Book Review: Unremembered by Jessica Brody

Release Date: March 5th, 2013

Read: March 10-11th, 2014

Publisher: Farrar, Straus, & Giroux (BYR) 

Series: Unremembered #1

Format: Hardcover, 320 pages

Source: Winnipeg Public Library

Description from GoodReads:

   When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe.

   Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. And no one can explain why her DNA and fingerprints can’t be found in a single database in the world.

   Crippled by a world she doesn’t know, plagued by abilities she doesn’t understand, and haunted by a looming threat she can’t remember, Seraphina struggles to piece together her forgotten past and discover who she really is. But with every clue only comes more questions. And she’s running out of time to answer them.

   Her only hope is a strangely alluring boy who claims to know her from before the crash. Who claims they were in love. But can she really trust him? And will he be able to protect her from the people who have been making her forget?

Review:

Contains Spoilers:

S+Z=1609
    Memory loss tends to make for a good read, with no memories the characters have to find themselves again. In Unremembered the main character is faced with this challenge, but with most cases of memory loss patients will only lose a certain part of their memories. With Jane Doe it's a different case. She can't even seem to remember what a Television is.
   The description in this book is fanominal. Because the of the memory lose the Jane Doe must describe in intense detail of what she is seeing otherwise we wouldn't know what the heck she is talking about. If Jane Doe doesn't know what the object is then how can we? With Jessica's descriptions it makes you realize that even with small things so much work is put into the item to make it special. These items have so much work out into them it makes us feel bad that we take them for granted. This book has opened my eyes to all the little things in life.
      As much as I enjoyed the plot for Unremembered I can just never enjoy books that have or focus on time travel. The "rules of time" confuse the heck out of me, so I tend to get headaches. Trying to rap my head around it all is just a pain. This happened to me with Unremembered, but I refused to put it down. Besides the little bit of time travel we did encounter I was just in over my head in love with this book. I can't wait to get a hold of Unforgotten the sequel in the trilogy which released February 25th, 2014. 

Rating:

Favourite Quote:

"Thirteen is hard. You don't know who you are yet. Who your real friends are. Who you can trust. You don't yet know what you are capable of." ~ Heather

Recommend to People Who Enjoy: 

Young Adult, Science Fiction, Mystery, Time Travel

Book Review: Unbreakable by Kami Gracia

Release Date: October 1st,  2013

Read: March 6- 9th, 2014

Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers

Series: The Legion #1

Format: Hardcover,  305 pages

Source: Winnipeg Public Library

Description on GoodReads:

   I never believed in ghosts. Until one tried to kill me.

   When Kennedy Waters finds her mother dead, her world begins to unravel. She doesn’t know that paranormal forces in a much darker world are the ones pulling the strings. Not until identical twins Jared and Lukas Lockhart break into Kennedy’s room and destroy a dangerous spirit sent to kill her. The brothers reveal that her mother was part of an ancient secret society responsible for protecting the world from a vengeful demon — a society whose five members were all murdered on the same night.

   Now Kennedy has to take her mother’s place in the Legion if she wants to uncover the truth and stay alive. Along with new Legion members Priest and Alara, the teens race to find the only weapon that might be able to destroy the demon — battling the deadly spirits he controls every step of the way.

Review:

Protect Yourself
   My first experience with ghosts was the TV show Ghost Whisperer, the horrific deaths are what pulled me in. Unbreakable is a bone chilling novel which brings back all the ghost stories from your childhood and makes you relive them all. Kennedy and the hunters take you on an adventure of voodoo and devils. What stood out the most in Unbreakable for me was the hauntings, with every new place the hunters traveled to the ghosts became more creepy and waaay more terrifying. I loved how Kami would put so much creativity into each of the stories behind the hauntings. My favourite would have to be the Hearts of Mercy murders, the innocence of the little children just got to me.
   Unmarked the sequel to Unbreakable releases October 7th, 2014. Kami Gracia is also a co-author of the Beautiful Creatures Series. 

Rating:

Favourite Quote:

"May the black dove always carry you."

Recommend to People Who Enjoy:

Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal, Horror, Supernatural, Ghosts, Demons

MORTAL GODS by Kendare Blake COVER REVEAL!

Ladies and gentlemen, today I have the honour of revealing to you the cover for Kendare Blake's sequel in her GODDESS WAR series..... MORTAL GODS!! Guy's I have yet to read Antigoddess, the first book in the series but I have read her Anna Dressed in Blood series and I adored them! The series is terrifically creepy, a must read for horror movie fans. Without further adooo the lovely cover..

