Forever Mine by Elizabeth Reyes

Seventeen-year old Sarah’s life is turned upside down when her single mom is sent to jail. She’s forced to move, leaving behind everything she’s ever known, including her best friend Sydney. Lost and bitter in a new school, her one goal is to save money and move back home. Then she meets Angel Moreno. 

Enigmatic but gorgeous, Angel is almost too good to be true. Except for one thing, his archaic belief that guys and girls can never be “just friends”. The problem? Sarah’s best friend Sydney is not a girl. 

With their unexpected romance intensifying to places neither ever experienced, how long can Sarah keep Angel in the dark? And how will he react when the truth finally comes out?

I have been looking forward to reading this book for weeks (as you can probably see from my IMM post) but sadly it was a let-down of epic standards…for me anyway. But then again I have been pretty tough on the YA books lately haven’t I.

The sex in this book was heavier than what you would find in your average YA novel and frequent – not necessarily actual sex but conversation and stuff like that. 

The first time that they are really alone (which is only their second or third meeting) they are kissing, and then the first date (that is the next day) he is ALL over her…Talk about jumping the gun a bit. And all the way through the book he is always touching her. Which, I suppose on some levels is cute but it just yelled SMOTHERING at me. Give the girl some breathing space will you.

And then there is Angel’s controlling attitude towards Sarah. Now, in my eyes anyway, there is a fine line between being protective and being down right controlling and I think that Angel crossed that line and it did not make me comfortable one little bit – especially when I started to think how the relationship would develop in the future if this attitude continued.

His reaction to finding out that Sarah’s best friend was a guy was completely OTT and his continuing stance that boys and girls can’t ‘just’ be friends made me want to hit him. Just because the only relationship he has ever had with girls has been when they are throwing themselves at him it doesn’t mean that all boy/girl relationships are like that. And then (yip, ain’t finished yet) when he does semi get used to idea he demands to know whenever she and Sydney (her best-friend) talk on the phone. Now I’m sorry but at that point I would have been telling him where to go and not to slam the door as he left! How dare he! And the attitude of his brothers (and the other boys) towards women aren’t that much better and I would have loved to bang all their heads together and tell them to start respecting girls!

I just couldn’t gel with any of the characters at all.

So, all in all not my kind of book.

1 star...maybe 2 at a push.

In My Mailbox! (1)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by the Story Siren here

Can you believe it? I actually have an in my mailbox post this week!! Well, okay, technically the books didn't come via the mailbox, or even come past my front door...

The came flying through the air via Amazon and landed inside my kindle. Clever books!

So, here's the books.

Forever Mine by Elizabeth Reyes

Seventeen-year old Sarah’s life is turned upside down when her single mom is sent to jail. She’s forced to move, leaving behind everything she’s ever known, including her best friend Sydney. Lost and bitter in a new school, her one goal is to save money and move back home. Then she meets Angel Moreno.

Enigmatic but gorgeous, Angel is almost too good to be true. Except for one thing, his archaic belief that guys and girls can never be “just friends”. The problem? Sarah’s best friend Sydney is not a girl.

With their unexpected romance intensifying to places neither ever experienced, how long can Sarah keep Angel in the dark about the guy waiting for her back home? 


This isn't usually my thing but I spotted it over a month ago and I still wanted to read it so I thought 69p wasn't going to break the bank. The story sounds pretty cute and the reviews I have read are positive so we shall see. 

The Princess's Dragon

 A princess is unwillingly transformed into a dragon and now she must learn how to fly! Can Sondra find herself while trapped in the body of a monster?

This is the charming tale of a princess named Sondra who is determined to prove that there are no such things as dragons and magic. Her denial of all things magical leads to her transformation by a grumpy old wizard into a dragon. She must learn how to survive in a body that is not her own with the help of an ancient and intimidating male dragon. Along the way, she discovers that things are never what they appear to be and she must prove herself worthy of a love more magical than anything she has ever denied.

This was an impulse buy on my part. I found it on a kindle fantasy list on Goodreads and immediately thought, this is my kind of book. A girl who doesn't believe in magic and does everything she can to prove it doesn't gets turned into a dragon. CLASS! A review for this will be up very soon. (oh and the cover is sooo pretty)

And last but not least

Winter Passage by Julie Kagawa

Meghan Chase used to be an ordinary girl...until she discovered that she is really a faery princess. After escaping from the clutches of the deadly Iron fey, Meghan must follow through on her promise to return to the equally dangerous Winter Court with her forbidden love, Prince Ash. But first, Meghan has one request: that they visit Puck—Meghan's best friend and servant of her father, King Oberon—who was gravely injured defending Meghan from the Iron Fey. Yet Meghan and Ash's detour does not go unnoticed. They have caught the attention of an ancient, powerful hunter—a foe that even Ash may not be able to defeat.... An eBook exclusive story from Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series.


