Books

Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor | Spoiler Free Review

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ 2 Comments

Daughter of Smoke and Bone Cover
“Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love.
It did not end well.”
-Laini Taylor, Daughter of Smoke and Bone

Title: Daughter of Smoke and Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Series: daughter of Smoke and Bone #1
Genre: young Adult, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 422
Publisher: Little Brown Books
Published: September 27th, 2011
Amazon
iBooks
Audio
Goodreads

Synopsis From Goodreads:

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real, she’s prone to disappearing on mysterious “errands”, she speaks many languages – not all of them human – and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she’s about to find out.

When beautiful, haunted Akiva fixes fiery eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆

Coming from someone who is sick and tired of romance over-riding fantasy plots in books, this five star review is high praise! I literally cannot find fault with this book!
The quote at the top pretty much sums up the basic plot. An angel and a devil fall in love, and things end badly, but there is so much more depth to this story!
Karou makes an awesome main character! She knows nothing about where she came from at the beginning of the story. All she knows is that she’s caught between two worlds. One is made of magic, teeth, and monsters; the other is made of humans who can never know the truth. Karou keeps her secrets by telling the truth in such a way that people think she’s lying, which is a nice change. It seems that most fantasy characters simply weave a web of lies, but Karou hides behind a mask of sarcastically spoken truth.
The world building in Daughter of Smoke and Bone is super complex but blends almost seamlessly! In the beginning, Karou is part of two worlds: “Elsewhere,” where she spent her childhood, and the human world. However, her two worlds end up colliding with a third world: Akiva’s angelic realm. I can’t really continue with this train of thought because spoilers abound, but the way in which the three worlds meet is written very well. I don’t think I’ve ever known a book to juggle three worlds as well as Daughter of Smoke and Bone.
Something interesting is the way in which the “big reveal” was written. For the majority of the first half of the book, Karou has no idea where she came from, and that question is eventually answered through what is basically a giant flashback to her past. This kind of seemed like a writerly copout to me, but it also worked well in the situation. It was a little confusing to jump into another time and setting for a few chapters, but I honestly don’t know how it could’ve been done differently without altering the plot in a big way. I would typically knock off a star for something like this, but the writing was good enough that I decided to let it slide.
As you can probably tell, this is one of those books that you can’t really talk about without spoiling everything, so I’ll go on and end my review here. Overall, Daughter of Smoke and Bone is an excellent read, and I definitely recommend that you have the second book ready to go as soon as you finish it because… talk about a cliffhanger!

Tiny Pretty Things — Spoiler Free Review

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ 5 Comments

Tiny Pretty Things
“The moment you think you’re on top is the moment you’ve lost your passion.”
-Tiny Pretty Things

Title: Tiny Pretty Things
Author: Sona Charaipotra & Dhonielle Clayton
Series: Tiny Pretty Things #1
Genre: Young Adult, Contemporary, Mystery, Fiction, Romance
Pages: 448
Publisher: Harper Teen
Published: May 26th, 2015
Amazon
iBooks
Goodreads

Synopsis From Goodreads:

Gigi, Bette, and June, three top students at an exclusive Manhattan ballet school, have seen their fair share of drama. Free-spirited new girl Gigi just wants to dance—but the very act might kill her. Privileged New Yorker Bette’s desire to escape the shadow of her ballet star sister brings out a dangerous edge in her. And perfectionist June needs to land a lead role this year or her controlling mother will put an end to her dancing dreams forever. When every dancer is both friend and foe, the girls will sacrifice, manipulate, and backstab to be the best of the best.

