Erased by Jennifer Rush

Title: Erased (Altered #2)
Author: Jennifer Rush
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: January 7, 2014
Received From: Netgalley

Synopsis: They thought they had escaped. They were wrong.
After fleeing the Branch with Sam, Cas, and Nick, Anna is trying to make sense of the memories resurfacing from her old life. At the same time, she's learning how to survive in hiding, following Sam's rules: Don't draw attention to yourself. Always carry a weapon. Know your surroundings. Watch your back.Then a figure from Anna's childhood reappears. Is it a Branch setup, or could it be the reunion Anna has hoped for? Uncertain of where her loyalties lie, Anna must fight to learn the truth -- before she is betrayed again. Ultimately, the answers hinge on one question: What was the real reason her memories were erased?Jennifer Rush delivers a thrilling sequel to Altered in a novel packed with mysteries, lies, and surprises that are sure to keep readers guessing until the last page is turned.    

Review:

If you like thrillers that will keep you guessing and you like hot boys than this series is for you. If you have not read Altered yet then you should stop reading this review and get on that because it is awesome. Now on to Erased.

I had forgotten how much I had enjoyed Altered so while I was excited to read Erased I was not as thrilled as I should have been because it was AWESOME. This is a really fast read because there is no dead time. things just keep happening and like Anna I never knew who to trust. Should she trust the boys? What if they were changed in the facility? And what about Trev? All these thoughts went through my head and while I was right in some aspects in others I was totally wrong.

I think this is the last book in this series but I could be wrong. Even if it is I think it had a great ending that did not give away too much. That is not saying that I would not read another book about Anna and her boys if Jennifer Rush decides to write another one.

Speaking of the boys I like how  we get to know more about them and their pasts in Erased. The flashbacks kept me on my toes and I liked understanding their personalities even more than before. I also liked getting to know more about Anna's past and what happened to lead to their current predicament.

Overall this is a great series and it is supremely underrated. Go pick up your copy today. You will not regret it!

Starry Nights by Daisy Whitney

Title: Starry Nights
Author: Daisy Whitney
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
Release Date: September 3, 2013
Received From: NetGalley

 Synopsis:Seventeen-year-old Julien is a romantic—he loves spending his free time at the museum poring over the great works of the Impressionists. But one night, a peach falls out of a Cezanne, Degas ballerinas dance across the floor, and Julien is not hallucinating.
The art is reacting to a curse that trapped a beautiful girl, Clio, in a painting forever. Julien has a chance to free Clio and he can't help but fall in love with her. But love is a curse in its own right. And soon paintings begin to bleed and disappear. Together Julien and Clio must save the world's greatest art . . . at the expense of the greatest love they've ever known. 

Review:
I was awestruck by Starry Nights, it was unlike anything I had read before. I read Daisy Whitney's The Mockingbirds and The Rivals and I adored them so I was super excited to read Starry Nights. I knew it was going to be completely different but I was still looking forward to it.

If you have ever wanted to travel to Paris, and or are a big art fan then Starry Nights is for you. I am not the biggest art enthusiast but reading Starry Nights made me want to learn more about the pieces of art mentioned.

Julien and Clio's relationship is very different from the relationships in most other books. At first I thought it was going to be a relationship that only existed in Julien's mind but was pleasantly surprised to find out about who Clio really was.

The secondary characters really fill out the story. They add dimension and interest to an already very different story. Without them the story would not be nearly as good as it was.

If you like capers then you might think that this book is not for you, but when you learn that Julien and Clio must travel all over the world to break a curse? I think everyone will like at least some aspect of this book. It is a little on the slow side but it was so beautiful that I think that is the only way it could be written. You should definitely pick up Starry Nights as well as Daisy Whitney's other books they will leave you spellbound. And that cover? YES.

Born Wicked by Jessica Spotswood Review

Title: Born Wicked  

Author: Jessica Spotswood 
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile 
Release Date: February 7, 2012 Pb: January 3, 2013

Received: From the Library

Summary:  Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they’re witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave.

Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word... especially after she finds her mother’s diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family’s destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra.

If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren’t safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.

Review:  Historical and Fantasy in one magical book; what more can a girl want? I loved Born Wicked and I am kicking myself for waiting so long to read it.

With magic, secret societies, prophesies, and romance Born Wicked has something for almost any YA lover. It is a fantastic debut that really shows off what Jessica Spotswood can do.

I liked most of the characters in this book, even the ones that I thought I was not going to like I started warming up to by the end of the book. I liked how different all three sisters were, even if Maura drove me mad, they each had their own goals and motivations but thy were tied together as a family. I thought the family dynamic was illustrated very well. 

