Month: June 2018

Review: The Elite (#2) by Kiera Cass

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review2 Comments

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The Selection began with thirty-five girls.
Now with the group narrowed down to the six Elite, the competition to win Prince Maxon’s heart is fiercer than ever—and America is still struggling to decide where her heart truly lies. Is it with Maxon, who could make her life a fairy tale? Or with her first love, Aspen?
America is desperate for more time. But the rest of the Elite know exactly what they want—and America’s chance to choose is about to slip away.

What can I say? I finished this book in a day. I might have been sick and in bed resting at the time, but it’s still rare for me to get through books this quickly! I can’t help it or control myself, these books are so addictive even though I can still see the problems with them.

For one, not much happened? Which sounds weird to say because I got through it so quick, but even though not much happened I still enjoyed the slight plot. If I’m right in saying, this book started with 6 girls in the Selection and ended with 5. But I have to say, I did enjoy the other details, even if they seemed a little absurd sometimes.

“You know you’ve found something amazing, and you want to hold on to it forever;”

As with book one, America did kind of annoy me but I still can’t help but like her sometimes! But I have to say, predictability has officially gone out the window…yay! I can’t believe that I honestly didn’t know where this book was going, and I think that’s why I wanted to carry on reading so much.

“and every second after you have it, you fear the moment you might lose it.”

The love triangle thing does get a little old, I’m not going to lie. There were some times when I kind of wanted to push America off a cliff at points for not being able to decide what she wants. But even though America does annoy me, I can’t help but relate to her struggles sometimes. I’m a hopeless romantic and I couldn’t help but understand why she was confused sometimes.

So again, this series continues to win my heart in the end. I can’t help but love this book and I can’t wait to start the next one!

★★★
3 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Selection (#1) by Kiera Cass

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review17 Comments

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For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.
But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn’t want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.
Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she’s made for herself—and realizes that the life she’s always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

I just saw a review on Goodreads that sounds exactly how I’m feeling about these books. They’re like cookies that are really bad for you – you know you shouldn’t like them because they’re full of trash but you just can’t help yourself by eating a whole packet in one sitting. Credit to Taneika for that one!

So right now, I’m feeling incredibly torn over this book. For one, I never thought I would like a book with a girl called America Singer. America. And talking of America, this girl tears me in half too. On one hand, she is so damn indecisive and I know it’s going to annoy me a tiny bit throughout the whole series. But on the other hand, she has a kind and sensitive soul which shines through above all.

“I hope you find someone you can’t live without. I really do.”

I actually really enjoyed the caste system and world. It only has a small touch of fantasy and the palace and it’s grounds are pretty well described. I actually enjoyed how the world and history was described. I would have loved a map in the front of the book, but the history lessons were through dialogue and actual lessons the Selected took part in. I didn’t mind this, because it kept the lessons short and informative, rather than just long pieces of information.

“And I hope you never have to know what it’s like to have to try and live without them.”

Sure, this book was absolutely and utterly far from perfect. It should really be easy for me to say it was bad. But I can’t help it, it was so trashy I loved it. It was the kind of TV you know you shouldn’t watch but can’t help it. It was so predictable, cheesy, fluffy and other wrong things that I should be hating on it. But I can’t help it, these books are fun and quick to read and I have already read half of the second book.

Help me.

★★★
3 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: The Upside of Unrequited by Becky Albertalli

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review5 Comments

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Seventeen-year-old Molly Peskin-Suso knows all about unrequited love—she’s lived through it twenty-six times. She crushes hard and crushes often, but always in secret. Because no matter how many times her twin sister, Cassie, tells her to woman up, Molly can’t stomach the idea of rejection. So she’s careful. Fat girls always have to be careful.
Then a cute new girl enters Cassie’s orbit, and for the first time ever, Molly’s cynical twin is a lovesick mess. Meanwhile, Molly’s totally not dying of loneliness—except for the part where she is. Luckily, Cassie’s new girlfriend comes with a cute hipster-boy sidekick. Will is funny and flirtatious and just might be perfect crush material. Maybe more than crush material. And if Molly can win him over, she’ll get her first kiss and she’ll get her twin back.
There’s only one problem: Molly’s coworker Reid. He’s an awkward Tolkien superfan with a season pass to the Ren Faire, and there’s absolutely no way Molly could fall for him. Right?

