Crown's Game by Evelyn Skye

TL;DR magic in imperial Russia

TBR #1303, added Jul 18, 2015

finished 3/2/17

This was a nice read. I'm finding that I like stories set in Russia (roughly) in this time period, like The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges and Queen of Someday by Sherry Ficklin. The magic in Crown's Game and The Gathering Storm were definitely a bonus for me.

I liked that a lot of the story wasn't clear-cut and that there were a lot of entanglements between the characters. It definitely kept me coming back to read.

I was actually kind of disappointed by the ending, but that was mainly before I realized it wasn't a standalone book like I thought. I'm still a little apprehensive about the direction the series is going to take in light of The Crown's Game's ending, but I'm still gonna read it if my library gets a copy of it.

Nobody's Princess by Esther Friesner

TL;DR Helen of Sparta as a kid

TBR #378, added May 1, 2013

finished 2/11/17

I don't read historical fiction that often, so I wasn't sure if I was actually gonna finish Nobody's Princess. It turned out to be a good decision after all. 

I'll be honest, the only stuff I know about Greek history / culture is from Percy Jackson and like maybe a week's worth of lessons in 6th grade history class, so I have no idea if any of this was accurate or anything. It was interesting enough to read despite being so far out of my usual genre / topic comfort zones, so I stuck with it. It was cool to read about such an old setting and culture and see how Friesner filled in a period of time of Helen's life that nobody really knows about. 

The characters were all interesting and I'm really glad Friesner took the stance that Helen would have support from her family and others, instead of following historical fiction trends that women aren't allowed to do much of anything. Helen had a lot of agency and it definitely made the read better for me. 

I'm kind of curious about how the Greek gods come into play in the series. Obviously they're a big part of the culture, but in Nobody's Princess it was ambiguous whether they were supposed to be real or if they're just part of the setting. (I mean, if it's supposed to be strictly historical fiction, I'm gonna guess the gods are just a cultural aspect rather than a driving force of anything.)

I don't know if my library will have the second book, but I'm definitely willing to continue reading, as well as try out the other books Kindle recommended to me when I finished reading. I was actually kind of excited when I saw that there were more books like this with similar historical girls / women. 

TL;DR it's a cool historical fiction read and I enjoyed it. 

YA Urban Fantasy Standalones

I haven't been reading books as fast as I had been (thanks to school) so here's something other than a review post!

I'm defining "urban fantasy" as "contemporary setting but with magic or supernatural elements". This, of course, is pretty widely-encompassing and not a perfect definition. Right now this list only includes books that take place completely (or almost entirely) within a contemporary setting. For example, this would include Percy Jackson but exclude The Mortal Instruments and Harry Potter (I would argue that the wizarding world is not a "contemporary" setting).

I wanted to make this list because the overwhelming trend in YA books is trilogies (or even bigger than that), and I'm sure there are people who want to find a book that is complete and isn't going to devour your life while waiting for the next book. I've also compiled this as a list on Goodreads if that's your thing. So here we go!


The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness (my review) - all the "background" characters of a stereotypical high school urban fantasy story

The Chaos of Stars by Kiersten White - follows the only human daughter of Egyptian gods

A Kiss in Time by Alex Flinn - American high schooler wakes up Sleeping Beauty

Team Human by Sarah Rees Brennan - parody of the Twilight trend

A Fierce and Subtle Poison by Samantha Mabry (my review) - Puerto Rican magical realism*

Devil and the Bluebird by Jennifer Mason-Black (my review) - the aftermath of making a deal with a devil

The Square Root of Summer by Harriet Reuter Hapgood (my review) - time travel via wormholes **

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black (my review) - a town that lives side-by-side with faeries


*Honestly, I'm not sure how to describe the difference between "urban fantasy" and "magical realism" other than the fact that magical realism never seems to make sense to me in terms of logistics.

**This is definitely sci-fi rather than fantasy, but I don't know of any other "contemporary sci-fi" books that I could group it with instead.


I also have posts planned for fantasy and sci-fi standalones, which will be uploaded eventually. I'll do my best to link to them here once they're up. I'm definitely trying to seek out standalones rather than getting sucked into too many series at once, so hopefully I can continue to compile these lists as time goes on.

Inherit the Stars by Tessa Elwood

TL;DR space politics

TBR #1239, added Jun 24, 2015

finished 2/5/17

I bought a paperback copy of Inherit the Stars from Amazon for $1.89 after taxes, thanks to some lucky timing. The price has since gone up to $7 or so since I held onto my copy for like 5 months before doing anything with it.

I read most of the book in the space of an afternoon. This is definitely an easy book to get through if you're looking for something that won't take a week to finish. The narration was easy to get along with, though on the other hand I will admit that it is a little shallow with worldbuilding. Asa's narration focuses on what's necessary for the story, which is good, but I would've liked to see a little more about this world than we got.

