10/25/13

Easy by Tammara Webber

Title:  Easy
Author:  Tammara Webber
Genre: New Adult - Romance/Overcoming Circumstances

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com):   
Rescued by a stranger.
Haunted by a secret
Sometimes, love isn’t easy…


He watched her, but never knew her. Until thanks to a chance encounter, he became her savior…

The attraction between them was undeniable. Yet the past he’d worked so hard to overcome, and the future she’d put so much faith in, threatened to tear them apart.

Only together could they fight the pain and guilt, face the truth—and find the unexpected power of love.

A groundbreaking novel in the New Adult genre, Easy faces one girl's struggle to regain the trust she's lost, find the inner strength to fight back against an attacker, and accept the peace she finds in the arms of a secretive boy.


Review: 
Easy was easily not what I was expecting, yet satisfying in so many ways. The number one reason I love this book; it addresses rape, and the different levels of it – and clearly defines what rape is without it being a text book. My hope is that anyone who reads this book and…may have found themselves in this situation, will feel empowered by the book and not discouraged. The consequences of being embarrassed and confused and letting anyone get away with something as ugly as rape is unnecessary, although it might be hard to stand up and fight against. I think Easy addressed it so very well.

Outside of that, I loved this book for Jacqueline and Luke’s story. It was a typical love story between good girl and apparently bad boy. A love of wonderful kissing scenes and so much respect and love shared. Their story felt real and wonderful and hard at the same time. There was no really one of those huge dramatic partings in the middle of this book where boy sits in one corner and sulks and pouts, and girl sits in the other corner and sulks and pouts until the two decide that their differences are stupid and they come back together. Thank you for that!

This book is most certainly, without a doubt, a part of the new adult category – despite it’s placement on my libraries website. There is language, sexual content, and of course rape (none of the above is graphic baring the language of course). There are many adult situations. I do not recommend this book for teenagers.

10/18/13

Throne of Glass - Sarah J Maas

Title:  Throne of Glass
Author:  Sarah J. Maas
Genre:  Young Adult - Fantasy, Romance, Action

Synopsis (from Goodreads.com):  After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom.

Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilarating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another.

Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.


Review:  I can’t even remember how I came across this book, honestly.   It seems like I was poking around on Goodreads, and noticed on something – but then again, it seems like it was on Amazon.com first, because I remember their descriptions/synopsis sucked, so I went to Goodreads to see if I could get something better – which of course I did.  Goodreads almost always has a good description of the book.  Plus, if you read reviews, they are mostly reliable. 
So Throne of Glass; first of all, the first thing I think of is “Game of Thrones,” which I think is natural given the popularity of the show and books, so I had to do a double take to realize that this book had nothing to do with the other.  Reading the synopsis, I knew immediately this was a book that I would be interested in, and hoped that the reviews were trustworthy.  THANK YOU follow bloggers/Goodreads reviewers, you did not steer me wrong in this one.  I absolutely loved this book.
Describing Throne of Glass to my husband was interesting to say the least.  I don’t usually talk about books with him, just because the majority of the books I read he wouldn’t be interested in, but I knew that this one was just interesting enough that he’d probably be okay discussing it with me.  However, I used a myriad of similes while describing this book to try to give him an idea of what we were dealing with.  The first is an obvious, Celaena is a lot like Katniss of the Hunger Games, however minus any self doubt, in that she is just simply awesome.  Celaena was trained from the age of 8 to be an assassin, and she is quite simply the best.  She knows it, and anyone who has ever heard her name knows it.  The next comparison I made was between Celaena and Sherlock Holmes (hear me out here)!  We are not talking about the books – which is what confused my husband – but the most recent movies with Robert Downey Jr.  The scenes where he sees what’s coming and he mentally goes through all the moves as to how he’s going to get out of the situations.  Celaena does this as well, as an assassin, she is trained to know the easiest and most effective way to get out of situations, so from the beginning she is constantly mentally going through scenarios as to how she can disarm, escape, kill, etc.  However, she is smart enough to watch all the cards on the table and see what hand she is being dealt.  This constant awareness, though, starts to happen less frequently as Celaena gets more comfortable with her surroundings and the people around her.  As she becomes less of a being looking to defend and look out for herself, and more of a girl with emotions and a great personality.  And finally, as a description of the kingdom that we are looking at, I briefly used the BC show’s Merlin, a kingdom where magic exists, but it is illegal/banned/will get you killed in a heartbeat. 
So here we are, combining many of my favorite book attributes into one beautiful novel.  Er, well series actually.  Of course.  Unfortunately, the storyline of the love triangle is not lost on this book either. I mean, everything else was included too, right?  (I HATE LOVE TRIANGLES!)  I will say, that within this novel, the romance is a byproduct of the book.  It was perfectly played out.  Celaena was a little oblivious, or maybe not oblivious, but being obtuse when it came to the men in her life, but still yet, it wasn’t horrible.  What IS horrible is the fact that both Prince Dorian and Captain Westfall are equally as appealing.  It makes it very difficult to come to grips with the love triangle when there isn’t a clear cut “I like this guy” in the scenario.    So outside of that, I loved this story – Celaena is fighting for her freedom, which comes with a cost of it’s own, but at least she has a definite goal and end in sight, and she’s no longer a slave in a salt prison, right?  I’m sure that this all plays out interestingly in future books.  But then throw in the elements of magic, and it’s not overwhelming within the book – just enough to keep you interested and curious.  It makes you want to know who Celaena really is, and how this is going to end.  This, in my eyes, makes Sarah J. Mass a great story teller.  She’s got foreshadowing down to an art, however did not leave the book in some scream-worthy cliff hanger…just enough to make you want more.  NEED more!
Fantasy/romance/strong-female character/evil kingdoms/injustice/rebellion – all the wonderful beautiful elements in creating a story…a fairytale if you will, that you will not want to miss!

10/10/13

Release Day Blitz - Seeing Light by Michelle Warren


Seeing Light
The Seraphina Parrish Trilogy # 3
Genre- YA Fantasy/ Time Travel
Publication Date- October 10th, 2013 

As the corruption of the Society intensifies and the questions surrounding her mother mount, Seraphina Parrish embarks on a journey to find Terease in the terrifying Wandering city of Nocturna. But the information she learns there only sends her team on a dangerous mission to fulfill an ancient prophecy. Delving deep into the disturbing secrets of their world, the revelations quickly unravel, revealing shocking truths about the Society and Sera’s life. In the end, power and courage clash in a mission for freedom that may shatter the Wandering world completely.