Punk's House of Books

I received a free copy of this novel through the Arcycling blog

(Trying something a bit different with my reviews. Please let me know if I should change it back or keep it.)

This book should have been named “Daddy Issues” because that it basically all it’s about. Heloise/Helen has been a prostitute (escort) since she was nineteen years old. She dropped out of school (though she was pretty much a straight A student) and ran away from home with the first guy she slept with because she thought he loved her. She blames this on her father, because he was cruel to her and beat her and her mother. 

She eventually hooked up with a pimp, who also beat her occasionally, this she blames on her father. And her mother for putting up with her father. She blames her father for her not graduating high school. She blames her father for every bad thing that’s happened in her life. She takes no responsibility for the decisions she’s made that led her down the path of prostitution. 

I understand that children that are abused by their parents suffer mental consequences, but there comes a time when you need to take responsibility for your own actions. Heloise never learns this lesson, because her in twenty years of hooking, she never once gets caught (unlikely).

She’s also boring and very pretentious for someone that never graduated high school. She has a son, Scott who is constantly described as a “dream child”. He is perfect in almost every way and he has been since birth. He hardly ever cried, slept through the night, few tantrums, polite, smart, and athletic. 

There are no real twists or turns in the book, you can see the “twist” from a mile away. Also the book is very dry and it took me a few days to get through it. It flips back and forth from her current life to her past, leading up to how she became to be a suburban madam. 

This book just wasn’t for me. 

This review is for the second book in the Danaan series, it will contain spoilers for the first book, The Forgotten Ones.

This book continues exactly where the last one left off. Aoife has escaped and is planning on performing a bonding ceremony in the hopes to trap Liam forever. 

If Liam is permanently bonded to Aoife it means there will be no hope of Allison’ mom, Beth, ever getting better. They must retrieve an amulet to break the curse Aoife has placed on Liam and Beth.

Besides all this, Allison has to deal with discovering a half-sister that is also a mind-reading fae. And the fact that Ethan now acts like he hates her and she fears she’s lost her chance with him after she’s finally decided to be with him. 

This book takes Allison further into the land of the faeries, where she learns that Aoife has been destroying the lands with blood magic that is forbidden among the faeries. She doesn’t know who to trust and the King, Aoife’s bored father, has been messing with Allison by tricking her and trying to enthrall her. 

I have the same complaints about this book that I did the first one and the same compliments. I feel like we still don’t get a good grasp on who Allison really is. We do learn that she likes to read but still no insight on her career aspirations, or major, nothing. It still moves too fast and abruptly ends. 

I thought my favorite character (Ethan) was becoming a huge dick but there is a small twist. I still can’t keep all the fae characters straight but once again I was engaged by the description of the land of the faeries. 

So far, it’s not a bad series. It’s entertaining, short and sweet, and full of imagination. It kind of reminds me of fanfic, which isn’t really a negative thing. I’ll definitely stick with this one to the end. 

Allison’s mother, Beth, is schizophrenic and has been since Allison was a child, though her condition has grown worse over the years. Allison blames herself, because she’s under the impression that her mother wasn’t this way before she was born. 

Allison lives a quiet life with her cousin Nicole as her best friend. She rarely socializes, focusing on work, school, and most importantly, her mom. She only wants to be able to properly take care of her mother. 

She even denies herself a relationship that she clearly desires with Ethan, a boy she’s known since they were both children and has loved just about as long. She thinks he’s a player and that dating him will distract her from her goals. He surely tries hard enough to get her to change her mind. 

Strange things begin to happen, her mother’s fits are getting worse and crows had suddenly started showing up in the yard. The strangest is Allison’s father that she’s never met randomly showing up on her doorstep, not looking a day older than Allison’ is herself. 

Liam claims he didn’t even know Allison existed until recently. He also claims to be fae and that he can cure Beth. She doesn’t know whether to believe him but when her mom goes missing, she has no choice but to ask for his help.

I’ve heard a lot about this book, and I’ve had it on Amazon loan since it came out. I have to say that I was ever so slightly disappointed. 

First, we know next to nothing about Allison. We know she has a mom with a mental illness, her cousin is her best friend, and that she crushes hard on Ethan. Other than that? Nothing. We don’t know her interests, what she’s going to grad school for, what she wants to be when she’s done with school. There is a mention that she and Ethan kissed once before and she seemed to regret it but we don’t know why or what happened between then. 

