In My Mailbox #11

In my mailbox is a weekly meme, hosted by Kristi, at The Story Siren, in which we share the books that we got this week.
- Clicking on the titles will take you to the book's Goodreads page.

Masque of Red Death, by Bethany Griffin

The Temptation, by Alisa Valdes

Unraveling, by Elizabeth Norris

Deadly Descendant, by Jenna Black

A Brush of Darkness, by Allison Pang

Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe, by Shelley Coriell (ARC)

A lot of fantastic books came out this week, including Masque of Red Death, The Temptation, Unraveling, and Deadly Descendant. They all look pretty good, especially The Unraveling. I read the first few chapters, and though I wasn't hooked, I think I'll enjoy the story. I'm particularly excited for Deadly Descendant. I've heard great things about where the series is headed. 

A big thank you for Netgalley, for sending me Welcome, Caller, This is Chloe. This will be my next read. From the looks of it, it'll be cute :D 

Anyway, I can't wait to read all these books. What did you get this book?

The Immortal Rules, by Julie Kagawa

- Blood of Eden #1
Release date: April 24th 2012
Published by: Harlequin Teen
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 5/5 stars
Source: Netgalley
Find it on: Goodreads, Amazon



ARC provided by Harlequin Teen and Netgalley, for review purposes. 







In a future world, Vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity.

Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten.

Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked—and given the ultimate choice. Die… or become one of the monsters.

Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must learn the rules of being immortal, including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad.

Then Allie is forced to flee into the unknown, outside her city walls. There she joins a ragged band of humans who are seeking a legend—a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike.

But it isn't easy to pass for human. Especially not around Zeke, who might see past the monster inside her. And Allie soon must decide what—and who—is worth dying for.

My thoughts:

Dystopia + vampires. Two genres that aren't usually mixed, but the market is full of them already. I've read tons of vampires, and dystopian novels this year. I was surprised to see Julie Kagawa, one of my favorite authors, writing about something so... common. I should've known that she'd amaze me, yet again. Having read, and loved, the Iron Fey series, I was positive, or at least hoping, that Julie would write a good book. Still, I was hesitant. 

Julie Kagawa introduces us to a world in which the humans are blood bags at worst, food at best. Vampires have dominated everything, and with them, the rabids came along - people that got sick with a special virus and turned into starving monsters that would basically do everything to get their claws on a human. The world-building, just like I thought it would be, was solid, and gave us a realistic view of what a dystopian society overthrown by vampires would look like. Fantasy aside, I could imagine myself walking those streets, always running and hiding. It's no secret the world-building is my favorite aspect of a dystopian book, so I was pleasantly surprised. 

A tough story like this requires a tough heroine as well, and that's where Allie fits. Just like Meghan Chase, she's strong, brave, and yet very human and sentimental, even after she was turned. I loved her, to be honest. Her point of view was objective, but when facing an obstacle, or even in the middle of a dialogue, there were moments of emotion that made me feel sorry for Allie. I cheered, laughed, and cried right along with her. A remarkable character, indeed. 

Allison, though, is not the only good character in The Immortal Rules. Zeke, the love interest, is yet another dose of balance between duty and emotions. The romance isn't introduced right in the beginning of the book, which lets us get a feeling of who Allison is. Only then, we meet Zeke, who, to be sincere, added a wonderful element to the plot. A good romance was what the story needed to explore the characters' personality even further. Allison and Zeke were two sides of a coin, different, but unable to stay apart. They just fit together, and not in a senseless way. Julie knows how to build a love story. I loved it. 

The Immortal Rules, however, gave me a sense of reality that I've never experienced before. The characters' emotions, the dialogues, even the fight scenes, were so wonderfully written I felt like I was there, inside the pages. Maybe that's Julie's writing, or the world itself, that was so well built, but I couldn't shake the feeling that I was reading something that had actually happened. Everything was so real. 

