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Monday, August 6, 2012

Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson


Second Chance Summer
Goodreads Blurb
Taylor Edwards’ family might not be the closest-knit—everyone is a little too busy and overscheduled—but for the most part, they get along just fine. Then Taylor’s dad gets devastating news, and her parents decide that the family will spend one last summer all together at their old lake house in the Pocono Mountains.
Crammed into a place much smaller and more rustic than they are used to, they begin to get to know each other again. And Taylor discovers that the people she thought she had left behind haven’t actually gone anywhere. Her former best friend is still around, as is her first boyfriend…and he’s much cuter at seventeen than he was at twelve.
As the summer progresses and the Edwards become more of a family, they’re more aware than ever that they’re battling a ticking clock. Sometimes, though, there is just enough time to get a second chance—with family, with friends, and with love.


You know, just as a warning: When you reach the last half, I advise you to grab a tissue or two (or three, or four, or—you know what? Just take the entire box.) Seriously. You’re going to need it. If there’s one word to describe Second Chance Summer, it’s heartbreaking.

Can I say heartbreaking again? Yes? Ok, it was completely, utterly heartbreaking. All these things were happening and you keep thinking “he’ll be okay. He won’t die. HEA right?” but I’m spoiling this now: it’s not a Happy Ever After ending no matter how much you want it to. It was just inevitable but somehow you ignore the oncoming tragedy with the romance, the friendship, and all things inbetween. But when it does happen, it strikes you completely unaware, even when you know it’s happening in the next chapter. It’s this dreaded feeling that builds up in you and when it happens…agh! A book filled with second chances, I loveloveloved it!

Second Chance Summer seemed more like an insanely descriptive diary rather than a book, and that’s a good thing. Actions seemed so real, not far-fetched. Reactions were probable and the characters reminded me of what my friends would’ve done if I had slighted them like that. Characters seemed real. I haven’t read Matson’s debut, but you can bet I will after reading Second Chance Summer!

As sad as it is, Second Chance Summer is definitely a great Summer-ends read. Not one you want to read at the beginning of summer, but definitely one that will end your summer with a bang. Seriously guys. Y’all have to read this!

Pages: 468
Series: Stand-alone
Genre: Contemporary/Romance
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Release Date: May 8, 2012
Rating: 5 stars




"Standing across from me, five years older, all grown up, and much cuer han I remembered him being, was Henry Cosby."


Sunday, August 5, 2012

Showcase Sunday

Oooh not many books, but the few I got were awesome! And yes, I did read them. All of them. Wha can I say? I'm awesome like that lol.

And don't forget! The nominations for the Bloggy Awards are starting tomorrow, so be sure to enter! For more info, check out the Official Website (Blog) here!

Props to Books, Biscuits, and Tea for coming up with the meme!
 
 
For Review
Glitch (Glitch, #1)     Second Chance Summer     Cursed
 
Given
Second Chance Summer     Glitch (Glitch, #1)     The Fault in Our Stars
 
 
ZOMG. Second Chance Summer and The Fault in Our Stars made my cry. So. Much. I can't even...I need more tissues...Glitch was...well, wait for my review. ;D On another note, I also have a blog tour coming up, so wait for that. My review should be posted the day after or before!

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Announcing...The Bloggy Awards!

See that button? THAT, my friends, is the official button for the Bloggy Awards. What are the Bloggy Awards exactly? Well, if you go to the official site, you'll see today there's a post up for all the different categories and how to enter, but I'll give you a rundown here so you don't have to be overwhelmed by everything on the official post. It's going to be hosted by Trayche from ILoveTeenBooks, Lisseth from Read-a-Holicz, Eileen from ***Singing and Reading in the Rain***,and me! Basically, there are a little more over 15 categories, all different, and you will nominate them by emailing in your choices to bloggyawards@gmail.com. You can nominate three people for each category, and if you nominate somebody, tell them! We want as many people to be involved and if the bloggers up for nominations can actually get involved with the process, that would further the amount of success we have and we could continue this event next year. To nominate somebody, please format your email like this:
Category Title Blog Title (link) Blog Title (link) Blog Title (link)
The categories you can nominate for are:
  • Well-known blogger
  • Best design
  • Best reviews
  • Most helpful
  • Best breakout blog (Best new blog, meaning within six months)
  • Best review for a contemporary book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
  • Best review for a paranormal book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
  • Best review for a dystopian book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
  • Best review for a sci-fi book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
  • Best review for a fantasy book (For this, if you nominate somebody leave a link to their review)
  • Best meme
  • Nicest blogger
  • Most creative blogger
  • Hottest blog (best content: I just got tired of constantly saying "Best" and "Most")
  • Best group blog
  • Most influential
  • Best author blog
These aren't the best blog award titles, but if you guys think of a better name feel free to tell us so we can change them. Nominations will be open for exactly a week, until Monday August 13th, where we will tally the total amount of nominations and any blogs who have over a set amount of nominations (that's to be announced, depending on how many people are willing to participate) and we'll make a public announcement on the official site. Afterwards, we will send out about five questions to the nominees (the set of questions will be the same for each category) and then post their answers later one. Votes will be open for another week for the final winner of the awards, and then announced again on the official site. Please remember to try and find as many blogs as you can for each category. Don't just go for the popular blogs, we want to spread blogger love and highlight as many blogs as possible. We want to tell people about new blogs, so if you want your blog to be nominated, post about it, hype up the Bloggy Awards, and help us network it! :) Check out The Bloggy Awards site if you want to know more about this and start casting in your nominations! :) ***So far, the winner of an award will most likely only get a web button with a trophy and the name of the award for bragging rights, but we're going to try to get some swag to mail out to the winners. If any authors want to mail out any swag feel free to contact me :)***

