Teaser Tuesday {2}

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

~

This week I'm reading BeSwitched by Molly Snow:

Surla spread her fingers, looking at the rounded shapes. "Can you make them more pointed?" The manicurist gave her a funny look while Cathy (sitting on Surla's lap) nudged her stomach in disapproval.

 BeSwitched is a really cute read and I have a review coming up. Meanwhile, please share the links to your Teasers this Tuesday. I'd love some more books to add to my ever-growing TBR pile!

In My Mailbox {3}

Hi and welcome! In case you're wondering, IMM is a meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. Basically we make other bloggers jealous showcase all the books we got over the week :). You ready, guys? I have very little to show you today, but here goes...

F R O M   A U T H O R   F O R   R E V I E W

When a magical black cat, Surla, runs away from her bombastic witch, Idis, she has no idea that she will soon be living as a teenage girl, confronting both the mean girls and the popular—and very cute—guys of Washington High on a daily basis.
While Surla may look like Cathy, her peers notice a dramatic change in her personality when she starts standing up for herself, dressing differently, snagging dates, and picking up strange habits. Meanwhile, the witch Idis is a flaming red-haired fury as she awkwardly tries to fit into society. She must hunt down her familiar in order to be able to continue performing spells. In spite of their circumstances, Surla and Cathy learn more about themselves and gain great self esteem by being each other. Not only this, but the usual drama and young love in high school life is kindled in BeSwitched as Todd, the handsome quarterback, shows sincere interest in Cathy. The "curse" of being BeSwitched winds up being the most purr-fect secret these new best friends could ever have!

Following years of persecution at the hands of Vivica Vance, Daphne Downing levels the playing field wielding her No. 2 Ticonderoga pencil as she belatedly enters the world of witchcraft. Daphne becomes part of the Mysterious Girls’ Secret Bathroom Society and finds out that the politics governing witchcraft are daunting and sometimes deadly. She realizes she is aligned with the Charmers in this political battle with the Spiters led by her nemesis, Vivica. Along the way, she discovers that witches do not perform magic or witchcraft but a differentiated form of physics that only some women have mastered. The story deepens as she learns about the long history of witches’ domination and annihilation of wizards.

So that's what I have this week! What did you guys get in your mailboxes? Leave me a link and I'll check it out :).

Review: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

Goodreads | Amazon

Meghan Chase has a secret destiny; one she could never have imagined. 
Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan's life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school or at home. 
When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she's known is about to change. 
But she could never have guessed the truth - that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she'll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil no faery creature dare face; and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart.

I read this book a while back but have never had the time to review it so here goes :).

As far as I know, virtually everyone who's read The Iron King has loved it--or at least, enjoyed it. And I realise that the reason for this is Julie Kagawa's amazing writing style. Who can narrate a story and have it flow seamlessly off the page? Who can combine a magical love story with a believable and likeable heroine; write so elegantly and smoothly that readers don't even realise they've given up a few hours of their lives to wander into the Nevernever? Julie Kagawa can.

The most amazing thing about The Iron King is how the author weaves mythology, Shakespeare, and contemporary into a beautiful tale of love and adventure. The faery world is not described in epic detail down to every single darn dust mote in the air (which is a crime I believe that many authors are guilty of committing); it doesn't need to, because Julie Kagawa has the talent to add a little bit of detail here and there until you can simply walk in Meghan's shoes.

Although the story does seem rather cliche at first sight--I mean, just reading the pitch gives off a bit of a cliche-y vibe including the forbidden lust love and the secret destiny, the author manages to create a book of adventure and excitement that many other paranormal authors fail to achieve.

Another thing Julie Kagawa does excellently is Meghan's character. For me, she was thoroughly relatable, relatively headstrong, and she wasn't nearly as whiney as other YA heroines (phew! That's becoming a pet peeve of mine these days--sorry). However, one thing that did have me grinding my teeth and shaking my fist during the rare times when I was actually distracted enough to realise I was, in fact, reading a book, was when Meghan continuously made deals with the faery folk. Honestly, from the first moment and the first deal that Meghan ever made, I instantly knew that deals were a bad thing in the faery world. And Meghan did not seem to realise that as she kept on making deal-after-deal-after-freaking-deal. Which annoyed me to no end. That is, quite honestly, the only quibble I have with the book, and since it's nothing to do with the author's writing, I am not going to dock a star for it.