I actually haven't read ANY of the Iron Fey series but I have been desperate to and although this isn't the first book it was FREE for kindle on Amazon so I thought I would give it a bash.

So that is my IMM for this week and I am crazy glad to actually have something after 3 (?) months of nothing. Happy dance.

So what is in your mail box this week?

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine

Once upon a time, there was a girl who wanted nothing more than to be pretty…

The new novel set in the World of Ella Enchanted

PUBISHED 2006

I was born singing. Most babies cry. I sang an aria. Or so I believe. I have no one to tell me the truth of it. I was abandoned when I was a month old, left at the Featherbed Inn in the Ayorthaian villiage of Amonta. It was January 12th of the year of Thunder Songs.

The Fairy Lucinda has once again given a dreadful gift. THis time it's a mysterious magical mirror. The gift is disastrous when it falls into the hands of Aza, who never looks in a mirror if she can help it. In the Kingdom of Ayortha, Aza is most definitely not the fairest of them all. Many spurn her. Many scoff at her. She keeps out of sight.

But in the land of singers, Aza has her own gift, one she's come by without fairy intervention: a voice that can do almost anything, a voice that captivates all who hear it. In Ontio Castle, merry Prince Ijori is drawn to it, and vain Queen Ivi wants to use it for her own ends. Queen Ivi would do anything to remain the fairest in the land.

In this spellbinding tale filled with humor, adventure, romance, and song, Newbery Honor author Gail Carson Levine invites you to join Aza as she discovers how exquisite she truly is.

(INTO THE OLD WORLD READING CHALLENGE)

(WISH I'D READ THAT CHALLENGE)

The world that Gail Carson Levine has created is wonderful. Here we enter a world were gnomes can see into the future, ogres could makes you cook yourself with their persuasive tongues and the fairy Lucinda is constantly causing trouble with her ‘gifts’. And ‘Fairest’ is no exception.

How do you measure beauty? What would you do to become beautiful? What would you do to stay beautiful? Would you kill?

I would say that this is highly influenced by Snow White, we have magic mirrors, apples, poisons and an evil (and slightly schizophrenic) queen. And of course a maid with black hair, red lips, and pale skin.

I enjoyed this book, although it had me getting very agitated and angered on Aza’s behalf when the people around her treated her terribly because of her looks. I don’t think I have ever wanted to hit so many people from one book before.

I even wanted to give the prince a good wallop for being an insensitive idiot. (SPOILER) But only at the point where everyone assumes that Aza has ogre blood running in her veins.

“I kissed you!”

You swine! You were meant to love her! And now you are letting a little thing like DNA get in the way! DUDE!!

Other than that point I do like the prince, before that bit he is a sweetheart to her. And he finds her beautiful despite what everyone else says.

Needless to say everything turns out well. One poisoned apple and near death experience later of course.

And does Aza have ogre blood in her? Or is she something else?

Fairy Tale Bletherings (5) Sequels

This first book isn't exactly a sequel it is more a 'story of' than a 'continuation too' but who's being picky. It is a very good read so I think it can get popped into the post (and there will be references to this book in some future posts I have planned too).

First off just look at THAT cover.

It is gorgeous! I won't say anything else about it as I am determined to have this as a Cover Crazy one week but DANG. It is just so beautiful to look at.

This is a really good story of Neverland and of the hopeless romantics among us you may well not mind that the growing relationship between Hook and Wendy is going against everything we know of the characters.

I will point out that Wendy is NOT a child in this! We are not told how old she is only that she had been getting older during her time in Neverland. But she is not a little ten year old in this book.

And as you can tell from the cover, you can see that she is older too.

This one is more of a sequel and kicks off with the children once again back home. I have not read this one yet so I can't really say what it is like. Bit it is sitting quite happily on my kindle and I will be doing a review on t in the near future so keep an eye out if you are interested.

Here is the blurb
It has been five years since Wendy Darling and her brothers returned home after a harrowing ordeal in which they'd "gone missing" for several days and nights. To Wendy, they returned by fairy magic, fresh from the fight with Captain Hook, a little mussed up but none the worse for wear.
But to the rest of the world, Wendy and her brothers were abducted and put through such a traumatic experience, Wendy has subconsciously taken to hiding the truth from her brothers and herself by making up stories. Fairy stories – about a boy named Peter Pan and a world called Neverland.
Life is anything but a fairy story for them now. Wendy is being subjected to unwanted psychiatric therapy, her brothers are bullied at school, and the family is falling apart.
Then, one mist-filled night, a billowing black flag parts the clouds in the sky like the fin of a shark. It bears the stark white symbol of a skull and crossbones upon it.
Wendy has been forced to leave Neverland behind. But it is far from finished with her. In the blink of an eye, her world is once more turned upside down by a pixie in human form, a one-handed captain far more handsome and intriguing than she remembered him to be – and by a little boy… who grew up after all.


