Waiting on Wednesday

Deception by C.J. Redwine

Baalboden has been ravaged. The brutal Commander's whereabouts are unknown. And Rachel, grief stricken over her father's death, needs Logan more than ever. With their ragged group of survivors struggling to forge a future, it's up to Logan to become the leader they need—with Rachel by his side. Under constant threat from rival Carrington's army, who is after the device that controls the Cursed One, the group decides to abandon the ruins of their home and take their chances in the Wasteland.



But soon their problems intensify tenfold: someone—possibly inside their ranks—is sabotaging the survivors, picking them off one by one. The chaos and uncertainty of each day puts unbearable strain on Rachel and Logan, and it isn't long before they feel their love splintering. Even worse, as it becomes clear that the Commander will stop at nothing to destroy them, the band of survivors begins to question whether the price of freedom may be too great—and whether, hunted by their enemies and the murderous traitor in their midst, they can make it out of the Wasteland alive. 

In this daring sequel to Defiance, with the world they once loved forever destroyed, Rachel and Logan must decide between a life on the run and standing their ground to fight.

I wasn't really the biggest fan of Defiance (giant fan of the cover though!) but I liked it enough that I'm definitely waiting on Deception! This one sounds so action packed and I do love the romance between these two! 

The Beautiful and Cursed by Page Morgan

Goodreads Blurb

After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris.
In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house Ingrid’s twin brother, Grayson, found for them isn’t a house at all. It’s an abandoned abbey, its roof lined with stone gargoyles that could almost be mistaken for living, breathing creatures.
And Grayson has gone missing.
No one seems to know of his whereabouts but Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant at their new home.
Ingrid is sure her twin isn’t dead—she can feel it deep in her soul—but she knows he’s in grave danger. It will be up to her and Gabby to navigate the twisted path to Grayson, a path that will lead Ingrid on a discovery of dark secrets and otherworldly truths. And she’ll learn that once they are uncovered, they can never again be buried.

The Beautiful and Cursed was definitely a book I was looking forward to--Gargoyles? In Paris? With that gorgeous cover? How could I not be intrigued?

Oh the atmosphere! It was haunting and chilling and had an absolutely dark tone to it that I had to fall in love with. It had such a gritty feel to it and was absolutely wonderful. This was so much darker that I thought it'd be! It's mysterious and a bit gory, but completely enticing. The mystery is definitely one of the best parts about the story--and the gargoyles? They added a sense of grim allure that just drew me in. Especially in Paris!

Speaking of gargoyles--hello? Who's written about that before! Learning the lore behind gargoyles was absolutely fascinating and I loved Morgan's twist on these old tales! It did seem a bit typical at first, but that's quickly overlooked by, well, the gargoyles. 

With YA you can make pretty much any creature sexy and enticing, huh?

The plot was definitely one of the better parts of the book! It was shocking and twisted, surprising me until the very end. It's a complicated mess--and we all know those are the best when it comes to the plot! The Beautiful and Cursed was definitely at it's strongest in the second half though! Because that's pretty much where a chain of events unfold and where everything just explodes.

The POVs are something of a nuisance for me. I hate multiple POVs, but I loved Grayson's. It added even more of an air of mystery to our already thickening plot and made everything so much more...interesting. But at the same time, I'm no fan of multiple POVs, and this wasn't really an exception.

Now, I should've stopped and thought about the romance when it said "a devastatingly handsome servant". There were almost 2 love triangles (two and a half? Two halves? Does Chelle count? Vander? Ermm...), one for each sister. And the love interests (besides Luc) weren't my favorite. They seemed a bit bland to me in all honesty, and a bit too typical for a YA love interest. (And there were so many guys, I can't remember all their names!) And the insta love between Luc and Ingrid--that just ruined it completely. There was no support for their romance, no building up of chemistry really. It was just...there.

