Schlagwort: Book Review

Book Review : War Kids by Hayley J. Lawson

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Series : War Kids #1
Edition : eBook (Smashwords Edition)
Published : August 2014
Genre : Fiction, Mystery, Thrillers
Source : eARC provided by publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
Date Read : February 2015
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When Jada wakes up in a hospital, the last thing she thinks is that her life has completely changed forever. But when the very real civil war forces her to flee from every open space, she must use the firearm skills her father taught her to reunite with him and protect herself.

Armed with a single gun and a key to an unknown locker, Jada crosses Syria on a journey with a group of children called the Fearless Freedom Fighters.

With the leader, Zak, they mount a plan to rescue their fathers while they try to cope with the merciless murders of their families. As Jada and Zak lead the group together, love blossoms, but with soldiers hot on their tail, they need to stay vigilant in the face of war.

War Kids is a story about the Syrian Civil war through the eyes of a group of teenagers.

My Thoughts

I didn’t read the full synopsis of this book when I requested it in NetGalley. The girl on the cover and title caught my attention.

I was aware that this was going to be a sad read so I prepared myself but it was not enough. I had goosebumps and I cannot remember anymore how many times I had to stop reading to wipe away my tears.

This book is told through shifting of different POVs of several children and some adults who were caught in the middle of a civil war in Syria. The author did a great job on this one because not many authors can switch different POVs regularly without confusing the readers.

I personally like the author’s writing style in this book. It is descriptively written that I could feel the character’s emotions. Despite the heartaches caused by the war, these kids still know how to laugh, love and play. It has quite a lot of characters but it didn’t bother me at all because they were all amazing and likeable.

There were surprising twists and revelations towards the end that will left the readers more questions. This will also make you grab the second book to know the answers.

A great and very powerful book that will help us see and feel how it is to be in the middle of a war, not only as a victim but also as a fighter.

Heartbreaking, thought-provoking and an eye-opener. I’m excited for the second book and will definitely recommend this to my fellow readers.

 My Rating

Book Review : Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

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Series : Shatter Me #1
Edition : Paperback (340 pages)
Publisher : Harper Collins (October 2012)
Genre : Romance, Dystopia, Fiction
Source : Bought from Hugendubel Buchhandlung
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Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.x

My Thoughts

Juliette’s touch can kill and she accidentally murdered a small kid. She has been locked up in an asylum and hasn’t seen or touched another person for quite a long time until Adam, a guy she knew, steps inside her cell.

The main character, Juliette, has a „special power“ but I feel like it’s useless in this book. I get that she’s alone most of her life, didn’t have friends and has been neglected by her parents but maybe she could’ve stopped whining about it and did something about her power to protect herself. Adam came and Juliette became dependent on him. It happened to be that they already „love“ each other eversince but they didn’t know about it because they never talked. The romance between Juliette and Adam, though hot and heavy, didn’t excite me at all. I was interested to know more about Warner, Kenji, and Adam’s little brother (James).

The writing style was good and bad at the same time. Good because it’s very descriptive, it has similes and metaphors. Bad because they are too much and some of them were so weird (for me) and just didn’t make sense at all. The author used these metaphors to express Juliette’s thoughts which was a good thing because these shows how unstable Juliette is but later on these became disturbing. Here is an example:

„The sky is raining bricks right into my skull.“

The first book I’ve read with strike-through was David Levithan’s Every You, Every Me and I don’t have problems with this tool. The repeating of words can also be annoying sometimes. I showed the (whole) page where it has „I’m not insane!“ to my fiance and he told me „She is totally insane“.

I thought this was more of a romance novel than a dystopian fantasy and that Juliette’s power is the same with Queen Elsa of Arendelle (Frozen) except the freezing thing. I also didn’t have an idea that this book was described as a combination of The Hunger Games and X-Men. I just realized that it’s similar to X-Men on the last pages of the book but I didn’t notice any from THG except when The Reestablishment (the organization or government) was mentioned.

There are things I enjoyed in this novel so I will still be reading the rest of the series. I’m holding on to Juliette’s last words and hoping to see more of her bad-ass side.