Sounds good doesn't it?

And last but not least we have Half Upon a Time which is a kind of sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk. I haven't yet been able to read this but it sounds like a really fun read and a post will be up about this at some point too.

Blurb
Life’s no fairy tale for Jack. After all, his father's been missing ever since that incident with the beanstalk and the giant, and his grandfather keeps pushing him to get out and find a princess to rescue. Who'd want to rescue a snobby, entitled princess anyway? Especially one that falls out of the sky wearing a shirt that says "Punk Princess," and still denies she's royalty. In fact, May doesn't even believe in magic. Yeah, what's that about? May does need help though--a huntsman is chasing her, her grandmother has been kidnapped, and Jack thinks it’s all because of the Wicked Queen . . . mostly because May’s grandmother might just be the long-lost Snow White. Jack and May's thrillingly hilarious adventure combines all the classic stories—fractured as a broken magic mirror—into one epic novel for the ages.

Does anyone else know of any novels that are direct or direct-ish pick ups from fairy-tales?

Fairy Tale Bletherings (4) Retellings

Back again guys.

I am sorry if this is me harping on quite a bit but I am really stuck on the reading side of things...still. 

So, there are a whole bunch of Fairy tale re-tellings out there. Some of them are stand alone novels and some of them are in a series. So I thought I would mention a few. Some I have read and some I haven't. 

Robin McKinley has written two re-tellings of  Beauty and the Beast and one of Sleeping Beauty. 

This one is my favourite of her two re-tellings. It is easy to read and follow. 

Now, this one is good also but it is a little more complicated to follow and the language is a bit more...oldie. But there is an interesting twist at the end. 

And this is the re-telling of Sleeping Beauty and I LOVED this one. And it has a great (and I mean GREAT) twist at the end (or I thought so anyway) I would recommend this to anyone. It does seem a little slow and tedious at points but it is well worth the read. 

There is also a series of books published my Simon Pulse called Once Upon a Time... and the list can be found here

The series has everything including Anastasia and Mulan. They are good and aimed towards teens and younger readers I would say. And they have some lovely covers. They aren't overly complicated which makes them gorgeous to look at. 

And then there is the books by Gail Carson Levine. I have only read two of her novels and I found them throughly enjoyable when I was in my early teens. 

 This is a story based on Cinderella. With the interesting twist on the tale that Ella has had a curse of obedience placed on her. But after all...hoe bad could that be? You'll have to read it and find out. 

And Fairest is strongly influenced by Snow White. With mirrors, poisons, apples and near death/death experiences. But of course there is a twist :)

Both of Gail Carson Levine's books are good but the names tend to be a little off putting - for me they were anyway. The human names tend to be normal enough and easy enough to read but the names for the gnomes and other magical creatures are a little strange and I found myself just putting in other names like 'Bill', 'Fred' and 'Jim Bob' because I was too lazy to try and figure out how to get my brain round the actual names. Someone smarter than me could probably manage fine. 

There are also some fairy tale re-tellings by Mercedes Lackey but I haven't read them yet so I can't really recommend them...

Frankenstein by Mary Shelley

Maybe this is squinting at a story and warping it to fit aPhantom mould but just bear with me for a little while.

Frankenstein’s Monster (we shall call him Fred for the rest of this post), Fred, just wants to be loved, yes? And yet he turns into the kind of person that he does because of the way he is treated and the way that others react to him – hmmm….this sounding familiar to anyone?

The only thing that Fred requests of Frankenstein is afemale, a mate who looks the same as he does and will not be disgusted by hisappearance. All Erik wants is to be like any other man and have a wife and a home.

I also got thinking about this a little before I began typing – yeah, occasionally I think.

So here goes what I think.

Fred wanted someone who could match his appearance, a woman who had been patched together from the corpses of others. No I am not going into how Erik thinks of himself as a living corpse – although come to think of it there is a comparison there for you. But moving on.

So we have established that Fred was looking for a woman who was his equal in a physical sense. Maybe, just maybe, Erik was searching forthat one woman who was also his equal but not in a physical sense but in avocal way. Looking for that one person who could fit his voice and blend with him. After all, music is his life, his oxygen so why would that not carry onto any potential relationships. Sorry I am not putting this very clearly. Moving on before I dig myself into a hole. Now the phantom bits are done time for the rest of the post.

Obsessed with creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material to fashion a new being, which he shocks into life with electricity. But his botched creature, rejected by Frankenstein and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy his maker and all that he holds dear. 

I am ashamed to say that this is the first time I have even considered checking this book out. The only kind of history I have with this story is probably the same as many other peoples. The films and the TV sketches. In never really appealed to me. But I was pleasantly surprised by this novel.

It has everything.

Suspense, horror, sci-fi, crime, drama, romance. Like I said EVERYTHING!