The characters definitely made up for some of that. Nearly all the conflict within Inherit the Stars' narration is character-driven; most of the problems that Asa or her family face within the book are created or solved by the other characters, not by their environment or sheer fate. I definitely sympathized with Asa, despite the many questionable decisions she made -- I think her justification for those actions was above average for 16 year old girls in YA books. I also came to like Eagle and I liked seeing how all the adults reacted to the issues faced, even if I didn't like what most of them actually did. It was an interesting power play, you know? I think that's underutilized in YA even with all the dystopian / ~suddenly royalty~ stuff.

Honestly I wish I'd picked a different day to start this book, because I wasn't able to focus on it as much as I would've liked. Good news is, I own a copy of it, so I'm going to hold onto it for a while and hopefully come back to re-read it. I added the second book to my Amazon wishlist so hopefully I can find a good time to buy that book as well.

TL;DR I breezed through it pretty quickly but I definitely think it was worth buying and I'll most likely come back to it again in the future.

Lifeboat Clique by Kathy Parks

TL;DR it takes an apocalypse to make up for a scandal

TBR #1359, added Jul 22, 2015

finished 1/30/17

I thought this book was supposed to be about the aftermath of a cruise ship wreck. (I also didn't bother to re-read the blurb before I dove into the book so I guess that's my fault.)

I read about 70% of this in my free time between work and class on a Friday, and then came back and finished the last 30% on the following Monday afternoon. I think it killed my momentum the same way it did with The Gathering Storm. I should have finished it that Friday afternoon once class was over.

Other than that, it was really nice! I was a little afraid we would be stuck entirely with the characters on the boat, but that wasn't the case at all. The narration did really well with weaving in the backstory and lead-up to the social catastrophic event during down time -- and I mean, you have a lot of downtime when you're stuck on a castaway boat.

The majority of the book is super character-driven and it was nice to follow how the dynamics changed and how they all moved forward. They all had great layering of their personalities that unfolds as the story progresses. This definitely isn't a fluffy book considering they're actively fighting to stay alive as castaways, but it's not entirely a depressing read. It's got some lighter aspects to it.

Goodreads says this is a standalone, so I think this is perfect for a sunny afternoon when you've got most of it free. It can definitely be read in a time span between lunch and dinner if you've got the time to sit still.

TL;DR it was a nice read and I definitely recommend it. I also suggest reading it all in one sitting, or at least in a few closely-timed ones.

CWs: death (from various causes), injuries / blood, largely damaging natural disaster and its repercussions

The Gathering Storm by Robin Bridges

TL;DR imperial Russia but with magic

TBR #95, added Jan 12, 2013

finished 1/21/17

I had this checked out for three weeks, and I didn't get around to reading it until the library had sent me an email saying it was due in three days. In all honesty I only decided to read it to see if I could do it before the copy expired. (And I did.)

Historical fiction isn't really my thing, but let me tell you, it definitely becomes my thing when you start adding in magic and the supernatural. I've read a few books about pre-revolution Russia, but those mainly centered on the last tsar and his family. This predated my knowledge a little bit but it was a nice read for me nonetheless.

(Note: I read And I Darken by Kiersten White before I read The Gathering Storm, and that did help me in a few places. Surprisingly they do have an overlap in related history.)

Katerina was a compelling main character, although I feel like she didn't have as much agency in the second half of the book. I felt like her actions were kind of railroaded for an intended ending rather than giving her more opportunity and power to change the course of the plot.

Also, the ending was kind of ... lackluster compared to what I was hoping for. I do have to admit that I marathoned most of the book and then had to stop at 80% and wait a day before I could keep reading. I think that killed some of my own momentum. But for how much Katerina let herself be pushed around, the climax and the resulting consequences didn't seem worth it - I feel like she could've done more and not suffered like she was anticipating.

And I do feel like the romance aspects at the end weren't really earned, despite how much I was rooting for that result. Maybe it's because we didn't get to see them interacting much beforehand, mainly because of the larger plot going on, but to me it didn't feel like we got much evidence of the feelings being reciprocated before the last few chapters of the book.

Other than that, I did end up putting off my own writing and to-do list in order to read The Gathering Storm, so it was mainly a compelling read. I'm definitely interested in continuing this series but I don't know if the library will have the rest of it ...

TL;DR I enjoyed the book overall but I didn't like how the climax for this one was resolved. I'm going to continue with the series granted I can get my hands on the subsequent books.