As for the love interests...I realise that both Ash and Puck are in love (or, should I say, interested) in Meghan, but at this point, I am completely with Ash. The romance scenes made my skin tingle and I am in absolute squee-mode over Ash, which I guess is what the author meant to do all along with all the suspense and the OMG NOW KISS! moments. So brownie points for that, Julie.

Overview: The Iron King was an amazing paranormal adventure. I loved the folklore, I loved the writing, I loved the characters, and above all, I loved the Nevernever. There is virtually nothing I can criticise about this book and I strongly recommend you give it a go. Five stars.

OMG. AMAZING. MUST-READ.

Review: The Splendour Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore

Goodreads | Amazon

Sylvie Davis is a ballerina who can’t dance. A broken leg ended her career, but Sylvie’s pain runs deeper. What broke her heart was her father’s death, and what’s breaking her spirit is her mother’s remarriage—a union that’s only driven an even deeper wedge into their already tenuous relationship. 
Uprooting her from her Manhattan apartment and shipping her to Alabama is her mother’s solution for Sylvie’s unhappiness. Her father’s cousin is restoring a family home in a town rich with her family’s history. And that’s where things start to get shady. As it turns out, her family has a lot more history than Sylvie ever knew. More unnerving, though, are the two guys that she can’t stop thinking about. Shawn Maddox, the resident golden boy, seems to be perfect in every way. But Rhys—a handsome, mysterious foreign guest of her cousin’s—has a hold on her that she doesn’t quite understand. 
Then she starts seeing things. Sylvie’s lost nearly everything—is she starting to lose her mind as well?

Warning: There is a spoiler in this review, but it's in white and between spoiler tags, so this is safe to read. Just don't go around highlighting things, okay?
The Splendour Falls was a beautiful story about pain and loss. But it was also about healing and redemption, and how we can find rays of light even in the most hopeless of situations.

The main character, Sylvie, has many of the usual characteristics we can find in YA heroines. She has a tendency to whine (although I guess I'm whining about her whining right now), is very pretty, has two boys pining after her, and has a great number of talents that she has yet to uncover. However, the author has perfected the art of narrating a whiny character yet making her extremely loveable at the same time. And I guess part of the reason for the whining not being annoying at all is because Sylvie is, as the synopsis on my book jacket says, broken. She's lost so much already, and I truly felt sorry for her. I was able to sympathise with her. She was also so real--she didn't babble on about guys, she didn't think about ballet all of the time, and she felt like a character I could truly relate to. She had a passion and she had dreams and she had bad days that weren't just bad hair days. This is the sort of character I want to see more of.

One of the biggest problems with this book is that it's a 200 and something-paged story with stuffing in a 518-page body. The story moved incredibly slowly for the first half of the book and then far too fast for my liking in the last chapter or two. By removing most of the meaningless interactions in the first part of the story, the author would've created a more fast-paced and better work. (Nicole's law of editing: If it's not necessary for plot development, it doesn't need to be there.) 

Another thing that I felt was completely unnecessary was Adie. She seemed to be there just because of the unspoken YA novel rule: there needs to be a mean girl. Adie seemed to have no personality, she didn't change or grow as a character as far as I could see, and I really didn't know the purpose for her existence.

The synopsis states--very clearly--that the Sylvie-Rhys-Shawn love triangle plays an instrumental part in the story, but it never annoyed me at all because of the way it was written. Sylvie doesn't think about the boys 24/7 and actually has a life of her own other than stalking them. I don't think the author quite nailed the romance scenes--at least they weren't quite what I was looking for after reading Die for Me and Clockwork Prince--but were still good nonetheless, despite being few and far between.