I was actually really surprised by how sad and emotional I found in places, which caught me by surprise since I wasn't expecting it to be like that at all. I can't really go into the story a great deal as this was once again an abridges version. *shiver*. But one thing that I found a bit strange was the educated way that the monster spoke. You wouldn't have thought that this guy had been patched together from various bodies when he spoke. That stuck out to me. Perhaps there is a lesson there that appearances can be deceiving.

Frankenstein himself struck me as being a very selfish, weak, idiotic kind of man. All the way through he assumed that the monster was going to make him suffer by killing him. Idiot! This guy is smarter than that and knows that the way to torture Frankenstein is to pick off his loved ones. And it is not like he wasn't provoked. All the monster wanted was a mate, a female of 'his kind' to have by his side and share the life that he was being forced to live with him.

Frankenstein accepts this but then keeps putting it off and putting it off. The guy is a moron. He says himself that there was no knowing what the monster would do and he still continued to procrastinate in the construction of a female monster. And even went on wee holiday in between times. *cough* IDIOT *cough* Oh pardon me.

And then he changes his mind and refuses to create a female - to the monsters face!! And you know that everything is just going to go down hill from there.

And what else. He just has to rub it in the monsters face by getting married doesn't he. I am sorry! But anyone can see that is just adding insult to injury. I think I would have lost my temper good and proper at that point to if I were the monster.

His best friend, his wife and then his father all die (or are murdered - brownie points for whoever can guess who the murderer was)and then he is locked in an asylum because he is thought to be mad. But the dude was a moron in my humble opinion anyway. But he gets out of the asylum and the story continues.

I couldn't help but find it funny that Frankenstein describes the monster as being being selfish and yet I can only see the selfishness and idiocy in Frankenstein. I do not blame the monster for wanting a companion.

All in all very enjoyable if depressing book.

So there is Frankenstein for you :)

Narrator - Richard Pasco

Length - 3hrs 6mins

Published - 28/05/2005

Once again this was an ABRIDGED version of the story. Bah, humbug. It was nice and easy to listen to an easy to follow, despite having the majority of the story missing. :( The reader had a nice voice that wasn't hard to listen to for hours and I could clearly tell when he was speaking as Frankenstein, the monster or Walton.

Fairy Tale Bletherings (3) Beauty and the Beast

And now for my personal favourite - Beauty and the Beast. I am a sucker for this story. I just love it so much. How love can make a beast into a man… *sigh*

I probably won’t be telling anyone anything they don’t already know but I’ll go ahead anyway

Once again this is a story that has various adaptations and versions. In some Beauty has sisters, in other she is an only child. It is also a pretty boring story when it is not given a spin. All it is about is the beast asking Beauty to marry him every night at dinner and every night she says no. That is the basic gist of the story. And, I am glad to say that it doesn’t really have a major icky factor like the previous tales mentioned. The beasts ‘beastliness’ changes in illustrated copies. Sometimes he is a lion (an actual lion) sometimes he has the body of a man and a beasts head – you get the idea.  But there are no bleeding feet, eating children or cutting off of other bodily parts.

One point from what I assume is the original story that sometimes makes it into cartoons and some films are the magical gifts that the beast gives Beauty when she returns to her father for a visit. She is given a mirror that she can use to see what is happening at the Beasts castle and ring than when she twists it on her finger it returns her to the castle.

These versions also have the Beast dying of a broken heart when Beauty is late returning to him. But when she does she cries over him, her tears land on him and he turns into a handsome prince.

But still no blood, gut or gore. Yipee.

What I love the most about this story is how it is in so many other stories and tales. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Phantom of the Opera, Hades and Persephone…

Fairy Tale Bletherings (2) Little Red Riding Hood

Little Red Riding Hood

I find Little Red Riding hood to be one of the more fascinating fairy tales out there so I couldn’t resist giving it a post all its own. I also find the story really interesting to by the time I have finished my blethering it will more than likely be as long as the previous post.

Did you guys know that there were actually werewolf-trials ‘back in the day’? You know? Like witch trials but only looking for were-wolves instead. I sure didn’t and it kind of blew my mind when I was doing some quick research for this post and double checking some stuff. Please tell me I am not the only one who didn’t know this.

Anyway, that little titbit of information isn’t there just for the sake of it. It is there because in some versions of the story the wolf is sometimes referred to as a werewolf.  Cool huh! Well, not for the poor people who were tried and executed but there is a wee bit of trivia for you anyway…

So there are quite a few versions of the story of Little Red Riding Hood - some that are a little more gruesome than others.

Early versions of the story have the wolf leaving the meat of the grandmother out and Little Red Riding Hood eating her grandmother without knowing it. Um YUCK! And not all the versions have Little Red Riding Hood getting away. In some she does actually stay eaten.

