Jonas - Beautiful Dead by Eden Maguire

I just adore murder mysteries. I watch all of those NCIS and CSI shows on telly, but I tend to stay away from them in books because usually they are more directed at adults rather then teens. I'm happy to say that recently I've been finding a lot of novels in my local book shopped with murder themes!

One of which is a book I recently finished called Jonas - Beautiful Dead by Eden Maguire! Darina recently lost the love of her life Phoenix when he was stabbed by a thug in a fight. Darina soon realities that her dead boyfriend has been selected to join a very exclusive clun in limbo called the Beautiful dead. Darina has to help Phoenix and 3 other teenagers from her school who have died in the past year (Jonas, Arizona and Summer) to find out how they died.

I love this type of book, and I love those that also have a supernatural element to them, The beautiful dead plays with the concept of Zombies and Ghosts to create the beautiful dead. Even though the plot is simple, find the murderer/how they died so the dead can get to heaven or hell, but it also has the complicated relationship between Darina and her parents, and also between our protagonist and her boyfriend Phoenix. 

The series is complete with all 4 books currently on a bookshelf near you, so what you waiting for? Go check it out!

Twilight by Stephenie Meyer

I always believed that reviewing this book would be a little controversial, but I figured that since I mentioned it a lot in my blog, because its a very easy place of reference, that I should really tell you my thoughts on it.

Bella Swan moves to Forks following her mother getting remarried and touring with her husband who is a baseball player. The reason behind her moving to Forks, its to be with her father, Charlie. Bella seems to be a very average girl, plain looking, a little clumsy but apart from that, she seems pretty average. As with many teen reads Bella starts her new school and meets a host of characters that are now her new friends. Bella also meets an incredibly hansom boy called Edward Cullen and he hates her. 

The next part of the novel is flirting between the two, Bella finding out that Edward is infact a Vampire, and him doing everything he can think of to put her off of him, even though he tells her every day that he is developing feelings for her. 

To be honest I did like this, its sort of a guilty pleasure but there comes a point when you just have to sit back and think about the context of any novel. Twilight for example has a very rushed romance between Edward and Bella, it seems to teach girls bad habits in relationships, as well as her putting herself in danger with a vampire. I mean, if a guy came to you, a vmapire, said you smelt great, you would be terrified, not blush and treat it as a compliment. 

I hate that this book is incredibly popular, it lacks everything that makes other books great, its one of those books you need to read to understand why people like it so much. Even if it makes you smile a little, gives you a few butterflies, that should be what books are about. While I'm not telling you to go out and love it, I'm merely suggesting that I can understand why people may like it even though it is incredibly rushed and maybe a little pointless. It is a guilty pleasure of mine and many other people out there.  

Forgotten by Cat Patrick

"Tomorrow is a mystery, yesterday is a memory and today is a gift, that's why they call it the present."

-Unknown

That ever immortal quote is proved wrong in the début novel by Cat Patrick, Forgotten. Memory is an interesting thing to play with in a novel, a very brave thing to do because novels like Forgotten can become easily confusing to the reader. But in Cat Patricks defence, she pulled it off very well.

London Lane can only remember things that will happen in the future, and anything that has happened in the past gets forgotten. London lives her life by creating notes that she reads every morning before she goes to school to remind her of things that have happened in previous days. Things like if she should make sure she remembers her P.E kit or if there's a test. London gets through these days with the help of her best friend Jamie and her mother. 

Soon, London meets a boy called Luke and falls in love with him. They instantly start to date and the story unravels from there. London's journey is one that I found very difficult to read in some parts, the climax of the novel is one that made me cry for several minuets because it was very upsetting but I am so glad that I was able to go through all the events side by side with London.

London is a very well rounded character, the events that take place in the book make her a stronger character in all and I enjoyed her voice more then I have with other narrators. She was sweet and even though she had a great problem with her memory she over came them and also used them for her advantage.

The character of London's best friend Jamie on the other hand frustrated me no end. She placed herself in a very compromising situation which annoyed me when London confronted her about it telling her it was a bad idea. Even though I'm the type of girl who likes to make her own mistakes, even I wouldn't be stupid enough to ignore the advice from someone I knew could tell the future.

