Waiting On Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.


I believe this week, I'm not only waiting on Opal (which STILL hasn't arrived yet) but also Clockwork Princess. The cover has been revealed and appears to be an image of Tessa holding the Shadowhunter's Codex.

I do like the cover and am very much looking forward the the end of the Infernal Devices trilogy.

******SPOILER ALERT****** if you haven't read Clockwork Prince yet.

Tessa needs to break her engagement with Jem and just be with Will already! I mean, not that Will isn't cursed anymore, Tessa and him should be able to live happily until he dies. I say this because it is believed that she appears in City of Lost Souls or somewhere in the original series The Mortal Instruments. Ugh!


******END SPOILERS******


But yeah. Definitely looking forward to this book.


:)

Top Ten Books to Get into the Halloween Spirit

Top Ten Tuesday is an event hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

I'm going to be honest, as I believe I usually am. I don't read many Halloween-ish books. I have read a few, but my list isn't going to reach ten. Here's what I've got though.

1. Thr3e by Ted Dekker

• This book scared the crap out of me. I couldn't read it at night or during a storm. Brilliantly written though. It was recommended to me by a friend from church. I love the twist at the end though. I feel like even though this book messed with my head, I can't give it enough praise. That's how great the writing was and how much it pulled me in.

2. The Forbidden Game by L.J. Smith

• This book wasn't as scary as Thr3e, but it did give me goose bumps. Julian was the villain that I wanted to love. The mind games he played messed with my head though. I'm angry that she didn't end up with Julian in the end, but it was scary enough for me to appreciate it.

3. The Harry Potter series by J.K. Rowling

• I'm not even going to lie (wow I say that a lot), I wanted to post each book individually to take up more numbers but it felt like cheating so I didn't. These books weren't necessarily  scary, but magical ceilings, moving staircases, goblins, witches, wizards, Azkaban. There is nothing about any of that that doesn't say Halloween. On a somewhat related note: I was in Barnes & Noble the other day and saw a table dedicated solely to Harry Potter. There were wands and I wanted one, but alas, I had only money for the two books that I'd had in my hands. I'll probably never have one now (I live a good hour from the nearest Barnes & Noble - making the salary of a college student, I can't afford the trip more often than not). 

Unfortunately that's as far as the list goes. If this post hadn't been so last minute I could have probably scrounged up a few more that I decided to fallacize into being remotely related to Halloween. But hey, you got pictures in this one, huh? Huh? *nudges with elbow*

Leave a link to your TTT. I'd love to know what books get you into the Halloween spirit!

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases we're eagerly anticipating.

The book that I am waiting like nobody's business for is Opal by Jennifer L. Armentrout.

No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.

But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love.

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.


I can't even describe how much I want this book. Its publish date is December 11th and I don't think I'll be able to wait till Christmas.

Top Ten Favorite Authors in the YA Genre

Top Ten Tuesday is an event hosted by The Broke and the Bookish.

This week's theme is top ten favorite authors of any genre of my choosing. Since I read mostly YA, it only makes sense, right? It was definitely hard to narrow them all down, but it's been done so here it is. The list only includes authors I've read, so bear with me if you find the list limited. Also, it's not in any particular order.

1. Cassandra Clare

• Author of The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices, she cleverly winds these two worlds together. Clare makes the top ten because she makes the most lovable characters. ^.^

2.  Richelle Mead

• Author of the Vampire Academy series which I just adore! I'll have to admit, I only started the series because it was about vampires, but I'm very over that now. Looking past the vampires though, Rose and Dimitri were what kept me. Their love story is so tragic and the overall plot was great. The Romanian vampires were cool to read about too.

3. Suzanne Collins

• Author of The Hunger Games trilogy, this was a great dystopian novel. While I still feel that Katniss should have ended up with Gale, the plot was excellent. Collins made the top ten list because her story pulled me in and was unlike any other that I've read. The characters are well shaped and the world is a place that I can see, but I don't think I would ever want to live in.

4. L.J. Smith

• I have to admit that she's only on this list for writing the Night World series and her two trilogy novels Dark Visions and The Forbidden Game. These are the books that I wanted to read more than once. I didn't care much for The Vampire Diaries (the T.V. show, I heard, was much better anyways). Also, I think her name choices are excellent. 

5. Stephenie Meyer

• Before my head gets bitten off, she's not on here for the Twilight series. She's here because she wrote this fabulous book called The Host. I love that book. There's a far-off rumor that she's planning a sequel, but it's taking so long that I'm not getting my hopes up. The Host was a great book as it is. It could go with or without a sequel.

6. Catherine Fisher

• She wrote Incarceron. I liked this book because the concept was intriguing. Fisher tried to make a love story but ended up failing at that. She made it on here because my mind was blown by the time I got to the end of the book.

7. Maggie Stiefvater

• Maggie made it on here less for the books she wrote and more for her blog. Even though I own the whole Wolves of Mercy Falls trilogy all signed and personalized, her personality wins out over them all. Even so, I'm excited to get my hands on her latest book The Raven Boys. I read an excerpt on amazon, and I can't wait to read the rest of it.

8. Jennifer L. Armentrout

• Well duh, she's on here because she wrote Obsidian. I love this book!  The way that Katy and Daemon's relationship is is fantastic! I've re-read Obsidian 5 times. Honestly, I don't know why I didn't think of her first. But like I said, this list is no particular order. If it was, Armentrout would be first for sure.

