Synopsis: After being orphaned at age six, sixteen-year-old Connelly Pierce—who has spent a decade, being passed from family to family, or as often no family at all, but always fighting for her very existence, her right to survive—has given up. Even worse, the system that has controlled her life for all those years is about to give up on her. But just before she is sent into long-term care at a California state mental hospital, a little miracle happens. An intern at the clinic who has taken an interest in her finds an unopened letter at the bottom of Connelly’s raggedy old knapsack. The letter is from a distant cousin of Connelly’s named Elizabeth Walker, or Liz, who has recently lost her husband Jack, left behind a 57,000 acre ranch in Texas, and has since been looking for Connelly. The intern realizes this is the girl’s last chance. If Cousin Liz won’t help her, or if Connelly won’t accept that help, her life, in any normal sense, may be over. But what the intern doesn’t realize, is that calling that phone number he finds at the bottom of the letter is about to change two women’s lives, forever, in ways neither of them could ever have imagined. Review: I have to say that as the final book in a trilogy, it was just okay. I mean, just like the other books this one has its moments of blandness that seems to drag out making it a boring read, but then have its moments of fast-paced excitement that really messes with your emotions! There were a few parts of the book where I was elated, or enraged or just didn’t know how to feel. The setting of this book completely contrasts with that of Into the Abyss: Connelly is living on her family’s rich, isolated ranch in Texas. She is “happier” and is painting again, making friends, and finding real love. But her life roller coaster continues which is really frustrating since she has found happiness. The ending is nearly perfect! I can’t pinpoint what’s missing, but it did leave me content. So many questions from the previous books are answered here, and it is definitely worth the read. Everything is concluded in a way readers would be happy with Rating: 3.5/5 Stars
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Synopsis: When Wendy Everly first discovers the truth about herself—that she’s a changeling switched at birth—she knows her life will never be the same. Now she’s about to learn that there’s more to the story… She shares a closer connection to her Vittra rivals than she ever imagined—and they’ll stop at nothing to lure her to their side. With the threat of war looming, her only hope of saving the Trylle is to master her magical powers—and marry an equally powerful royal. But that means walking away from Finn, her handsome bodyguard who’s strictly off limits…and Loki, a Vittra prince with whom she shares a growing attraction. Torn between her heart and her people, between love and duty, Wendy must decide her fate. If she makes the wrong choice, she could lose everything, and everybody, she’s ever wanted…in both worlds. Review: I found that I overall enjoyed the first book a little more than this one. Why? I can't exactly put my finger on it... I loved how this book began right where Switched left off - with Rhys and Wendy showing up in Matt and Maggie's driveway. There were definitely lots of questions answered and we got to know more about Elora's life, and the History of the Vittra and Trylle in the days of Elora and Oren's alliance. Wendy finds out truths about herself (which I found to be predictable) and is forced to chose between her Kingdom and her happiness - I found it to be kind of profound to finally see Elora as a person with feelings and to see that Wendy is now in a similar position to that which her mother was in at her age. Of course since this is a YA paranormal novel there has to be a tacky love triangle - or love diamonde maybe? Finn, Loki, and Tove - did I miss anyone? Although I love all of these characters and love the fact that they all are vastly different and all have attractive qualities as well as flaws; I think that the way Wendy is falling in love with half of the characters in the book is pathetic. Too many hormonal teenagers is making the book a bit distracting considering they all need to be worried about being on the verge of a Troll WW3. But overall just getting to know the characters better and getting to understand the reasons behind their actions definitely brings you deeper into this story. -so many answers -so many backstories -so many life changing/life saving decisions Rating: 4/5 Stars Synopsis: When the new King of Arcadia, Audric Sjöberg is forced into hiding, his younger brother Rek, is sent to the mortal realm to find “the key”. “The Key” is the one person that can help Audric take back his kingdom, and restore peace within the wizard realm. Kailee Reece is a normal teenager, or so she believes. When Kailee’s wishes turn into reality, she becomes the target of unwanted attention. Rek’s search sends him to Astoria Oregon, where he meets Kailee, and they are drawn to one another. Kailee and Rek attempt to fight their feelings, but the temptation is too great. Kailee and Rek’s happiness is threatened by an ancient prophecy that could tear them apart. Rek must convince Kailee to return to Arcadia in order to save Audric and his kingdom. Once the kingdom is safe, Rek may be forced to say goodbye to Kailee forever. Review: To be honest, when I started this book I was really underwhelmed. It was all so cliche (a typical teenage paranormal book) with an outcast, teenage girl who discovers she has special powers and is the only one who can save the wizards, but love complicates things. Sounds like many other YA books. But I have to say, the more the story progressed, the more I came to love it. By the end of the book my heart was racing! Even though Kailee was a pretty cliche character, I came to love her. For once the