All that said, it's impossible for me not to give The Immortal Rules five stars. Julie Kagawa, yet again, made me love her book. I'm deeply in love with the characters, the dystopian world, the romance, and the ending. Yes, the ending left me open-mouthed, and now I'm eagerly anticipating the sequel, but what can I say? I loved The Immortal Rules.

The Last Echo, by Kimberly Derting

- The Body Finder #3
Release date: April 17th 2012
Published by: Harper Collins
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 3/5 stars
Find it on: Goodreads, Amazon, Book Depository











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....

 My thoughts:

The Body Finder and Desires of the Dead were adorable books. I loved the story, the characters (even when Violet turned into a Mary Sue sometimes), and the romance. The Last Echo had it all, but not as strongly as I thought. Of course, the mystery behind the girls' disappearance was still there, Violet was still struggling with her powers, and the FBI team was an important part of the story. But maybe that's the problem.

In The Last Echo, Violet doesn't deal with relationship issues. She doesn't even deal with family issues. Most of the story is focused on Violet herself, and her ability to use her gift as something good, and not let it control her, or dominate her life. Sara Priest and her team, specially Rafe, help Violet with this. It's obvious, form the beginning, how the author wants us to understand Violet's gift, and go right along with her everytime she has to use it. Which would've been fine by me, but the book's plot doesn't go any further than that. 

The biggest flaw in The Last Echo was the author's incapability of working with two things at the same time. In The Body Finder, the plot basically consists of world-building. In Desires of the Dead,  it's all about the romance. In The Last Echo, it's all about the FBI. This is exhausting. Most dialogues had someone from the team in it, and the other aspects of Violet's life, like, say, her family, and even Jay, were ignored. Jay is barely mentioned in this novel. This bothered me a lot, not because I love their relationship (which is true), but because it doesn't make any sense. If you're going to talk about the FBI, fine, do it, but don't exclude everything else. 

One of the few things that pleased me was Rafe himself - he was a pain in the ass sometimes, but overall, I loved his personality -, and The Collector. Yep, I loved the villain. He's the creepiest guy Kimberly Derting has ever talked about. He kidnaps girls for love. He thinks his behavior is normal, and he actually cares about the them, in some twisted, sick way. Violet handled herself a lot better than I thought she would, in the ending. I liked this character development. In The Body Finder, she cringed and tried to scream, but otherwise didn't struggle much. In The Last Echo, all bets are off. She did whatever she had to do to survive.

The premise was awesome... but the book itself, not so much. I'm still looking forward to next one, and I sincerely hope it'll be better than The Last Echo. Nonetheless, it's still a great read. 

Switched, by Amanda Hocking

- Trylle Trilogy #1
Release date: January 3rd 2012
Published by: St. Martin's Griffin
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 3/5 stars
Find it on: Goodreads,  Amazon











When Wendy Everly was six years old, her mother was convinced she was a monster and tried to kill her. Eleven years later, Wendy discovers her mother might have been right. She’s not the person she’s always believed herself to be, and her whole life begins to unravel—all because of Finn Holmes.

Finn is a mysterious guy who always seems to be watching her. Every encounter leaves her deeply shaken…though it has more to do with her fierce attraction to him than she’d ever admit. But it isn’t long before he reveals the truth: Wendy is a changeling who was switched at birth—and he’s come to take her home.

Now Wendy’s about to journey to a magical world she never knew existed, one that’s both beautiful and frightening. And where she must leave her old life behind to discover who she’s meant to become…

My thoughts:
  
Have you ever read a book that alarmed you, in some way, after Chapter One? Have you ever felt angry after a couple of pages, enough to set off your alarms and make you want to stop reading it? That's what Switched did to me. The premise was interesting at first, a girl whose mother had tried to kill her, based on some crazy instinct, when she was six. Same girl finding out her mother was right, years later. Finding out that she isn't human, but a different race, a changeling. Yeah, the synopsis picked my curiosity, but after 20 pages or so, my eyes were bleeding. 

