Teaser Tuesdays #1

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:


 

•  Grab your current read; 
• Open to a random page;
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page;
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!);
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Memes are so much fun, that I decided to participate in Teaser Tuesdays. I'm currently reading The Alchemy of Forever, by Avery Williams. I'm using my Kindle for Android, so I won't have an accurate page. Here's my teaser:

“Did you just say fried chicken cupcake? Is this possible?”

--- Chapter twenty-nine.



I'm loving it so far... the story is very interesting and fast-paced. Not to mention the villain *shudders*.

Quick review: An Iron Fey Valentine, by Julie Kagawa

It's Valentine's Day on the USA, and even though we celebrate it only in June here, I couldn't be happier. The reason behind my gleeful behavior is that Julie Kagawa released her special Valentine's Day novella today. What's this novella about, you ask me? Well, we get to know how Ash and Meghan spent their holiday (with a real date and all that).




The first thing I did after arriving from school was to read An Iron Fey Valentine. I have only one thing to say: The waiting, the excitement, was so worth it.

There were so many fluffy scenes and comments - from both Meghan and Ash - that I actually wished I had a boyfriend. And when the novella was over, it felt like my world had lost its brightness for a few moments. I'm not going to give spoilers away. It's amazing to experience Ash and Meghan's relationship after everything they endured. How they're at sync with each other, how much they love each other. Truly fantastic.

So, if you're interested in checking the novella out, click here.

PS: An Iron Fey Valentine is set after The Iron Knight. If you haven't read the whole series yet, and don't want any spoilers getting in the way of your reading, then don't read the novella. If you don't mind the spoilers, go right ahead :D

In my Mailbox #1

 In my Mailbox is a weekly meme, hosted by Kristi, at The Story Siren, where we share the books we got this week. This is the first In my Mailbox (I'm a novice at this memes, XD), and these are the goodies I got this week, for my Kindle for Android:

 Harbinger, by Sara Wilson Etienne 

Fracture, by Megan Miranda

Dark Mirror, by M.J. Putney

I'm particularly eager to read Dark Mirror, but they all look good! What about you: What books did you get this week?

Article 5, by Kristen Simmons

Release date: January 31st 2012
Published by: Tor Teen
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 4/5 stars











 New York, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C., have been abandoned.

The Bill of Rights has been revoked, and replaced with the Moral Statutes.

There are no more police—instead, there are soldiers. There are no more fines for bad behavior—instead, there are arrests, trials, and maybe worse. People who get arrested usually don't come back.

Seventeen-year-old Ember Miller is old enough to remember that things weren’t always this way. Living with her rebellious single mother, it’s hard for her to forget that people weren’t always arrested for reading the wrong books or staying out after dark. It’s hard to forget that life in the United States used to be different.

Ember has perfected the art of keeping a low profile. She knows how to get the things she needs, like food stamps and hand-me-down clothes, and how to pass the random home inspections by the military. Her life is as close to peaceful as circumstances allow.

That is, until her mother is arrested for noncompliance with Article 5 of the Moral Statutes. And one of the arresting officers is none other than Chase Jennings…the only boy Ember has ever loved.


My thoughts:

I put Article 5 on my TBR pile for many reasons, but mostly, because this dystopia sounded real and well built. I've read some pretty messed up dystopia books last year, and even though I ended up liking them, the society that the authors described just didn't make a lot of sense. What happened to the rest of the world, in The Hunger Games, for example? And how did the government make a decision in Divergent? Yes, the story was convincing, but if you think hard about it, it just doesn't make much sense.

Article 5 was not one of those books. The society (or what's left of it) was ruled by chaos; people were arrested if they read the wrong book or missed school based on their religion. And those taken away were never seen again. Humans treated like objects, like puppets, as the government turned soldiers into monsters. I love this kind of dystopia, simply because it can happen.

Humans will kill if it's a matter of survival, the army will repress rebellions violently if that's the only choice, and the world will sucumb if a war explodes. Those are just a few prospects that Kristen Simmons explored in Article 5, and they were so convincing that it left me thinking: If the diplomacy fails, will this be our destiny one day?

Living on this wrecked world is Ember, a seventeen-year-old girl that struggles to stay under the radar. Standing up to your superiors is not a option anymore, and she knows it. Her mother, though, is rebellious, and Ember does what she can to open her mother's eyes. All this effort goes to waste, however, when her mom is arrested by a bunch of soldiers claiming that they had broken one of the rules.