The English cover for this book is beautiful and captures the feel of the book amazingly. I love how the right hand girl was in colour, which I believe shows that with London that is who she is, and the left hand side is faded to show that her past is now lost. 

I would love to congratulate Cat Patrick on her novel, it was a fascinating read and I hope that she writes more! 

Please leave a comment below telling me what you thought of this novel! Thank you!

A "Clockwork Prince" Cover

So today is the day that the cover of "Clockwork Prince" by Cassandra Claire has been released! I've been looking forward to this all month! I just love Cassandra Claire's covers as they are always beautiful! So are you ready?

Say Hello to Jem!

I just love love love this cover! What do you guys think?

Wings by Aprilynne Pike

To be honest, I brought this one on a whim. Have you noticed the pattern? I do not buy books based on the blurb. I tend to get books because of covers, which is a VERY Bad habit! With this book however, I brought it because I loved the name. Wings. It's been my nickname since I was 13. Needless to say I got the book based on that.

This was one of those rare moments when I can honestly say that I love judging books by front covers, because I probably would never of picked this one up otherwise, it just looks too girly for me! The story follows Laurel as she embarks on her first days of school after spending years being homeschooled. See, I told you it was a theme! Laurel is very strange, from the first few pages we see that she is a very strange girl, a very strict vegan diet, no need to use hair products and being indoors always makes her feel claustrophobic. 

Her new friend David wants to hang out with her all the time, and she starts to develop feelings for him, until one day when she finds a lump on her back. This sends the story into a whirlwind of energetic story and a Twilight love triangle which still goes on in book three! I know I'm not meant to be Bias, But Tamani <3.

When Laurel finds out she is actually a faerie, she learns that she needs to protect her old home from trolls, a home that her family have been trying to sell had little luck in the past year. 

I can not tell you how much I adored this little book, I devoured it in little over a day and loved every moment of it! Now, I know most book shops in england have it either in the young adult or the 12-16 section but anyone can read this and I think that everyone should at least give it a try, its original, its deep and very political in the faerie world. It's so much more then just a pretty face I assure you. 

Firespell by Chloe Neill

A theme in paranormal romance and teenage fiction, is the first day at school or boarding school. Firespell by Chloe Neill is a perfect example of this, as low and behold, the first page outlines that our protagonist has been accepted into St. Sophias school for girls. Why she is going there? Because her parents are going to be working in Germany for 2 years. 

On her first day at the school, Lily Parker is given a tour around her new school, filled with strict rules and regulations. Then we meet a girl called Scout, a girl whose been in the school for years, so long in fact that she has permanently moved in. With this Lily believes that she has found someone who can make her life at St. Sophia almost bearable, Scout already deciding that are are instantly friends. The only problem being that Scout runs out every night and comes back in the early hours of the morning always looking tired and sometimes beaten up.

It's not until Lily is forced to find out what Scout is doing to we really come to appreciate the epicness of this book. I love strong women. I love the type that can fight for themselves, and I mean fight with fists, magic or whatever you please. We find out that Scout has powers, along with a group of other teenagers across the Chicago area, and Lily is about to join the fight.

In the beginning I thought it was going to be another book about a boring boarding school, where very little happens, But as I seem to be a lot while reviewing books for this blog, I found my self very surprised about the quality of writing, and while reading young adult novels like I do, you come to notice which authors are only writing for money and who are writing because they want to get across a message. 

The setting is very well constructed, I started to feel like I wanted to be at this boarding school even if you are required to study for hours at a time and only have two nights off a week for social interaction.  Neill has a fantastic balance of witty humor and serious which made this book a breeze to read. 

The relationship between Scout and Lily, made me laugh and want to bang their heads together at some places. The chemistry between them is like they were sisters but of course they are not. I would love to have a relationship with someone like Lily and Scout do! 

I would recommend this novel to anyone who like me, loves strong women or even people who are into that paranormal school experience! Congratulations Neill, you did an excellent job! 

Please leave a comment below telling me your thoughts!

Evermore by Alyson Noel

Hello, this is Bookish Bloggish and I buy books based on very pretty covers. I know Alyson Noel didn't have anything to do with the cover but I have to say it is beautiful and fits the story ever so well. Evermore is certainly eye candy for my bookshelf!