~

~

TAAAADAAAAA!

Here is the cover and blurb for the first book in the series, Antigoddess. 

Description on GoodReads:

Old gods never die….

Or so Athena thought. But then the feathers started sprouting beneath her skin, invading her lungs like a strange cancer, and Hermes showed up with a fever eating away his flesh. So much for living a quiet eternity in perpetual health.

Desperately seeking the cause of their slow, miserable deaths, Athena and Hermes travel the world, gathering allies and discovering enemies both new and old. Their search leads them to Cassandra—an ordinary girl who was once an extraordinary prophetess, protected and loved by a god. These days, Cassandra doesn’t involve herself in the business of gods—in fact, she doesn’t even know they exist. But she could be the key in a war that is only just beginning. 

Because Hera, the queen of the gods, has aligned herself with other of the ancient Olympians, who are killing off rivals in an attempt to prolong their own lives. But these anti-gods have become corrupted in their desperation to survive, horrific caricatures of their former glory. Athena will need every advantage she can get, because immortals don’t just flicker out. 

Every one of them dies in their own way. Some choke on feathers. Others become monsters. All of them rage against their last breath. 


The Goddess War is about to begin. 

And the cover and blurb from the first book in Kendare's other series, Anna Dressed in Blood.

Description on GoodReads:


Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead.


So did his father before him, until he was gruesomely murdered by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father's mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. They follow legends and local lore, destroy the murderous dead, and keep pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

Searching for a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas expects the usual: track, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he's never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, now stained red and dripping with blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.


Yet she spares Cas's life.

Don't these sound awesome? I can't wait for you guys to check them out!!

Kendare Blake is an import from South Korea who was raised in the United States by caucasian parents. You know, that old chestnut. She received a Bachelor's degree in Business from Ithaca College and a Master's degree in Writing from Middlesex University in London. She brakes for animals, the largest of which was a deer, which sadly didn't make it, and the smallest of which was a mouse, which did, but it took forever. Amongst her likes are Greek Mythology, rare red meat and veganism. She also enjoys girls who can think with the boys like Ayn Rand, and boys who scare the morality into people, like Bret Easton Ellis.

If you would like the author to participate in a Q&A, or a writer's workshop, or anything else writing related, contact her via email: kendareblake(at)yahoo.com

Book Review: Waterfell by Amalie Howard

Release date: October 29th, 2013
Read: March 3-6th, 2014
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Series: The Aquarathi #1
Format: Paperback, 350 pages
Source: Winnipeg Public Library

Description from GoodReads:

THE GIRL WHO WOULD BE QUEEN

Nerissa Marin hides among teens in her human form, waiting for the day she can claim her birthright—the undersea kingdom stolen from her the day her father was murdered. Blending in is her best weapon—until her father's betrayer confronts Nerissa and challenges her to a battle to the death on Nerissa's upcoming birthday—the day she comes of age. 

Amid danger and the heartbreak of her missing mother, falling for a human boy is the last thing Nerissa should do. But Lo Seavon breaches her defenses and somehow becomes the only person she can count on to help her desperate search for her mother, a prisoner of Nerissa's mortal enemy. Is Lo the linchpin that might win Nerissa back her crown? Or will this mortal boy become the weakness that destroys her?

Review:

Contains Spoliers:

The sea is about reveal its most beautiful and deadly secret...

  Waterfell totally caught me by surprise! Mostly because I first went into the book thinking it'd be a mermaid novel, Woah huge surprise there. Waterfell is a new unique twist on mermaids and if you can believe it, aliens! And that's not even the best part, Amalie totally steps it up with the characters actually taking a form rather then human. Most books containing aliens now a days seem to always have the aliens looking the same as us, but with a few extra perks, shapeshifting, teleporting abilities, etc. Amalie's aliens do indeed have shifting abilities but they are unique to the species, when they don't look like humans there take their natural form which is quite terrifying. I think this is one of the parts that has intrigued me the most in the book, the aliens other form and the how their scale colours are the same as their human forms hair colour. I think it's just so incredible to just picture a creature and to have it's every detail written out onto paper creating a new life. 

