Mature YA

Damsel by Elana K. Arnold [Book Review] 5

 in Books / Older Readers by

Summary

“The rite has existed for as long as anyone can remember: When the king dies, his son the prince must venture out into the gray lands, slay a fierce dragon, and rescue a damsel to be his bride. This is the way things have always been.

When Ama wakes in the arms of Prince Emory, she knows none of this. She has no memory of what came before she was captured by the dragon or what horrors she faced in its lair. She knows only this handsome young man, the story he tells of her rescue, and her destiny of sitting on a throne beside him. It’s all like a dream, like something from a fairy tale.

As Ama follows Emory to the kingdom of Harding, however, she discovers that not all is as it seems. There is more to the legends of the dragons and the damsels than anyone knows, and the greatest threats may not be behind her, but around her, now, and closing in.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

So, I’m actually going to start my review of this book with the rating of it, because it may save you some time from even bothering to read this review and this book.

I give this book 2/5 teacups.

2 Teacups

Now we can get into why I thought the book was just so bad.

This book was definitely not YA!
This book is classified as YA Fantasy, but holy crap was it not. First off, there were some seriously messed up undertones of rape, sexual assault, the injury of animals and even some subtle bestiality undertones (with dragons, but that doesn’t matter). I honestly hated the fact that the Prince/King in the book was so controlling and kept making it seem like he saved this female constantly saying, “I saved you” over and over. Like shut up, we get it.

Then he comes into her room at night and pretty much almost rapes her. And she’s like “Oh, it’s okay, he’s going to be my husband, he saved me” which kind of gave me some Stockholm Syndrome vibes or something.

And then when they are talking about how to tame a dragon, I was like “WHAT THE F^*& IS GOING ON HERE?!” I had to read it a few times to make sure I read it right. Like, what the hell was the author thinking?!

The writing was so simple and…well, crappy.
For me, the writing was just so poor! It felt so jumpy, the style was too plain and I felt like this was some book that had been self-published. For a author who was a National Book Award Finalist, this book was so just nothing. For a younger YA read maybe, but due to the themes, this was not for younger YA at all, if any YA in general.

Feminist book? More like ‘women should know their place’ book.
For the ‘reviews’ on the cover talking about how this was a story of feminine power, I’d like to know what they were drinking! Until the last like….15 pages, nothing remotely feminist happened and then it was just like “here, take this, the end.” Honestly, I don’t even know what was going on with that ending. It was like there should have been so much more but the author just ended it.

Had potential but just delivered so poorly.
This was one of those books that the idea was fantastic and it could have been an amazing book! Like, it really had the potential for that, but because the author just did such a poor job in writing the story and developing it, it was just…so bad. I’m sorry. I don’t generally really dislike books but I do. When I finished it I was mixed, then I read other peoples interpretations of the book and reanalyzed my reading of it – I also did read it fast because I just had to get through it and be done. So, no, just no.

Only plus, has a gorgeous cover.
As you can see, the cover was my draw in. It caught my attention on the stand which is why I grabbed it and I also thought, from the summary, it would be good. But, sadly the story disappointed. However, the cover is really quite beautiful. So that’s one of the only reasons I gave it a 2 star and not 1 (also because I rarely give 1, but this came really close).

Overall, this is a miss.
Honestly, I don’t generally say to avoid books, but this one is one to just…not. I don’t know how these people who wrote the reviews inside the book actually enjoyed it as it was so poor…I feel like I wasted my time reading it, I’m sorry to say. And I really hate when that happens.

Happy Reading (other books)!

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas 1

 in Book Reviews / Books / Fantasy / Older Readers / Series / Young Adult by

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A Court of Thorns and Roses

Summary

“Perfect for fans of Kristin Cashore and George R.R. Martin, this first book in a sexy and action-packed new series is impossible to put down!

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin–one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.

As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she’s been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow over the faerie lands is growing, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin–and his world–forever.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

Well, I certainly wasn’t expecting this at all. I’ve been seeing A Court of Thorns and Roses all over Instagram recently with some amazing photos of the book and it really caught my attention. Then it kept showing up on my feed and I just had to see what everyone was talking about and I am so glad that I did.

I honestly hadn’t heard anything about this book until I saw it on my timeline so clearly I’m living in my own little bubble because how could I have missed this?! I read the entire book in about 4-5 hours, with a small break for dinner, but just couldn’t put it down. It was so addictive.

