September 2015 Book Haul

This month I realllllly tried to, well, haul it back for my book haul. I got so many more books then I had originally thought I had gotten in August, so I wanted to focus more on reading and school this month, and less on buying, and I think I did a really good job! In total I bought four books in September, and three were given to me.

Non-fiction:

1. An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth by Chris Hadfield (paperback)

Young adult:

1. Never Always Sometimes by Adi Alsaid (hardcover)

Adult:

1. This is How You Die by a collection of authors (Machine of Death #2 - paperback)
2. The Revisionists by Thomas Mullen (hardcover)
3. Dead Man's Grip by Peter James (mass market paperback)
4. The Summer That Never Was by Peter Robinson (two in one book with below)
5. Cold is the Grave by Peter Robinson (mass market paperback)

I am super excited to read Never Always Sometimes, An Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth, and This is How You Die. They all look so amazing, hopefully I can get to some of them over my Thanksgiving weekend break!

Top Ten Tuesday (4): Authors I Need More From

Hey all! This week I was looking through the books on my bookshelf, and I realized that I have a lot of single books and single series by one author, but no more from that same author, even though I loved them! So, this week is going to be the top ten authors I NEED to read more from!

Only one book

     1. Ernest Cline
             I read Armada over the summer, and it was one of the best books I've read this year. I've had Ready Player One on my TBR list for well...a long time. And I ended up reading Armada first, and it only made me want to read it even more. I feel like I'm just saving it because I don't think he has any other books out, and I really really love his writing.


     2. Andy Weir

             I also read The Martian over the summer, in anticipation of the movie coming out in October (where I live, anyways) and I really enjoyed it. I powered through the book in less than 24 hours, actually. On Goodreads I saw a lot of new books under his profile, but none of them have been guaranteed yet, so hopefully soon I can have another of his books in my hands!

     3. V. E. Schwab

            Vicious was absolutely AMAZING. I loved every single page of it, and read it in one sitting. I've been meaning to get A Darker Shade of Magic since it came out, but being a teenager and wanting a book that is $20+...yeah. Hopefully I will get it soon!

     4. Lucy Christopher
            Stolen was my favourite book about three or four years ago, and I actually used it for English projects, which says a lot when you have to look at every aspect of a book for hours a day, and still love it. I've had The Killing Woods on my shelf for a couple months, and I really need to get around to reading it soon! Next month, hopefully.


     5. Holly Black
            I read The Coldest Girl in Coldtown this year, and I really enjoyed it. I'm not as much into the whole vampire thing as I once was, but if I was able to love a vampire book that much, I'm looking forward to reading her other books! I really want to get to The Darkest Part of the Forest by the end of this year.


Only one series

     6. Christopher Paolini

            When I was in elementary school, my favourite series was the Eragon series. I remember getting Eldest for Christmas one year, and going out and buying my first copy of Eragon, where I proceeded to sit down in the middle of the floor in the book store and read the first few chapters. He hasn't released or mentioned any new books since the last one in the series, Inheritance, came out in 2011, but I've had my fingers crossed since then, and will continue to hope he writes some more!

     7. Laini Taylor

            The Daughter of Smoke and Bone trilogy is my favourite trilogy ever, so that shows how much I love Laini Taylor. I believe she has a few middle grade novels out, and some short stories in collections with other authors, but I really hope she will write more about the amazing Karou, or at least some more in Eretz.

     8. Kendare Blake

            In ninth grade, on the first day of school, a girl I had just met at the school newspaper meeting recommended Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake to me, and I loved it. That girl has since become one of my best friends, and that book always fills me with so much joy when I read it. But it doesn't just have good memories to it, it is written so beautifully and is absolutely amazing. I have Antigoddess sitting on my shelf, but I just haven't had the chance to sit down and read it yet. Hopefully soon!

     9. Alison Goodman
            I absolutely loved her Eon duology, so much so that I have read them quite a few times now, and have some parts memorized. The writing style is so unique and just beautifully written. Alison Goodman has a few other books out, and I really want to pick them up so that I can read them and (hopefully) love them!


    10. Maria V. Snyder
            I read Maria V. Snyder's Poison Study trilogy over a couple of days, and it was amazing. I loved the whole idea of the story, and I thought that I had never read anything like it. I know she has  another trilogy out, and maybe a few more books as well, and I hope to get to them soon!

