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