Waiting on Wednesday: The Reckoning

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Author; Kelley Armstrong

Release Date; April 6^th 2010

Product Description from Goodreads

Only two weeks ago, life was all too predictable. But that was before I saw my first ghost. Now, along with my supernatural friends Tori, Derek, and Simon, I’m on the run from the Edison Group, which genetically altered us as part of their sinister experiment. We’re hiding in a safe house that might not be as safe as it seems. We’ll be gone soon anyway, back to rescue those we’d left behind and to take out the Edison Group . . . or so we hope.

Why I can’t wait;

            Well it’s a supernatural read, and I have been waiting since last year to read this one. It’s the last in the series of the Darkest Powers trilogy, plus Kelley is a Canada and lives like an hour from me. Pretty cool. I’ve read her adult series; Women on the Otherworld, and they are fantastic.  I’m excited for this one, just one more week!

Teaser Tuesday; Before I fall

Sorry my teaser tuesday is up so late, I had a busy day running around! Without further ado;




Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should be Reading.


Here's how it works:- Grab the current book you're reading- Open up to a random page- share 2 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page ***Make sure your section is spoiler free!!

"is it a hallucination?" he says, setting down his briefcase, "could it be? Samantha Kingston?

home? on a friday? I roll my eyes. "I don't know. Did you do a lot 

of acid in the sixities? Could be a flashback" (Oliver, 287)

AND on other news, I have reached over 100 FOLLOWERS !!!!

This means tomorrow I will be picking not one but TWO WINNERS!!

Thanks guys :) 

Why I LOVE The Hunger Games

Jillian from Random Ramblings is hosting a meme in a few weeks called "show and tell" in which some bloggers have to take a snapshot of themselfves with one of their favorite books and explain why they love it. I'm going to post mine a bit early in means of 1) advertising in advance for this cool meme and 2) because I have to shorten my blurb by quite a bit, and it saddens me to cut any out cause I kinda like the finished result. 


So without further ado this is why I LOVE the book; The Hunger Games 


oh p.s please dismiss the dorky picture

My Favorite book (well one of them); The Hunger Games
    Is it really a shocker? I think the main reason this one resonates so well with me is primarily because; I’m a “daddies girl”. Now before you start labeling me as a materialistic, spoiled child let me explain why. All my life (up until a few years ago) I was a shy, awkward looking, skinny, short girl. Not to say I was an outcast, I had many friends but I was shy and much more comfortable with a good book then going to a raging kegger. Well in fourth grade, I did something totally out of character; I joined my elementary school’s wrestling team. At first I was awkward and... well shy and as soon as I got a girl down on the mat I would just sit on her, but eventually I got better and when I hit grade 7 I was already a national champion. Now before I digress to far let me explain why I joined wrestling. In grade four I was around 34 pounds and was tired of everyone telling me “good things come in small packages”, I didn’t want to be underestimated my whole life, I wanted to prove I could do what everyone thought I couldn’t. I can still remember the day I came home and told my dad I was going to wrestle, he looked at me with pride in his eyes and said “I think that’s a wonderful idea Sarah”. My dad will always be my hero for this, because he has always told me and my sister we can be classy and girly but ALWAYS be tough and don’t be afraid to conquer the path less traveled. And this is why I LOVE The Hunger Games. Katiniss is strong yet fragile, harsh yet loving, kickass (sorry for my French) character but most importantly she is willing to tackle any task no matter it’s size. We need more strong female characters like her in YA books. YOU GO GIRL. 

Review; Bleeding Violet

Attention, this ones a bit of a rambler. I appolize for all the "negative" reviews lately, but I'm going to continue speeking my mind because I know I like an honest review :) 

Author; Dia Reeves

Review;  2/5

Release Date; January 5^th 2010

Product Description from Goodreads

Love can be a dangerous thing....

