Books of Amber

I'm fairly certain that most people think I'm slightly disturbed when I announce my fascination with death, murders, etc. I can't help what I love, and creepy stories or murder mysteries tend to draw me in. I love having no clue who the killer is, and struggling to put the clues together before time runs out. So when I heard that Ten is a novel about a bunch of teenagers who get murdered while on a creepy island, I was all over that. Unfortunately, due to the ridiculous pricing, it took me a while to get to it. Full review on Books of Amber

I honestly wouldn't expect me to be very coherent in this review. It's been a couple of weeks since I finished The Song of Achilles, and I'm still having a breakdown over it. Thanks a lot, Tatum. I both love and hate Tatum for sending me this. she knows how I love my mythology, and how Ancient History tends to ruin my life, and yet she still decided to go right ahead with recommending this one. And yep, my post-Spartacus life is officially ruined. I haven't read the epic poem (yet!) but this makes me even more desperate to check it out. Right. Now.The Song of Achilles tells Achilles' life story through the eyes of Patroclus. Since I don't read book synopses for fear of spoilers, I wasn't expecting this, and was immediately intrigued by Miller's approach to the tale since this book is not told from the point of view of the classic hero. As the novel moves forward, it follows both Achilles and Patroclus from when they are children, right up until the very end.Full review on Books of Amber

Angelfall first entered my radar back when it was released in the US, and I knew it was receiving a lot of amazingly positive reviews, but... angels. I have to admit, I'm not a huge fan of angel books. There are a couple that I have loved, but once the they started to become more heavily involved with religion I was out of there. Still, I got sent this as a surprise from the publisher, and friends had highly recommended it, so I decided to give it a go. And I'm very glad I did!Full review on Books of Amber

Full review on Books of AmberIf Judith has ever recommended this to you, raise your hand. If you've read it, then you pay lower your hand. Keep it up if you've ignored Judith's persistent tweeting, or have put off reading this due to being busy/having other books to read/not believing it's your thing. Is your hand still raised? Good. Now hit yourself with it.I've said before that I love stories about family. That's more important to me than the high school dramas that revolve around love interests or the bitchy cheerleaders. All of that can be left out of a novel as long as the family aspect it there, and I will likely adore it. Tatum and I were talking the other night (while we cried over The Fast and the Furious) about how all the shows we love and most of the books we adore are about families in some form or another, whether it's talking about a huge extended family like Spartacus, or a small-but-still-good family like in Supernatural.

Full review on Books of AmberAfter six months and only a handful of great debuts, I went into In the After with low expectations. How could I not, after being disappointed by the likes of Taken and Reboot? But I think my lower expectations paid off, because I ended up really enjoying In the After. The siblings' relationship was a drawing point, and I also really enjoyed the survival feel that this had going on as the characters struggled to survive the apocalypse.

Full review at Books of AmberWhen I saw that Lauren Barnholdt had another contemporary coming out, I was so excited. And while I didn't know this was a companion novel to Two-way Street, since I apparently don't know how to read book covers, I couldn't wait to get my hands on it. Imagine how happy I was when S&S approved me on Edelweiss! That's only happened to me once since this first time. Unfortunately (yes, negativity is coming), I couldn't get into this. I just wasn't a fan of the characters.

Another Little Piece has been getting a lot of very positive reviews. That's one of the reasons I was so excited to read it this week. I had been planning on saving it for the debut-a-thon, but I just couldn't wait any longer. Unfortunately, Another Little Piece didn't meet my expectations.Full review on Books of Amber

This review has also been posted on Books of AmberOh yay, another book this year that has disappointed me, despite the fact that my expectations weren't even that high. I had a few issues with this one, and I don't know if I'm being overly sensitive, but as someone who has experienced abuse and has grown up surrounded by it, I think it's okay for me to judge? Maybe. I tried not to whine and complain all over the place, but I felt like the points I make are important.I love Beth so freakin' much. She has some major issues, and I think in the wrong hands her character could have been awfully annoying and possibly also rather offensive. But McGarry did a fantastic job with her. I was able to connect with her easily, and I could relate with what she was going through in some instances. I especially loved her relationship with Scott, her uncle, and how that developed throughout the story. I think it might be close to becoming one of my favourite relationships in YA.And then, just to put a downer on the whole thing, there is Ryan. He was hot, yes, but sooooo annoying. I've noticed that the guys in this series like to refer to their girlfriends as "my girl", and say things like "she's mine." NOPE. I hate that. It seems overly possessive, and just UGH. It makes me cringe. Other than that, there were no annoying nicknames, thank the gods.Anyway, Ryan got on my nerves a lot. I didn't feel any chemistry between him and Beth, and this was possibly caused by how I felt about Ryan, because a lot of people seem to love them together. I saw Ryan as controlling. When Beth didn't want to do something (i.e. talk about personal things, like her mother), Ryan would force her into it. He bloody well knew that she was going through something major, and yet he still pressured her into telling him, and even went as far as physically restraining her until she admitted to the things he wanted to know about. I'm sorry, but that is not how you treat someone who has been abused. There were also a couple of instances where he forcibly kissed Beth, and she initially struggled to get away and he wouldn't let go until she succumbed to his kiss. I feel sick just thinking about it. I know that McGarry (probably) didn't mean for it to be that way, she may have felt it was hot or romantic, but it just screamed control issues and abuse to me.I'm not one of those people who is bothered by the slight Isaiah/Beth/Ryan love triangle, either. In fact, I don't like her with either of them, so...Overall I most certainly liked and enjoyed this book, but that was mostly because of Beth and Scott. (Has anyone caught onto the fact that he's married to someone called Allison? Scott and Allison. Allison and Scott. Teen Wolf, WOOP WOOP!) I think that the dark subject matter was dealt with fairly well, if you ignore Ryan. But if you think too much about it, you might realise that their relationship isn't healthy, especially since Beth is already openly "broken".