main character didn’t make a petty mistake that pisses off the reader! I was so happy about that! Kailee actually listens to what other people have to say and (for the most part) doesn’t make snap decisions that she later regrets. I loved Rek too. He’s not an AMAZING character or anything just because he too is (I’m totally overusing this word) cliche. The soldier sent on a mission but falls in forbidden love and is conflicted with himself for the rest of the book. I have to say that I do love these types of books still, they are such easy reads but still intriguing. Minus the last chapter of the book, I found everything fairly predictable - but then again I would say that this book would be directed towards younger teens. Overall I thought this was a nice light read that left me really wanting to read the next book, The Oracle right away, the last chapter left me speechless!! I just want to thank T. L. Coulter for sending me this book for review - it was Wonderful! Rating: 4/5 Stars Synopsis: Postcard-perfect Jar Island is the kind of place where nobody locks their doors at night, where parents can sleep easy, knowing their daughters are tucked away safe and sound in their beds. But bad things can happen, even to good girls … and sometimes, the only way to make things right is to do something wrong. Lillia used to trust boys, but not anymore. Not after what happened this summer. And she’ll do whatever it takes to protect her little sister from the same fate. Kat is over the rumors, the insults, the cruel jokes made at her expense. It all goes back to one person—her ex-best friend. Someone needs to teach her a lesson, and, with Lillia and Mary behind her, Kat feels up to the task. Four years ago, Mary left Jar Island because of a boy. But she’s not the same girl anymore. Now that she’s got friends who have her back, he’s going to be in big trouble. Three very different girls who come together to make things right. Will they go too far? Review: Emotional, intense, and compelling. Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian have created a fiery story of love, loathe, and lots of revenge. If you like books that are full of emotion and craziness this is definitely for you. Even me, who loves fantasy, loveddddd this. I love when books switch points of view throughout the chapters. This switched between the view of three seniors in high school, Mary, Kat, and Lillia. All of the main characters are completely different from each other which makes reading from different points of view more exciting. They all have really well developed personalities and their histories will leave you shocked. You get to know them so well that you feel like they are completely real. This book IS filled with as many stereotypical teenage seniors as you can imagine, and that is a turnoff for many people, but I still loved it. I mean, The Breakfast Club is full of stereotypical teenagers, but that too is AMAZING. The story itself seemed pretty straightforward from the title of the book, Burn for Burn, of course it’s about teenage revenge. But what is really intriguing is that there is always more to the story than we know. Your opinions on people change, chapter or chapter and sometimes you don’t even know what to think. It’s such an easy read yet it is so exciting and full of suspense and twists. And….is that a hint of fantasy? Why, I believe it is. This is a time where I don't exactly know what to make of things. I suppose I have to read the next book ASAP to find out!!!! Rating: 4.5/5 Stars Synopsis: The moment she felt her consciousness seeping back inside her, she knew where she was. She didn't have to look. Or listen. No one had to come whisper in her ear. She could smell it that far out, returning… When sixteen-year-old Connelly Pierce wakes up inside an unknown psychiatric hospital, with both her wrists slashed, she begins the arduous task of piecing together the events of her life that led her there. Her own cognitive behavioral therapy (as she had learned so well from them). Starting with the sudden death of her mother and father when she was six, and the only world she knew disappeared, literally, overnight. That’s when, with no known or, at least, close relatives, she and her nine-year-old brother Eric find themselves cast into the nightmare quagmire of government child protection agencies, and Connelly begins her incredible, fourteen-year journey—her odyssey—into her own brave new world. A world, she realizes, she must not only quickly adapt, but fight back as well, if she hopes to survive. Review: James Snyder has created a story that drove me crazy. It evoked so many emotions of pity, anguish, and frustration while still maintaining your sanity with flashbacks or split seconds of happiness. It touches on loss, adaptation, suffering, growth, and the search for happiness and ones self. The main character is sixteen year old Connelly Pierce who is remembering her childhood while…inside a mental institution? We are only given snippets of the present situation Connelly is in; and from what I’ve gathered, she is in a mental hospital due to years of abuse from various families. It hints that she has done something bad to her older brother which creates so much suspense. I really want to keep reading about her life from age six, forward so that I can maybe understand her current situation better. She is a really well developed character, and as the story continues, more and more is revealed about her and the person she is becoming. She is a really well developed character who I feel completely connected to. She could very well be a real person. I have to admit that I found some parts of the book a bit slow – that could very well be because of my preference of action packed, fantasy books. And I found that for some chapters the book would fall into a routine of telling the story step-by-step. It would just be, this