Wednesday 16 September 2015

Waiting on Wednesday: P.S. I Like You by Kasie West

Waiting on Wednesday

 A weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that people are eagerly anticipating.

My choice for Waiting on Wednesday this week is:


P.S. I Like You by Kasie West 

Publication: 2016 by Scholastic

Signed, sealed, delivered . . .

While zoning out in Chemistry class, Lily scribbles some of her favorite song lyrics onto her desk. The next day, she finds that someone has continued the lyrics on the desk, and added a message to her.
 

Soon, Lily and her anonymous pen pal are exchanging full-on letters— sharing secrets, recommending bands, and opening up to each other. Lily realizes she’s kind of falling for this letter writer. Only who is he? As Lily attempts to unravel the mystery, and juggle school, friends, crushes, and her crazy family, she discovers that matters of the heart can’t always be spelled out . . .

Kasie West brings irresistible wit, warmth, and sparkle to this swoon-worthy story of love showing up when you least expect it.
 


Tuesday 15 September 2015

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish 
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is  Ten (9) Books I DNFed and Wished I Liked This Year


Mosquitoland by David Arnold 



Firewalker by Josephine Angelini 



Armada by Ernest Cline



A History of Glitter and Blood by Hannah Moskowitz 



Melt by Selene Castrovilla



Chasing Stars by Helen Douglas



Seriously Wicked by Tina Connolly 



Made for You by Melissa Marr 



The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien




Monday 14 September 2015

The Secret Fire by C.J. Daugherty & Carina Rozenfeld Review

The Secret Fire by  & Carina Rozenfeld


Life is dangerous. If you want to survive, you get strong.”  

The Secret Fire has an interesting concept to it of two very different teenagers who find themselves in a similar situation and have to rely on each other to save themselves. Taylor is from a line of alchemists and 13 generations ago one of Taylor’s ancestors was burned by one of Sacha’s ancestor – therefore a curse was placed on Sacha family stating that the first born son will die before he turns 18. Taylor is the only one who can save Sacha.

What I Liked;

.The Writing Style – The story was told from both of the teens perspectives and also from 2 different authors and you could tell the both authors had different styles which actually went well together.

. The Romance – it was kept very simple and never really fully developed which was nice for a first book.

. The Ending – one of the major plotline wasn’t tied up which I liked because it carries on to the second book.

What I Didn’t Like;

.Taylor – She was just too perfect. She was pretty and didn’t know it, she was super smart and didn’t know it, she was giving but she felt selfish, she had the hottest guy as her boyfriend but she didn’t know why … get the gist. Also her perfect personality was emphasised because all the minor characters surrounding her like her best friend, boyfriend and mother were seen in a negative light etc liars, abusive and overbearing. Her actions and the way she dealt with things were actually pretty smart but her character was too annoying to ever actually care about that.

. The Synopsis states – “powerful forces will stop at nothing to keep them apart. They have eight weeks to find each other.” Which sounds awesome and is true to an extent however they actually meet pretty early on in the book and so the entire 8 weeks is…

. The Plot – is literally full of stereotypes and clichés. Pretty clever girl meets bad boy foreign guy. Girl is the chosen one and has more power than anybody else. Boy has family issues. Boy and Girl have history they don’t know about. The girl changes the way she dresses and suddenly she feels edgier and her control on her powers improve. Boy and Girl are love interests. There’s a lot more and it made the book unoriginal compared to what I expected but also boring.


★★☆☆☆

Wednesday 9 September 2015

Waiting on Wednesday: Enter Title Here

Waiting on Wednesday

 A weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that people are eagerly anticipating.

My choice for Waiting on Wednesday this week is:

Enter Title Here by Rahul Kanakia

Publication: August 2nd 2016 by Disney-Hyperion, 352 pages

I’m your protagonist—Reshma Kapoor—and if you have the free time to read this book, then you’re probably nothing like me.

Reshma is a college counselor’s dream. She’s the top-ranked senior at her ultra-competitive Silicon Valley high school, with a spotless academic record and a long roster of extracurriculars. But there are plenty of perfect students in the country, and if Reshma wants to get into Stanford, and into med school after that, she needs the hook to beat them all.

What's a habitual over-achiever to do? Land herself a literary agent, of course. Which is exactly what Reshma does after agent Linda Montrose spots an article she wrote for Huffington Post. Linda wants to represent Reshma, and, with her new agent's help scoring a book deal, Reshma knows she’ll finally have the key to Stanford.

But she’s convinced no one would want to read a novel about a study machine like her. To make herself a more relatable protagonist, she must start doing all the regular American girl stuff she normally ignores. For starters, she has to make a friend, then get a boyfriend. And she's already planned the perfect ending: after struggling for three hundred pages with her own perfectionism, Reshma will learn that meaningful relationships can be more important than success—a character arc librarians and critics alike will enjoy.

Of course, even with a mastermind like Reshma in charge, things can’t always go as planned. And when the valedictorian spot begins to slip from her grasp, she’ll have to decide just how far she’ll go for that satisfying ending. (Note: It’s pretty far.)

In this wholly unique, wickedly funny debut novel, Rahul Kanakia consciously uses the rules of storytelling—and then breaks them to pieces.


Tuesday 8 September 2015

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme created by The Broke and the Bookish 
This week’s Top Ten Tuesday is  Ten Finished Series I Have YET to Finish 


Delirium by Lauren Oliver 



Across the Universe by Beth Revis 



City of Bones by Cassandra Clare



Divergent by Veronica Roth



Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor 



Matched by Ally Condie



Legend by Marie Lu



Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi



Angelfall by Susan Ee



Bloodlines by Richelle Mead




Monday 7 September 2015

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa Review

Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa


Against all odds. May people look at us and wonder how such jewels can sparkle in the sad desert of the world. May we live the impossible life." 