First of all, the cover is beautiful! Just look at all that red and thorns and just, yes. Red covers always seem to catch my attention.  Of course I had seen some beautiful covers of it on Instagram as well. I will definitely be finishing the series after I finish my currently reading book.

The story was unique which was nice. The fairies in the book weren’t little things that were all adorable. They were badass and could kick some serious butt. It was more of a mature YA book because of that too, there was blood, violence and sex. The sex wasn’t explicit but it was enough to push it to be more mature and there was a decent amount of blood as well.

Team Rhysand

From Redbubble

Now, as for the story, the first book ended quite well in a nice neat package so you don’t have to finish the series I guess as it did finish the book quite well, but there were some things not answered and I just want to see what happens next! And the two teams to choose from; Team Tamlin or Team Rhysand. I don’t know which team I am on yet. I was Team Tamlin, but Rhysand though….

 

I mean this book was just so good and I cannot wait to be able to read the next one. It is a best-seller on Amazon which clearly shows that it is liked by many.

Team Tamlin

From Redbubble

Have any of you lovelies read this series yet? Or just this book? Whose team are you on and did you like the series?

Happy Reading!!!

 

 

 

 

Finding Magdalena by Shannon Cordon

 in Book Reviews / Books / Interesting / Older Readers / Young Adult by

412bihgrw7hl-_sx331_bo1204203200_Summary

“Magdalena “Maggie” Curran is a freshman at a prestigious Virginia boarding school when she suffers an unbearable tragedy. Maggie has only one true friend to lean on—Graham Ashford. He is the only one who can help her through the depression and night terrors that follow.
In her junior year, the school deems her stable enough to have a roommate, and her new friend Sarah quickly draws Maggie out of her shyness and into the dating world. While at Sarah’s house for Thanksgiving, however, she meets Sarah’s older brother, Eric, and what starts as a shy crush soon turns into terror as Eric becomes obsessed and violent toward Maggie.
Maggie runs to the safety of Graham, now her boyfriend. But not even Graham can protect her from Eric when he assaults her in her dorm room. Eric is given a light sentence in a mental institution, and Maggie leaves everything behind and moves to her mother’s hometown of Malaga, Spain, to attend college on a music scholarship and try to find her mother’s estranged family.
Beginning with the death of her parents, Maggie has had to reach inside herself to find the strength and resilience to move on. This book will capture your heart in the first few pages and hold you until the shattering climax.”

-From Goodreads.com

Reivew

So this review has been coming for a while due to having this book sitting in my ‘to be read’ pile and never actually getting to it as I was too busy with University work. However, I finally finished sat down and got through it in about 24 hours and I have to say it definitely wasn’t what I expected.

In the beginning it was a traditional YA romance novel with teens in relationships and having issues and breakups, then there was a little sex (that was “graphic”, so I would classify this as a more mature YA novel), then there was this violent dude, and then there was more relationships, and then more violence and I was just like what? I couldn’t keep up with everything and it kept you guessing as to what was going to be happening next, which was good, and bad. My one complaint was that all of this happened in about 350 pages which was a little bit too much in just many pages. I could see this book put into two books to make it a series to prolong the story as I did feel that towards the end it was rushed a bit, bad people being caught and all of this other stuff going down. So either to make a longer book or just make it into two books. But it was YA and I am reading it from an adult perspective and adult books do have more description. For YA it was good though, but as it was more mature YA, some of the things could have been expanded a little bit.

It did go from 0-100 quite fast in moments where one of the characters attacked someone else and then there was a threat of rape and I was kind of there like…wait what?

For the sex, besides the first sex scene which wasn’t bad but went into a little bit of detail, all the other mentions of sex did the ‘drawn-curtain’ kind of scene where it would gloss over the event which was nice.

Honestly, overall it was quite good though. There was some character development, but not a ton. I didn’t love how Maggie was kind of a whiny girl, crying over everything. I did want to sometimes shake her and tell her to grow up. She’d cry over small things. Don’t get me wrong, I know she had been through a lot in the story but she would cry over the sillies of things and I just wanted to smack her. Which isn’t necessarily a bad thing because if a writer and bring about an emotion in me while I am readying their writing, then that is pretty darn good. Whether it be bad or good.

I do recommend it as it is a decent read and you can probably fly through it quite fast and it is new so show some love!

But overall, a perfect YA kind of book!

Happy Reading!

 

Barking Madness by Ryan Hill

 in Books / Older Readers / Young Adult by

Barking Madness by Ryan HillSummary

“Seventeen-year-old Rosetta Harper is plagued by nightmares of a masked man. With her father’s new career move, her family has just relocated from Florida, to the small New England town of Ashwood, a quiet town and close-knit community where you know your neighbors, and trouble is a word unspoken. But soon after her arrival, both Rosetta’s world and the worlds of her classmates come crashing down.

