Review: Beautiful Creatures

Title: Beautiful Creatures
Author: Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl
Genre: Yong Adult
Series: Book 1 in The Caster Chronicles
Pages: 563
Release Date: December 1, 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Summary: Is falling in love the beginning . . . or the end?

In Ethan Wate's hometown there lies the darkest of secrets . . .

There is a girl. Slowly, she pulled the hood from her head . . . Green eyes, black hair. Lena Duchannes.

There is a curse. On the Sixteenth Moon, the Sixteenth Year, the Book will take what it's been promised. And no one can stop it.

In the end, there is a grave.

Lena and Ethan become bound together by a deep, powerful love. But Lena is cursed and on her sixteenth birthday, her fate will be decided. Ethan never even saw it coming.(via Goodreads)

My Rating:

| Goodreads | Amazon | My Goodreads Review | 

This review was originally posted on my Goodreads, and may contain spoilers to this book. 

I picked this book up because I saw the trailer for the movie. Not because the trailer 'wow'd' me but because if it is good enough to be made into a movie I'm willing to give it a chance (plus I have seen so many books destroyed when they are made into movies that I do not judge books by their movies). To be honest, though, this book did not wow me. there were a lot of things that had potential but it just did not follow through. 

First of all it ended up being a romance, but the narrator is a male. This is something I found interesting because most of the times these type of books are from a female perspective. Second the actual basis for the plot was interesting, not the best I've read, but interesting non the less. Unfortunately I felt like it was not handled well. 

Overall I thought that it felt like another post-Twilight mess. (Please do not mistake me, I loved the Twilight series -minus the first book- but in the wake of Twilight's popularity there were a lot of books with basically the same plot put out and they are mostly a mess.)In fact I found myself seeing parallels to the Twilight series the entire way through. The main difference being that the role of Bella was filled by Ethan. 

Example: Ethan meets Lena who he is instantly drawn to. He cannot get him out of her head even though she insists that she is dangerous. He finds out he is a supernatural Caster(much like a witch) from a family of Casters who all have different gifts and who might hurt him, but accepts this overly easily. He doesn't care and they spend a short period of time together at their high school happy. Then a bad supernatural Caster comes along and tries to kill Ethan. Luckily Ethan’s Amma(?) is easily deceived even though she is constantly said to be very powerful. Ethan loses a fight with said villain and almost dies but luckily due to what Lena is she saves him. 

Which sounds a lot like:
Bella meets Edward who she is instantly drawn to. She cannot get him out of her head even though he insists that he is dangerous. She finds out he is a supernatural vampire from a family of vampires who all have different gifts and who might hurt her but accepts this overly easily. She doesn't care and they spend a short period of time together at their high school happy. Then a bad supernatural vampire comes along and tries to kill Bella. Luckily Bella’s well meaning father is easily deceived even though he is the Chief of Police. Bella loses a fight with said villain and almost dies but luckily due to what Edward is he saves her. 

It wasn’t bad enough that I will read the second book in the series, and the last few chapters were pretty good, but it was mostly a disappointment. 

What book did you feel got a lot of hype but ultimately fell short?

Review: Marked

Marked by P.C. Cast and Kristin Cast

**This review was originally posted on Goodreads**

I had heard about the House of Night series books a lot, and thought I'd give them a try, although I admit, I really did not expect to like them all that much. That being said I thought that this book was really well written, and laid out. 

I particularly loved the matriarchal society that P.C. and Kristen Cast have designed and the very unique way in which they write the vampyres. This is not your run of the mill vampires are scary, but these ones are not all bad story. It presents vampires as more of a secret society. 

It isn't a book for everyone, but It reminds me of the popular television show, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, in the way that it takes normal problems that teens and young adults would be going through, and makes them into supernatural or magical issues. 

There was a slight(ok, not so slight) undertone of feminism in the book, but it was not irritating, or overpowering. It did not overpower the plot as many of the feminist themed books tend to do. I am pretty sure that there were also ties to Wicca but I am not 100% on that as I am not familiar with that group. 

I enjoyed this book a lot more than I thought that I would and honestly the thing that held me back from 5 stars was the language. It was clearly trying to be 'hip' and 'cool' but came off childish, unrealistic, and to use a lame word, lame. That combined with some of the choices Zoey made were frustrating, however I guess that's just part of her character. 

Overall I think that this book would appeal to a wide variety of readers, including those looking for a romance, and those looking for something with a little bit more plot to it. I recomend that you give this series a chance!

Marked on Goodreads

My review on Goodreads

Review: The Last of the Firedrakes

The Last of the Firedrakes by Farah Oomerbhoy

I received this book as an advanced reading copy through Netgally from Wise Ink Creative Publishing and before I say anything I would like to say a big thank you to them for allowing me to read this book. 

