The Night Circus

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I'm pretty conflicted on how much I liked this book (Three or four stars?). It was beautifully written, no question about it. A very talented author with an incredible imagination! However I think it just comes down to the fact that it wasn't as thrilling as I felt it could be. I think perhaps the ending didn't quite sit right with me either. It seemed like we were taken through so many years and got to know so many characters so well, that I felt a bit let down how it came to an end.

This was a slow read for me. I found I could easily set the book aside when the chapter changed time periods. In a way I appreciated that because I could think on it a little bit, but also a wee bit annoying.

I do like the concept of the book, I liked the magic and use of alchemy, I just wasn't as impressed by the story itself as it appears others were.

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Rapture (Fallen #4)

Rapture by Lauren Kate
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I don't what to rate this, 3 or 4. I was both happy and disappointed with it all at the same time. I'm sad to see the end, but it was getting, I don't know, long, I guess. It was pretty obvious what Luce was through most of the series and what was going to tip the scales. I liked the ending though, that was pretty decent...I wouldn't even mind if there was another book with that ending.

I think it's pretty obvious that Cam will be getting a series. Lauren Kate left that wide open. I would read it, I liked him! Speaking of Cam, I was confused by his place towards the end. It didn't seem to fit into this story, but it very well could be that it was meant to be for his story.

I think the whole heaven presentation was...well...different. No one knows exactly what heaven looks like, everyone has their ideas whether it be from the Bible, from fairy tales, whatever, but I'm not sure I wholly liked her depiction. Not bad, just not how I pictured it.

Rating the series on a whole, I'm still confused. I really liked the first two books, felt let down by the third, and felt just "okay" about this last one. I should just let it go, but sometimes it's hard to! :-)

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Love Knows No Bounds

Love Knows No Bounds by Boone Brux
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I had huge gaps of time between reading each of the three stories in this Kindle Edition e-book. Overall I'll give the collection four stars. I'll be brief and rate each story on it's own.

Tweet by Boone Brux: 4 Stars. Cute little paranormal about a naive, shy gal who unknowingly makes a deal with the devil. Only love can break the spell!

Bittersweet by Brooke Moss: 5 Stars. Hot little chick-lit about a good looking chef who is willing to help out a mother's autistic son. Food, hotness, a man good with kids...a winner!

Remember Me by Nina Croft: 3 Stars. A paranormal that reminds me a lot of Fallen but darker and not as good. I get that these are short stories but this one was packed with too much and so went too fast. Not bad, just not great.

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The Calling (Darkness Rising, #2)

The Calling by Kelley Armstrong
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I pretty much have the same to say about this book as I did the first one except I'm not feeling it as much. Seriously, nearly every creature that has been in a fantasy or paranormal young adult book in the last few years is mentioned in The Calling. Hmm, maybe they haven't mentioned vampires yet, but I would not be surprised if that would pop up in the next book.

I don't mean to discount the authors originality, there certainly is a creative element that stands out from the others that makes me like it. But I will say that when the third book in the trilogy comes out next year, I'm going to be hard pressed to remember the first two clearly.

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The Gathering (Darkness Rising, #1)

The Gathering by Kelley Armstrong
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's like all of the last few years of fantasy and paranormal young adult books all combined into one. Still liked it though! Certainly left you hanging in the last book. Thankfully I had the second book at the ready. Won't be so lucky with the third since it won't be coming out until 2013.

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Cinder (Lunar Chronicles, #1)

Cinder by Marissa Meyer
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Hmmm. Not overly impressed by this book. I'm a big fan of young adult science fiction/dystopia, but this one, I dunno, maybe a little too much cheese factor for me. It was also a little bit predictable which seemed perhaps a little too juvenile. I'm being picky, but I just can't put my finger on exactly why it wasn't a hit with me.

The story follows Cinder, a cyborg (part human, part robot) who lives with her step-mother and step-sisters in New Beijing. Yes, very much like Cinderella except in the future and she likes one of the step-sisters. Anyway, there is a plague that is killing scores of people around the world. In order to find a cure, the government has started a draft for the cyborgs to be guinea pigs to find the cure for the disease. Cinder pushes her step-mother too far and her step-mother volunteers Cinder to be a plague-curing-subject. Cinder of course doesn't want to but when her sister contracts the plague, Cinder realizes it is her duty to help her sister anyway she can.

Cinder discovers many secrets within the empire and that the Lunar queen (yes, as in the moon) wants to marry the emperor so that she can rule the world. Cinder befriends the emperor who does not know of Cinders real identity. He likes her but Cinder knows that this is a match that cannot be made. Meanwhile, many people are searching for the long lost niece of the Lunar queen who is the rightful heir to the Lunar throne but of course the queen wants to find her first and eliminate her. It just all sounds so corny to me. I don't know how better to describe the book, to make it sound more appealing. It is a little cheesy.

This was a book that didn't hold my interest throughout all of it. I could go a day or two without picking it up. But to it's credit, there were also pages that I flew through trying to figure out what was next.

It is good enough that I will read the other books in the series when they come out...but that is along ways away.

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Fallen In Love (Fallen #3.5)

Fallen In Love by Lauren Kate
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Meh. This is why .5 version novella's aren't a good idea. It wasn't very good, I only liked Miles and Shelby's story as it seemed like the most realistic and could be a story on it's own. Even then it wasn't that great.