And I didn't even really understand how these two girls could attract so many guys! Ingrid was definitely my favorite of the sisters, but she seemed to...proper for my taste, though Morgan did a wonderful job of creating the perfect attitude for both of these girls! But I usually like my characters more wild--though Ingrid was still, most definitely kickass. But something about her struck me as annoying.
Gabby definitely struck a nerve. She was so naive and irritating--so impulsive too! I'm not sure if she ever really thought before she acted, but it didn't really seem like it. But I did admire her will to fight and to rescue her brother even in the face of doubt!

Just like the title suggests, this novel is truly beautiful and thrilling to its core. While I didn't completely enjoy it, The Beautiful and Cursed definitely had it's good moments and I'll be sitting here waiting for a sequel!

Pages: 352
Genre: Fantasy/Historical
Series: The Dispossessed #1
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release Date: May 14, 2013
Rating: 3.5-->3 stars

YA Crush Tourney: Vote Perry!

Tweet #TeamPerry and get your friends and family to vote for PERRY!
Y'ALL. I AM THE ADVOCATE FOR THIS HOTTIE RIGHT HERE:

Yeah him? Know him? I'll fill you in. 

Perry, our favorite Outsider, is perhaps one of the swooniest YA boys around. And, since I'm me, I'd rather show you than tell you. Be prepared to swoon at the quotes. 

Looks

I asked a few friends on why they love Perry.

"1. His tattoo & his markings bc every time I picture it, I pretty much swoon." -@ _extroadiMARY

Oh my. You mean these?

"He had tattoos, just like in the stories. Two patterned bands around each bicep. When he'd turned his back, she'd seen another design on his skin, some sort of hawk with wings spanning shoulder to shoulder."

Yeah, I would love to touch see them too.

There is hot. And then there is Perry. You don't resist Perry."-@Kami178xx

Truest words ever tweeted. Blond hair, bright green eyes, and one sexy athletic body of course. What's not to love?

Personality

"There're lots of adjectives to describe him but passionate sums it all up -- w his bow, Talon, Aria -- everything".-@LPofimagination

“Your voice sounds like a midnight fire. All warm and worn in and golden. I could listen to you talk forever." 
"I could never do that". 
She laughed at him. He brought his lips to her ear. "Your scent is like violets early in spring," he whispered. Then he laughed at himself because though it was true, he sounded like the worst kind of fool.” -Under the Never Sky

Perry responding to Roar (best friend) - "What do you think we are?" and "You're better than a brother."

"He didn't miss once. His name was never sharper than when his blood was up."

"Vale wouldn't fight for Talon, but he would. He was Talon's only hope now."

Oh yeah. Passionate is definitely something you can call Perry.

Ah, but he's not only passionate. He's loyal and strong and supportive. He'll fight for whatever he believes in and for his people and he'll do whatever he can to help.

The Swoon

Now. Another reason you should totally swoon? He's romantic and sweet. 

“In the afternoon, they stopped to eat on a rocky outcrop. Perry brushed a kiss on her cheek while she was chewing, and she learned that it was the loveliest thing to be kissed for no reason, even while chewing food. It brightened the woods, and the never sky, and everything.” 

"I miss you. I miss you. I miss you, I miss you. Be ready, because when I see you, I'll never let you go again”

"Should we try this again?" he asked. Aria smiled. "The right way," she said, and wove her fingers through his. "Together."

And then...his kisses. Can I have one?

“He kissed her slowly. Everything went slowly so he could follow her temper, and search into her eyes. When they joined, her scent was brave and strong and certain. Perry took it into himself, breathing her breath, feeling what she felt. He'd never known anything as right.” 

“Without thinking, he reached for her hand. Tucked it against her chest, feeling that was where it should be. Perry's heart slammed against his ribs. She had to feel it.” 

“Perry's hand settled on her hip, his grip firm. She felt his kiss settle into something deeper as his mouth moved with more urgency over hers. Suddenly there was more heat between them...” 

“His eyes were heavy with desire, but she saw something else. A gleam that made her suspicious.
"What?" she asked.
His hand slid to her hips. "You're incredible."
"That's not what you were thinking."

