New Year

Hey guys, I know I haven't been on much but I've been taking a break because of personal reasons, sorry about this, I will be posting at least once a week after the New Year, I have a lot of books I want to talk about, I have a massive haul that I'm gonna do.

If you have any recommendations please let me know. If there are any books you'd like me to review please check out my read shelf on Goodreads and tell me, I'd be happy to start a review. :)

Sorry again I just disappeared, I needed a break, but I should be good after the New Year, hope you guys had an amazing Christmas and all goes well for you in the New Year :)

Sorry for the Non Posty

So I have been awful with posting on my blog this month, I've had some really hard stuff come my way, I've had to organise a lot of stuff I don't want to, and my brain is all over. I promise that I will be posting a lot of reviews next month, but I think for October I've really needed to calm down a little.

I'm sorry for the sudden disappearance but I couldn't cope with this plus everything going on in my personal life, so expect a new IMM at the end of this month, and reviews for The Goddess Test, Haunting Violet, The Name of the Star, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children and Palace of the Damned. Next month I will be going back into the swing of things (hopefully)

In My Mailbox (4) - September

Books I got:

• Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler
• The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter
• Fury by Elizabeth Miles
• Cross My Heart & Hope to Spy by Ally Carter
• Heist Society by Ally Carter
• Hunting Lila by Sarah Alderson
• The Truth About Celia Frost by Paula Rawsthorne
• Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

If you've read the books tell me what you thought and I'll talk to you guys later! Bye x

Hunting Lila

Author: Sarah Alderson

Publishing Company: Simon Pulse

Blurb:

Lila has two secrets she’s prepared to take to the grave. The first is that she can move things just by looking at them. The second is that she’s been in love with her brother’s best friend, Alex, since forever.

After a mugging exposes her unique ability, Lila decides to run to the only people she can trust – her brother and Alex. They live in Southern California where they work for a secret organisation called The Unit, and Lila discovers that the two of them are hunting down the men who murdered her mother fives years before. And that they’ve found them. In a world where nothing and no one is quite as they seem, Lila quickly realises that she is not alone – there are others with special powers out there – and her mother’s killer is one of them…

The review:

I had no intention whatsoever to pick up this book at first. One of the women in my bookshop (who I might add has recommended amazing books to me and knows what I like) gave me one while she was restocking the shelves and said it looked good. So I picked it up, without properly reading the blurb. The other day while going through a slow part of a book I can’t review for spoilers, I picked this up at midnight to just read a couple chapters before bed. I finished the whole book at half three, and that included me trying to get to sleep every so often!

To try and accurately explain what this book is about would be very hard. So I’ve got a few things to compare it to. The film Push, X-Men and The Darkest Powers trilogy. None of them are entirely accurate, but you sort of get the different things through.

The book is very interesting and a fun read, though I don’t think I knew what was going on half the time. It’s fast paced, never really stops and you hit the ground running. I’d like to show you the first sentence of the book to explain what I mean:

Only when the tip of the knife started to shave against the white of his eye like a scalpel about to pierce a boil, did I realise I was the one holding it.

There’s something rather terrifying and intriguing about that sentence, and the rest of her writing. At points she’s very blunt about her rather gruesome imagery, things that you can really picture with a scary amount of detail. I think what also makes it feel so fast paced throughout is that we start off in London, and then within the first chapter we end up in California.

The characters I felt were very mysterious, every single one of them was hiding some form of secret from the others. Lila was hiding the fact she liked Alex and the reason why she ran away, Alex and Jack (her brother) never spoke of what it was exactly what they did, throughout the book you realise that there are all these secrets that each character has kept from the other characters and when you start to think you know exactly what’s going on, you get another secret that’s been kept from everyone. It’s very entertaining, but it makes you wonder what the heck is going on.

Lila was definitely a very different character from what we usually see in books like this. She knew what she wanted, knew what to say and what not to say, and yet she still seemed innocent enough that she wasn’t too sure of herself. Plus you could feel that ‘I can’t stop thinking or talking or dreaming about this boy’ crush where it was literally all she could think about. And who hasn’t been there before?

Alex was definitely a boy you’d instantly fall for, so I could see where Lila was coming from. He was this person who seemed genuinely nice, as well as really good looking and smart. I did feel some of it felt a bit forced at points with these two, but besides that it was very cool.

Finally, Jack was pretty awesome. He was the protective big brother with all his own demons and secrets and problems. I felt rather angry at him for some parts, but for the most part I did feel like I’d love him to be my brother…or I’d love to have been his girlfriend. Definitely my favourite character in the book.

The twists in this book were endless, you didn’t now which way the plot would go, and finally at the end of it, the plot twist was one of the most shocking and amazing cliffhanger end I’ve ever read. I was desperate for a copy of the next book like now (please? I’ll bake cookies and cake?).

Overall I definitely recommend this to people if you want a fast paced exciting and fun read that will keep you guessing and make you want to read the next chapter straight away.

My rating:

Setting: 4 out of 5

Characters: 5 out of 5

Plot: 4.5 out of 5

Writing: 5 out of 5

If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll talk to you guys later! Bye x

Banned Books Week

I feel like I should say something on this topic. I've never been told what to read, I've never had a book banned, so I don't understand why books should be banned. I feel like books get a really bad name for some of their darker concepts that we see all around us and not just in books. Some of the books we see banned shouldn't be. Main problems that parents or teachers see with books is sex, drugs, alcohol, inappropriate behaviour, crime, all of that. It's wrong, it's disgusting, it's whatever they're telling you.

And?

I started really reading when I was 13. I picked up a book because I needed to get my mind of personal problems. It was an escape. The truth is I knew about drugs and sex and alcoholism and death and all of the things that people ban from these books way before I started reading. My first proper starting to read was when I was 13, before that I'd known about alcohol from seeing my dad, death from my mam, sex from PSE classes, drugs from PSE classes, smoking from my nana, it's teenaged life to do stuff. And when I was 13 I could have gone down the road of drinking and drugs and smoking and partying and fucking my life up. But instead I read so I don't see how books like this should be banned. They help more than they hurt.


And I'd like to point out TV. If you look at a UK soap like Eastenders, they tailor each episode to fit to a problem that they see in society as of right now. So they cover, alcoholism, drugs, sex, homosexuality, death, and all of the things that people ban in books. So if I go to the writers of one of the most well loved TV shows in the UK do you think I'd be successful?


I feel like someone should go to whoever decides to ban the books and say to them 'what's your favourite book/show?' then tell them stupid trivial reason for why that should be banned. Show them how we feel.


Books saved my life. Books with dark themes and twisted morals and messed up characters and beautiful, wonderful, amazingly different worlds helped me to get over reality for a moment. If it can help someone in life, why should we be banning books that show us reality for some, and stop people from getting into those things that people think are wrong?