 My Rating

Book Review : Love Hurts by Malorie Blackman

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Edition : Kindle (576 pages)
Publisher : RHCP Digital (January 29, 2015)
Genre : Young Adult, Contemporary, Romance
Source : eARC provided by the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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Malorie Blackman brings together the best teen writers of today in a stunningly romantic collection about love against the odds. Featuring short stories and extracts about modern star-crossed lovers from stars such as Gayle Forman, Markus Zusak and Patrick Ness, and with a brand-new story from Malorie Blackman herself, Love Hurts looks at every kind of relationship, from first kiss to final heartbreak.

My Thoughts

I was so excited when I saw this on NetGalley and got even more excited when they approved my request.

This book is a compilation of different types of romance stories with the theme „love against the odds“. Some are original short stories written by Malorie Blakcman, David Levithan and James Dawson. Most are excerpts from pre-existing novels like If I Stay, Forbidden and I Am The Messenger.

Some of the readers might find this book disappointing because they have already read some of the excerpts included or they will think that this book includes spoilers, which is not. My only problem with the excerpts was I had a hard time understanding what was really going on and most of the time I got confused with the characters. It’s like you open a book in a random page and you don’t have any idea why the character is crying.

What I love with this collection is the stories are not only about girl-boy relationships. There are also characters who belong to the LGBT community, people with disability, from different social statuses and religions.

I can say that this book will still make an awesome read with the original short stories alone. But it’s not bad because this also introduces us to some of the great authors and their works. One thing is for sure, this book will make your TBR list longer.

Some of my favorites from the original short stories are Gentlewoman by Laura Dockrill which is about a boy who came out and changed himself into a girl with the help of modern medicine, The Unicorn by James Dawson is about the bittersweet story of a forbidden relationship between two Navy guys during the Korean War, and David Levithan’s Miss Lucy Had a Steamboat which is a story about a girl who falls in love with the new girl in school and how she ends up with a realization when things didn’t work for them.

All in all, I enjoyed reading Love Hurts. Ms. Blackman did a great job collecting unique, fresh, and interesting love stories for the readers to realize the real meaning of love.

 My Rating

Book Review : Never, Never by Colleen Hoover and Tarryn Fisher

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Series : Never, Never #1
Edition : Kindle (140 pages)
Publisher : Hoover Ink (January 2015)
Genre : New Adult, Romance, Mystery
Source : Amazon Kindle
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Best friends since they could walk.
In love since the age of fourteen.
Complete strangers since this morning.
He’ll do anything to remember.
She’ll do anything to forget.

My Thoughts

I normally don’t like reading book series because of cliffhangers but this one is an exception. This is also the book I pledged to read for the National Readathon Day that happened yesterday.

The summary was very vague and it quite reminded me of The Maze Runner. Why? Charlie and Silas have been friends since they were young and now they don’t remember anything and anyone around them. (But don’t worry because there is no glade and gladers in the story or something like that.) I don’t really want to say anything about the storyline so you need to buy the book and let yourself dive into it.

It’s my first time reading Ms. Hoover’s and Ms. Fisher’s work so I don’t have any idea about their writing styles. Obviously, they have different styles but in this book, I felt like it was written by only one author. The delivering of the story and blending of their styles are impressive. Also, Colleen writes for Silas, and Tarryn for Charlie.

I love the romance, suspence, and mystery in this story. I love that the characters have different attitude but they seem so perfect together. I love the story even though I knew that it contains a major cliffhanger. Everyone talks about it and some really didn’t like it. I personally like how it ended which makes me feel weird about it.

Never Never is a uniquely captivating story that left me wanting for more. And right now, I have to wait until May 17 for the sequel.8920221Please remind me that this is the reason why I read more stand-alone books than series. Haha.

My Rating

Book Review : Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

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Edition : Paperback (470 pages)
Publisher : Harper (Oct 2010)
Genre : Young Adult, Contemporary, Fiction
Source : Bought from Thalia Buchhandlung
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For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12—“Cupid Day“—should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is…until she dies in a terrible accident that night.

However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.

My Thoughts

This book has been sitting on my shelf for a long-time that’s why I’ve decided to include it on my list for the 2015 TBR Pile Challenge.

Samantha Kingston has it all. The looks, friends, popularity and the perfect boyfriend. Friday night, Sam and her friends went into a house party. It should be her big night but it turns out to be her last. The next morning, she wakes up on the same day and relives her last day for a week.