She calls him a player but he pretty much ignores other girls when she’s around. She constantly turns him down so it’s only natural he would date other girls. Overall, Ethan seems pretty nice, though a bit cocky at times. It’s obvious that he’s really into Allison. 

The first half of the book was more like a romance and the second half is where it starts getting into the fantasy. The fae part was pretty interesting, using some Irish mythology. There were a ton of fae secondary characters introduced that I couldn’t keep straight. 

It was really fast paced, but it was under 200 pages. It felt a bit too fast, I felt like Allison accepted things too easily. Also, it just kind of suddenly ends. Based on the ages of the characters (early twenties) it could be a NA book, but it reads more like a YA. 

So why am I giving a 3 Star rating when there seems to be so many flaws? Because FAERIES. I love Faeries. 

Plus, the book did keep me engaged. It’s a quick read, and I will continue the series (more to see how things turn out with Ethan than anything. Lol). There were some things that hopefully will be explained in the next book (which I already bought!).

I received a free copy of this novel through the Arcycling blog

Ritchie has a bad attitude. He kinda has a few reasons for the chip on his shoulder; his dad left, his sister was killed by a drunk driver, and his mom decided to become a lesbian. Plus he’s in juvie, serving a ninety day sentence and there are two boys who would love to get rid of him.

He tells his story from the moment him and his best friend (only friend) Elliot Hella a.k.a. El Hella, decide to form a band and enter in a battle of the bands type contest. El Hella is a bit intense, more serious about the possibility of becoming rich and famous. He pushes Ritchie hard and Ritchie doesn’t always respond well.

The story goes back and forth from his time in juvie to his life before. In his life before, he lusts after the hot girl of the school, Ravenna, and bides his time messing with the ex-frumpy girl that’s turning into a cute punk chick. He gets lectures from his mom’s girlfriend about not being such a teenage hardass because it will get him nowhere in life.

In juvie, he spends his time trying not to get his ass beat. He makes one friend B’lo, a quiet boy that gets library duty with him. He writes song lyrics, and is forced to see the therapist.

Throughout the book you can feel something building, but you don’t know why he’s in juvie until the end of the book. Once you know, you finally understand why he’s been such an A-Hole.

Most of the book, I though “man are all teenage boys this freakin’ obnoxious?!” But I get it, the angry teenager vibe because you’ve been dealt a crappy hand. A lot of us have been there, I wasn’t exactly a nice teenager either.

It’s a rough coming of age book; Ritchie learns a lot harder of a lesson than most characters in these types of books. Ritchie pissed me off a lot with his stunts but I’m old and cranky.

Overall, I liked this book more when I finished it than when I was reading it but I read it fast and it keep me interested. I recommend if you are looking for a coming of age that’s a little different than the normal YA book.

I received a digital copy of this book from the editor in exchange for a fair review.

Zoey and Daniel have been together since they were thirteen years old. When Daniel is killed by a drunk driver, Zoey thinks her life is over.

When he returns to her as a vampire, she lets herself believe everything will be as it once was. Only she loses him again when the vampire Council takes him away to be trained/controlled.

Skip ahead five years and Daniel is back, though not like he was before. He keeps Zoey away, gives her half-truths and basically breaks her heart. He only stays around to protect her and in her line of work, she needs it.

Zoey is a low-level thief. Not as great as her father, but getting there. Daniel is part of her crew, along with Neil the gay werewolf and Sarah the witch.

A strange man named Halfer hires her to steal a supernatural object called the Light of Alhorra, she realizes too late that she made a deal with a demon and her soul is at stake.

In the middle of this her troll friends (yes, troll. Not like Harry Potter “there’s a troll in the dungeon!” troll but nice humanish trolls that live under a bridge) convince her to forget Daniel already and get some hot new action! They fix her up with Devinshea Quinn, a sexy half-fae that has been interested in Zoey for a while.

While she is trying to fix her love life, she is also trying to save herself and her crew from an eternity in hell.

There is lots of action and sex and backstabbing and supernatural creatures (vampires and werewolves and faeries, oh my!). It has a bit of a Southern Vampire Mysteries feel to it, which I enjoyed. I love books where these supernatural creatures are living among us in their own underground society, and few humans know about them.

