Month: August 2014 (Page 42 of 43)

BOOK REVIEW – Opposition (Lux #5) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

BOOK REVIEW – Opposition (Lux #5) by Jennifer L. ArmentroutOpposition (Lux #5)
by Jennifer L. Armentrout
Purchase on: AmazoniBooks
Add to: Goodreads


Everything had started with Dawson and Beth.
“Kat?”
My breath caught as I heard his voice. My chin dipped to my chest as I slowly wheeled around.
And everything ended with Daemon and me.

I can’t believe it’s over. I just can’t. Believe. It’s over. Not too long ago I picked up Obsidian on a whim, and my whole reading persona was irrevocably changed from that moment on.

Gone was the girl who only read random contemporary romances because she couldn’t find anything else to read-this girl was opened up to a whole different world where romance and peril accompanied each other like peanut butter and jelly (GRAPE jelly, if any of my weird best GR friends are reading this-GRAPE is the correct jelly). If anyone ever wondered what happened and why all of a sudden my GR shelves changed from normal romance to bizarro and crazy perilistic…they can thank this series. My life was never the same after.

I was in so deep. We were in so deep, and I didn’t want her here. I wanted her far, far away from all of this, but it was too late. 
Too late for both of us, and maybe for everyone else, too.

Daemon and Katy are yet again in the middle of chaos. People are different, the Lux have invaded and, oh shit, View Spoiler » so who knows what’s going on with that. I don’t want to say a ton so as not to ruin the plot, but things will never be the same after this. Lives are at stake, people of earth are dying, and no one is safe. How can the world ever move on after this? What if there isn’t an after?

…I couldn’t sleep. Not when Daemon was out there somewhere, and not when the whole world was on the verge of…hell, turning into a dystopia, like one of those novels I used to read.
Sigh. Books. I missed them.

I think that while I had always been obsessed with book boys, this is the first guy who embedded his way into my whole heart. It took forever, and I do mean forever for any other book guys to get up to his level. Maybe it’s his snark, maybe it’s the way he was always so protective of Katy even when they weren’t a couple, or maybe it’s because he acted so damn tough and impenetrable like he could never love Katy…but had loved her all along. I don’t know. But what I do know is that nothing will ever be as simple as that moment when Katy stepped on his porch to ask for directions and he all but kicked her to the curb. Life will never be so simple…and not everyone will make it.

Daemon closed his eyes, and several long moments passed before he spoke in a voice that ripped up my insides. He only said one word. “Go.”
I let out the breath I didn’t realize I was holding and then took another I didn’t need. I tried to step back, but his grip was fierce. I gently grasped his arms, and it took everything in me to force him to let go.

I loved seeing Daemon protect Katy-even when it’s at the cost of his own life, he would die protecting her. I love that. Will always love that. I loved his vulnerability when it came to her, to his family, to saving the only people in the world that mattered to him. But Katy? He chooses her. Will always choose her. Guess he’s selfish like that.

Closing my eyes, I moved my mouth to the base of her neck and made myself a promise I would do terrible things to keep. 
There would not be another scar on her body.
Not one.

So…admission time. I cried. I admit it. She got me. Not just ‘Oh muh God, Oh no’ tears-she got me on the ‘Oh, God, Oh no, it’s the end of one of my all time favorite series ever tears. I don’t cry those often-but she got me-TWICE. TWICE in the same damn book. I love these people. I’ve been with them since book one. I’ve seen the good, the bad and the ugly when it came to these guys. I’ve grown up with them and seen them learn from their mistakes-seen their heartaches and devastation and the impossible choices they’ve had to make. I’ve seen it all, so it’s extremely hard to say goodbye. It pains me that I’ll never hear ‘Kitten’ in the same context and extremely perfect way Daemon says it or feel Katy’s reluctant smiles and frustrations when Daemon pokes her in the back with his damnable pen in the classroom….no more ‘Bart’ or ‘Bimbo’ or ‘Barf’ comments and no more adorable jealousies as Daemon tries to win Katy’s heart. That’s over. Forever. And it sucks. But they’ve come full circle and nothing more could possibly happen without it being way too much, so it’s time to lay it to rest.