As the story went on the plot got even more twisted and complicated but I never got lost or felt like I was being info dumped on. I cannot wait for the next book to see where Cate's decision takes them! 

I recommend this book to everyone but especially people who loved Marissa Doyle's Betraying Season, and Bewitching Season, and if you haven't read them pick them up as you wait for the second book in the Cahill Witch Chronicles.

Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan Review

Title: Unspoken (The Lynburn Legacy #1)   
Author: Sarah Rees Brennan    
Publisher: Random House 

Release Date: September 11, 2012
Received: Bought 


Summary:  Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met . . . a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.

But all that changes when the Lynburns return.

The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him? 


Review:  I've been having trouble writing this review. Not because Unspoken was sub-par or just okay. Which is when I usually have trouble writing reviews. No the reason I am having trouble is just the opposite. Unspoken is amazing and I don't know if I can adequately convince you of its awesomeness.

Let me just get it out there that Unspoken is AWESOME and I cannot be held responsible for the amount of fangirlyness that will be in this post.

Kami is a great main character. She is resourceful, loyal, and curious, all things I look for in a good protagonist. As for the rest of the characters they are awesome as well. Each one brings their own brand of snark and hilarity that really made me feel as if they could be real people from a real town. Holly and Angela are my particular favorites especially because they don't have that girl-on-girl tension with Kami that is a central point of antagonism in many other books. They are Kami's friends and they are willing to put up with her eccentricities because they love her. Unspoken has a rather large cast of characters but Sarah Rees Brennan had made it so you will fall in love with all of them and yearn to know more about them.

Speaking of the town, Sorry-in-the-vale is gorgeously written. I want to book a trip and go, Sarah Rees Brennan has created a place that while filled with magic is a place that I can totally see existing. It is almost a character in of itself, it adds so much to the story and I cannot image Unspoken taking place anywhere other than Sorry-in-the-Vale.

I really liked how the whole voice in her head thing was handled, I think it was mature and not ridiculous like it could have been. It was central to the conflict without taking it over. There were other people involved and how it came about was really interesting to me. 

The plot of Unspoken is great. It is paced well and Sarah Rees Brennan constantly brings up little things that seem insignificant but are really very important. As for the climax, I was pleasantly surprised. It was not completely what I thought it was going to be and I cannot wait for the next book.

As for the ending... It is terrible and not okay by any stretch of the imagination. But it is not a cliffhanger so that is good.

Basically you should go buy Unspoken. And if you ever have the chance to meet Sarah Rees Brennan DO IT. She is hilarious and so nice. I had the chance to meet her at the Austin Teen Book Festival and she was one of the nicest authors I met that day. Even if she takes pleasure in making people cry at her books. Also the odds that she will stand on a chair are high.

Lets be honest it is a 6/5

Fathomless by Jackson Pearce Review

Title: Fathomless (Fairytale Retellings #3)   
Author: Jackson Pearce   
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: September 4, 2012  
Received: For review from publisher  

Summary:  Celia Reynolds is the youngest in a set of triplets and the one with the least valuable power. Anne can see the future, and Jane can see the present, but all Celia can see is the past. And the past seems so insignificant -- until Celia meets Lo.

Lo doesn't know who she is. Or who she was. Once a human, she is now almost entirely a creature of the sea -- a nymph, an ocean girl, a mermaid -- all terms too pretty for the soulless monster she knows she's becoming. Lo clings to shreds of her former self, fighting to remember her past, even as she's tempted to embrace her dark immortality.

When a handsome boy named Jude falls off a pier and into the ocean, Celia and Lo work together to rescue him from the waves. The two form a friendship, but soon they find themselves competing for Jude's affection. Lo wants more than that, though. According to the ocean girls, there's only one way for Lo to earn back her humanity. She must persuade a mortal to love her . . . and steal his soul.  


Review:  I love a good fairytale retelling. Seeing a well known story reimagined is so fun and interesting. So naturally I love Jackson Pearce's Fairytale Retellings series. 

The first two books in this series were very good. I like how all three books go together in small ways but they are completely different stories. The ways they go together are surprising and not like anything I would expect. 

Fathomless is a retelling of The Little Mermaid. I enjoyed seeing the homages to the classic story and I enjoyed how Jackson Pearce worked them into her existing world. The multiple POV's were also nice because it let me get to know all the characters better and gave more depth to the story. 

The dynamic between Celia and her sisters was very interesting and I liked how their bond was tested but not shattered. The mythology of the ocean girls was very interesting and getting to understand what was going on was one of my favorite parts of Fathomless. 