2011 January/June Sum Up

So lately I’ve been slow in reading, so I decided to take a different approach for a post. This is the sum up of what I thought of some of my favourite/least favourite books in the first half of 2011. I won’t elaborate much on the worst, because I don’t want to seem horrible, but I will tell you what I think and why I didn’t like them.

Favourite Reread

My favourite reread of the first part of this year would be Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief by Rick Riordan which I have always loved. It’s a very interesting read, and it’s always nice to read the mythology in it.

Favourite Series Read

Definitely The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. The world has so much detail, and it’s just a fantastic read, you grow to love the characters, and even the secondary characters are so deep and amazing.

Favourite Contemporary

Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins. I thought this was one of the cutest novels ever. So adorable and cute, and just a fun simple read.

Favourite Adult Novel

I always go on about this book, so I apologise to those who hear me rant and rave about it, but I absolutely adored Feed by Mira Grant. A zombie book worth picking up.

Surprisingly Good Book

That would be Virals by Kathy Reichs. The reason I chose this book is because I haven’t been able to pick up and read her adult series, so I was very surprised and extremely happy to read her YA series to find out that it was so good.

Most Disappointing Recommendation

Pendragon: The Merchant of Death by D.J. MacHale. A friend assured me this was a good book, but I didn’t find it as interesting as I he made it out to be. Definitely was disappointed with this one.

Most Disappointing Adult Book

That would be Black Wings by Christina Henry. This book was so much worse than it looked. I felt very let down when I read it because it looked like such a good book.

Most Disappointing Contemporary

Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard. My own fault because I’m not into gossipy books, but I’d heard good things so tried to give it the benefit of the doubt. Not the book for me.

Most Disappointing Ranted and Raved About Book

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa. I thought the book was too much like Alice in Wonderland and Labyrinth, and when I read a book, I want a book to see the authors voice, not two stories put together that I’ve already seen.

Least Favourite Book Read

Bluebell Cottage by Heather M.J.L. Watson. The book I didn’t think was for the right age, I also felt it played off another book too much, and I just felt like it was another carbon copy of the usual books we see.

I will be writing up some reviews and sum ups of my favourite series, as well as doing some quick reviews of some classics as I’m going back to University on Monday, so please leave recommendations or requests in a comment, tell me what you’ve read in the first six months of the year and I’ll talk to you guys later. Bye 

Hereafter

Author: Tara Hudson

Publishing Company: Harper Collins

Blurb:

I was floating in the river again…

The dark, twisting scene looked almost the same as it did in each of my horrible dreams.

Almost.

Beacause this time I wasn’t the one drowning. He was.

The only thing Amelia knows for sure is that she’s dead, trapped alone in a nightmarish existence. But everything changes when she finds Joshua drowning in her river. As a ghost, she can do nothing but will him to live. Yet in an unforgettable moment of connection, she helps him survive.

But as Amelia and Joshua struggle to keep their secret bond hidden from the living, a frightening spirit is doing everything in his power to drag Amelia back into the ghost world…forever.

The review:

Again this was a book I picked up for the stunning cover. I’d read the blurb and was rather hesitant to read, because I didn’t know how it’d work out. I didn’t understand how they’d get together if she willed him to live. So to say the least, I was worried to see how they worked out, and to see what they did. I definitely shouldn’t have been worried.

From the off you could tell it would be different from the other things you’ve read. You have this character who you can’t say is the strongest woman character I’ve ever read, but you see her become something great. And we get into the action from page one. We see a rather violent death and we see this strange but amazing story of these two characters who seem to fit together straight away without understanding why.

You learn early on that Amelia doesn’t know much about her life and what happened with her death. It was very interesting to read this because we got to get these snippets of her life just as she was. It was different to what I’m used to reading, because instead of reading bits of her life that she wanted to give us, she was discovering herself just as we were, which was just fascinating to read.

All of the characters had their own interesting point about them. Whether it was how they reacted to situations, how they presented themselves, how they spoke to people. I found a lot of the characters just extremely interesting. You want to know more about them and you want to be interested by them. I found these characters amazing to read about because they had so much about them that separated them from each other but pushed them together at the same time. I don’t want to tell you much about them because the book is better when you find out for yourself when reading it, so I’m going to mainly talk about the setting and keep this review shorter than my usual ones.

The main setting I want to talk about in this book is High Bridge and High Bridge Road. This is a massive thing in this book, because you find out that it’s linked to everything in one way shape or form. It’s mostly interesting because you find out all the stories about it and even before you hear all the stories, I felt like there was something rather unsettling about the place, so altogether it was this amazing setting to read about.

Overall I genuinely loved this book, I loved the characters and the story and the way it was written. Everything about the book was well done and it kept you wanting to read. I definitely suggest this book to anyone, and I apologise for the extremely short review.

My rating:

Setting: 4 out of 5

Characters: 4.5 out of 5

Plot: 4.5 out of 5

Writing: 5 out of 5

If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll talk to you guys later! Bye x

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You

Author: Ally Carter

Publishing Company: Orchard Books

Blurb:

“Do you ever feel like you’re invisible? I know I do – just call me Cammie the Chameleon. But at my school, that’s seen as cool. Why? Because the Gallagher Academy might say it’s for geniuses, but it’s really a school for spies.”

Cammie Morgan might be capable of killing a man in seven different ways, but she’s about to begin her most dangerous mission yet: falling in love.

The review:

I’ve heard a lot of amazing things about the Gallagher Girls books, and have never really been inclined to buying one of the books to check it out. July I bought it in the 3 for 2 deal in Waterstones and decided to read it yesterday. I was a bit dubious about it, but I decided to give it a go, and it was a lot better than I expected.

I do want to say, when you’re reading the first 60 pages were rather hard to read, because it had a lot of italics and brackets that I found rather annoying which made it a bit hard to start and fully get into the book. Though the character was 16, when you saw the repetition and the italics and all of that, she sounded like a 13 year old which I got annoyed at because I felt like it was a bit like those people on twitter who you just don’t want to listen to because they seem to over express themselves with capital letters and exclamation marks (though granted I probably am one of those people).

But at Chapter 5 I really started getting into it. I don’t know why but I thought it was funny, cute and interesting. Maybe it was because we saw the introduction of a new character who you knew would make it interesting. I don’t know, but from then on it was very good. The characters were funny without really trying, it was fast paced from the spy element, you had the love interest and the ‘what’s going to happen’ bit because they were doing things they shouldn’t be. It was very interesting to read.

