Thursday, January 29, 2015

Book Review: Unhinged


Title: Unhinged
Author: A. G. Howard
Series: Splintered
Book #: 2
Pages: 387
Book Rating:
Goodreads Rating: 4.33
Published: January 7th 2014
Alyssa Gardner has been down the rabbit hole and faced the bandersnatch. She saved the life of Jeb, the guy she loves, and escaped the machinations of the disturbingly seductive Morpheus and the vindictive Queen Red. Now all she has to do is graduate high school and make it through prom so she can attend the prestigious art school in London she's always dreamed of.

That would be easier without her mother, freshly released from an asylum, acting overly protective and suspicious. And it would be much simpler if the mysterious Morpheus didn’t show up for school one day to tempt her with another dangerous quest in the dark, challenging Wonderland—where she (partly) belongs.

As prom and graduation creep closer, Alyssa juggles Morpheus’s unsettling presence in her real world with trying to tell Jeb the truth about a past he’s forgotten. Glimpses of Wonderland start to bleed through her art and into her world in very disturbing ways, and Morpheus warns that Queen Red won’t be far behind.

If Alyssa stays in the human realm, she could endanger Jeb, her parents, and everyone she loves. But if she steps through the rabbit hole again, she'll face a deadly battle that could cost more than just her head.



  Oh my god I'm totally speechless about this book, and not in a good way. What happened? Splintered was really awesome and I expected more amazingness for this book but instead I was so disappointed. It took me two weeks to finish this book, when usually it takes me two days to finish a book. 

  Ok so let's talk  about the plot. The book was literally all about Alyssa being over dramatic about which guy to choose. I wanted to shake her so bad! I'm super serious about the whole book being about Morpheus trying to get Alyssa to go to Wonderland and stop Red. And her saying to give her more time so that she could explain to Jeb what happened to him in Wonderland.
And Jeb, oh my god don't get me started on him. He was annoying and kept disappearing during the whole book, and when he was there he just wanted to have sex with Alyssa. 

  And then finally like ten pages before the book ends we get to the exciting part where they discover where is Red going to attack, and you guys will never guess where, prom! Are you freaking kidding me! Prom!!! WHY??? so overall this book annoyed me so much, there where only small parts that I really enjoyed for example the scene of Morpheus taking care of Rabid. So I will definitely read Ensnared next but will I ever read this book again? Probably not. 


Thursday, January 15, 2015

Feature and Follow

This is a weekly blog meme hosted by Parajunkee's View and Alison Can Read.
Here are the general rules to Follow Friday:
1. Follow the Follow My Book Blog Friday Hosts and any one else you want to follow on the list  
2. Follow our Featured Bloggers 
3. Put your Blog name & URL in the Linky thing. 
4. Grab the button up there and place it in a post, this post is for people to find a place to say hi in your comments 
5. Follow Follow Follow as many as you can 
6. If someone comments and says they are following you, be a dear and follow back. Spread the Love...and the followers
7. If you want to show the link list, just follow the link below the entries and copy and paste it within your post! 
8. If your new to the follow Friday hop, comment and let me know, so I can stop by and check out your blog!


This week's question is: Do you own any doubles of your books? What led to getting that second...or third or fourth...copy? - Suggested by a GREAT read.  



Yes I have three doubles haha, let me tell you how that happened. Last semester I took my YA literature class, we had a list of books that we had to read. I bought almost all of the books in my kindle, but the ones that I really loved I actually went and bought the physical book. I literally bought them just so that I could hug them haha. And those books were The Book Thief and Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, as for the third book it's The Hunger Games. I had the book with me but I decided to buy the ebook just so that it could be one more less thing for me to carry around my university, and because it's easier to search for a quote.


Book Review: Splintered


Title: Splintered
Author: A. G. Howard
Series: Splintered
Book #: 1
Pages: 371
Book Rating:
Goodreads Rating: 4.02
Published: January 1st 2013

This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.