Some have the wolf eating both grandmother and granddaughter and then having him take a nap (after all everyone feels like a wee sleep after eating a big meal don’t they?) The woodcutter then comes along, cuts them out of the sleeping wolf’s belly, fills it with rocks and sew him back up. The wolf then drowns after waking up and feeling thirsty after his big meal he goes for a drink and falls into the water.  Pretty icky really isn’t it?

But in the earlier versions of the story a red cloak/hood isn’t even mentioned.

And then there are of course the oodles of meanings that are given to the story. But I won’t go into them other than to say that they are indeed wide and VERY varied and not always about a little girl going to visit her grandmother for the day.

Fairy Tale Bletherings (1)

Snow White

Sleeping Beauty

The Little Mermaid

Cinderella

Since I am finding it ridiculously hard to get into any books lately I thought I would do something a little different and post on fairy-tales, I didn’t really pluck the idea out of mid-air though. One of the books I have been trying to read is a fairy tale type book.

I don’t think that I have enough followers to actually start any arguments but this is not meant to offend anyone’s views of their favourite cartoon or anything else. This is just me being…well…me. This is not meant to be a be-all-and-end-all, professional post on fairy tales, it is just me having some fun. 

So let’s get going.

So despite the fluffy and happy version of these fairy tales, the original versions tend to be a little icky…

‘Snow White’ for example. The Wicked Queen didn’t just try to kill Snow White with the apple. Oh no, there were suffocating laces, poisoned combs and then the apple. And there is no denying that Snow White is VERY dim to fall for the queens tricks every time. And how is the wicked queen punished at the end? She is put into a pair of red hot iron shoes (of course) and made to dance until she drops dead. Oh, goody, that makes a nice bedtime story for little kiddlie-winks everywhere. NOT!

And how about ‘The Little Mermaid’’? Well kids, she DIES at the end! That’s right. The stupid prince doesn’t marry her and the Little Mermaid jumps into the sea and turns into sea foam because she loved the idiot prince too much to pop him off and save her own life. And then we have her constantly bleeding feet. Yip, can anyone imagine THAT in a Disney film.

Now let’s have a look at Sleeping Beauty. The first half of the tale is pretty much as most versions depict it. But not everything is rosy after the marriage. The prince loved his wife and children so much that he left them to go and play at soldiers in another kingdom while leaving his family in the clutches of his crazy mother. Charming. Who was more than happy to have them boiled, roasted or stuffed and have a good nosh up – of THEM! I would personally want a divorce at that point but that’s just me…

Cinderella. Now mostly Cinderella isn’t too…icky but it is a wee bit. The version by Charles Perrault is the one that is stuck to predominately through childrens entertainment, with the fairy godmother, pumpkin etc, etc, etc. But then there is the good old Brother’s Grimm, we can always count on them to get a grim (get that…lol – ok moving on) spin on things. In that version we have the step sisters cutting off bits of their feet so that they could try and fool the prince and fit into the shoe and then they have their eyes pecked out by birds – and the prince is painted to be a bit of a tool too.

More coming soon…

Any specific fairy tale you would like me to mention. Pop a comment below!

Cover Crazy about Cry Wolf

Cover Crazy is a weekly meme hosted at The Book Worms

It was a bit of a toss up for a cover this week but when I was sorting through the bag of stuff heading to the second hand shop I hit on it.

I think this cover is great. I like the whole thing. It has a nearly haunted look about it if that makes any sense. The only thing that is a bit of a let down it the 'new' covers for Patricia Briggs' books. All the covers have been changed to these silhouette type covers than have nothing on the art work of the old covers.

Yeah...see what I mean...?

It is just missing everything that is amazing about the original! In my humble opinion...

To Be Read in May! (2)

Since there are still no new books on my shelf (meaning no IMM) here are the books I am hoping to get through before the end of the month.

I have finished my first list which was Avalon High, Stolen and Girl, Missing.

So here be list number 2...

Fairest by Gail Carson Levine (this is a re-read from about four/fives years ago I think)

Acorna the Unicorn Girl by Anne McCaffrey ad Margaret Ball (another re-read this time from when I was about 10 years old (a looonng time ago))

And maybe Ice by Sarah Beth Durst, but I have been iffy/butty about reading this for ages. But needs must :)

Book Blogger Hop!

The Book Blogger Hop is a weekly meme that can be found at Crazy-for-Books



QN - "Are you going to Book Expo America (BEA) and/or the Book Blogger Convention (BBC) this year?"

Sadly no :(. My finances lately can't even stretch to getting new books, so a plane ticket from the UK to the US would be stretching it a bit I think. I will enjoy reading about everyone else experiences though. 

Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie

PUBLISHED 2006

Lauren is adopted and eager to know more about her mysterious past. But when she discovers she may have been snatched from an American family as a baby, her life suddenly feels like a sham. Why will no one answer her questions? How can she find her biological mum and dad? And are her adoptive parents really responsible for kidnapping her?

