Kari
Flowers is at it again. Read my full review here:
http://knowitnotsomuch.blogspot.com/2012/09/shock-wave.html
A true classic for me finally concludes....again. I remember when I first read this trilogy I read them out of order, starting with this one. This time I read them in the correct order and I still loved every page.
I wished more fiercely that Tom Concannon was still alive. I would have loved, as Shannon might have, to see them dance around a relationship, but the story wouldn't have worked as well if he hadn't passed in the beginning. Shannon's not my favorite sister (that would be Maggie, I think - hard to choose), but she's a great character anyway. Murphy, on the other hand was my favorite of the men of County Clare. And as always, I'm sad to leave the Concannon sisters in Ireland. Maybe someday Nora Roberts will revisit and show us Liam and Kayla all grown up!
Oh god it's neverending. NEVER. ENDING. I know that when you read some fiction there's a suspension of belief, but Shepard has really taken this too far. I can't even talk about this, it's ridiculous. These girls are seriously idiotic. Emily is still the dumbest one of the group. Holding on to things she needs to literally let go of.
I don't care if any of these girls die. I seriously hope the series ends on that note. There is nothing good about these girls! The worst part is, they have no idea how horrible they are! They act like they do, but they have no remorse of sense of right. I'm calling it people. I cannot read any more of this crap!
This was long. And gruesome. At times I would get so frustrated with some of the characters! At how slow they moved, the decisions they made and how clueless - or rather, how long it took them to put things together. It was odd because the story that opens the book becomes an afterthought. This almost could have been two books.
Yep, still bad. Almost worse. The book follows the same pattern as the first. Even down to the trying to fry The One Who is the One. The whole thing just irritates me. Patterson so badly wants a Harry Potter world, but he just sucks at YA fantasy. Whit and Wisty (two of the dumbest book names by the way) are beyond irritating and cliched. I really just can't stand them. I was hoping the graphics would stand up better than the first book, but they just don't. Now at least I can say I gave the effort and I won't pick up another piece of garbage from this series again.
I like that this story focused more on Catherine and Gallo than Eve and Joe even though the title is Quinn. I'll like it even more when Bonnie comes out and I can be done with this storyline altogether!
This strangely reminded me of Red Bones in the Shetland series, though this was written before I read Shetland first. It wasn't a bad thing, but I did find myself getting a little bored in places.
I mostly enjoyed Bryson's narration of his time actually on the AT. The history of the trail, while at times was interesting, started to get too long. His break from the trail seemed like this neverending history lesson.
Excellent book! Like Memento meets 40 First Dates. Definite page turner & the ending just killed me!
Gah! Too many feels!! Book hangover for sure. Will do full review when it isn't 1 in the morning.
OK, here's my review:
I can barely explain how much I loved this book. These are big bold words, but I think I loved this more than I did The Hunger Games or Divergent. At times I put the book down to collect myself for a minute because something disturbed me so much.
Dusts, Groupies, The Meltlands, The Good Mother. These things will haunt me. Pressia, Partridge, Lyda, El Capitan, Bradwell. These characters will stay with me always.
There were just so many holy shit moments, things I never saw coming. I don't know if it was because I was so into the story that I didn't have time to look ahead or put the pieces together. I didn't stop long enough to think about it. I just read.
The story skips around to different points of view. Usually this frustrates me because it feels sometimes difficult to follow, but I didn't seem to have a problem. There were times when the story is being told from Partridges point of view, but would jump over to Bradwell for a minute and while that seemed weird I wasn't confused.
I don't know. This was different. My library actually has this in the adult fiction section instead of the YA section and while I don't think it's too mature for teens it was definitely disturbing. For me, even more so when they got to the Meltlands. When I finally got a grasp on what had happened, what the Detonations caused I thought it was terrifying.
We're left with the perfect continuing series book. There is some bit of an ending, but you know the story goes on. You know there's more, but you're not left with this awful cliffhanger. Nonetheless, I finished this book at 1:20am and ran to the library this morning to get the next book.
It was just that good.
A little sad. The mystery was full of twists, but I just felt bad for Bree and Alice.
This book seemed to drag on a bit, unlike the first two in this trilogy. Zo was tired. Dante was weak. Orlando as a young man was strangely off-putting. I don't know. I loved how different and creative the whole story was, but there just didn't seem to be an end in sight and it took forever for things to happen the way they should be happening. Does that make any sense? There's a whole lot of talking and not a lot of doing. But like I said, it was an interesting story. It wasn't the same cookie cutter vampire, angel, immortal being story so that's a good thing in itself!
This review was originally published on my blog at http://knowitnotsomuch.blogspot.com
Sooooooo.....I got to page 18 and almost put it down for good. I found myself constantly rechecking the front cover. Was I reading a Vampire Academy book without knowing it? It was really hard to stomach the blatant rip off this book was. I thought I couldn't possibly be the only one who thought that the similarities between Armentrout's fictional world and Richelle Mead's were one too many. On Goodreads the reviews were about the same. Some even claiming this couldn't be legal, but there were a couple that claimed while the book bore stunning similarities at some point Armentrout branches off into her own world and it was actually really good.
There were very few good reviews for the book from people I suspect read the Vampire Academy series, but the few there encouraged me to read on so I did.