What bothered me most about Switched was the romance. Now, you're probably thinking, "But a book has more to it than just the romance". And I agree with you. But when the author decides to write a romance novel, it has to have some depth. I, personally, like to see the main character's personality developing a little, to give me a sense of what she would or wouldn't do in certain cases. To give me a sense of who the main character is. Only then, the romance is welcoming. That didn't happen in Switched, at all. Finn, the love interest, is introduced to us in the tenth page or so. How, God Almighty, am I supposed to understand Wendy's attraction to Finn, if I don't even know her?

As the story goes on and on about what changelings are (not much of an answer provided there, either), and what Wendy is supposed to do in order to fit in the changeling society, I just couldn't connect with her at all. It was like I was watching a soup opera, a bunch of characters interacting with each other without depth. I couldn't see past Wendy's narration, I couldn't understand why she liked Finn so much, and what the hell was so special about her. Apart from her powers, she's ordinary, painfully so.

Not to mention that their romance is ridiculous, in the beginning. The guy stalks her, and even though she actually wonders if he's a psycho... she gives him access to her room, in the middle of the night, right after he treated her like dirt. What is wrong with this girl? I was outraged by this, and other parts in which her self-preservation is absent. That's why I was so angry. However, their romance began to work a lot better after a 100 pages or so.


I guess I would've enjoyed Switched a lot more if I had liked the characters. There wasn't a single character in this book that I mildly connected to. They were flat, not interesting, and though I can see why a lot of people loved this book, the story itself didn't feel appealing to me. Don't get me wrong. I didn't hate Switched. I just wasn't drawn by it. I may even read the next book in the trilogy, Torn. Who knows!

In My Mailbox #10

In my mailbox is a weekly meme, hosted by Kristi, at The Story Siren, in which we share the books that we got this week.



- Clicking on the titles will take you to the book's Goodreads page.

The List, by Siobhan Vivian

The Last Echo, by Kimberly Derting

The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

I seriously cannot wait to read The List and The Fault in Our Stars. I read The Last Echo the day it came out (thank god Kindle exists), and though it was great, it wasn't as good as Desires of the Dead. 

What did you get in your mailbox this week? :D

The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern

Release date: September 13th 2011
Published by: Doubleday
Genre: Young Adult
Rating: 2/5 stars
Find it on: Goodreads, Amazon












The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

Written in rich, seductive prose, this spell-casting novel is a feast for the senses and the heart.

My thoughts:

I'll start by saying I was absolutely thrilled about The Night Circus after I read the synopsis. It doesn't exactly give us a lot of details about the story, but is enough to give you an idea of what the author will write about. A magic circus, two magicians that get themselves into a duel, and somehow fall in love. The big problem is, the synopsis is a lie.

Erin Morgenstern probably tried to introduce us to the circus by explaining how it got created. And how both magicians, Celia and Marco, started to work there. This would've been fine, if the characters weren't absolutely dull and flat, especially Celia and Marco, which is kind of ironic, really, since they're supposed to somewhat resemble main characters. But with dialogues that look like endless streams of nonsense, the characters don't have any depth, and I mean that. I wasn't able to connect with a single character in this book, they all felt superficial and just plain boring.

And that brings me to the next topic: the writing itself. Maybe that's the reason the characters felt so dull. The truth is, I don't know, but the writing bothered me immeasurably. The narrator would just describe what was happening, turning pages and pages into repetitions of "she said, he said, he did that, she did that, he sighed, she sighed", and then, suddenly, he would start talking about the person's feelings, out of nowhere. It was so abrupt and unnecessary. If you only describe what's happening in a scene, we, as readers, don't have the slightest idea what the character is feeling. But if that's your writing style, then stick with it. Do not jump back in forth.

