monthly wrap up

June Wrap Up

16:00

How has it reached the end of the month already? It only feels like yesterday I was doing last month’s wrap up! This month’s isn’t as good because I’ve been super busy with exams and family commitments, so I haven’t been able to post or read as much.
Read this month:

Library: Soulmates by Holly Bourne - 3/5 - This book was addicting, but was very irritating at times, and had me roll my eyes often.
Owned: How to Build a Girl by Caitlin Moran - 4/5 - Absolutely hilarious! It really made me laugh, which was exactly what I needed.
Owned: PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han - 4/5 - Super sweet and fluffy, I read it in a day. It’s just too cute to pass up!
E-book: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon - 2/5 - I almost didn’t finish this. It was super boring and confusing, and really hard to get into.
E-book: Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout - 1/5 - I hated this book. Way too sexist.
Owned: Finding Audrey by Sophie Kinsella - 3/5 - I enjoyed it, but nothing really happened so annoyed me.
Library: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead - 4/5 - I was really late to catch on to all of the hype for this book, but I still enjoyed it! Please, just don’t judge it by it’s cringe-worthy name...
Favourite read this month: How to Build a Girl
Bought this month:
PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han

Magonia by Maria Dahvana Headley






Did not finish:
Angelfall by Susan Ee (it was just too boring!)
Posts:
Did you have a good June? What was your favourite read of the month! I’d love to know!

1 Star

Review: Obsidian

21:26

**This review contains spoilers. They will be hidden by a highlight, so you can still read a non-spoiler review**

 Obsidian
By Jennifer L. Armentrout

 Source: E-book gift
Page count: 335
Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Fantasy, Paranormal,

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 Starting over sucks.

When we moved to West Virginia right before my senior year, I’d pretty much resigned myself to thick accents, dodgy internet access, and a whole lot of boring… until I spotted my hot neighbor, with his looming height and eerie green eyes. Things were looking up.

And then he opened his mouth.

Daemon is infuriating. Arrogant. Stab-worthy. We do not get along. At all. But when a stranger attacks me and Daemon literally freezes time with a wave of his hand, well, something… unexpected happens. 

The hot alien living next door marks me.

You heard me. Alien. Turns out Daemon and his sister have a galaxy of enemies wanting to steal their abilities, and Daemon’s touch has me lit up like the Vegas Strip. The only way I’m getting out of this alive is by sticking close to Daemon until my alien mojo fades. 

If I don’t kill him first, that is.

 My review:
The cover of this book is disgusting, and I hated the actual book so much. So if you get easily offended by people being rude towards your favourite book (because I know this is a lot of people’s favourite), don’t read on. I will be doing a lot of hating!
My main problem with this book (along with all of the others) was the characters. Katy was okay, yet sometimes too cliche, and made a lot of stupid decisions. The side characters were irritating too. They added nothing to the story, just made me roll my eyes all the time!
Daemon was by far my worst character. He was so controlling and arrogant all the time, I despise characters like that, so instantly I hated him, and my decision didn’t change throughout the whole book. He changed a bit and maybe became slightly more decent to Katy, but I still had no respect for him. He walked around like he was so great, yet we all knew that everyone in the book hated him. Just because he’s “good looking” doesn’t make him swoon-worthy! Looks aren’t everything! Maybe in the next book he gets better...
The plot was also ridiculous. Nothing happened! Although it was fast paced and was relentlessly readable, there was no goal. We discovered things (I won’t spoil it, but the foreshadowing is so obvious (there’s a thing called subtlety!)) that we can guess the plot from the very beginning (and turns out I was right - again). There was no plot for the entire book. I felt like there were little bits of action scenes, but they were pointless. It was too character driven because we were meant to care about them, and I really did not.
Spoilers - highlight to see (sorry, I haven’t worked out HTML yet!)
I hated the ending with a burning passion. Katy had said no, yet Daemon still persisted that she was attracted to him (when she denied it multiple times). He needs to understand that no means no. This is not attractive, or something that we should be teaching is ‘hot’ in a guy. It is abuse and not attractive, or something to swoon over.


Another major problem that I had was the way Daemon was so indecisive. At one point, he behavior towards Katy was appalling (we was really rude), and the next he was really ‘sweet’. Sometimes, he wanted nothing to do with Katy, and then the next chapter he was too overprotective.
Like when Katy went to the dance with Simon. He was horrified with Simon so touching Katy when she had told him not too, yet he did the same thing at the end of the book! She had specifically told him that she didn’t want to go out with him, yet he continued to push her until she said yes. Just respect her decisions!

Overall, this book was a total flop. The love interest was vile, and the characters lacked personality and originality. The plot was boring and practically non-existent, and although was mainly well paced, it had its slow moments. The foreshadowing was terrible, and the whole concept lacked something special. At many moments it reminded me of Twilight, so if you enjoyed that I’d recommend this book (although really, I don’t recommend this book to anyone). I know I definitely won’t be reading the rest of the series!

My rating:

3.5 stars

Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown

19:56

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown
By Holly Black

 Source: E-book gift
Page count: 419
Genres: Young Adult, Paranormal, Vampires, Fantasy, Romance, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:

 Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself.