The characters were definitely some of the most diverse bunch of people, but the ones that strangely fit together. Cammie was just enough self-conscious and yet comfortable enough with who she was that she wasn’t annoying because she didn’t think she was the best person in the world and yet she didn’t hate herself. The blend of those two things was amazing to see because you could understand her and it made you relate to her and not want to rip her throat out. As the main character, I did feel like she was a little young for her age, but then again we have to take into account that she has lived in the spy world for a very long time, so that could have something to do with it. But she wasn’t vulnerable at all because she had all this knowledge and skills that I found really fun.

Then you have Liz, who was such a funny character. She seemed to always be studying and taking notes and trying to take in all of this information. She was the nerd girl, but I loved her because she did have some points where she didn’t understand things and yet she was desperate to find out about them. At one point it was said that she saw everything as a new subject to be studied, which I found hilarious, she was just a very interesting character.

Bex was very different. I didn’t think I’d like her because I have a problem with people trying too hard to write up English people, but she wasn’t stereotypical or trying too hard and she was really funny and just a good character to have there. She wasn’t overdone which was very refreshing, and to be honest she was an interesting and clever character that you enjoyed to read about. I definitely have respect for Ally Carter for making a good and believable English character.

Josh was adorable. I felt sorry for him at points, but he was definitely an extremely cute character that you loved. I don’t want to say much about him in case you haven’t read anything about him, but he’s definitely someone that you would enjoy to talk to because he was just a nice guy.

I think the plot was very cute. When I first began to read, I thought it would be slightly like Hex Hall, an easy fun read about a girl going to a bit of a different school, but to be honest I enjoyed this book a lot more than I enjoyed Hex Hall. I think it was a cute and funny book with an interesting enough plot that had enough twists to keep you reading.

Altogether I definitely want to read the next book, and possibly Ally Carter’s other series, and I definitely can see why people love this series so much.

My rating:

Setting: 4.5 out of 5

Characters: 5 out of 5

Plot: 4 out of 5

Writing: 3.5 out of 5

If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll talk to you guys later! Bye x

Haunted

Author: Kelly Armstrong

Publishing Company: Orbit Books

Blurb:

Eve Levine – half-demon, black witch and devoted mother – has been dead for three years. She has a great house, an interesting love life and can’t be killed again – which comes in handy when you’ve made as many enemies as Eve. Yes, the afterlife isn’t too bad – all she needs to do is find a way to communicate with her daughter and she’ll be happy.

But fate – or more exactly, the Fates – have other plans. Eve owes them a favour, and they’ve just called it in. An evil spirit called the Nix has escaped from hell. She feeds on chaos and death, and is very good at persuading people to kill for her. The Fates want Eve to hunt her down before she does any more damage, but the nix is a dangerous enemy – previous hunters have been sent mad in the process. As if that’s not problem enough, it turns out that the only way to stop her is with an angel’s sword. And Eve’s no angel…

The review:

My rating:

Setting: 4.5 out of 5

Characters: 4 out of 5

Plot: 3.5 out of 5

Writing: 4 out of 5

I would like to say that I won’t be doing video reviews for any books that are first in the series or stand alones. I will probably only do them for books that I haven’t started reviewing from the start but I’m starting reviews from the middle of the series, such as the Women of the Otherworld series.

If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll talk to you guys later! Bye x

August Round Up

Books I read this month:

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Bitten by Kelley Armstrong

Stolen by Kelley Armstrong

Dime Store Magic by Kelley Armstrong

Industrial Magic by Kelley Armstrong

Rage by Jackie Morse Kessler

In My Mailbox (3) - August

Books included:

• Seize the Day by Saul Bellow
• Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf by Edward Albee
• The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald
• Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller
• Moll Flanders by Daniel Defoe
• The Short Oxford History of English Literature by Andrew Sanders
• Broken by Kelley Armstrong
• No Humans Involved by Kelley Armstrong
• Dead Kiss by Daniel Waters
• Forbidden: The Demon Trappers by Jana Oliver
• Deadline by Mira Grant
• Abandon by Meg Cabot
• Wither by Lauren DeStefano

Pretty good month :) if you've read them tell me what you think!

There's a review of Meg Cabot's Abandon up and I have a video review for Broken to upload in the next few days, so if you want to see more in depth of what I thought of them, please check them out!

Abandon

Author: Meg Cabot

Publishing Company: Macmillan Children’s Books

Blurb:

Pierce knows what it’s like to die.

Last year she flatlined following an accident.

During that time Pierce saw a dark world and met a mysterious irresistible boy.

Now that boy, John Hayden, has turned up at school. Every time she sees him Pierce finds herself in terrible danger. Yet she’s still drawn to him.

John wants to take her back to the place she fears the most: the Underworld.

The question is, why?

The review:

I was excited for this book because I love the mythology about Persephone, so to have a book all about retelling it, was going to be good. But, I was disappointed with it. I’ve heard some great things about Meg Cabot’s books, but I don’t know if I’m too old to read them, or if I just had too high expectations, but I didn’t see it as something as good as it had been made out to be.

The first thing about it was the fact that the plot didn’t properly kick in until the very end of the book. Before the plot properly kicked in of how and why Pierce was in trouble, you have flashbacks and information about the past that filled in the blanks that we needed to understand the rest of the story. It seemed like more of a set up of a series than a story on its own, which was slightly disappointing. I would have liked it if I got more of a story behind it instead of the set up to what seems like it could be a very good story.

Another thing was I couldn’t find the main character’s voice. I found that though she was telling us all of these things, I couldn’t feel her emotions or I wasn’t interested. I found her dull, and because of that I wasn’t that interested in her story. I wanted to be, but she was too vague and revealed things over a long period of time, when really I just wanted to know what happened straight away to get the story moving.

We also have John, the love interest, who granted was definitely mysterious bad boy who you would love to meet, but I didn’t feel any chemistry between him and Pierce. I get that he’s a lot older than he looks, and that he’s desperate to fall in love with someone so that he doesn’t have to spend more of his time alone. So we see him falling in love, but we don’t understand why he did. It annoyed me because I would have liked to see the reason behind why he liked her, but we didn’t see any of that.

The other characters in the book I felt you didn’t see them enough to care about them. I mean the bad things that happened, yeah it was sad, and the anger some of the characters felt, for right or wrong reasons, it was there and you could understand why they felt it, but you didn’t get a sense of the characters. For example, at the beginning of the book, we have Alex, who seems to be the annoying little cousin who you can never get rid of. Then later on in the book, you find out he’s practically the same age as Pierce. It felt forced to see the characters act the way they did.

The plot was good, when it got into the main plot, you could see the plot had been well thought out, I just didn’t think it was written properly. I think that if it had started in a flashback, and we’d been shown it in chronological order, then it would have been easier to digest and better to read. A lot of times I felt lost in Pierce’s memories and felt like when I was back reading about the present, I couldn’t follow along and it felt really weird.