This book honestly really surprised me! I thought I was over cutesy YA romances like this but it turns out I can’t help but have a soft spot for them. And it also turns out that my friend Amy knows me even better than I know myself, because she sent this to me knowing how much I’d love it!

Before I start, this book isn’t perfect. I’d rather finish on the good, so I’m going to start with the little bad there is. Even though I enjoyed it, it is predictable and all of the characters have their…problems. For example, there was a few places that made me cringeeee. Basically, Molly (the main character), talks to her cousin Abby and the conversation almost suggests Abby is a slut because she slept with her serious boyfriend of 4 months. Why is that even a consideration? It’s up to Abby whether she sleeps with her boyfriend or not. If they were ready at 4 months, great. If they were ready sooner, great.

“You would matter. That’s the thing. I get into this weird place sometimes where I worry about that.”

But apart from a few little things, I did love this book. I had to put myself into my mind a year or two ago, but I couldn’t help but really enjoy this. It is exactly how I felt when I was Molly’s age and crushing. She felt so real to me. I love how much I could relate to her and her situation. Molly wasn’t perfect but who is? And this book was so diverse, with so many LGBT and POC characters! Sometimes I struggled to remember Molly was still growing up (I was a little more mature than her at the same age), but that was just her as a person, and I could sympathise with that.

“I’ve never told anyone this – not my moms, not Cassie – but that’s the thing I’m most afraid of. Not mattering. Existing in a world that doesn’t care who I am.”

Maybe this book says something about me, because I feel like I’m one of the only readers who didn’t find Molly a little annoying because I found her so relatable. I loved that Molly suffered with anxiety and that was part of her character. I loved that she was fat and that was discussed in relation to how she was feeling. I loved her addiction to Pinterest.

So overall, this book feels like a guilty pleasure to me. I just couldn’t help but fall completely in love with it. Molly is the perfect representation of a 17 year old girl with low self-confidence. Her story, and the stories of the people around her, brought tears to my eyes even though I kind of knew what was about to happen. If you love romance and have a secret obsession with contemporaries, please go and read this. It’s beautiful and perfect and includes many, many Mini Eggs. It’s the definition of cute and fluffy, but it warmed my heart so much.

★★★★
4 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: Legendary by Stephanie Garber

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review2 Comments

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A heart to protect. A debt to repay. A game to win.
After being swept up in the magical world of Caraval, Donatella Dragna has finally escaped her father and saved her sister Scarlett from a disastrous arranged marriage. The girls should be celebrating, but Tella isn’t yet free. She made a desperate bargain with a mysterious criminal, and what Tella owes him no one has ever been able to deliver: Caraval Master Legend’s true name.
The only chance of uncovering Legend’s identity is to win Caraval, so Tella throws herself into the legendary competition once more—and into the path of the murderous heir to the throne, a doomed love story, and a web of secrets…including her sister’s. Caraval has always demanded bravery, cunning, and sacrifice. But now the game is asking for more. If Tella can’t fulfill her bargain and deliver Legend’s name, she’ll lose everything she cares about—maybe even her life. But if she wins, Legend and Caraval will be destroyed forever.
Welcome, welcome to Caraval…the games have only just begun.

I loved this book. But did it capture my heart? Not exactly, and that little fact makes me want to cry. You see, Legendary, for me, had a hell of a lot to live up to. Caraval was something extremely special, and it absolutely captured my heart. When I finished that book, I made mood boards and playlists. It made me feel like magic was really woven between the beautiful paper pages.