CWs: injury / death, emotional manipulation and coercion

And I Darken by Kiersten White

TL;DR Vlad the Impaler but as a girl

TBR #1332, added Jul 18, 2015

finished 1/13/17

I ended up liking this a lot more than I expected. I'd been pretty interested in the book beforehand, but this is definitely one of the more enjoyable books I've read in a while. (For comparison: the last book I rated 5 stars on Goodreads was Ink and Bone by Rachel Caine on October 20th.)

The first thing that drew me in was definitely the narration. I think the majority of YA books have first-person narration, especially when the MC is a girl, so the third-person narration was a nice break in that. It also allowed for focusing on multiple events happening concurrently or with different characters. Radu's influence on the story was crucial to me and I definitely enjoyed being able to focus on more than one character over the course of the book.

I also liked seeing how Lada and Radu differed even though they had (mostly) the same upbringing. The book starts with Lada's birth so we get to see their character growth over the course of their lives and how they adapt to what happens. There were a lot of nuances that were interesting to think about - especially the decision to diverge from history and make Lada a girl.

I think part of the reason I enjoyed this so much is because the plot felt very character-driven even though so much was out of their control. They had to be a lot more reactive than they were proactive but I was still very invested in what was going on. I also have very little background knowledge in what historically happened (other than a quick check on Wikipedia halfway through my read) so it was more like speculative-fiction than historical-fiction. If that makes sense.

(Side note: the love triangle was also interesting. I'd like to see more of this type, of the MC(s) competing instead of being competed over.)

I read this just before I read The Gathering Storm, and surprisingly they do have a little bit of common ground in terms of history. Reading And I Darken first definitely helped me have some more background knowledge and understanding than I would've had otherwise.

TL;DR I liked this a lot even despite not usually liking historical fiction, and I'm looking forward to continuing with the series.

CWs: war / death / injuries / blood, abuse / neglect from parental figures

Bone Gap by Laura Ruby

TL;DR listen to the corn (lol)

TBR #1762, added Sept 17, 2016

finished 1/19/17

I actually checked this out from the library back in like September, but I never got around to touching it, so my copy expired. I'm not really sure why I decided to put a second hold on it.

Bone Gap took a little while to grow on me -- I hadn't checked the Goodreads description again before I jumped into it, so I didn't really know what direction the book was heading in. And the magical realism (if that's the term for it) kind of threw me for a loop. The narration was a little hard to adjust to, partially because I'd just finished a first-person POV book, but I think it ultimately helped the aesthetic.

This book definitely isn't that straightforward, with the magical realism and the threads of the story that aren't revealed until you're further in. I'd definitely say this would be a good book to read through in one sitting just so it's easier to keep everything straight.

I ended up really enjoying Bone Gap once I started to like all the characters (which didn't take all that much) and it was a funner read than I was expecting. Also, the romance was A+.

As far as I know, it's also a standalone, so I recommend it for that factor as well. It's a good read and everything wraps up by the end so you don't have any cliffhangers or unfinished plot lines. (Well, there are some aspects that weren't explained like I wanted, but for the limited third-person POV, I think it makes sense? None of the characters knew the answers. And it's not a detriment in my opinion.)

TL;DR it might be a little hard to follow because of the magical realism but it was an enjoyable read and would be a good rainy-day book.

CWs: unreality, injuries / blood, kidnapping

Captivate by Vanessa Garden

TL;DR not the mermaid story I was hoping for

TBR #840, added May 8, 2014

finished 1/17/17

Captivate was a solid two-stars for most of the book -- I wasn't enjoying it, but I was at least curious enough to keep reading once the plot got going. (I nearly DNFed this before Miranda even got kidnapped, to be honest, but it got marginally better after that.) I was pretty "meh, it's alright" until the climax started, and then I quickly lost interest in what was going on.

There was enough potential that I held out hope until about the 70% mark, at which point I realized the plot was steadily progressing to a cop-out ending. The climax felt like an arranged order of events (rather than a natural progression) that focused on the wrong problems just to create more ~tension~ and drag out the story.

I was kind of hoping this story would have something about mermaids, but that concept was under-utilized in this book, and I'm certainly not going to go chasing after it in subsequent books. Obviously it doesn't have as much weight to the plot as I was hoping. It's such a good concept, too -- if there was a book focusing on the stuff before Miranda's story, I'd actually read it. I'm much more interested in the mermaids in this story than her or Marko. Or their relationship.

I didn't feel like the two of them had any chemistry, so this was Stockholm Syndrome 100%. And she even admitted that! There wasn't nearly enough evidence to prove why they should like each other, especially considering Miranda was being held against her will and Marko caught her lying more than once. This whole ~compulsion~ thing from the light-crystals only made it worse, because that's confirming that she has no other reason to like him.