Overall, I think the series should be good, I just didn’t like the way that this set up the rest of the books. I thought it was too forced and there was too much information to get to the end were she wanted it.

My rating:

Setting: 4 out of 5

Characters: 3 out of 5

Plot: 3 out of 5

Writing: 3 out of 5

If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll talk to you guys later! Bye x

Rage

Author: Jackie Morse Kessler

Publishing Company: Graphia

Blurb:

She brought the razor to her inner thighs again and again and again, but with each sting came no release, no comforting numbness to dull the horror of her life. It wasn’t enough. So she cut again – swiftly, mercilessly.

Missy didn’t mean to cut so deep. But after the party where she was humiliated in front of practically everyone in school, who could blame her for wanting some comfort? Sure, most people don’t find comfort in the touch of a razorblade, but Missy was always…different.

That’s why she was chosen to become one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse: War. Now Missy wields a new kind of blade – a big, brutal sword that can cut down anyone and anything in her path. But it’s with this weapon in her hand that Missy learns something that could help her triumph over her own pain: control.

The review:

This is the sequel to Hunger, if you haven’t read it, don’t read the review, though the characters don’t actually interact with each other, it is easier to read Hunger first, if you check my April posts, I do have a review of that book there.

This book was amazing to read and get an inside into the characters that we don’t fully know from the first book. We see Melissa, or Missy, who is a really different character from Lisabeth. In the book, you don’t see a lot of other characters on her side, or you don’t know if the characters are on her side. We have utter humiliation that you feel awful for her, we have this habit that makes her different, and you can see the inner turmoil that you expect to see from a character.

What I love about these books is that Jackie Morse Kessler takes a really real and powerful subject, and throws the character with a problem into this supernatural world where her characters can deal with it in a way that we couldn’t imagine. Her characters are amazing, and we see the reality of school, that not everyone is liked, we see the bullying, she doesn’t hold back on any of it, we see the cruelty in the kids that are at the party, we see the pain that Missy is feeling, and you really do get the realness of that pain.

I said one of the things I loved about Hunger was the bluntness of it, the way that you could see the simple and brutal imagery that is the disorder the character had. This is different in Rage. Some of the lines in this book were some of the most brilliant lines I’ve heard from a book. At one point, instead of saying ‘he paused for a few seconds’ she wrote ‘a small slice of forever’ and it just blew me away at how beautiful and perfect that one line was to show us this ever waiting image of Death. And even when we were hearing about the brutal cutting that Missy was doing, we got a lot more colour imagery than anything else. And I think that it sets a different tone to the book. You still get the brutality of it all, but you get the pain she’s feeling in a different way.

Again, Death was just as amazing in this one as he was in the first, if not more because we get to see him more as a lover than just as someone handing out a job. The points where Missy was with him, you felt a lot more drawn to him than you did in the first one. And still he has all of this wisdom and this patience that I found fascinating to read. He knows what will probably happen, and yet, he won’t say anything about it. He understands the balance of everything and he seems a lot more cool and collected, which is hard because he was extremely cool and collected in the first one.

Missy was very dynamic in my opinion, she knew what she was doing was wrong, but couldn’t stop it, and you could see the inner turmoil she was dealing with whenever she tried to deal with what she knew she shouldn’t do. She definitely was a character with a lot more hidden depth than you expect, and it was nice to read. And we saw her opening up to people a bit more, not a lot, but we definitely saw it, which was a lovely thing to see.

The two other Horsemen, Famine and Pestilence aren’t hugely present in the book. We see them from two different angles, one who loves her job and finds it a great thing, and another who has done it for a long time and has seen so much that he maybe doesn’t want to see. The characters are interesting, but we haven’t seen too much of them so I can’t really say an in depth look into what I think of them.

The other characters are people I don’t want to really talk about, most of them are bullies, some of them are nice, but we don’t get much about them we see them as people you’d see but not know much about, which is fine, unfortunately I can’t really talk about them much because of it.

I think what made me enjoy this book the most was the fact that it was so different to what I’m used to. The blend of reality and supernatural is so well mixed that you get this wonderful idea about how close they are and how different things help different people.

My rating:

Setting: 3 out of 5

Characters: 4 out of 5

Plot: 3.5 out of 5

Writing: 4.5 out of 5

If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it, and I’ll talk to you guys later! Bye x

Industrial Magic

NOTE: Before you read this review I would like to say it does have spoilers right from the off. The blurb gives a massive spoiler about the previous book, this is the fourth in the series so if you want to stay away from spoilers, I'd advise you not to read this review.


Author: Kelley Armstrong
Publishing Company: Orbit Books
Blurb:
When Paige Winterbourne is ousted as leader of the American Coven of Witches, all she wants to do is hide under her duvet for a few months. But fate, of course, has other plans. A murderer is on the loose - someone with superhuman skills and a grudge against the supernatural community. When Paige learns that the killer is targeting children, she has to get involved.

Desperate to protect those she loves, Paige is thrown into a world of arrogant sorcerers, drunken necromancers, sulky druid gods and pretentious leather-clad vampires. Not to mention an apparently unstoppable supernatural psychopath hell-bent on revenge...

The Review:


This is the fourth book in the series, and it was a brilliant addition to the series. In the books narrated by Paige, we definitely see a lot more of the supernaturals than you did in the ones narrated by Elena. So it's always interesting to see the new characters that are introduced. In this one, I definitely wasn't disappointed with the characters introduced into this one. The plot was good, simple enough but still interesting, but I don't want to go too deeply into this because there might be spoilers, but the plot was definitely good.

The characters are definitely what makes the book for me, you have the reappearance of Elena, Clayton and Cassandra, the introduction of Benicio, Jamie, John. You have, of course, Paige, Lucas and Savannah too. All of the characters combined into this story really make it. I'll talk about two of the main characters, one of the characters that reappeared, and two that are new to the series.

Paige is obviously our narrator, and though when I first read her narration, I didn't like it, I have to admit that I liked it a lot more compared to Dime Store Magic. She's definitely grown up since our first encounter with her in the second book of the series. She's one of those characters that you definitely see grow throughout the book, which is a great thing to see. In this one, you see her growing up as a person, not a guardian or because of who she's looking after like you did in Dime Store Magic. It's really nice to see her now over what she was like in the first book where she seemed reckless.

Then you have Lucas, who is such a different character to the love interests you usually see in books like this. When you think of the type of guy you see in these books, Lucas is extremely different, he's more of the nice guy type, which is so different to what you're used to, but it's still really nice to see. You definitely see why he has problems with his family and you can sympathise with him and you can see him as one of the few nice characters that seems to not have another motive.