My Rating: ☆☆☆☆

Are you a Pretty Little Liars lover? You’ll probably like Tiny Pretty Things! I can’t help but agree with the majority of the Blogosphere and say that Tiny Pretty Things is basically Pretty Little Liars in a fancy dance school with minority characters, but also the fact that I gave it four stars begs to differ with that statement. This is probably gonna earn me some angry bookworm screeches in the comments, but PLL doesn’t even register on the rating scale for me. Honestly the only true comparison I can draw between the two is the plot. The plot lines are very similar, but Tiny Pretty Things outshines Pretty Little Liars in every other aspect.
I must admit that I was pretty confused at first, but then I figured out what was going on. Tiny Pretty Things is told through the eyes of three POV characters, and what’s interesting is that it’s written in first person. Publishers warn against that, and now I see why… For the first three or four chapters, all of the characters kind of sounded like the same person, and it was hard to tell who was narrating, especially since I listened to it in audio and therefore didn’t pay a whole lot of attention to the chapter headings. It also began in the past, but it looked like the first chapter instead of a prologue. Publishers warn against prologues too, but come on! If you’re gonna start a book in the past, please don’t confuse my poor little bookworm brain by making me think it’s the first chapter!
The characters didn’t seem to be well developed in my opinion, but the cast was definitely diverse! The main focus of the character arcs was how African American and Korean girls fit into the ballet world. The redeeming quality of the characters was getting a look at several different cultures instead of dealing with the average cast of prissy white girls competing for head diva status. It almost seems like the characters were intentionally poorly developed to direct focus towards the plot, but I also think that the plot would’ve been enhanced if there had been more emphasis on the character arcs.
The plot was… classic. What happens when you throw a bunch of girls in a ballet school and make them compete for major parts? They fight, people get hurt, and lives are ruined! Everyone does something horrible to look out for their own status, and you spend the majority of the story wondering who you’re supposed to trust! You go through plot twist after plot twist, and that is what reminded me of Pretty Little Liars the most! But thankfully the writing of Tiny Pretty Things was much better, so I was intrigued enough to keep reading.
I feel like I have thoroughly trash talked this entire book now, so you’re probably all wondering why I gave this thing four stars. The answer to that is actually very simple! It provided mindless entertainment and a good mystery after a crazy school week. You know those weird reality shows that are kind of pointless and stupid but still manage to hold your attention? That’s Tiny Pretty Things in a nutshell! The plot and character motivations were just flat enough to be ridiculous and hold my attention, and I even got a good laugh out of it when the title of the book was directly stated in the context of the story. It was hilarious because it really seemed like it was just there to relate the plot back to the title in any way possible!
All that being said, I really did enjoy the story, and I’d recommend it to anyone who needs an easy read that will keep them guessing. I’m invested enough now tat I want to know what happens to the characters because some of them did have some serious issues, (they just seemed a little underplayed to me), and that cliffhanger ending was epic! I actually have Shiny Broken Pieces downloading as I type this because of that ending. I don’t think this series will be everybody’s cup of tea, but it’s definitely worth a try if you want something different and entertaining!

2016 Wrap Up/2017 Goals

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ 6 Comments

To continue with the theme of scatter-brained posts, I had goals for 2016 to wrap up, but I don’t have them anymore. They were on my MacBook which had to be wiped because of a malware invasion, and apparently the file wasn’t in Dropbox… The fact that I don’t remember most of them is probably a good indication that I failed at most of them, but here’s what I do remember!

  1. I did NOT win my Goodreads challenge, and Goodreads feels the need to remind me of that fact every time I open the app…
  2. I won NaNoWriMo for the second year running!
  3. I finished the first draft of my first novel! insert terrified emoji here It’s a total complete mess, but I finished the thing!
  4. I learned lots of programming stuff that I am not going to get into here because you most likely don’t care, and I don’t wanna explain it… Ok so really that wasn’t an official goal for 2016 until two weeks ago, but I made it my goal over Christmas break, and I accomplished it, so I’m counting it!
  5. Added together, all the writing projects I’ve completed in 2016 total up to 111911 words! I’m pretty sure my goal was 100000, so I’m proud of that!

Goals for 2017:

  1. By June 1st, I hope to have my novel ready for beta readers. If it could be by March 1st, that would be fantastic, but school is probably going to crush that dream.
  2. I’m setting my Goodreads challenge for 30 books because I’m 90% sure I can meet that!
  3. I am going to attempt the A to Z reading challenge, which means I have to read a book starting with each letter of the alphabet. If you know of books starting with R, Q, X, Y, or Z, please leave them in the comments! Those are the only ones I haven’t found yet…
  4. For NaNoWriMo this year, I’m planning to write the second book in this series I have started. We’ll see if that actually happens because I may still be trying to sort out this mess of a thing I’m calling a novel if the unthinkable happens and I epically fail at my first goal.
  5. This is the thing that I really need to do, but don’t wanna do. I’m in the middle of learning Swift and Python, (which are both programming languages), and I have a ton of notes for both all over my phone, iPad, laptop, and two notebooks, and they’re gonna have to be combined and organized before I get much further into this. I was planning to do this over Christmas break, but I just added to the mess instead because I’m a nerd like that!