All the worldbuilding / aspects of Marin (their city-state) were shaky, actually. None of the science-y stuff is explained in any detail that makes it realistic -- like, how are they surviving the pressure of being so far underwater with no side effects? How is this big city surviving if Marko is the only person trading with the surface, and only once a month at that? How have they not tracked down Damir and killed him already? Is there an actual scientific reason the women are infertile, or is the "lack of a moon" really the cause we're going with here? Because that's not how that works.

Also, if Marin was having such an issue with reproduction, shouldn't they have kidnapped more women? It's hinted in the first few chapters that Miranda isn't the first girl they've kidnapped, but shouldn't they be worrying about more than just the king having a child? I mean, I guess they've got enough "immigration" to sustain their population, but obviously all these women in the city are sad they can't have children. It sounds like they have enough science for artificial means of reproduction for the rest of the city as well.

Side note: there are two instances of attempted sexual assault literally for the ~dramatics~ of the scene and it really irked me. The premise of this story could have used that so much more tactfully, but no, it was just used to add temporary stakes. The only repercussions it has was Miranda getting flak for one of the attackers' punishment, which is a horrible thing to normalize.

I think the book could have used some more rounds of revisions to re-focus the goals and the stakes of the story. There were a little too many things going on -- including the subplot with Aiden that was basically just thrown in for the sad factor -- and most of these subplots got pushed aside in order to raise the romantic stakes. Removing the love triangle and making Damir an actual threat vs a scary bad guy that shows up for literally one scene would've been nice.

TL;DR there were some good concepts in this book, but they were under-utilized in my opinion and way in the shadow of Miranda and Marko's Stockholm relationship, which killed the climax's potential and my willingness to continue with the series.

You Are Mine by Janeal Falor [DNF review]

TL;DR misogynist society to the "~extreme~"

not on TBR

Kindle ebook downloaded for free via Bookbub 12/3/16

DNF 1/7/17

I was gonna stick this in a post with some other reviews of books I didn't finish, but I got significantly further in You are Mine than the others, so I figured it deserved its own post.

I decided to download You are Mine because it went pretty far into the dystopian genre, that women are literally just property and are only valued for having male children. (Usually dystopians don't go this drastic.) I was curious how this was going to be executed, and it was free, so I figured why not?

I hadn't set many expectations going in, so it didn't really fail me, but it definitely didn't try to impress me, either. It came off as a Western adaptation (read: travesty) of conservative, "oh so scary" Islamic countries, like Saudi Arabia. The restrictions and lack of human rights for women in You are Mine were based on vague reasons and I have so many unanswered questions -- where did the women's canon come from? What is this system of magic based on and when was it decided that it was only worthwhile to men? Why is there no mention of women learning to use it at all? This was actually the hardest to believe -- even in regions where groups like the Taliban have prevented girls from attending school, girls like Malala Yousafzai still pursued an education.

(I'm a geography major. I took AP Human Geo in high school and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'll admit I maybe nitpicked these cultural worldbuilding elements a little more than the average person would.)

Likewise, it was also hard for me to believe that Serena was actually supposed to be from this world. Her characterization was inconsistent in the sense that she kept slipping up and questioning how their world worked, only to roll right along with something (or sometimes the same thing) a scene or two later. Or she would forget about certain customs / gender roles that should have been ingrained into her since birth (example: when she sat down in the doctor's chair in the first chapter or so).

I was theoretically gonna read this all the way through, but I wasn't enjoying it at all, so DNFing it seemed like a better option. And I will admit that it seems like I might be the minority, since I don't remember seeing many negative reviews on Goodreads.

TL;DR I couldn't buy the worldbuilding and that killed the reading experience for me.

The Heir by Kiera Cass [DNF review]

TL;DR role-reversed America Singer 2.0

TBR #1779, added Sept 17, 2016

DNF 12/25/16

This review's gonna be really short. Honestly, I have no idea why I decided to pick this up, because I thought I swore I was done with The Selection series. (Though trends suggest I'm a masochist so like .....)

I will admit that I was kind of curious about Eadlyn, but she sure killed that quick. She was more of a brat than I felt like dealing with, and so were just about all the other new characters introduced. And I never cared enough about America and Maxon's story (or any of the other characters) to truly care about their "happily ever after".

I'll concede that it was an interesting enough premise -- enough to get me to be like, "eh, what the hell, let's try it". I'm just too bitter to actually enjoy any of this series. If you read The Selection series because you actually enjoyed it, then you might actually like The Heir? Though I only got to the point where the boys were introduced before I lost interest and decided to move on.

TL;DR it was pretty standard for the series in the small bit that I actually did read and I decided to sacrifice The Heir back to the library in order to check out different books.

Undertow by Michael Buckley

TL;DR American political problems but now with sea-people

TBR #1242, added Jun 15, 2015

finished 12/27/16

I've stared at Undertow every time I encounter it at Barnes and Noble and I was lucky enough that my library had an ebook version of it.