It starts out a bit slow during the setup of the story but quickly picks up the pace, with lots of actions scenes, and a few sexy times scenes. It’s hard to get bored during this book, once it got into its groove, I couldn’t put it down.

Zoey tries to be strong and independent but I feel like she gets in over her head a lot. She’s been pining for years after Daniel. Now she is stuck between two men while a demon is trying to steal her soul.

Daniel gives Zoey a bunch of the “I’m a vamp now, so I’m not good for you” crap which annoyed me at first but then you learn what it really means in the vamp society to have a human mate and you give Daniel a bit of a break.

Neil was a stereotypical campy gay character that likes to shop and go clubbing but he was also a pretty badass wolf and he is super loyal to Zoey.

I really liked Dev; he stood out the most for me. He didn’t seem to have any kind of motive other than making Zoey happy. He is very forgiving and understanding, especially when it comes to Daniel and Zoey’s relationship.

What happened with the Light of Alhorra was…weird. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

The book has its cheesy moments but that doesn’t mean it was bad. Cheese can be so

much fun. There are some detailed sex scenes, which is not really a thing I get into (hence the abundance of YA books on this blog). But hey, if that’s your thing.

I feel like if you enjoyed the Sookie books, you might also enjoy this one.

My Rating –  3 1/2 of 5 stars

I received a digital copy of this book for free from the author in exchange for a fair review.

On Serena’s seventeenth birthday, she is waiting to be tested for the magic in her blood. This is her duty as a daughter, to be married off and produce sons.

Well more like sold off.

If she has strong magic in her blood, she will be quite literally sold off to the highest bidder. The women in Serena’s country are little better than slaves. They are owned by their fathers and husbands. They are forced to call them Master and submit to their every whim. They have no rights, there only job is to be a subservient wife and produce as many sons as possible. They are often beaten or hexed by their fathers and husbands (and Serena is beaten and hexed by her Father pretty regularly. He’s a douche-nugget). They are barely educated and the only book they are allowed is the Women’s Canon, which teaches them how to act.

And if they happen to severely misbehave, they are tarnished. Which means they basically become slaves and are forced to undergo a spell that makes them bald and barren and subject to be sacrifices.

It is discovered that Serena has quite powerful magical blood and she quickly obtains a suitor, Thomas. A rich and powerful Chancellor and very cruel (another douche-nugget). By a strange twist of a fate, her ownership is transferred to an Envadi named Zade. A man from another country that her people see as barbarians.

Zade is nothing like Thomas. He’s quiet and treats Serena with an amount of respect that is unheard of in her country. The only problem is people are not happy with this arrangement. They don’t want an outsider on their council. There is a bounty on his head and Serena constantly pushes the limits of her new found freedom. Which causes even more trouble for Zade and may end up costing both of them their lives (dun dun duuuunnn).

Okay so, I read this book in a day! I actually really enjoyed it. Serena is pretty stubborn and headstrong for a girl that gets constantly beaten and hexed by her Father. She sometimes doesn’t think before she acts, which gets a little annoying (come on girl, do you have NO sense of self-preservation?!) But then again she is only seventeen and what seventeen year old girl actually thinks about their actions? However she is also super protective of her sisters and friends, taking the blame for things they have done wrong. And she also wants change and is willing to fight for it. She hates how the woman in her country are treated and is so used to abuse, she is very shocked when Zade doesn’t punish her but also tells her that the women of his country are not treated that way.

Her world is terrifying to me, how woman are so easily abused and disregarded. Several times I wanted to reach through the book and strangle her Father.

Cynthia is Serena’s sister and very loyal to her. She has seen what Serena went through with Thomas and has taken her own abuse from her Father, yet she has a fanciful idea of marriage. Which I thought was rather silly, though again, teenage girl.

Zade was kinda of mysterious, and kind but he does have his GGGRRRR moments. We really don’t see much of him to be honest. I wish there had been more.

The book was good though Serena does have the clichéd moments of “does he like me?” “Oh well he must like this other girl. I’ll just step aside…” Chick, you are headstrong enough to go out without a chaperone but you can’t ask what his relationship is with a certain girl!?

I wish there had been a bit more romance between Zade and Serena and a little more action at the end. I feel like the book was resolved a tad too easily. I would have like to see the magic in the blood thing explored a little more, maybe in the next book? (It’s in Cynthia’s POV)

Anyways, I enjoyed and will more than likely be checking out the next book!