<spoiler>One thing I really didn't like about the final part of the story was how the 'magic' suddenly sprang up. The author had mentioned it before but not in very much detail (or maybe I wasn't paying enough attention), and I hadn't even entertained the thought of magic being the root of all problems. When it came up, I was utterly shocked--not in a good way--and I thought the author should've dropped more hints throughout the story and at least had Sylvie suspect that the TTC was doing dark magic earlier on.</spoiler>

Despite that, I thought the author's writing was excellent. It flowed so smoothly and I barely noticed the virtually plot-less writing in the first few hundred pages until I put it down and actually thought about what I was reading. 

Overview: The Splendour Falls was a beautiful read with excellent writing, amazing characterisation and a truly realistic feel. There were some rather minor flaws such as an overload of unnecessary descriptions and conversations in the first part of the book, but I don't feel that that is a reason to undermine the brilliance of this book as a whole. It is something I would recommend to many of my friends and look forward to re-reading.

.5

It was good.

Waiting on Wednesday: Hollow {9}

Goodreads

In a dystopian future, sixteen-year-old Leah Munro has been sold to a rich woman in a crippling mansion. Soon Leah discovers that there is something mysterious going on around the home, and with the help of three other girls, she attempts to uncover what is truly happening... what lies beyond all of the plexiglass windows and the hideous screams in the middle of the night? Leah will soon find out.

So there's my WoW for this week :). Please link and I'll check yours out!

Teaser Tuesdays {1}

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

~

This week I'm reading The Splendour Falls by Rosemary Clement-Moore:

Cradling my burning palms, I surveyed the garden in frustration, overwhelmed by the overgrowth and unable to make heads or tails of the internal pattern. Whatever had been there was lost.

And that's my quote! Please link in the comments so I can check your teasers out :)

Review: Wings by Aprilynne Pike

Goodreads | Amazon

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words. Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.   In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

Wings...well, what can I say about it? Many people whom I know--including my cousin, who recommended this book--absolutely loved it. And although I felt that it was very well-written and the main characters were reasonably likeable, I thought it lacked soul.

The main character, Laurel, is loveable enough. She seems reasonably modest and she doesn't whine a lot (one of the hugest killjoys in the young adult genre). Her parents, however, seem incredibly weird and hippy if not incompetent and downright irresponsible. Let's weight the facts: Laurel is, as far as I know, underweight. She eats strawberries and spinach (i.e. rabbit food) only, drinks just soda and water, and considers 'half a peach in juice' to be a guilty indulgence. I know that she can't tolerate meat or heavy foods and I can't imagine myself as a mother, but if I were, I would be seriously worried about my daughter. Okay, Laurel's parents don't believe in doctors, but shouldn't they figure that a child with eating habits like that has some sort of problem? It simply didn't make sense.

The love triangle didn't gag me to death. I simply found it boring. I disliked both boys and so there wasn't any point to the triangle any more.

The problem with the characters in this story is that I felt so detached to them while reading. I had virtually no emotional attachement to any of them except for Laurel's mother. Although I thought she was an absolutely incompetent mother, the scene in the hospital made me feel her desperation.

And now, see here, guys. Laurel is a plant. A plant. She doesn't have blood, or any other of the...let's say, bodily characteristics, that we humans have. So I find it very strange that she can pass for a human, since technically she wouldn't have a brain and all of the human body parts. I know that faeries are highly evolved forms of plants--the most sophisticated form of evolution nature has reached--and that it should be possible for a plant to have a brain and things like that, but without blood and I assume spinal fluid, it would be technically impossible for Laurel to pass as a human. It was a rather confusing issue for me, and I think Aprilynne Pike should've explained that a little further.

Now for all the good stuff about this story.

It was refreshing for Laurel not to be extremely extremely special. When Tamani explained how there were four types of faeries, I almost heard myself saying 'Oh gosh, and here is where Tamani reveals that Laurel is, in fact, the most special and the rarest type of faerie--EVER! And her destiny is to combat all the trolls on Earth or something.' I was therefore quite relieved to find that Laurel wasn't the rarest type of faerie (which is winter, in case you're interested). I think that many authors fall into the trap of making the main characters overly special, and I'm thankful that Aprilynne Pike doesn't seem to have committed this 'writing crime' in Wings.