„Let me ask you: is what I did really so bad? So bad I deserved to die? So bad I deserved to die like that? Is what I did really so much more worse than what anybody else does? Is it really so much worse than what you do? Think about it.“

I bought this book because of the great and intriguing synopsis. „What if you had one day to live? What would you do? Who would you kiss? And how far would you go to save your own life?“. Also, the eyes of the girl on the cover is simply mesmerizing.

Just like the usual, I didn’t have any idea of the plot but I did read the synopsis. I wasn’t really sure if I love or hate this book while reading the first 100 pages but I decided to continue and see where this book would take me.

Continue reading „Book Review : Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver“ →

Book Review : Play of Light by Debra Doxer

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Edition : eBook/Smashwords (254 pages)
Published on :  December 2014
Genre : New Adult, Romance, Contemporary
Source : eARC provided by Xpresso Book Tours via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.
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“I fell in love with Spencer Pierce the day he saved me from the Pirates.”

My Thoughts

Sara knows that she has something for Spencer since their first meeting but she’s not sure if the boy feels the same way. As they start enjoying each others company, she gets to know him deeply than other people do. Spencer is in pain and he don’t want to include other people, especially Sara, but he feels that he can trust her so he open up to her and asked her to not tell anyone. One night, a tragic event forces Sara and her family to leave their only home. Spencer thinks it’s the best for the both of them. This shatters Sara.

Five years later, Sara visits her old hometown hoping to face and put her nightmares behind and be Sarah Smile again. She also wants to right the wrong thing that was made right after the tragedy. She meet Spencer again and they both discover that nothing has changed between them.

Continue reading „Book Review : Play of Light by Debra Doxer“ →

Book Review : The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

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HERE IS A SMALL FACT – YOU ARE GOING TO DIE.

1939. Nazi Germany. The country is holding its breath. Death has never been busier.

Liesel, a nine-year-old girl, is living with a foster family on Himmel Street. Her parents have been taken away to a concentration camp. Liesel steals books. This is her story and the story of the inhabitants of her street when the bombs begin to fall.

SOME IMPORTANT INFORMATION – THIS NOVEL IS NARRATED BY DEATH.

It’s a small story, about: a girl, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist fighter, and quite a lot of thievery.

ANOTHER THING YOU SHOULD KNOW – DEATH WILL VISIT THE BOOK THIEF THREE TIMES.

My Thoughts

I bought this book because… Aside from the title, I’m always interested in stories during the Second World War and the book description is inviting because it is narrated by Death. This is also my first book by Markus Zusak.

The Book Thief is one of the first books I bought in 2012 (the year when I got into reading novels) that remains unread until last month. I’ve been wanting to read it but I feel like I have to wait for the right time and I’m glad that I did.

“When Death tells a story, you really have to listen.”

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Book Review : The Maze Runner by James Dashner

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7805064Series : The Maze Runner #1
Edition : Paperback (374 pages)
Publisher : Delacorte Press (October 2009)
Genre : Dystopia, YA, Sci-Fi
Source : B bought this from Hugendubel Buchhandlung
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„If you ain’t scared, you ain’t human.“
When Thomas wakes up in the lift, the only thing he can remember is his name. He’s surrounded by strangers—boys whose memories are also gone.

„Nice to meet ya, shank. Welcome to the Glade.“
Outside the towering stone walls that surround the Glade is a limitless, ever-changing maze. It’s the only way out—and no one’s ever made it through alive.

„Everything is going to change.“
Then a girl arrives. The first girl ever. And the message she delivers is terrifying.

Remember. Survive. Run.

My Thoughts

Me and Joyce were planning to do a buddy read but we cannot really decide on what book and as a good sign, B came home with The Maze Runner. It turned out that Joyce also has a copy so we’ve decided to read this book.

Thomas wakes up inside a box with no memory of his life except of his name. He finds himself in a strange place called the Glade where group of teenage boys called Gladers are living for the past two years. Surrounded by monstrous stone walls which is the Maze and vicious Grievers, the Gladers spend their time trying to solve and find a way out. Thomas‘ arrival brings weird things in the Glade including the arrival of a girl.

Though this book is more focus on the plot development than the characters, I still enjoyed reading it. I adore the friendship among the boys and how organized they were in the Glade. The secondary characters are more appealing to me and my favorite was Chuck. For me he was the most bravest and he made me cry.

