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REVIEW: The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey

After the 1st wave, only darkness remains. After the 2nd, only the lucky escape. And after the 3rd, only the unlucky survive. After the 4th wave, only one rule applies: trust no one .

Now, it’s the dawn of the 5th wave, and on a lonely stretch of highway, Cassie runs from Them. The beings who only look human, who roam the countryside killing anyone they see. Who have scattered Earth’s last survivors. To stay alone is to stay alive, Cassie believes, until she meets Evan Walker. Beguiling and mysterious, Evan Walker may be Cassie’s only hope for rescuing her brother—or even saving herself. But Cassie must choose: between trust and despair, between defiance and surrender, between life and death. To give up or to get up.

I’m not a big fan of alien anything. Books, movies, TV… the only alien-y things I watch are Doctor Who and Roswell. It’s not that I don’t like sci-fi/alien things I just am picky and want it to be done right. The 5th Wave did it right and then some. It took me days after finishing to let everything sink in enough to write the review but my brain is still crying at everything.

The 5th Wave literally pulled me in from page one. I was like owl? Pregnant lady? Sleeping? WHAT!? And quickly turned the page to see what the heck was going on. We first meet Cassie, a teenager all alone in the woods after the first four waves took everything from her. All she has are her two guns, her brother’s teddy, a tent, and a few personal belongings that she was able to grab. She’s utterly alone, thinks she’s lost her mind and willing to do anything to survive. Including kill people who still might be human. That’s what this invasion has done: make you doubt your own people. They walk like us. Talk like us. Eat, bleed and feel like us but they are not us. They are the enemy. I adored Cassie. She was such a snarky little spitfire who reminded me of how I might be if I were stuck in a situation like the end of the world because of an alien invasion. She was also very smart and also very stubborn. She is determined to keep a promise she made to her little brother.

There is also other characters we meet: Ben Parish, Evan, Sammy, Ringer as well as others. I honestly loved them all. Well, ok, everyone except Vosch but that guy was an ass. The way the book was told was different from what I’ve seen, at least in YA. The chapters aren’t really chapters, so much as parts. There are chunks, like Cassie’s first part, that are 100+ pages. Soem are only 20 pages, some longer than that and each is told from a different character’s POV. We get a lot of Cassie, Ben, one of Evan and one of Sammy. It really rounded out the story and showed the reader different views of the apocalypse and everything that was going on from bad to worse.

Then there are, for lack of a better term, the aliens. The invaders that brought on the end of the world as we knew it. Faceless, mysterious creatures that hover in the sky as the humans of earth die. They weren’t some green-skinned, big headed, goggly eye little things. They weren’t these gigantic monstrous mammoths or tall skinny silver men. They were faceless. They were sleeper agents walking among us looking human. I loved that. I thought that it was fantastic that the author made it so that we didn’t know who was on the good side and who was one of the invaders.

I couldn’t put The 5th Wave down. The characters were amazing. The plot and subplots were amazing. The writing was amazing. Everything was just so freaking amazing. The 5th Wave is a non-stop thrill ride that will leave you guessing to the very end.

RATING 5/5!

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REVIEW: Requiem by Lauren Oliver

They have tried to squeeze us out, to stamp us into the past.

But we are still here.

And there are more of us every day.

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Maybe we are driven crazy by our feelings.

Maybe love is a disease, and we would be better off without it.

But we have chosen a different road.

And in the end, that is the point of escaping the cure: We are free to choose.

We are even free to choose the wrong thing.

It’s always difficult reading the end of a series. It’s even more difficult when you’re at the end of a favorite series. The Delirium trilogy is by far one of my favorite reads ever. It is just amazing and it was hard to say goodbye to it. That’s why, though I finished the book over a week ago, I’m only writing the review now. The review is the final nail in the coffin, so to speak. Yes, I can always re-read them - which I will do - but I can never read the books for the first time again. Never meet these characters for the first time and feel all the wonderment, joy, sadness and anger at reading the words for the first time. It’s a really sad thing to do. Reading the final page of the final book in a series and closing it is a grieving process.