happened, then this, then this etc. and that could get a little boring. But the story would always pick up again when Connelly is thrown into a new situation. ***May be spoilers beyond this point*** I CAN'T STAND THE CARDSWELL FAMILY. They are what is wrong with society! They focus too much on an unrealistic ideal that they lose sight of what real happiness is and create a living hell for everyone else!!! I felt so sorry for Connelly having to endure living with this family for two years (I think?). They tried to shove their drastic beliefs down her throat while the father and sons in the family sexually, emotionally, morally and spiritually abused poor 7/8 year old Connelly. The last couple chapters of the book really picked up and got a reaction from me - which I love - but almost couldn't stand at the same time. Rating: 3/5 Stars Synopsis: As a child, Amanda Lindhout escaped a violent household by paging through issues of National Geographic and imagining herself in its exotic locales. At the age of nineteen, working as a cocktail waitress in Calgary, Alberta, she began saving her tips so she could travel the globe. Aspiring to understand the world and live a significant life, she backpacked through Latin America, Laos, Bangladesh, and India, and emboldened by each adventure, went on to Sudan, Syria, and Pakistan. In war-ridden Afghanistan and Iraq she carved out a fledgling career as a television reporter. And then, in August 2008, she traveled to Somalia—“the most dangerous place on earth.” On her fourth day, she was abducted by a group of masked men along a dusty road. Held hostage for 460 days, Amanda converts to Islam as a survival tactic, receives “wife lessons” from one of her captors, and risks a daring escape. Moved between a series of abandoned houses in the desert, she survives on memory—every lush detail of the world she experienced in her life before captivity—and on strategy, fortitude, and hope. When she is most desperate, she visits a house in the sky, high above the woman kept in chains, in the dark, being tortured. Vivid and suspenseful, as artfully written as the finest novel, A House in the Sky is the searingly intimate story of an intrepid young woman and her search for compassion in the face of unimaginable adversity. Review: Amanda Lindhout's story is honestly incredible. I normally don't enjoy reading biographies and tend to stick to fast-paced, action-packed, epic fantasy or paranormal novels - but I couldn't stop reading this! Amanda has been through so much in her life, and the suffering she endured is unimaginable, but I felt like I was right there, watching her, as I followed her through her story. The Travel, the love, and the adventures prior to her capture made me feel alive just to read about it. It made me want to see the world, experience new cultures, and meet new people and lifelong friends. I know that a lot of people have given this book two or three stars, saying that the book was kind of pathetic as Amanda and Nigel were incredibly naive and that nothing that happened in the story surprised them. And yes, I agree that they were naive, and so do they. They understand the sever mistakes they made in life that lead to them getting captured. But that doesn't make this story any less amazing, exciting, scary, or inspiring. 460 days. Rating: 5/5 Stars Synopsis: Jean Zimmerman’s new novel tells of the dramatic events that transpire when an alluring, blazingly smart eighteen-year-old girl named Bronwyn, reputedly raised by wolves in the wilds of Nevada, is adopted in 1875 by the Delegates, an outlandishly wealthy Manhattan couple, and taken back East to be civilized and introduced into high society. Bronwyn hits the highly mannered world of Edith Wharton era Manhattan like a bomb. A series of suitors, both young and old, find her irresistible, but the willful girl’s illicit lovers begin to turn up murdered. Zimmerman’s tale is narrated by the Delegate’s son, a Harvard anatomy student. The tormented, self-dramatizing Hugo Delegate speaks from a prison cell where he is prepared to take the fall for his beloved Savage Girl. This narrative—a love story and a mystery with a powerful sense of fable—is his confession. Review: In terms of the overall rating of the story, I would give it 4 stars. In terms of how I specifically liked it (considering i like epic fantasy, and paranormal novels), I would rate it 3 stars. For a historical fiction story, I found this book to be really exciting. This first half of the book is a little slow (but I might just think that because I just finished reading a Game of Thrones book 3 before reading this). The character development is a main theme in this story as "The Savage Girl" is introduced into high society of late 1800's New York. The one thing I found was lacking in this book was a strong connection to the characters. I was just not strongly emotionally invested in Hugo or Bronwyn. That being said, there were lots of interesting characters that you would not expect in a novel such as this (including Tu-Li,Queen Zuni,and Sage Hen). The mystery aspect of the novel seemed to come and go. When the first murder happens, there is a lot of hype from the characters, but that quickly fades and goes back to a calm flow of events for a long time - until the next murder. What I loved is that I never guessed who the killer was. There were a few times when I was sure of the murderer, but I was proven wrong in the last chapter. The last chapter of the book, and the epilogue concluded that story perfectly. It answered all questions that arises in the climax during chapter 31. What I absolutely love is the cover of this book. It is beautiful! And that is exactly how I pictured Bronwyn to look during her transition into high society. Rating 3/5 Stars Synopsis: Plagued by overpopulation, disease, and starvation, humanity was headed for extinction—until an alien