My Rating – 3.75 Stars

This book is the 3rd and final book in the Daughter of Smoke and Bone series. This review will contain spoilers.

Sigh.

The end of a beautiful series. 

Here’s the thing, it’s been so long since I read the last book that I forgot a lot of things and struggling to remember small things took me out of the book a bit. So NOT the fault of the author (my own fault. I should have reread) 

Karou has tricked the chimaera rebellion by replacing Thiago, in the hopes that there can be a new future. A future of peace between the chimaera and the seraphim. 

A future with Akiva.

And this future must begin with an agreement of teamwork between the chimaera and the seraphim to bring down Jael. And that goes about as well as you can expect. There is a large amount of tension between the chimaera and the seraphim as they cram together in the caves of Karou’s old tribe. 

Influenced by Razgut, Jael has taken his Dominion soldiers to Earth, in the hope to gain weapons to fight the Stelians. While Jael is trying to gain benefactors; Karou and the others are plotting ways to stop him (while still trying to keep up that act that the White Wolf is not really the White Wolf).

To make matters worse, the Stelian Queen wants to kill Akiva (what?!) and the chimaera bodies that Karou left behind at the Kasbah have been discovered by humans in Morocco. 

Not to mention there is the introduction of a new character, Eliza, who may or may not be a prophet descended from an angel. And a new plotline that has to do with giant monsters that could destroy the seraphim and the chimaera, which are eating away at the veil between worlds.

Honestly, there was too much going on in this book. I felt like the plot of Karou and Akiva starting a new beginning was lost. 

I didn’t care for Eliza (or her arch nemesis Morgan who was a giant sexist douche) and her POV annoyed me for the most part. She didn’t really bring anything to the story. I also felt like her character was left largely unfinished. 

Liraz however, was wonderful and I wish we could have gotten more of her! The turmoil she went through in this book, grieving over her brother, and regret over the things she had done to chimaera. Ziri, as well was a great character that I would have rather had more of. 

There is only one real action scene in this book, and the confrontation you might expect between Jael and everyone else never happens (it goes by the way of Breaking Dawn. A talk. A bit more of a violent and threatening talk but still a talk.)

The tension between Karou and Akiva was beautiful as always however they don’t get the ending they were hoping for. It’s a bittersweet ending that gives us hope rather than a resolution.

Really, there is so much going on in this book that I felt like I have no real idea what it was about. It was about everything. 

That said, I still love this series and while this final book is not as rage inducing as other final books *cough*RequiemandAllegiant*cough* I think it missed its mark a bit. 

I’ll try to make this an actual review and not just a gushing fangirl review but I make no promises.

This book is a continuation of the movie, and it starts about two months after the movie ended. If you have yet to see the movie, this will spoil some things. 

Veronica is back in Neptune, taking over Mars Investigations while Keith is recovering from his, well, I’m going to call it an accident though it wasn’t. She’s been barely able to pay Mac, let alone the rent. The cases are minor. 

Plus Keith is unhappy with the situation and wishes she would move back to NYC and take her bar exam. This causes Veronica some heartache because she feels like being an investigator is what she was born for. 

Then a girl goes missing at a spring break party. Of course Sheriff Lamb is screwing it up and Veronica is hired by none other than the Neptune Chamber of Commerce to find the girl (not because of any actual worry for the girl, but because a missing girl equals less tourism dollars. This is Neptune after all). The paycheck is huge and it’s pretty much the only way Veronica is going to be able to keep Mars Investigations open.

Veronica dives right in, using all her old tricks (like playing the ditzy blonde girl, a personal favorite of mine because it makes me laugh how easily people fall for it). Wallace and Mac are there to help her when she needs them. 

Just when Veronica is starting to get the clues together on the case, another girl goes missing and she has ties to someone from her past. The investigation takes her into the world of drug cartel families and organized crime. Her life is in danger on more than one occasion. 

Ok so I loved this book! It was just like watching an episode, I even heard the character’s’ voices as I read. Veronica is just as snarky (though I would have preferred a first person narrative, rather than a third, her internal monologue was still brutally honest). She even mentions the pony (Keith just get her a pony already!)

