Fever (The Chemical Gardens #2): Review

Author: Lauren Destefano
Age range: 14-17
Content: Moderate relationship content, mild sexual content, no cursing, moderate violence
Genre: Teen Science Fiction / Teen Fantasy
Publisher: Simon & Schuster 
Where to get it: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Half-Price Books

Synopsis: Rhine and Gabriel have finally escaped the mansion, but they're still in danger. Determined to get to Manhattan to find Rhine's twin brother, Rowan, the two keep going with the constant threat of being captured hanging over their heads. The road to Manhattan is long and treacherous and they're running out of time. But in a world where women only live to twenty and men to twenty-five, time is everything. Rhine has to decide if freedom is worth the price now that there's more at risk than ever.

Opinions: Hello hello hello. And I'm back with another review. I love writing reviews. If you would like to read my other review on the first book, Wither click here. And since that one is kind of long, I'll keep this short and I'll keep it sweet.

I love this series. I love it so much. It's so original, but still believable. I can actually see this happening in a hundred years. The writing is amazing. The cover is absolutely gorgeous just like the first one. It's one of those series  that I just want to carry around and just look at all the time. Having all three books looks so pretty on my bookshelf. :)

If you've read the first one and you're kind of on the fence about reading this one, definitely just buy it. I think it's better than the first one. So much happens and Rhine literally experiences everything with the scarlet camps and the Madame and stuff. I would recommend the entire series to anyone.

I found this book to be the perfect size with the perfect amount of pages. I didn't feel like it was dragging on or that it ended too quick. The ending is just... ahhh. I feel bad for the people who read this when it first came out and had to wait a year for the next one, Sever. Luckily for me, Sever came out right as I finished this one, Fever so I didn't do a lot of waiting. It's so suspenseful and insane. You have to read it.

I would obviously recommend reading Wither before this one or you might get a little confused because Rhine references to her past a lot when she's narrating. But other than that this series is freaking genius and slightly crazy, I can't think of anything else to tell you. Sorry I was kind of bland today. I am currently working on three things because I can't decide which one should get done first, so I'm a little unfocused. So yeah, I hope you all have fabulous weekends and I will be back soon enough. Byeeeeeeeee.

Best & Worst Book Series: Science Fiction / Fantasy

Whoa. I'm not doing a review for once. Whooooaaa. I wanted to start this month with a Best & Worst post because there are just so many book series. They can either be really good or really bad. I guess all books are like that. But with series, it's a serious commitment. So you'll want to know what you're getting yourself into. Let us begin.

BEST...

The Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. I have raved about this series quite a bit. I've done a review on all of her books. I love Cassandra Clare. If I had to recommend one series to everyone I know on this planet, it would be this series. It's that good. It's being made into a movie starring Lily Collins. I'm slightly worried they'll ruin it. Eeeek.

The Chemical Garden Trilogy by Lauren Destefano. This is a fairly new series. Newer than TMI. I haven't heard any hype about it yet, but I'm sure it's coming. I love this series. I read all the books twice because they are so great. The writing is amazing and the world it's placed in is so believable. I've done posts on the first two books, so go check that out.

Divergent by Veronica Roth. I discovered this series (when I say "I" I really mean "my mom" ;)) about two years ago, I think. I've reviewed both books. They're really quick reads and very entertaining. There is a third one coming out sometime this year called Allegiant and I am excited. It's also being filmed as a movie which comes out in 2014, I believe. I have very high hopes for it.

The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Everyone and their mother probably already knows how good these books are. The first one has been a movie for about a year. The second one comes out in November and I'm extremely excited because that one is my favorite. I really love this trilogy.

Legend by Marie Lu. This series is very underrated. I have heard absolutely no one besides myself rave about it. That makes me sad because this series is brilliant. I can not wait for the next book.

WORST...

Wicked by Nancy Holder. I read this quite a long time ago. I think remember it switching narratives in a very confusing way and that I didn't like the main character. I don't think I'll ever read this again.

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I've already expressed my almost violent distaste for this series. I have only reviewed the first one because that is the only one I've read. I can't say I see it getting any better. There's been a movie made out of it and I don't think it did too well.

So that's it. I seriously need to go lie down. My head is pounding. I think I caught a cold. Boo. :( Anyway, I hope you have appreciated the Best & Worst thingy and you're all having amazing days. See ya. Bye.

