Category: Review (Page 125 of 297)

BOOK REVIEW: Roar (Stormheart #1) by Cora Carmack

July 10, 2019 / Arielle / 4 Comments

Roar (Stormheart #1)
by Cora Carmack
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
In a land ruled and shaped by violent magical storms, power lies with those who control them.

Aurora Pavan comes from one of the oldest Stormling families in existence. Long ago, the ungifted pledged fealty and service to her family in exchange for safe haven, and a kingdom was carved out from the wildlands and sustained by magic capable of repelling the world’s deadliest foes. As the sole heir of Pavan, Aurora's been groomed to be the perfect queen. She’s intelligent and brave and honorable. But she’s yet to show any trace of the magic she’ll need to protect her people.
To keep her secret and save her crown, Aurora’s mother arranges for her to marry a dark and brooding Stormling prince from another kingdom. At first, the prince seems like the perfect solution to all her problems. He’ll guarantee her spot as the next queen and be the champion her people need to remain safe. But the more secrets Aurora uncovers about him, the more a future with him frightens her. When she dons a disguise and sneaks out of the palace one night to spy on him, she stumbles upon a black market dealing in the very thing she lacks—storm magic. And the people selling it? They’re not Stormlings. They’re storm hunters.

Legend says that her ancestors first gained their magic by facing a storm and stealing part of its essence. And when a handsome young storm hunter reveals he was born without magic, but possesses it now, Aurora realizes there’s a third option for her future besides ruin or marriage.
She might not have magic now, but she can steal it if she’s brave enough.

Challenge a tempest. Survive it. And you become its master.

7/9/19 Finished the #StormlingReadAlong early and wowwowwow and I SO READY for Rage. Below is my review from when I first read the book and honestly, my thoughts on it did not change at all!
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This was an amazing start to a series that I am already really excited about!! Full, honest review given below. Thanks to NetGalley and Tor Teen for giving me a chance to read this eARC! ♥

Okay, on to the goods. When I saw that Cora Carmack had written a YA Fantasy novel I was PUMPED. I’ve read–more like devoured–her Rusk University novels already and was dying for more. The fact that the “more” was a genre that I am especially obsessed with had me rushing to request an ARC from NetGalley and turing into a fangirly mess once I actually got it.

Honestly, this book was really damn good. The only thing that bothered me was that there were a lot of abrupt changes in POV but that could just be the editing of my ARC and it could be taken care of once the book is actually in print. Other than that, this was such a fresh newpremise!!!! This book is set in a fantasy world where storms of any kind are magical and violent and there are only a select few people called Stormlings that are born with the power to reign them in and protect their kingdoms. Aurora, the main character and heir to the Pavan throne, was born without powers and has had to keep it a secret her entire life. Of course, her mother, the queen, decides that it’ll be a great idea to marry her off to another Stormling prince so that her throne remains secure and her people stay protected. Of course things don’t always go as planned…When Rora feels betrayed by her groom-to-be she sets out with a band of storm hunters to take control of her future and learn how to tame the horrible storms herself.

First of all, we are introduced to an interesting and easily likable/hateable group of characters. It seems at first like there could be a possible love triangle but fear not!! That isn’t a thing in this first book. Rora, or Roar as she eventually becomes known as, was an extremely likeable female lead for me. She falls a little too easily for her male counterparts but given her sheltered life, I guess I can see how she quickly made a connection with two of the first two people who *really* paid her attention. Other than that though, she’s a fighter. She’s stubborn and pig-headed and I’m really excited to see how her future pans out. Locke, the love interest, is VERY swoon worthy (but I can agree that he CAN be a little overprotective at times). Oh my lawd. You guys will see. I’m a big fan…I am curious to see more about Cassius though. Something tells me that he and Roar will have a hell of a time with a reunion in the next book…

Overall the story is a memorable one. The ending isn’t a huge cliffhanger but does set up for book two perfectly which I will 100% be pining for. I highly recommend!!

BOOK REVIEW: There Will Come a Darkness (Age of Darkness #1) by Katy Rose Pool

July 5, 2019 / Arielle / 2 Comments

There Will Come a Darkness (Age of Darkness #1)
by Katy Rose Pool
Purchase on: Amazon
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
The Age of Darkness approaches.
Five lives stand in its way.
Who will stop it... or unleash it?