I feel like I should list my upcoming posts here, but I still have all those that got caught in drafts, and honestly the next couple posts are gonna be embarrassingly late stories for Short Story Society. How did you do on your 2016 goals, (writing or otherwise?) Got anything cool planned for this year? Are you planning to join The HP Writing Cup? Let’s chat in comments!

The Killing Game (DNF review)

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ Leave a comment

The Killing Game
Title: The Killing Game
Author: Toni Anderson
Genre: Suspense, Romance
Pages: 366
Publisher: self-published
Published: April 12th, 2013
Find It On:
•Amazon
•iBooks
•Goodreads

Synopsis From Goodreads:

Wildlife biologist Axelle Dehn isn’t about to let anyone harm her endangered snow leopards—not the poacher intent on killing them, nor the soldier who wants to use them as bait. But Axelle is unknowingly entangled in a conflict that stretches back three decades, a conflict that could spark a war between two of the world’s great nations.

British SAS soldier, Ty Dempsey, is on a mission to hunt down an infamous Russian terrorist in a remote region of Afghanistan. Dempsey hasn’t failed a mission yet, but when Axelle is kidnapped by the Russian, he is forced to choose between duty and his heart. He risks everything to save the determined, prickly woman he’s fallen for, but in doing so sparks a deadly series of events that threaten to expose the most successful spy in history. A spy who will destroy anyone who gets in his way.

My thoughts: ☆☆

Remember that “blind date with a book” challenge I took a while ago? Yeah… This is the book I got.
Let me begin by saying that I really do not like reviewing books I don’t finish. I want to be a published author in the hopefully near future, and I wouldn’t want someone publicly judging my book when they didn’t read it all. I try to do authors the same courtesy that I would like them to give me by just never speaking of books that I don’t enjoy, but since this was part of a challenge that I just kind of dropped, I thought I’d go ahead and review it on here so you’d know how that ended up. However, I will not be posting my rating on Goodreads or Amazon like I normally would because I don’t want my two star rating to factor into the average over there. This rating is based on the first sixty pages, and should therefore be taken with a grain of salt! But complicated ramble aside, here’s what I thought:
I knew this book wasn’t in my preferred genre when I picked it up, but I started it with an open mind because I’ve really enjoyed other genres the few times I’ve branched out. If I can connect with a character or theme, I can almost always find something to like about the book. But unfortunately that didn’t happen with The Killing Game…

The Writing
The writing style was very choppy, and it made it reeeeeeeally hard to get into the story! Here’s a snippet of the notes I started taking for this review just to give you a taste:
•Ok… I get it… It’s cold.
•Yeah… Harsh landscape… Got it!
•Wait a second! There are two “D” names, and idk who’s who anymore!
•AWWWWWWW! Leopard cubs!
•How long are we going to drag this out can we please either capture the guy or let him go or kill him already?!

Looking back at those notes, they seem kinda harsh, which is exactly why I hate writing DNF reviews! Again, take this with a grain of salt, but the writing was just very hard for me to read. I kept getting confused at who was talking because there were… I think three POV characters that I saw??? And I kind of had a hard time transitioning between them because I didn’t connect with any of them. Which leads to my next point…

The Characters:

I know I didn’t get far enough to really see any character growth, but every single character seemed very flat to me. It was all “telling,” not “showing.” Everything was directly stated, and there was no subtext for the reader to fill in the blanks.

The Plot:

I think the plot is probably the best thing this book has going for it. If the writing had flowed a little easier, and there wasn’t so much description of cold weather and rough landscapes, I would’ve probably finished it just to see what happened.

Conclusion:

Please ignore everything I’ve said here and give this book a chance if you’re interested in this genre. It could very well be that romantic suspense or whatever on earth this thing is just is not my cup O tea! For all I know, suspense books are supposed to have choppy writing and cardboard characters! If you read this kind of thing regularly, please enlighten me on the writing style and characters of a typical book in the genre because now my writerly nerd side wants to know…

Let’s Chat!

