Easy

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Genres/Themes: Romance, Women's Fiction
My Rating: ★★★★★

The romantic story mentioned in the book description is what drew me to this story, but this book ended up turning into something a whole lot more.

This is a story of romantic, emotional, and confidence growth. Many women do not realize how vulnerable they are, thinking nothing bad will happen to them. Guys don't realize how traumatizing situations can be for women, especially sexual harassment and assault. Easy gives a message that women can become empowered no matter how vulnerable they are or feel.

I wish I could accurately convey what I want to say about this book. Re-reading this, it sounds very cheesy. Read the book; it's good. Learn from it and survive.

I would recommend this for anyone mature enough for the content, especially college women.

The Fault in Our Stars

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Genres/Themes: Romance
My Rating: ★★★★★

This was a beautiful tear-jerker of a book. Why do I always seem to pick these types of books when I'm just about to start my period? I've had this on my to read list for a while now because it didn't seem like the type of book that I'd like. I eventually decided to read it because of how many people keep bringing it up. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop. I probably would have read it in one day if it wasn't for the fact that I was so tired that I fell asleep mid-sentence half way through the book.

I loved the in-your-face honestly writing style. It made very serious topics hilariously funny. Especially the exchanges between Hazel and Augustus.

Hazel was an amazing character. Her parents viewed her as being depressed because of the disease or prospect of dying and sent her to a support group. I liked Hazel's reasons for her behavior. “I’m like a grenade, Mom. I’m a grenade and at some point I’m going to blow up and I would like to minimize the casualties, okay?...I’m a grenade. I just want to stay away from people and read books and think and be with you guys because there’s nothing I can do about hurting you; you’re too invested, so just please let me do that, okay? I’m not depressed. I don’t need to get out more. And I can’t be a regular teenager, because I’m a grenade.”

Augustus was my favorite character. The author gave him the wonderful ability of being able to get others to see the good. Like maybe a grenade isn't necessarily a bad thing or that being blind isn't the end: "You are going to live a good and long life filled with great and terrible moments that you cannot even imagine yet!"

Shadow of Night (All Souls #2)

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Genres/Themes: Adventure, Fantasy, Romance
My Rating: ★★★★☆

(finished April 19th)
Another awesome book! I couldn't put it down. It's been a while since I've read a book as fast as I've read these two.

During the beginning of this book, everyone is still trying to catch Diana. I was still rather confused as to why they were chasing her. Yes, they wanted the manuscript, but it never really said why no one else went after the manuscript themselves after they found out it was at the library. Why didn't they just break into the library and try to steal it? The book was so focused on having to catch Diana than the manuscript itself that it made me suspicious as to the enemies' true objective.

Since I didn't read the book description before reading, I wasn't aware of the time traveling. Typically, I don't really go for the time traveling stories, but this one was absolutely wonderful. Probably because they aren't traveling all over the place and just stayed in one past time.

I really enjoyed the time period Harkness chose. I found it more interesting since I just recently went on a vacation to the outer banks and visited Roanoke Island. If you don't know some of the details of the characters Diana and Matthew meet in the past, I would suggest you do some research on them as you are introduced to them.

Free Books by Elisabeth Wheatley! April 20th & 21st only!

"Today and tomorrow, the first two books in my debut series, the ARGETALLAM SAGA are completely free on Amazon! Grab your copies and don't forget to tell your friends!"
Respond to Goodreads event!

Book 1: The Key of Amatahns (Download free Kindle book)

Janir had the misfortune of being born with one of the hated Argetallams for a father. But unlike other Argetallam children, she was mostly granted a normal childhood, away from the rest of her family. It looked as if she would live a relatively normal life as the foster-daughter of a powerful lord. Until one critical day Janir’s powers awakened and she became entangled in a young enchanter’s quest for a long-lost treasure called the Key of Amatahns…

Book 2: The Secrets of the Vanmars (Download free Kindle book)

After her adventures with the Key of Amatahns, sixteen-year-old Janir Caersynn Argetallam returns home to find Brevia on the brink of war with a neighboring country, Stlaven. Her foster-father and even Saoven—a brave young elf warrior—think it will be safe at the castle where Janir grew up. However, while trying to unravel a looming mystery, Karile—self-taught wizard and Janir’s self-appointed best friend—becomes certain that there is danger in the mountains surrounding Janir’s childhood home and that it has something to do with Stlaven’s most powerful family, the Vanmars…

A Discovery of Witches (All Souls #1)

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Genre/Themes: Fantasy, Romance
My Rating: ★★★★★

This was an amazing book! I couldn't put it down. It only took me about a day to read.

This book is like 3 books in one. The first story is the building romance between Matthew and Diana, the second is the introduction to his family, and the third is the consequence of everything that's happened.

It was refreshing to read a paranormal romance that wasn't shoving magic and vampire behavior down your throat. It was there but well built into the story. The writing style was captivating and made the story addictive. Harkness has a great sense of word flow. In many books, I'll skip the descriptors between quotes or will only read the first line or two of each paragraph for a couple pages because there is so much fluff that isn't relevant. I read every single word of this book. There was very little fluff and every word added to the imagination. The descriptors were descriptive enough to produce an image, but not so confining that it was hard to imagine the image just so.

I love how they first meet in the library. Though this is one time where Harkness' descriptive writing failed for me. I had a hard time picturing Diana's emotions. She was scared of him but was she trembling scared or putting on a confident face? The picture I was getting kept swinging back and forth making me very confused. Later though, there was some clarification into the matter, but not enough to satisfy me. This was the only instance that I found that jilted the flow of the book for me.

Books Should Be Free!