Overview: The bottom line is that I didn't like this book. Many elements of the faerie world weren't explained, some of it just didn't make sense, and most parts involving Laurel's parents didn't seem realistic. I'm giving this novel a bit of credit since the main character isn't overly, supremely special, but I didn't click with the story at all, so I'm awarding Wings 2 stars. That's just me, though. You might find that you love it, like many of my other friends.

Didn't like it.

In My Mailbox {2}

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme hosted by Kristi at The Story Siren. It basically showcases all of the books that we acquired over the week.

I didn't get a lot of books this week since I haven't returned all of my library books yet. My cousin lent me Wings and my dad bought me Matched, Cinder, and The Book Thief for the Kindle.

Goodreads

Laurel was mesmerized, staring at the pale things with wide eyes. They were terrifyingly beautiful—too beautiful for words.
In this extraordinary tale of magic and intrigue, romance and danger, everything you thought you knew about faeries will be changed forever.

Laurel turned to the mirror again, her eyes on the hovering petals that floated beside her head. They looked almost like wings.

And I'm sorry, but I'm way too lazy to post all of the other blurbs, so here are the covers instead:

What did you guys get in your mailboxes this week? Please leave your link and I'll check out your post!

No Review :(

I feel SO incompetent. Fridays are review days. But I didn't read enough books this week, so no review today. Anyway, I have never ever had a reading slump before. I have always loved books and I don't know why I didn't read enough this week to complete just a few measly reviews. I feel really insulted, so now I want to cry. Just a little.

Yes please Wilson. Gah, I feel so upset. It's just that all of the books I have on had right now don't really appeal to me. I just want to watch TV. I feel like an addict.

My friends told me to make up a review. As in, do some research on Goodreads and then write a false review. As though to comfort me, they told me that

And you can guess my response. Which was this.

Honestly, I have such amazing friends. And most of these pictures were meant to be pretty, animated GIFs. But even Blogger is conspiring to ruin my life now by freezing up my GIFs. Gah. Does anyone know how to fix this issue? Anyway, my brain is saying

because you're probably all too bored of my post to continue reading much more. So I conclude by giving y'all a hilarious cartoon. (And yes, I like House M.D.. The show. All image credits go to House Land and House MD Gifs on Tumblr.)

LOL! Isn't it funny? Anyway, see you all tomorrow <3

Review: Skyfall by Anthony Eaton

Goodreads | Amazon

When you live in the sky, the only way out is down...

Larinan Mann is an outsider, a social oddity. Born in contravention of the rules of his society, into a cold and powerful family, Lari's life seems to have no purpose. But then his only friend draws him unwittingly into the murky terror of the underworld that dwells below his feet, his father unexpectedly inducts him into the inner circle of history's most terrible secret, and Lari's world-and everything he thought he knew about it-is shattered forever.
Then he meets Saria, a girl with destiny looking over her shoulder, and together the two of them must walk into an unknown greater than anything humanity has every faced...

Skyfall was a pretty spectacular read.

Anthony Eaton's dystopians are very believable. Lari and Saria's world is set far into the future, when humans are divided into two separate groups--the upper-class who live in cities built in the sky (more developed, but cannot withstand exposure to the sun) and the lower-class (live in quite a primitive way, but can survive in the open without needing protection from domes like the 'upper-classes'). They're like two separate races--they don't mix, and don't communicate either.

Lari has never spoken to or known anyone from the 'lower-class', so when his father, one of the most influential scientists in the city, invite him into the headquarters of the lab and introduces him to a world of secrets (and I won't specify much more here as it will completely ruin the story if I do), including Saria, Lari starts to understand the fragile state of the collapsing world they are living in. I loved the early Saria-Lari interaction, especially when Saria initially denied being interested in Lari yet kept on thinking about it. I was also quite amazed at the lengths Lari would go through to get a job done, and this is how I determined that he would go on to achieve great things.