Jude kind of annoyed me, I know he was important and one of the main ties to the original Little Mermaid but his personality bugged me a little though not enough to ruin it for me.

Overall I really enjoyed Fathomless and I cannot wait to see where Jackson Pearce takes the world in the next book!

I'm not going to lie, while I don't hate the new covers I wish they had kept the old concept because they were gorgeous.

Check out my reviews for the first two books in the series Sisters Red and Sweetly.

 

The new covers of the Possession Series

Hi everyone! Okay so every once in a while publishers will change the covers of a series either for a reprint or in the middle of the series. This is usually to draw more potential readers to the series who may not have picked it up originally.

Well another series is getting re-covered. I am happy to show you the new covers for Elana Johnson’s Possession series.

Now I really liked the old covers: (Surrender was never printed with this cover)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I liked them because they were clean and symbolic and just plain beautiful.

But I honestly really like the new covers as well. I mean of course new covers in the middle of a series can be kind of a bummer if you have one of them in hardcover (Possession) and then when you pick up Surrender when it comes out in June it has a different cover style.

Now keep in mind that these are the new covers for the Possession paperback and the Surrender hardback (both available early June 2012):

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I really like them! I like how they kept the symbols that were on the original covers and I like how they took a color from the symbols and made it into the background!

These covers are very similar to the original and the only thing I don’t like about them is the new font. I feel like it is too large and takes away from what is still such a simple cover. But overall I really like them (especially Surrender).

What do you think? Do you love them? Hate them? let me know in the comments!

All These Things I’ve Done Review

Title: All These Things I’ve Done 

Author: Gabrielle Zevin

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux (BYR) (Macmillan)

Release Date: September 6, 2011

Received From: Publisher in return for a honest review

Summary: 

In 2083, chocolate and coffee are illegal, paper is hard to find, water is carefully rationed, and New York City is rife with crime and poverty. And yet, for Anya Balanchine, the sixteen-year-old daughter of the city's most notorious (and dead) crime boss, life is fairly routine. It consists of going to school, taking care of her siblings and her dying grandmother, trying to avoid falling in love with the new assistant D.A.'s son, and avoiding her loser ex-boyfriend. That is until her ex is accidently poisoned by the chocolate her family manufactures and the police think she's to blame. Suddenly, Anya finds herself thrust unwillingly into the spotlight--at school, in the news, and most importantly, within her mafia family.

Review:

I received this book in a red box with chocolate covered espresso beans which were AMAZING! It was really cute and a great idea for them to promote this book!

First of all a world were chocolate and coffee are illegal?!?!? And paper is hard to find???? I don’t think I could live in this world. No chocolate, no books? But I guess I would get use to it eventually maybe… But it was more than that, it was a story about a mafia, family, loyalty, and being willing to be who you are regardless of what people think.

I really liked Anya as a character, she was strong, and  was willing to step in and take care of her siblings (even if she was overbearing at times) she was resilient and never willing to give up.

I kind of wish there had been more of a mystery element to this book, I mean there was such a good set up for it, but regardless I really enjoyed it.

Win was real gentleman, he was willing to wait for Anya and respected her choice not to have sex. I really appreciate this because it seems like there are so many characters in books that basically have abusive/unhealthy relationships. I also just like Win in general.

There were a few things that I wish had been elaborated upon, but besides that I really liked this book, and thought it was very different than many dystopian fiction. It really has it’s own niche and sets it self apart from a genre that while everywhere I still really enjoy!

Love the cover!!!

Sweetly Review

Title: Sweetly

Author: Jackson Pearce

Publisher: Little, Brown

Release Date:  August 23, 2011

Received From: ATWT

Summary: 

SWEETLY is a modernization of Hansel and Gretel and a companion book to SISTERS RED.
Twelve years ago, Gretchen, her twin sister, and her brother went looking for a witch in the forest. They found something. Maybe it was a witch, maybe a monster, they aren’t sure—they were running too fast to tell. Either way, Gretchen’s twin sister was never seen again.
Years later, after being thrown out of their house, Gretchen and Ansel find themselves in Live Oak, South Carolina, a place on the verge of becoming a ghost town. They move in with Sophia Kelly, a young and beautiful chocolatier owner who opens not only her home, but her heart to Gretchen and Ansel.
Yet the witch isn’t gone—it’s here, lurking in the forests of Live Oak, preying on Live Oak girls every year after Sophia Kelly’s infamous chocolate festival. But Gretchen is determined to stop running from witches in the forest, and start fighting back. Alongside Samuel Reynolds, a boy as quick with a gun as he is a sarcastic remark, Gretchen digs deeper into the mystery of not only what the witch is, but how it chooses its victims. Yet the further she investigates, the more she finds herself wondering who the real monster is, and if love can be as deadly as it is beautiful.