Have you read The Killing Game? Did you finish it? What are your thoughts on DNF reviews? Have you ever written one? Would you consider writing one? Under what conditions if any would you write one? Let’s chat in comments!

These Broken Stars (minor spoiler with warning)

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ Leave a comment

These broken stars book cover art
“For a moment the image before us is frozen: our world, our lives, reduced to a handful broken stars half lost in uncharted space. Then it’s gone, the view swallowed by the hyperspace winds streaming past, blue-green auroras wiping the after-images away.

Until all that’s left is us”
― Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner, These Broken Stars

Title: These Broken stars
Author: Amie Kaufman & Meagan spooner
Series: Starbound #1
Genre: Young Adult, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Romance
Pages: 374
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Published: December 10th, 2013
Find It On:
•Amazon
•iBooks
•Goodreads

Synopsis From Goodreads:

Luxury spaceliner Icarus suddenly plummets from hyperspace into the nearest planet. Lilac LaRoux and Tarver Merendsen survive – alone. Lilac is the daughter of the richest man in the universe. Tarver comes from nothing, a cynical war hero. Both journey across the eerie deserted terrain for help. Everything changes when they uncover the truth.

The Starbound Trilogy: Three worlds. Three love stories. One enemy.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Please allow me a moment to fangirl… I love this story and these characters even though they both have their flaws, but I promise I’ll try to be coherent!

The Writing:
To have a dual point of view, this book flows amazingly well! The writing is very elaborate as is typical for the genre, but it’s elaborate in a way that seems simple if that makes any sense at all… It pulls us as the readers into a new world and makes sure we know all the important details, but it also isn’t overly descriptive.

The Characters:
Lilac and Tarver are awesome characters! They are both very distinct, and even if the chapters weren’t clearly marked with who does the narrating, I would be able to tell them apart with no problem!

The Plot:
Uhh yeah… The plot does get a lil weird closer to the end, but let’s just… look over that and focus on the cool characters and setting! Just kidding!

What lost this book two stars?

I knocked off two stars for the plot because there are a few things that really bugged me, but these things could very easily be subject to opinion:
•Scenario: A boy and a girl have been flirting. Girl pretends to hate boy because father orders her to do so. Boy and girl get thrown onto a deserted planet. Boy and girl fall in love. Shocker…
•Minor spoiler alert pertaining to plot tropes! Skip to the next bullet point if your concerned: You know how sometimes characters die, and then they come back to life when the love interest is heartbroken and can’t seem to move on without the “dead character? I’m not saying that happened exactly, but yeah…
•The ending was a little sudden. One minute things were happening, and the next minute Lilac and Tarver were headed back to wherever their home planner was! Huh what???

What won this book three stars?

•Very distinct characters.
•Strong internal and external conflict.
•Really cool alien beings!
•Interesting use of character backstory.
•Easy to read writing style.
•Other general awesomeness!

Conclusion:

If you like SciFi at all, I think you’ll like this book! I will definitely be reading the rest of the series!

Share your thoughts?

Have you read These Broken Stars? Do you wanna read it now? Any thoughts on my rather scattered review? Let’s chat in comments!

The Islands at the End of the World (spoiler free review)

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ Leave a comment

The Islands at the End of the World cover

Title: The Islands at the End of the World Author: Austin Aslan Series: Islands at the End of the World #1 Genre: Young Adult, SciFi Pages: 384 Publisher: Wendy Lamb Books Published: August 5th, 2014 Format Read: Audio Find It On:

•iBooks •amazon •Goodreads

Synopsis From Goodreads

Right before my eyes, my beautiful islands are changing forever. And so am I …

Sixteen-year-old Leilani loves surfing and her home in Hilo, on the Big Island of Hawaii. But she’s an outsider – half white, half Hawaiian, and an epileptic.

While Lei and her father are on a visit to Oahu, a global disaster strikes. Technology and power fail, Hawaii is cut off from the world, and the islands revert to traditional ways of survival. As Lei and her dad embark on a nightmarish journey across islands to reach home and family, she learns that her epilepsy and her deep connection to Hawaii could be keys to ending the crisis before it becomes worse than anyone can imagine.