The long asked question of 'what to read after Harry Potter' has been answered, as long as you don't mind a bit of déjà vu. I thoroughly enjoyed Oomerbhoy's masterpiece, from the stunning cover, to the cliff hanger at the end, and all the wonderfulness between. It took me a bit to get going, but once I did I couldn't put it down! 

I was initially a little put off by the similarities in the plot to the Harry Potter series, it felt like someone chopped the books into chapter sized hunks, mixed them up and stripped away the details, then put them back together and filled in with a new story. As the book went on, however, the comparisons lessened and it grew in it's own right, blooming into a very compelling story. It still puts you in mind of Dursleys, Hogwarts, and a certain blonde would-be villain, but it has a flavor all it's own. 

I was very impressed with Aurora's character. She was flawed, and young, but she was very likable. I don't always love main characters, but she felt very real to me. She was not obnoxiously over confident, but she also did not float about putting herself down so others would praise her. I liked that she has dark hair, and that she loves her dark hair. This stuck with me for some reason, and I started to picture her like princess Jasmine from Disney's Aladdin!

There was a romantic side to this book, and again, I must say it was beautifully written. I am normally left on the outside of romances looking in thinking 'good, she is happy,' or 'they want to be together' but that was not the case here. There is a point in this book, where Aurora and Rafe's inevitable romance just hits me! Not only did I want it to work out, but Oomerbhoy paints such a beautiful picture of longing that it leaks out of the page and you can feel it. 

Rafe was probably my favorite, and I couldn't help but picture him as a cross between Flynn Rider, and Aladdin! He put me in mind of a Robin Hood character immediately and I loved the depth his character has! I really feel for him in his current mess he find's himself in, and I can't wait to see how he fixes it! 

I think the biggest drawback to this book was that there were places that the plot similarities did become a bit overwhelming, mainly in the begining of the book, so if you are someone who is bothered by that you may not enjoy this book as much as you should. But the similarities are less as you go, so I have high hopes for the next book. No word on when the next book will be out, but I'll be here waiting when it does!

This book is set to be published on August 15, 2015 hop on over to Amazon right now and pre-order your copy!


The Last of the Firedrakes on Goodreads
My review on Goodreads

Review: City of Bones

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

**This review was originally posted on Goodreads**

There has been a lot of hype about this book lately and I noticed that it was being made into a movie so I figured I would give it a chance.

I think that there was an interesting, well thought out plot, with a unique world in here somewhere, and if you scrape off the poor romance, Mary Lu's, and stagnant characters you might be able to catch a glimpse it.

Some of this book was wonderful and the detail was great, with interesting and as I've said, unique ideas, but then there were the scenes that just overstated things, or restated them. I feel like some of the times there will be a well written passage, and then Cassandra Clare would just cut and paste it later on in the book. I found a lot of the writing poor if I'm perfectly honest.

Another problem I had with this book was that just about every character was impossible to like. Clary and Jace were quite irritating and I could not ship it. I couldn't get involved in the 'love story' which overwhelmed the whole book, so it made reading this hard. Alec was irritating and irrational. At one point Clary met him, then he hated her. I had to flip back to the previous page to see if I missed something, but no. No, he just hated her. No reason. Isabelle was similar, although she started out with some potential (I guess). I think that most of this book could have been edited down to the first half of a book (the boring- get used to a world half). 

Because I am a crazy person, and I can not just abandon series, I will continue on in this series, but I really do not recommend this book to anyone, and it blows my mind how many people are completely obsessed with it.

City of Bones on Goodreads
My review on Goodreads

Review: Carrie

Carrie by Stephen King

What happens when you mix high school, crazy, and supernatural powers? Carrie, that's what! This was my first venture into the world of Stephen King. I know what you're thinking how did this girl escape Stephen King for 25 years? Surely she's encountered it and just doesn't know it! Well my friends, you would be wrong. I was busy reading and re-reading, The Hobbit, and Harry Potter, and perusing the forums for fan theories. So now, years past when I should have been exposed to things everyone knows about, I'm trying to catch up. A wonderful woman I work with suggested to me that I start with Carrie so I did. 

The first thing that struck me about this book was that it was wonderfully written. Even the sporadic writing style of jumping from narrative, to documents and back again oddly worked. The only thing I knew about Stephen King was that he's 'that horror guy with a million books' so I was under the impression that someone with that many books could not possibly be that high quality. Boy was I wrong!

While I didn't find this scary, I thought it was a brutal view of a tortured high school student with exaggerated consequences. The frank discomfort that this book gives the reader is so effective in getting it's message across. 

The way this book is designed you know from the beginning it's not going to end well, but I still had that hope that if Carrie could just hang in there until after high school, things might be OK. 

I was very excited to find that this is also the first novel that Mr. King wrote, and that I can continue through his books chronologically (I love chronological reading!) and see his writing progress!

I would absolutely recommend this book to every high school student. Perhaps if more students put themselves in the head of the 'losers' they would be a little nicer. I would also recommend this to almost anyone, as it is an excellent book. 

Carrie on Goodreads

My review on Goodreads