YA

New Releases for Nov 26, 2013

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It’s super Tuesday!!! There are a ton of great books being released today. Again, I’m thanking my family for all the GC. I am using them up quite quickly.

17830559Remy (The REAL series) I love Remy!! That is all I’m saying about that. Here is my review.

17233800Crash into You (Harlequin Teen) I really enjoyed this one as well!! Here is our review.

16101234The Chocolate Heart (Amour et Chocolat) I’m just about to start this one. But here is our review.

17415184Highland Master (The Murrays) Gotta love those Highlanders! I’m hoping to get a chance to read this one soon.

18050760Love a Little Sideways (The Kowalskis) This is Number 7 in the Kowalski series. I have a few of them sitting on my kindle. I am determined to start this series this week. Perhaps while I sit in those long lines on Friday morning.

18221310Pawn (The Blackcoat Rebellion) This is the first in the Blackcoat Rebellion series. I just finished it yesterday. My review will be up tomorrow. All I can say is, if you liked The Hunger Games, you will like this.

Now, I hope you found at least one book that caught your eye. Make sure you fill up your kindles before you head off to family gatherings. You never know when you’re gonna need a break from all those crazies. 🙂

~Melpomene

Review: 4 to 16 Characters by Kelly Hourihan

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18273649 Jane Shilling is 15 year old and pretty much hates her life. So she escapes into one of her alternate online lives, of which there are many. Her mother died last year, her father drinks and she is pretty much invisible at school so she balances her different personas. One is an emo, goth boy who likes to blog about dark feelings, another is an angry woman who likes to pick fights online but mostly she is Rachel online. Rachel, who likes to write fan fiction for her favorite sci-fi show.

Jane hates her therapist at school and hates her teacher when she tries to send home notes about her missing 27 homework assignments. Why do they care? What business is it of theirs? She begins to become friends with some online people but finds it tricky when none of the things she reveals is true. A boy at school tries to be her friend but Jane can’t understand why he would want to and is he really a skee-ball champion?

I found this book to be funny and touching in surprising ways. The cover definitely underwhelms and I wish it would get a new one just so it would draw some actual readers in. I always like when books use multiple mediums to tell stories and the use of IM’s, emails and journal entries definitely worked for me. Through this medium we were able to tell at a glance which of Jane’s online personas were “talking”. I loved reading Jane’s actual journal entries because her venting about her school was one of my favorite parts of the book.

The surprisingly touching parts came in the forms of the IM’s. Both the therapist and Jane’s friends had conversations that were insightful and real. I know some older people might find it hard to read the IM’s because they were in “text speak” that teenagers use, but since this is a young adult novel I thought it was very appropriate and right on. I would recommend this book to any young adult reader.

I received this book via Netgally in return for an honest review.

4 stars

~Clio

Buy it Now 4 to 16 Characters

Review: Waterfell by Amelie Howard

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17397760 This is a young adult otherworldly book but with a feel that I hadn’t really seen or read before. Nerissa Marin is royalty of an undersea kingdom but is in hiding on land until she comes of age and can return and claim her birthright. She lives with her guardians, goes to high school and plays sports like her best friend Jenna does. However she has to be careful around the ocean as she has major pull over the creatures in the water and over any water actually.

When a new boy at school, Lo, is drawn to Nerissa, she can’t seem to fight her attraction to him. She’s been told her whole life that while she can date humans she definitely can’t fall in love with one. Nerissa is meant to bond for life with one of her own kind. At the same time she’s dealing with finding out the mother she’s always thought was murdered has really been held hostage by someone who wants her crown.

I really loved so much about this book, I have a thing for books that have their own mythologies and then build on them. The author did a good job in not bogging down the reader with a ton of details but revealing things slowly over the course of the book. I also really appreciated that there wasn’t a love triangle in here, as there is with the majority of young adult books that are out right now.

There were a ton of twists and turns but they were not too convoluted to follow. The plot was fast paced and made me want to keep reading and not want to put it down any time soon. I love that there were surprises that I didn’t see coming and I love that there wasn’t a cliffhanger for me to freak out about. I was excited to see that this seems to be the first in a series, although it doesn’t say of how many. I’m looking forward to reading more.

I received this ARC from Harlequin TEEN via Netgalley in return for an honest review.

4 stars

~Clio

Buy it Now Waterfell (The Aquarathi)

Review: Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin

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20131023-174824.jpgWhat really happens to your soul after you die? Personal beliefs aside, it's impossible for anyone to answer that question with absolute certainty. This novel offers a beautiful possibility to that question.