I’m going to try to make this as spoiler-free as possible but if you haven’t read Delirium or Pandemonium then you should not read this review.

I was really excited to get to see things from Hana’s POV. At times, her chapters intrigued me more than Lena’s. She’s cured. She’s on the cusp of marrying the new mayor. And since she’s cured, she should probably be clouded, not caring and looking forward to her shiny new life. But she isn’t. She’s questioning things and the old Hana is poking through the cure. She’s scared. There were times when I read Lena’s chapters super fast just because I wanted to see more of Hana.

Requiem is a definite page turner. There was no lack of action, of movement, between Hana’s struggles and realizations to Lena and her group trying to find shelter and then the resistance. There was never a lull and I am glad for that. And the deaths. The series and the events in the book definitely call for them but that didn’t make the deaths any less shocking and sad.

Then there was the ending. Personally, I loved it. I’ve seen a lot of reviews and heard a lot of people smacking it, hating it, and downright being nasty about it. But I thought it was perfect. If there was a clean cut ending, all tied up with a bow, I don’t think I would have been happy. If Lena had made a choice between Alex and Julian, I wouldn’t have been happy. It’s much more complicated than that. There is no clean-cut, happy ending for the world that the Delirium took place, at least not yet. Change is going to take a lot of work. A lot more blood, sweat and tears. The ending should reflect that, and it did. The ending is a new beginning and I absolutely adored it.

So as sad as I am to say goodbye to the series, I’d like to think that the characters I fell in love with are okay somewhere and happy. Who knows, maybe one day Lauren will revisit them and we’ll get to see how they’re holding up. But for now, there’s only a bright new horizon for the characters in the triolgy.

RATING 5/5!

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REVIEW: When We Wake by Karen Healey

My name is Tegan Oglietti, and on the last day of my first lifetime, I was so, so happy.

Sixteen-year-old Tegan is just like every other girl living in 2027—she’s happiest when playing the guitar, she’s falling in love for the first time, and she’s joining her friends to protest the wrongs of the world: environmental collapse, social discrimination, and political injustice.

But on what should have been the best day of Tegan’s life, she dies—and wakes up a hundred years in the future, locked in a government facility with no idea what happened.

Tegan is the first government guinea pig to be cryonically frozen and successfully revived, which makes her an instant celebrity—even though all she wants to do is try to rebuild some semblance of a normal life. But the future isn’t all she hoped it would be, and when appalling secrets come to light, Tegan must make a choice: Does she keep her head down and survive, or fight for a better future?

I think I first fell in love with the cover of this book. Then, I read the synopsis and was very intrigued. I don’t read much science fiction set in the future, at least not future earth, that isn’t dystopian so that was what really drew me into being so excited to read the book. We start off by meeting Tegan in her time - in 2027. She’s happy and loved with a full life ahead of her.

We meet her mother, her best friend and her boyfriend. Even though we only saw them for a short time, I really liked them. And then poor Tegan had her world ripped from her. She woke up a century later in a strange new world. I thought she accepted everything - the strange world she woke up in, the fact that she died, the fact that everyone she ever loved was dead - pretty well. I know if it had happened to me, I would be losing it. That said, I still liked the feistiness she had to her; the need to get her way and the triumph when she did.

She’s bombarded with questions, with new faces and new information on this new world all at once. At first she thinks it’s for the better but she soon begins to question things. That said, I found it hard to connect with Tegan. I didn’t hate her. I quite liked her but I seemed to like the minor characters more, the people she met and became friends with in the future.

I think the book focused a little too much on Tegan, though understandably so, I still expected more from the world itself. We only got very little about how people 100 years in the future lived. They have weird slang which is to be expected, and the internet and television were combined to become ‘the tubes’ but other than that, there really wasn’t too much detail on how vastly different things were. I expected them to be far more different than they appeared but it still seemed like the 21st century with a little changes here and there. There wasn’t much on people’s everyday lives. It was just mostly about Tegan and her little area and friends. I wished there was more of an overview of how different the future is. Maybe in book two we’ll see more. But I really liked that it was set in Australia! It was a good change from the YAs that are always set in North America.