  Another thing I noticed was that the main character Nerissa(Niss) was just plain rude, my goodness but immediately took a liking to her. Main characters tend to be selfless or quite little things in this case Niss had the 'high school girl everyone despises but has to love' attitude. I don't think I've ever read a book where the main character naturally has this attitude rather then just pretending. So props to Amalie!
  I am definitely excited for the next book in the Aquarathi series, Oceanborn, which releases July 29th, 2014.

Rating:

Favourite Quote:

"Even though I feel heavy as a stone, I'm weightless." ~ Riss

Recommend to People Who Enjoy:

Young Adult, Fantasy, Science Fiction, Romance, Paranormal, Aliens, Mermaids 

Book Review: Looking for Alaska by John Green

Release Date: December 28th, 2006

Read: February 24-26th, 2014

Publisher: Speak

Series: N/A

Format: Paperback, 221 pages

Source: Bought

Description from GoodReads:

Before. Miles "Pudge" Halter's whole existence has been one big nonevent, and his obsession with famous last words has only made him crave the "Great Perhaps" (François Rabelais, poet) even more. Then he heads off to the sometimes crazy, possibly unstable, and anything-but-boring world of Culver Creek Boarding School, and his life becomes the opposite of safe. Because down the hall is Alaska Young. The gorgeous, clever, funny, sexy, self-destructive, screwed-up, and utterly fascinating Alaska Young, who is an event unto herself. She pulls Pudge into her world, launches him into the Great Perhaps, and steals his heart.

After. Nothing is ever the same

Review

    How will I ever get out of this labyrinth?

    I have so much to say about this books, but I feel like my words won't be able to express them. I had picked up Looking for Alaska after I had finished The Fault in Our Stars, my first thoughts towards the book were that it would be an adorable novel like The Fault in Our Stars was. I was completely wrong. With Looking for Alaska I found myself thinking about how many people are living in difficult situations and what they're going through or have been through. Maybe they're living in poverty or have addictions that they can't live with, situations like these are not a laughing matter. That goes the same with this book, while reading this I was forced to rethink about how I saw people. The thing with John Green's books are that no matter the topic for his books, they will somewhat change you. With The Fault in Our Stars it changed how I saw people living with cancer, instead of feeling bad for them I now see them living with strength and courage. In Looking for Alaska the was I saw people living in a labyrinth changed. I learnt even with help, family and friends some people just can't live in the labyrinth anymore and just have to find a way out. 

       On a upside to Looking for Alaska I loved the subtile things that John would have here and there. Like the story of Alaska and her books. I've taken such an understanding to this that it shocks me. No matter how long we live our lives, there will always be books we haven't read and will never read. To think of this to me is just devastating, but we can still at least try. 

        Looking for Alaska is emotionally conflicting read, it reaches out to it reader and makes them realize and see things they probably wouldn't have known without being in someone else's shoes or learning their story.  I am glad I picked it up and look forward to my next John Green read.

Note: I've also started to refer to my books as my Life's Library.

Update:

   In Spring 2014, I lost an old family friend. He was only a few years older then me, about Alaska's age. At his funeral I found myself thinking about Looking for Alaska, or rather the message John tried to tell us in the book.  It wasn't until someone so young was taken from us that I truly understand it. If that event was the reason I truly comprehend his message, then I hope no one else will have to endure such events to understand.

Rating:

Favourite Quote:

"Her life's library." ~ Pudge

Recommend to People Who Enjoy:

Young Adult, Romance,  Realistic Fiction

Spolier:

When I think of Alaska Young I find myself thinking her last words were "Straight and Fast" for Pudges sake. I believe this to be important in someway, but to which way I wouldn't know.

Book Review: UnSouled by Neal Shusterman

Release Date: October 15th, 2013

Read: February 16th-23rd, 2014

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Series: The Unwind Dystology #3

Format: Hardcover, 416 pages

Source: Winnipeg Public Library

Description from GoodReads:

   The story that began with Unwind continues.

   Connor and Lev are on the run after the destruction of the Graveyard, the last safe haven for AWOL Unwinds. But for the first time, they're not just running away from something. This time, they're running toward answers, in the form of a woman Proactive Citizenry has tried to erase from history itself. If they can find her, and learn why the shadowy figures behind unwinding are so afraid of her, they may discover the key to bringing down unwinding forever.

   Cam, the rewound boy, is plotting to take down the organization that created him. Because he knows that if he can bring Proactive Citizenry to its knees, it will show Risa how he truly feels about her. And without Risa, Cam is having trouble remembering what it feels like to be human.

