Waiting on Wednesday (2/18/15): A Court of Thorns and Roses

Breaking the Spine is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas
Expected publication date: May 5, 2015

From Goodreads:

When nineteen-year-old huntress Feyre kills a wolf in the woods, a beast-like creature arrives to demand retribution for it. Dragged to a treacherous magical land she only knows about from legends, Feyre discovers that her captor is not an animal, but Tamlin—one of the lethal, immortal faeries who once ruled their world.
As she dwells on his estate, her feelings for Tamlin transform from icy hostility into a fiery passion that burns through every lie and warning she's been told about the beautiful, dangerous world of the Fae. But an ancient, wicked shadow grows over the faerie lands, and Feyre must find a way to stop it . . . or doom Tamlin—and his world—forever.

I've been devouring all of Sarah's Throne of Glass series lately and when I heard she was releasing a new series, I thought I'd give it a read to expand my fantasy boundaries (and have something to kill the time until the next Throne of Glass book comes out).

~Yajaira

Thoughts on The Selection

Spoiler warning! If you’re reading The Selection or plan on reading it and don’t want spoilers, please proceed with caution. I’ll try to avoid them or be vague, but there will more than likely be spoilers.

So The Selection. I have very mixed feelings about this series. I won’t go saying this series is like, the best series ever, but I did like it enough to want to purchase the next book as soon as I could. It’s a decent, easy read for someone looking to fill in the gap between series. The romance was good (albeit a tad predictable but that’s a lot of YAs these days) and the plot was intriguing, but I felt like Kiera Cass really missed the mark with the last book.

The Selection is another dystopic fiction where there’s a heroine who dares to challange the tyrannical government. And if it followed the same formula as the other dystopian trilogies, The Selection would’ve been the set up, The Elite the build up, and The One the climax. The first two books followed that formula, which left me relatively excited to read The One. I finally got to The One, and it kept me interested throughout even though I could already tell you the ultimate outcome from the very beginning.

But then I got the ending and it was so anticlimactic.

There was all this buildup and it just fell flat on its face. The final “battle”, if you want to call it that, was such a let down. Reading it, I was like, “Is this it? This is really how this is going to end?” And lo and behold, it ended that suddenly. All that buildup especially with America and Georgia and the other rebels seemed like a waste. I really felt like that could’ve been explored more. The book probably could’ve benefited from at least 100 more pages to allow for more development and not just “BANG BANG king and queen are dead, Maxon does end up with America, the end”.  It really disappointed me because I liked this book enough to get invested in it, and I’ve never really been let down by book like that until this one.

So yeah, The One was a huge letdown for me and I hope Cass’s new series (assuming there’s more than one to it) starting with The Heir is handled better than The Selection was.

What’d you guys think of the ending? Let me know in the comments!

~Yajaira

Meet OwlCrate + another thing

Hey, guys! We’re back from the dead! For now. Until life gets us yet again and drags us away from our blog for the upteenth time.

Photo borrowed from OwlCrate's Twitter account. @owlcrate #owlcrate

We’ve come back to tell you guys about this awesome thing known as OwlCrate. If you’re a YA lover like Rachel and I, then this is the perfect thing for you. Each month, a box will be sent out including a brand new YA (hardcover! Be still, our hearts!) release, 3-5 book themed goodies (jewelry, totes, treats, etc.), exclusive items from publishers and authors, and a note telling you about the novel and the items included. The box is $29.99 plus shipping; both Rachel and I ended up paying $36.98 after shipping and we live on opposite sides of the US. The boxes ship out on the 20th of each month with the first box being shipped out on March 20th. Each box also has a theme to it (March’s theme is fantasy!)

Rachel and I both ordered it, and we will be sure to let you guys know what we think of the contents (and we’ll probably make an unboxing post!) If you’re interested, check out their site and sign up!

Another subscription worth mentioning is Colleen Hoover’s brand new service, Bookworm Box. Her service will be sending out 2 signed romance novels each month, but there’s been no mention of additional goodies. There’s no set price yet, although she did mention they’re looking at $29.99 as well. Bonus: all profit will be donated to charity. Good intentions aside, Rachel and I are both on the fence about it and are waiting for the first batch to roll out and be reviewed before we subscribe to the service.

Let us know in the comments below if you’ve signed up for either (or any other!) subscriptions! We can’t wait to get our boxes and let you guys know what we think of it!

Yajaira & Rachel
(The exclamations mean we're very! excited! ermagerd, BOOKS!!!!)

Book Sale Haul!

The next time you see a flyer for a local library book sale, I highly recommend you go check it out. Save money. Discover new things. R-E-C-Y-C-L-E. It might be a fight for all of the people if you don't have an idea of what you want, but there are cool things to be found even after it's been picked over. Hopefully. 

Pictured:

It's a Wonderful Life VHS

Apollo 13 VHS 

Just as I Am, the autobiography of Billy Graham 

email from God: for teens by Claire Cloninger 

Digital Photography- An Introduction by Tom Ang

The Selection by Kiera Cass 

North of Beautiful by Justina Chen

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini 

The Boxcar Children #1 by Gertrude Chandler Warner 

The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Volume 1 

The Jericho Sanction by Oliver North

Up Till Now, the autobiography by William Shatner (and David Fisher)

NOT pictured:

The Top 100 Pasta Sauces by Diane Seed 

Southern Living Annual 20th Anniversary Edition Cookbook 

All of that for $3! As in, total. Roughly 21 cent per item. Very cool. I'll be sharing most of these with friends and family because I am a kind person, and waiting none too patiently for next year's sale! 