race called the haan arrived. And then the real trouble began. It’s been a rough day for Sam Shao. As part of a program that requires humans to act as surrogates to haan infants, Sam has been genetically enhanced to bond with them. So when three soldiers invade her apartment and arrest her guardian for smuggling a dangerous weapon into the country, Sam can sense that something isn't right. One of his abductors is a haan masquerading as a human, and the supposedly fragile haan seems to be anything but. Racing through the city slums, trying to stay one step ahead of the mysterious haan soldier, Sam tries to find the man who, in her twenty years, has been the only father she’s ever known. Could he truly have done what he is accused of? Or did he witness something both human and haan would kill to keep hidden? The only thing certain is that the weapon is real—and lost now somewhere in a city of millions. Fighting the clock, Sam finds an ally in Nix, a haan envoy devoted to coexisting with humans, or so it seems. But what she really needs are answers. Fast. Or else everything she knows—and everyone she loves—will burn. Review: This has been the first novel by James K Decker that I've read, and I was pleasantly surprised! The idea of a novel about aliens living with people in a futuristic world seems like a very cliché idea, which is why I was skeptical about the overall book. But after getting into the first chapter, I realized that this was different. This novel instantly hooks you and reels you in with nonstop action right from chapter one all the way through to the last page. The story is written in first person by the main character, Sam Shao, who is a twenty year old orphan living with her adopted father in a world where food is scarce and everyone is struggling to get by. Sam is part of a surrogate program where she raises hann (the alien race that lives among people) infants. This program promises her food as well as gives her a special mental connection to the hann race. When close to hann, Sam can feel their presence and emotions. One day Sam’s guardian, Dragan, is violently arrested by the military – including a hann disguised as a soldier. This story follows Sam, Vamp, and Nix as they try and rescue Dragan, while discovering dangerous secrets about the hann. Escalating very quickly, Sam realized that her race is on the verge of extinction and she may be the only person able to save them. What I absolutely loved about this book is that right when you think you have it figured out, Decker throws you a curve ball and takes the story in a different direction. The theme of the story: Things aren't always what they seem. Rating: 3.5/5 Stars Synopsis: Tessa Gray should be happy - aren't all brides happy? Yet as she prepares for her wedding, a net of shadows begins to tighten around the Shadowhunters of the London Institute. A new demon appears, one linked by blood and secrecy to Mortmain, the man who plans to use his army of pitiless automatons, the Infernal Devices, to destroy the Shadowhunters. Mortmain needs only one last item to complete his plan. He needs Tessa. And Jem and Will, the boys who lay equal claim to Tessa's heart, will do anything to save her. Review: This has to be my favourite book series; yes, even better than TMI! The Clockwork Princess continues to dig deeper into the characters, complicating relationships even further while keeping these non-human characters human enough to be relatable. It perfectly concludes the series in a way where all your questions are answered about each character's future - even the immortal ones. The questions that go unanswered tie right into TMI to be answered there. I am incredibly sad to see this series come to an end, but I am so relieved that it left me smiling like an idiot when I closed the book. Rating: 5/5 Stars Synopsis: When Wendy Everly was six-years-old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. It isn't until eleven years later that Wendy finds out her mother might've been telling the truth. With the help of Finn Holmes, Wendy finds herself in a world she never knew existed - and it's one she's not sure if she wants to be a part of. Review: I went into this book really skeptical - I mean it has a lower overall rating than I other books I would normally go for but WOW. I've read reviews from very disappointed readers and I can understand where they're coming from - I can see why it's not everyone's cup of tea. The story was fast paced from start to finish which is what kept me hooked and reading this in only two sittings. While the heroine, Wendy WAS pretty bratty as a child (which turned many readers off), I have to give Amanda Hocking props for not making the unoriginal, shy, awkward heroine that we all feel sorry for. She was a brat - she was (seemingly)ungrateful for the way Matt and Maggie raised her and cared for her. But I loved her personality. Throughout she's fighting for a life of her own where she feels morally right and happy all at once. This story is a search for answers of self-identity. Trolls and changelings, right?! Who would've thought? It's a nice break from vampires and werewolves. I liked learning about what these "real" trolls are like. It's not like in vampire books where you know about sunlight and bloodsucking. The ONE complaint I have about this book this that Wendy falls wayyyyy to unrealistically hard for Finn. When he leaves she says, "I didn't particularly care whether I lived or died". It drives me crazy that out of heartbreak for a boy she's know for just over a week, she wants to kill herself. Like, pull yourself together woman! Luckily, she moves on from this depression and becomes simply reckless and determined. I'm definitely reading the next two books ASAP!! Rating: 4/5 Stars |
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October 2016
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