When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own.


I love this book! And I know I've been saying that about every single book I read but it's the truth. This book is so twisted I love it. I like how we see some characters we have all known from our childhood and they are not what we thought them to be. 
Alyssa:  She's strong, funny, and a bit crazy. I like how she doesn't depend entirely on Jeb. She can get things done by herself. I think that the reason I really liked Alyssa's character is because she is finding herself. She is realizing how strong and dependent she can be. 

Jeb: Ughhh. That's all I have to say. I don't really see the point of him been in the story, Yeah he can be sweet and is very family-oriented. But there were times when he was so overprotective it felt like he was holding Alyssa back. I honestly didn't like him, and as I continue reading Unhinged I am starting to dislike him quite more. 

Morpheus: Yay! I am totally team Morpheus! But don't get me wrong I know he is not a saint at all. He is very manipulative. There were times where I was seriously confused because I didn't know if he was good or evil. He is selfish, but selfless. He is manipulative, but sometimes honest. He is thoughtless, but can also be considerate. I honestly love him. He doesn't want to shelter Alyssa he pushes her, so that she can realize her own limits, so that she can see how much potential she has. 

Overall I really loved this book. I did not see that little twist with Alyssa's lineage coming, so it was really surprising. There were parts in the book that I had to reread twice because I didn't get but overall it's easy to understand. I really recommend this book to everyone. 

Tuesday, January 6, 2015

Book Review: Snow Like Ashes


Title: Snow Like Ashes
Author: Sara Raasch
Series: Snow Like Ashes
Book #: 1
Pages: 422
Book Rating:
Goodreads Rating: 4.07
Published: October 14th 2014

A heartbroken girl. A fierce warrior. A hero in the making.


Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. Now, the Winterians’ only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape, and who have been waiting for the opportunity to steal back Winter’s magic and rebuild the kingdom ever since.

Orphaned as an infant during Winter’s defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee, raised by the Winterians’ general, Sir. Training to be a warrior—and desperately in love with her best friend, and future king, Mather — she would do anything to help her kingdom rise to power again.

So when scouts discover the location of the ancient locket that can restore Winter’s magic, Meira decides to go after it herself. Finally, she’s scaling towers, fighting enemy soldiers, and serving her kingdom just as she’s always dreamed she would. But the mission doesn’t go as planned, and Meira soon finds herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics – and ultimately comes to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.

Meira made me really like this book. Finally I read a book were the female character is strong and brave (and doesn't need any boys, well maybe a little bit). There were many reasons why I loved this book so let me list them. 
-All the season related sayings that they had.
"Golden Leaves," he swears
“Even the strongest blizzards start with a single snowflake” 

-And obviously how awesome Meira is.
“No matter what happens, no matter who turns on me, no matter what pompous swine thinks he has power over me, I am still me. I will always be me.” 
“I wanted a life of my own, a life where I could feel myself being a part of Winter. And that, to me, came through fighting for it.” 

-I loved the setting and the people, especially I loved reading about the Winterians and how their hope was never really broken. 
“Someday we will be more than words in the dark.” 
(This quote gives me chills every time I read it)
“Sometimes placing our belief in something bigger than ourselves helps us get to a point where we can be enough on our own, magic or no magic.”

-Heck I even like the love triangle!
“I’m at the center of this, a weird possessive feud between the Winter king and the Cordellan prince.”

Ok so I'm going to stop there before I write the whole book! Seriously I can't wait to read the second book and I really recommend this book.

Thursday, January 1, 2015

Feature and Follow

Feature & Follow is a weekly meme hosted by Alison Can Read and Parajunkee where we get to answer a weekly question and find new friends and followers!

If you'd like to join, please click on the links highlighted in pink to go to the hosts website for a full set of rules.

Question of the Week: What was your favourite book of 2014 - or books if you can't name just one? - via AlisonCanRead 



Well I didn't read that many books in 2014 but this are my favorite ones...