While I had a few small problems with it, When We Wake was a still a good read. I liked that there was gender equality, sexuality equality, race equality as well as a few other things that were a good change from what our world today is. I liked the characters and I really enjoyed the writing. I will even definitely read the sequel, it was just a novel that won’t remain with me. And that isn’t a bad thing, not all novels will.

RATING 3.5/5

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REVIEW: Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi

tick tick tick tick tick

it’s almost time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance.

She’s finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch.

Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

tIn this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam’s life.

Where do I even begin!? What a thrill ride Unravel Me was. I finished it well over a week ago but I’m still reeling from all the feels that it gave me.

Unravel Me definitely does not suffer from the second book in a trilogy, the sophomore slump. No way. I loved absolutely every second of it. We get to learn more about the underground establishment that Juliette is now a part of, and lots more about the characters that we met at the end of Shatter Me. But of course, we got to learn even more of those we already knew very well.

Juliette was as amazing and heartbreaking as ever. She’s still broken, still afraid of the world and herself and sometimes I just wanted to wrap her up and give her a hug - if she was wearing her gloves and suit of course, haha. It takes her a while to finally come into her own; I wasn’t sure she was even going to at all for a while there. But I still loved her. The amazing thing about her is a lot of the readers can see bits of themselves in Juliette, me especially, and I think that’s why I love her so much. She really came into her own and realized her strength by the end of the novel.

Adam, though… Oh my sweet boy. I’ve seen a few comments that he was too whiny and a little pathetic as the novel went on but honestly, I could see where he’s coming from. I’m not going to spoil it but Adam gets hit with a few knowledge bombs that really throw him for a loop. He was dealing with a lot of things in Shatter Me and he is still dealing with those things in Unravel Me and then he gets hit with even more. I think in the future it’s going to cause him to really shut down emotionally. But I love him and will continue to love him.

Warner is another story. In Shatter Me, I hated him. I thought he was vile, deplorable, a poor excuse for a human being and downright disgusting. I was so confused and offended that people considered him a love interest for Juliette. How could they if they respected her and liked her? Then Unravel Me happened and all of that went out the window. At first I was hesitant and tried my best to continue to dislike him. I kept thinking that there had to be some ulterior motive to what he said and everything that he did. But I couldn’t. Tahereh made me fall head over heels in love with him.

And Kenji! I am so, so thrilled that we got to see a whole lot more of him. He is the comic relief but that isn’t all that he is. He’s got a lot more depth to him than I originally thought and I hope that we see a lot more of him in the next book.

Tahereh’s writing is stunning. I couldn’t, and still cannot, get over how original it is and how well it flows. It blows me away and I wished I had sticky notes when I was reading to mark favorite passages and quotes.

Unravel Me blew me away. There was action, tears, anger, evil bastards and amazing heroes. It is by far one of my favorite reads so far this year.

RATING 5/5

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REVIEW: The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead

In the aftermath of a forbidden moment that rocked Sydney to her core, she finds herself struggling to draw the line between her Alchemist teachings and what her heart is urging her to do. Then she meets alluring, rebellious Marcus Finch—a former Alchemist who escaped against all odds, and is now on the run. Marcus wants to teach Sydney the secrets he claims the Alchemists are hiding from her. But as he pushes her to rebel against the people who raised her, Sydney finds that breaking free is harder than she thought. There is an old and mysterious magic rooted deeply within her. And as she searches for an evil magic user targeting powerful young witches, she realizes that her only hope is to embrace her magical blood—or else she might be next.

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, the Bloodlines series explores all the friendship, romance, battles, and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive—this time in a part-vampire, part-human setting where the stakes are even higher and everyone’s out for blood.

I don’t even know where to begin! I’m still reeling from the events in The Golden Lily and then The Indigo Spell went and got released. Sheesh!

All the buildup - like Richelle’s and Penguin’s tweets - had me very excited but it also had my expectations very high. Sydney and Adrian are one of my favorite YA couples, characters and dynamics after all. I’m happy to say that the book blew away whatever high expectations that I had.