Friday, August 3, 2012

Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

Throne of Glass (Throne of Glass, #1)
Goodreads Blurb
After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men—thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the kings council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

So my first reaction to reading the summary (and I know I compared The Forsaken to Hunger Games too.): Sounds a lot like Grave Mercy, Poison Study, and The Hunger Games mixed together…interesting.

My reaction after I read it: WOW. THAT’S A LOT LIKE GRAVE MERCY, POISON STUDY, AND THE HUNGER GAMES MIXED TOGETHER. Who knew it could be this good?!

So even if the Throne of Glass reminded me of all three of those books, it was clearly original and one of the best High Fantasies I’ve read! I’ve always loved the idea of female assassins (hopefully, that doesn’t say anything about me) so when I heard of Throne of Glass, I immediately added it to my TBR pile. The idea of a castle made of glass and a girl assassin feared throughout the land made me squeal, but I was already a bit wary with the love triangle. I’ve read too many of those this year and I admit, I groaned a lot a bit.

Warning: Gushing will occur. You have been warned.

The thing about the romance is that even though the synopsis makes you think “Major love triangle”, that’s not the case at all. The romance was slow and sweet and just adorable (even with an assassin). Celaena desperately tries not to feel anything for them and I loved that it was steady and not even close to insta-love! Or an actual love triangle. There’s attraction there, but no “I love you, but I love him. Oh, I can’t decide!” thank goodness! So throne of Glass definitely has an amazing romance in there, not one that’s irrational.

The world building was as amazing as the rest of the book! With faeries and dead queens, other dimensions, old legends, and more it was definitely one of my favorite fantasy worlds. I loved the dimensions especially, and how each little thing fed another legend or old story and how those things influenced actions in the “real world”. My favorite place, no matter how unreasonable it is, had to be the glass castle! The descriptions were amazing and the world was thrilling and exciting! I mean, it felt as if Sarah J. Maas had actually visited the world.

Characters!  I loveloveloved Celaena! She was an amazing character! And no, not because she was an assassin. But ok, that had something to do with it! She was deadly and so stubborn and she just..she just…she was so childish too sometimes! Like, not the bad way. More like she acted like one of those adorable little girls! But that mainly had to do with her love of sweets. Where she ate one and a half pounds of candy. In the morning. Celaena made me laugh and I loved reading about her fighting skills and the clever remarks she made. She was definitely one of my favorite heroines of 2012!
As for our Prince, he was definitely the guy I was rooting for! While he was a prince and was supposed to be cold and disgusted by Celaena, he found himself fascinated by her and even though it went against his instincts, he started falling. Hard. And even if I loved him in the beginning, he started growing on me more and more as the story progressed. You learned more about him and his life and he just…agh!
But I have to admit, Captain Chaol was definitely swoon-worthy too! He kept his distance more and he knew his duty and believed in it a bit more. His loyalty to Dorian was amazing and he was incredibly sweet! But no matter how awesome he is, Dorian definitely has my heart!

The writing was amazing and I’m so glad that Sarah J. Maas decided to query it! I’ve visited Fiction Press…once a year? So it’s no wonder I never stumbled across it, though I would’ve loved to see how much the story has improved since then. It’s definitely inspiring that a published (Or very-soon-to-be-published) author started on Fiction Press like so many other writers!

Throne of Glass is definitely one you should add to your TBR pile and I can almost guarantee you’ll love it! Maas has a new voice and an enchanting stories filled with things in your wildest dreams. A few shaky things that I can't put my finger on, but in under five words…GO BUY IT!

Pages: 416
Series: Throne of Glass #1
Genre: High Fantasy/Romance
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Release Date: August 7
Rating: 4.5 ---> 5



"...she's wild. And unpredictable. She needs to learn to control her feelings--especially that impossible anger."



Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Waiting on Wednesday


First of all...
HAPPY AUGUST! School starts in exactly 26 days and I'm freaking out! But anyways

So I've been asking around to all the people who've read all 5 BR which one did they like the most? The answers were varied, but most said Falling Kingdoms. And since I've read 3/5...well Falling Kingdoms has to be ABSOLUTELY STUNNING to beat the others. :D
Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
Falling Kingdoms (Falling Kingdoms, #1)In a land where magic has been forgotten but peace has reigned for centuries, a deadly unrest is simmering. Three kingdoms grapple for power—brutally transforming their subjects’ lives in the process. Amidst betrayals, bargains, and battles, four young people find their fates forever intertwined:
Cleo: A princess raised in luxury must embark on a rough and treacherous journey into enemy territory in search of a magic long thought extinct.
Jonas: Enraged at injustice, a rebel lashes out against the forces of oppression that have kept his country impoverished—and finds himself the leader of a people’s revolution centuries in the making.
Lucia: A girl adopted at birth into a royal family discovers the truth about her past—and the supernatural legacy she is destined to wield.
Magnus: Bred for aggression and trained to conquer, a firstborn son begins to realize that the heart can be more lethal than the sword...
The only outcome that’s certain is that kingdoms will fall. Who will emerge triumphant when all they know has collapsed?

The Forsaken by Lisa M. Stasse

The Forsaken (The Forsaken, #1)
Goodreads Blurb
A thought-provoking and exciting start to a riveting new dystopian trilogy.
As an obedient orphan of the U.N.A. (the super-country that was once Mexico, the U.S., and Canada), Alenna learned at an early age to blend in and be quiet—having your parents taken by the police will do that to a girl. But Alenna can’t help but stand out when she fails a test that all sixteen-year-olds have to take: The test says she has a high capacity for brutal violence, and so she is sent to The Wheel, an island where all would-be criminals end up.

The life expectancy of prisoners on The Wheel is just two years, but with dirty, violent, and chaotic conditions, the time seems a lot longer as Alenna is forced to deal with civil wars for land ownership and machines that snatch kids out of their makeshift homes. Desperate, she and the other prisoners concoct a potentially fatal plan to flee the island. Survival may seem impossible, but Alenna is determined to achieve it anyway.
The Forsaken is like the Hunger Games. A really, really epic Hunger Games. Way better than the Hunger Games actually. Wow. Just WOW.

While the synopsis makes you think that Alenna is in the UNA for quite a while in the book and that it’s near the end that she makes her decision (or was it just me?), that’s completely false. The first two chapters ready the setting, giving us a bit of history on Alenna’s past, but immediately after(I meant it, Chapter 3) she’s thrown into Island Alpha, the most savage and primitive prison island there is with no escape. About ten minutes after waking up in that strange land, she’s attacked. Then rescued. Then attacked again. And rescued again. And attacked, then rescued. Exactly that many times, and all within a few hours. She’s taken to a village in the blue sector, the only sector untouched by the Monk, an unknown person who’s taken over each sector, one by one, a person who thousands of kids follow and worship. When she gets to the village she’s injected with  a “vaccine” which is, in actuality, a truth serum. After her interrogation, she meets a few villagers and immediately makes a group of friends to rely on. And in that, I’ve summarized about 2% of the book.

To say that it has a fast-action plot is probably the understatement of the year. You never really knew who you could trust (despite your friendships) and when you were safe. The attacks were epic and barbaric, fitting the story well. The feelers? Creepy! The drones? They’re so stupid! But that’s the point, I guess. Remember in my review of Black City where it was a true dystopian? Well The Forsaken fits that category as well! It had a twisted society and mixed primal ingredients with modern (or, future-modern) elements in, creating this incredible setting. The only difference is, that I felt like the things in Forsaken could actually happen. I mean, it’s not entirely probable, but the way things connected to the  “Old World” made me feel a bit..sick. Everything just fit so perfectly and made this prison island worlda place to be truly feared.

I felt as if Alenna was just too trusting sometimes, though. While she was a strong and independent character, she had this habit of seeing the best of others, even when her life depended on her trust. Of course eventually I became used to it and didn’t find it as annoying, but be warned. Otherwise Alenna’s the kind of character we love: independent, willing to risk anything, stubborn.

The romance was the one thing I had a problem with and I think it could’ve been better without. The romance seemed forced and too quick I guess. Alenna and Liam had met about what? Four times? And Liam risks his life for her when he’s always been indifferent to girls. It just seemed to far-fetched with me and I couldn’t buy it. But the relationships between all these other characters were amazing, definitely! This point was stressed but entirely true, teamwork was the key, as cheesy as it sounds. Without their teamwork, all of them would’ve died, from twenty warriors to nada. Zlich. Zero. But they fought for each other and that’s what kept them alive (For as long as they lived, at least).

Lisa M. Stasse makes a grand entrance with her debut, the Forsaken and I can’t wait for the sequel or anything else she throws at us. With an amazing setting, wonderful characters, and the strong bonds that kept them alive, The Forsaken is definitely a must read for all Hunger Games fans and even for those who aren’t, like me (I know, I know. Yell at me later.). It’s definitely something I’d recommend to anyone and everyone. Who doesn’t mind a few (a lot) of deaths, of course.

Pages: 375
Genre: Dystopian/romance
Series: The Forsaken #1
Publisher: Simon and Schuster BFYR
Release Date: Kuly 10
Rating: 4 stars!






"Sticking out of _____ chest, at the level of his heart, is a silver dagger. And Jump's hand is wrapped around the other end of it. "I sure got the jump...on you!" he says, cackling madly, bloddy saliva dribbling from his lips."

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