 My Review:
I went into this book with no expectations. I’ve never read a Holly Black book before, so I had no idea what to expect, apart from reading a couple of reviews on Goodreads. I’ve had a few recommendations, and I got given this as a gift, so I just thought why not give it a go? I read it while camping, meaning I’ll read just about anything!
I enjoyed the beginning. It was easy to get into, and flowed really well. I cared somewhat about the storyline because it was intriguing and the characters were interesting. And there were elements of disease from the start too which you know I love! I wasn’t addicted to the book, but I wasn’t bored by it.

My main problem with the book was the way that there was no goal for the whole book. This is definitely one where you need to keep telling yourself “It’s about the journey, not the destination”, yet I was still really wondering why I was actually reading it. I would have wanted to read on much more if I knew what I was reading to.

The characters were... good. The weren’t very original or out of the ordinary, none of them did anything spectacular. Tana was a good lead because she just got on with things and was somewhat interesting, but her personality wasn’t very bold, and nothing about her blew me away. I enjoyed reading about Gavriel, but not too much. He was unpredictable and not the typical male lead, but - like Tana - he didn’t really do anything to make me like him.

The ending was terrible. It felt way too rushed, and didn’t round anything off. It was too open ended and didn’t give me enough closure to be satisfied with the book, and to give it a high rating.

Overall, this was an interesting premise, yet it really flopped. It needed some serious improvements to the way it was written for me to be able to fully enjoy it.  

 My rating:

black ice

Top Five Friday #13: Books I Read Before I Blogged

19:40


Top Five Friday is a meme hosted at Katieemay which lists our top 5 choices based on a bookish theme
*****
Being a relatively new book blogger, many of my favourites are the ones I read before I blogged. I think it’s important for me to recognise the books I read way back as great too! 

1. Divergent Trilogy by Veronica Roth

When I read this series just before the film came out (which is over a year ago now), I absolutely adored them all. I read Insurgent in under a day (which made it the first ever book I read in under a day), and loved it so much. I still really love them now, and mean to re-read very soon!

2. Black Ice by Becca Fitzpatrick
I read this book around the time of publication, and having just finished Hush, Hush (which I loved at the time, even though now I’m pretty sure that if I read it I would despise it as much as all the reviews do), I was really excited to see another novel by Becca Fitzpatrick. I loved the way this book was so fast paced, and enjoyed every minute (although I’m not sure I would if I read it now).
3. The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky

This book was amazing. I read it in one sitting on the ferry - I loved it then, and I’m sure I would love it now. I really need to re-read it soon because I know I will fall in love with everything about it all over again.


4. Shadowhunter Chronicles (I couldn’t pick one series, let alone one book from this world!) by Cassandra Clare

I am such a big fan of this series. I love the world so much, and I can always come back to re-read some of my favourite chapters. I especially love the fantasy aspects because they’re so exciting and well-written. I definitely need to re-read all of these before Lady Midnight in 2016!
5. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell


This book is one of my all-time favourites. I just adore everything about it. It’s so feel-good and light, I read it really quickly last summer so I definitely need to read it again soon. It’s just a perfect book and I just want to hug everything about it! *happy excited dance*

What are the best books you read before you blogged? Let me know below!

Book Combo Tag

Book Combo Tag

16:00

I saw Jesse the Reader do this tag on his channel a while back, and it looked super fun. I feel like it’s really time to do something different on my blog instead of reviews and memes all the time, so here goes!
I tag:
Cody Leigh @ Literary-ly Obsessed
Although if you’d like to do this tag, consider yourself tagged by me!

1. Which 2 authors would you like to see put their writing skills together and write a new book?
Tahereh Mafi and Jandy Nelson. They both have such vivid and colourful writing, I think their combined book would be so amazing. It would probably be my favourite book ever, and I would be in a stance of beautifulness for days!


2. What’s your favourite author collaboration?
This is a really tricky one because I haven’t actually read very many author collaborations. This would probably be These Broken Stars because the writing flowed really well, and you can’t blatantly see who’s written what.
3. If you could combine 2 completely different stories and make them a book of their own what would it be and what would their combined title be?
Throne of Glass (and the rest of the series) and A Thousand Pieces of You. I think it would be really cool to have the world of Throne of Glass, yet the dimension travel in A Thousand Pieces of You. And it would be called: Throne of A Thousand Pieces (okay, that sounds majorly cool).
4. Which 2 characters from different books would you ship?

Alec Lightwood from The Mortal Instruments and Dante from Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe. Although I like these 2 with the people they are with in the books, I think that Alec and Dante would make a really cute couple! And their ship name: Dantlec! (okay, that’s bad...)
5. Which 2 worlds from 2 different stories would you like to see come together to make 1 epic world?
The shadowhunter world of The Infernal Devices, and the four Londons in A Darker Shade of Magic. I think it would be really cool to see Will, Tessa, and Jem hop between alternate Londons. Also, the added magic aspect would work really well with the bit of magic already in the story.
6. Which duology/ trilogy/ series would you have liked to have been 1 book?
This one’s easy - To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and PS I Still Love You by Jenny Han. I think a sequel wasn’t really necessary - the first book should have just been longer. Also, the way these books are so light and easy to read would have meant that the book wouldn’t be too long.
(although we all know that's not the case - I will read as much Lara Jean and Peter K as I can get!)