There was no slowing down with The Indigo Spell, no lulls where not much was happening. There was always something that was important to the plot going on and that was great. It made me keep turning the pages and accidentally staying up until 630 in the morning to keep reading. Which is a habit I need to break, because I need to sleep! But anyway, The Indigo Spell is more page turning than the first two. I could not stop.

Adrian was as amazing as ever which was no surprise to me. There’s none of the melancholy, mopey, down in the dumps Adrian we saw a bit of in the last book. He’s now resolved and determined when it comes to Sydney and his feelings so he’s back to being the Adrian we all love: clever, sarcastic, witty, charming and of course completely heart and pants melting. There are of course a few worrisome moments when it comes to spirit and the moments of insanity that comes with the magic but he takes them in stride. He knows the repercussions of using so much of his magic but he doesn’t care because it helps people he loves. Someone he loves. I think I want my own Adrian, to be honest.

I can’t believe how much Sydney has grown from when we first me her back in the VA series. She’s still the same super intelligent, driven person we met in Blood Promise but now she’s questioning the Alchemists. She doesn’t just blindly take orders anymore. She wants to know why, she wants to know more. She’s doing things that she might not have been comfortable with before and that would get her in deep trouble her people but doing them anyway because it’s what she wants. Things that are for the best and would protect people and herself from danger. She does them now when the girl we first met would run away screaming. She’s growing into a really badass heroine without losing who she is at heart.

I won’t even get started on the romance between Syd and Adrian because that would spoil but W-O-W. I didn’t expect to get half as much as we did. I still can’t believe we got so much.

The Indigo Spell wasn’t just about Sydney and Adrian. We saw more of Eddie, Jill, Angeline, Trey and their lives and problems and we met a few new characters. Specifically Marcus, a rogue Alchemist who left the organization because he too began to question things.

There was no shortage of amazingness in The Indigo Spell. And in true Richelle fashion, the end left off with a zinger that makes me wish I had a time machine so I could go forward to November for the next book.

RATING 5/5!

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REVIEW: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother and the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.

As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner.

Scarlet was definitely one of my most anticipated reads this year. I absolutely loved Cinder so I was a little worried that I wouldn’t love Scarlet as much - even though this time around it’s Red Riding Hood’s story we’re reading and it’s my favorite fairytale. But I loved it. I loved Scarlet even more than I loved the first book.

In Scarlet, we meet Scarlet Benoit. She’s a farmer’s granddaughter but her grandmother is missing. She is determined to find her. She will do anything to find her, no matter what it takes. That was one of the reasons I loved Scarlet so much. She’s brave, selfless, self-sacrificing, headstrong, but she’s sweet and she’s smart and she’s everything I want in a heroine. She even carries a gun.

There are also a lot more POVs in Scarlet. There are chapters from Cinder’s POV, Kai’s, Scarlet’s, and even crazy Queen Levana’s POV. That was an unnerving read, that’s for sure. I loved that we got to see the story from different people’s perspectives. It was interesting to see Scarlet’s journey to find her grandmother and her relationship building with Wolf, another new - and AWESOME - character. She went through quite a lot in the few days that this novel took place in. It was great to see how much she grew and all that she went through. Then there was going with Cinder on her journey to escape and to find out more about herself. I immediately fell in love with Thorne. He was my absolute favorite addition to the characters. He’s sassy, funny, attractive but for all his bravado he’s also very loyal and kind. I hope he sticks around throughout the series.

There was no shortage on action in Scarlet. From Cinder’s narrow escape from jail, to the fights in Scarlet’s home town and Scarlet’s search for her grandmother, the book kept me on my toes. It kept me turning the pages even when I should probably be sleeping since it was 4 in the morning.

Scarlet left on a great note but I’m already foaming at the mouth for the sequel - Cress - coming out next year. It’s about Rapunzel! I think what I love most about Marissa’s series is that she’s retelling all of my favorite fairytales: Cinderalla, Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and then Snow White. I’m so excited! The series can only get better and better.