A powerful story enriched by fascinating elements of Hawaiian ecology, culture, and warfare, this captivating and dramatic debut from Austin Aslan is the first of two novels. The author has a master’s degree in tropical conservation biology from the University of Hawaii at Hilo.

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Before I get into this, I have to say that I would probably give this a two star rating had I read it and not listened to the audio book. There are a lot of long passages of Hawaiian language, and I think it would have detracted from the story had I been trying to read the text. When I see a word I don’t know in a book, I usually end up googling how to say it because it bugs me until I know. That being said, the audio book made all the Hawaiian words sound Beautiful! It pulled me into the story rather than bringing me out of it because I wasn’t struggling to read words I’d never heard before.

The Plot:

The plot was very original! We’ve seen stuff like this before: worldwide power outage, people panic, economy shuts down, government is obviously keeping a massive secret, there’s lots of fighting, and alien attacks and biblical prophecies come into play. However, The Islands at the End of the World does a really good job of putting a new spin on things. Because it’s set in Hawaii, we become amerced in a new culture that adds to the mystery. Austin Aslan does a fantastic job of pulling you into the Hawaiian world and making you believe in the culture, and then he throws a massive plot twist into the mix that creates an ending you’ll never expect.

The Characters:

Ok… Several of the characters seemed a little flat to me, (Leilani’s dad for instance), but Leilani kind of makes up for it. First of all, she has epilepsy, and it’s not one of those things where the character has a medical disorder just for the sake of having a medical disorder. It does cause a couple problems, and it is relevant to the plot. The only problem I have with it is that Leilani’s dad tends to have a… somewhat downplayed reaction when Lei has an epileptic seizure. There’s one point where she wakes up, and he’s just like, “Hi,” and I was left going “Shouldn’t you be a little more concerned that the world is in chaos and your daughter just had a horrible seizure?!” I personally have a disorder where my adrenals don’t work, and I’ve had some pretty bad seizures before, and my parents are not exactly cool, calm, and collected when I come out of it… I also question some of the language used when Lei has a seizure. It’s referred to as “fits” a few times, and I think I remember reading somewhere that that’s not accurate. Epileptics can feel free to correct me in the comments if I’m wrong!

Why is this not a five star book?

•Several flat characters. •The thing with the Hawaiian language mentioned above. •Downplayed reaction to epileptic seizures. •Some awkward dialogue. •Possible incorrect medical language concerning epilepsy.

Why is this rated three stars?

•Hawaii makes for an interesting setting. •Cool new culture. •Epileptic character that isn’t just epileptic for the sake of being epileptic! •Original spin on an old plot. •Cool Hawaiian shaman people. •Hawaiian language sounds beautiful in the audio book. •An ending you’ll never expect!

Conclusion:

I will be reading the second book as soon as I find it! I did point out a lot of flaws, but quite honestly I didn’t notice those until I started taking notes for this review. The writing pulled me in, and held my attention until the end.

Share your thoughts?

Have you read The Islands at the End of the World? Do you want to read it? What are your thoughts on the use of foreign language in books and characters with medical disorders? Let’s chat in comments!

The Fall Activities Book Tag

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ 5 Comments

Thanks to Ariana @ The Quirky Book Nerd for tagging me! It’s super late, but it just recently started to feel like Fall in my part of the world, so I guess maybe it’s justified??? This tag was originally created by Ashley @ Dreaming Through Literature, so you should go check out her blog as well!

*Warning: Before I start answering these questions, I gotta give you the heads up that this post may have some weird looking formatting! My blogging software updated again, and now that beautiful rich text editor that I’ve bragged about before doesn’t wanna play nice with my screenreader anymore, so I am going to be typing raw HTML in order to make this post hopefully look pretty! I am by no means an expert on HTML, so this is gonna be interesting to say the least… Please drop me a comment if anything looks completely insane, and I’ll do my best to fix it! Thank you very much if you decide to continue reading this post! Now for those questions!!!

Apple Picking: A book on your TBR that looks so delicious you can’t wait to take a bite out of it.