"Was so. I always think that." He leaned in, twisting a strand of her hair around his finger as he kissed her bottom lip. 

When the heck do I get to be Aria?

"He smiled and leaned down, kissing her softly, tenderly. She knew she should step away. This was a risk, but she didn't care about anything except him just then. She wove her arms around his neck and parted his lips with hers, stealing a taste of him. Tenderness could wait for another time. Perry went still for an instant; then he cinched her close, momentum sending them thudding into the door behind him. He sank against it, bringing himself closer to her height, kissing her with a sudden urgency. With a hunger she matched. His lips moved to her neck, trailed up to her ear, and the world fell away."

"There are other things I'd rather do when I'm alone with you."

Mmmmm. Perry is definitely the swooniest. Oh, but don't only take my word.

[I love him] because he is my baby. Or is he my baby because I love him? Hmmm-Ananbelle
Bows and arrows and blonds, oh my! Perry is my ideal male protagonist and swoony hero because he is survival strong :)-Alyssa
He is an awesome, protective sexy beast.-Tahereh
You broke me in half when you left sweet Perry-Ammie

Oh, and we have a giveaway by the way! Here it is.
First Round: 10 bookmarks
When Perry advances to the Second Round: 2 Signed Hardbacks of Under the Never Sky
When Perry advances to the Third Round: 2 signed hardbacks of Through the Ever Night 
When Perry advances to the Fourth Round: Signed hardback of UTNS AND Through the Ever Night, plus swag pack for one lucky winner

SO OMG GO VOTE FOR PERRY
HERE'S GIVEAWAY NUMBER TWO! Vote Team Perry and enter to win one of two signed Under the Never Skys! 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

And here's the first giveaway!
OVER
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Updates

So I found out two things yesterday. Maybe three.
EDIT-this was really a rant when I was super angry. Although I still might quit for other (personal) reasons--hopefully I'll be around for another year or two! :D

1) Google is a fucking bitch and decided to shut down Google Reader

• No one told me about it so I am in a rush to understand everything
• I am absolutely clueless
• Google, again, is a bitch
• I may switch to Wordpress, but transferring everything...dear God

2) There's a good chance of me quitting (50%) after this. I shall give this maybe one more year. We'll see.(EDIT-I'll still try to be around. Worst case scenario--I take a 6-12 month hiatus. Except, posting n summer. Because then I have nothing to dooooooo.)

Btw. I HAVE 76 SCHEDULED POSTS. (And a to of Drafts for my debut author series in Sep) which means I'm starting to schedule in October. MUAHAHAHAHA

So yeah. Since Google decided to shut down Google Reader, please click the button to the right on my sidebar, under GFC. :) It should lead  you to my blog page on Bloglovin. Just click follow! 

Also, since I have yet to do my 1000 follower giveaway I'll postpone it until some number on Bloglovin or Feedburner (Email subscriptions also on sidebar) is reached. Probably 500 or something. Probably less actually.
ALSO.
THE MERP SQUADDERS AND I ARE STARTING BLOG TOURS. Sign up here 

Book Haul will be next week. I know, I keep postponing these. Hopefully the books I got will cheer me up. But more likely not.

Hope you have a better week than me! 

Just For fun: DNF'd Books

HELLO. I DRAGGED MY BEST FRIEND EILEEN HERE TO TALK ABOUT BOOKS WE DNF'D (Did not finish) AND WHY. Then reply to those. It should be interesting. And just because WE didn't like these books doesn't mean you wouldn't. And we don't mean to insult anyone so, just...*backs off*

Nikki's DNF'd

Zenn Scarlett by Christian Schoon
 This was just really slow for me at first and the weird names turned me off. Not to mention, it went hard-hard-hardcore sci-fi and did the whole Martian thing and weird alien names and creatures. I don't think I was quite prepared for this much sci-fi.
  Yeah, so I've never heard of this book before you said you DNFed it a few days ago.