And although I still really loved and admired this gorgeous book, I don’t feel as though my heart has been captured right now. It’s really hard to describe what was wrong here, but I’m going to try. For a start, it took me a week to read. And yes, that’s a personal thing, and I have a lot on my mind at the moment, but I just didn’t feel as though I needed to be inside the pages of this book all the time. Trust me, there were parts when I couldn’t stop reading, but it wasn’t so constant.

“Her heart was still a little heavy,”

Let’s talk about the things I love. Well, I love Tella. I felt as though there has been enough space between the first book so I wasn’t too sad about missing Scarlett as a narrator, and I really liked Tella’s character. She just felt real – she had her own difficult decisions and confusion and she didn’t always know where her life was heading. I loved her struggles and her torture, because it made her the relatable and lovable girl she is.

I also really enjoyed the story and other characters. I liked the way Legendary explores Tella’s relationships and friendships with not just her mother but with many other characters. They provided a really interesting development for me, and I did want to read on to find out which paths Tella was about to choose. Can I just also mention something? THE LOVE. AHHH. Okay. So Garber still leaves me shipping couples, and the romance was definitely the best part of this book for me. God, Garber knows how to write romance and kisses.

“but she’d decided carrying it around would only maker her stronger.”

So thinking about all this, compared to other books, this one could easily be 5 stars. However, I can’t help but compare this to Caraval. And that makes me feel as though this series has just lost it’s vibrancy. I really wanted more vivid descriptions of the world and game itself, as I remember Caraval being very setting heavy. And that’s the reason why, I’m sorry to say, I’m going to give this one…

★★★★
4 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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Review: Obsidio by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

On By Beth JonesIn Book Review3 Comments

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Kady, Ezra, Hanna, and Nik narrowly escaped with their lives from the attacks on Heimdall station and now find themselves crammed with 2,000 refugees on the container ship, Mao. With the jump station destroyed and their resources scarce, the only option is to return to Kerenza—but who knows what they’ll find seven months after the invasion? 
Meanwhile, Kady’s cousin, Asha, survived the initial BeiTech assault and has joined Kerenza’s ragtag underground resistance. When Rhys—an old flame from Asha’s past—reappears on Kerenza, the two find themselves on opposite sides of the conflict. 
With time running out, a final battle will be waged on land and in space, heroes will fall, and hearts will be broken.

Wow, unpopular opinion much. I know there is much love around this series and I’m sorry, but my opinion seems to be the complete opposite of what everyone else thinks. Oops.

Oh my god. I didn’t think it could get any worse, but reading my review of Gemina, I think I actually liked this one even less. The bottom line is, I was just even more confused because there are way too many characters in these books! Let’s just have a quick throwback to me a couple of years ago when Illuminae came out. I was where everyone else was, fangirling over this new book with a completely new style of reading. I honestly think it was just so refreshing to read something so different, but since then, both books that followed just seem like retellings of the same world. I can’t help but feel that success, rather than love made the authors release the other two.

“May we meet again on distant shores.”

And another thing I hate about not only having so many characters, but also the camera surveillance way this story is told? I felt so damn detached. Yeah, this book is emotional and yeah, I loved the poetic parts. But I still don’t give a damn what happened. Sorry for my cold heart and black soul.

Like 80% (at least) of this book was just boring and I couldn’t focus. Only a small number of pages actually made me feel like I was invested or involved in the book at all. But on the other hand, this really small amount of pages…were awesome. I loved them, I felt completely in the world and I felt the emotion. And I guess I do have one popular opinion, because I LOVE AIDAN. Like, I flicked through the whole book looking for those black pages. I loved his parts, and I wanted so much more. If only the book was just AIDAN…

“Some place fine and far from here.”

But that’s where the good stuff ends, and other than that, I was so disappointed. I wanted it to all end so I could read better things. I’m glad I managed to finish this series, but that’s about it.

Well don’t let the fact that I disliked this one put you off – it’s such an unpopular opinion after all!

★★
2 stars

-Beth

May your shelves forever overflow with books! ☽

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