For generations, the Seven Prophets guided humanity. Using their visions of the future, they ended wars and united nations―until the day, one hundred years ago, when the Prophets disappeared.

All they left behind was one final, secret prophecy, foretelling an Age of Darkness and the birth of a new Prophet who could be the world’s salvation . . . or the cause of its destruction. As chaos takes hold, five souls are set on a collision course:

A prince exiled from his kingdom.
A ruthless killer known as the Pale Hand.
A once-faithful leader torn between his duty and his heart.
A reckless gambler with the power to find anything or anyone.
And a dying girl on the verge of giving up.

One of them―or all of them―could break the world. Will they be savior or destroyer? Perfect for fans of Throne of Glass, Children of Blood and Bone, and An Ember in the Ashes.

Hassan had crouched down to Azizi’s level, putting a hand on the boy’s bony shoulder. “You are helping. This–getting on this ship with your mother and sister to sail to an unfamiliar land–it’s just as important as what I’m doing. Just be brave. To keep out home inside your heart, right beside your hope, even when you’re far away–it’s one of the bravest things there is. I’m going to make Herat safe for you, Azizi.”

I am LOVING the fact that the newest fad in YA fantasy seems to feature the rag-tag group of characters from all walks of life, destined to come together to *do* something important. In this case, it’s stopping the apocalypse. There’s a secret prophecy, three harbingers of death, and of course, an evil zealot that wants to wipe all of the Gifted people out.

The cast of characters was super unique and memorable. I can’t wait to dig deeper into each of their personalities and I was pleasantly surprised by some of the twists that popped up towards the end. I don’t want to get too far into them because a few of them might not be who you expect and it was fun watching all the chaos unfold and destinies change.

I really liked the premise, too, even though I have a few thoughts on how it was presented. I feel like in fantasy series’ there is always that one point of impending doom that the books work toward until the end of the series where the hero is successful and good wins. In this book, the secret final prophecy foretold a time of darkness and what sounded like the end of times. A bunch of things unfold towards the end of this book and that is set in motion. To me, it almost seemed like too much happened already in the first book. I loved the world building and I felt like the characters were fleshed out enough, I just would have like a little more preparation I guess? I don’t know how many books are planned for this series so maybe Pool wanted to condense more into this to really ratchet up the danger level immediately for book two. Either way, it all unfolded in a very believable, and INCREDIBLY gripping way (!!!) I just would have liked there to be a tiny bit more build up before the start of the apocalypse lol. I was biting my nails the entire last half of this book as more and more unfolded and I cannot wait for the rest of the series! I think a lot of people will love this and will be dying for more.

Once, as the rest of Jude’s world had crashed down around him, his gave had been drawn to the warm, dark eyes of a strange boy, hunched over the side of a scrying pool.
Now, their eyes met again.
And Jude’s true north was found.

Huge thanks to NetGalley and Henry Holt Books for Young Readers for giving me a change to read this eARC in exchange for an honest review. Also, since the quotes above came from an unfinished copy, they are subject to change.♥

BOOK REVIEW: Hello Girls by Brittany Cavallaro & Emily Henry

July 2, 2019 / Cassie / 2 Comments

Hello Girls by Brittany Cavallaro, Emily Henry
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Best friends are forged by fire. For Winona Olsen and Lucille Pryce, that fire happened the night they met outside the police station—both deciding whether to turn their families in.

Winona has been starving for life in the seemingly perfect home that she shares with her seemingly perfect father, celebrity weatherman Stormy Olsen. No one knows that he locks the pantry door to control her eating and leaves bruises where no one can see them.

Lucille has been suffocating beneath the needs of her mother and her drug-dealing brother, wondering if there’s more out there for her than disappearing waitress tips and generations of barely getting by.

One harrowing night, Winona and Lucille realize they can’t wait until graduation to start their new lives. They need out. Now. All they need is three grand, fast. And really, a stolen convertible to take them from Michigan to Las Vegas can’t hurt.

It struck her then that the two of them were crouched between a church and a police station – two places of confession – and that, for whatever reason, they’d chosen each other instead.

Thank you to Edelweiss, the authors and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

From the opening chapters, I knew I was going to be hooked into this book. I thought the way Winona and Lucille were introduced was brilliant and captivating. Immediately I felt for both of these girls and their horrible home lives. In in spite of their terrible families, the bond they formed was truly inspiring. The deep friendship between the two was what kept the story staying grounded when some of the other elements get a bit wild and crazy.