 Eternal Starling by Angela Corbett

I really did enjoy this at first. I'd been pining over it for months! But the main character...she was just so...ugh.  It's been a looonnnggg time since I tried to read it, so I'm blurry on details, but there was this forest scene where she was just so stupid. I just snapped. She was ridiculous! If it wasn't for Evie though, I'm sure I would've loved Eternal Starling!
  Oh, look! Eileen hasn't heard of another YA book! Surprise, surprise.

Heaven by Alexandra Adornetto
 Beth was just so idiotically stubborn in the first 15 pages and it just got super cheesy. I also skipped to the ending and saw the dreaded HEA (Happy Ever After) I wasn't surprised, but I was definitely irritated. Unbelievably so. I'll probably give it another chance when I ahve the time since I liked the other 2 books well enough!
  Heh. Never read this one. BUT at least I've heard of it!

Chosen Ones by Tiffany Truitt

I was so excited for this! And it would've been amazing, I think, except for the insta love and the coincidences that led to the main romance. Immediately our two characters have a "connection" across a room when they connect eyes. Then he happens to stumble upon her with a piano and he just happens to be kind and not get her in trouble.

Ooh yay for me not buying it! EWW INSTA LOVE! GET. IT. AWAY.

Doomed by Tracy Deebs 
 I wasn't exactly the...biggest fan of her Tempest series, but I took the chance since Doomed just sounded amazing! But...within (I think) The first 2 chapters, we have a seemingly unattractive, tom-boyish main character which, you know, is fine. And then we suddenly have two brothers, one dark haired and moody (and rude.) and one (I think) blonde and bouncy and completely chivalrous. And they were both pretty into our main character even though they had gaggles of girls after them. Mhmm. DUDE RIGHT? 
Seriously the fights between the brothers were SO forced and it was ridiculous and seriously I ranted SO HARD about this one on my Kindle. There are still the notes somewhere *digs them out* Merp. Apparently my brother has the iPad so I can't get to my Kindle app (where I read this when my first Kindle was...injured...let's say), JUST TRUST ME WHEN I SAY IT'S BAD. It's not even about the game that much rather than the real life aftermath. *sigh*


Eileen's DNF'd

Blood Red Road by Moira Young

I actually was really intrigued by this one. It sounded like a fantastic promise, but I only got 15 pages in before I realized that I just couldn't do it. We all know that I'm OCD (CDO, since the letters need to be in alphabetical order or else I will go insane), and when I saw the grammar mistakes and the spelling mistakes, I started twitching like nobody's business.

There weren't QUOTATION MARKS. I had no idea when someone was talking and when she was just thinking! In this case, it wasn't anything to do with the book, it was more of the fact that the direction Moira took the writing wasn't compatible with what I could handle.

OMG. I DNF'd this too for the same reason! Props to the author for writing like that for over 300 pages, but I just couldn't get used to it and it bothered me so much. ACK.

City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare
Oh dude, this book literally put me into a reading slump. I was reading this one, just not feeling it, and then put it down and all of the books I read after that for months made me want to puke all over myself. It was absolutely ridiculous, how City of Fallen Angels and City of Lost Souls were both just last-ditch efforts to milk her success as much as she could. Don't get me wrong, I loved The Infernal Devices, but that was a well thought-out series. This one just kind of ruined a trilogy that was fine on its own. 
I was badass and quit the book before this. ;) It just started going EVERYWHERE. But same, TID totally beats TMI for me!

Taken by Erin Bowman

Dear God, can I just take a moment to express how utterly boring this one was? There was no world-building, and the beginning left much to be desired. What I expected was to finally discover how the Heist worked, and what this world he lived in was like, but then he ditched it all to go running after some lighting. I'm disappointed in you, Gray. It just got more boring and boring that eventually I stopped reading it, and then I started another book. And another. And another. And then I officially shelved this as a DNF a month later.