Anthony Eaton's writing is, as usual, captivating. For the first fifth of the novel, however, I was rather bored as we were given hoard after hoard of information about this new world, and I thought that the first part of Nightpeople was far better. After the initial info-dumping and boredom, the book got heaps better. There was a lot of mystery surrounding the whole city and its main characters, and it took me a lot of guessing to figure out what was going to happen. All of the intertwining plots created a lot of suspense, and I have to say that this book is one of the most complex and carefully-crafted dystopians I have had the pleasure to read.

Skyfall did a really great job of building on what Nightpeople lacked; the suspense, more world-building, telling us more about Jani's past. And I've told you what I liked about it. Now for the bad. As I mention above, there was a bit of info-dumping at the start of the book. I also thought that some of the phrases--like 'magging', for instance, which basically meant 'take a maglift' (a maglift is like an elevator that transports people across the city), sounded highly awkward to me when I read in my head. And that was only one of the many phrases that just didn't sound right. Take J.K. Rowling's 'quiddich', for instance. It sounds perfectly natural when you read it. And lots of the invented terms in Nightpeople didn't achieve that quality.

Thirdly, I think that Lari's friend's personality (sorry, I forgot her name) had to be fleshed out more. Yes, she had dark motives, but she was also a friend, a young lady, a member of the gang. I wanted to see more of the complex personality reflected in her actions, and that didn't really happen. She stayed very shallow for most of the story.

To conclude, Skyfall was a good book. I can say that for sure. The writing was awesome, it made me want to read the third book in the trilogy, and the plot was suspenseful and well-formed. However, some of the characters needed to be fleshed out more, the first part of the book wasn't very interesting, and quite a few of the imaginary phrases were awkward to say. It gets four stars.

It was good.

Waiting on Wednesday: Born Wicked {8}

A Great and Terrible Beauty meets Cassandra Clare in this spellbinding fantasy Everybody knows Cate Cahill and her sisters are eccentric. Too pretty, too reclusive, and far too educated for their own good. But the truth is even worse: they're witches. And if their secret is discovered by the priests of the Brotherhood, it would mean an asylum, a prison ship—or an early grave. Before her mother died, Cate promised to protect her sisters. But with only six months left to choose between marriage and the Sisterhood, she might not be able to keep her word . . . especially after she finds her mother's diary, uncovering a secret that could spell her family's destruction. Desperate to find alternatives to their fate, Cate starts scouring banned books and questioning rebellious new friends, all while juggling tea parties, shocking marriage proposals, and a forbidden romance with the completely unsuitable Finn Belastra. If what her mother wrote is true, the Cahill girls aren't safe. Not from the Brotherhood, the Sisterhood—not even from each other.

Doesn't this look awesome? I love Cassandra Clare's work and Libba Bray's books are on my wishlist, so I'd love to read Born Wicked. Leave a link and I'll check out your WoW :)

Holiday :)

I'm going on a car trip from tomorrow till Wednesday, so I won't be around to post for a while. When I come back I'll be posting the reviews for Skyfall and The Splendour Falls. And I hope you guys like the new design! Any ideas/general comments/suggestions about my new theme? Please do comment!

Review: Die for Me by Amy Plum

Goodreads | Amazon

My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything.Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were orphans. We put our lives into storage and moved to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my shattered heart, my shattered life, would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent.Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, Vincent Delacroix appeared out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. Just like that, I was in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen.Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Because Vincent is no normal human. He has a terrifying destiny, one that puts his life at risk every day. He also has enemies . . . immortal, murderous enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind.While I'm fighting to piece together the remnants of my life, can I risk putting my heart—as well as my life and my family's—in jeopardy for a chance at love?

Die for Me is a love story, a paranormal romance and a fantasy book, rolled into one rather amazing package. Amy's captivating prose draws the reader further and further into the world of a revenant, while showing how being in love with one poses so much danger. The added bonus of this story is that--*squee*--it's set in Paris, the city of love, which ties in perfectly with the whole theme of this book. 