(My TL;DR isn't the best, I'm sorry ;;; )

It wasn't quite what I was expecting, though that's really my fault. I underestimated the potential for grittiness. It didn't hold back on the negative aspects of the concept or the progression and it was honestly a little uncanny -- if you take away the supernatural aspects, it could definitely be a parallel to the conflicts we're having (or have had) in the US.

The characters were nice enough but I didn't get very attached to any of them. This is definitely a plot-driven book (or at least, the progression of events is almost entirely out of the main characters' control). I do like that all the characters were given depth and different facets but I don't think the plot of the book gives much opportunity to explore those.

The plot itself was interesting. It was kind of a wild ride for me since my expectations almost completely missed the mark. Some of it was a little hard to believe for me, but I think that was mainly because I didn't have much history of the conflict to frame the current events. We get bits and pieces of what's happened as the story progresses but a lot of the details of it (specifically, the government's overall reaction when this started) weren't as clear as I would've liked. And I guess part of that is explainable in the context of the narrator: I'll admit I'm not the most keen with current events, so I can't expect Lyric to be, either.

The romance was kind of "eh", but that's probably something on my end. I don't feel like a romance was a good addition with this plot's aesthetic. I mean, it did add some stakes to the plot, but were they really neccessary stakes? I feel like they were high enough as it was.

The Alpha were interesting but it was a little hard for me to keep track of all the different types, especially since it's a written medium -- I suck at creating mental pictures. It might've been a little easier for me if there were only two or three sub-species (if that's the right term). Other than that I think the idea execution was good.

Honestly, this was a good read, but I don't know that I'll continue with the series? I wanted to give it a try, but I'm not all that gung-ho about continuing from where I left off, and I think that's mainly because of the aesthetic. Grim books like these always make me feel kind of depressed / jaded -- I like believing there's hope, but this world was set up almost too realistically (lol) in terms of possible outcomes. I don't feel like there's a good-end even though that's something I want to see with this series; every ending I can imagine feels kind of Pyrrhic.

TL;DR this was darker / grittier than I was expecting, and it was nice, but I'm not really sure I was the intended audience.

Midnight Star by Marie Lu

TL;DR the apocalypse is impending

TBR #1767, added Aug 31, 2016

finished 12/26/16

I finished another series! Yay! I actually read through the entire thing in less than a year -- I finished The Young Elites in, like, May.

This was definitely a good and satisfying conclusion to the whole thing, but it also wasn't quite what I was expecting. I thought Adelina would be a little bit more ... resistant than she was. I guess maybe she was just weary, or knew she didn't stand much of a chance digging in her heels, but the ending went a lot more smoothly than I expected. I guess I was kind of hoping for a bad-end? Almost all book series end on a (fairly) nice note, so I figured this series would be my best bet at finding a "game over" kind of ending.

Surprisingly I don't have much else to say OTL

Overall I definitely enjoyed this series and I'm glad I decided to pick up The Young Elites from the thrift store. (Though, I think I passed my copy on to a friend ...) Marie Lu is definitely one of my favorite authors and I'm looking forward to whatever she does next.

I'd also definitely love to revisit the world, whether it's exploring the rest of the Elites (especially Maeve and Lucent!!) or the aftermath of the conclusion. I sincerely hope we get at least a short story or a novella or something that utilizes this setting again.

TL;DR I definitely recommend this series! It's definitely dark and has some serious CWs to it but it was a good read all the way through.

TBR Update: Jan 2017

This is my 300th published post! (ﾉᐛ )ﾉ*:・ﾟ✧

I know I've talked about my TBR before; the last I can find was last January. I've decided to make it a reoccurring thing just because my TBR on Goodreads just keeps getting longer and longer ...

This post is about my TBR shelf on Goodreads. I've talked about my own TBR lists for the books I've bought, but honestly, I'm not making progress on those at all lol. I have a tendency to roam around on Goodreads and add more books than I can possibly ever read. ┐(° ヘ° )┌

So, last year in January, my TBR was 1567 books. As of January 1st this year it's 1799. (Which is actually an improvement, since I got up to 1803 at one point in December.) I read 75 books in 2016, so if I can keep up that exact pace, it would take 24 years to demolish my TBR. Last time I calculated the statistic it was like 30 years, so at least it's gone down ...

The good news is, I finally got into the habit of reading Kindle ebooks this past year! It's definitely helped me burn my way through books a lot faster than I had been, because it's more portable and more instantaneous than physical library books. My library has a pretty good ebook library so I've been making use of that, but it's a little harder since those have wait lists and due dates. Amazon and Bookbub have been great for finding free ebooks so I've been reading more of those lately.