Review: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Title: Shadow and Bone (The Grisha #1)

Author: Leigh Bardugo

Genre: Fantasy (young adult)

Pages: 372 (paperback)
Publisher: Square Fish
Publication date: May 7th, 2013


Synopsis from Shadow and Bone's Goodreads page


Alina Starkov doesn't expect much from life. Orphaned by the Border Wars, she is sure of only one thing: her best friend, Mal--and her inconvenient crush on him. Until the day their army regiment enters the Fold, a swath of unnatural darkness crawling with monsters. When their convoy is attacked and Mal is brutally injured, Alina reveals a dormant power not even she knew existed.
Ripped from everything she knows, Alina is taken to the royal court to be trained as a member of the Grisha, the magical elite led by the mysterious Darkling. With Alina's extraordinary power in his arsenal, he believes they can finally destory the Fold. Now Alina must find a way to master her untamed gift and somehow fit into her new life without Mal by her side. But nothing in this lavish world is what it seems. As the threat to the kingdom mounts and her dangerous attraction to the Darkling grows, Alina will uncover a secret that could tear her heart--and her country--in two.


I have had this book on my shelf for about a year and a half, and I had been meaning to read it since the day I got it, but instead...I was stupid in not reading this sooner than the year and a half I have now had it.
I really, really enjoyed this book. There is a map (always a GREAT sign when you open a new fantasy novel) that is beautifully detailed, and a list of the hierarchy of the Grisha, which really helped when you first start getting into the book and the world. It is a very engaging, attention grabbing book, to say the least. It gets a strong hold of you from the very beginning and has you tangled up by the second chapter, needing more.
Shadow and Bone was an amazing read, from the characters themselves to the world to the powers of the Grisha, everything was superbly well thought out and written. I loved the characters and the writing, but I wasn't such a massive fan of how Alina grew as a character as the book progressed.
I found Alina very whiney and kind of childish at one point of the book, which I can understand after everything that had happened (and keeps happening) to her, but I feel that she could have at least tried to find solace in something. She ends up being in a grumpy, aggravated and distraught mood at one point in the book, and the mood carries on through the rest of the book. Many of the characters become annoyed with her, and instead of apologizing or trying to explain herself, she ends up just standing there in shock and not doing anything, choosing to wait for the other person to come to her first when she was the one who instigated the problem in the first place.
I did find the book very fast-paced, and therefore I found that I needed to check the map and the hierarchy included in the front of the book quite often, but that is to be expected for a relatively short, fast-paced fantasy read.
Other than the character development of Alina, I throughoutly enjoyed the book. Leigh Bardugo has a very powerful voice through her words, and her world is just magnificent. The book just leaves you crying for more throughout the entire thing, and as soon as you turn the last page you need the next one. It was a very easy read, having read it in less than two days and currently finishing up the second book in the series as I write this.
The world was wonderful, the powers mystical, the characters witty and enjoyable, and the writing was absolutely fantastic. An amazing book, and I don't want the trilogy to ever end!
Overall - ★★★★.5☆

Top Ten Tuesday (3): Reads of 2015

Hi everyone! I can't believe this is the third top ten Tuesday I've done for you...it feels kind of insane! It feels like just yesterday I started up my blog and my instagram, and it's been over a month already

This week, I've decided to do the top ten books I have loved reading this year, so enjoy!

1. Outlander by Diana Gabaldon and Dragonfly In Amber (Outlander #2) by Diana Gabaldon
2. Armada by Ernest Cline
3. Vicious by V.E. Schwab
4. The Martian by Andy Weir
5. Looking for Alaska by John Green
6. And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie
7. Rooms by Lauren Oliver
8. The Walled City by Ryan Graudin
9. Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid
10. The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Not all of these books were 5 stars, but every one of them was absolutely amazing and I loved every single one of them. My top adult book was obviously Outlander, and my top young adult book was Looking for Alaska by John Green. It was so good, I will probably end up re-reading it before the end of the year!
Have a great Tuesday everyone!

Review: Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider

Title: Extraordinary Means

Author: Robyn Schneider

Genre: Contemporary (young adult)

Pages: 324 (paperback)

Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books

Publication date: May 26th, 2015

Synopsis from Extraordinary Means' Goodreads page


At seventeen, overachieving Lane finds himself at Latham House, a sanatorium for teens suffering from an incurable strain of tuberculosis. Part hospital and part boarding school, Latham is a place of endless rules and confusing rituals, where it's easier to fail breakfast than it is to flunk French.
There, Lane encounters a girl he knew years ago. Instead of the shy loner he remembers, Sadie has transformed. At Latham, she is sarcastic, fearless, and utterly compelling. Her friends, a group of eccentric troublemakers, fascinate Lane, who has never stepped out of bounds his whole life. And as he gradually becomes one of them, Sadie shows him their secrets: how to steal internet, how to sneak into town, and how to disable the med sensors they must wear at all times.
But there are consequences to having secrets, particularly at Latham House. And as Lane and Sadie begin to fall in love and their group begins to fall sicker, their insular world threatens to come crashing down.