When fifteen-year-old Liz is struck by a car, she wakes up aboard the
SS Nile. Baffled by the mostly elderly strangers around her, Liz eventually comes to the realization that she did not survive her accident and is in fact dead. She and all the other passengers are on their way to Elsewhere, an alternate reality-type world where humans as well as their pets go after their death. Here they spend their years aging backwards until, as babies, they return to Earth to be born again. Liz has a difficult time coming to grips with her death and mourns the loss of all that she left behind-never turning sixteen, no driver’s license, no prom dates, never going to college…

I loved this book for so many reasons. Gabrielle Zevin has created a beautiful world full of waterfalls, beaches, sunny days, great food, museums, encounters with famous dead people, and reunions with lost loved ones. I was hooked from the first page as the story opens from the perspective of Lucy, Liz’s grieving Pug. I also loved the talking pets and the humans who are able to speak their language. Yes, it sounds far fetched, but it really works with the story. The characters are fun and likeable and a subtle sense of humor runs throughout the book. Conversations flow easily and are believable, fantasy world aside.

Highly recommended for all, but especially for fans of young adult novels and fantasy in particular.

~Thalia

Buy It Now: Elsewhere

Review: The Iron Traitor, by Julie Kagawa

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15811405I was so excited when I received this ARC. I even did a happy dance. But no, you don’t wanna see it. This book is the second in the Call of the Forgotten series, which is a spin off of the Iron Fey series. I loved The Iron Fey so much, I just knew I’d love this one as well. I was not wrong.

This book takes place a few days after The Iron Prince ended. We find Ethan Chase trying to get back to normal life. Well, as normal as you can get, when you see the fey no one else can see. He’s determined to be a good boyfriend to Kenzie and to NEVER go back to Nevernever. But you know what they say….

When his nephew, Keirran, goes missing, Ethan decides to go and find him as quickly as possible. But finding him and stopping him from doing something so drastic, are two different things. Keirran is determined to save his love, even if it causes great damage and forever change this world. But Ethan tries to help him anyways, cuz he’s family. But that help, just may be the thing that destroys him.

I love that we get a glimpse of Meghan, Ash, Grim and Puck. It was wild seeing Ash as a formidable man and father. He was frightening. But I just love Puck!! I loved the way he never changed and was still the jokester at times, but at the same time, he could also step up and help.

All Puck’s scenes made me wanna go back and read the Iron Fey from the beginning. Many of Ethan and Keirran’s scenes reminded me of Ash’s and Puck’s adventures, from the Iron Fey. They may be different, but they fight together against anything that was thrown their way.

Grim still helped them, too, and yet disappeared when trouble comes. I wonder about that cat….

This book took me four days to read, and I made sure to highlight everything I deemed important. I don’t wanna forget a thing. But that ending…..A CLIFFY!!!!! I am speechless….What…..where……how…..And now I have to wait til next year!! I was seriously shocked. I NEVER saw that coming.

Well done Ms. Kagawa. You have written another fabulous YA book. And, like you tweeted me, your muse was well feed by my tears. So glad I could help you out. 😉

I received this ARC for an honest review.

~Melpomene

Release day: October 29th
Buy it now: The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey)

New Releases for October 22, 2013

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Happy New Release Day!! I’m hoping that you woke up to all the books you were waiting for. Here are some of the books, that have caught my eye.
16055479The Temptation of Lila and Ethan (Ella and Micha)
This is the third book in The Secret series. I’ve read the first in this series. The second keeps taunting me. And now that one is out, it’s really gonna get annoying. So I must hurry up. so I can read about Lila.

16070143Teardrop (Teardrop Trilogy)
I am sooooo excited for this one. I loved her Fallen series and I know this is going to be good also. She writes the perfect YA books. I can’t wait to start this one.

17860217Trust in Me: A Novella (Wait for You)
This is a novella, which is basically Cameron’s POV. I’ll admit, the first one didn’t snag my attention, like I hoped. However, I love the male’s POV, so this may redeem it. So it looks like I may be buying this one. 🙂

10616322Allegiant (Divergent Trilogy)
And last but definitely not least, we’ve Allegiant. I know for a fact that no one will be on their computers, unless it’s to update Goodreads, when this downloads to their kindles. Since I’ll be on the road, driving home from a book signing, I’ll be staying off it, until I can sink my teeth into this one. I am so excited for this last book. I think the hype about the Divergent movie will help the sales of this one. Plus being only $6.99 pre-ordered, can’t beat the price.

Now go and enjoy your books.