Did I miss school? Not really. Did I miss life before this crap, when it was just me, my trusty pen, and Kat sitting in front of me?
Yeah. Sometimes.

And…the elephant in the room. The pissy pink elephant in the room (hehe), for me, is the dialogue. Only sometimes did I kinda get aggravated, but I mean I can only hear about monkeys or ninjas or alien babies so many times. I’ve always adored Armentrout’s writing style-always. So it sucks to say that I didn’t love all the ‘humorous’ ways of saying, let’s admit it, ‘oh shit.’ Why can’t they ever just say that? It’s just as effective and so much more mature (come on, it’s bad when the word shit is mature). I’ve always loved her dialogue and cracked up at all these phrases-maybe I’ve changed a little or perhaps in this final installment she amped up the addition of these phrases, who’s to say? Either way, I still loved the book, I just wish some of those phrases would have been nixed.

Daemon kissed like he was staking a claim, but he already had me-all of me. My heart. My soul. My whole being.

Damn. I’ve been putting this off…..soooo this is it. My final paragraph (is it sad I have to address this as if my review is an essay or a book in itself? Hmm) of my final Daemon review. I don’t know how else to say this so I’ll make it brief. Books one through three will always be my favorite-they hold the angst and youthful portrayal of a skewed world where aliens and humans can fall in love in high school. I still liked the last two-they were just more serious. I don’t know. They all rock, but in the end, I wanted to make it clear that book one stole my heart, and book three cemented it in stone-that cliffhanger will forever be one of my all time favorite crazy endings-it was amazing. So, goodbye to Daemon, Dee, Dawson, View Spoiler » (I kinda hated her. Is that weird? So mousy…), Archer, Luc, and even that creepy old Blake (hey, he added a ton of snarky humor from Daemon so I’ll forever be grateful for his presence). I will forever re read these books and never get tired of them…and I am so glad they are sitting happily on my book shelf-even if Armentrout pulled a hail Mary and changed the last book cover in the series and ruined my collection of the previous four. Ugh. Oh well, I’ll deal.

“Together,” I whispered.
Daemon bowed his head, lowering his mouth to mine, as a sudden rush of noise caused the blood to freeze in my veins. I feared that this was it-the end.
Reading Order & Links:
Amazon (click on covers), iBooks (click on titles) & Book Depository (click on book #)
shadows a lux novel jennifer l. armentrout
Shadows #0.5
Reviews:

Jen
obsidian a lux novel jennifer l. armentrout
Obsidian #1
Reviews:

Jen
Chelsea
onyx the lux series jennifer l. armentrout
Onyx #2
Reviews:

Jen
Chelsea
opal a lux novel jennifer l. armentrout
Opal
#3

Reviews:
Jen
Chelsea
lux origin jennifer l. armentrout
Origin #4
Reviews:

Jen
Chelsea
obsession lux jennifer l armentrout
Obsession (Companion novel) #4.5
Reviews:
Jen
Chelsea
lux opposition jennifer l armentrout
Opposition #5
Reviews:

Jen
Chelsea
oblivion lux jennifer l armentrout
Oblivion #Companion Novel
OBSIDIAN, ONYX & OPAL
Told by Daemon Black
Reviews:
Jen

BOOK REVIEW – Across the Universe (Across the Universe #1) by Beth Revis

BOOK REVIEW – Across the Universe (Across the Universe #1) by Beth RevisAcross the Universe (Across the Universe #1)
by Beth Revis
Purchase on: AmazoniBooks
Add to: Goodreads

But I can think of nothing but the stars.
It is like a piece of my soul had been lost, empty, and it is now filled with the light of a million stars.
They are all that I had ever dreamed of; they are nothing I ever expected.

-Elder

Wow! I really really really enjoyed that. I know it says on the blurb what it’s about, but I guess I didn’t really know what I was stepping into. Lies. Secrets. Corruption. Betrayal. Lust. Knowledge

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BOOK REVIEW – A Million Suns (Across the Universe #2) by Beth Revis

BOOK REVIEW – A Million Suns (Across the Universe #2) by Beth RevisA Million Suns (Across the Universe #2)
by Beth Revis
Purchase on: AmazoniBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Emotion courses through my veins, choking me. I feel so insignificant, a tiny speck surrounded by a million stars.
A million suns.