Lucille couldn’t have wants. She couldn’t have needs. What she had was a hole that she shoveled her love into, a hole she couldn’t see the bottom of until she met Winona.

During the initial part of Winona and Lucille’s cross country road trip, I found my interest waning. After the awesome beginning, it took the story a little while to pick back up.

But as Winona and Lucille get closer to their final destination, the twists and turns pick up and more characters are introduced to the story. There’s some great moments about first relationships, trust, toxic family relationships and jealousy among friends.

Sometime since yesterday, it was like Winona had gone from being a book Lucille knew by heart to being the same book with its ending ripped out.

The ending is quite explosive, and honestly, a little heartbreaking. However, I really liked how the authors chose to end it the way they did.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book and thought there were a lot really great themes packed in a Thelma and Louise-type road trip story. The writing was excellent and engaging. My main fault was the pacing, as it definitely lulled at times. Also, sometimes the story seemed to go off the rails a little bit and was a bit unrealistic, but overall I enjoyed it.

Hello Girls is available August 6, 2019.

“I don’t know you or your business, honey, but I can tell you this – you two are the Lamborghini of problems.”

BOOK REVIEW: You Owe Me a Murder by Eileen Cook

June 26, 2019 / Cassie / 4 Comments

You Owe Me a Murder by Eileen Cook
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Seventeen-year-old Kim gets more than she bargained for when she is set up for murder. Perfect for fans of One of Us is Lying, E. Lockhart, and Gillian Flynn.

17-year-old Kim never expected to plot a murder. But that was before her boyfriend dumped her for another girl. Now, Kim’s stuck on a class trip to London with him and his new soulmate and she can’t help wishing he was a little bit dead, even if she’d never really do that.

But when Kim meets Nicki, a stranger on the plane who’s more than willing to listen to Kim’s woes, things start to look up. Nicki's got a great sense of humor, and when she jokes about swapping murders, Kim plays along—that is, until Kim’s ex-boyfriend mysteriously dies.

Blackmailed by Nicki to fulfill her end of the deal, Kim will have to commit a murder or take the fall for one.

I don’t lie to hurt people, or to pull something over on them, but I guess sometimes I…make up stories to make myself more interesting.

I wish I would have liked this book more than I did. I thought the premise was really interesting, but was unfortunately let down by the execution. And honestly, a lot of it came down to the main character, Kim, who I wanted to yell at in complete frustration on multiple occasions.

The beginning was quite well done, with Kim, a 17-year-old girl, headed to London on a class trip. What was supposed to be a fun trip with her boyfriend is now hampered by the fact they are broken up and he is dating a new girl who is also on the trip.

Enter Nicki, who Kim meets in the airport and gets to know on the flight. Nicki, who is engaging, enigmatic and friendly with Kim, gets to Kim to verbally agree to commit a murder for each other. (The fact that Kim was quite drunk when making this verbal commitment is a fact for another day…) Nicki will murder Kim’s ex-boyfriend and Kim will murder Nicki’s mom. A win-win, right? Kim doesn’t take the verbal pact seriously, until her ex-boyfriend ends up dead, and Nicki won’t leave her alone.

Trying to keep up with Nicki’s conversational train was like navigating a carnival fun house. You’d turn one way and it would be a dead end. You’d go in a new direction and think you were going the right way and then run smack into a mirror. Up was down, right was left, and nothing made sense.

Up until the ex-boyfriend’s death, I enjoyed the book fairly well. But after that, it turned a bit ridiculous. It was hard to believe that Kim could get away with all that she was doing. And honestly, I just didn’t really like her much and I don’t think the author intended for her to be unlikable. Kim was fairly immature and often selfish and thought only of herself. A few other characters get caught in her and Nicki’s crosshairs, and those were the characters I felt badly for.

I feel fairly meh about the ending. More than anything, I was just happy for it to be over. This was my second Eileen Cook book, and I definitely enjoyed With Malice more.

I didn’t want to lie. I wanted to be normal and interesting, but I wasn’t.

BOOK REVIEW: Bloodwitch (The Witchlands #3) by Susan Dennard

June 24, 2019 / Arielle / 4 Comments

Bloodwitch (The Witchlands #3)
by Susan Dennard
Purchase on: Amazon, iBooks
Add to: Goodreads

Synopsis:
Fans of Susan Dennard's New York Times bestselling Witchlands series have fallen in love with the Bloodwitch Aeduan. And now, finally, comes his story.