Cassandra is one of the most surprising characters in this book. You learn to really dislike her when we first meet her in Stolen, you don't instantly hate her, but it doesn't take you long to realise you don't like her. When she first comes into this boo, you really don't want her to be there because she seems exactly the same as you remember her from before. And she doesn't seem like she'll ever change. But in this book you definitely see a change in her and it's good, very different and refreshing to see. She isn't one of my favourite characters from this series, but she definitely becomes more tolerable.

Jaime is a very interesting character, celebrity necromancer, very funny character who seems to just have this air about her of not caring what she says, or at least not thinking before she says anything. She's a really funny character, who definitely has a lot of layers that we don't see. I think we've only seen a very small part of this character, and it'll be great to see more of her.

And finally, we have Benicio. I don't know what to think of him. He seems to have some strange warped logic that only makes sense to him. He seems like a nice guy most of the time, but some points you question his morals and his judgement. I have mixed feelings about him, I can't say I like him, but at the same time I definitely don't dislike him.

The humour in this book is perfectly matched with the supernatural parts and the suspense. Kelley Armstrong has an amazing balance through this book and all of the previous books too. You see everything throughout the book at exactly the right time. Sometimes you see the humour with the suspense that really does a great mix of the two things.

I know this review isn't great and is rather bare, but I don't want to give too much away about the book or the rest of the series, so I'm going to end it here.

My Rating:


Setting: 3 out of 5
Characters: 5 out of 5
Plot: 3 out of 5
Writing: 4.5 out of 5

If you read the book, I hope you enjoy it, and I'll talk to you guys later! Bye x

Women from the Otherworld (Books 1-3 sum up/review)

This is going to be a kinda review kind of sum up of a series. Warning, I haven’t actually finished this series, but I thought that I may want to review the books later on in the series so I might as well do this so that I don’t feel like I can’t review the newer ones because I haven’t reviewed the first ones.

I would like to warn straight off that these books are adult books and therefore refer to or include sex and all of that stuff that YA books don’t have. Not as much in the third and fourth, but in the first two, you have two werewolves and Kelley Armstrong has got them in touch with their animal instincts shall we say. If you’re uncomfortable with this, I would suggest you skip those passages and continue with the book because they aren’t nearly as bad in the third and fourth book.

Okay so the ‘Women of the Otherworld’ series by Kelley Armstrong is her adult series, focusing on different characters throughout. Her first two books Bitten and Stolen focus on the character Elena Michaels, who is a werewolf (I’m not spoiling anything you can 1 tell by the cover and 2 look on the back to see the word werewolf). Elena is one of my favourite characters from any novel I’ve read before. She’s strong in her own ways, individual in her own ways, and also she has her flaws.

Blurb for Bitten:

Elena Michaels is your regular twenty-first-century girl: self-assured, smart and fighting fit. She also just happens to be the only female werewolf in the world…

It has some good points. When she walks down a dark alleyway, she’s the scary one. But now her Pack – the one she abandoned so that she could live a normal life – are in trouble, and they need her help. Is she willing to risk her life to help the ex-lover who betrayed her by turning her into a werewolf in the first place? And, more to the point, does she have a choice?

Bitten is about Elena showing how much she wants to be human, how she longs for a ‘normal life’. The characters we meet in this book are either human or werewolf. The main characters include Elena, Clayton (Clay) Danvers and Jeremy Danvers. There are also other characters in the book including Nick and Antonio, and the bad guys whom I won’t name because it might include spoilers.

The book really has a lot of layers to it which is really nice to see. You have the main problem of the mutts (non pack werewolves), you have the Clay and Elena relationship, Elena continuously trying to come to terms with her werewolf side, and altogether it’s nice to have a mix of different things going on that you can enjoy. And because of this you can feel like it’s real, because you don’t just have a fight about werewolves or something like that. You have these individually layered characters battling with personal and private issues as well as pack issues which gives you the feeling that it is real.

The detail that Kelley Armstrong goes into for this book is amazing, you can believe it every time you read about the change, each individual character has a back story of their own that gets leaked into the book which is interesting and gives us a better perception of them.

If that’s enough for you to start the series and you don’t want any potential spoilers, please don’t continue with this because I’m putting the blurb and talking about the second and third book.

Blurb for Stolen:

Elena Michaels is a wanted woman. She hasn’t done anything wrong. Well, not recently, anyway. But ten years ago her lover turned her into a werewolf: the only female werewolf in the world, in fact.

And now, just as she’s finally coming to terms with it all, a group of scientists learn of her existence. They’re hunting her down, and Elena is about to run straight into their trap. But they haven’t reckoned on Elena’s adoptive family, her Pack, who will stop at nothing to get her back. They haven’t reckoned on Elena herself, either, and that’s a very big mistake…

Stolen is the one that I think people who enjoyed her Darkest Powers series will enjoy. Obviously I can’t go into much detail of this one without spoiling the first one, but as you can see from the blurb, it’s very very different from the first one and has some similarities with The Darkest Powers.

From the books I’ve read Stolen definitely is my favourite of all her books. It’s one of the thickest, and it’s also just really interesting. In this one you find out how vast the world is, there’s the vampires, witches, and other things (I don’t want to give too much away so I don’t want to tell you too much).

Without spoiling anything, you definitely get a different insight to Elena’s life. With the first one, we really just see her past to do with her being bitten and her very early life. You get teased with it, but you don’t see too much, which is good because it’s nice to see that she knows the character’s history but isn’t hitting you with far too much knowledge about it. In this one, you get another taste of her past, we find out about when she was about seven, you find out about her reason for hating then loving Christmas, and you see her character go to a rather dark place where she obviously wants to forget.

We also get some new faces, Cassandra, Paige, Savannah, Leah, all fantastically different and interesting characters. And all of the female characters are different. We have Paige who’s still a strong character, but she’s a different strong, and all of these characters are just interesting to see come together. And then you have Savannah who’s such an interesting character, extremely complex and yet extremely vulnerable and she’s just one of those characters you adore.

And now for Dime Store Magic.

Blurb for Dime Store Magic:

Paige Winterbourne is a witch. Not that you’d notice – no warts, no green skin, no cute little wiggle of the nose whenever she casts a spell. No, most of the time she’s just a normal twenty-three-year-old girl: works too hard, worries about her weight, wonders if she’ll ever find a boyfriend. Okay, so she does have an adopted teenager, Savannah, who wants to raise her black witch of a mother from the dead. And who is being stalked by a telekinetic half-demon and an all powerful cabal of sorcerers. But other than that, Page has a really ordinary life. That is, until the neighbours find out who she is, and all hell breaks loose. Literally…

This is definitely not one of my favourite books from the series, in fact I read 70 pages and stopped reading and only picked it up last week. And I’m very glad I did start rereading it. Though this book seems boring, it isn’t what you expect from reading the first hundred pages. It goes on for a bit, but then once it starts up, it gets really interesting.