Lauren runs away from her family to find out the truth, but her journey takes her into more and more danger – as she discovers that the people who abducted her are prepared to do anything to keep her silent.


(INTO THE OLD WORLD READING CHALLENGE)
(WISH I'D READ THAT CHALLENGE)

It is embarrassing how long it took me to read this book. It took me forever!  Well not quite. Maybe just over a week…but the point still stands. It took ages! I just couldn’t get into it and no matter how hard I tried and whatever angle I looked at it from I just couldn’t find it in me to like the main character. I am sure for  a 12-14 year old who is feeling like their parents don’t understand them and wishing that their ‘real’ family would come along and rescue them any day this book would be the order of the day but I found it more annoying than anything else.

Lauren knows that she has been adopted and thanks to a school project her curiosity surfaces and she starts asking questions that her adoptive parents either skirt around or don’t answer at all and then she starts to suspect that she was stolen from her biological family after she sees the picture of a little girl who could have been her on a missing children website.

I am sorry but I just didn’t like Lauren at all. She didn’t think how her actions would affect the people in her life at all and painted everyone else to be the bad guys. But oh no, she was never in the wrong. Heaven forbid she actually made a mistake.  All the time she was constantly saying things like ‘how could they say that, didn’t they understand x/y/z’ everything was me, me, me and by then end of the book I seriously wanted to slap some sense into her.

And even when she found her real parents she wasn’t happy! Honestly! There is no pleasing some people.

The one character that I can honestly say that I loved was Lauren’s youngest biological sister, six year old Madison. She was adorable. And because of Lauren and her actions she got hurt. Stupid girl!

There is some action, some suspense, a little bit of romance (that was kind of predictable) and a few curses dotted through out (that would be bad words, not the magical kind).

So, perhaps the age group that this is aimed at would love the storyline but I found it annoying and the main character selfish and unthinking towards anyone else's feelings but her own.

2 out of 5

 

Cover Crazy about Lisa Mantchev

Just look at that GORGEOUS COVER!!! I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it. It is soooo pretty!!

I love this series and I can't wait for the third and final installment *sniff* to come out in September. My love for this series drove me to do 2 things (well 3 really) that I have never done before in my life.
1. Enter a competition to win an ARC of the book. I didn't win - obviously :(
2. PRE-ORDER the book. I have never been one for pre-ordering books. I just get them when they come out. But not this time. It will be in the mail to me on release day and in my hand by the end of that week. Yipee. CAN'T WAIT!!
and 3. willingly spend the extra pennies on a hard back book because I - in all honesty - couldn't wait for the paperback.

Back to the cover.

It is just such a fantasy front cover! Fairies, a girl and a white dress! It also brings so many questions to mind about what is going to be happening in the last book. e.g. why is Bertie's hair white? Hmm...

And since I am talking about the series I can not finish this post without showing the equally beautiful covers of the first 2 books in the series...

How pretty will they all look on a shelf together!

Northanger Abbey by Jane Austen

'What have you been judging from?...Dearest Miss Morland, what ideas have you been admitting?' 

During an eventful season at Bath, young, naive Catherine Morland experiences fashionable society for the first time. She is delighted with her new acquaintances: flirtatious Isabella, who introduces Catherine to the joys of Gothic romances, and sophisticated Henry and Eleanor Tilney, who invite her to their father's house, Northanger Abbey. There, influenced by novels of horror and intrigue, Catherine comes to imagine terrible crimes committed by General Tilney, risking the loss of Henry's affection, and has to learn the difference between fiction and reality, false friends and true. With its broad comedy and irrepressible heroine,Northanger Abbey is the most youthful and optimistic of Jane Austen's works. 


WHISPER STORIES IN MY EAR CHALLENGE

I have always disliked this book, mainly because of the weird and wonderful adaptations that there have been. They are just so...bizarre.

But to read (or rather listen too) I liked this. The bizarre aspect is there but it isn't as heavy as the TV films make it out to be.

But, is it just me or is Catherine a little THICK! I mean really! She is so dim that it kind of grated on my nerves at some points. I just wanted to yell at her to get a clue already. But then I suppose that she is meant to be that way. After all she has never been away from the little village that she has lived in all her life so she is a bit sheltered. But with all of the reading that she is supposed to have done you would have thought that she would be a little brighter that she is portrayed and be able to add 2 and 2 together, but instead it seems that all the novels she has read really have rotted her brain. She views things with suspicion that are completely normal and things that aren't quite right go straight over her head. Obviously some guys find that attractive but to me it was just plan irritating. 

To be honest there are only a few of the Jane Austen heroes out there that I actually like.  Some of them strike me as being weak and well... wimps. But I think I could have easily got used to Henry - if I had too.