The Face on the Milk Carton: Review

Author: Caroline B. Cooney

Age range: 12-15

Content: Mild relationship content, no sexual content, no cursing, no violence

Genre: Teen Fiction

Publisher: Random House Children's Books

Where to get it: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Half-Price Books

Synopsis: Nobody pays attention to the missing kids on milk cartons. Janie was no exception. Until one day she's drawn in by the little girl's red hair so much like her own. She recognizes the little girl. Why? Because Janie is the missing child. 

Opinions: Again, just like Beautiful Creatures, I had such high hopes for this book. Not because of the hype, but because of the cover. The cover is so ghostly and haunting. I picked it up, read the back, and was instantly sucked in. I expected mystery and other scary things, but I didn't get it. I was very let down. 

I love the concept of this story-line. Some of the dialog-banter was cute as were some of Janie's quirks. It has so much potential that the author just didn't go far enough with. She could have pushed the boundaries a lot more than she did, especially with the character Janie and I'm sad that she didn't. This book could have been so good.

I wasn't impressed with the writing. It was very wishy-washy and often strayed too far away from the subject of the actual kidnapping which made me question what the book was even really about. I feel like this book should be in first person, not third. There were a lot of "Janie thought" lines. 

Most of all, Janie is the most annoying main character I've ever come across. She couldn't make up her mind about anything! She mentions feeling out of place like once or twice, but never really shows it. She is only out of place when she starts freaking out over the milk carton. Also, the dumbest thing ever, Janie had a milk allergy. Okay, author, if you're going to base your entire series on her seeing a missing child on the back of a milk carton you can't give her a milk allergy. It would've been okay, but Janie kept mentioning how annoyed she was that she couldn't drink milk for the entire first two chapters! Honestly, no teenager would ever be that upset about not being able to drink milk. Seriously, what in the world? 

Also, Cooney, you don't have to describe Janie's hair every single time someone touches or looks at it. I get it; her hair is chaotic and red. Get on with it. 

This isn't something I didn't like, but it did make me laugh because of how stupid it was. So towards the end of the book, Janie is talking to this Reeve character and they're supposed to be in love. And one of the lines that Cooney used to describe Janie's (weird) desire was, "Janie was so aware of his maleness." HAHAHAHA. What the heck? Editor, why would you keep that in? I don't even know how to describe how hard and long I laughed at that one line.

The romance between Reeve and Janie was so shallow. It didn't make a lot of sense. He started out as her life-long neighbor and then suddenly BOOM she's in love with the guy. Like they go from "trusty rusty next door neighbors" to Janie calling him, "the light of her life." She doesn't describe anything about seeing him differently and neither does Reeve which made me feel like I missed something even though I definitely didn't.   It felt like the two of them were just going through the motions: "Yep, we'll kiss. Okay, now feed me cake and be super cute about it. Let's go sneak off to a motel and almost have sex." Overall, the relationship really lacked depth and chemistry. 

Even though I didn't enjoy it, some of you guys might. I read a fair few reviews by people that absolutely loved it and said it's the best book they've ever read. I recommend this to, like, younger readers or kind of unfocused readers. It's super short and I finished it in a couple hours. So it's not heavy duty. 

I'm done now. I hope you enjoyed one of my more rantish posts. I certainly did. Rants are probably my most favorite things to write (haha). So yeah. I will be back in May and the posts will be teensy bit different. ;) Get excited. Bye, lovelies! 

Prodigy (Legend #2)

Author: Marie Lu
Age range: 13-17
Content: Moderate relationship content, no sexual content, mild cursing, moderate violence 
Genre: Teen Science Fiction / Teen Fantasy Adventure
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Where to get it: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Half-Price Books

Synopsis: June and Day are have escaped to Vegas when it happens: Elector Primo dies. His son Anden takes over. The two join the Patriots with the promise of help in finding Day's little brother and save passage to the Colony, but only if they assassinate the new Elector.

Opinions: If you would like to read the post I did on the first book in this series click here. I was thinking about revisiting that one. But I wanted to get this up before. Also, what do you think about me doing different types of posts? Because since I've started all I've done is reviews. I could do post versions of like the different pages I have up here already like 10 Books I Will Never Read Again and all that jazz. I don't know. Just a thought.