Michael hates his family and feels alone and unloved. He only finds comfort when he’s with his friends, but even they get on his nerves. Everything about Ashwood and his life bores him, until Rosetta Harper moves into town. With her as a new classmate, Michael finally gets the excitement he was looking for, but it may be at too high a cost…”

-From Amazon.com

Review

Ryan reached out to me over this book and as a he was a university student like I am as well, I had to give it a go as I was curious and all Uni students want success and I’d love to be a part of that for him. And I’m definitely glad that I agreed to read this book as it was fantastic! It took the regular story of a werewolf and gave it a slight twist which was quite interesting and unexpected.

I would definitely classify this book as older YA because of some of the themes occurring, such as some of the violence, but other than that it was a perfect YA novel! Which was a really nice change for me because I’ve been reading such heavy texts recently as well as adult novels (so the writing is more advanced) and it was nice for the change.

First thing I’ll focus on is the character development, which there was a lot of. I love when there is character development and because there was so much in this, you kept wondering how characters would react to different situations, as they kept developing. You were never sure and so it definitely kept you on your toes.

Next was the general story line. Even until the end I wasn’t sure how it was going to end, because of the character development. You never really knew who would say what and react to each situation.

Now this book is heavy with death and violence, some of which is quite graphic, so if you aren’t necessarily into that type of stuff, then this book isn’t exactly for you. There was also quite a lot of talks about suicide and self-harm, which I want to mention as I know quite a few people get uncomfortable with things such as this within books. There was bullying and teen drinking and all that such, hence why I classify it as mature YA, a genre which it fits perfectly into.

It was a decent length, almost 500 pages, so it wasn’t an excessively long read but potentially a little longer than some YA books.

Also, one of the things which I really liked was that you got to dislike or really hate some of the characters in the book. I love when an author can do that because it makes it more realistic and more fun as well! So that was also really interesting and awesome.

Overall I really did enjoy the book. Click here to purchase it from Amazon and definitely do give it a go and let me know what you think.

Happy Reading!

Dangerous Territory: An Alpha Ops novella by Emmy Curtis

 in Adventure / Book Reviews / Books / Older Readers by

Summary

“A SEXY STRANGER
Flirting with danger is reporter Grace Grainger’s modus operandi. But she’s learned the hard way not to grow attached to the soldiers she’s embedded with in Afghanistan. To escape from her pain and loneliness, she fantasizes about the hot night she spent with a gorgeous stranger three years before in D.C. Grace never thought she’d see him again-let alone need him to rescue her . . .
AN EXPLOSIVE NIGHT
Air Force Master Sergeant Josh Travers knows journalists are nothing but trouble. So when he has to risk the lives of his team to save some reporter who’s been separated from her patrol, he’s not happy-until he recognizes her stunning eyes and delicious curves. Josh has never wanted a woman like he wants Grace. Even in an Afghan cave with a sandstorm and enemy troops closing in, he can’t deny the desire. This might be the end for both of them-or one hell of a beginning.”

-B&N.com

Review

This book was honestly adorable. It was a short story, only about 115 pages on my iPad and $0.99 from the iBook store. It was about 30,000 words which is below the aim for NaNoWriMo so it was a really fast read. It had a cute relationship, adding the explosive location of Afghanistan and in the middle of a war.

Like hot damn. Who gets it on in the middle of a battle field in a cave at night with Taliban just outside the mouth of your cave. These two characters; JT and Grace.

There was some nice character development and yes I would have loved more, but you have to remember that this was a novella, not a novel. Novella’s of series, in case people don’t know (as I didn’t used to), usually take minor characters and use them in a side story, or use the same ideas as the main series but take it on a different track. Also novellas are usually much, much shorter.

But overall, this was a cute and sweet story. The sex wasn’t graphic and there really wasn’t any crude language used. A few f-bombs and regular cursing but no seriously vulgar language which is a nice change.

I will definitely be checking out more of Emmy Curstis’ books as I ‘d love to see what she can do. I recommend this book for ages 17 and up as it is a mature theme but it’s an easy read as I said. Do check it out though!

So until next time my lovelies. Happy reading!

Favorite Quotes

“Good. My name is T.S, and I will be your rescuer today.”

“Well, soldier, is that a night-vision scope in your pocket, or are you just pleased to see me?”