RATING 5/5

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REVIEW: Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

Mirabelle’s past is shrouded in secrecy, from her parents’ tragic deaths to her guardians’ half-truths about why she can’t return to her birthplace, Beau Rivage. Desperate to see the town, Mira runs away a week before her sixteenth birthday—and discovers a world she never could have imagined.

In Beau Rivage, nothing is what it seems—the strangely pale girl with a morbid interest in apples, the obnoxious playboy who’s a beast to everyone he meets, and the chivalrous guy who has a thing for damsels in distress. Here, fairy tales come to life, curses are awakened, and ancient stories are played out again and again.

But fairy tales aren’t pretty things, and they don’t always end in happily ever after. Mira has a role to play, a fairy tale destiny to embrace or resist. As she struggles to take control of her fate, Mira is drawn into the lives of two brothers with fairy tale curses of their own… brothers who share a dark secret. And she’ll find that love, just like fairy tales, can have sharp edges and hidden thorns.

Fairytales and more fairytales! I can’t get enough. I love them. I collect fairytale books. Grimm, Hans, and everything in between. I devour them. I would read fairytales and their retellings all day every day if I could. I had first heard of this book through GoodReads and put it on my to-read and to buy list. Then I stumbled upon a blog on Tumblr called fairytalemood and learned that it’s run by the author. I finally managed to find a copy of the book and I quickly devoured it.

My favorite thing about the book was it’s creativity. The plot reminded me a lot of the television show Once Upon a Time, since there are so many fairytale characters in once town. There are Snow Whites, Sleeping Beauties, Beasts, Belles, Red Riding Hoods and everything in between. And there are curses. With so many different fairytale characters and their stories in one place, it had the chance of being clustered, of being a mess, but the author made it make sense. It flowed and blended together perfectly that didn’t leave me confused at all.

In Beau Rivage, some residence are cursed. Some are Romantics, some are Honour-Bound, as well as a slew of other little categories they could fit into. Mira, the main character, has a tale of her own. A curse of her own. But she had no idea. She had absolutely no idea who or what she was when she entered Beau Rivage. She only went to the city because in search of her dead parent’s graves. It was interesting to follow her on her path. She found out who and what she was and she took measures to protect herself from it. She fell in love. Though, admittedly I thought the insta-love was a bit nauseating but she learned from it and I suppose that is the point. Still, it annoyed me greatly that she always crawled back to Felix, even when she learned something not-so-great about her prince charming.

The other people she met along the way were equally fascinating. Blue, Viv, Freddie, Jewel, Henley, Rafe, Felix… all of them cursed, all of them equally complex and interesting. I hope that in sequel or companion novels we learn more about them. Blue and Felix were a very big part of the plot in Kill Me Softly but I would still like to know more of their history. Especially Felix’s for reasons I will not say because that would lead me to spoil and I don’t want to do that! But he’s fascinating. He seems to accept his curse, rather than want to change things. It’s a part of him and he let’s it come. I think he even enjoys it, to be honest. The brother relationship of him and Blue was also curious. They share the same curse but they could not be more opposite and yet they still love each other and look out for each other.

Overall, I really enjoyed the book. I thought the ending was a little rush, and a little too neat but the story and the characters were so great that it was merely a little scratch on my overall enjoyment of it. There is mystery, there is good humor, love, darkness and everything in between. Kill Me Softly was a fun novel to read that leaves you turning page after page. If you love fairytales, suspense and good characters, definitely pick it up.

RATING 4/5!

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REVIEW: The Diviners by Libba Bray

Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-toot-ly thrilled. New York is the city of speakeasies, shopping, and movie palaces! Soon enough, Evie is running with glamorous Ziegfield girls and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is Evie has to live with her Uncle Will, curator of The Museum of American Folklore, Superstition, and the Occult—also known as “The Museum of the Creepy Crawlies.”

When a rash of occult-based murders comes to light, Evie and her uncle are right in the thick of the investigation. And through it all, Evie has a secret: a mysterious power that could help catch the killer—if he doesn’t catch her first.