-Elder

Okay, so, first thing first-I adore Elder. There. I SAID it. I don’t know why, I don’t know how, but for some reason his frexing ass has become my favorite thing about these books.

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BOOK REVIEW – Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3) by Beth Revis

BOOK REVIEW – Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3) by Beth RevisShades of Earth (Across the Universe #3)
by Beth Revis
Purchase on: AmazoniBooks
Add to: Goodreads

No going back now. Breathe in. Breathe out.
Oh, stars, Amy, I’m sorry.

Well…that was just wow. Remember when I asked for maybe just a little more peril for this final book in my last review? Well, Revis delivered. This book was everything the others were not-it had angst. It had danger. It was perilous.

And I was so shocked when it became so angsty that my stomach twisted up in knots-the other books had all the things above, but in no way did they compare to the level they reached with this installment.

I cannot hear the click of the metal on metal because there is no sound in space, but I know-the magnetic seal locks into place.
But there’s no air in the tube.
No air in me.

Wow. Well. Where do I start?? I don’t even know what to say. This is it. This is the
end.
No more fucking around for these compadres-they live or they die-there is no in-between anymore. They are on the new planet (most of them, anyway) and the scientists and military and, you guessed it, Amy’s parents have been unfrozen. Everyone is together now…causing worse chaos than Elder could have imagined.

But death doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t care if someone loves you, doesn’t want you to go. It just takes. It takes and it takes until eventually you have nothing left.

It seems everything Orion was telling them is coming true. Amy doesn’t want to believe that, but Elder sees Orion’s deadly prophecy unfolding before his very eyes and he has no clue what to do about it. The addition of new characters might literally have killed me. More than once my heart stopped because of the precarious situations unfolding and what certain characters were doing behind others’ backs…it was just too much for my unprepared mind. It was sensory overload and my heart just couldn’t take it. I think this comes from the fact that while the first two books had sinister beings and malicious intentions, they were all trapped behind the walls of the space ship. I knew, in the end, it had to all work out. But now,
now
they are in a whole new world with wide open skies and two suns and…and a forest where you can’t see people or things watching and tracking and plotting to kill you.

“Thunder,” Amy reminds me gently, touching my arm.
And then fire explodes across the sky, leaping from one dark cloud to another.
“The frex is that?!” I shout, leaping back.
Amy laughs this time. “Lightning,” she says.

One of my biggest pet peeves in books and movies is when something big happens, I don’t know, someone gets sick and doesn’t know what’s going on and their significant other is waiting until they wake up but…someone sends them away. “She doesn’t need you here blah blah blah YOUR FAULT BLAH.” And the significant other runs away…so when the injured or sick girl or guy wakes up they are alone and the person they want most isn’t around and they wonder…why? Well. Here’s the pet peeve-I hate when directors or authors choose to skim over the realization or confession of why that person wasn’t there when they woke up-a lot of times the authors just leave the situation where they never talk about it, so the one person is forever thinking they were just abandoned. This is only a mere example of what I mean and it’s really all I could come up with, but my point is this: Beth Revis, the author, never does this and I LOVE her for that. SO many things happened in this book that twisted my gut and made me want to hurl my Ipad into the wall, but she never took the easy way out-she always had a reason for every miscommunication and why it was taking so long to resolve…and if something needed to be left alone…well, she was good at leaving me hangin’ at the most pivotal moments.

“Amy,” I say, waiting for her to meet my eyes. “I would never-never-let something happen to you. You know that, right?”
She hesitates before she nods.
She looks so fragile in this moment that it breaks my heart. We both know that I won’t be able to protect her from everything.
But I’ll do all I can, no matter what the cost.

Elder and Amy had several moments that made me so happy and also broke my heart. They have been through a lot. Amy wasn’t sure what Elder meant to her until recently, the people of the ship hated her, and people were trying to murder he and she left and right, no matter the cost. Now they have an even bigger problem, you know, aside from desperately fighting for their life in this new, scary world: Amy’s parents. I’m sorry but what assholes. Poor Elder. I had always loved her fond memories of them from their past life on Earth, but in this one, I saw them in a new, not charming light. It was sickening. But, I do and did understand the protective nature of her father-It was heartwrenching to see all he was willing to do to keep her alive. It broke my heart. I know, broken record, right? And Chris…hmm…Mr. Blue Eyes?? GO JUMP OFF A STEEP CLIFF.