Narrator - Jill Balcon
Length - 3hrs 6mins
Published - 26/07/2006

I found this to be a little bit of a disappointment. The reader, though great at doing the female characters wasn't terribly good at the men, she had a way of making them seem pompous so matter who she was meant to be at the time. And then there was the fact this this was the ABRIDGED version. I didn't realise this until the first part ended a little too soon to be the full story. *shiver* even the word abridged brings me out in a rash. So, all in all a disappointment. Other readers do it better justice in my opinion.
And whoever was in charge of the abridging they need a good talking too because near the end things just did not make sense at all - it could have been done A LOT better.

Avalon High by Meg Cabot

PUBLISHED 2006

Avalon High seems like a typical high school, attended by typical students: There's Lance, the jock. Jennifer, the cheerleader. And Will, senior class president, quarterback, and all-around good guy.

But not everybody at Avalon High is who they appear to be ... not even, as new student Ellie is about to discover, herself. What part does she play in the drama that is unfolding? What if the bizarre chain of events and coincidences she has pieced together means -- as with the court of King Arthur -- tragedy is fast approaching Avalon High?

Worst of all, what if there's nothing she can do about it?

(INTO THE OLD WORLD READING CHALLENGE)

This book is a re-read. And thinking about it now I think I probably read it about once a year. But it is good and  it's a nice easy read too.

I always wanted to be an Ellie growing up. Tall and athletic. Needless to say, that didn't happen. Short and on the dumpy side of slim is more like me, but never mind, I got over it.

The whole idea of this story is pretty cool. That through the years the powers of good and evil have been fighting as King Arthur's attempt to 'rise again' are thwarted by the evil Mordred. Like I said. Pretty cool!

Ellie is a fun character to read the story through, she has whit and more than once I found myself giggling at her reactions to things.

Will is just too perfect! I couldn't really like him, no matter how hard I tried. Perfect grades, perfect manners...he is just too shiny. I totally get that he is supposed to be a modern King Arthur but really! Couldn't the guy have bad breath or something!

All in all, a fun read.

The White Darkness by Garaldine McCaughrean

PUBLISHED - 2005

I have been in love with Titus Oates for quite a while now—which is ridiculous, since he's been dead for ninety years. But look at it this way. In ninety years I'll be dead, too, and the age difference won't matter.

Sym is not your average teenage girl. She is obsessed with the Antarctic and the brave, romantic figure of Captain Oates from Scott's doomed expedition to the South Pole. In fact, Oates is the secret confidant to whom she spills all her hopes and fears.

But Sym's uncle Victor is even more obsessed—and when he takes her on a dream trip into the bleak Antarctic wilderness, it turns into a nightmarish struggle for survival that will challenge everything she knows and loves.

In her first contemporary young adult novel, Carnegie Medalist and three-time Whitbread Award winner Geraldine McCaughrean delivers a spellbinding journey into the frozen heart of darkness

WHISPER IN MY EAR CHALLENGE

INTO THE OLD WORLD READING CHALLENGE

Did you know that Antarctica is classified as a desert? One of the driest places on earth? No? Well I didn't either. Amazing that!

I love this book. I first read it when I was part of the Carnagie book awards group at my secondary school and it was one of the books we were to read. I loved it then, and I am so glad to see that my feelings for it haven't changed.

So, as I have said this was a re-read from a few year ago (well-re-listen actually)

The funny thing though about this book is that, despite loving it, I have a hard time trying to explain it. It is one of those books that seems to explain itself as you read. It is easy to explain to a point anyway.

Sym, a teenage girl, gets taken to Antarctica by her uncle where his dastardly plan comes to light and she finds out that everything that she had thought about her life was a lie. Easy yeah? But then you have the added drama of Sym having 32 year old Titus Oates in her head. Is he imaginary? Is he real? You think you know until you read the end and then you are left with the question. Just what is he?

This is a great read! Sym is a great heroine who has humor, wit and a maturity that meant that I could re-read (listen :)) this at 20 and her attitude to things didn't grate on my nerves.

One matter that hasn't changed since my first read is how little Titus in in the book. I loved reading the conversations that went on between the two of them within Sym's head and I wish there were more moments like that as they mostly consisted of very funny banter between the two of them.

I would love to see a sequel.

Narrator - Ruth Sillers, Richard Morant
Length - 9hrs 20mins
Published - 01/10/2008


This was fantastic fun to listen too, especially since I could compare the audio experience to the straight forward reading. The thing that made all the difference to the audio was having a male reader for Titus - and Richard Morant as the voice of Titus was great. Although the women readers on the audios I have listened to in the past have done great jobs of playing male voices actually have a man to do the voice was what made this audio for me. Ruth Sillers had a lovely voice that I had no problem listening to for the majority of the audio. 


5 out of 5 for this audio *****

Stolen:A Letter to My Captor by Lucy Christopher

So, a scarred dude kidnaps a young chick and takes her to some unknown location in the Australian outback. Now, use your imagination, put on your Phantom tinted glasses and that sounds really familiar doesn’t it.