- Rachel

Something like Normal by Trish Doller

...chicks are naturally attracted to the scent of badass.

I HAVE READ SO MANY BAD BOOKS LATELY AND ABANDONED SO MANY BAD BOOKS HALFWAY THROUGH AND JUST. SIGH. WHAT HAS HAPPENED TO OUR STANDARDS. Okay, they weren’t BAD. They had POTENTIAL. It’s just really clear that maybe there are some editors out there who have no business being editors? (or these authors had no editors to begin with) Whatever. It’s not my job to judg- oh. It literally is.

So, that’s why I haven’t read or posted much (anything) this year. Book slump. And life has been happening. And we both suck at blogging. Excuses, excuses. Anyway, I was kind of desperately searching through those little lists on Goodreads when I found

Something Like Normal by Trish Doller
Publication date: June 19, 2012 (Bloomsbury)

I know it’s “old,” but despite the thousands upon thousands of ratings/reviews, I haven’t heard anything about it. Ever. Maybe you guys haven’t either. So I’mma remedy that situation right now.

Picture it with me. Be intrigued. Swoon a little. It’s okay to be pulled in by the whole uniform thing. I don’t think we can actually help it.

Travis Stephenson spontaneously enlists in the Marine Corps after high school to escape the less than stellar relationship with his overbearing father. Though we don’t have much of an opportunity to get to know him pre-Afghanistan, the change in him is made fairly evident when he returns. Things at home have changed too, and not for the better. This is what a large portion of the book deals with, so the squee-inducing fluff-nugget of a cover is a bit misleading.

While Travis attempts to deal with the nightmares and grief on his own, (as an added bonus: enter cover) he starts spending some time with an old “friend” from middle school. It’s a rocky start - and a rocky middle - but she tries to understand him and is his only source of comfort in a world he feels undeserving of.

I’m extremely picky when it comes to books written from a male’s POV, and I’m happy (obvi) to report that I liked this one a lot. I appreciated the amount of research that was obviously put into it to accurately capture The Feels and the struggle of a soldier adjusting to life after loss and war. I was actually kind of mad when I reached the end. I wanted more, and I’m not going to lie, I cried. I laughed too. But I cried. The Fault in Our Stars didn’t even make me cry. I’m weird. Anyway, there’s a lot to take away from this book, but I’m not going to list them because I’m clearly not great at thought put-togethering, so you’ll just have to read it for yourself and judge me and my opinion of good literature.

I think this was a debut novel for Trish Doller, so I’m excited to take a look-see at her other works.

4.75 out of 5 (I KNOW. I have star issues. I can’t just throw them out willy nilly. Accept it.)

He was the person all of us should be, but most of us aren't. And if I could have taken his place to buy him a little more time in the world, I'd have done it. I'm sorry I couldn't.

P.S. AMERICA. OORAH. FRICK YEAH.

P.P.S. Thanks to Yajaira for some of the random parenthetical additions.

- Rachel

Anatomy of a Boyfriend (Anatomy #1) by Daria Snadowsky

Anatomy of a Boyfriend by Daria Snadowsky 

Publication date: January 9, 2007 (Delacorte)

Dominique Baylor has never had a boyfriend. It’s her senior year of high school, and lo and behold, she runs into a very cute boy that catches her attention while attending a football game with her best friend, Amy. Wes and Dominique’s relationship quickly evolves from friends to boyfriend/girlfriend. Dominique is thrilled. And like a lot of teenage girls, within one month, she believes he is The One. And like some teenage girls, she allows a boy to change her.

Anatomy of a Boyfriend was a bit of an odd read in that it’s pretty realistic when it comes to sex and relationships. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book in which it describes the awkwardness and fumbling that comes with having sex for the first time. It was also entertaining to see a teenage relationship portrayed so realistically (because let’s be real, a majority of girls believe their boyfriend is The One in one month max). Reading the whirlwind romance of Dominique and Wes was amusing to see, watching it quickly go from one step to the next.

But the book does have its faults. Dominique isn’t very dynamic, and her character is rather predictable. Amy also fills the expected role of sexual deviant best friend. Wes was a pleasant surprise in some of his actions and characteristics.

Overall, this book is a good read, and I’d certainly recommend it to YA lovers.

(3.75 out of 5)

~ Yajaira

Waiting on Wednesday (5/7/14): Adrenaline Crush by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine.

Adrenaline Crush by Laurie Boyle Crompton

Expected publication date: September 23, 2014 

When a daredevil teen pushes herself too far, she must choose between two boys: the one who wants to keep her safe, and the one who dares her to return to her old self.
Seventeen-year-old Dyna comes from a family of risk takers and is an avid thrill-seeker herself, until the day she splinters her ankle in a terrible fall. Her whole life goes from mountain biking and rock climbing to sitting at home and attending group sessions at the bizarre alternative healing center that her hippie mother found. The boy who witnessed Dyna’s accident believes her injury is a wakeup call and he encourages her mild new lifestyle, but a young Afghanistan War veteran she meets at the healing center pushes her to start taking chances again. Forced to face the consequences of her daredevil impulses, Dyna finds herself in danger of risking the one thing she’s always treated with caution—her heart.

- Rachel