar to Harry Potter, or really any other magical “Chosen One” motif. It is seriously laugh-out-loud funny, and honestly, I probably would have liked the book a lot even if that’s all it was supposed to be, a spoof of the genre. But while that was the hook that drew me in, this book was so, so much more than just a spoof.

I very rarely read books that are so funny that they make me snort-laugh and so sweet and romantic that I say “awwww” and squeal while I’m in public places. But this was one of those books. I am just absolutely in love with all of the characters. Simon Snow has all of the angst of Harry in Book 5, and all the talent and control of Seamus Finnegan in Book 1. Penelope Bunce is the perfect brilliant, take-no-shit sidekick, while Agatha is every girl who’s ever stayed in a relationship because its easier that way. And Baz…well, Baz is the dream of every single person who ever wanted Draco Malfoy to turn good and join the golden trio (apologies for all of the Harry Potter references. For those of you who don’t get them…why are you reading this review when you could be reading Harry Potter?).

One of my biggest worries while I was making my way through this book is that it would somehow have an ending that was really similar to Harry Potter, which would totally have been a cop-out. But I had nothing to worry about, for it was really only the first 150 pages that really drew upon spoofy clichés to entice you in. The rest of the book was magically original.

Okay, this has been another sort of ranty review, sorry about that. But I can’t help but rave about this book. I’ve already been shoving in the face of everybody that I know and telling them to read it. Anyone who is a fan of Harry Potter, or anything in the fantasy genre, really, will love this book, I promise you. If I had the money, I’d buy 25 copies of it and send it as a gift to everybody I know who’s ever read a book. That is how much I believe in the power of this story. I simply want everybody to be talking about it.

Ahem. I’ll try and reign it in and treat this as a real critique, now. Stylistically, Rainbow Rowell is beyond compare, her words weave a magical world that is, somehow, totally realistic. Like, if magic existed, for real, I’m betting this is exactly what it would be like. There are dragons and nymphs, but the spell work is logical and practical, like the kinds of spells that would be useful to everyday folks, not just heroes off on adventures. This would be the kind of magical world that I’d like to live in. Not really scary at all, but whimsically delightful. Rowell has this light, airy style of writing that I would so like to be able to emulate.

I already talked about the characters a bit, but one of the things I really loved was the absolute depth and originality of the whole cast of characters. These characters will be off doing predictable things one minute, and then they’ll totally blindside you with some unique insight or decision that makes them really unlike any sort of trope or cliché you could possibly compare them to.

Really, I could go on and on, but I think I’ll sign off with a view quotes and let the rest of the book speak for itself. First off, one of the reviews on the back of the book, from The Atlantic, says “Come for the makeouts and stay for the magic.” While I think that makes a super quotable one-liner, I found that I “Came for the magic and stayed for a wonderfully zany cast of characters and a well-developed plot that had me hankering for more even though this is a stand alone novel.” Not as quotable, but more accurate if I do say so myself.

This last quote is from the book itself, and I think it accurately exemplifies the frustrations of every single person who has ever read a book like Harry Potter that takes place in a magical world that exists alongside our own mundane one.

“‘I would have contacted you, sir.’ (I can contact him, if I need to. I have his mobile number.)”

The magicians use cell phones and other modern technology! It just makes sense.

I wish I had a real criticism to give this book, but I honestly don’t have anything bad to say about it. So I’ll just end with telling you to go and read Carry On by Rainbow Rowell, if you know what’s good for you. And once you do, comment on this review or send me a message or something so we can talk about it!

 

If you liked Carry On, try: The Lightening Thief by Rick Riordan

      Magyk by Angie Sage

Maximum Ride by James Patterson

Vampires Kisses by Ellen Schreiber