„..don’t feel bad about crying. Ever.“

My least favorite was Teresa. I was expecting that because she is the only female character in this book, she will probably make something different. Maybe she did but it didn’t work for me. Hopefully I’ll get to like her on the next book.

I was lost in the beginning of the book and like Thomas, I was also frustrated because nobody wants to answer his questions. It took awhile, half of the book i think, before the questions were answered and this can probably cause a negative effects to the readers. I personally felt a little impatient about it but it didn’t really make a huge effect on me. I just keep on thinking that it may have something to do with the sequel or the trilogy itself.

These unique words called the Gladers slang quite annoyed me at first but then I thought that it was accurate because the Gladers really don’t have any idea how it is outside the Maze including how people communicates with each other.

We cannot deny that the author’s way of describing things are exceptional. The Grievers were scary and totally dangerous but I had a hard time visualising them. I know it may sound funny but I cannot help not to think of a champion from League of Legends named Rammus.

The Epilogue. It’s obvious that everything is still not okay because it is a trilogy but I still don’t know what to expect. The twist is perfect and unexpected.

This book entertained me and I will definitely start reading The Scorch Trial right after posting this review.

My Rating
4stars

Book Review : Teenage Love Spell: A Halloween Romance by Gabrielle dela Cruz

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23388940Edition : Kindle (88 pages)
Published : October 2014
Genre : Teen Fiction
Source : Provided by the author in exchange of an honest review
Date Read : December 2014
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The moon shines bright for the fifteen year old Caitlyn Cross as she discovers her true identity as a witch. Her mom strictly forbids her to use magic, but being bullied in school because of the way she dresses and her messy orange hair, she has no other escape but her powers.

She’s always been in love with one boy in school since the fourth grade, the dashing Angelo Pinzon, who comes from a Spanish family with perfect genes. She has been cutely stalking him ever since but enter Phoebe Conway, the spoiled rich mommy’s girl who will make her junior year a burden and hinder her from happiness.

With all the madness and drama in school, partnered with her uncontrollable powers, Caitlyn finds out about her destiny and learns to fall in love for the very first time.

My Thoughts

The lovely Gabrielle dela Cruz commented on one of my Instagram posts informing that her debut novella is free on Kindle. So, i grabbed the opportunity to download it.

It’s a story of a teenage witch named Caitlyn who has been bullied because of her hair color. She don’t have any closed friends until she met Yuri. Caitlyn’s huge crush on their class‘ hearththrob Angelo, brought her to her mom’s „Book of Spell“.

I read this book last Friday for like less than two hours. It is a very easy read. For me this book is not just only for Halloween even it has something to do with witches and spells.

The target audience of this book are teenagers and I’m glad that the author included the issue about bullying. I’ve read from one of her interview that she was once a victim of bullying and she wrote this book as an inspiration to others.

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Book Review : Ignite by Lily Paradis

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Series : Ignite #1
Edition : Kindle edition (328 pages)
Publisher : EmpireBooks (2014)
Genre : New Adult, Contemporary
Source : Copy provided by the author
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„Have you ever heard of koi no yokan?“ he asked. „It’s Japanese,“ he explained as he trailed his fingers lightly down one of my arms. „It doesn’t have an English equivalent. Roughly translated, it’s a term for the feeling that you have when you first meet someone.“

„Like love at first sight?“ I asked, tipping my head up toward his.

„No, not quite like that. It’s more like you know that a future love with that person is inevitable, but it diesn’t exist in that moment.“

My Thoughts

First of all, I would like to thank Ms. Lily Paradis for sending me a Kindle version of this book. It means a lot because this is the very first ebook sent to me by the author herself and i love you for that. So, let’s talk about Ms. Paradis‘ debut novel entitled Ignite.

Lauren Lindsay just turned twenty-one and is living her own life after the death of her father and the abandonement of her mother. She only has her twin brother but he’s also living away from her. While getting her new I.D. at DMV, she spotted a Henry Cavill-like guy named Dean Powell. After meeting her Uncle Jed, she learned about the death of her step-mother and the big responsibilities waiting for her. She was chosen to take the legal guardianship of her three step siblings. She has to decide if she will accept it or not.

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