This book was such a wonderful thing to sit down and read. I absolutely loved Robyn Schneider's The Beginning of Everything, and it was one of my favourite reads of 2013. So when I learned that she was releasing another book this year, I was ecstatic. And man, was I not disappointed.
Extraordinary Means is a very sad book. It deals with tuberculosis, teenager angst, and heavy material. I was expecting to cry and be upset while reading it, and I didn't know if I would be able to connect to any of the characters because I can't even begin to understand what it would be like to have TB and be placed in a sanatorium because of it.
What I didn't expect was that the teenagers were just like every other teenager in the world; they just wanted to fit in, they just wanted to make friends, make memories, and live a life full of adventure. Now, that I can connect with. Each and every character had something about them that was extremely easy to relate to. Photography, music, art, reading, school, stress, a relationship. Every single one of them was well thought out and, well, just like every other teenager in the world. They just want to be normal, be happy. But it isn't as simple as that.
Being a normal teenager isn't possible. The definition of normal is conforming to the standard or the common type. But "normal" in one place is different from another. It's normal to wear parkas in the Yukon, and bikinis in Florida. If you switched them around, well.
At Latham, it's normal for everyone to have TB. That's why they're all there in the first place. But for everyone outside of Latham, it's extremely un-normal. They're considered the freaks, the abnormalities. They have nurses checking up on them all the time, and they go to the doctor at least once a month. That's their normal. So, of course who wouldn't want to sneak out and go into town for Starbucks? Who wouldn't want to wear fancy dresses and ties to pyjama movie night? The characters in Extraordinary Means are abnormal for those in Latham, but they're living the normal that they've had their whole lives. Their normal is similar to everyone outside of Latham, but slightly parallel. Sneaking around with alcohol, watching movies on a school night, fighting for Internet connection. But also needing to pass breakfast, wear permanent med sensors on their wrists, and living in the middle of the woods at a summer camp...year round.
Robyn made the characters quirky, but a quirky that was connectable with. She made the setting just like the summer camps that we all went to, or that we had heard about from our friends. She made every single thing, down to stress from school and the question of where to sit on your first day at a new school just like every other day for a normal teenager. Except that they were in a sanatorium for kids with TB, and that's where the story comes from.
It was an amazing book, and I highly recommend it to anyone who is a fan of John Green's books, love stories, or contemporary books.
Overall - ★★★★.5☆

Top Ten Tuesday, Fall Edition (2): Fall TBR List

This Tuesday, since it is now the second Tuesday of September and fall is quickly approaching, I decided to share with you my top ten young adult books at the top of my fall TBR list!

1. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo (The Grisha trilogy, #1)
2. Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo (The Grisha trilogy, #2)
3. Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo (The Grisha trilogy, #3)
4. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
5. Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge
6. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea by April Genevieve Tucholke (reread - Between #1)
7. Between the Spark and the Burn by April Genevieve Tucholke (Between #2)
8. The Kiss of Deception by Mary E. Pearson
9. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
10. The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

We'll need to see if I end up reading all of these books this fall, because it's a lot of first books in series. I may end up starting one series and seeing it all the way through instead of starting a bunch of individual series, but who knows? There's nothing I love better than curling up by the fireplace, or just under a blanket with hot chocolate and a good book. Have a lovely fall!

August 2015 Wrap Up

So, August wasn't the best reading month for me, sadly. I spent a lot of my month working, and I started up both my book blog and my bookstagram this month, resulting in a lot of time going towards setting them up and getting them out there instead of reading. I managed to read 4 books this month, and they were all very good!

• We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach ★★★★☆
• Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid ★★★★★
• Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn ★★★★☆
• Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon ★★★★★

I realize that only four books in a month, especially during the summer, isn't a whole lot, but in my defence I worked pretty much the whole month, and Dragonfly In Amber is 947 pages...

I read We All Looked Up by Tommy Wallach very quickly at the beginning of the month, because I had taken it out from the library and I needed to finish it. I really liked the idea of it, and how the story was told from multiple point of views, but after awhile it started to become very confusing and I found that a lot of the characters' thoughts were written in a very similar way. I had to keep flipping back to the beginning of the chapter to see who the character was, and I did zone out every once in awhile while I was reading it. It was a very enjoyable read though, and I think that Tommy Wallach did a great job with it.