Follow via Goodreads and...













Happy New Year!!!

Happy New Year to everyone! I hope you guys started with a good day and if not here's a recipe to cure hangovers haha!

For this year I have some bookish goals that I hope to accomplish. I know this year I didn't really blog that much, school and work always left me exhausted! But I hope that for this year I can juggle all three of them.

My Goals:

  1. Read more books- I became to lazy about reading books. If I had time I would spent it either sleeping or browsing through imgur. If you guys don't know what that is, don't google it it's for your own safety. 
  2. Blog more- I definitely miss blogging so this year I will try to find the time to blog. 
  3. Organize myself- Between school homework and getting a promotion at my work (becoming the supervisor of 20 something cashiers) I was running all over the place and being super stressed. So for this year I need to organize myself and maybe get an agenda or something. 
  4. Remember why I started blogging and try to go back to being that person, not force myself to read a book that I don't want to, just because everyone else is doing it. Reading and blogging is something I created because it was a way to de-stress myself and I had fun. 
  5. Complete the 2015 reading challenge that I set for reading 50 books. I know it's a small number of books compared to those who read 100 but last year I didn't have time to read so now I want to select a realistic number. 
  6. Start a new feature- Sometimes it's hard getting followers for your blog so I was thinking about doing a feature called Friday: Find a Friend. Where every Friday you team up with a new blogger that you find (or maybe I could team bloggers, I'm still not sure about it) and ask each other some questions to get to know each other. And then you go around following bloggers so that we can all make more friends!:) For this idea I would need to find a co-host who would help me, so if you are interested let me know:)
So for now those are my book related goals, which ones are yours? I hope you have a great day and a great year!
Love, 

Book Review: Eleanor & Park



Title: Eleanor & Park

Author: Rainbow Rowell
Series: Eleanor & Park
Book #: 1
Pages: 328
Book Rating:
Goodreads Rating: 4.18
Published: February 26th 2013

Two misfits.
One extraordinary love.

Eleanor
... Red hair, wrong clothes. Standing behind him until he turns his head. Lying beside him until he wakes up. Making everyone else seem drabber and flatter and never good enough...Eleanor.

Park... He knows she'll love a song before he plays it for her. He laughs at her jokes before she ever gets to the punch line. There's a place on his chest, ju
st below his throat, that makes her want to keep promises...Park.

Set over the course of one school year, this is the story of two star-crossed sixteen-year-olds—smart enough to know that first love almost never lasts, but brave and desperate enough to try.



“I just want to break that song into pieces and love them all to death.” 

  That quote perfectly describes how I feel about this book. I just want to tear this book into pieces and love them all to death. When I was reading the book I started by liking the characters and how they acted and then out of nowhere BOOM! I fell in love with them! I kept on flipping through the pages like crazy, I had never before been so invested in some characters like I was with Eleanor and Park. Their love is just pure and innocent, it reminds me back when I had my first boyfriend and holding hands was a big deal. 

“Holding Eleanor's hand was like holding a butterfly. Or a heartbeat. Like holding something complete, and completely alive.”

  Their epic romance starts not with words but with silence. They communicate through comic books and music. And then it keeps on progressing. For the first time I read a book that it's about two normal high school kids falling in love in a VERY realistic way. It wasn't love at first sight in fact they had a rocky beginning, but that's what makes this book so amazing. Because it feels realistic, and the readers can relate to this book. I remember being in high school and being self-conscious, just like Eleanor. And Park being half Korean and half Irish and trying to figure who he really was, just like any other teenager in the world.

 “Eleanor was right. She never looked nice. She looked like art, and art wasn't supposed to look nice; it was supposed to make you feel something.” 

  I liked how the story was really realistic. It wasn't all about romance there was also family problems. But the only problem I had was with Eleanor's step father. Would an adult really do that? Right those things like a little kid? To me that was a little unbelievable. But over all I really liked this book so much and if you haven't read it I recomend that you go and read it right now.