ADIFHWLKSAFNLKWHES:LDCKN. *headdesk* IT WAS SO AMAZING AFTER. Definitely give this another try or I will cremate you. THE COVER IS GORGEOUS TOO

What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang
This one had so much promise. I heard such fantastic things, and I was doing some serious cover-lusting for that beautiful cover. And then, alas, I opened the book. The beginning was great, and I was thinking, "This is getting really interesting!" Halfway through, I started to get bored. Soon enough, I couldn't bring myself to finish, or even turn another page. What's Left of Me concentrates a lot on the character development between Addie and Eva, which was a serious issue for me because I need a strong plot to love the book. And if the plot isn't very intense, there has to be some romance. And if there isn't any romance, then that plot really better be good. And so on. Of course, I do care about character development, but it's not my main priority when reading a book. It's just the way I was built.
Yeah this one was sort of slow. Can't blame you for DNFing! I was so close, but I finished! Book 2 is definitely going to be really good though, since we've gotten most of the introducing out of the way! :D

Nantucket Blue by Leila Howland

Goodreads Blurb

For Cricket Thompson, a summer like this one will change everything. A summer spent on Nantucket with her best friend, Jules Clayton, and the indomitable Clayton family. A summer when she’ll make the almost unattainable Jay Logan hers. A summer to surpass all dreams.
Some of this turns out to be true. Some of it doesn’t. 
When Jules and her family suffer a devastating tragedy that forces the girls apart, Jules becomes a stranger whom Cricket wonders whether she ever really knew. And instead of lying on the beach working on her caramel-colored tan, Cricket is making beds and cleaning bathrooms to support herself in paradise for the summer.
But it’s the things Cricket hadn’t counted on--most of all, falling hard for someone who should be completely off-limits--that turn her dreams into an exhilarating, bittersweet reality.
A beautiful future is within her grasp, and Cricket must find the grace to embrace it. If she does, her life could be the perfect shade of Nantucket blue.

Nantucket Blue arrived right when I was aching for a fluff, so the timing was absolutely impeccable. And the best part about it? I loved the book.

Just to get it out of the way, my one problem was with our main character. While completely real with her own flaws and misconceptions, she was a bit annoying to me. She interfered with almost everything, even if she did have good intentions. Whether it was with her mom's love life or barging onto an island and her friend's vacay (when clearly she wasn't wanted) it annoyed me so much. And then she did such drastic things for a crush. Maybe it's because I never had a serious crush, but...I didn't like how desperate she seemed sometimes. And I also felt she apologized when the other person should've--maybe it's just me though! I did love her determination and her development as the story progressed though.

But oh, I did love all these other complex characters. Some of them had surprisingly deep layers that I loved and they were absolutely hilarious at times! They're easy to relate to characters who were so real--the whole story was. There were these people who twined with each others' lives and left just as quickly as they came, and I loved that because that's just how life is! And the resolution was another favorite of mine--they didn't all come together into one gigantic ending. It was pretty open-ended and I loved it. There were so many possibilities! But even if I am a fan of open-ended stories, I really wish we could've had an epilogue of some kind--just for a little closure?

The romance was so adorable--that's all I can say. Okay, maybe it has more to do with the absolutely adorable and cute love interest, but still. In these kinds of books, we always know that the main character falls for someone else...but I really don't want to say who. Just know that he's sweet and romantic and so hilarious sometimes.

The writing was definitely one of the strong points too! The setting was beautifully described, taking us right to Nantucket. Not only that, the relationships were, by far, one of my favorite parts. They were like the characters--flawed, sometimes broken, real, and layered. Whether it was familial, friendship, or romance, they were all amazing to read and just made everything so much better!

Filled with laughs and sighs, Nantucket Blue is one of those books absolutely perfect for the beach side! (The first inside pages even match the sand!) It's a wonderful debut that definitely makes you realize that you're in charge of you're own life and that you have to be the one to guide yourself.

Pages: 304
Genre: Contemporary/Romance
Series: Standalone
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Release Date: May 7, 2013
Rating: 3.5-->4 stars