Being arrested is not the worst thing that Ember went through. One of the soldiers was Chase, the boy she loved, and he seemed so changed, like a machine had replaced his heart. Ember was taken to a reformatory, and her life turns into a living hell from that day on. Not knowing where her mother was, or what was being done to her, was torture, but wondering what had happened to Chase was worse.

Ember was a good main character, and I liked seeing things through her eyes, but the girl seriously irritated me sometimes. It was like she was blind to the world around her, especially when it came to Chase. Over and over his actions showed how much he cared about her, and yet, Ember acted like a brat, always throwing his mistakes at his face and blaming him for everything that happened. She expected Chase to just open his emotions to her in front of everyone

At some points, Ember overreacted so much I wanted to shake some sense into her. If someone told her the truth about something, she'd crumble to the floor, trembling, and start crying a river of tears. And then it would take twenty minutes for her to snap out of it and be able to stand. Wake up, girl, there's no time for you to act like a baby! Either you go through whatever's necessary to live, or you won't be alive much longer. I don't know how Chase was patient enough to stand her behavior.

Now, to the good parts of the book: Chase himself. Not because he's the hot guy that's supposed to fall in love with the girl in a day, but because he was so much more than that. Chase was broken in so many ways during the book that I wanted to do nothing more than hug him half the time. His experiences as a soldier were devastating. His fellow soldiers explored every weak aspect of his personality, until there was nothing left but a ghost of the boy he used to be. Chase's been in love with a Ember for a very long time -- since they were kids, actually -- but even his enrollment as a soldier didn't destroy this love.

I loved Chase's personality, his ruthlessness and, most important, his hero complex. The way he wanted to protect Ember from everything that happened around them was heart-warming. He seriously won me over.

With a very good plot and dystopian world, Article 5 was a dense book, one that made me rethink a lot of aspects of my country. I'm looking forward to the next book in the series, and if you haven't read this book yet, do it. It's amazing, even with those flaws ;)

Waiting on Wednesday #2

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. That's the book I choose:

Biting Cold, by Chloe Neill

(The sixth book in the Chicagoland Vampires series.) 

Publication date: August 7th 2012, by NAL Penguin

Turned into a vampire against her will, twenty-eight-year-old Merit found her way into the dark circle of Chicago’s vampire underground, where she learned there was more to supernaturals than met the eye—and more supernaturals than the public ever imagined. And not all the secrets she learned were for sharing—among humans or inhumans.

Now Merit is on the hunt, charging across the stark American Midwest, tailing a rogue supernatural intent on stealing an ancient artifact that could unleash catastrophic evil on the world. But Merit is also the prey. An enemy of Chicagoland is hunting her, and he’ll stop at nothing to get the book for himself. No mercy allowed. No rules apply. No lives spared. The race is on.

I absolutely love the Chicagoland Vampires series, and after the huge twist that happened in Drink Deep, I can't wait to read Biting Cold. And the cover.... *sigh*... so beautiful.....

Wings of the Wicked, by Courtney Allison Moulton

Release date: January 31st 2012
Published by: HarperCollins / Katherine Tegen Books
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 5/5 stars












Life as the Preliator is harder than Ellie ever imagined.
Balancing real life with the responsibility of being Heaven’s warrior is a challenge for Ellie. Her relationship with Will has become all business, though they both long for each other. And now that the secret of who she really is has come out, so have Hell’s strongest reapers. Grown bold and more vicious, the demonic threaten her in the light of day and stalk her in the night.

She’s been warned.
Cadan, a demonic reaper, comes to her with information about Bastian’s new plan to destroy Ellie’s soul and use an ancient relic to wake all the souls of the damned and unleash them upon humanity. As she fights to stay ahead of Bastian’s schemes , the revelations about those closest to her awaken a dark power within Ellie that threatens to destroy everything—including herself.

She’ll be betrayed.
Treachery comes even from those whom she loves, and Ellie is broken by the deaths of those who stood beside her in this Heavenly war. Still, she must find a way to save the world, herself, and her love for Will. If she fails, there will be hell to pay. 


My thoughts:

I read Angelfire back in February, and I spent the whole year waiting for Wings of the Wicked to come out. And now that it did, I wish I had waited another year before picking it up. It would be so easier if I had the third book in hand. I can't stop thinking about this book, so I apologize beforehand if I sound crazy o.O

I'd say Courtney Allison Moulton did a fantastic job at writing a sequel to Angelfire -- I'd even go further and say that this series doesn't fall into the second book curse, and that's saying a lot, especially from me. Every aspect that I loved of Angelfire is intensified and explored deeply in the characters. We get to see Ellie struggling to balance two lives, as a teenage girl in high school, and as the Preliator.