Heartless Cover Heartless by Marissa Meyer

I absolutely loved the first three books in this series, and I can’t wait until I have time to start this one!

Corn Maze: A book that’s so much fun to get lost in.

The raven boys The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

If you’ve been keeping up with my blog for a while, you know how obsessed I am with The Raven Cycle. I finished the last book a couple weeks ago, and I’m still not over the amazingness of this series! I desperately need a spinnoff series!!!

Haunted Houses: A book that scared you silly.

Anna Dressed In blood Anna Dressed in blood by Kendare Blake

I’m not one to read a lot of creepy stuff because I think some of this ghost business can actually happen, but I read this because of multiple recommendations. It was an amazing read, but I was terrified and slightly grossed out for the majority of it…

Pumpkin Patch: The latest book you picked up (purchased).

Tarot for Writers Tarot for Writers by Corrine Kenner

I’ve been researching tarot pretty extensively because one of the characters in my current writing project needs to have a reading, and my Google searches brought me to this book. I use the hero’s journey story to outline my writing, and I realized that’s basically what Tarot represents. So… This book is now patiently awaiting my attention in the Kindle app…

Scenic Drives: a book that is lyrically beautiful.

The raven king The Raven King by Maggie Stiefvater

Ok so the whole Raven Cycle series is written beautifully, but The Raven King is unbelievably stunning! I don’t think I could’ve asked for a better ending to that series!

Pumpkin Carving: A book you didn’t like and wouldn’t mind carving up.

Vampire academy Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

I thought this series was going to break the vampire cliches, and it started out really cool, and then the plot went down the drain… I could go on, but I’ll spare you my rant!

Hiking: A book that was a highly enjoyable romp.

A Year Down Yonder A Year Down Yonder by Richard Peck

This was one of my favorite books as a child, and I still love it! The characters are just so realistic, and I can always turn to this book when I need a good laugh!

Drinking Apple Cider: A sweet book to curl up under the covers with.

Harry Potter And The Sorcerer s Stone Cover Art Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone by J.K. Rowling

I can’t do a tag without including Harry Potter because it’s like the greatest piece of literature ever written… I always seem to reread/rewatch it in the Fall and Winter months, and it’s absolutely perfect for this question! It’s just a cozy read even though people are trying to kill people throughout the whole series!

Jumping In A Leaf Pile: A book that reminds you of your childhood.

Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban by J.K. Rowling

AND… The Hidden Staircase Nancy Drew 2 The Hidden Staircase (Nancy Drew #2) by Carolyn Keene

Yeah, I know… I used the same series twice. But The Prisoner of Azkaban is my favorite Harry Potter book, and any Harry Potter book is going to take me back to my childhood! I was also totally obsessed with Nancy Drew when I was in fourth and fifth grade, so that’s why I included that one.

Scary Movie Night: Your favorite spooky read.

The diviners The Diviners (The Diviners #1) by Libba Bray

I don’t read a lot of super creepy stuff, and I already used Anna Dressed In Blood, so I was pretty limited. I learned a lot from the writing style of this book, but I think I jumped every time I heard whistling for about a week after I finished it. You can click HERE if you wanna see my full review!

Bonus! Costume Party: A book with an eclectic cast of characters.

Blue lily Lily Blue Blue Lily, Lily Blue (The Raven cycle #3) by Maggie Stiefvater

I told you I’m obsessed with The Raven Cycle… I think that’s the third book from the series I’ve used in this tag! This book has a very large cast of characters, and “eclectic” is a great word to describe them!

I Tag:

I think the majority of bloggers I know have already been tagged for this, but if you haven’t, I tag you!

A Bookish Blind Date

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ 8 Comments

A Blind Date with A Book
Hey Bookworms! Lara has created a fun reading challenge that basically dares you to take a chance on a random read. She has created a quiz, (consisting of five very random questions), that will determine which book you get. All of the books are free in eBook format until this Sunday, (that’s October 30th), and you just need an Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iBooks account to get your copy. If you decide to participate, be sure to click here to see the rest of the rules and take your quiz!

My Results:

I got The Killing Game by Toni Anderson. Looking at the synopsis, this book is pretty far from the kind of thing I normally read, but it also sounds like it’s got potential to be really good! It’s contemporary, and I’m usually a hardcore fantasy lover, but I’ll go into this with an open mind. I have been branching out to contemporary more and more lately, so maybe I’ll be surprised! Plus, it has leopards!!! I love leopards!!!