Review:

I love retellings! It is really cool to see how different authors interpret the same story and how they make it their own. I have also liked Jackson’s other books so I was really excited for this book!

I liked this take on the classic Hansel and Gretel story because of the differences  from the classic story. The story starts with Ansel, Gretchen, and her identical twin sister going into the woods, the sister is taken and that one even really shapes the rest of the book, because the different ways that Ansel and Gretchen deal with the grief are prevalent throughout the story and keep the plot going.

I really, really liked the characters in this retelling. Especially the character growth in Samuel and Gretchen.  All of the characters were very different and were products of their upbringing and lives which is sometimes neglected in today’s stories.

There were a lot of twists in Sweetly. I went in thinking one thing, and left with something completely different, I really liked that, books that I can figure out right away annoy me.

Only thing I didn’t like about Sweetly was Ansel and Sophie’s relationship, I get that it was vial to the storyline but it really annoyed me it was trivial (IMO) and childish. But it was important in the end so I can appreciate why it was in the story.

A really good book especially for fans of Sisters Red and fairytale retellings.

And that cover? Beautiful and creepy!

 

 

Possession

Title:  Possession

Author:  Elena Johnson

Publisher:  Simon and Schuster

Release Date: June 7, 2011

Received From:  ATWT

Summary: 

Vi knows the Rule: Girls don't walk with boys, and they never even think about kissing them. But no one makes Vi want to break the Rules more than Zenn...and since the Thinkers have chosen him as Vi's future match, how much trouble can one kiss cause? The Thinkers may have brainwashed the rest of the population, but Vi is determined to think for herself.
But the Thinkers are unusually persuasive, and they're set on convincing Vi to become one of them...starting by brainwashing Zenn. Vi can't leave Zenn in the Thinkers' hands, but she's wary of joining the rebellion, especially since that means teaming up with Jag. Jag is egotistical, charismatic, and dangerous--everything Zenn's not. Vi can't quite trust Jag and can't quite resist him, but she also can't give up on Zenn.
This is a game of control or be controlled. And Vi has no choice but to play.

 

Review:

This was a dystopian novel, now I know that many people are saying that they are getting tired of dystopian but I cannot understand how! They are all so different!

This book was no different! It was dystopian through the use of technology which I hadn’t experienced before in a book. Basically the population was being brainwashed through transmissions that they are forced to listen to while sleeping. After her father is taken and her sister disappears she stops listening and basically stops following some of the rules so she is considered a rebel and a “threat.”

I loved Vi’s personality! She was kick-ass and adventurous, as well as having a soft side. I also liked her drive and her want to help people, not control them.

 

There were also some things that I would have never expected! I like when I can’t see things coming. And these REALLY surprised me.

 

Lastly and most importantly Jag!!!!!! He’s not really the typical bad boy of fiction nowadays which I really, really appreciate. But he does have that edge that draws you in. Sooo sexy. I really liked their banter and story.

OMG that ending, are you kidding me Elena Johnson!!!! Really? I am dying for the sequel!

Overall an amazing debut and a great addition to the dystopian genre.

Also that cover…. Love it!

 

 

Sweet Venom Cover Reveal!!!!!!

Tera Lynn Childs, author of the Oh My Gods and Fins series’ has a new book coming out and she let some bloggers have the honor of being the first to release her new cover! So, before I show you the cover here is some info about the book!

• New series, in which triplet descendants of Medusa learn they are destined to guard the door between the world of monsters and the world of men – pitched as a mythological Charmed.
• Three teenage descendants of Medusa, the once-beautiful gorgon maligned by myth, must reunite and embrace their fates in a world where monsters lurk in plain sight.

Sounds really cool right? Well if you want to add it to your Goodreads here is the link. And here is some more info from the author’s website.

Ok, now for the awesome cover!!!!!

 

 

 

It’s coming I promise….

 

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Beautiful right? I love how it ties in Medusa without making it too obvious! I can’t wait to get my hands on this book!

Make sure to tell Tera low much you love it in the comments!

Fins are forever cover reveal!

Hey guys! Today I have the special chance to be one of the bloggers with the chance to reveal the cover for the next book in Tera Lynn Childs' Fins series!

Isn't it gorgeous! Fins Are Forever tentatively comes out on June 28, 2011! Tera has created a countdown widget that you can post on your blog! You can find it here. And while you are at it why don't you let Tera know how much you like it!