The story is about a girl called Ever Bloom, (which has to be the most annoying name ever! ...Dammit!) When I heard the name I have to admit I almost put the book down! Ever is the sole survivor when her family were on a road trip, and Ever's father swerves to miss a deer and everyone apart Ever dies in the crash, although she does die or a moment but doesn't cross to the other side with the rest of her family. 

So now Ever lives in a mansion with her rich aunt and can have anything she wants. The only problem she is haunted by the ghost of her little sister, and now she can hear peoples thoughts and see auras. She later meets Damen, who tries to woo her with Red Tulips. Oh, we can't forget Ever two sidekicks, Haven, a goth who follows the style and pretty much everything of the next new kid, and Miles, whose pretty much there as a gossip and the token gay guy.

Now don't get me wrong, the book isn't bad! I quite liked it actually, but the story is lacking something that I feel that needs to be worked on. This book came out during the Twilight popularity heightened. The story it's self has a lot of similarity to Twilight. It's frustrating! 

The book so far has around 6 books in it, and sadly I've only read the first two, so I really can't tell you if my opinion has changed or not, so don't miss this book out completely, its a quick and easy read. It's a very nicely written romance for what it is, and it does use some good things like using Aura colors and the meaning behind flowers, so please do give this one a try and hopefully you enjoy it better then I did.   

Please leave a comment below telling me your thoughts!

Uglies by Scott Westerfeild

In todays society, girls care about how they look more then they care about politics. Eating disorders are on the rise and more and more people are heading under the knife to get that "perfect body". In this book this sort of behaviour is not only encouraged, but compulsory at the age of 16. At this magical age you are transformed from an "ugly" which to you and me is an average looking person and into a "Pretty".

Tally Yougblood is a girl who can not wait until her 16th birthday so that she can join her best friend in new pretty town, in the last few weeks leading up to this day she meets a girl called Shay while Tally escaped from breaking into New Pretty Town. Shay is an ugly who has the thirst for trouble just like Tally. It becomes increasingly aware that even though the girls share a lot of common interest with each other, Shay isn't as excited about becoming Pretty as Tally is and runs away. 

Tally is taken to "Special Circumstances" and is told that she can not become pretty unless she brings back her friend. This is the start of Tally's journey into finding out more about the place she grew up in and the place that embrace the averageness of humanity and fight for the right to be left "Ugly". Tally soon finds out what it's actually like to become pretty and chooses to remain an ugly at a great cost of never seeing her friends again. 

This is a beautiful novel about a girl coming of age and realizing that beauty comes from within. I believe that every teenage girl across the world should read this novel and realise that they are beautiful just the way that they are.

Hush Hush by Becca Fitzpatrick

My personal reason for buying this book is so stupid I can not believe I'm letting you readers know. I brought this book because it was shiny! There was no other reasons, I hadn't heard of the book before, I just walked past the books in my local supermarket, the silver on the cover reflected light in my eyes, I turned and thought "Mine!" This novel is of course "Hush Hush" by Becca Fitzpatric!  

The story is of a girl called Nora, a high school girl who writes for the Ezine, a school publication. While in her biology class she is paired up with the  foreign exchange student, Patch. Nora instantly is scared by Patch and his intensive knowledge of her but at the same time is intrigued by him and starts to fall for him. This is a pretty generic YA novel but is still a good read and the twists and mystery surrounding Patch keeps the reader, well, reading! 

I thought the character development is impressive in this book, we learn more about Nora and Patch through out the book. Vee, on the other had, was not developed enough for my taste! She is the lovable sidekick of Nora, an average girl, shes loud, alittle bit fat but has a huge heart. I just love her! We only see her a handful of times throughout the book and that depresses me. I  want more Vee time! 

Being Fitzpatrics first novel I think it was a studding debut, followed beautifully by the sequel "Cresendo". Check out my review for that at a later date! 

Nightshade By Andrea Cremer

Like Vampires, were wolfs have risen in popularity since Twilights fame started a few years ago, Because of this many writers started to write mediocre novels with little plot, two dimensional characters and very little setting or thought put behind it. 

I picked up Nightshade By Andrea Cremer hoping that it would fill a void left inside of me by terrible money making fiction. Thankfully, Cremer has done a good job with this novel.