Dick is there and just so HIM, complete with puka shells and eighteen year old girls. Cliff and his way of indirectly helping. Weevil and his worry for Veronica’s safety (which I have always found endearing), and some small appearances by Logan though he is currently far far away. 

Keith’s role is a bit small but Wallace and Mac are featured a lot more which I’m happy about. I’m still waiting on some explanation on why Wallace is a teacher though. And maybe a little bit better explanation on why Logan joined the military. I mean, I’m allllll for Logan walking around in a uniform, but come on Logan being told what to do? I need some more backstory there. 

That stuff aside, I’m so pleased with this book. I can’t wait for more and I hope Veronica does take her bar exam because it’s not going to hurt her job as a PI to take it. My ultimate dream for Veronica is joining the FBI, though I think she might get bored and hate all the red tape. I also need more Logan! Let’s have him home for the next book! 

If you are a Veronica Mars fan, I’m almost positive you will love this book and if you aren't a VMars fan then you better get on that real quick because you are missing out!

My Rating - 3 of 5 stars

I received a free copy of this novel from the Penguin First to Read program in exchange for a fair review.

The Delegates are one of the wealthiest (and most eccentric) families in late 1800’s Manhattan. The father, Freddy, and the mother, Anna Marie likes to collect odd things, such as a Chinese emigrant, and a cross-dressing native.

The oldest son, Hugo is fresh out of a stay at the sanitarium and the Delegate parents decided to take him on a cross-country train trip. While on this trip they make a stop in a small mining town in Nevada, where Freddy owns a silver mine. This is where they discover Savage Girl.

Savage Girl is a show in a barn where a beautiful young girl, supposedly raised by wolves and can’t speak, acts like a beast (complete with specially made razor sharp claws) and then gets naked and takes a bath, much to the pleasure of the men in the audience. She is a town favorite, with a packed full barn at every show.

The Delegate family is immediately taken with her. Freddy and Anna Marie have been searching for a “real’ wild child to collect and bring into society; Freddy is desperate to annoy his fellow wealthy friends by proving their nature vs. nurture theory wrong.

They take her, hoping to rehabilitate her and have her come out with all of the Manhattan debutantes. They discover her real name, Bronwyn, and try to teach her and convince her to wear shoes and normal clothes.

She’s smart, that much they can tell. They have high hopes for her. Though she gives them a hard time at first, she catches on fast and soon she is the most popular debutante in the city. Men flock to her and fawn over her. They only problem is, everywhere she goes a man ends up dead and missing his manly bits.

Hugo is torn, it’s clear he is absolutely in love with this girl, though he thinks her capable of murder. Or is it him committing the murders? He isn’t sure. He blacks out and isn’t entirely clear when some things happen. Could he be killing these men out of jealously?

Bronwyn sneaks out at night dressed as a man, she dances with gypsies, and can control a wild cat in the zoo to do tricks for her. She seems to be two people, the Savage Girl and Bronwyn the debutante.

This book was…okay. The first half was so so slow and then it speeds up very fast for the last few chapters. It was way overwritten. While the descriptions were wonderful, I could picture the women in their corsets and bustles and the horses clomping down the street in Manhattan, at times it’s just too much. It easily could have been a hundred pages shorter and told the same story.

The deaths are few and far between, again until the second half of the book where it picks up. Most of the book is a journey inside Hugo’s mind and his thoughts and opinions of Bronwyn, and also the snobby life of the Manhattan elite.

I didn’t like most of the Delegate family; Bronwyn was really just a piece of a collection to them. Hugo was very whiny and what a drama queen! Bronwyn, I liked what we are told about her, but you don’t ever really get to know her because it’s from Hugo’s point of view and he constantly mentions how he knows nothing about her.

Not a bad book overall, just a tad boring.

My Rating – 3 ¼ Stars

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley on behalf of Scholastic books in exchange for a fair review.

In the distant future, America is split at the Mississippi River. A virus has ravaged the East and a giant wall has been built to keep the rest of a country safe. This virus was created by a company called the Titan Corporation. They built amusement parks and wanted to create freaky animal hybrid creatures for their parks. Well they screwed up big time and millions of people became sick. 

Delaney “Lane” Park McEvoy is a pretty normal teenage girl, living on the Western side of the wall. She has a few friends and a soft spot for stray animals. She spends her free time in self-defense classes that her father makes her take. She thinks her father is a successful art dealer that just happens to travel a lot. 