My guess is that this book was published for a few extra dollars for the author and to tide fans over until the next book comes out. Meh.

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Passion (Fallen #3)

Passion by Lauren Kate

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I didn't like this book as much as the other two in the series. The little gargoyle guy was strange and I didn't like that he was in the story at all. I realize that the author had to go back in time to explain the past lives, it just wasn't the best method in my honest opinion. I think Luce could have traveled through time and learned about her past self with Daniel another way, it could have been better. Once I got towards the last quarter of the book it got a little better because things finally started coming together. The book just felt disconnected from it's series. I have high hopes for the next book though, the FINAL book.

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Fire Lord's Lover

Fire Lord's Lover by Kathryne Kennedy

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was pretty impressed with this book. I'm a bit of a sci-fi, fantasy junkie, but usually on the movie screen. Sometimes it's hard to follow in books. Perhaps this was a dumb downed version of fantasy but I sure loved it!

Lady Cassandra marries General Raikes through an arrangement by their fathers. General Raikes' is a powerful soldier and the son of Lord Mor'ded, an elf. Yes, I said an elf. He also has a dragon. Anyway, Lady Cassandra, unbeknownst to the General and the Lord, is a trained assasin. She is part of rebellion in London who intends to take down the evil Lord Mor'ded and end the power and control he has over the humans.

General Raikes, being half elf, has little human emotional feelings but as he spends more time with Lady Cassandra, his heart starts to slowly melt from it's former frigid state. And while Cassandra is dead--set on killing her father-in-law, she also starts to have feelings for the General as well.

Together they learn they have more in common than they ever could have thought possible.

This is certainly a fantasy read, surprisingly, faith in God is certainly a part of this story, and romance, ah, sweet romance too of course. :) What's also kind of neat about this book is the magic each elf, half-elf or any human with some elf heritage has. Yes, I know, but I like these kind of books!

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City of Fallen Angels (Mortal Instruments #4)

City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 1 of 5 stars
I don't ever recall being so pissed off about a book as I have about this one.

I was surprised one day to see that there was a fourth book in the Mortal Instrument series (which I really liked!). I thought, gee, I could have sworn the third book ended well, what could she possibly write about in a fourth? Crap, total crap, that's what she wrote.

Seriously authors, STOP WHEN YOU HAVE A GOOD THING GOING! There is nothing to be ashamed of when you have a successful trilogy, stop, move on to another series, resist the temptation to mess a good thing up!

This book was lame, the beginning was extremely slow and when it finally picked up a little, you got the idea that the ending was going to be horrific, there was no way around it. Clary, Jace, Simon, you were cool to me once, now you're a distant memory because you're creator messed up your mojo...your're dead to me!

I hope I can resist all temptation to pick up another book in this series once they are released. I seriously about went to the bathroom and threw up at this ending. It was so evil and so off base from what the original series was about. What a disappointment. I don't want to put myself through that crud again. What a waste of my reading time. (Can you tell I'm angry about this one?)

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The Peach Keeper

The Peach Keeper by Sarah Addison Allen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm going to say this is her best book yet. Another romantic and adventuresome story with fantastic writing about magic, mystery, love and friendship. Sarah Addison Allen is so unique; while you can always expect big elements of magic and mystery, each story goes in a direction that is its own fairy tale. Each of her characters have their quirks but you root that the twists and turns in the story will go in their favor and they will have the "happily ever after" ending.

If you have liked SAA's other books, you simply will not be disappointed with this one.

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Torment (Fallen #2)

Torment by Lauren Kate

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Excellent! I found this second book to be better than the first. Perhaps I better understood the characters and the plot more this go around.

I'm fascinated by the tangled web of Daniel and Luce's long and ongoing love story. Probably one of my favorite love stories to date, so much mystery and intrigue.

In this book there are many twists and turns and even though there is a major cliffhanger at the end leaving one thirsting for more, I'm pretty sure I know where its going. And I think I know what Luce really is which makes Daniels past actions for Luce and his good vs. evil decision that much more important and universe shattering than I initially thought! So, so, so good!

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Fallen

Fallen by Lauren Kate

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Really good book but the last few chapters were extremely chaotic and a little hard to follow. For the majority of the book it stayed at a steady, intriguing and reliable pace. When the climax of the book hit it came with a bang. An overload of information that wasn't unexpected, but was a bit jumbled. Overall, the story and the characters were romantic and intriguing. I really look forward to the next book in the series but I hope the entire book maintains that appealing pace and not the vroom/screech/vroom/screech I felt with the first one.

Cool book cover too!

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The Girl Who Chased the Moon

The Girl Who Chased the Moon by Sarah Addison Allen

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


I'm so pleased to see that Sarah Addison Allen came back to her magical writing as she did in Garden Spells. This woman has such an incredible knack for describing sight, sound and feelings with food. What better combination can a book have than love and sugar?!

Combine some magic, lots of romance, a bit of mystery, some elusive lights glowing in the woods, tasty sweets and what do you have? The perfect recipe called The Girl Who Chased The Moon.

And on a side note...man alive, Sawyer to me was the same Sawyer from the show Lost. Hot dog! Woo-wee! Hubba hubba!

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