Many of you have probably heard of Project Gutenberg. If you haven't, it's a website that offers free and legal downloads of books with expired copyrights (so classics). Fewer of you have probably heard of LibriVox. Again for those who haven't, volunteers take the copyright expired books and record them as audiobooks free for everyone to download. Awesome right?

There is one more website I would like to mention--BooksShouldBeFree. This website takes the content of both and matches them together. Ebooks and audiobooks all in one place. And what's great about this site is that you don't have to download the audiobooks. You can listen to them online. If you do listen to them on your computer (windows). I recommend using Windows Media Player. Maybe it's just me, but I have problems with Quick Time crashing. Once it starts playing, right click the screen and choose "Enhancements>Play speed settings". Now you can adjust the audio speed. It becomes addicting fast. It would be great of iTunes built in this feature. Enjoy!

Kindle and Nook users, check out your respective stores. A lot of these ebooks can be purchased for free online.

Cinder (Lunar Chronicles #1)

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Genres/Themes: Fantasy, Retelling, Romance
My Rating: ★★★★☆

Wow. This was both an awesome and frustrating book. The world that Marissa Meyer made for this story was amazing, though there was one thing that really bothered me about it, and unfortunately it is one of the biggest rules of Meyer's world. Cyborgs aren't human.

Cinder is treated as crap not just because she was "adopted" by her stepfather and then left to her stepmother when he died, but because she was a cyborg. Being a cyborg means she isn't human anymore. She's property. A slave. Infuriatingly WRONG!

Why does a person's position in the world change because they gain a few metal parts? So if the emperor were to get into an accident, lose half his body, and become a cyborg, is he removed from being emperor and become a common slave? This is just messed up. And the fact that her "legal guardian" was able to sell her for scientific experimentation when I'm assuming human trafficking is illegal was just wrong. If human trafficking is illegal, how can cyborg trafficking be okay?

The line stating that cyborgs owe themselves because of the miracle scientists were able to perform was just immoral. I'm assuming that many of these cyborgs were in accidents and had to pay for surgery to save their lives. They paid for the surgery, why are they supposed to keep on paying. If a patient has a brain hemorrhage, and the doctor saves their life, how are they different from the cyborgs. Both would have died; both were saved by medical miracle.

Welcome!

Hi and welcome to my book review blog! I mainly use Goodreads to track and review my books, but sometimes it's difficult to organize and view multiple reviews on there. A blog seemed like the perfect place to do this. Feel free to comment. I'd love to hear what you think of my reviews and to hear your own reviews of the books I've read.


Also note that all entries prior to this point have been backdated to match the date or approximate date on which I finished and reviewed the books.

A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire #3)

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Genres/Themes: Adventure, Fantasy

My Rating: ★★★★★

The best book of the series so far, and the best book I've read so far this year!!

So much has happened it hard to remember it all. There is lots of action, weddings, and betrayals. Many of the character meet there ends throughout the book. Definitely not as long winded as book 2 was.

My favorite characters changed in this book. In book 2, everyone was planning and moving around while Arya and Bran horded much of the action. In this book, all the plans came to fruit or failed while Bran and Arya for the most part moved around. My favorite characters this time around were Sansa and Jon and to a lesser degree Jamie and Tyrion.

The story at the wall builds and breaks during this book. I love how Jon's story finished in this book. I can't wait to see how it's going to turn out in the next one!

So much was going on and so many secrets were reveled that it was hard to put the book down! I can't wait to read the next book, but I'm forcing myself to hold off. With book 6 not due to be published until 2015 and book 7 not until 2019, I really need to pace myself if I want to drag out the enjoyment of this series. I don't see myself holding back for more than a month though. :)

Prince of Thorns (The Broken Empire #1)

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Genres: Fantasy
Rating: ★★★☆☆

I was seeing this book a lot all over the internet and heard a lot of people talking about it, so I thought I'd pick it up and give it a try. It was ok. I rate the beginning a 4 and the end a 2. 

I loved how it starts. The main character is pure evil. It's not often that you find a book from the "villain's" perspective. And the fact that he's a prince just made it better. Then the story started to fall apart. The second half of the book didn't seem as well written as the first. Like it was rushed. The inside cover of the book equates this story to Game of Thrones. At the beginning I could see it, but the further you read, the more different they were.

I was especially upset when I found out that this is actually a futuristic story rather than an alternate, medieval, fantasy universe. The references to Robin Hood, Plato, and Shakespeare were odd. I think I would have liked it better if it hadn't been futuristic.

The more I read about the prince, the more he drove me nuts too. He never had a plan. He always just winged it. And no matter how many died, it seemed to turn out for him in the end. It reminded me of a drunk, egotistic, jerk, frat guy that always manages to get out of trouble no matter what he does or how wrong he is

Clash of Kings (A Song of Ice and Fire #2)

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Genres: Adventure, Fantasy
Rating: ★★★★☆

One of the most imaginative and captivating books I've ever read! But only 4 stars because of how long winded he was. I've found my favorite characters and my least favorites. My least favorites as you can imagine are the ones that seem to drag on the most. My absolute favorites right now are Bran and Arya. I much prefer the way Martin wrote their activities at the end of the book than how they were enacted at the end of season 2 of the TV show.

The first book of this series was amazing--lots of action, lots of drama. The second book...not so much. Even though I understand that drama after drama can get repetitive, boring, and cluttered, I wish more had happened. The second book largely seemed to move characters around and explain situations. It wasn't until the last third that the pace picked back up to where it had been at the beginning of the book.

I highly recommend reading first before watching the TV show, otherwise you're fingers are going to itch and want to turn the page and skip ahead.

All-in-all, an amazing book. Heading straight to book 3 now!