High in a snowy mountain range, a monastery that holds more than just faith clings to the side of a cliff. Below, thwarted by a lake, a bloodthirsty horde of raiders await the coming of winter and the frozen path to destroy the sanctuary and its secrets.

The Bloodwitch Aeduan has teamed up with the Threadwitch Iseult and the magical girl Owl to stop the destruction. But to do so, he must confront his own father, and his past.

Review:

“From the day she had stabbed Aeduan in the heart, that heart had become hers—and she would not let this be his end.”

Why. Aren’t. More. People. Reading. This. Series?!@?!?! WHY. I’m serious. Sooz’s writing is on an entirely different level than like 80% of the stuff currently out right now in YA fantasy. Yes it’s complex. (When has that ever been a bad thing?) Yes, sometimes you can lose track of what’s happening and where it’s happening. (That’s what a map is for) But isn’t that sometimes part of a series’ appeal?! Getting so caught up in a story that sometimes you stop and think about all these ~threads~, lol see what I did there, and realize there are so many awesome plot points and you don’t know where any of them are going but you KNOW that since you’re reading a book by Susan Dennard that all of your questions eventually WILL get answered and probably in a super dramatic, crazy-ass way that you weren’t expecting AT ALL.

“I was supposed to tell you somethin’ else, sir. Something to make you believe Captain Sotar really sent me and that raiders are really coming. She said, ‘Noden and the Hagfishes ought to bend to a woman’s rule.’”

One piece of advice I will give to those of you who do have trouble with complex story-lines, though, is to read all four one right after the other. I picked up Truthwitch earlier this year and read Windwitch and Sightwitch right after. I started this one but got distracted by who knows what and then didn’t start it again until about a week ago. And then, I actually started listening to this on audio (which was awesome btw because the narrator did a ton of different accents that I didn’t expect) while at work in my free time so I created a bit of a disconnect for myself. However, all I really had to do was google whatever questions I had (and mostly those came from the stuff we learned from Sightwitch—SO DON’T SKIP THAT ONE) and the lovely world of bookish wikis saved me.

He was a Bloodwitch no longer. He was a monk no longer. He was man, just a man. It would have to be enough.

Now to the nitty gritty of this book. Aeduan’s book. I LOVED learning more about him, even though what we learned is enough to make my heart feel like it was ripped out and stomped on, tbh. My poor bloodwitch boy. At this point, all of our main characters—Aeduan/Iseult/Owl/kinda Leopold, Merik/Esme, Safi/Vaness/Hell-Bards, and then Vivia—are scattered across The Witchlands so we have a lot of different POVs that are entirely different from one another. Sometimes it would bother me if I didn’t want to leave a particular group just yet but books that are told like this always seem WAY more intense once the story picks up and gets more frantic and you find that some of their paths might start to intersect again. I love the drama that it builds. Just like with its predecessors, the last quarter of this book is INSANE. Like…..insane. I waited to start that entire chunk until after my daughter went to bed because I knew it was going to be non-stop crazy until the last page. Thank God I did that.

Going to throw in a spoiler paragraph real quick so I can really flail without ruining things for anyone…

View Spoiler »-IS THE ROOK KING BAD?!
-ISEULT SAVING AEDUAN/ THEIR ENTIRE RELATIONSHIP SDIO;GSDILGEJOISG
-WTF @ MATHEW AND HABIM
-THANK FUCK VANESS IS STILL ALIVE
-MERIK NOOOOOO ….But glad Safi got to see him..maybe one last time? *sobs*
-STIX??? DEAD ER NO?????
-SAFI AND ISEULT REUNITING (loved that when Iseult came across her Safi was arguing with Caden like her usual self lol)
-I have so many questions
-How the fuck did Ragnor and Disi get out of the ice and why didn’t the daughters get out?
-Is Stix a Paladin?
-Will everyone wake up out of the ice? THEY FUCKING BETTER « Hide Spoiler

So yeah basically if anyone has any thoughts/answers about all that I put under the spoiler tab PLZ MESSAGE ME ASAP. I loved this book and Aeduan and I CANNOT wait for Iseult’s book, holy crap. I NEED IT BAD.

Te varuje.
I trust you as if my soul were yours.