I loved how Die for Me wasn't completely jam-packed full of cliches. Unlike many other YA authors, Amy Plum's characters are real. Kate, the heroine of the story, does think about the consequences of falling in love with a 'creature' like Vincent, she thinks about whether it would do her good or just hurt her in the long run. She makes decisions, she doesn't rush into doing too many hasty things. And that's refreshing.

The scenic descriptions were also pretty good, although I would've liked to see more of them. (MOAR PARIS!) Although we do hear about charming old sandstone buildings and the river and Vincent's awesome house, I wanted more. For me, France was one of the defining features of the story, so I wanted to be there. I wanted to feel the crisp wind on my cheeks and the crunch of snow/branches/dried leaves beneath my boots and furry muffs on my cold ears. I wanted to see smoke billowing from a plump chimney somewhere in the distance and smell the wafting aroma of freshly-baked baguettes and sit on a bench with the gravelly sidewalk beneath my feet. And although the author did give us an idea of the setting and did a good job of describing what everything looked like, somehow the descriptions lacked a forth dimension of feeling.

And finally, I present to you one of the biggest selling points of the story! Amy Plum can write romance! Really write romance. Like Cassandra Clare, her kissing scenes left me exhilarated and eager for more...Oh, my goodness. Were they spectacular.

There were a small number of downsides to the story, however. The villain in the story was 100% bad and immediately spottable. There was really no mystery to the villain, and although I do realise how dangerous the enemies are, I really didn't get much/enough of that suspense. I really like asking myself 'Who's the bad guy?' and 'Ooh, is the author FINALLY going to review who the baddie is?' but I got none of that in this book, which was a slight disappointment.

Secondly, I saw a bit of the Bella Swan personality in the story. Kate goes on about how she doesn't think she looks beautiful, how she thinks she's unattractive, how she thinks only Georgia, her sister, is pretty etc., but guys are falling for her. Why? I get that many YA authors like to write about characters who don't know realise their beauty (take The Carrier of the Mark's Megan, Twilight's Bella Swan, and many many more) until guys come falling for them, but this trend is getting on my nerves. At the beginning of the story, Kate says that her only fan in the world is Georgia, but in reality, that obviously isn't the truth. I'd love to see a self-assured YA heroine who packs some punch.

Overall, Die for Me was quite a good book, but nevertheless, it did have its faults. The romance really made it for me, as did Amy's captivating writing, but the descriptions, the tension/suspense, and Kate's personality have to be fleshed out further or worked on in order to create a more believable world and an even better book. All in all, I thought it was an excellent easy read. Four stars.

It was good.

Waiting on Wednesday: Everneath by Brodi Ashton {7}

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever. 
She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists. 
Nikki longs to spend these months reconnecting with her boyfriend, Jack, the one person she loves more than anything. But there's a problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who first enticed her to the Everneath, has followed Nikki to the mortal world. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back- this time as his queen. 
As Nikki's time grows short and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she's forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's...

I've heard great things about this book and the cover is pretty amazing (not that I judge books by their covers, of course...:P). What are you waiting on? Leave a link and I'll check it out :)

Busting the Newbie Blues

Yay for newbies in the blogging community (like me! *throws confetti*). Busting the Newbie Blues is designed to:

• Put new YA book bloggers on the map 
• Increase blogger interaction
• Start a discussion by sharing our experiences as new bloggers
• Learn about what it was like for established bloggers when they were newbies

I think this event is a great idea, and I'm really excited to be participating! :)