The story is about a alpha female in a wolf pack called Calla. Her purpose in this pack is to join forces with an alpha from the neighboring, Ren. The wolfs are controlled by the "Keepers" which is a race of witches that are at war against the "Searchers". Although I enjoyed the concept of this I need believe that this was very unoriginal and seemed very cat and mouse, and the names aren't unique either! That aside, Calla saves a human boy that is trespassing on the mountains, which is against the law of her people. The boy is taken to the new pack and they have the job of protecting the boy we find outs name is Shay.  

Like many YA fiction out these days we need to realise that the "love" in them will be either one of two things, either the main characters fall in love at a fast pace, or a love triangle is started. Even though Nightshade is no exception, its refreshing. Ren acts like a wolf would in the wild which I believe is a very good aspect of this book. 

The writing is action packed and fast paced. The comedy and pouns used make the reading experience a worth while read and the character of Shay personally kept me turning the page as I personally wanted to know what he would do to annoy Ren next. That being true, I also found Ren's character to be compelling and felt very bad for him and almost went on "Team Ren" 

The Cover art is beautiful for this novel, the girl in the front looks very dramatic and striking. I have to also admit that I did buy this book based of the cover alone! 

The pricing on this book almost made me not buy it however. £11.99 for a book is almost double what I would usually pay in this genre, thank god for Amazon.co.uk having at such a low price.

While generally, I would recommend this book to anyone who likes Were wolfs or fantasy worlds, I have to say, I would wait for it to go down in price on websites rather then buying for full price, as even though it was an amazing read, its far too expensive!  

Wild is the lastest installment of a series of four books by Aprilynne Pike. Wild, or as its known in other parts of the world as "Illisions" is the third in the series of this truly amazing story. Wings starts the tale of a young girl named Laurel a head strong teenager from Del Norte California as her life changes when she discovers that she is a faerie sent from Avolon to protect the gate from the human to the faerie kingdom from the ever growing troll infestation.

In "Wild" the love triangle between Tamani, David and Laurel heats up when Tamani joins Laurels school in order to protect her from the ever lasting threat of trolls that befall Avolon and Laurel. Klea (a troll hunter) brings a girl to Laurel for protection as even though she doesn't know that Laurel is a Faerie, she knows that the girl Yuki is, and from previous encounters with Laurel has told Klea that she can be trusted. With trolls being located around Laurels home, Tamani has his work cut out to protect Laurel and to try to get information out of Yuki.

The book is fast pace and very energetic. Pike has a very distinted writing style, as it can be enjoyed by a younger audience because of its simple writing structer but can also be enjoyed by a more mature audience as it does not talk down to the reader. She portrays the characters and their emotions beautifully. From the heart break of both of the boys and the anger and despriation of Laurel. The characters interact with ease, the friendships are believable and yout heart breaks with Laurel has she has to choose between David and Tamani.

Although this is an amazing book I felt frustrated with the relationship of Tamani and Laurel.* From what the other books relate, Laurel can not remember the relationship she had with Tamani, and while I adore his undying love, I feel like it hasn't been developed enough for Laurel to be in love with Tamani in the same way that she is with David (A boy that she's been with for 2 years). 

In all I would recommend this series to anyone who enjoys troll butt kicking faeries, romance and a good fight. But although it is perfect for girls, it is sad that the cover has hindered boys from reading this series. 

Entangled by Cat Clarke

Normally for books I stay in the same sections, where the werewolfs and vampires roam. But when I last went to my local bookshop, I saw a pretty cover with a Red haired girl on the front; I thought it was beautiful. I read the blurb on the back and and a few pages; I knew I needed this book.

This was a difficult read for me to get through. The story is a sort of diary by a girl called Grace Carlyle. At first the story was little confusing; she swaps between what is happening to her at the time and what did happen to lead to where she is. She's in a white room with nothing but a bed, table and stacks of pens and paper. She arrives there by the care of Ethan, a boy that Grace has never met, after Grace tries to kill herself. 

She guides the reader through the few months of her life, showing all of her mistakes and her conflict with her best friend, mother and boyfriend. Clarke makes the character very unlikeable but, because this novel is designed to show the girls flaws and be realistic, I rather enjoyed the negativities of Grace. 