Wrong.

Her father, Mac, is a fetch; which is a person that crosses the wall into the east to retrieve things people have left behind. This is a highly illegal profession, punishable by public execution. And he’s just been busted. 

The director of the agency that busted Mac has a proposition for Lane. Get her father to do a special fetch to Chicago for her and she’ll erase his file. The problem is Mac crossed the wall, so Lane has to venture into the East to find him and she’s never even seen the other side of the wall before. 

The director gives Lane very simple instructions. Get to the island military base where there is a doctor that may know where Mack is and get back. If she can’t find her father, get back ASAP before they block the secret passage. Oh and don’t get infected.

Lane sets off into the East, pretty much unprepared. She does however remember the fairytales her father used to tell her as a child. They seem shockingly familiar to the sites and creatures she sees in the East. She realizes her father may have been secretly training her to become a fetch. 

Once in the military base she meets Everson (the good guy), a guard that actually seems to care about the people remaining in the East and Rafe (the bad guy), an outcast that steals and kills to survive and who knows her father. Both extremely attractive (of course), both want Lane. 

Lane soon learns that the East is not entirely like how she was told. Lots of uninfected people were left behind when the East was evacuated and the wall was built but the government doesn’t seem to care about them. The ones that were infected have turned into animal-people hybrids. 

Depending on the stage of the infection, some still have their human side and they are called “manimals”. Some have gone fully animals and they are considered feral. And sometimes ferals have no problem hunting humans.

So this book had its flaws (some big ones) but I kinda liked it. I liked Lane; her determination, and her heart of gold (even though it gets her in trouble). 

Rafe and Everson were total clichés and the love triangle was really (REALLY) in your face. Like BAM. LOVE TRIANGLE. No subtleties about it. If there had been no love triangle, this easily would’ve been a 4 star book. There were also some tiny holes in the plot. 

But I really liked the new spin on a dystopian world. A virus that creates animal/human creatures instead of zombies (or some other variation of the undead). It was something new and different and I did enjoy it. The action kept me going in this book. I flew through this so fast! There aren’t many slow moments. 

Overall, this book was okay. The love triangle was annoying enough to make me dislike the book but the creativity and the action kinda made up for it. I’m interested enough to keep an eye out for the sequel. 

My Rating – 3 ¾ Stars

I received a free copy of this book from Netgalley on behalf of Little, Brown books for young Readers in exchange for a fair review.

Elizabeth “EB” can’t wait to move from New Jersey to Berkeley and get out of her small town. She has a strained relationship with her mom and her dad abandoned has a child when he came out of the closet. So when she gets an email from Student Housing with her future roommate’s information, she is eager to get the ball rolling on her new life and quickly sends off an email to introduce herself.

Lauren “Lo” lives in San Francisco with her mom, dad and five younger siblings. She has two jobs and got lucky with a scholarship so she can afford Berkeley. She was crossing her fingers to get a single and finally have some peace and quiet. No such luck. She isn’t too happy about the idea of a roommate and definitely not one that seems to be as chipper as EB. 

They sort of reluctantly keep the emails going back and forth, letting little parts of their lives poke through. EB is way more forward that Lo and tends to share a lot more personal stuff but Lo breaks out of her shell a bit. They eventually form a nice friendship after some small bumps and one pretty big bump in the road. 

EB opens up about breaking up with a boyfriend she never really liked and finding a new boy that she actually loves with only a few weeks left before she moves across the country. Lo talks about the possible relationship with a guy that’s a different race. They share a lot about their fears of leaving friends, and home, and their families. How they each feel like terrible friends.

It’s a coming of age type book. Who isn't nervous about starting a new adventure in their lives and want to make sure you are compatible with your new roommate? Both girls had their own voices and were both pretty relatable. 

I’d write a longer review but not much happens in the book. Which was something I didn't like but it was enjoyable enough. Also the interracial dating thing was brought up A LOT. It was mentioned at least once in every chapter of Lo’s point of view and it felt weird to me. It seemed to be a bigger issue than it should have been. 

Overall I thought it was cute. A nice quick summer read.

You can read this review and more at Punk's House of Books and FicCentral

My Rating – 1 ½ Stars

I received this book for free from Netgalley on behalf of Atria Books in exchange for a fair review.