9. NisiOisiN

• Don't know how to pronounce the name or even if it belongs to a male or female, but I do know that this person wrote the best murder mystery novel ever! Oy, I'm not even sure if it's YA. The book is Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases. In fact, it might even be more towards the manga genre of books for the reason that the characters and world are directly out of an anime. Ugh, but how could I not include the brilliant author of this fabulous book? It should be included in every genre. Pft, I'm a young adult and I read it, so therefore it must be a young adult book. (Accept my fallacy!)

10. L.A. Weatherly

• This last one was hard to decide on. Weatherly won out because Angel Burn made me smile. The romance and everything is just something that I love to read about. Though I'm not crazy with how Weatherly names her charcters, the characters themselves are strong and motivated.

 Happy Top Ten Tuesday! Comments and feedback are greatly appreciated!

I Miss It Already

Matched

By Ally Condie

Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

Ugh where do I start? How about this world that Ally Condie has created. I don't have an complaints or problems with it, but I felt like it could be developed more. I suppose I wanted a bit more description. How they got their food was a bit confusing for me. Did it travel to a place inside their house? How was this set up? Did all of the houses look the same? What color were they? Now Cassia's house has a porch? When did this happen? These little unknown details irk me. The book could have used more descriptive details, I think, even if only to make the world feel more realistic.

The story went smoothly. The character development was lacking. Ky must have been the most developed character, with Cassia coming in second. Xander, for being Cassia's best friend, was an alarmingly flat character. Cassia's betrayal of Xander would have been a lot more heart gripping if I had known more of their friendship. Honestly, from the beginning, Cassia's and Xander's relationship felt forced. I wasn't buying it. Just telling me that the two have a deep friendship isn't selling it. I don't see any evidence of this in the novel.

I miss reading this novel. I want to go back and read it again despite all of my criticisms. I love that Cassia is fighting for her love with Ky against all odds. Even now that she has to go find him with not even a slim chance of ever seeing him again. I can appreciate that. Also the fact that she's searching for the truth and not just accepting everything the Society has been feeding her her whole life. I want to read this book again even though I have college essays to write and I really didn't have time to read it the first time.

Maybe I'll get the sequel for Christmas. :) 

The Fairytale's Dark Side

Tiger Lily

By Jodi Lynn Anderson

 

Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .

Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.

Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.

With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.

Told from Tinkerbell's point of view, it was nice to have the incite that the fairy gave me. It's not quite the same Neverland we all know and love, but it's written to convince of it's existence. Like it's a plausible place that no craft has been able to get to because of nature. Tinkerbell tells the story of Tiger lily and Peter pan, how they fall in love, how he was betrayed, and how he ended up with Wendy. It's not one of those stories that come with happy endings. In the end, I could understand why Tinkerbell had such a dislike for Wendy. I did too. I wasn't as emotionally interested in this book like I am with most. While the fairytale seemed plausible and realistic, that's all it is to me: a fairytale. 

Tinkerbell's insights make me appreciate the characters more. Captain Hook is just a discouraged gentlemen wanting to be rid of the boy who's destroyed everything he learned as a child. Reginald Smee is a sociopath who kills people he admires. Tinkerbell is a fairy who's dad left when she was little, who fell in love with Peter Pan the moment she laid eyes on him, and who accepted that she could only receive his love by watching him with Tiger lily.

The book also goes through how Tiger lily lives: what friends she has, what friends she doesn't have, and the people she puts up with. She hasn't had an easy life.

The characters and world were very well developed and this novel has every right to have 5 stars, but I just couldn't connect to it. I couldn't get emotionally involved and invested into the story. It might be because I read books to go to happy places and this wasn't a very happy place to be so I didn't allow myself to get too close to the characters, especially since Tinkerbell warns in the very first page that the story won't have a happy ending. That's just me though. The book deserved every star it got.

Discouraged by a Book with a Fabulous Cover

Breathe

By Sarah Crossan

Inhale. Exhale.
Breathe.
Breathe.
Breathe . . .
The world is dead.
The survivors live under the protection of Breathe, the corporation that found a way to manufacture oxygen-rich air.

Alina
has been stealing for a long time. She's a little jittery, but not terrified. All she knows is that she's never been caught before. If she's careful, it'll be easy. If she's careful.

Quinn
should be worried about Alina and a bit afraid for himself, too, but even though this is dangerous, it's also the most interesting thing to happen to him in ages. It isn't every day that the girl of your dreams asks you to rescue her.

Bea
wants to tell him that none of this is fair; they'd planned a trip together, the two of them, and she'd hoped he'd discover her out here, not another girl.

And as they walk into the Outlands with two days' worth of oxygen in their tanks, everything they believe will be shattered. Will they be able to make it back? Will they want to?

The cover just looks amazing doesn't it? It sucked me right in. I am satisfied with it because Quinn finally came to his senses and him and Bea are off to a hopeful future. I am satisfied because it was a nice journey to go on. However, this book just didn't wow me. Maybe my expectations were too high due to the fabulous cover. The book seemed to short and lacking in character development. Or maybe it's because sometimes the characters repeated each other with the mixed pov chapters.

3 stars because it wasn't amazing and I didn't really like it. I just like it on an average level...