This review also appears on Books of AmberWho wants to hear about that time I was in a major reading slump and I couldn't get out of it? I tried everything, from YA to MG to a Spartacus TV show tie-in, but nothing was working. Then Judith harassed tweeted me once again about how I should be reading Shadow and Bone. Considering I wasn't getting into the Spartacus book, I decided that I might as well at least try this book that Judith has been going on and on and on about. So I did. And to my amazement, my cursed reading slump was broken. All thanks to Judith and Leigh Bardugo's fabulous writing.I feel like I should start off by declaring my love for Alina. She is such an amazing, badass character. There were several times throughout the novel where she gave me goosebumps because of something she said or did. I adored how much she cared for Mal as well. Her character growth was really interesting to watch as she was sucked in by the Grisha and their world. Alina also got to use her powers and it was AMAAAAAZING. If you follow me on Twitter then you probably saw my fangirling.Mal and Alina made me tear up near the beginning. That pretty much sets the scene for how I felt about them during the rest of the book. Their friendship is the best. You get to see some flashbacks from when they were younger and still in the orphanage, and those also made me cry a bit. Or a lot.Mal did piss me off in the middle of the book. His attitude stinks, and I am fiercely protective of Alina, so I was mentally shouting at Mal to grow the fuck up. That doesn't mean I don't like him, though, because I most definitely do. And he eventually got over his judgy, bitter attitude, although I hope that continues to improve during the second book. Otherwise he can suck it.As for the Darkling... Well, can we talk about this guy for a minute? *takes a deep breath* I'm trying very hard not to fangirl over him right now. The Darkling is so ridiculously charming and compelling. I felt the draw that a lot of the characters felt towards him coming straight off the page. He radiates it. I'm not sorry to say that I totally ship him with both Alina and Mal. OT3 ftw!I adored Leigh Bardugo's writing. I was completely absorbed by it, and by the world that she has created here. I especially enjoyed her use of symbolism when it came to certain spoilery objects, as well as Alina's scar and how she used symbolism to show Alina becoming engrossed in the Grisha world. I rarely comment on writing techniques when I review books (I save that for the TV fangirling), but this really stood out to me. It's exactly the kind of stuff I would love to write or read about in the form of meta on Tumblr. Or, failing that, Tatum and I would discuss at length at 3AM and cry over it. Yes, we do that a lot. One time I had her sobbing over my thoughts on Gannicus' character growth. *coughs*Shadow and Bone is a really great book. I'm trying to think of something that would improve it, but I'm mostly coming up blank. Maybe a more intense romantic relationship between Mal and Alina, rather than just the BFFs-to-lovers thing. Maybe they'll have better sexy times in the following books. Or maybe Alina will fall in love with a pirate.

I discovered this series last year when everyone was riled up about Spark being released. I wanted to find out what everyone was shouting about, so I bought both Storm and Spark and read them in a couple of days. Brigid Kemmerer has a way of captivating you with both the excellent story and the great characters. So after nine months of excruciating waiting, I finally got my hands on Spirit. And I loved it!Full review at Books of Amber

Full review on Books of AmberX-Men. That is what Transparent promised. It lied.

Can you believe I have never read anything by Jennifer Echols before? You probably can believe it, because I'm always way, way behind everyone else. I haven't even read any Sarah Dessen yet! Anyway, this one is a great choice if you haven't read any Echols before. At least, I think so, but since I haven't read any of her other books yet I cannot compare them. There's a lot of drama, an awesome main character, and some steamy scenes. Oh, and it's got some scary stuff in there too. If you're scared of heights like I am.Full review here

Can you believe I have never read anything by Jennifer Echols before? You probably can believe it, because I'm always way, way behind everyone else. I haven't even read any Sarah Dessen yet! Anyway, this one is a great choice if you haven't read any Echols before. At least, I think so, but since I haven't read any of her other books yet I cannot compare them. There's a lot of drama, an awesome main character, and some steamy scenes. Oh, and it's got some scary stuff in there too. If you're scared of heights like I am.Full review here

I'm going to give you a fair warning, this review is likely going to be a sobfest. It may even sound like I'm ranting towards the end, and if that happens then I promise it's a good type of rant. Unbreakable broke my heart, you see, and then tore it out and stomped on it for good measure. It's been a while since a book made me feel this way, and I hope it never happens again. (That was a lie, I love it when books hurt me like this.)Full review on Books of Amber

I have put off buying this graphic novel for the longest time because when I read the first one I had to wait a year to get my hands on this. So of course it was only natural to wait an extra year in the hopes that the wait for Shadow Kiss wouldn't be too painful. I don't even know when the Shadow Kiss graphic novel is coming out, but I got this while Bout of Books was on and just thought I could do with a quick, fun read.a href="http://www.booksofamber.com/2013/05/frostbite-graphic-novel-by-richelle.html">Full review on Books of Amber

Summer's here, which means I am experiencing my annual craving for summer contemporaries. I think the main reason for this is the English weather.The Summer I Became a Nerd promised to be a light read with a cute romance and a main character who discovers herself and comes to accept it. And that is exactly what this book is. It's nothing amazing, but I think it would do for a quick read if you need a break between bigger stuff.Full review on Books of Amber