Blue lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ 10 Comments

Blue Lily, Lily Blue cover art
Title: Blue Lily, Lily Blue
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #3
Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal
Pages: 391
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: October 21, 2014
My Rating: ☆☆☆
Amazon:
iBooks
Goodreads

Goodreads Synopsis:

There is danger in dreaming. But there is even more danger in waking up.

Blue Sargent has found things. For the first time in her life, she has friends she can trust, a group to which she can belong. The Raven Boys have taken her in as one of their own. Their problems have become hers, and her problems have become theirs.

The trick with found things though, is how easily they can be lost.

Friends can betray.
Mothers can disappear.
Visions can mislead.
Certainties can unravel.

My Thoughts: ☆☆☆

Ok… I don’t really know what to say about this book! It was weirs? But amazing? And beautiful? And really creepy? And I like crazy characters? And I’m kinda confused?
I’m giving Blue Lily, Lily Blue three stars for basically the same reason that The Dream Thieves got three stars… It just didn’t really seem to carry the plot as well as the first book did. I have to say that these characters are some of the most awesomest, (that is totally a word for the purposes of this review), characters that I have ever seen in a YA fantasy novel, and I’ve read a LOT of YA fantasy novels! I’m a sucker for characters with depth, so I would love to give it four stars for that alone… BUT.. I can’t justify it.

The Writing:

The writing is still really beautiful, and it conveys the characters’ thoughts and feelings perfectly, but it’s kinda hard to follow in this book… It was pretty while still being simple in the previous books, but now it’s… overly pretty? It’s not that way throughout the whole book, but it definitely sticks out where that is the case.

The Plot:

Hmmmmmmm… tries to be not blunt
I’m not really sure how the plot of this book has anything to do with the plot of the rest of the series… I mean… Ok… There might be minor spoilers coming??? But it won’t totally ruin it because I’m about to give some plot events WAY out of context! Just skip down to the next heading if you don’t wanna risk it!
At the end of The Dream thieves, Blue’s mother disappears. I’m not saying why… Blue Lily, Lily Blue picks up right where that left off! It shows Blue and the boys searching for her, but then it detours, and strays off the path, and does a lil circle, and somehow manages to tie everything up nicely. There is a LOT of really crazy weird stuff in between, but the ending does redeem it! Everything gets wrapped up in this nice lil bundle for The Raven King to bring to an epic finish! And it better bring it to an epic finish because I have too much invested in these characters!

The Characters:

I already touched on this, but i just have to fangirl… These characters are SO real! I feel like they’re going to come out of the pages! And those arcs!
Blue: Blue is experiencing a crisis in this book, but you can still see the developement! This is her book, and her story, and her perspective on the world shaped by the first two books, and her perspective is.. quite an interesting one! And she is falling for a character who I didn’t think I’d want her with at the beginning, coughs and suddleypoints you in the direction of previous reviews, but I think maybe I like it just the tiniest bit now??? It’s growing on me!
Gansey: I thought Gansey’s character was SO flat and fake in The raven Boys, but he’s gaining some depth now! We’re starting to see some backstory, and it’s making me really want to like him! Still getting that shatter Me vibe though if you get my drift…
Ronan: NOT gonna fangirl! NOT GONNA DO IT! But he’s my favorite….. I have this thing for characters who are just really broken and have basically nothing left to lose, and that’s Ronan in a nutshell. I reeeeeeeally want him to turn around and do something awesome! But I’m afraid his heart is going to be broken before that happens and I don’t like it!
Adam: Adam’s right up there with Ronan in my book! He’s had probably the worst life of any of them, but he’s got a big role to play, I just know it! At least he better! And his character gets stronger and stronger in each book. He was SO quiet and kinda in the background at first, but now he’s a key player!
Crazy Girl: No, that’s not her real name… But i’m not telling you her real name because I want you to be as shocked as I was when you find out who she is! Just know that she’s crazy, and she sings demented songs about crowns and birds and blue lilies, and I love her because she’s crazy for the sake of being crazy! Plus, Maggie Stiefvater actually composed the music for the song, and it played at the end of the audio book, and I love it when authors make something specifically for their story like that! Maybe one day I’ll be musically talented enough to make a book soundtrack… One can dream!