Ellie struck me at first as a interesting and mildly nice girl, but it’s obvious now how much she feels for those she loves. I remember I didn’t pay much attention to this when I was reading Angelfire, but in Wings of the Wicked, Ellie’s emotions are all over the place, both for her life and responsibilities, her family, and her feelings for Will.

Something I haven’t forgotten throughout the year was Will’s relationship with Ellie. For me, this is one of the most beautiful romances I’ve ever read in my life. Their love for each other is not something that came out of nowhere; it took five hundred years to blossom, and when it did develop in Wings of the Wicked, it felt natural, because they’ve been together all this time. Will’s not Ellie’s boyfriend, he’s her partner, brother, protector, someone who loves and understands her above all else. It’s heart breaking seeing them so obviously in love, but without the capacity – and courage – to go further than that. Will’s not supposed to love Ellie, and by doing so, he’s risking his life, as well as Michael’s wraith.

“It was so hard for me to see him every day and want him so badly, but yet again I had forgotten about how much it hurt him to feel the same way. It was so painful for us to be apart, but I didn’t know if either of us was strong enough to be together.”

Will’s love for Ellie’s not the only thing that made me sigh. His personality is stronger that it was in Angelfire. A lot of people may have thought that he acted like Ellie’s puppet, obeying her orders and following her around, but now I see that that’s not how he is at all. Will does what Ellie wishes because he loves her, but when it comes to her safety, he goes through whatever’s necessary to help her, even without her consent. The balance between his feelings and his job is perfect, and the connection between these two elements in him only makes Will deadlier in battle.


Cadan is another character that enchanted me even more in Wings of the Wicked. He's not only the reaper that tried to get to Ellie and seemed to irritate Will so much. Cadan is wonderful in his own way, and the fact that he's demonic made him that much more interesting. As much as I loved Will, I was always anxious to see more of Cadan and Ellie interacting.

However, as much as I love Courtney’s writing style, some fight scenes seemed anti-climatic. Let’s imagine this: Ellie is fighting a reaper, and suddenly, it grabs a human and starts to slowly cut his neck (This didn’t happen in the book, it’s just an example). Instead of unleashing her power on the creature, Ellie just stands there, open-mouthed, while the human’s death is thoroughly, fully described. And then, when the guy is dead, Ellie gets angry and kills the reaper in less than one minute. See what I mean?

Another thing that was both good and bad was how much happened in this book. Seriously, a hundred things blow up in Ellie’s face, and sometimes I got lost during the course of events. Of course, this makes the book’s pace a lot faster than normal, and that’s the good part (it keeps you on the edge of the seat the whole time), but I found it somewhat weird.

And the ending… Oh, man. I’m really trying not to freak out while writing this review. Imagine that you spent two weeks fighting evil and going through hell, and then, after everything’s ok again, you get to go home and take a long, hot shower. When you leave the bathroom with that sense of security, you go to bed and turn on your TV. But right there, at CNN, there’s a reporter saying that there’s a bomb falling from the sky, and that there’s directed at your address. And you know you’re going to die in less that 2 seconds…………………. Now imagine that the book ends right there.

See why I freaked out so much? That’s basically how I felt after reading the ending:



Only a series as wonderful as Angelfire does that to me. And I can’t help but give Wings of the Wicked 5 stars, even with the bad parts. The waiting was worth it, and I just hope that the third book will live up to my expectations – that, by the way, are very high.

Waiting on Wednesday

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. That's my first "Waiting on Wednesday" post, and I chose the following book:

   The Last Echo, by Kimberly Derting
   (The Body Finder #3)
   Publication date:  April 17th 2012


 In the end, all that’s left is an echo.

Violet kept her morbid ability to sense dead bodies a secret from everyone except her family and her childhood-best-friend-turned-boyfriend, Jay Heaton. That is until forensic psychologist Sara Priest discovered Violet’s talent and invited her to use her gift to track down murderers. Now, as she works with an eclectic group of individuals—including mysterious and dangerously attractive Rafe—it’s Violet’s job to help those who have been murdered by bringing their killers to justice.

When Violet discovers the body of a college girl killed by “the girlfriend collector” she is determined to solve the case. But now the serial killer is on the lookout for a new “relationship” and Violet may have caught his eye....


I loved The Body Finder and The Desires of the Dead, and I simply cannot wait to see how this amazing trilogy is going to end :D