I finished this book a week ago and I’m only writing the review now. Why? Because this book blew my mind. It was the first book I read this year and it’s going to be hard to top.

The book starts off with a creepy little prologue that sets the tone for the rest of the novel. We then meet Evie. She’s a big personality in a small, stunted town in Ohio. Evie is a flapper and she is too big to stay in her small town and after getting into a bit of a jam, her parents ship her off to live with her uncle Will in New York City for a while. I thought Evie was wonderful. She’s brass, bold, and has a fire in her. She’s smart-mouthed and sassy with wit like a whip but she also has a vulnerability to her. A loneliness that she’s too much. Too loud, too big, too bold. She’s someone a reader could really relate to. I know I did.

There are so many more characters than just Evie. The points of view vary throughout the novel between Memphis, Theta, Sam, Madge, a few others, and even the villain himself. In some books it would be too much, too confusing, but Bray made it flow. She made it easy to follow and it didn’t bother me at all. It was the roaring twenties. New York was bursting at the seams with glitz, glamour and gold. With dreams and with love and with so many different people. It’s only natural to get to see that from quite a few different people.

I was never once bored and this is a 600 page book. Bray’s vivid, descriptive storytelling made that possible. She has an amazing way with words. She makes you feel like you’re right there in the streets of New York with the characters, running around, going to clubs with Theta, sitting in the museum’s library with Evie and her Uncle and sitting in the cemetery with Memphis writing his poetry.

I loved this book more than I expected. I wasn’t sure how it was going to go, really. A supernatural horror story set in the 20s. At first it didn’t really compute in my brain but wow, was I blown away. Bray weaves the gruesome killings into it masterfully. She makes Naughty John seem more real that I want him to be. Some of the passages made my skin crawl and immediately get up and turn a few more lights on. Especially since that Naughty John tune got stuck in my head. It’s still stuck in my head. Then there is the mythos of the powers some of the characters have. The mystery. And boy, what a mystery it is. By the end of the book there are still questions. Usually that angers me but you know, I loved this book too much to care. It only makes me want the sequel that much more.

The plot to The Diviners is complex. It’s rich with storytelling, with characters, with vivid imagery and with scares. You’re not going to want to put it down. The only reason it took me so long to read it was because I didn’t want it to end. I became so attached to the characters and the story that I really wanted it to be the length of a George R R Martin novel. The Diviners is such an original concept and wonderful story that I really, really want more. I posi-tutely cannot wait for the sequel.

RATING 5/5!

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REVIEW: Shadowlands by Kate Brian

Rory Miller had one chance to fight back and she took it. Rory survived… and the serial killer who attacked her escaped. Now that the infamous Steven Nell is on the loose, Rory must enter the witness protection with her father and sister, Darcy, leaving their friends and family without so much as a goodbye.

Starting over in a new town with only each other is unimaginable for Rory and Darcy. They were inseparable as children, but now they can barely stand each other. As the sisters settle in to Juniper Landing, a picturesque vacation island, it seems like their new home may be just the fresh start they need. They fall in with a group of beautiful, carefree teens and spend their days surfing, partying on the beach, and hiking into endless sunsets. But just as they’re starting to feel safe again, one of their new friends goes missing. Is it a coincidence? Or is the nightmare beginning all over again?

I’m not going to lie… the gorgeous cover is what originally drew me in. The font, the crows, the placement of the girl and the negative space… it is just a simply gorgeous cover. After reading the synopsis I was interested, but I wasn’t sure if I would love, enjoy, or even like the book at all. I was pleasantly surprised. I had heard of Kate’s other novels but I have never read them because they didn’t sound like my cup of tea. I wasn’t sure what to expect of Shadowlands. I thought that maybe it would be your cut and dry crime/suspense novel but I was blown away. There is the crime and there is the suspense but there is so much more to it than that.