Paige isn’t my favourite character, but you get more of an insight to her world and her mind, so instead of how you see her in Stolen, you can imagine her in a different life. By the end of the book, I really started to like her.

You also get to meet some more awesome characters. Okay not like a lot more, but you get one who is a pretty cool character called Cortez. Very interesting to see them all develop together. Of course there are also some characters you don’t like, such as Victoria who was a horrible person in my mind.

There are some of the funniest scenes I’ve ever read in this book, Savannah has become one of the funniest unintentionally funny characters I have ever read. She’s a teenager and you can just see her as one of the girls you knew in school that you find pretty funny. I loved her as a character, found her extremely interesting. And there’s also some extremely terrifying and gruesome scenes in this too. Like for example, one of the scenes had me feeling sick to my stomach because it was so well written.

And that is all of them that I’ve read so far in this series. I will do an in depth review of Industrial Magic which is the one I’m reading now. I would recommend this series to anyone thinking of branching out into adult fiction, it has brilliant writing and the stories are so complex it’s a really good read, but it’s still Kelley Armstrong that you see in her YA series.

If you read them I hope you enjoy them and I’ll talk to you guys later! Bye x

What I Read (May, June, July)

Okay, I apparently suck at posting reviews and stuff, but right now I'm rereading a series to get to the next book, and I don't want to post a review on something I've already read, so the reviews will not be going up very often right now (I'm sorry! I swear soon I will write up a review and post it!)

But until then I thought I'd do a list of books I read in the past few months to post something up here. So I'm gonna do a list of May, June and July, then post one for August after August and do it a monthly thing, possibly in video form. But anyway on with the books! I might write up ten word reviews next to it maybe? I dunno. Anywho!

May!


Sunshine by Robin McKinley - Awesome take on vampires, unique and real page turner.
Virals by Kathy Reichs- Really fantastic book, easier to read than her adult series.
Naked in Death by J.D. Robb- Amazing futuristic crime novel with really rounded characters.
City of Glass by Cassandra Clare- Best from the series so far, loved it!
Black Wings by Christina Henry- Blurb made it look better, but could have been worse.
Feed by Mira Grant- Possibly my favourite read this year.

June!


Pretty Little Liars by Sara Shepard- Didn't enjoy it, but don't usually read books like this.
Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins- Good book, slightly predictable, but enjoyable read.
Moon Called by Patricia Briggs- Awesome start to the series, excited to read the rest.
White Cat by Holly Black- Not as good as I expected, but enjoyable.
Oceans of Blood by Darren Shan- This series beats the first series.
TimeRiders by Alex Scarrow- Chapters were too long and too jumpy.
Clockwork Angel by Cassandra Clare- Was scared to read it, loved it.
Glory in Death by J.D. Robb- Awesome sequel, love this series.
Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini- Good, not best demi god series, but good.
Storm Front by Jim Butcher- Not my favourite book.
Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone by J.K. Rowling- Do I have to say anything?
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets by J.K Rowling- See above.
Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling- See above.

July!

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K Rowling- See above.
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling- See above.
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by J.K. Rowling- See above.
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling- See above.
The Iron Witch by Karen Mahoney- Nice book to read after mass reading Harry Potter.
Devilish by Maureen Johnson- Cute but creepy, very awesome.

So as you can see I've had a lot of reading...basically I've been off for months and reading is enjoyable right now, so this is a very long list (I honestly don't know how I read so much in June!)

But yeah, if you want a review on any of the books above that I haven't done a review of, please comment and I'll try to get one up asap!

Thanks for reading! x

Divergent

Author: Veronica Roth

Publishing Company: Harper Collins

Blurb:

Once choice decides your friends, defines your beliefs and determines your loyalties…forever.

When sixteen-year-old Tris makes her choice, she cannot foresee how drastically her life will change. Or that the perfect society in which she lives is about to unfold into a dystopian world of electrifying decisions, stunning consequences, heartbreaking betrayals and unexpected romance.

One choice can transform you.

The Review:

I want to say something straight away. When I picked up this book I was worried that the book would be a load of hype that couldn’t be lived up to. The world Veronica Roth made is so well made that you can honestly get lost in the world and think it’s real. The way it works and the flaws and the emotion put into the writing, it’s fascinating to see.

So I’ll first talk about the factions. You have Abnegation, Amity, Candor, Erudite and Dauntless. Each stands for their own point, Abnegation is for Selflessness, Amity is for Peacefulness, Candor is for Sincerity, Erudite is for Knowledge and Dauntless is for Bravery. Each faction don’t interact with the other and they are very much for their own ways and nothing else.

The book follows the main character Tris, who’s actually called Beatrice, but goes by Tris afterwards because Beatrice isn’t the right name for her (won’t say why, but you’ll understand when you read it). And she’s going through this change of a world. And as you see her go through these changes, you realise how strange it must be for these characters to know this. I don’t want to give much away about where she goes and what she chooses, but you feel for her.

We also have a few other characters that we want to see a lot of. Four, Christina, Will, Al and Peter mostly. And then there’s her family who you don’t see much of. The characters are lumped together and you really see them having to deal with each other and whatever they’re going through together. Most of them grow as characters, and I think for who we see this in the most (for good or for bad) is Al. And you feel for the characters in one way for another. I don’t want to say much about the characters because it would give away a massive thing in the start of the book, but they’re extremely well rounded and important.

We expect the book to be about Tris deciding where she wants to go, but in fact it’s about her finding out what is happening in the world around her and how it’s falling apart. You see the strength in her and her friends, and the problems that the world faces, even when they think they have a system that works and keeps everything good and fine.

This is a short review because I really don’t want to give anything away, and if I go in more depth I’ll give away Tris’s choice. The world you see is well thought out, and you see everything for what it is and how it works. It’s sometimes extremely blunt and it shows the flaws and strengths. And all in all, it’s a very good book.

My rating:

Setting: 5 out of 5

Characters: 4.5 out of 5

Plot: 4.5 out of 5

Writing: 5 out of 5

Thanks for reading x

In My Mailbox (2) - July

Books I got :)

• Hereafter by Tara Hudson
• I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have To Kill You by Ally Carter
• Haunting Violet by Alyxandra Harvey
• Haunted by Kelley Armstrong
• The Witches by Peter Curtis

The Iron Witch

Author: Karen Mahoney

Publishing Company: Corgi Books

Blurb:

Donna is a freak. An outcast. Branded with iron tattoos that cover her hands and arms, she is cursed with a magically-enhanced strength that she odes everything she can to hide.

But now, the dark exiles of Faerie are coming and Donna must choose between saving her best friend- or betraying one of the world’s greatest secrets.