Hanna simply wants to be loved. With a head plagued by hallucinations, a medicine cabinet full of pills, and a closet stuffed with frilly, violet dresses, Hanna's tired of being the outcast, the weird girl, the freak. So she runs away to Portero, Texas in search of a new home.

But Portero is a stranger town than Hanna expects. As she tries to make a place for herself, she discovers dark secrets that would terrify any normal soul. Good thing for Hanna, she's far from normal. As this crazy girl meets an even crazier town, only two things are certain: Anything can happen and no one is safe.

Review;

            Wow. What an odd, odd, read.

Odd, isn’t necessarily a bad thing, sometimes it is refreshing to read “odd” books, in fact I would probably classify some of my favorite books as “odd”. However, Bleeding Violet, definitely was not my kind of book.

Once you get pass the oddity of the world Hanna lives in, and I’m not talking about her manic depression and hallucinations, but more of the mindset she lives in. Her mother is quite… different; she doesn’t want Hanna, and hits her and constantly tells her to leave, but in Hanna’s mind she just needs to be bashed over the head with a lamp (which she does by the way) and she’ll come around. 

Another thing I didn’t like was the way this book would casually mention dark subjects and make them light, such as; drugs, ditching school, suicide, murder, prostitution, and the thing I was most shocked with in a YA book was the way the author portrayed the loose morals of Hanna towards sex.  Now I am not generally opposed to sex in YA novels if it is tastefully done and not overly mentioned, but that is not the case in this book. Hanna, who readers learn lost her virginity when she was 14 to a stranger in a sauna, views sex as a way to get protection and become popular in her new town, and the most shocking thing is her “mother” not only condones it but also encourages it!  I can understand this in a more “adult” book, after all we expect that in books geared at an older audience, but I don’t like seeing that in a book aimed for 13 year olds and up. Maybe it’s just me, but I don’t think sex should be taught so loosely to impressionable teens. Heck I think I’m still impressionable at 20 and it shocked me!!!

If I get passed the whole sex issue, I had no connections with the characters. I though Hanna was a little well…. Strange. And it wasn’t because of her mental state but more because of her morals and ideals, which I know, were probably a result of her sanity but still I couldn’t connect. I even hated the main guy, Wyatt. Usually  authors writes most of the love interests to be totally absorbed in the main character and be an at times slightly misogynistic, tough-guys, Reeves wrote Wyatt as being a big demon hunter and while it seemed he truly liked Hanna, whenever his ex girlfriend was around he would make goo-goo eyes at her. WHAT THE HECK?! As my mother always said; “no one buys the cow, when they get the milk for free”.

I must admit, I couldn’t finish this book. I had about 100 pages left and decided I just couldn’t do it. This saddens me because I hate feeling regretful at buying a book, and even worse feeling like I wasted my time. However since I never finished maybe the book ends off with a bang making the beginning and middle worth it?

Random Ramblings; Gravestone carvings? IHS?

This post is in no way book related, but I find it utterly fascinating plus it also has me quite spellbound. So, for one of my classes we have to do a project on gravestone's and various changes overtime made on them, which pretty much means I spend a lot of my time in my local cemetery walking around with a camera and a notebook. Yes, I have been whispered about; "what is that girl doing walking around with a camera?!?! *gasp*". But creep-speculating aside I have found that walking around a cemetery is both creepy and surprisingly comforting. I think it may be the whole; quiet but not alone thing. 


Anywho, I have noticed something on many tombstone originating from the late 1800's and right up until modern times; carvings of three letters, usually found on gravestones with crosses or christian symbology; IHS.

And once I saw this on one gravestone I saw them everywhere!!!;

I have looked EVERYWHERE online, I'm going to have to phone around to some local historical societies, but I thought it might be worth it to ask my blogger friends;


 does anyone know what I.H.S means on tombstones? Possibly catholic symbology?

IMM! March 28th

IMM is a weekly meme started by Kristi @ The Story Siren


My Book Depository packages finally came this week! 