~Melpomene

Review: Ten by Gretchen McNeil

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11958033 The premise of this book seemed interesting to me – suspenseful, horror-ish YA book. The book description seemed very Scream like to me, a movie which I loved and have seen a dozen times at least.

Best friends Minnie and Meg get a secret invitation to a private party on an island. When they get there they realize that there were a total of 10 people invited to this party – from different school and from different cliques in those schools. From the beginning it’s obvious things are not quite okay between the best friends who are both interested in the same guy – T.J. He’s at the party and that makes Meg nervous.

When the party gets going and a movie is put in the party takes a quick turn to the twisted when a bizarre video plays and Vengeance is Mine scrolls across the screen. From there things get much, much worse. Out of nowhere one of the teens die and a huge storm hits. Things are crazy and scary – the girls have no idea who to trust.

While this book deals with a scary topic and is a young adult book I did not get either of these feelings from this book. There were a few twists and turns that were unexpected but none that were scary in any sense. The relationship between the two friends also seemed a little young younger than the young adult books that I read. I would suggest this to maybe a 10-13 year old who likes a little darker books. There was not a ton of gore. Overall just not a book for me.

2 stars.

~Clio

Ten

Review: Almost Perfect by Brian Katcher

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5982474Oh how very angry this book made me. And it did so in varying shades, slowly at first and then by the end I was basically running to my computer to write this review so there was no lag in my reaction time. I basically went from a slow simmer in the beginning to a burning rage at the end. Which really rarely happens to me with books because I almost never finish books I don’t like. I’ve been making a better effort to finish these kinds of books so I can review them for this blog. Because I would never review a book I didn’t read fully. So I am glad I finished this book so I could fully express my distaste!!

Logan Witherspoon was recently dumped by his girlfriend Brenda of 3 years. He found out she cheated on him and she then dumped him. Logan spends the first portion of the book lamenting this loss, but not really lamenting the loss of Brenda, much more so the loss of the possibility of getting laid. While he was angry at being dumped he seems much more angry at the idea that Brenda never allowed him to get past “second base” but cheated on him fully with another guy. Logan is extremely bitter about this. Which starts my slow simmer.  Being angry at being cheated on is completely understandable but Logan goes on and on and on about what a wonderful, amazing guy he was for not pushing Brenda to have sex with him.  When in reality that’s what a decent human being is supposed to be like.

Logan meets Sage Hendricks when she moves to his school that year and is in his lab with his friend Tim. Which brings me to point 2 of my anger level rising. Logan describes TIm as this disgusting slob. Every single time Tim is mentioned he is talked about as eating more food, as being grossly huge and just fat. At first I figured he was going to turn into a bad guy in the book and that was the reason for the description but nope, Tim is nothing but a good guy and a great friend. So basically Logan is an ass that describes his friends in very negative terms for no reason even though they’re good people.

Sage, meanwhile, is a cute girl that Logan is attracted to but who is not allowed to date. Logan finds this odd and they get closer and closer. Sage finally discloses her biggest secret – she is actually a boy. Her parents hate that she dresses like a girl and this is the first year she has been allowed to go to school in a very long time. She sneaks hormone pills in order to grow breasts and is hoping to get a sex change operation in the future.

This obviously gives Logan a completely good reason to freak out. They had kissed right before this revelation and he was understandably freaked out. I totally got this part of Logan, and his reactions in this part of the book made sense to me. However, as the book goes on Logan’s reactions no longer made sense to me at all. He knows this about Sage from a relatively early point in the book yet things still progress between the two so it felt like a yo yo for most of the book.  Which led to more of my hatred of Logan. I really wanted to smack him. His reactions for most of the book were extremely superficial and felt like we never got to go much past that. When for the briefest of moments we would get there he would pull back immediately.

I was left frustrated by this book. I thought Sage was believable, as was Logan and unfortunately the whole book probably was too.  I, however, did not enjoy it. Logan was an ass an not someone I want to read about.

2 Stars

~Clio

Almost Perfect

Review: Between the Lines Books 1-3 by Tamara Webber

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I’m going to do this review a little differently and review the whole trilogy at once because, well, I read all 3 books at once. Which I love. I was able to not have the anxious wait in between books which is a good and a bad thing. That build up of excitement wasn’t there but I also didn’t have to experience any disappointment if that build up anticipation didn’t meet my expectations. So I’m going to divide my review into 3 parts- one for each book.

11262424

Between the Lines #1

Reid Alexander is young Hollywood star who is used to getting what he wants- cars, movies and girls. Emma Pierce is a small time actress who just got cast in Reid’s next movie. Reid quickly sets his sights on Emma. Emma is very down to earth and notices quickly that Reid expects things to come easily to him. But she is still very attracted to him and unsure of herself. When Emma meets Graham, another young actor in the movie, they begin to hang out and Emma finds herself also attracted to him.