I absolutely love this Legend series. I love the cover, the title, the characters, the writing, the setting, and plot. I can't think of one thing I don't like. Also, it's got rough cut pages and, to me, there's nothing better than a book with rough cut pages.

June is another one of my favorite female leads. She's not whiny and she does mostly everything on her own. She knows a lot more than Day does, but she isn't cocky about it. The conflict between Day and June is great as well. There's enough for them to argue about, but not for them to stay mad at each other too long. Their romance is great too. They aren't super lovey-dovey, but they still know that they care about each other. Sometimes they seemed like they really do not belong with each other. Other times, they are absolutely perfect.

The ending makes me want to cry. It's so sad. I never thought that this series would be so emotional, but it is. Definitely don't finish it in public. Marie Lu seriously needs to hurry on book three.

I recommend this to, like, The Hunger Games, Divergent, and The Mortal Instruments readers. All of them are kind of similar in one way or another. They all take place in some sort of other world society and the characters have to follow a different set of rules. If you love science-fiction-adventure-action type novels, you should definitely pick up the first and second book. There's quite a bit of romance in it as well. So it's sort of a girl book too.

In my opinion, this one is better than the first one. There's more conflict and action and emotion. But you still have to read the first one to understand this one. Both of them are just so good. And they're super easy to read and not too, like, political.

Alright. I think I'm done. I've run out of words to describe how much I love this series and my mouth hurts (brace face!). Next week I have to go to Florida, so I'll be back fairly soon. Good-bye for now.

Out of Easy

Author: Ruta Sepetys
Age range: 14-17
Content: Mild relationship content, mild sexual content, mild cursing, moderate violence
Genre: Teen Fiction / Teen Historical Fiction
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Where to get it: Barnes & Noble, Amazon, Target, Half-Price Books

Synopsis: Josie Moraine, the seventeen-year-old daughter of a French Quarter prostitute who offers her nothing more than theft and abuse. Josie dreams of escaping life in the Big Easy and her bookstore job. But a murder investigation brings her plan to a grinding halt and threatens to smash her dreams into a million pieces.

Opinions: Good morning! I'm in a really good mood today and I don't know why.

I have already reviewed Ruta Sepetys' first novel which is called Between Shades of Gray (click on the italics if you would like to read it). I loved it and it's still one of my absolute favorites. So when this came out I was literally over the moon.

First, Ruta Sepetys has the prettiest books ever. The book jacket is pretty. I like the cage and the green color. The hardcover is gorgeous and tea-stained, I think it's called. Also, the pages are rough-cut and you know I love my rough-cut pages.

The best part about her books is the characters. They're always really easy to relate to. I like Josie's conflict of trying to get into a good college and basically start her life. But she also had to think about all the people she was leaving behind: Cokie, Patrick, Charlie, Willie, and Jesse. It was interesting, reading how everything still worked out okay. The plot was good because everything that happened, even the small things, mattered in the end. It all had some relevance to how things were solved.

There is one thing I didn't quite understand. There's like one paragraph somewhere in there where Josie is thinking about all the things her mother ruined for her. One of them was that she had trouble trusting men. I don't know if it was on purpose or not, but Josie only trusted men throughout like the entire book. All of her friends were male. I couldn't tell if that was meant to be ironic or... what.

So you know how Between Shades of Gray is a major cry book? This one's not as... heavy. This is a more coming-of-age story. It's a lot cuter and there's more angst. There's actually a sneaky little love triangle in there, too. It's one of the very few that did not make me want to smash my head through a window. It actually, like, made sense. I think this would be a great airplane or roadtrip or in-public book because it's a nice-sized, pretty book and it won't make you want to cry. Have you ever read an emotional book in public? It feels like you're a ticking time-bomb filled with tears! You have been warned.

Guess what? I'm going to Florida again at the start of next month for my baby sister's cheerleading thingy. I need a travel book and I can't decide on which one I want to bring with me. (There's so many good choices!) I'll probably just re-read The Outsiders or something because I have been reading loads and loads of new books like madwoman. So I have more than enough to get me through this month and next month. I really hope it's not as muggy in Florida as the last time I was there. Bleh. Anyway, I hope you are all having a wonderful day and I will be updating again sometime soon, probably. Good-bye for now.