Final Conclusion:

I loved it! But mostly because of the characters… I have got to find out what happens to these awesome people! The plot’s a little iffy at this point, but I think the last book is going to redeem it. I will be finishing the series because that ending was a major cliffhanger! I know an that one evil person from the first book and a new evil person from the second book were trapped in a cave together, and I think they woke up something NOT good! Maybe it’ll kill them and leave Blue and the boys to live happily ever after on the leyline? Yeah, right… Anyway… If you like awesome characters, and you enjoyed the first two books, you should read it. I think you’ll like how it ends up.

Book In A quote:

“Her aura is like yours—it’s blue,” he said. “The clairvoyant aura!”

“Is it?” She was going to be extremely annoyed if this was how she had gotten her name—like naming a puppy Fluffy.”
-Maggie Stiefvater, Blue Lily, Lily Blue

The Q&A Tag

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ 7 Comments

Thanks so much to Luke Hartman for nominating me for The Q&A tag! His blog is awesome, so you should go check it out! Now… It’s time for me to answer some questions!

The Rules:

  • Link the blogger who nominated you. Answer the questions you’re given. Nominate 10 bloggers. Write out your 10 questions for them. Let them know they’ve been tagged.

My Questions:

  1. What’s your favorite beverage of all time? Uhhhh… Unsweet tea??? Or maybe coffee with chocolate creamer and milk? But I drink mostly water on a regular basis…
  2. Name three fictional characters you would want as roommates. Blue from The Raven cycle, Cath from Fangirl, and luna from Harry Potter.
  3. What is your favorite Shakespeare play? Yell at me in the comments now… I cannot stand Shakespeare. I know he shaped literature and all, but I just don’t get it!
  4. If you were to play a game of chess with a fictional character, who would it be? Umm… Ron from Harry Potter? He’d totally beat me though!
  5. What’s your favorite animated TV show? I just realized it’s been FOREVER since I’ve watched TV! Like I don’t even remember the last time I actually successfully kept up with a TV show because school and blogging and other stuff have kept me running around like a crazy person! So… I guess I don’t have an answer! 😂
  6. What’s your go-to breakfast food? Yogurt! Yep… I’m a health nut! I start my morning with yoga, meditation, and then I eat something healthy like yogurt or fruit or a protein bar.
  7. Hogwarts, Middle Earth, or Narnia? Hogwarts! No question about it!
  8. If you could visit anywhere in the world for a day, where would it be? Hawaii!!!
  9. What’s your favorite emoji? Well… The dagger is the first in my frequently used section, followed by the eye roll face, and then the laughing face with tears. It would normally be the laughing face first but it’s been a not so great school week… 🗡🙄😂
  10. Pick a song that best describes the theme of your favorite book. Favorite book?! Who has a favorite book?! Ok… I’m almost finished with The Raven King right now, and it is quickly making the top of my “favorite books ever” list. And the first song that comes to mind for it is Ravens Still Fly by Southern Raised, and that really kinda goes against the themes a little, but it also fits perfectly, and it’s one of my favorite songs, so…

I Tag:

Elm L Em Danielle Ariana Michelle Debbie Lia Jasmine Trisha

Your Questions:

  1. Name three fictional characters who would either be your best friends or your worst enemies.
  2. Name three songs that describe your personality.
  3. Coffee or tea?
  4. Favorite emoji?
  5. What’s one thing you think would be amazing yet are terrified to do?
  6. What’s the most awkward/embarrassing thing anyone has ever asked/said to you?
  7. What’s your idea of the perfect weekend?
  8. You are given the opportunity to eat lunch with three of your favorite authors/singers/famous people of choice. Who do you invite?
  9. What is the one book/memory/other object you turn to for comfort?
  10. What is one thing you would like the world to know?

*If you’ve already done this tag or just don’t wanna do it, feel free to ignore me completely! And if I didn’t tag you and you wanna do the tag, consider yourself tagged! I can’t wait to see all your answers! From Cheyenne 🙂