Aside from the writing... I just don't understand why this book is set in 1897. To be honest, the atmosphere is quite nice and welcoming, but the chapters confused me. Let's just put it this way: Chapter One is set in 1897, Chapter Two is set in 1907, Chapter Three is set in 1894, Chapter Four is set in 1899, and Chapter Five is set in 1897 again. It's something like this. And it's confusing as hell! How am I supposed to stick with the story and have a decent timeline, when the author herself can't decide?

Not to mention that the romance doesn't make sense. It's worse than Twilight. Marco and Celia barely look at each other throughout the book, they barely even talk, and then sparks fly, with no reason whatsoever. I have several questions for this romance, actually: Why do they fall in love? Why did the author spend several pages talking about characters that didn't matter to me at all, that just weren't important? I don't care if the guy who created the circus' clock is traveling and likes to drink his coffee without sugar. I just don't care.

The amount of unnecessary chapters, and details about people we don't give a hat about, only makes the fact that The Night Circus has no plot whatsoever more evident. I still can't conclude if this book was supposed to talk about the circus, about the people who created the circus, about Marco and Celia's duel (which is nonexistent as well), or about Marco and Celia themselves. Or if it's supposed to talk about all that. Either way, it failed.

Maybe I'll someday pick it up and try to get the characters. I know I'll give The Night Circus another shot, but right now? I can barely glance at the cover. To think such a beautiful premise, such an enchanting story, could turn out to be such a dull book, is disappointing. Lost potential, indeed. If you're interested about the synopsis, though, read a sample. Who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it.

Waiting on Wednesday #8

Waiting On Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. This week's choice is:
 

City of Lost Souls, by Cassandra Clare
Publication date: May 8th 2012, by Margaret K. McElderry
- Add it on Goodreads

**Warning: The synopsis will give you spoilers of the previous books in the series**

The demon Lilith has been destroyed and Jace has been freed from her captivity. But when the Shadowhunters arrive to rescue him, they find only blood and broken glass. Not only is the boy Clary loves missing–but so is the boy she hates, Sebastian, the son of her father Valentine: a son determined to succeed where their father failed, and bring the Shadowhunters to their knees.

No magic the Clave can summon can locate either boy, but Jace cannot stay away—not from Clary. When they meet again Clary discovers the horror Lilith’s dying magic has wrought—Jace is no longer the boy she loved. He and Sebastian are now bound to each other, and Jace has become what he most feared: a true servant of Valentine’s evil. The Clave is determined to destroy Sebastian, but there is no way to harm one boy without destroying the other. Will the Shadowhunters hesitate to kill one of their own?

Only a small band of Clary and Jace’s friends and family believe that Jace can still be saved — and that the fate of the Shadowhunters’ future may hinge on that salvation. They must defy the Clave and strike out on their own. Alec, Magnus, Simon and Isabelle must work together to save Jace: bargaining with the sinister Faerie Queen, contemplating deals with demons, and turning at last to the Iron Sisters, the reclusive and merciless weapons makers for the Shadowhunters, who tell them that no weapon on this earth can sever the bond between Sebastian and Jace. Their only chance of cutting Jace free is to challenge Heaven and Hell — a risk that could claim any, or all, of their lives.

And they must do it without Clary. For Clary has gone into the heart of darkness, to play a dangerous game utterly alone. The price of losing the game is not just her own life, but Jace’s soul. She’s willing to do anything for Jace, but can she even still trust him? Or is he truly lost? What price is too high to pay, even for love?

Darkness threatens to claim the Shadowhunters in the harrowing fifth book of the Mortal Instruments series. 

---
 
Wow. This synopsis is huge. But really, I had to choose this book. The trailer just came out today (you can check it out here), and after watching it, I was speechless. I'm craving City of Lost Souls right now, and though City of Fallen Angels disappointed me with its slow pace, I'm hoping for the best. Cassandra Clare knows how to leave her readers hanging, and that's exactly what she did in COFA. That's why I'm so looking forward to reading this. 

Anyway... May 8th is not very far. What are you waiting for this week?