bookcents

book reviews for the thrifty soul

Archive for the tag “YA”

Goddess Interrupted by Aimée Carter

Goddess Interrupted releases tomorrow, and Rachel and Emmy discuss it with each other and tell why you should go BUY IT!

*SPOILER FREE!*

Rachel: Goddess Interrupted was one of my most highly anticipated books of this year, and that comes with certain expectations. And with a whole year to brood on those expectations, they can get rather high…. Sometimes books don’t always live up. GI was not one of those. This book was everything I wanted and absolutely more.

Emmy: I mean, we have more of all the characters we love *coughHenrycough* and I absolutely adored the way Carter characterized all the gods this time around.  It goes way deeper into their theogony (the birth of the gods) which I think made me connect better to Walter and Ava and even Calliope. And of course, we’re introduced to Persephone, who added a whole new layer to the angst between Henry and Kate! Read more…

Author Interview: Aimée Carter

Today we have Aimée Carter chatting about her upcoming sequel to The Goddess Test–read our review here! She’s adorable, successful AND hilarious (I know, one person should not be so talented–try to contain your jealousy) so get excited! Goddess Interruptedwas phenomenal addition to Kate’s godly adventure (this time in the underworld!)–expect our review to be up closer to the release date. (Hint: We loved it!) Read more…

Bewitching by Alex Flinn

Rating: SKIP IT

This book, unfortunately, had two significant issues. Let’s talk about the easy one first:

Mismarketing.

Take a look at this description:

Kendra Hilferty is a witch. Yes, a witch–and she has been for hundreds of years. She might be known for the inventive curse she put on one beastly teen guy, but there is more to her story. Here, she chronicles her immortal existence, from first discovery of her powers. While always good intentioned, Kendra has found that her bewitching can backfire, and her magic turns versions of The Princess and the Pea and The Little Mermaid–set against the real-world backdrops of Versailles and the sinking of the Titanic–on their heads. Kendra’s reminiscences of her past are wrapped around a real-time Cinderella story in which she is trying to play fairy godmother… to the stepsister. With dark twists, hilarious turns, and unexpected endings, Bewitching is a contemporary read for fairy-tale lovers, fantasy fans, and anyone looking for more Alex Flinn.

What’s this? A book all about a kickass witch? Awesome!

…..wrong. Read more…

In My Mailbox (1)

 

So In My Mailbox was started in November of 2008 by The Story Siren and basically allows us to montage our books in whatever form pleases us. As much as we would love to, there’s just no way to review every book we receive for review! IMM let’s us feature those titles on the blog so our readers can see what’s on our To Be Read list.  Because this is the first IMM bookcents has ever done, we’ll keep it short and sweet with a list of the books Emmy got this month to review! Read more…

Scarlet by A.C. Gaughen

This book was phenomenal. Gaughen writes with such a distinctive voice that her readers will be immediately transported into Sherwood Forest with Robin’s band of thieves. The setting, the etiquette, and the world building behind this story are flawless.

Told from the perspective of Scarlet–otherwise known as Will Scarlet to keep her femininity a secret–we’re quickly pulled into the bloody conflict the sheriff is raging against Robin and his band.

Some aspects of the Robin Hood legend are different, like Sir Guy of Gisbourne taking on the role of a thief-taker hired to hunt down Robin Hood and his merry men.  Except there’s more to his hunt than meets the eye, and the one in the most danger isn’t Robin but Scarlet.  Read more…

Incarnate by Jodi Meadows


Rating: BUY IT!

Incarnate was one of those books that I was honestly terrified to start, because I had heard so many fantastic things about it. I was afraid that it couldn’t possibly live up to my expectations.

I was wrong.

New soul

Ana is new. For thousands of years in Range, a million souls have been reincarnated over and over, keeping their memories and experiences from previous lifetimes. When Ana was born, another soul vanished, and no one knows why.

No soul

Even Ana’s own mother thinks she’s a nosoul, an omen of worse things to come, and has kept her away from society. To escape her seclusion and learn whether she’ll be reincarnated, Ana travels to the city of Heart, but its citizens are afraid of what her presence means. When dragons and sylph attack the city, is Ana to blame?

