Top Ten Tuesday #2

Hello everybody! It's Tuesday (but yesterday was Tuesday, too) so I'm doing Top Ten Tuesday. Today's topic is: "Ten Books You Recently Added To Your To-Be-Read List"

10) Atlanta Burns by Chuck Wendig. This is a graphic novel about a tough young woman who is investigating a crime ring. It's a dark and gritty story and I really want to get into it. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository

9) Song of Blood and Stone by L. Penelope. First, look at this cover:

WOW! This book is a New Adult fantasy set in an alternate 1920's. It follows a couple during a magical war between good and evil. So it's got a mix of historical, fantasy, and romance. And again: THAT COVER.

Goodreads Amazon Book Depository

8) The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black. The humans and the fae have coexisted for years and there's a boy in a glass coffin who has been there for a long ass time and he suddenly wakes up. Completely normal stuff. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


7) The Alchemyst by Michael Scott. Nicholas Flamel is an immortal alchemist and when his wife/girlfriend/bff gets kidnapped, he enlists the help of two teenagers to help him get her back and stop the bad guy from doing bad guy things. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


6) The Rose Society by Marie Lu. This is the sequel to The Young Elites and it doesn't come out until October and I need to know what happens because that cliffhanger (hanging from a cliff) was not nice and I don't like waiting. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


5) Volition by Lily Paradis. The synopsis tells you basically nothing but when it ends with "my soul is blacker than my heart," the book is probably worth picking up. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


4) Hit by Delilah S. Dawson. Okay so this sounds kind of insane. The US debt was paid off by a bank who now wants their money back so our protagonist is turned into an assassin and given a hit list in exchange for her family's debt being paid. She then has to go around either collecting money, recruiting bounty hunters, or killing the people on the list. I love YA books about criminals and this sounds like it's going to be very fun but also really dark. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


3) An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir. I bet you haven't heard anything about this book yet. This book is basically like a mash up of ancient Rome with high fantasy. And I want it. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


2) The Dead Room by Stephanie Erickson. The synopsis for this is very, very vague. But I feel like it goes beyond the typical "teen girl takes down the man". I think there's more of an intense sci-fi plot going on and I like being able to jump into a book like this without really knowing what's going on. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository


1) Legend: the Graphic Novel by Marie Lu. This is a graphic novel of my favorite dystopia! I really want to read this because I'm just starting to get into graphic novels and I feel like reading stories that I've already read before will help me ease into the genre better. Goodreads Amazon Book Depository

The Young Elites Book Review

Title: The Young Elites
Series: The Young Elites (Book #1)
Author: Marie Lu
Genre: High Fantasy
Rating: 10 instances of me crying out "Marie, Why Do You Like To Hurt My Ships???" out of 10

What It's About: Years ago, a plague swept through and killed a bunch of people but the infected children who survived gained superpowers are called 'malfettos', and they have been hunted down by the government ever since. Adelina is a malfetto and was supposed to be executed but she was saved by the Young Elites (hella rad super-duper malfettos), and they're going to help her gain control of her powers while she helps them assassinate the King and Queen of their country so everyone can be happy and alive and have access to an endless supply of Doritos.

Recommended For: Fans of Game of Thrones and The Darkest Minds

Review: What is it with Marie Lu? She wrote a dystopian trilogy that didn't have a sucky ending (which is surprising for the dystopia genre), her characters are all interesting and fleshed out, even when she only has less than 400 pages to do so. Her action scenes are so cinematic and she makes you ship something within a five minute interaction. Guys, I'm starting to think that Marie Lu may actually be Beyonce in disguise because she can do no wrong. This book was perfection. Adelina is an anti-heroine who fucks up a lot but I still want her to win at life because she's so great. I like that we get to see how her weird-ass powers are taking a toll on her mental health because it always bothers me when characters don't have any type of reaction to traumatic events. And it's cool that we've got a heroine that actually thirsts for power and wants to be above other people and has ambition. Goody two shoes heroines are getting boring. Give me more Adelinas.
Both of the love interests are awesome and I ship Adelina with both of them (though I'm more of an Enzlina shipper). The setting has the Middle Ages feel to it but it's also very urban so it's got this weird but effective mash up of past and future qualities. The ending broke my *dun dun* heart, though I probably should've expected that since this is a Marie Lu book. The characters all had distinct motivations and goals for wanting to either overthrow the King and Queen or kill all the malfettos, and I even found myself liking the villains. JUST GO READ THIS BOOK!
Sigh. I want The Rose Society and I want it now. Why can't books be published like two weeks apart. That would make my life easier. *dances off into the night to go start my own squad of ass-kicking rebels*