Bought;


Bleeding Violet
Hourglass
The Iron King
Before I fall


I also bought some school books, I decided to include them because... well there books
-The Sixteen Satires, Juvenal
-The Aeneid, Virgil 




What did you guys get this week?

Review; Hourglass

Author; Claudia Gray

Review; 3.5/5

Release Date; March 9^th 2010

Product Description from Goodreads

Bestselling author Claudia Gray’s Evernight series continues. In Hourglass, Bianca and Lucas have found a way to be together. But it means lying to the people who care about them the most.

After escaping from Evernight Academy, the vampire boarding school, Bianca and Lucas seek refuge with Black Cross, the elite group of vampire hunters led by Lucas’s stepfather. When Bianca’s close friend—the vampire Balthazar—is captured by Black Cross, Bianca knows she has to do whatever it takes to save him. But at what cost?

Hourglass, the third book in this gripping vampire series by the author of the New York Times bestseller Stargazer, has all the romance, suspense, and page-turning drama that have made Claudia Gray’s books runaway successes.

Review;

            Even though I have read this entire series to date, and I read them as soon as they were released, and enjoyed them, I have always had a strong sense of “meh”. I know this sounds awful but if I had to sum the book up with one word I would say “good”.  I don’t regret reading this serious but I don’t think I’ll ever reread them.

Having that been said, I must say that HOURGLASS was, in my opinion, the best book in the series. It was a little more explicit; sex was referenced several times (which is the first time for this series) but not overly detailed, and I think there was a couple “bad” words, no f-bombs or anything like that though.

This book threw me a couple times. Having read some reviews before picking this book up I knew there was a cliffhanger, however I was still surprised. I didn’t really see that coming, yet looking back on it now it seems pretty obvious.

I’ve never been a big fan of the characters. Lucas has always annoyed me, although I did come around a bit in this book for my feelings towards him. Bianca has always seemed a little pathetic and whiny to me, I mean if she really loved Lucas she would let him go, as she constantly complains about him leaving everyone he loves for her. Balthazar is probably the only character I have been consistent with in my liking of him, he’s very “classic”… if that makes any sense. 

All in all it was an O-K read for me. I know some other bloggers have really liked this book, so don’t listen to me if you felt differently about the other books in this series. 

Review; The Iron King

Author; Julie Kagawa

Review; 4/5

Release Date; Febuary 1^st 2010

Product Description from Goodreads

Meghan Chase has never fit in at her small-town high school, and now, on the eve of her 16th birthday, she discovers why. When her half brother is kidnapped, Meghan is drawn into a fantastical world she never imagined--the world of Faery, where anything you see may try to eat you, and Meghan is the daughter of the summer faery king. Now she will journey into the depths of Faery to face an unknown enemy . . . and beg the help of a winter prince who might as soon kill her as let her touch his icy heart. The Iron King is the first book in the Iron Fey series.

Review;

First of all I would just like to state that I had pretty high expectations for this book due to all the rave reviews on goodreads and fellow bloggers blogs, this book wasn’t bad by any means but it did however disappoint me because of the pedestal I placed it on before reading it.

When I first started reading this book I was very annoyed with the main character Meghan. I thought “oh great here’s another plain girl, who loves the beautiful jock at school, and complains that he parents don’t respect her, and can’t even remember her birthday”, I was so not into reading a book based on one big giant pity party. However it got much better before it got much worse.

One thing that did annoy me however was that I found a lot of the main characters and storylines seemed borrowed. This book had a lot of elements from; Alice in wonderland, Peter Pan, Midsummer’s Night Dream, The Chronicles of Narnia and various other popular fantasy novels. One of the main characters, I’ll call him Grim because I can’t remember the full form, was pretty much the Cheshire cat from Alice in Wonderland.