I would like to warn the readers of this book that there is some pretty graphic stuff in here relating to sex, alcohol and self harming. Although I would stress that parents should consider not giving this book to under 14 year olds, I do believe that this book features things that many teenagers will go through. Teenagers who self harm should also read this book as it makes you feel not alone and that someone out there understands what you are going through. Grace describes these "episodes" in enough detail for you to really feel sorry for her.

The conclusion of the book on the other hand is rather confusing and I needed to read it several times before I completely grasped what I think may of happened. I believe it was written very well, but, it was so open to interpretation. Also was Grace even kidnapped in the first place? While reading I believed it was very strange that Ethan, a man who brings Grace her meals while shes in the white room, doesn't try to attack her or give any details in why she was kidnapped. Then the conclusion made it seem like she wasn't kidnapped but that was all in her head. OR maybe he was a psychiatrist later on after Grace had become better after trying to kill herself. 

Even though it was a hard struggle to read this (through frustration of Graces choices and of me tearing up so much I couldn't see the page) I read it in one sitting, something I haven't managed to do in a while. I would recommend this to anyone who likes real life writing rather then paranormal. I enjoyed Clarkes writing style, the pacing was excellent and this was an amazing debut novel. I do sincerely hope that she writes some more novels. 

Sisters Red

When it comes to fairy tales, one of the most popular has to be little red riding hood. With the recent film out I decided it may be time to read one of the latest adaptations, instead of the movie tie in, I picked up a copy of "Sisters Red" by Jackson Pearce.

Let me tell you this, I was very impressed with this book. The story is about two sisters named Scarlett and Rosie March, whose grandmother was ripped to pieces by a wolf. Scarlett when trying to protect her sister from the beast lost an eye and has been given both emotional and physical scars. Following the attack both sisters vow to take revenge on the wolfs (known in this tale as fenris) with the help of the woodsman son, Silas. 

This is a gripping tale of love, revenge and betrayal. While reading I felt an attachment to both sisters, who both have different motives for killing the wolves. One does it because she feels that she needs to because she has seen what they can do and vows to ensure that no other girl will have the same fate as her grandmother; but the other sister does it because she feels that she owes her sister for saving her life when she was little. Another good thing about this book is that Pearce uses extensive knowledge of the little red riding hood story (many different versions of it I might add) to create this magnificent story, some lines in the book made me smile like when a Fenris says that his "weird eyes" is "all the better to see you with". 

The only bad part that I feel like I need to point out is that, why has no one checked up on these girls? According to the book, Rosie left school when she was quite young to be "home schooled" but no one had checked up to see if this was true. Another part was how do these girls survive with no income? Indeed they pawn off anything that they have that's valuable but surely they must have an income coming in from somewhere? 

All negativity's aside I believe that anyone who loves head strong and independent women, or really fricken scary monsters will love this!

"Silence!" It's time for a "hush hush" update!

Like many book buyers, I have a terrible habit. I tend to judge books by the covers! With some books, covers are the best part of the book, and while that can not be said for Becca Fitzpatrick's "Hush Hush" Series. While even though the covers were perfect, the story was powerful enough to stand alone. 

"Hush Hush" pictures one of the characters Patch, who fell from heaven and in an attempt to find his way back to heaven finds a girl called Nora, who is pictured in the second book in the trilogy "Crescendo" (A book I remember begging my boyfriend for on release day.) Both books will have a full review posted in the future.

But the news everyone is looking forward to, is the recent release of the "Silence" cover.

So what do you think? I love that now Patch and Nora are now together which can only increase speculation that now Patch and Nora will work together. To be honest I think they did a great job with this one and I can not wait until October 4th 2011!

 

Looking forward to "Forever"

Now, anyone that followed by last fruitless attempts to create a book reviewing blog will see that I LOVE anything written by Maggie Stiefvater. With (what I assume) to be the last in the series of books known as "The Wolves of Mercy Falls" Comes "Forever".

Any speculation about what will happen in the latest instalment will be a mystery until the publish date of July 12 2011. After the cliffhanger left by "Linger" last year fans all over the world are pining to find out what will become of the poetic romance of Grace and Sam.

Stiefvater earlier this week published a book trailer that she made her self, maybe it gives hints?

From what I can personally interpret I believe that both Sam and Grace will end up as Wolves. What do you think?