Friday, April 24, 2015

The Darkest Part of the Forest by Holly Black

Publication Date:  January 13, 2015
Publisher:  Little Brown Books
Series:  Stand Alone
Pages:  328
Genre:  Fantasy
Synopsis:  Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.


At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.


Until one day, he does…


As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?  

Monday, April 20, 2015

5 Book Series I Won't Finish

I hate not completing series, finding out what happens in the end. But there are some series I just can't force myself to finish, no matter how hard I try.

1.  Maze Runner




I read halfway through The Scorch Trials before I couldn't do it anymore.  Simply put, I became so bored with the book that I stopped reading it altogether.  I tried, so hard--harder than I should have--to push through and finish it, but watching paint dry would have been more entertaining.  

2.  Fallen




It was not fun in any way, reading these books.  It got to the point that I was forcing myself to read these only because I wanted to know how it ended, not because I enjoyed the writing or characters or anything about this series.


3.  House of Night



  
I was obsessed with this series a few years back.  I really liked these books, despite the issues, but those problems just became worse as the series progressed.  Mostly, there is just too many books left and I don't have enough interest to read them all.

4.  Pretty Little Liars




This series dragged on, and on, and on, and I couldn't do it anymore.  It became the same plot, the same mystery over and over again, and it started to feel like the author only kept the series going for money.  There are too many books in this series, and it isn't worth it anymore.  

5.  Asylum 




I actually did a review of Asylum a while back, and it was no very positive.  I was disappointed by the writing, the plot, the characters--everything.  Unless you are holding me at gunpoint, I will not continue with this series.  

Saturday, April 11, 2015

The Ocean at the End of the Lane by Neil Gaiman

Publication Date:  June 18, 2013
Publisher:  William Morrow Books
Series:  Stand Alone
Pages:  181
Genre:  Fantasy
Synopsis:  Sussex, England. A middle-aged man returns to his childhood home to attend a funeral. Although the house he lived in is long gone, he is drawn to the farm at the end of the road, where, when he was seven, he encountered a most remarkable girl, Lettie Hempstock, and her mother and grandmother. He hasn't thought of Lettie in decades, and yet as he sits by the pond (a pond that she'd claimed was an ocean) behind the ramshackle old farmhouse, the unremembered past comes flooding back. And it is a past too strange, too frightening, too dangerous to have happened to anyone, let alone a small boy.

Forty years earlier, a man committed suicide in a stolen car at this farm at the end of the road. Like a fuse on a firework, his death lit a touchpaper and resonated in unimaginable ways. The darkness was unleashed, something scary and thoroughly incomprehensible to a little boy. And Lettie—magical, comforting, wise beyond her years—promised to protect him, no matter what.

Saturday, April 4, 2015

Isla and the Happily Ever After by Stephanie Perkins

Publication Date:  August 14, 2014
Publisher:  Dutton
Series:  Anna and the French Kiss #3
Pages:  352
Genre:  Contemporary Romance
Synopsis:  Hopeless romantic Isla has had a crush on introspective cartoonist Josh since their first year at the School of America in Paris. And after a chance encounter in Manhattan over the summer, romance might be closer than Isla imagined. But as they begin their senior year back in France, Isla and Josh are forced to confront the challenges every young couple must face, including family drama, uncertainty about their college futures, and the very real possibility of being apart.