However, around the 100-page mark things got interesting. The plot was JAMPACKED, and I mean that in the most literal sense of the word. I have never read a book where the main character has so many bad turns of luck as Meghan has, at times it was like “… come on can’t this girl get a break?”. I loved the characters though; Puck is a hoot and a half he adds so much comical relief to this book its insane, Ash literally embodies the dark glooming prince, and I even liked the Sellie King.

Julie does an amazing job of painting this world out for readers. It only took me like 20 hours to read this book I was so immersed in the world. I’m eagerly awaiting august for the second book!!

Waiting on Wednesday: The Clockwork Angel

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Author; Cassandra Clare

Release Date; August 31^st 2010

Product Description from Goodreads

Magic is dangerous—but love is more dangerous still.

When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London's Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos.

Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What's more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa's power for his own.

Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by—and torn between—two best friends: Jem, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm's length...everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world...and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all.

Why I can’t wait;

Cassandra Clare quickly became one of my favorite authors with her TMI series. I was captivated, and very lucky that I started the series last march so all three books were already out, I would have just died if I had to wait for CITY OF GLASS. THE BOOKS ARE AMAZING!! I don’t know why readers of every genre wouldn’t love them, they have it all! And I of course LOVE JACE! I don’t think I’ve ever read a character quite like him, his wit was a pleasure to read and the majority of my favorite quotes on goodreads are quotes from him in the books. I anticipate that this series will not disappoint in awesomeness, plus apparently Magnus from TMI is in this series as well, so that’s something to look forward too!! I CAN’T WAIT

What are you guys waiting for?

Teaser Tuesday; The Sight

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should be Reading.


Here's how it works:- Grab the current book you're reading- Open up to a random page- share 2 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page ***Make sure your section is spoiler free!!

"In his dying moments he had thought that all that had happened had 

somehow proved that theirs was the family to fight the evil. But he was wrong. 

"now they are all dead", he thought, "and how can the dead ever fight anything?"

(Clement-Davis, 223). 

I've never heard anything about this book, I picked it up because I thought it was a werewolf book but I think its from the P.O.V of actual wolves. Sounds interesting regardless. 

Random Ramblings; Ereaders; Pass or fail?

This is a well known debate in the book community, to buy or not to buy an Ereader? Ok I must admit when Amazon.com first came out with the Kindle I was repulsed! Well, the inner techie in me was overjoyed and secretly itching to drop the money on the new gadget even though I had neither the money nor the knowhow to purchase the kindle, and the book lover in me was thinking "... oh no here is the end of books, everyone rebut!".

Now, there are many reason why I love books; the simple joy of lounging around with a hardback, the ability to pimp out my favorite books to my mom when I'm done with them, and the most important thing: I LOVE THE SMELL OF BOOKS. I will admit sometimes I will walk into my University library at school, go up to the stacks on the top level of the library and sniff some old ones. This is both embrassing for me when I get caught by an unexpecting walker-by, but also embrassing for my innocent-bystander-friends that label me as "a crazy nerd". A title I am quite comfortable with. However, all of these reasons aside I have been considering buying an Ereader for a couple months now.

The main reason why I have been seriously considering this purchase is;

a) this solves the problem of not being able to bring a suitcase full of books when I go to Italy, I can simply download them to my kindle!

b) I can get a book within seconds of experiencing the overcoming want to purchase books

c) I won't have to worry about that growing hernia in my back, as a result of carting all my books around

and

d)well come on... it's kinda pretty

I knew this was a good debate to bring up to all my lovely blogger friends, as you can both understand my pros and cons on Ereaders. So what will it be; pass or fail?

IMM! March 21st

IMM is a weekly meme started by Kristi @ The Story Siren

This is the second time this month that I have NOTHING in my mailbox. I ordered four books a couple weeks ago from the Book Depository but they have yet to arrive yet. HURRY UP ROYAL MAIL!!

This is very sad indeed. What did you guys get in your mailboxes?