But of course, it isn’t a Phantom story exactly. It is set in modern day and Ty (our Phantom) isn’t scared physically but emotionally and there isn't any music either, but I think you can forgive me for seeing this as a Phantomy book. It has abduction and Ty wanting feelings from Gemma that she just isn't prepared to give. 

And without further ado…

Sixteen year old Gemma is kidnapped from Bangkok airport and taken to the Australian Outback. This wild and desolate landscape becomes almost a character in the book, so vividly is it described. Ty, her captor, is no stereotype. He is young, fit and completely gorgeous. This new life in the wilderness has been years in the planning. He loves only her, wants only her. Under the hot glare of the Australian sun, cut off from the world outside, can the force of his love make Gemma love him back? The story takes the form of a letter, written by Gemma to Ty, reflecting on those strange and disturbing months in the outback. Months when the lines between love and obsession, and love and dependency, blur until they don't exist - almost.

Wow, this is deep! I still have 100 pages to go but I felt like writing a little bit about it now and then I'll finish this once I have completed the book.

Ty has kidnapped Gemma from a busy airport and taken her deep into the Australian outback where her only way to survive is to stick with him. She has no idea where she is and no idea where to find help.

This book is slightly disturbing to hear Ty talk the way he does. He does not see himself as a bad guy. Or even a kidnapper. The way he sees it is this way - he has rescued Gemma from the life that she was living. (Thats just weird right there isn't it).We learn about the life that he lived before meeting Gemma and after meeting Gemma. This guy is damaged! He has been keeping an eye on Gemma from when she was 10 years old because he was curious and then when she was around 14 (from what I could figure out) his view of her changed (from whatever that view was) to him wanting to 'rescue' her.

But this is where the freaky mind trick comes in. At times he is a really nice guy. He does care about Gemma on some kind of level, although he isn't going to be letting her go anytime soon - or ever.

The book has been pretty graphic at points - which I suppose has added a sense of reality to it. I mean, there hasn't been anything blood-guts-and-gore just sickie stuff like throwing up and bile (lots of bile). And swearing. The language is pretty static, sticking with the same curses but I find it unnecessary. This is a good book because of the story line but the language does put me off quite a little bit.

Deep, deep, deep, minding bending stuff!

Right all finished. 

Sheesh, what to say, what to say...

I have read some reviews where they have said that they have fallen for Ty and that Gemma should have stayed with him etc, etc, etc. Well...I don't know if I agree. This guy had some serious issues. I mean, I would love to read a sequel don't get me wrong but he absolutely went about everything the wrong way. It is the same way that I am torn in the Christine/Erik relationship from the original novel. I would have loved for them to be together and still living happily ever after in a kingdom of music deep beneath the Opera house, but then a larger part of me screams that Erik was anything but stable and any kind of relationship would have been fraught with emotional strain...

It is an interesting read from the point of view of Gemma getting used to her situation. And you start to wonder if she really did have Stockholm Syndrome...But that is how this book screws with your head.

We don't see anything of Gemma's parents through the book other than what we are told until the very end. I found them...irritating. They weren't 3D enough to be maybe that was because I had just spent nearly 300 pages with only Ty and Gemma that they were the only ones who seemed 'Real'.

It was pretty cool that there were no chapters. This is a letter, so of course there would be no chapters. So that was pretty funky.

Ok. Bad bits....

Think, think, think.

It is only really what I pointed out at the beginning of the post. Language and graphic-iness. I think actually that a 'not suitable for younger readers' tag on the back would have been fitting. Theres nothing HEAVY but just...yeah. If you have read this you might know what I mean.

Good read though and I would love a sequel. (SPOILER) to see just what happens? Was Ty put in jail? What was his sentence? What will happen when he gets out?

-----------

So  what so you think. Slightly Phantomy I think...

Next up will be Frankenstein.

To Be Read in May!

Soooo, this will either doom the books to failure or it will work :-)

Here are the books that have been sitting on my shelf for *looks at feet and scuff the floor* a while *cough* and I am hoping to get read this month since I am falling really really behind in my book challenges.

Right, that being said, here we go.

Avalon High by Meg Cabot (re-read from a few years ago)

Girl, Missing by Sophie McKenzie (been on my shelf for a loooong time)

Stolen by Lucy Christopher (been on my shelf for a long time too - but not as long as Girl, Missing)

I do have more to get through but lets start off small and see how things go.

Onwards I go :-)

Favourite Book of April

*crickets and tumble weed*

For some reason, despite having actually read a couple of books in April I feel like I haven't read any. How weird is that!

So since most of the books I read come under 'junior' fiction, one under "plain silly' and the rest are post as I read.

The undisputed winner this month is 'The White Darkness'.

Random!

I have decided to name today - leave a nice comment on every blog I visit day.