If I had never read the Vampire Academy series I probably would have loved this book, but the fact remains that I did and so I struggled with Half-Blood. Alex is Rose. Plain and simple. You could insert each into the other's book and there would be no difference. Both half-bloods ran away from their respective academies (where they were training to become some sort of assassin) and lived in the mortal world until the guardians catch up to them and bring them back to the school. There they are judged to be hopeless, too far behind in their training so they will be sent off until one guardian volunteers to train them personally on their own time. That guardian is also the person that Alex/Rose is in lust for and completely forbidden. Aidan is Dimitri. Plain and simple. Even the Daimons/Strigoi are strangely alike. They were always solitary hunters until recently they began hunting in groups!
And at some point she does begin to branch off into her own story. Alex is special, unlike the other half-bloods (although, Rose too was special being shadow-kissed and unnaturally bonded to Lissa - which now that I think about it is VERY much the same as Seth & Alex) and she has a great purpose. But before all this really needs to be dealt with she must do something she never thought she would have to do.
Armentrout can write a good book, but a book that is so steeply based in someone else's world it's hard to judge. Half-bloods, pures, Daimons, Strigoi, mastering the elements, Aidan, Dimitri, Alex, Rose, Caleb, Mason.....there were just too many. I probably won't read the rest of the series, though I won't say I definitely won't, but reading the synopsis for the next book in the series I still find it too much like the plot from another Vampire Academy book and that's just disappointing.
I kept getting lost. It took me a little while to get into the story, to understand what the point was and when I would start getting into it it seemed to change direction and I would be lost again.
The writing was better this time, although sometime things seem odd, behavior, speech, what have you. The story is still fantastic. And frustrating, but in a good way. This time with the focus being on Kishan and Kelsey it felt more Twilight-ish...more specifically New Moon-ish. A girl pining desperately for someone while another is desperately trying to get her attention. Even the personalities of the two suitors are similar to Edward and Jacob. The excessive amounts of praise Kelsy heaps on Kishan & Ren's good looks is also very Bella, but then it seems every YA book is like that now.
Otherwise, it's still a great story with lots of myth and action. I love reading about the Indian lore as it's something I'm less familiar with. Can't wait for the next one!
Just when things start to look up for the Locke kids....
http://knowitnotsomuch.blogspot.com/2013/01/locke-key-keys-to-kingdom.html
A satisfying ending though it took 2 more books than really necessary. I did enjoy the new characters in Rainbow Falls, especially Nummy & Mr. Lyss. However, Victor Immaculate wasn't as interesting as Victor Frankenstein. Maybe because he wasn't flawed in the ways that Victor Frankenstein had been. Nonetheless itbwas an enjoyable series!
Arguably the most famous Batman story of all time. Joker's origins, Barbara's fate and the battle that rages on and on between Batman & Joker.
There is sympathy to be had for the Joker. His flashbacks revealing what happened in his life before he became a cartoon version of himself. But of course, the Joker is still the Joker and his atrocities are legend, especially here.
A definite must read for the Batman fan.
Lackberg is really good at writing characters you really just want to fall off the face of the Earth. I just love her writing! This was creepy and twisty and tense.
And finally, it's over.
Nonstop, crazy action going on here. If you weren't immersed in the Resistance with Lena you were trapped in a mansion with a crazy man with Hana. It was pretty much just like that. Seriously, there was very little down time in Requiem.
Despite being a trilogy with three (four if you count the short Alex at the end of the book) short stories focusing on background characters it is almost as if this story is too big to tell in just three books. Oliver gives us a chance to write our own endings I suppose as there is so much we don't know at this point. Who made it out, who didn't and to be certain, whose victory was it to claim?
I was right in dreading Alex's return, but I see why it had to be that way. I wish ..... I wish there was more. And not because I want the story to be neverending, but because I feel like there's so many characters that were so fleshed out and we got cheated out of our chance to hear their stories. Coral, Pippa, Beast, Bram, Tack, Lu, Grace....I don't remember ever reading a book where I wanted to know so much about so many other characters.
At this point I've read Before I Fall, Liesl & Po and the Delirium trilogy. I have The Spindlers on my Kindle so that one will round out my Lauren Oliver collection quite nicely. I love that Oliver is diverse in her writing. Fantasy, dystopian, introspective, what have you, she's not afraid to write it.
At first I was angry with this book. I felt like the women were still girls. That they hadn't changed at all, except for Tibby. But then, I just fell into the story.
You can read my full review here: http://knowitnotsomuch.blogspot.com/2012/01/sisterhood-everlasting.html
This review was originally posted on my blog here: http://knowitnotsomuch.blogspot.com/2012/10/pandemonium.html
I liked Lena a lot more here than in Delirium. She's harder, but it hasn't stifled her compassion. She comes into the Wilds broken, hurt and ready to die but she soldiers on and make the resistance a priority for herself because she knows it's the right thing. The ‘now' and ‘then' flip flopping of the chapters was great, It felt like everything moved faster although it did leave little room for suspense because you basically knew the future when you were in the ‘then' parts.
I dread Alex returning. While I don't think that what Lena may have found in Pandemonium is deep, I dread the ‘you hurt me' boy all butt hurt and acting like she betrayed him. It's a character that's been done too many times in too many different novels and I was hoping this would be different. Of course, I could be wrong. We'll find out in March when Requiem comes out!