The problem with that is that I'm still buying physical copies of books from secondhand or bargain stores lol. At some point I do need to sit down and specifically tackle all of these, because I may be able to sell them back to the secondhand bookstores and earn some money back ... (I've become the typical broke college kid OTL)

I've also gotten marginally better at deciding to DNF books. Honestly, I'd rather be able to try out more books than say that I finished them, which is ... probably a little weird. And mainly because my TBR list is obnoxiously long.

I don't know that I can set a quantitative goal to reach, since that would depend on how much I finish / DNF vs add to the list, but I definitely want to work on getting it further under 1800.

We'll see how this goes.

Savor by Megan Duncan

TL;DR just another vampire bandwagon book

TBR #1392, added Aug 3, 2015

finished 12/23/16

Whatever copy everyone else on Goodreads got, can I get my hands on that? Because I clearly did not read the same book as them.

Savor was pretty solidly "okay" at the beginning. The premise and execution of the first few chapters were a little hard to believe, but it wasn't all that bad if you weren't taking it super seriously. Aaaand then it just got steadily worse once the plot started to move.

My biggest complaint is the "**Now professionally edited!**" on the book's Amazon page. That actually gave me some faith when I started the book, because hey, it means it's been revised! Any errors that might've been there before should be fixed up, right?

Nooooooo.

A screenshot for posterity, taken on Dec 23, 2016. I added the little red box around the phrase in question. 

I didn't notice anything at the very beginning, but as I continued further into the book, the grammar and overall editing took a very noticeable nosedive. The "professional editing" had definitely disappeared by the halfway mark, making the second half read like a rough draft than a polished final copy. I finally started using Kindle's note-taking feature, and thanks to the wonders of Goodreads, you can see the (non-spoiler) comments that I made publicly visible. By the time we get around to Claire's debutante ball, there are so many misplaced commas and character inconsistencies that the only reason I finished was to see how much it could continue spiraling downwards.

(At least I don't regret that decision. The last 10% of the book or so was ... wild to say the least. Nothing like throwing most of the action and two lackluster plot twists into the last two chapters of the book.) 

The book starts off with Claire donating blood to the ruling vampire family of her region that's never actually given a name, and then the next day the vampire family is like, "Surprise! We're making you our new daughter and future heir" even though this concept had obviously never been brought up before. And then everything that follows is increasingly more contrived. Nothing felt like a natural progression of events -- everything was obviously stacked together to make the plot more ~dramatic~. We do eventually get some info-dump explanations at the very end but those reasons also feel completely contrived to make this story work. And, you know, would have worked a lot better if there had been any groundwork laid in the first 85% of the story for those ~revelations~, but alas. 

The characters were also all completely contrived. Somehow they were all caricatures of character archetypes and inconsistent at the same time. None of their motivations were convincing and by halfway through the book they were all obviously marionettes making the plot move along its railroad. 

(It's a phrase I stole from playing D&D all of three times, but I think it's relevant: none of the characters have any real motivations that conflict with the plot. They exist to further the plot. What do all the other characters do when they're not thinking about Claire? Who knows! Why does Claire suddenly change her mind and mourn her human life? As a reader I was given no reasons why she should really miss her absent mom and shallow friend, and Claire's dream of "making a difference in the world" was never specified more than that. No specifics like wanting to be a doctor or a politician or an inventor. Just a bland hand-wave-y goal that isn't even mentioned until 64% into the book.) 

I also feel the need to discuss the huge lack of worldbuilding or general consideration for this setting as a whole outside of what's going on with Claire. There's no real explanation of how the Noire family actually got into power, or how they've kept it for so long when they're obviously not doing anything but taking up resources in a large palace. There's no mention of them being actual politicians or appeasing the humans, and yet somehow a good majority of the population is still willing to donate blood to them once a month? 

And as a geography major, I feel particularly slighted at the complete oversight of how the real world functions and how that would differ from this vampire-ruled society they set up. Obviously the vampire ruling families have cut the regions off from one another, and yet the world Claire lives in has all the modern wonders of globalization like TVs and Mercedes cars. (The Mercedes was specifically mentioned by name.) There is one region that's given a name, and that's not until the last 2% of the book during one of the plot twists. 

Spoiler alert: even if the isolation was a fairly recent thing (which based on the Noire's rule, it's not), this America-coded setting would not survive on its own. We import more than we export. We could collapse in a heartbeat if we were ever cut off from the rest of the world. 

*ahem* /end geography rant

As a final note, the attempt at the plot twists was kind of amusing. The first one is such a cliche that you can catch it at the first instance of foreshadowing (not to mention that it's about as subtle as Claire's mood swings). The second one was just a nice way to completely dismantle everything that had been established in Savor, basically making the entire read a waste of time. 

