Dhonielle Clayton

Top Ten Tuesday | The Best Books I Read In 2018

~ Cheyenne Raphael ~ Leave a comment

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by That Artsy Reader Girl and is designed to combine two great things: books and lists. This Week’s topic is…

The Best Books i Read In 2018

  1. The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas
    This was one of the first books I read in 2018. The story is simultaneously heartbreaking and beautiful, and it lends a lot of perspective to the issue of racial discrimination in our society. If you’ve been putting off reading this like I did for a long time, stop it, and go read it now! You will not regret it!
  2. Ace of Shades (The Shadow Game #1) by Amanda Foody
    I’m gonna be honest… I don’t really remember much about this book, but I rated it four stars on Goodreads, and I do remember being absolutely enthralled with the writing as I listened to the audio book and packed up my life to move to college. It has pretty writing, and gambling, and a crazy magic game played with Tarot cards, okay! You should all go read it, and tell me how it ends so I don’t have to reread it before starting the second book! Just kidding… I actually want to reread it.
  3. The Belles (The Belles #1) by Dhonielle Clayton
    Once again, I really do not remember the ending to this book… I’m starting to realize that I retained very little of what I read during the first few weeks of school, and I foresee a couple of rereads in 2019! I do remember absolutely adoring the characters, plot, and writing style, and the only note for it in my book review notebook is, “Think Hunger Games meets Uglies“, so if you’re into that, you should read this!
  4. The Cruel Prince (The Folk of the Air #1) by Holly Black
    This book has crazy royal fairies and murder! also, Holly Black wrote it! Need I say more?
  5. The Hazel Wood (The Hazel Wood #1) by Melissa Albert
    This book features a book full of dark and twisted stories that turn out to be real! Enough said!
  6. City of Ghosts (Cassidy Blake, #1) by Victoria Schwab
    This book seems to be targeted at a middle-grade audience rather than my typical young adult genre, but I still love it, and I gave it five stars. I absolutely adore all of the characters, it made me laugh several times during a super crazy time in my life, and I will never turn down a book about ghosties!
  7. A Darker Shade of Magic (Shades of Magic, #1) by V.E. Schwab
    This was another five star read even though there is an aspect of it that simultaneously enrages and entertains me. This book is pretty dark, but it also had me laughing at several points. I don’t want to say much more about it here because I plan to review it in great detail later.
  8. The Lovely Reckless by Kami Garcia
    Okay, so, the romance plot in this book is gag-inducing instalove, but it’s still adorable. Also, there is a car thieving ring and illegal street racing which automatically makes it awesome! Oddly, I remember reading this on the way to my high school graduation whilst unable to breathe through my nose due to a sinus infection. I’m pretty sure that’s the weirdest reading situation I’ve been in this year.
  9. We Are Okay by Nina LaCour
    This book almost made me cry, so it automatically earned four stars for evoking so much emotion in my heart of stone. The story is simultaneously beautiful and sad, and… I don’t actually remember if it ended happily or not, but you should read it…
  10. Heartless by Marissa Meyer
    Okay, I actually DO remember the ending of this book, and it ripped my heart out!!!! Like I nearly cried, and that doesn’t happen! It had me laughing up until that point though, and I still gave it five stars because speaking as a writer, that plot twist was brilliant!

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
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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!