Book Cover News; Beautiful Darkness

And yet another book cover release this week, Beautiful Darkness. Which is the second book in the Caster Chronicles, or better known as the sequel to Beautiful Creatures. And without further ado here is the cover;

I like it. Not love. Like. Well, I LOVE how the writing is similar to the first book and the titles blue while Beautiful Creatures was purple, I like that contrast. However I'm not crazy about the gates on the cover. I think it's probably has some foreshadowing at work, but I don't like it nearly as much as I like the willow trees ( at least I think there Willow) on the first book cover. All-in-all it's pretty. Beautiful Darkness will be released October 26th 2010, I'm excited to read it even though I wasn't crazy about the first book. What do you guys think?

Book Cover News; Clockwork Angel

Today, the cover for Clockwork Angel, the campaign series to Cassandra Claire's mortal instrument series, was released.

Personally, I LOVE IT! I like it cause you can tell by the clothing that the time period isn't modern, and the backgrounds London I'm assuming. I love that this cover is so similar to the Mortal Instrument covers, which I loved to!

What do you guys think?

Oh and P.S check out this AMAZING contest ...HERE

Waiting on Wednesday: Claire De Lune

Author; Christine Johnson

Release Date; May 18^th 2010

Product Description from Goodreads

Christine Johnson’s CLAIRE DE LUNE, in which a teenager learns that she is a werewolf, descended from a long line of female werewolves, and must balance her human and werewolf lives, while tracking down the rogue werewolf preying upon the people of her town.

Why I can’t Wait;

Ok lets break this down why I am soo looking forward to this one;

A) WEREWOLVES

B) A) Complicated, sole mate type, romance

C) B) Werewolves

D) C) The Rave reviews

E) D) Oh ya and …..WEREWOLVES…?

Yes, I kinda love werewolves. They are the new pink. I’m slighty jealous of all the bloggers that are getting this book for review lately. You all must let me know what you think. What are you guys waiting for?

Book Cover News; Torment

Thanks to my lovely Twitter friends, today I discovered that the second book in the Fallen series by Lauren Kate, the first book is entitled Fallen, and the second called Torment has a cover finally!!!

Isn't it pretty?! I loved the cover for Fallen, and I love this one just as much, maybe more. I love how the writings a little bit Gothic and the old fashioned black dress, long flow-ie hair, and dreary background. This book comes out on September 28th 2010. I can't wait for this book!! I loved the first one, it was a little slow at times, but I'm excited for character backgrounds to be revealed in the second book like Cam, and Gabbie and especially Luce and Daniel. My review for Fallen is HERE.

What do you guys think of this cover?

Teaser Tuesday; The Naming

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly meme hosted by MizB at Should be Reading.

Here's how it works:- Grab the current book you're reading- Open up to a random page- share 2 "teaser" sentences from somewhere on that page ***Make sure your section is spoiler free!!

"Oron looked her full in the face, and Maerad felt a mind probing her, keen and

merciless, as if a ray of light lanced suddenly into a dark room.

She flinched, and Oron laughed gently nad let her go" (Croggon, pg 166).

I got this book awhile ago but have yet to pick it up. The back sounded really interesting, sounds like a fun fantasy world to embark upon. On a side note school is really hectic for me for the next 2 weeks, heck for the next month, so I doubt I will be posting a lot of reviews, however I am going to try my best to still post a blog at least once a day on something book related.

IMM! March 14th and A GREAT CONTEST!

Before I start IMM, I just want to do a shout out to Larissa @ Welcome to Larissa's Life she has a great contest for followers, with AMAZING PRIZES!! Please check this one out, you won't be sorry you did!

IMM is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren

This week I bought;

-Covet, J R Ward

and

-Italy: eyewitness travel book (for my Italy trip !!)

I also bought four books on the book depository, I love how cheap that site is four books and hardcover no less for less than forty dollars canadian! But these books aren't here yet so they will probably be part of next weeks IMM

What did you guys get this week?