TL;DR I was completely misled by the Amazon description boasting the book has been "professionally edited". The whole story felt like jamming various elements together to force them to work, instead of characterization and narration and plot etc. being woven together. 

The Shadow and the Rose by Amanda DeWees

TL;DR artistic boarding school ends up having supernatural characteristics

TBR #1803, added Dec 5, 2016

finished 12/10/16

I'm gonna be 100% transparent and admit that I decided to download this book because the main character has the same name as me. The only other instance of that I've encountered so far is Joy the Summer Vacation Fairy by Daisy Meadows, which, ironically, was uncannily on point with the inclusion of Jack Frost into the plot. But that's besides the point.

The characters in The Shadow and the Rose were pretty good! It took a little bit of time to get used to seeing my name everywhere (since it was 3rd person narration) but I really enjoyed Joy Sumner and Tanner. They showed more depth than I was expecting and definitely changed for the better over the course of the story, and I did enjoy the secondary characters. Other than the name thing, the narration was easy to read and was definitely the first thing that made me decide to read past the first chapter.

The plot of this was a little simple, but at least it had it together. It flowed nicely and wrapped up nice and it never felt like too big of a story scope (ie having a huge society that magically nobody knows about). It also had paranormal elements that I've rarely ever seen (if ever) as the main driving force of the plot, which was nice.

I'm definitely willing to pay to continue reading this series, but I've been spending much more than I anticipated recently, so I'm gonna pace myself. (And I keep buying physical books which I should probably consider touching during winter break ...) It's definitely one of the first ebooks on my list to buy once I shave my TBR down a little more lol.

TL;DR it's not nearly as dramatic as other Paranormal Romance books so it was definitely a refreshing read. And I finally found another fictional character with my name that wasn't a one-off from a massive series!

Flight by Alyssa Rose Ivy

TL;DR don't accept drinks from strangers

TBR #1379, added Aug 3, 2015

finished 12/13/16

I'm gonna admit right now I didn't really get along well with this book. Most of that is probably my fault for picking up a Paranormal Romance book when I know I rarely ever like them. (The only reason I really went through with this was because it was higher up on my TBR. Not that 1379 out of 1804 is "high" ...)

I feel like Flight could have used more revision. The characters were one-dimensional and not-compelling and the plot and narration weren't nearly as strong as they could have been. There was a lot of room for potential in terms of character development and worldbuilding and it just was never there.

Allie was an idiot and Jess and Hailey were more token best friends than being realistic characters. Levi wasn't consistent as a character at all and he was usually a jerk more than he was anything close to a decent love interest. I didn't see any chemistry between Allie and Levi and I was irritated at the romance more than anything else.

Especially because of the contrived-ness of the latter half of the book. There's no plot for the first half other than the romance, and then everything just suddenly happens when it realistically shouldn't -- for a paranormal, Levi was awfully daring in trusting Allie. Especially considering one of the other boys in the group (Owen?) had his own little backstory paragraph about how his didn't work out.

There was very little about their society, too. Paranormal Romance implies more than just boys with wings, y'know? I would've been significantly happier if we'd gotten more structure about what the heck the shifters (capital Shifters?) were but we didn't see anything outside of Levi and his friends except for one party with werewolves that lasted maybe two pages and a party at the end of the book.

I would say I'd do things a lot differently if I'd been Allie, but honestly, I never would've gotten into her situation in the first place. I would not have stuck around in an uncomfortable position just because my friend was flirting with a guy, and I definitely would have pulled the "I'm the daughter of someone important" to get Levi to back the hell off.

Also, he and Hailey bought Allie drinks? On more than one occasion? Knowing she's a minor? And Hailey was a minor too! Do they just not card people in New Orleans or something? And why was Allie stupid enough to accept multiple drinks from a guy she didn't know who refused to tell her what was in them???

TL;DR I read the whole thing but it can all be summed up with "Allie was stupid enough to get in a bad position and then got mad when she couldn't get back out of it". And all of this could have been avoided if she was smart enough to not accept a drink from a man who was obviously older than her.

Kaleidoscope by Mindy Hayes

TL;DR average "turns out I'm not human" coming of age

TBR #1804, added Dec 5, 2016

finished 12/10/16

It wasn't too bad of a read, it just wasn't all that dynamic.

There were some minor editing errors, which aren't so bad if this is a self-published book, but I'm surprised that they stuck through the book all the way through revisions. Things like word confusions ("him" in place of "his") and awkward grammar (missing commas or having too many) and some quotation marks being dropped at the end of dialogue or being tacked onto the end of a narration paragraph. That stuff isn't that bad in the long run. It didn't hamper me reading much more than me stopping to look at them.