3 Stars

Review: Soulmates

16:00

Soulmates
By Holly Bourne

Source: Library, paperback
Genres: Young Adult, Romance, Contemporary, 

 Goodreads Synopsis:
Every so often, two people are born who are the perfect matches for each other. Soulmates. But while the odds of this happening are about as likely as being struck by lightning, when these people do meet and fall in love…thunderstorms, lightning strikes and lashings of rain are only the beginning of their problems.
Enter Poppy, the 17-year-old cynic with a serious addiction to banana milk, and Noah, the heart-throb guitarist; residents of mediocre Middletown, and sometime students. After a chance meeting at a local band night, Poppy and Noah find themselves swept up in a whirlwind romance unlike anything they’ve ever experienced before. 


I have such mixed views on this book - it’s a real guilty pleasure. It was very engaging, and I constantly wanted to read on (Holly Bourne’s writing is so addictive!), yet I hated the romance and the characters. I wanted to hate this book, but I really couldn’t. Although I may dislike the writing style, I can’t deny that I really enjoyed reading it.

The thing that bugged me the most was the whole ‘cliche’ thing. Poppy - the protagonist - was obsessed with not becoming a cliche - so much that the whole story became a massive cliche. It annoyed me because it was so obvious what was going to happen (I’ve seen 10 Things I Hate About You, I do know how these stories end...)

The plot was extremely predictable. I didn’t even read the goodreads synopsis before reading this book (which totally gives the whole book away - that’s why I’ve shortened it for on here), but I still knew what was going to happen. I don’t think we were meant to be able to guess so easily the entire plot, but the way it was written made it feel like we definitely were.


Although I really didn’t like the writing style, I constantly wanted to read on. It flowed really well and made the story an easy read. It was very plain and simple, so read more like a middle grade book, yet I found it really addictive and constantly wanted to read on. I found myself rolling my eyes every other page, yet still really enjoying the book.

I hated the characters. They weren’t well written at all and seemed a bit 2D. Although Poppy irritated me the most, Noah was also really annoying too (and can every YA love interest please stop being called Noah?!). He acted strangely and was very unlikeable (everyone in this book was unlikeable!). I hated them together so didn’t enjoy any of the romance (which is unfortunate because the whole book is romance!). Also, all of the character’s behaviour felt immature at times.


It picked up towards the end. Everything was explained well, and at the right pace. The ending came at a natural time (though the book could have been shortened quite a lot) and wasn’t rushed. I enjoyed it more because it got more science-fiction, and the characters were acting much more rationally.

Overall, I enjoyed this book, even though I definitely shouldn’t have. I would recommend it to fans of The Selection because the writing and romance is similar, but if you didn’t enjoy that you can still enjoy this (like me)! The plot was an unoriginal idea and the characters bugged me, yet I found it really addictive.


My rating:


Malec

Top Five Friday #12: Favourite Ships

21:46

Top Five Friday is a meme hosted at Katieemay which lists our top 5 choices based on a bookish theme
*****
Okay, yes, this topic definitely had to be done (with potential spoilers below). I’m a massive fangirl at heart, and a big shipper, so it would be impossible to do a list meme without including ships. Warning: massive rambles and extreme fangirling...

1. Wessa (Will and Tessa) from The Infernal Devices

They’re just so dreamy together! Although their love story gets a bit twisted, and doesn’t go to plan for most of the series, they have a happy ending and I’m so grateful for that. They deserve to be happy together, and the way they talk about books to each other makes me so happy!





2. Warnette (Juliette and Warner) from the Shatter Me Trilogy

The reason I like Warner and Juliette together so much is because of the way they fix each other. I like both of their personalities much more when they’re together because they spark off each other and are much nicer people who are much more enjoyable to read about. And the Warnette scenes in Ignite Me...*swoons*




3. Nathan and Gabriel from the Half Bad Trilogy

This is quite an unknown series, and it’s not completed yet, so the ship isn’t canon *cries* (yet!), and we don’t have a ship name. If they aren’t together in the last book in the series (Half Lost, set to come out in March 2016) I will cry for eternity. They must be together, they must...





4. Mara and Noah from the Mara Dyer Trilogy

Anyone who has ever known me will know that this is my favourite series ever. Mara and Noah are one of my favourite ships because of the way they are when they’re together. I like them both as individuals, but when they’re together they spark off each other so well, and are just so cute together... *squeals!*





5. Malec (Magnus and Alec) from The Mortal Instruments

Malec will always be my true OTP - I have shipped them for so long, and the amount of official fanfiction (read The Bane Chronicles - it’s just the best thing ever) we have is unbelievable. They fit together so well, and the way they make each other realise that they are loved is the cutest.





Who are your favourite ships? I'd love to know below!