Heart

Sam believes Ana’s new soul is good and worthwhile. When he stands up for her, their relationship blooms. But can he love someone who may live only once, and will Ana’s enemies–human and creature alike–let them be together? Ana needs to uncover the mistake that gave her someone else’s life, but will her quest threaten the peace of Heart and destroy the promise of reincarnation for all? Read more…

Statistical Probability of Love at First Sight by Jennifer E. Smith

Despite what the title indicates this book is not your average Love-At-First-Sight YA novel.  It has substance–a great story filled with unique and realistic characters.

It’s a Library It! rating not because I don’t love it (I really, really do), but because I don’t feel any burning need to reread it.  It’s a story that I’ll remember, quite possibly forever, because it was fun and sweet and filled to the brim with average, real world problems.

The story begins with Hadley missing her flight to London to attend her father’s wedding to the woman Hadley’s never met. Her father, who is rather estranged from Hadley, is a professor at Oxford.  He left to teach as a visiting professor for a semester and never came back, leaving Hadley filled with bitter feelings toward Charlotte, his fiancee.

It doesn’t help that her mother has had a difficult time moving on–even though she tells Hadley their divorce was for the best.  We can see the way her divorce broke Hadley’s mother as well as how she’s trying to put herself back together.

So needless to say, she’s not exactly thrilled to be flying all the way to London and missing her flight is the last thing she wanted to deal with. But if she’d been just four minutes earlier, she’d never met Oliver.  A native Londoner, he’s charming, clever, and a Yale undergrad–combined with his accent he’s basically perfect.  (Insert swoon here!) Read more…

Cinder by Marissa Meyer

Rating: BUY IT!

Cinder is everything you could ever want from a post-war apocalyptic/dystopian futuristic sci-fi fairytale retelling.

I have to admit, I fell in love with this book from the instant I heard about the premise. I love fairy tales and their rewrites, so that was already a selling point.  But when I found out that this Cinderella is a cyborg, and her best friend is an android? I’m pretty sure I had to be pulled off of the ceiling.

How on earth can all these different “genres” mesh together smoothly? Therein lies the true masterpiece of Cinder.  All the elements of the historic story are updated to match the futuristic setting while still retaining the essential nature of the tale.

The characters were easily the best part of Cinder.  Each one had a life of his or her own and was truly fascinating.  Cinder was far from her Disney counterpart: rather than cleaning around the house, Cinder is a genius mechanic.  And, not to knock the Disney version (even if not my favorite, I still squealed like a little girl when I got to take my picture with Cinderella at Disney World), but Cinder doesn’t need a fairy godmother to help her kick ass! Read more…

Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

Rating: BUY IT!

Most likely, you already know what you are going to think about this book. Have you read Cassandra Clare’s other books, especially Clockwork Angel, and loved them? Then you will love Clockwork Prince. Did you hate all her other books? Then why are you even considering buying it?

That said, my feelings about Clockwork Prince are strong, perhaps as strong as any I have felt in all of Cassie’s books (and if you’ve read them, you know there are a lot of feelings).

A warning here: If you have not read Clockwork Angel, you probably shouldn’t read this review. Also, get thee to a bookstore and buy it, read it, then come back to see what you missed.

Clockwork Angel left us with a lot of questions: Where is Mortmain and how does he have this knowledge and power? What is Tessa? And the biggest question of all: What on earth is happening with Will?

Okay, I’m a little biased on that last question.

In Clockwork Prince, we finally get some answers, and then we get a few more questions. Read more…

The Pledge by Kimberly Derting

The Pledge takes place in the nation of Ludania, which is fairly clearly a post-fall-of-modern-society country, but aside from that remains essentially timeless. The society is divided into a traditional caste system, but the castes are kept entirely distinct by language – each caste has its own language, and to acknowledge the language of a higher caste than your own can be deadly. The story centers around Charlie, a girl in the merchant class, who has a secret: she can understand all languages.

The first half of The Pledge focuses on building the world and characters, with the biggest issue being Charlie’s struggles to hide her secret talent.  Although I enjoyed getting to know the characters (the relationship between Charlie and her little sister being one of my favorites), the first half felt a bit slow, with some fairly obvious hints at the plot to come, but no actual advancement.

In the second half, however, we are met with bursts of action and revelations. Although the action sequences were dramatic and invigorating, sometimes it felt like the overall plot could have used a bit more drive. In addition, many of these plot twists and revealed secrets were somewhat predictable. However, that didn’t mean I didn’t still enjoy those twists nonetheless. Read more…

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