I know what the summary tells you what this story is supposed to be about, however after reading it I can say that this book was about nothing. I was pretty disappointed because it sounds like a creepy 
ghost story and who doesn’t like a good ghost story?

This was definitely not a creepy ghost story. The ghost part of the story doesn’t start until halfway through the book and by that time I was skimming. The book is mostly about the textile industry in the 1800s and how successful this man made this family business. 

When William Bellman was ten years old, he shot a rook with a slingshot and killed it. This rook was a descendent of Odin’s crows and this led to William being cursed. Only he doesn’t know it. He actually grows up and has an amazing life.

He’s a pretty great guy actually; smart, handsome and hardworking. Even though he is an outcast from the Bellman family, his uncle takes him under his wing and he is on his way to owning the Bellman family mill. 

One problem, everyone around him dies. One by one his family and friends start to die in (generally) sudden ways. Most of the time he doesn’t think anything of it because the cans death can be years apart and aren’t entirely unexplainable. But then there is a sickness and he quickly loses all his children, save one, and his wife within weeks of each other. When his last surviving child is on the brink of death, he makes a deal with a mysterious stranger to save her. 

And that folks…is all she wrote.

Okay not really but it felt like it. This book was unfortunately very boring. It took me two weeks just to get to 50%. It’s just a rundown of his life. Every chapter went like this “he did this and was successful and then someone he knows died.” I didn’t really care about any of the characters that passed because you don’t get to know them. 

The story was very slow and never really picked up for me. The rook thing got old fast, as they were mentioned in like every single chapter.

Nothing happens in this book! I do not recommend. 

Read this review and more at Punk's House of Books and FicCentral

Cress by Marissa Meyer

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Cress is the third book in the Lunar Chronicles. This review will include spoilers about the series.

Oh boy, where do I begin? This book is wavering between 3 and 4 stars. Not because it was a bad book, it was good. It was just a tad predictable. But can I really fault a fairytale retelling for being predictable?

Cress lives alone in a satellite that orbits the Earth day after day after day. Her only company is her netscreen, a program she made when she was ten that she calls Little Cress and the occasional visit from Thaumaturge Sybil, the Queen’s second in command. She is a shell (if you remember from the previous books, a shell is a Lunar born without abilities) and thus, the reason she has been banished from Lunar (Shells are supposedly killed on Lunar as babies. Supposedly). That and her amazing hacking skills.

It is her duty to be a spy for the Lunar Queen, Levana. She watches Earthern leaders and keeps Lunar spaceships hidden from Earthern eyes. Her latest assignment is to find Cinder. Which she does, quite successfully but then because she hates the Queen and Sybil she keeps the crew of the Rampion from being tracked. She is pretty much the reason Cinder has made it as far as she has.

After Cinder makes contact with Cress, they plan her escape. After seven years of forced isolation, Cress is finally going to be free!
But there is no way it’s going to be that easy, right? Sybil makes an unexpected visit while the Rampion is about to dock, which leads to a nasty battle. Scarlet gets taken, Wolf is injured, and Thorne and Scarlet plummet to the Earth inside her satellite, that’s not exactly built for entry into the Earth’s atmosphere.

Miraculously, Cress and Thorne survive, though a bad blow to the head has left Thorne blind. They are in the middle of a desert, no clue where they are or how far away civilization is. Plus Cress has never set foot on Earth before.

The crew is now separated. Cinder has to find Dr. Erland to save Wolf. Scarlet is under the mind control of Sybil and being tortured on Lunar and Cress and Thorne are wandering the desert. How exactly are they going to stop the wedding between Levana and Kai AND overthrow Levana if the team of misfits is spread out all over the galaxy?

Cress is cute and socially awkward. She’s got the hots for Thorne, which developed while she was searching for the fugitives. She is under the (rather misguided) assumption that he is the prince to her damsel in distress. But she’s been locked in a satellite for seven years so her lack of social skills, her fantasies and her tendency to cry and overreact are completely understandable. She is pretty damn smart though, and willful. I wasn’t really that in to the Thorne/Cress love story though. I don’t feel like they mesh well. I do like both characters separately though. Thorne is still a sarcastic ass.

Scarlet is barely in this one which depresses me since she is, so far, my favorite. I say so far because Winter is briefly introduced and she is LOONEY, in a “The Shining/the walls are bleeding” kind of way and I do love me some crazy characters. Wolf is also hardly featured and when he is, he is moping around because Scarlet was kidnapped(Understandable to a point.) Their love story is the only one that really works for me and it’s probably the most ridiculous.