The characters weren't all that bad but they felt one-dimensional. They felt like fictional characters, you know? Honestly I didn't like any of the guys that were hinted to be love interests (though I will give props for having three, that's a new one). I found it a little hard to believe that Calliope rolled with the punches after only a few days of denial, but whatever. Maybe it's just me that would have been kicking and screaming a lot more.

(That's not true. I'd probably be overjoyed if I learned I could do magic.)

I also feel like I should acknowledge that Calliope's parents were both alive and well and in the picture in the story. And they actually did have more than one appearance each! And contributed to the plot a little bit! That's so rare.

The dialogue was a little stilted in a few places -- the semantics didn't contract things sometimes, which made it feel a little robotic, but other than that it wasn't too bad. The message of what was being said usually felt realistic enough.

I had been hoping for some good insight about Faylinn, so I was a little disappointed that all we got in Kaleidoscope was the boys talking about it. There wasn't really any action until the very end and it wasn't all that satisfying in terms of establishing anything; it's too much of a "you have to read the next book to find out!!" cliffhanger to be useful, and those are usually just off-putting for me.

TL;DR It's an easy enough read but most of the plot is talking and worrying rather than anything really being done. At this point I doubt I'll continue with the series unless I can find the sequels for free.

I downloaded my copy of Kaleidoscope for free from Amazon via Bookbub, so I do have a little hope that the next books might show up as deals one day as well.

The Mermaid's Sister by Carrie Anne Noble

TL;DR family isn't always blood

TBR #1793, added Nov 12, 2016

finished 11/15/16

I downloaded this because it was included in Amazon's Prime Reading. I'm glad I decided to check it out!

The aesthetic of the book was very cute and fairy tale-like, which was what I was hoping for. I really enjoyed the relationships the main characters had with each other. I was a little disappointed that Maren wasn't as big of a character as I was expecting, though. Like, she's the driving force behind the plot, but she's just kind of there for a lot of the book.

The plot also didn't have as much ... momentum as I was expecting? I was hoping for all sorts of adventures and shenanigans but they get stuck with one problem for most of the rising action. I mean, it was a good challenge for them, and it was interesting, but I thought there would be more variety in what they faced. Maybe it's just me.

This is a standalone book so it's perfect if you want a good read without committing to a series!

TL;DR I enjoyed my read but the plot and one of the characters weren't quite what I was expecting, and that was a little more disappointing to me than it should have been. Other than that it's a great book.

10 Free Amazon Kindle Books [Dec 2016]

So I may have a problem of downloading free ebooks because they're available. They're like my dragon hoard.

I found all of these using Bookbub! Some of them were from emails as I was cleaning out my inbox, and I decided to check their webpage afterwards to see if there were any more. (There were.) I haven't had the time or motivation to read ebooks from my library, so I figured I would stockpile the free ebooks to have since they wouldn't expire on me.

(I hope.)

I'm also pretty sure I have iBook copies of at least half of these (also downloaded for free through Bookbub) which means those have been sitting on my iPod Touch for over a year ... I got my HTC last December and I've switched over to the Kindle app instead of iBooks.

So here we go! All of these I downloaded on December 3rd, so the deals should still be active. Some of them I think are free all the time as a hook to the series. I couldn't tell you which ones those are, though.

All of these links go to Goodreads (I wasn't paying attention when I was drafting this post), but all of these pages should have buttons that will take you to their Amazon page. They're under the description and the info like publishing date.

Jake and the Gingerbread Wars by E.G. Foley, TBR #1798*

Golden Blood by Melissa Pearl, TBR #824

Dirty Blood by Heather Hildenbrand, TBR #1387

Ever Shade by Alexia Purdy, TBR #1392

Flight by Alyssa Rose Ivy, TBR #1379

You Are Mine by Janeal Falor, not on TBR*

Forbidden by Amy Miles, TBR #1802*

The Shadow and the Rose by Amanda DeWees, TBR #1803*

Kaleidoscope by Mindy Hayes, TBR #1804*

Savor by Megan Duncan, TBR #1394

The starred books were ones I added to my TBR because they were free. (I had been making good progress at shrinking my TBR list ...) Jake and the Gingerbread Wars is book 3.5 in the series, so that's probably going to be an adventure to read, jumping into the middle of the story like that. I think all the others are the first in their series.

I started reading You Are Mine before I added it to my TBR. I was really curious about the execution of the premise. It's been ... interesting so far. I think I'm about 15 or 20% in by now.

I'll probably come back and update this post with my reviews as I upload them. (Hopefully. No promises.) My fall semester ends on the 15th so I'm hoping to get a lot of anti-social resting done between my last exam and Christmas. I haven't finished reading any more books since Nov 15th so I'm looking forward to devouring ebooks like candy again lol.

Let me know if you guys have read any of these! I'd love to hear more about them.