The Review:

First I have to say I really did just pick it up for the stunning cover. But, I didn’t expect it to be as good as it was. The plot revolves around three main characters. Donna, Nav and Xan, and Donna showing herself as she really was to people she didn’t expect to tell. The book actually starts and ends with diary entries, which is quite nice. But it’s very interesting to see how Donna worked, because yes we usually see the characters who are a bit different, but she seems to be really really different to any characters you usually see.

The plot was good and really interesting, and it was one of those things where you could pick it up and read it really quickly and easily, which is nice sometimes. It is definitely more original than other books that include the fey and faeries and things like that. Because we don’t just have the fey and have them have an edge of mischief, we have them desperate and knowing exactly what they want, and not being afraid to get it.

I did see some similarities between this book and The Iron King, but it wasn’t anything massive. I think what this book does differently, is that it’s not fully about the fey, in fact, the fey is less than half of the book really. What the book is about really, is Alchemists. You get a small insight to this world of secret magic, one that doesn’t often get explored that much in other YA fiction. However, the way the author has done it, she’s only given us a tiny glimpse into this world, to make us want to read more and continue onto the next book.

For the characters. Donna I felt mixed about. From the start you can tell she’s an outcast, she’s always tried to keep to the back of the room, to avert the attention from her. But quickly after the first few chapters, you see a completely different girl, someone who does have strength (metaphorical and physical), and it’s quite strange, because you don’t know what exactly to think about that.

Then there’s Nav. Nav is the best friend who’s obviously in love with the best friend, even though she can’t register that. He’s the normal person who’s accidentally been sucked into the world he’s in. And to be honest, I feel really sorry for him, because he shouldn’t have gone through what he went through. He’s a lost boy in a strange world.

And then we have Xan. He’s the typical guy that the girl will fall in love with…or so you think. He’s different, you can tell from early on. He also changes relatively quickly, but in it he admits that he was putting on an act for the first time you read him, so it’s quite nice. Unfortunately I found him a bit false, especially the relationship he gets with Donna. They only seem to be together because they’re both different. And that doesn’t really make me think the relationship will fully work.

Overall I think it’s a good book to pick up and read quickly, and I definitely want to pick up the next one to find out what happens next. But some of it was very sparse, and I didn’t find myself absorbed in the characters because they seemed to change too easily from the original thing you read.

My rating:

Setting: 4 out of 5

Characters: 3 out of 5

Plot: 3 ½ out of 5

Writing: 4 out of 5

Thanks for reading x

Top Ten- Things I'd love to do from my favourite books

So, I said I’d write up a review, but really I haven’t read anything other than Harry Potter so haven’t been able to write anything. So instead I came up with an idea for a top ten style post and I promise I’ll get back to reviews after the final Harry Potter film!

This is my top ten things I’d like to do from books I’ve read, in no particular order.

1. Ride a theastral. From Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix by J.K. Rowling

2. Follow the instructions from 13 envelopes to take me on a wild and brilliant adventure. From 13 Little Blue Envelopes by Maureen Johnson

3. Win a golden ticket and go enjoy the fun of a chocolate factory. From Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl

4. Spend a summer at Half Blood Camp. From The Percy Jackson Series (in general) by Rick Riordan

5. Go to Hogwarts. From The Harry Potter series (in general) by J.K. Rowling

6. Be able to see my favourite stories come to live in front of my eyes. From Inkheart by Cornelia Funke

7. To watch what happens at the very end of Hells Heroes. From Hells Heroes by Darren Shan (don’t want to spoil it)

8. To have a conversation with Alaska Young. From Looking for Alaska by John Green

9. To watch Yelena Zaltana work. From Fire Study by Maria V. Snyder

10. Be part of the Fellowship of the Ring. From The Fellowship of the Ring by J.R.R. Tolkien.

In My Mailbox (1) - June

Books I got :)

• Die For Me by Amy Plum
• Starcrossed by Josephine Angelini
• Ultraviolet by R J Anderson
• Blood Bound by Patricia Briggs
• The Hobbit by J R R Tolkien
• Forgotten by Cat Patrick
• Divergent by Veronica Roth
• Darkness Becomes Her by Kelly Keaton
• Entangled by Cat Clarke

I am going to start posting reviews again I swear, I'll try to get one up in the next few days for Starcrossed.

My Harry Potter Experience

I remember when I first got the Harry Potter books, it was a completely accidental thing. One of my nana’s neighbours bought me the fourth one for Christmas (don’t know why, she’d never bought me anything before) so, because I didn’t have the first three, my mam and nana bought me the first three in a little box set thing. So I had the first four books, and no real intention of reading them. At this point, I wasn’t the huge reader that I am now.

But we were going on a holiday, and I thought I’d take a book to read when I was going to bed on those days. We were in Butlins, and I remember having taken the first book, I read the first chapter, and I hated it. I found it boring. To be fair, I was probably too young at this point to read, as I did start enjoying books at a late age.

It wasn’t until the first film came out that I even gave the books another glance, so this was at least two or three years later (though probably four or five). The film wasn’t out yet, but I saw the trailer and I thought that the film looked really good and interesting, I mean, at this point I was eleven and had a much better attention span, and I was beginning to enjoy books a lot more. So I saw the trailer, and decided, I wanted to read the first book before the film came out. I ended up reading all four before the film came out.

And that’s when I began to realise how great and fantastic the worlds were. Before all of this, I’d just thought it was a silly little story, something that people had over thought. When I read it, I was hooked.

I remember it was the first series that I wanted more than the first book for. I’d read more than one book before, but this one was the first series that I wanted the next one before it was out. I remember it was the only book I ever demanded I got on the release date, and each time I picked up the next book, I read it quickly.

Coming to the end of it, when the last book was out I stopped caring as much. It took me a lot longer to read the book than it had for the others, I don’t know why. I don’t think I wanted it to end, so I didn’t want it. It wasn’t until last year when I found AVPM that I fell back in love with the series and now I’m a bigger fan than ever before.

The final film and the closing of this amazing series that had brought together so much, and I feel sad. And it makes me realise that no one will ever feel the way we’ve felt. No one will know how it is to get the books and feel the pure joy and excitement to find out what happened. They will read it, but so many people already know what’s happened with them all, so how is that the same? There will never be an experience quite like it, and to be honest, that terrifies me.

I know that when the last film comes out, I will cry, and it won’t be at the deaths I know are coming, or the music, or the beauty of the ending or the writing. I will cry, because this whole experience will have ended. Even if there are more things to come like Pottermore (which I’m extremely excited for), there will be something that will be strange and crazy that something we’ve grown up with, that has been such a huge part of our lives, that’s brought people together, and it’s ending.