Fans of the Impossible Life is the story of 3 different teenagers; Jeremy, Mira and Sebby.  After an incident at school Jeremy took most of the year off and now he’s back at school. Mira’s sent to a new school to change things around after spending 10 months in hospital after a suicide attempt and dealing with depression and Sebby is Mira’s friend.  All three of them meet when Jeremy starts an after school art club.

What I Liked;

. The Characters – All of them had their own issues and back stories which made them unique and interesting to read about so when the povs changed I wanted to read about all of them. They also collectively had an atmosphere of mystery and craziness like they were an exclusive group of friends which made you want to read on and find out about them. 

. Writing Styles – First person is used for Jeremy’s pov to show how he’s the outsider at first in the relationship and how as he gets to know both Sebby and Mira the reader does as well.  Second person is used for Sebby which fits his character and story as he makes a lot of rash decisions which leads to him feeling all over the place and it gives his story the out of body touch as if he goes through the experience but regrets doing it as well. Third person is used for Mira to show how she feels like an outsider and invisible or a burden to her family. 

. Diversity – Jeremy is a bisexual (either that or he’s gay and just attracted to Mira) and has 2 dads, Sebby’s Asian or half Asian and gay and Mira’s biracial.

. Jeremy sort of idolises Sebby and Mira and what they do to make them look like these amazing flawless and crazy people but near the end Sebby sort of mentions how they’re not what he wants them to be – they’re broken and imperfect.

. How mental illness is dealt

What I Didn’t Like;

. The messiness that is the second half of the book – it was really all over the place

. How Sebby treated Jeremy – there’s this one encounter where he does something and leaves and although Jeremy says afterwards he was fine – I don’t think he was

. The synopsis – “the boy in love with both of them” – is very misleading because he loves them in different ways. “Sebby and Mira together craft a world of magic rituals and secret road trips” – one magic ritual and a road trip that occurred before the books event

. Although I like the characters and the plot was okay the story felt like it was lacking something.

“Love remembers the places where it touched down. You can follow it back to them.”


★★★☆☆

Thursday 3 September 2015

One by Sarah Crossan Review

One by Sarah Crossan


“So when we tell them we do not want to be apart, they assume there is something very, very wrong with us.”

One is the story of Grace and Tippi who are conjoined twins. Things start to change for them when their family runs into money problems – now Grace and Tippi will have to go to high school. With high school come 2 new friends and endless amount of stares and judgment.

The writing style is nice and gives a good voice to the book – the story is told from Grace’s point of view is written in verse so it’s fast paced and a quick read however a lot of details are left out and leaves the book feeling kind of flat. With verse we see a lot of feelings/emotions from Grace and less plot which I guess wasn’t for me.

The characters are stereotypical – she’s the quiet twin , Tippi’s argumentative and wilder, her friend is defiant and the guy is sweet and nice.  So she’s shown to be plain next to them – and at times she gets jealous. The characters are likable and nice but aren’t anything special because it feels as if I don’t really know them – I didn’t connect with them.

What I did like is the portrayal of the people who judge, are mean to, nosy or supportive to Grace and Tippi and how they treat them differently and how this affects the girls.

The ending was predictable with the name of the title and emphasis on change but nonetheless it was really emotional and the promise they made to each other was so heartbreaking.


★★★☆☆

Wednesday 2 September 2015

Waiting on Wednesday: Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace

Waiting on Wednesday

 A weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine that spotlights upcoming releases that people are eagerly anticipating.

My choice for Waiting on Wednesday this week is:
 

Shallow Graves by Kali Wallace 

Publication: January 26th 2016 by Katherine Tegen Books, 368 pages

Breezy remembers leaving the party, the warm, wet grass under her feet, her cheek still stinging from a slap to the face. But when she wakes up, scared and pulling dirt from her mouth, a year has passed and she can’t explain the necklace of bruises around her neck. She also can’t explain the man lying at her grave, dead from her touch.

Returning home seems impossible. Her parents and sisters have clearly grieved and struggled to move on, and Breezy can’t begin to answer their inevitable questions. Her heartbeat comes and goes, she doesn’t need to eat or drink, she can see the inky memories of murderers, and she can somehow pull on this dark guilt to kill them. Haunted by the happy memories from her life and disgusted by the half-dead creature she’s become, Breezy embarks on a reckless quest to find answers and a dangerous healing magic…but the cure is as dark and terrible as the disease.

Set in a gorgeous, terrifying world,
 Shallow Graves is a stunning novel about the heartbreaking trauma of a girl’s life cut short and her struggle to reconcile her humanity with the creature she’s become. 

Tuesday 1 September 2015

August Wrap Up and September TBR

August Wrap Up




Armada by Ernest Cline
Read from: July 30 to August 06, 2015
Review: DNF
  








Fire Colour One by  
Read from: August 07 to 08, 2015






The Accident Season by  

Read from: August 08 to 10, 2015







Because You'll Never Meet Me by  

Read on: August 13, 2015







The Diviners by Libba Bray
Read from: August 16 to 18, 2015








Lair of Dreams
by  
Read from: August 20 to 22, 2015







Firewalker by  

Read on: August 23, 2015
Review: DNF











One by Sarah Crossan 
Read on: August 23, 2015
Review: 3 Stars – Full review coming soon









All the Rage by 
Read on:  August 25, 2015







Fans of the Impossible Life by Kate Scelsa
Read from: August 26 to 28, 2015
Review: 3 Stars - Full review coming soon









September TBR