Right out of the gate, I was creeped out. The first chapter is told from the point of view of Steven Nell and it is not a good point of view. It made my stomach turn and my skin crawl. It makes you root for Rory all the more even though we haven’t even met her yet. I’ve never read a YA thriller that has been so intense right away and it keeps it up throughout the whole novel. There are short chapters from Steven’s perspective peppered throughout the book that give a startling feel to the reality of Rory’s situation. Not to mention it makes you squirm all over again. The man is vile. He is a killer and will stop at nothing to finish what he started.

The town reminded me of a mix of the town from the TV show Haven and the TV show Harper’s Island. It’s a vacation town set on a picture perfect island but something is… off. Rory and her family are sent there after she is attacked because the FBI put them in the Witness Protection Program. The town is picturesque with perfectly mowed lawns, a General Store, white picket fences and everything you would want to see in a cozy island town in South Carolina. But the locals are strange. Some wear leather bracelets like they are in some sort of secret club or society. There is a creepy fog that rolls in out of the blue all the time and blankets absolutely everything.

Things are not right and Rory catches on right away. Sometimes she thinks it’s just her situation messing with her but things are off. Tristan, a local, is spying on her and she has no idea why. Krista and Joaquin - Tristan’s sister and his best friend - are also acting very strangely around her and she can’t figure out why. So Rory is plagued with not only her attack and attacker - she is haunted by him - but by the things that keep happening in town. It is a mystery that had me guessing the entire way through. I’m very good at figuring out what is going to happen but I was shocked - shocked! - by the ending. It was absolutely brilliant. There was suspense the entire way through and after knowing the ending, you could pinpoint the little clues Kate left but at the time I had absolutely no idea. It was such a brilliant thing that I never saw coming and that made me love the book all the more. The revelation! I mean, wow. Kate was absolutely brilliant about giving nothing away of the massive reveal. I am still baffled and blown away by it. I put the book down and just repeated “What!? WHAT?!” over and over again to myself for minutes after.

I’m curious to see where Kate is going to take the revelation since Shadowlands is the start of a triolgy. I hope to learn more about the town. The how and the why for one. And the locals. Ah! I already can’t wait for the sequel and who knows when it will be released! Shadowlands was gripping and will literally leave you guessing right until the very last page.

RATING 5/5!

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REVIEW: Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster’s apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she’ll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

The first book I read in 2012 was Daughter of Smoke and Bone so it’s only fitting that I close this year out with it’s sequel.

Wow is one word that perfectly sums up Days of Blood and Starlight. It just blew me away. The pace was a little slow in the beginning but that didn’t make it any less enjoyable. Laini’s prose is just wonderful. It paints such a vivid picture in your mind of the characters, the world, what’s going on and everything else. Laini definitely has a gift for words. It felt like Eretz was a legitimate real place and if you found a portal and a way in, you too could visit it.

The new characters in Days are an interesting bunch. There is Ziri and Sarazel just to name a couple. Some get more page time than others but they are all wonderful. But there are also the old characters that we learn so much more about. Zuzana and Mik have a big part and I absolutely adored them. They were light in Karou’s darkness. They brought humor and loyalty when Karou needed it most. We also get to see more of Akiva’s brother and sister Liraz and Hazael. They became more real than the two soldiers we had met in Daughter of Smoke and Bone. There were new depths to them, flaws and wonder, that I thought was great. I really adored them by the end of it. There is also Thiago who is as vile as ever. There was one point in the novel that made me nauseous. I’ve never wished a villain dead as much as I wanted him to die. He is one villain I don’t think has any redeeming qualities. Vile, vile man. Laini did an amazing job with all of these characters, making them feel so real and three dimensional that you had strong emotions for all of them.

I enjoyed that we got to see different perspectives from some characters - some fleeting - in different chapters of the book. It just rounded out the overall feel of the novel as a whole. You got to see the Hintermost, Astrae and the human world from all these different perspective with all these different emotions and experiences that just created a great experience for the reader.

Days of Blood and Starlight was absolutely exquisit. There is so much packed into it, so many twists and turns and surprises that you’re not going to want to put it down. It will make you laugh, cry and maybe even want to throw it across the room. It’s a wonderful gem and I already want the sequel. What a cliffhanger!

RATING 5/5!

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