1. When did you start your blog? I started my blog on the 5th of November.
2. Why did you start your blog? I wasn't reading enough, so I thought that starting this blog would encourage me to read more.
3. What has been the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far? The biggest challenge I've faced so far? Getting people to read my blog (that involved pestering a good number of my friends, although only 2 to date have followed me) and figuring out how often to post reviews--and finding books to review!
4. What do you find most discouraging about being a new blogger? It feels quite discouraging to post and not have anyone respond. I know that comments and having people read my blog come with time, though, so I'm working on it!
5. What do you find most encouraging? I find the established blogs really encouraging to look at, knowing that my efforts will pay off if I stick at blogging, and I get a warm and fuzzy feeling every time somebody comments on my posts or follows me. I've also started reading way more, which was the whole reason for this blog. 
6. What do you like best about the blogs you read? Have you tried to replicate this in your blog? I love blogs with detailed reviews, and...pretty designs :P I am a sucker for pretty designs. I do try to have detailed reviews, although I get that lots of people really can't make the effort to read paragraphs and paragraphs about a book, so a balance has to be made. And I'm not the best at making pretty designs, but I try to make my blog something I would like to look at.
7. What do you dislike about blogs you’ve read? Do you try to avoid this? I dislike blogs with really short reviews, inconsistent posting, and bad grammar/spelling. And I realise that I haven't been posting very consistently, so I made a schedule, and I hope my grammar and spelling is okay! I do have spellcheck turned on :).
8. Any advice for other new bloggers? I don't think I'm in a position to advise, but remember that blogging is meant to be fun and NOT a competition. Enjoy other blogs and leave comments often (must remember that myself).
9. Any questions you'd like to ask newbie or established bloggers? Can I have some blogging wisdom? Just general tips from old/new bloggers, as well as advice on my blog...what do you think should be changed?
10. Is there anything you’d like to tell us about your blog? Feel free to link a few of your favorite posts or posts you wish had more comments. I'd just like some random comments here and there :). Please do comment on any posts you like--I really appreciate comments! Seriously! :D

Thank you so much to the organisers of Busting the Newbie Blues. I love everyone in the blogging community--you're all so nice!

Review: The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

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In the violent country of Ludania, the classes are strictly divided by the language they speak. The smallest transgression, like looking a member of a higher class in the eye while they are speaking their native tongue, results in immediate execution. Seventeen-year-old Charlaina has always been able to understand the languages of all classes, and she's spent her life trying to hide her secret. The only place she can really be free is the drug-fueled underground clubs where people go to shake off the oppressive rules of the world they live in. It's there that she meets a beautiful and mysterious boy named Max who speaks a language she's never heard before . . . and her secret is almost exposed. 
Charlie is intensely attracted to Max, even though she can't be sure where his real loyalties lie. As the emergency drills give way to real crisis and the violence escalates, it becomes clear that Charlie is the key to something much bigger: her country's only chance for freedom from the terrible power of a deadly regime.

The Pledge was pretty amazing--in fact, it was one of the best dystopian novels I have yet to read.

I wasn't sure what to think at the beginning. Brook, one of Charlie's best friends, was a pretty typical flirty/popular/beautiful character which gave me the false impression that The Pledge would be chock-full of high school cliches and, therefore, a completely useless read, while the pacing was about as fast as a snail's crawl. I found myself wanting to skip ahead because, quite frankly, the first few bits were boring.

I'm glad I didn't give up on this book, because it was absolutely awesome. Unlike some YA authors, Kimberly Derting doesn't pepper her novels with love triangles and glaringly obvious hints. (Oh, and that's another thing. The Pledge doesn't have a love triangle. How's that for awesome? *squee*) She gives enough descriptions for readers to adequately picture Charlie's world, whilst leaving enough room for imagination. The development of Ludania's dystopian society was also pretty well thought-out.

There were enough twists and turns in the plot to constantly surprise me, but I felt like the Max/Charlie relationship, one of the main driving plots of the story, didn't really work. For one, Max never actually explains why on earth he even likes Charlie, although I guess that The Pledge is part of a series, so that might come later.

I also love how Charlie sometimes thinks about Max, but doesn't obsessively stalk/think about him like some many YA heroines like to. It's refreshing not to have a love triangle for once, like I said above. Another thing I really enjoyed was finding out about the 'real' Brook. (I have to confess that I spent most of the novel absolutely hating her.) Although I won't say too much here, it was quite a surprise to find out about the rebelling troops and how they weren't completely bad.

I thought The Pledge was really good as a standalone novel. There were many elements I liked about it, including the characters--how they were flawed and real, all the surprises, the twists and turns in the story, and Kimberly Derting's writing style. However, I'm not sure if I'll be reading The Pledge #2, since I loved this book as it was. Four and a half stars.

.5

It was good.