I don’t wait for her to answer him. I can see just fine, and I do not need to stand around and watch as Amy admires some other guy’s eyes. I circle around to the other side of the crowd, then push my way to the front of the group. I try to squelch the jealous rage that’s growing in my heart.
I might have the whole world now, but it’s not enough if I don’t get to share it with her.

Oh gosh, I was done and putting quotes in and I just realized what I didn’t add, dang-it. I LOVED how jealous Elder was in this one. It was so sweet and charming and adorable. He trusted Amy with his whole heart, but what if she has never been entirely his? I loved seeing these new emotions pulled from him and how he handled himself….he restrained himself well, if you ask me. Seeing red most of the time, it took a lot for him to chill his beans (;D) and just calm down…so I admired seeing that unfold and, ugh, okay, I’m just obsessed with him lol. Everyone already knows it anyway.

I stand on my tiptoes to reach Elder’s lips better, but I lose balance, slipping on the wet stones. Elder’s grip on me is so tight, though, that he easily lifts me from the ground, spinning in a slow circle, his laughter weaving in between raindrops to splash against my heart.

Wooh. What a conclusion. I don’t know. I just didn’t really expect it. I read in someone’s review that the end was fluffy…so I suppose I expected that, in all reality. But it wasn’t. I guess I didn’t find the end-all be-all all that thought provoking, but it came together seamlessly, so why would I complain? She told me to look left, but then went right, she said it’s this but it was really THAT. So, I don’t know, she fooled me, so why fix what isn’t broken? And more than that, I adore Elder and I really liked Amy, I can’t gush about them enough. I only wish I could have had way more of them-Because I can’t seem to get them off my mind. Oh, and the creepy undertone where you never knew if you were going to hear that god-awful screech of the creatures or if things were really watching you from the shadows or not??? I LOVED that. Well done, Revis, well done. Now I just wish I knew if she had more books or not-if so, sign me up-Immediately.

“I’ll always come back to you,” I say, pulling her close.

BOOK REVIEW – Red Rising (Red Rising Trilogy #1) by Pierce Brown

BOOK REVIEW – Red Rising (Red Rising Trilogy #1) by Pierce BrownRed Rising (Red Rising Trilogy #1)
by Pierce Brown
Purchase on: AmazoniBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Blood. Glory. Power.
Trust. Lies. Betrayal.
Loyalty. Deception. DEATH.

All in the name of the game. All to become a gold. But it’s so much more than that. I don’t quite know when I decided to rate this book thusly, but what I do know is that putting anything lower than those five stars made me feel edgy and as if I was doing the book an injustice. For much of the story I felt like I was playing catch-up where other people seemed to be getting it from the beginning. It starts out excellent, giving us an insight to the lowest of the lows’ lives. And then, everything changes.

A young girl’s dream becomes a necessity-a reality that needs to come to pass. And the person who is responsible for making that dream, that vision, happen…is Darrow. And I
bloodydamn
LOVED it.

I was not raised in palaces. I did not ride horses through meadows and eat meals of hummingbird tongues. I was forged in the bowels of this hard world. Sharpened by hate. Strengthened by love.
He is wrong.
None of them will survive.

As mentioned above, I was kind of confused as to what was going on after Darrow left the reds’ territory. I was following, albeit slowly. This book had a manner of speak that wasn’t simple, but was innovative and intriguing all the same. When we first meet Darrow, he is a helldiver, responsible for the job that will build Mars into a place where the people of earth can make it their home….but what if this is all for naught? What if the so called ‘truths’ Darrow and his fellow inhabitants have been fed their whole lives is a lie and Mars is already ready for people of Earth and the golds (the highest rank and governing power) are just using them as their little worker drones and slaves?

“You repeat the same damn points,” I say bitterly. “You think a dream is worth dying for. I say it’s better to live on our knees.”