I liked the dynamics of the books and the dual points of view- from Emma and from Reid. Reid decides Emma is what he needs in his life and we as the audience gets to see how he maneuvers things to make that happen. From Emma’s point of view we can see how Graham is very kind to her and how quickly they fall for each other. Of course issues arise and Emma begins to date Reid instead. With the secondary characters around them playing important parts – I loved to see the different worlds of each of these young actors. Some were born into it and some worked very hard to get there. This first book set the stage for young love though at turns it’s hard to see exactly for who.

4 stars

12067972

Where You Are (#2)

This book had an altogether different feel to it than the first one. While the majority of the first is on a movie set, this one moves around a lot. From New York, to Texas and then back to Hollywood. It starts out with Emma and Graham declaring their love for each other and dealing with the fact that Graham has a young daughter. From there the plot revolves around Brooke, the temptress best friend who has been waiting for Graham to wake up to what’s right in front of him for years. She teams up with Reid to break up the two to get to the ones they think they want.

A series of potential misunderstandings are luckily sidestepped by the young couple. I really liked seeing how both Emma and Graham were pretty open and communicative with each other. Reid and Brooke really seem to deserve each other by the end of the book and I was surprised that’s not where it went. I was also surprised there was another book to go as the book seemed to wrap up all that I cared about.

4 stars

13248357

Good For You (#3)

This book revolves around Reid Alexander. He is a complete party-er and has gotten into multiple situations that he had to be gotten out of by his PR rep or lawyer. His most recent scrape means he needs to do community service. Enter Dori. She is a genuinely good person and wants nothing to do with Reid and doesn’t really want him around while he does his time. Slowly they begin to have pull on each other until they realize they are both falling for each other.

This book for me was completely out of nowhere. It felt nothing like the other two and to be honest I didn’t really care for Reid at all. I didn’t see the point of his own book, or if he got his own book I was waiting for something more interesting. Dori felt completely boring to me and I could never really get into her storyline at all. I’ve heard many other people with opposite opinions of mine, including another muse actually, but I wish this would have ended with just the 2 books. I was surprised to find out there was a 4th book in the series (the last one) but I will not be purchasing it.

2 stars.

So my personal recommendation is to read the first two and enjoy them. They’re cute, enjoyable, funny and sweet. Skip the next two.

~Clio

Between the Lines #1 Buy it Now Between the Lines (Between the Lines #1)

Where You Are (#2) Buy it Now Where You Are (Between the Lines #2)

Good For You (#3) Buy it Now Good For You (Between the Lines #3)

Review: Once We Were by Kat Zhang

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16109664 This is the captivating sequel to What’s Left of Me that I reviewed and gave 5 stars to a few weeks ago. This releases today! Once We Were picks up shortly after the conclusion of What’s Left of Me. Addie and Eva escaped the governmental institution and find themselves in league with a group of underground hybrids who are all on the lam. They immediately want to be part of the resistance and to make a difference.

However they discover there is a lot of waiting around to be done. During all of the waiting the girls learn how to withdraw and to give each other much needed private time. Eva uses that time to get closer to Ryan and learn how to maneuver around all that comes with hybrids dating each other.

“But the thing is, sharing hands doesn’t mean sharing goals. Sharing eyes doesn’t mean sharing visions. And sharing a heart doesn’t mean sharing the things we love.”

Meanwhile their new found friends are taking part in the resistance in ways both big and small. Eva feels a desparation to get things going immediately and to make a drastic impact. This causes her to convince Addie to make some questionable choices.

There are a lot of differences between this and the first book. For the first 50% or so there was not a ton of action, which I honestly liked. This part of the book was more focused on the relationships between Addie, Eva and the rest of their hybrid group. I really loved seeing the girls trying to figure out how to date and how to determine who gets control of the body and when.

When the action does get started it was definitely exciting and while I knew something was going on – I couldn’t quite figure out what that was, which I liked.

While I did love this book, I didn’t love it as much as the first one. I think it’s mostly because the novelty of hybrids had worn off for me. I still can’t wait to see what is going to happen next for both the resistance and those hybrids that are under the government’s control.

4 Stars

~Clio

Buy the first one if you haven’t already! (It’s only $2.99 right now) What’s Left of Me: The Hybrid Chronicles, Book One

Buy it Now Once We Were: The Hybrid Chronicles, Book 2