Cinder is developing her gifts. She is not as “woe as me” as she was in the last book, which finally made me like her a bit more. She’s ready to fight and take down Levana. She’s scared, which it’s okay to be scared when you are faced with imminent doom but I feel like she’s starting to own the responsibility she has now.

Kai is featured as a POV again and finally, finally starting to show some backbone. Took long enough! Though he does spend a good chunk of the book whining, about the middle of the book he starts redeeming himself. Towards the end is when he really grows some balls.

Iko is hilarious as always. I think she is my second favorite character.

Despite the minor character flaws, the plot moves along nicely. Things are accomplished. Action is taken. There is no lull that can sometimes happen in series books. I pretty much flew through this book. I was disappointed at first by the crew being separated but then I wondered how Cress would have grown if they hadn’t been and I got over it.

So overall, liked this book. I can’t wait until Winter!

You can read this review and more at Punk's House of Books and FicCentral

I received a free digital copy of this novel from Netgalley on behalf of Amulet Books in exchange for a fair review 

Wren has been trying to live up to the expectations of her parents for years. They want her to be the perfect young lady. They tell her how to dress, what to like, how to act, how to speak, what college to go to and what to major in. They even bribed her with a car if she went through high school without a boyfriend. She just wants to be free damnit!

Charlie is a shy boy that was seriously neglected as a child and bounced around in foster homes for most of his life. He just wants someone to love him and treat him nicely. He currently has some pretty nice foster parents and a foster brother. He has crushed on Wren for a long time and on the last day of school, he waves to her and amazingly she waves back.

Wren has always kinda liked Charlie but because of the deal with her parents she never acted on it. Well at a graduation party, all bets are off and she is free to date.

Thus begins their summer romance and that’s the entire plot of the book. Really, it’s just a story about their romance with minor bumps in the road with and ending that actually upsets me, because of what Charlie gives up.

I did not like this book. The writing was immature and most of the characters were extremely unlikeable.

Wren is trying to form her own life and discover who she is, so she decides to defer her admission to Emory to do volunteer work in Guatemala for a year. Great right? Except that her mom works at Emory, her mom got her a special parking pass for Emory, paid the fees already, yet Wren managed to keep the deferment secret for months. I find that highly unlikely.

Wren is also unbelievably whiny, selfish and needy. She constantly whines about how much time Charlie spends with his family or working. And while he is working his ass off to help his foster dad’s struggling business or helping his disabled little foster brother, she is lounging her in her best friend’s rich boyfriend’s pool, complaining about how she doesn’t get to spend much time with him. Twice in the book she throws a fit and gives Charlie the silent treatment (pretty much dumps him) over small misunderstandings or something he has no real control over.

Charlie is so sweet and nice but more than once I wanted to tell him to man up and stand up for himself. That’s about it to his character. He’s not a bad character, I liked him well enough but he let Wren and his ex Starrla walk all over him.

Starrla, wow, what a ridiculous character. She is a girl that Charlie has known most of his life, who also comes from a difficult family situation. She is pretty much a crazy bitch character that “hangs out with the black kids” (yes. That’s from the book). She took Charlie’s virginity when they were 12 and has used him as a random hookup ever since. She dates lots of other people and doesn’t want to be exclusive with Charlie, though she hates it when Charlie tries to date other girls. She harasses Wren and leaves nasty notes on her car. She manipulates Charlie and her dramatic scene at the end is so unnecessary and over the top (not to mention really hard to swallow).

Tessa (Wren’s BFF) is a silly trope that’s ditzy and outspoken. Her boyfriend takes them to a gun store/shooting range and she says something like “oh it’s a store too? Are there shoes?” ugh eye roll. Wren’s parents are horrible, once her father tells her to lower her voice because women shouldn’t be shrill (what the FRICK).

Overall, there was not much I actually enjoyed about this book. Such a waste of a beautiful cover!

Oh and there are detailed sex scenes in this book and a part about sending sexy pics on their phones. So not appropriate for a young adult book. The author writes this rather obnoxious note in the book (at least in my copy) about how the sex scenes are realistic but realistic does equal appropriate. Not recommended for people under 17.