For the last film, I plan to read every book again starting on the 1^st July all the way up to the film (which we are seeing on the day it comes out) just so that I can remember everything that happened.

So, I would like to raise an imaginary goblet, tip my hat (if it wasn’t afraid to tip a lot of spiders onto you), cry for my quidditch team, and nox my wand, because this experience has been amazing and wonderful, and it’s something that has probably influenced every single person’s life in some shape way or form. Thank you to J.K. Rowling for making this experience so brilliant and crazy, and thank you for giving us something that we will all treasure in our memories forever. I feel lucky to have grown up with Harry Potter the way I have.

Books I Love (1)

So, I want to start to write more on this blog, so this is an idea that is just a silly idea to write up a quick post of books I'm loving right now or have loved in the past.

Looking for Alaska by John Green

I love this book (though the new UK cover is horrible, I love the simplicity of this cover). It's one of those books that makes you think about things, but not only that, it has some extremely amazing laughs and some really powerful messages. It's really the first book that I began to read and realise that I actually liked books that didn't include magic or fantasy elements. Fantastic book.

   Feed by Mira Grant

I just read this book recently and I think that it's one of those books that you come to because you saw it and it looked interesting, but you didn't expect much. It is a zombie book, but to be honest, it's more about politics and new age media so you stay away from all of the zombies a lot. I think any blogger should read it, just to see what it's about and read something that is promoting blogging and new media as something fantastic and becoming a lot bigger.

     Stolen by Kelley Armstrong

I've put this one, because I find that a lot of bloggers talk about Kelley Armstrong's YA series, which is amazing, but she does have an adult series out that follows the same style as her YA series, and she has an assassin two parter. Stolen is very similar to The Darkest Powers series so I think that a lot of people should try to read it. Bitten and Stolen are the first two (and granted the only two I've read of the series though I have the next two which I need to read) and they are amazing, with fantastic characters.

So I'll do another one of these next month or something, but until then happy reading!

Thanks for reading guys x

Feed

Author: Mira Grant

Publishing Company: Orbit Books

Blurb:

‘Alive or dead, the truth won’t rest. My name is Georgia Mason, and I am begging you. Rise up while you can.’

The year is 2014. We had cured cancer. We had beaten the common cold. But in doing so we created something new, something terrible that no one could stop. The infection spread, virus blocks taking over bodies and minds with one, unstoppable command: FEED.

Now, twenty years after the Rising, bloggers Georgia and Shaun Mason are on the trail of the biggest story of their lives- the dark conspiracy behind the infected. The truth will out, even if it kills them.

The Review:

This was a lot better than I expected. I’m not one for zombie books usually, zombie films I like, but I don’t think it works in book form. Until I read this. This isn’t the usual zombie book because, 1 it’s not on the outbreak of infection where it seems like the universe won’t survive and 2, we have survived and have survived to some extent of normalcy.

The book is mainly from Georgia (or George), with input from the other primary characters, Shaun, Buffy and Rick. You find out that there are different types of bloggers, the main ones that are in this book are the Newsies, the Irwins, and the Fictionals. George is a Newsie (basically they tell the facts as they are), Shaun is an Irwin (think daredevil and people who know how to spin a story so it’s about the moral but mostly about the heart pounding way they spin stories to be readable), and finally the Fictionals (do I really need to explain?).

Now for the characters (you know it’s my favourite thing to write about), which I have to say, all of the characters are extremely well developed. George was the bad ass of them. She always wears dark protective clothes, sunglasses (for medical reasons, but it still looks amazing) and she just has this attitude about her. But you can see that’s because of how she’s been raised, who her parents are, her job, things like that which really do shape her as a person. But you can also see all her weaknesses and things like that, which you can see she also tries to hide. Things like the way she looks after her brother, he’s the only one in her life that you can tell she honestly and fully trusts with her life.

Apart from that, we can also see the respect people have for her and what she does, and then also the respect she has for people who she thinks deserve that respect. She obviously has a balance of mean and good in her, because of what she does and how she handles situations. She will do anything for a story, but knows when she’s overstepping boundaries and she doesn’t do it for the people who she thinks deserve better than awful news reports.

Then we have Shaun, who we think won’t last long because he’s introduced to us by prodding a zombie with a hockey stick. At first I have to admit I really didn’t like him, he seemed careless, childish and pathetic, but he definitely grows on you. He’s one of those people who you think are going to grate on you and annoy the hell out of you, but to be honest, he’s someone who ended up making me laugh a lot. He seems to always be in a good mood in very carefree, but we can tell he does care about things like his sister, the site he runs, his friends, he just shows his care for things in his own way.

There were some times when I seriously felt bad for him. There was all these points where you just feel awful for what he goes through, because he does seem to react to more situation, but at the same time, he knows what he has to do to save himself and keep others safe. It is a shock, how much you end up relating to him, and liking him as a character.

And of course, of the main three bloggers, there’s also Buffy, who’s really called Georgette but she calls herself Buffy because she lives in a world filled with too many girls called Georgette (Georgia and Georgette were the two best girl names in that year, named after George Romero, really good idea), and she lives in a world filled with zombies and she’s blonde and perky (I loved the references in this book, points to Mira Grant for them all). I loved Buffy, she was geeky, she’s different, and she’s happy to be who she is.

The thing about Buffy is, later in the book, you have to wonder how much you like her, and her intentions, but at the same time you can’t dislike her. I think that with Buffy, you see the flaws to the full extent that you can in a character, but because she’s such a fantastic character, even with those flaws, you surprisingly feel some form of sympathy her when her flaws come out. She seems like the character who you could never hate fully, even if she stuck a cattle prod through your heart, of course you feel the hurt she causes from her actions, but you always have this feeling of pity and happiness when it comes to her.

There are a ten of characters I’d love to talk about, Senator Ryman, Emily, Governor Tate, Rick, loads of them. Unfortunately, that would make this review ridiculously long, so I’ll talk about the structure of the book.

Mainly, we have Georgia’s point of view, which is good because you can tell that she’s more of an observer than any of the other characters, but it’s not just told through simple narration, they also have blog entries from different characters, as they explain certain things that link with the chapters. We get their thoughts and feelings through this.

And while on the subject, the blogging is a fantastic addition to the story, it shows the developing world in a good light, and you have to realise that even without the zombies the truth behind the way the news is shown is definitely the way it’s heading now (even if I’m biased with my book blogger…)

Altogether, I think this book is ten times better than I expected and it’s different to what you expect. I think if you’re interested in social media and the changes in it as it begins to grow, you will love this book, if not, you may not.

My rating:

Setting: 4 out of 5

Characters: 5 out of 5

Plot: 5 out of 5

Writing: 5 out of 5


Thanks for reading x