YA

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!!!

 

 

 

 

Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin

 in Book Reviews / Books / Fantasy / Older Readers / Young Adult / Younger Readers by
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From Amazon.com

Summary

“The only thing Avery Hood can remember about the night her parents died is that she saw silver-deadly silver, moving inhumanly fast. As much as she wants to remember who killed them, she can’t, and there’s nothing left to do but try to piece her life back together. Then Avery meets the new boy in school-Ben, mysterious and beautiful, with whom she feels a connection like nothing she’s ever experienced. When Ben reveals he’s a werewolf, Avery still trusts him-at first. Then she sees that sometimes his eyes flash inhuman silver. And she learns that she’s not the only one who can’t remember the night her parents died.Part murder mystery, part grief narrative, and part heart-stopping, headlong romance, Low Red Moon is a must-read for teen paranormal fans. As breathless as Twilight and as spooky as Shiver, this is a book to be devoured in one sitting-by an acclaimed YA author making her paranormal debut under the pseudonym Ivy Devlin.”

-From Amazon.com

Review

So I received this book as a gift from someone so naturally I just had to read it, quickly. Getting a book from someone is the best thing ever because I love to read, so who needs jewelry. Give me a good book and I’m set.

In all honesty, I read this book in about 2-3 hours as it’s not a difficult read at all. I would classify it as younger YA as the story is much more simplistic, the writing is simple, and there are not tons of words on the page. Meaning it’s not written like Shōgun where the font is really small and so is the spacing – it is larger font and more space between the words.

One thing which I thought was really cool about this book was every time the word ‘moon’ showed up, it was written in red. I haven’t seen that before really, or not that I remember, so it was quite a nice touch and added an effect to the story.

As for the actual story itself, it was quite simple and there was some character development but it wasn’t terribly deep. This is, of course, because it was a younger YA book so the stories are not as complex as books for older readers but it still had a good story. Werewolves are always kind of interesting to read about. The ending took a turn I was not expecting and that was nice as well. I had this horrible feeling that the ending would be a little bit predictable but it definitely wasn’t.

The story, as a whole, was a good story and for a YA book it was good. As I am an older reader, I would really have liked to see a little bit more going on with the story such as some more explanations, maybe some more detailed interactions, less of the whole ‘I just met this cute boy, I’m 15 years old, and I’m hinting at sleeping with him but I’m not going to…or am I…”. It sometimes bugs me when that happens. I mean the character is not always clearly 15 or 16 or so because of things that happen so you could see them as being older, except during these moments of passion when she would think to herself how young she is and I’m here like “NO…STOP THE TRAIN!!!!!!! 15 YEAR OLDS SHOULD BE PLAYING OUTSIDE…NOT WANTING TO SLEEP WITH A BOY THEY MET 5 DAYS PREVIOUSLY!!!”

I mean, I know it isn’t such a big deal, but it feeds into the constant culture that it doesn’t matter how long you know someone, sleeping with them is okay if you feel like you truly love them. Like come on, 24 hours ago Avery didn’t even think Ben would kiss her and then he did and then suddenly she’s ready to sleep with him. I did want to smack the character over that. That’s the only kind of aspect that made it maybe a little bit more older YA. They didn’t sleep together, but they kept hinting at it. And no 15 year old should be getting these ideas into their heads.

Overall, it was a decent werewolf YA book and I would recommend it. Would I have liked more from the story? Yes. But for a younger reader this would suit them perfectly. I haven’t been reading many YA books recently so it took me a while to adjust back to that writing style with the simpler story lines, but for the book it was good.

It had a beautiful red cover and caught my attention as soon as it was given to me.

Do check this one out (purchase it here) and let me know what you think.

Until next time, happy reading!

Gideon’s War by Howard Gordon

 in Adult / Book Reviews / Books / Young Adult by

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Summary

“GIDEON DAVIS, whose behind-the-scenes negotiating skills have earned him the role of peacemaker in conflicts around the globe, knows more about hush-hush discussions in Capitol corridors than he does about hand-to-hand combat. But his more practical, tactical skills come into play when he’s called on by family friend and government bigwig Earl Parker to chaperone a rogue agent from Southeast Asia to D.C. The agent, Tillman Davis, has promised to turn himself in— but only to his brother, Gideon.

Although the two brothers have been estranged for years, Gideon cannot fathom how his brother could have turned into so ruthless a man. But when the plan for Tillman’s surrender goes awry and Earl Parker is taken hostage, Gideon is forced to embrace his dark side in order to evade hostile locals in war-torn Mohan to make his way to the Obelisk—the multimillion-dollar, state-of-the-art oil rig that has been seized by terrorists led by Tillman himself. It is with the help of oil rig manager Kate Murphy that Gideon launches an unlikely one-man rescue.”

From Amazon.com

Review

I really did enjoy this book and read it surprisingly fast as well, considering I don’t have tons of time to just sit down and read at the moment.

A little bit about the author…

Howard Gordon—the longtime executive producer of the hit TV series 24—makes his fiction debut with a tale of political intrigue and international terrorism. Gideon Davis has just 48 hours to bring his rogue agent brother in—before a twisted global conspiracy turns deadly.

-From Amazon.com

So, with that in mind, this entire book felt like a perfect movie and I think that it would have made a perfect movie as well and hope that maybe one day a movie will be made out of this.

It had a lot of political kind of stuff going on, but not so much so that if you didn’t understand anything about how the U.S. government works you wouldn’t understand it. Most of the jargon used was to just help illustrate the situation but it didn’t make the reading any more difficult.

There wasn’t exactly tons of character development in this book but it didn’t really bother me because of the story. There was lots of action happening and it kept you interested. There were terrorists, there were Delta Teams, there were massive storms, there were epic underwater dives, there were oil rigs. I mean it had it all. It was almost like something out of a James Bond movie and I absolutely loved it. Since the author writes for TV, he knows what people like to read and he, honestly, nailed it.

While I wouldn’t consider this good writing, because the sentences were smaller and it didn’t really take much concentration to understand the story, the story itself was very entertaining and made me wanting to find out what happened. He had many suspenseful moments, where he would end the chapter, and then it may change back to Washington so you had to read that chapter before you could find out what happened back on the oil rig or something like that.

There wasn’t exactly tons of violence, except towards the end and it was only a little graphic, but decently realistic to how maybe a jihadist would treat a prisoner.

I also really liked how it wasn’t a perfect ending. Not everyone survived and not all of the larger characters survived either which was quite a change. It wasn’t a perfect and neat package in the end.

The cover was beautiful, as you hopefully saw either on my snapchat around when I started it (4th of July) or on my instagram, and if not, here it is again.

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I purchased this book for like 1 cent in a thrift store, with tons of other small books and it was a great bargain. I probably would have bought this book if I saw it in Barnes and Nobel or borrowed it from my library as this is exactly the kind of book that I love to read.

So I really do suggest checking it out. It’s more of an adult book but I could also qualify this as young adult. It’s more adult just because of the story idea with the political kind of stuff, but as a reading level, probably older YA.

Purchase it here!

And let me know what you think about it!

Happy Reading!

Finding Magdalena by Shannon Cordon

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

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“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!