I quickly picked up Let's Get Lost by Adi Alsaid right after I finished We All Looked Up, because I was still in the mood for a light, quick contemporary book, and I was not disappointed! Each character was complex and had their own personality, past, and story. I could connect with each and every character from their uniqueness and complexity, whether it was through road tripping, stress from school and the future, loss, or love. The writing style was very cute and light (as it is a contemporary novel) but also very grabbing and full of suspense. It was an amazing story, and I loved every second of it.

Distant Waves by Suzanne Weyn sat on my shelf, untouched, for six years (kind of insane, when I think about it), and I kind of regret not reading it sooner. I read the entire book in about two days, which was pretty easy since it's summer and it's only 330 pages, with a large font. I was expecting more of a historical fiction type of book, with information about the Titanic and the time period, but it had more about magic and ghosts then about the Titanic. I was surprised, and slightly disappointed, but the book was still very good, if maybe for a bit of a younger audience then I expected. Overall though, a very interesting, quick read.

Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon is the best book I read in August, and one of the best books I've read this whole year. It was beautifully written, and all of the characters that I had fallen in love with in Outlander made me fall even further in love with them. There is a full review to this book under the review page of my blog, if you want more information!

My first Top Ten Tuesday! (1): Top Books to Read Before 2016

As it is now September (already?!) I decided that I should do the top ten books I need to read before the end of the year. I may not read them in this order, but I need to read all of them before 2016.

The Top Ten Books I Need to Read Before 2016

1. Voyager by Diana Gabaldon
2. Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas
3. Legend by Marie Lu
4. Red Rising by Pierce Brown
5. Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
6. Falling Kingdoms by Morgan Rhodes
7. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
8. Extraordinary Means by Robyn Schneider
9. Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand
10. The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

I'm really hoping I can get all of these books read by the end of the year. I still have four more months, and there are only ten books, but with school and work I don't know how many I will be able to tackle. Hopefully this will happen!

Review: Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon

Title: Dragonfly In Amber (Outlander #2)

Author: Diana Gabaldon

Genre: Historical fiction/Fantasy (adult)
Pages: 947 (Mass market paperback)
Publisher: Bantam Dell
Publication date: October 9th, 2001 (Original date - 1992)


**The below synopsis will contain spoilers if you have not yet read Outlander**


Synopsis from Dragonfly In Amber's Goodreads page


For twenty years Claire Randall has kept her secrets. But now she is returning with her grown daughter to Scotland's majestic mist-shrouded hills. Here Claire plans to reveal a truth as stunning as the events that gave it birth: about the mystery of an ancient circle of standing stones ...about a love that transcends the boundaries of time ...and about James Fraser, a Scottish warrior whose gallantry once drew a young Claire from the security of her century to the dangers of his ....
Now a legacy of blood and desire will test her beautiful copper-haired daughter, Brianna, as Claire's spellbinding journey of self-discovery continues in the intrigue-ridden Paris court of Charles Stuart ...in a race to thwart a doomed Highlands uprising ...and in a desperate fight to save both the child and the man she loves....


"Oh, Claire, ye do break my heart wi' loving you." You break mine too Jamie, mine too.
I finished Dragonfly In Amber by Diana Gabaldon last night, and I am still at a loss for words. As I read my way through the book, I cried, laughed, loved, and cried some more. (There was a lot of crying involved in this book, and I don't cry very easily). I have never felt such strong emotions for a character as I did for Jamie and for Claire, and I have never loved a book and its characters and story as much as I have this one. The last 100 pages made me feel even stronger about all of the characters then I had through the entire book, and I sobbed like a baby the whole time. This book was AMAZING.
I had some doubts once I read the synopsis, knowing that it takes place 20 years after Outlander, and that made me hold back on reading it for a couple months. I was very nervous that we wouldn't have as much Jamie as we had in the first book, and I didn't want my views of Claire and of Jamie to change, if they were different people from the ones they were in Outlander. Eventually, with enough curiosity and prodding from my friends on Instagram, I decided that I should give it a go, and man am I glad that I did.
Not only was I able to connect so well with all of the characters, but the story was just as intriguing and grabbing as the first book. Everyone had stayed the same loving, (if not violent - it is 1744 Scotland) and humorous characters that I had fallen in love with in Outlander, when we were introduced to them all those pages ago. I highly recommend this series, it is so beautiful and it will definitely make you feel all of the things!
Overall - ★★★★★