Well, Darrow’s wife has an answer to that. She has a vision that there is more to life than slaving away and putting lives in danger for no reason. She wants Darrow to aim higher and to become someone that people can follow, someone people would look up to. She wants him to live to his full potential-but he wants none of this. He loves his wife so much it envelops his heart and soul, but he believes in order and doing what you’re told-then they will just leave him be and let him and his family live their lives. Until the day he and his wife are sentenced to 50 lashes…and his wife is killed for an act of rebellion.

We grew together, and now are grown. In her eyes, I see my heart. In her breath, I hear my soul. She is my land. She is my kin. My love.

Thus begins Darrow’s journey to live out Eeo’s dream. He is drowning in his sorrow, so heartbroken and more fit to pass away than to live a day without her. But soon he is recruited and made to pass for a gold-he will infiltrate the school and fight to become a leader of the golds (and essentially every caste and color) as a red disguised as a gold.

“I live for you,” I say sadly.
She kisses my cheek. “Then you must live for more.”

What comes from the trials of Darrow to become a gold are horrifying, barbaric, off-the-grid crazy and while at first I found myself cringing, I started to become more and more engrossed with each passing trial and chapter. I’m not going to lie-at some point, and I’m not sure when, one of the trials became a game of sorts about surviving in the wild while duking it out with other tribes. I didn’t notice it was a game at first, a survival-of-the-fittest of some sort-I must have been snoozing when it was announced they were to do so-whoops, my bad. Obviously if you put a large group of head-strong golds that are fierce, genius, brutish, you will see dissension in the group and, inevitably, they will split. These separate groups are tribes, and they are all students fighting to win, to become number one.

“Look into yourself, Darrow, and you’ll realize that you are a good man who will have to do bad things.”
My hands are unscarred and feel strange when I clench them till the knuckles turn that familiar shade of white.
“See. That’s what I don’t get. If I am a good man, then why do I want to do bad things?”

The gruesome and grisly trials Darrow encounters made me purse my lips and cringe on more than one occasion-hell, 50% of the book I would say I was making a face of revulsion in one way or another. At one point, he is forced to kill a kid to pass a trial in a hand-to-hand fight to the death-only one can leave the room. Effed up, right?

I am the reaper and death is my shadow.

I loved Darrow. He was strong, foolhardy, passionate, fierce, and he loved with all his heart. But, more than that, he made mistakes. He ran into traps, he trusted those he shouldn’t have, he let people do things he shouldn’t-and he lied. I wasn’t sure where the story was going, if I’m being honest. I would sit there and think, is this about his rise to power only to become like the evil golds he so despises? Will he actually become one of them? He hates the golds, he hates them with every ounce of his soul-for they were the ones who tied the noose around his wife’s neck and made him watch…but what happens when he finds true friends in the ‘game’? Will he ever be able to hurt any of them when he rises to power as a red? And, worst of all, what if he becomes as heartless and soulless as the gold bastards he is trying to overthrow? What then?

Oh, I want to accept. But then I would have to let the Proctors beat me. I’d have to let this little whorefart win and let his father smile and feel pride. I’d have to watch that smug smile spread across his bloodydamn face. Slag that. They’ll feel pain.

Well, I can assure you, he damn well does become a monster for some time. I liked it. I liked questioning what he was going to do next-for he was the boy who had to hide behind a facade as a gold, but was the red at heart who helped everyone as much as he could, only to get a taste of the power and lose himself to the game, to becoming number one….was this what his dear wife, Eeo, would have wanted for him?

I know I am impetuous. Rash. I process that. And I am full of many things-passion, regret, guilt, sorrow, longing, rage. At many times they rule me, but not now. Not here.

I could go on and on and on and on because I still find myself reeling on what actually happened. So many lies and betrayals and new relationships formed…and just as many stabs in the back. I loved seeing him try and find the balance between barbarics and necessity/need and power for survival, but also to possibly win the top spot everyone so covets. Anyway, I think it goes without saying that I got enough blood, guts, animal guts, and bone crushing to last me for a bit…but it was awesome. I don’t know when this went from a 4, to a 3, all the way up to a 5, but it fluctuated just as I’m saying and, let me tell you, I wouldn’t change a bloodydamn thing.


“You do not follow me because I am the strongest. Pax is. You do not follow me because I am the brightest. Mustang is. You follow me because you do not know where you are going. I do.”
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