   With the Juvenile Authority and vindictive parts pirates hunting them, the paths of Connor, Lev, Cam, and Risa will converge explosively and everyone will be changed.

Review:

   I'm just going to straight up say, this book did not meet my expectations. When I picked up Unwind about a year ago I was blown away by how different the concept was, cutting up people and being able to use every part of the body is practically a miracle! Another part was what would happen to children if they misbehaved... they would be unwound as punishment. This plot creates nightmares!
  The first novel pulled me in with it's nightmares and horror, with that I just couldn't wait for the sequel UnWholly. My goodness it had me frightened just to be in my skin! But this book UnSouled made me feel like it lost it's magic. The storyline was still there with  Conner, Risa and Lev but the main idea of Unwinding was gone. Yes it was always brought up about how they needed to stop it with a rebellion and all but there was no unwinding. I was very disappointed, but I kept on reading. Normally when I get to the point where I've been reading the book for more then 5 days I leave it and give up if there was no spark of interest, but I just didn't want that happen with this book. In the end that was exactly what happened. I promise I will try to reread this novel one day but for now it's just a book I couldn't finish. 

Rating:

Favourite Quote:

“No true hero ever believes that they are one.” ~ Elina

Recommend to People Who Enjoy:

Science Fiction, Young Adult, Adventure, Dystopian, Post Apocalypse 

THE BALANCE KEEPERS Cover Reveal!

Heyy everyone! Today I have the honour of showing you the cover for the lovely author that is Lindsay Cummings's new book THE BALANCE KEEPERS: The Fire of Calderon!! Where I am not a big reader when it comes to middle grade novels, I will definitely be reading this series! But before I show you the cover, I'm going to introduce you to Lindsay's debut novel The Murder Complex!

Description from GoodReads:

Meadow Woodson, a fifteen-year-old girl who has been trained by her father to fight, to kill, and to survive in any situation, lives with her family on a houseboat in Florida. The state is controlled by The Murder Complex, an organization that tracks the population with precision.

The plot starts to thicken when Meadow meets Zephyr James, who is—although he doesn’t know it—one of the MC’s programmed assassins. Is their meeting a coincidence? Destiny? Or part of a terrifying strategy? And will Zephyr keep Meadow from discovering the haunting truth about her family?

Releases: June 10th, 2014

How can you not be excited for this read?!? I've been VERY lucky and have received and signed ARC of The Murder Complex straight from the author and I honestly can't wait to start reading it! Lindsay is already one of my favourite authors, she is such an AMAZING person. I can not wait for you guys to get to know her as well!

Okay I think I've made you guys wait long enough, are you guys ready?




Here it is!




-



-




-





-

TAAAA DAAAAAAAA!!

Description from GoodReads:

After following a mysterious map into the woods and then under the woods, eleven-year-old Albert Flynn learns he’s a Balance Keeper—someone with special magical skills for fixing problems in three underground Realms at the Core of the earth. His new job is important; if the realms fall out of balance, the world above could be in great danger.

Albert and his Balance Keeper teammates Birdie and Leroy arrive in the Core not a moment too soon. There’s an Imbalance in the Calderon Realm and it’s threatening to bury Albert’s hometown of New York City in a mountain of ash.

The three must train hard completing mental and physical challenges, but above all, they must harness the power of their Tiles—unique superpowers given to each Balance Keeper. So far, Albert’s mastered the art of not mastering his Tile....

With the situation in Calderon growing worse every day, can Albert, Leroy, and Birdie restore balance before New York is destroyed forever? Will Albert master his Tile before it’s too late?

Releases: September 23rd, 2014

What I tell you? COMPLETE AWESOME SAUCE! I can't wait for everyone one to read them, including me!

Lindsay's Bio:

Lindsay Cummings is a 22-year-old author of THE MURDER COMPLEX series coming June 2014 from Greenwillow Books/HarperCollins, as well as it's prequel novella, THE FEAR TRIALS, coming May 2014, and the MG trilogy, THE BALANCE KEEPERS, coming Fall 2014 from Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins. You can follow Lindsay on twitter @lindsaycwrites ! Or keep updated on her books at lindsaycummingsbooks.com
She's always online, and loves to chat!
You can also find Lindsay on YouTube and Facebook , on Instagram @authorlindsaycummings and on Kik at LindsayCummingsBooks
email- lindsaycummingsbooks@gmail.com