Links:
Book Depository
Amazon
Goodreads

The Clockwork Scarab Book Review

Title: The Clockwork Scarab
Series: Stoker and Holmes (Book #1)
Author: Colleen Gleason
Genre: Historical, fantasy
Rating: 7 ~Oh Hey, A Young Adult Book That Passes The Bechdel Test With Flying Colors~ out of 10
What's It's About: Mina is the niece of Sherlock Holmes and Evaline is the sister of Bram Stoker. The girls are trying to solve a case of missing (and a few dead) society girls, which seems to be tied up with Egyptian mythology.
Recommended For: Fans of steampunk (I swear the word "steam" is used like 50 times in this book), and the original Sherlock stories
Review: I'm going to start with the things that I didn't like. Evaline was very annoyed for the entire book. She was bratty and whiny and she complained about EVERYTHING. She reminded me of Caroline from The Vampire Diaries (that's not a good thing). I found myself wanting to skip her chapters and get to the chapters of Mina, who was far superior. I didn't like the inclusion of time travel. I feel like it made an already full story way too cramped. I think that the story would have worked just fine without it. I also was not a big fan of the writing at times. It felt like this was written very fast and it makes it come off as something written by a young or inexperienced writer. I normally don't pick apart someone's writing craft because I like to focus on the plot and characters, but there were a lot of times where the writing didn't flow right for me. But I did like the mystery plot. Trying to figure out what was going on with the missing girls, who was the head of the conspiracy, was a lot of fun. I like that even though the girls have romantic interests, their main focus remains solving the case and keeping each other alive. I like that the relationship between Mina and Evaline evolves from being completely annoyed by each other to becoming almost friends. The girls each had their own voice and I never forgot who I was reading about, which is a problem that a lot of authors have trouble doing properly. Whenever I see a book has multiple first person points-of-view, I'm a little wary because the book can either go the Legend route and be done well or it can be Allegiant, which is... not very good. But The Clockwork Scarab did it perfectly. The sequel, The Spiritglass Charade, is already out and I'm looking forward to getting my hands on it!
Links:
Book Depository
Amazon
Goodreads

Top Ten Tuesday #1

Hello everybody! I’ve decided to start doing Top Ten Tuesdays (credit to the creators of this weekly tag: brokeandbookish.com)

Today’s topic is the Top Ten Books On My Spring TBR List

One thing you should know about me is that I’m not good at sticking to TBR lists (I have commitment issues, okay?) so this list is probably going to go 75% unaccomplished. But I still want to do the tag.

10) Percy Jackson’s Greek Gods by Rick Riordan - This is the first book of a series (or maybe just a duology) where Mr. Jackson tells you all about the Greek Gods from his perspective. I've already started it but I would like to finish it soon. Amazon Book Depository

9) Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout - I love Jennifer’s books, but I've had a lot of trouble finishing up her Lux series. I’ve been about a third of the way through the book since AUGUST and I really need to go ahead and finish it. Amazon Book Depository

8) World After by Susan Ee - I read Angelfall a year ago, and I really want to finish the sequel so that I can get my hands on End of Days (book 3) as soon as it comes out. Amazon Book Depository

7) Welcome to the Shadowhunter Academy by Cassandra Clare - I’m hoping that the Tales For the Shadowhunter Academy ebook series will go better than Clare’s previous attempt at an ebook series, The Bane Chronicles. With TBC, I felt like it was detached from what was currently happening in the Shadowhunter Chronicles, but with the Shadowhunter Academy, it takes place right smack in between The Mortal Instruments and The Dark Artifices and helps set up for not only The Dark Artifices but also The Last Hours (I feel like people that don’t read the Shadowhunter books are really confused by this entry) Amazon

6) Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor - This book is a collection of three short stories that revolve around kissing. I’ve finished the first two, but I’ve been putting off the last story for way too long. Amazon Book Depository

5) An Ember in the Ashes by Sabaa Tahir - This book is an upcoming release and it seems a bit complicated from the synopsis. Basically, it’s like a mash up of your typical “take down the man” dystopian, but mixed with high fantasy elements. As I, and a lot of other YA readers, transition from reading dystopians to reading high fantasy, I think this will be a good way to bridge that gap. Amazon Book Depository

4) Liars, Inc by Paula Stokes - This has not been released yet but it sounds so intriguing. It’s about a boy named Max who lies all the time and one day, his friend Preston is found murdered, with Max as the prime suspect. Not only do we have a moral story here (always tell the truth) but there’s going to be some Gone Girl-ish shenanigans because there’s an unreliable narrator. Amazon Book Depository

3) The Young Elites by Marie Lu - I LOVED her Legend series and I’m so excited to finally start The Young Elites. It’s the first installment of a fantasy series and I want to get through it before the sequel, The Rose Society, is released. Amazon Book Depository

2) The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon - This book is huge and I’ve had it on my shelf since last fall because I let myself be intimidated by its size. Amazon Book Depository

1) A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas -This is a new series by Maas and I know that I’m going to be reading it the day it is released. It is a fantasy, new adult series about fey, and the first book is a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. Fey + new adult + Beauty and the Beast + being written by Sarah J. Maas is a recipe for greatness. Amazon Book Depository

Reading Update #1 (March 7th - March 14th)

Books I’ve finished:

- yeah, nothing. I haven’t finished a book since the beginning of February because I’ve been in a massive slump

Books I’m currently reading:

- The Bone Season (Book Depository, Thriftbooks, Amazon)

- The Clockwork Scarab (Book Depository, Amazon)

- And I’m currently listening to the World After audiobook (Book Depository, Amazon)

Books I have acquired this past week

- None, technically, but on the 6th, I bought a few books, and you can see my haul here

Where I hope to be by next Saturday night (the 21st)

- I want to finish The Clockwork Scarab. I’m about halfway through right now, with only 150 pages left. It’s a quick book, so with my free time for spring break, I think I’ll be able to finish it

- I also want to finish listening to World After. I read the first book almost a year ago, and I want to be caught up before End of Days is released. 

- I know that I won’t finish The Bone Season because that book is way too big for me to finish in a week!!