The Emotions In Colors Book Tag

Hey, bookish and writerly people!
School has almost officially ended for me, therefore I might actually have time to blog again! I need to review a ridiculous number of books, but I’m going to kick off my blogging comeback with The Emotions In Colors Book Tag created by Cait @ Paper Fury. I wasn’t officially tagged for this; I just thought it looked cool and decided to do it!

In this tag, you are given ten prompts consisting of a color and the emotion associated with it. You are then asked which book, (or books), you associate with that color and emotion.


1. Blue: A book that made you sad.

Salt to the Sea by Rita Sepetys is the last book that I remember crying over. It’s heartbreakingly hard to read, but you should all go read it anyway because it’s SO good!

Also, Girl in Pieces by Kathleen Glasgow completely ripped my heart out and put it back together again because it’s so beautiful and sad at the same time!

2. Red: Bookworm problems that make you angry.

◦When authors kill off their main characters. If this serves a writerly purpose, I have no issue. If it’s blatantly obvious that the author was thoroughly sick of writing that story and wanted an excuse to end it, I’ll probably never read anything by that author ever again. *Refrains from ranting about very popular series*

◦When my iPad dies in the middle of a page. This is just obnoxious and needs no further explanation.

◦Running out of Audible credits and being forced to wait a number of days before starting a new book.

◦Accidentally touching my iPad screen and sending the Kindle app scrolling off to who knows where. This is even worse when you accidentally read a spoiler in the process of trying to find your place again!

◦Not being able to find a book in an accessible format. This is a blind bookworm problem that will not apply to the majority of readers, but it’s THE WORST! 😤

3. Yellow: Upcoming book you’d be happy to have right now.

If Muse of Nightmares by Laini Taylor could just go ahead and exist already, that’d be great!

4. Green: Favorite unlikely friends.

Can I nominate Adam and Niko from my own book for this one? They’re basically the definition of unlikely friends! No? I have to pick something published? Fine…

I’m going with the gang from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. None of these characters should work together, but they totally do!

5. Grey: A book you are totally emotionless about.

◦The Red Queen series by Victoria Aveyard. I read the first three or four books in this series and decided I didn’t care anymore. I don’t even remember what it’s about except that it was like The Hunger Games with aliens, which sounds cool in theory but definitely does NOT work in reality.

◦Basically all of John Green’s books. It’s not that I don’t think they’re good books; they’re just not my genre.

◦Everything by Rainbow Rowell except Fangirl. I loved Fangirl because of the writerly aspect; I just don’t have enough Hufflepuff in me to enjoy her other books. Again, they’re not my genre.

6. Pink: Book ending, (no spoilers though), that you loooove.

The Raven King: I didn’t expect it to end like that, but I love it anyway!

Crooked Kingdom: There isn’t a single thing that I would change about this ending! It’s just SO perfect! 😍

The Cruel Prince: This ending provides the perfect amount of closure and manages to leave the plot open for the sequel at the same time.

7. Purple: Book you never really understood??

My favorite color is purple; does that make me hard to understand? The answer is a resounding, “YES,” if my unedited writing is any indication. Anyway, here’s another list:

Great Expectations by Charles Dickens: Once upon a time, I did a massive book report over this book. I guess my teacher didn’t understand it either because I passed the class with an A!

Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe: What even is this? 😖 It makes my brain hurt…

All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr: Before you yell at me in the comments, I am fully aware that this is an unpopular opinion, and I do not care! I have tried to read this book twice, and I still do not understand it or the hype surrounding it. There’s just something about the writing style, pacing, timeline, or head hopping that prevents me from focusing on it enough to understand it. It may also be that historical fiction just is not my thing, and I don’t exactly agree with the portrayal of the blind character in this book.

8. White: Author you’re scared of (they’re just SO mean to their characters!)

Since when is white a scary color? I associate white with purity and goodness! Oh well… here’s another list:

◦J. K. Rolling because what she did to Dobby proves she’s heartless.

◦Laini Taylor because she kills off everybody I get attached to.

◦Marissa Meyer because… I’m not going to spoil Heartless, but if you read it, you’ll understand.

◦Maggie Stiefvater because she has to possess some kind of dark magic in order to rite like that!

9. Black: Book you think is powerful and influential.

The Hate U Give by Angie Thomas is probably going to be everyone’s default answer to this, but that’s what I’m going with! It has SO much significance in the context of the real world, and you should all go read it if you haven’t because it will give you a new perspective!

10. Orange: Playful characters who are just too adorable.

◦Jest and Catherine from Heartless by Marissa Meyer. I just love them!!!!

◦Marco from The Lovely Reckless by Kami Garcia. I wouldn’t really call him playful, but he’s adorable!

◦Noah from The Raven Cycle by Maggie Stiefvater. Noah is under appreciated, okay?! He deserves recognition for being the smudgy Hufflepuff that he is!

◦Nina from Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo. She’s just SO bubbly!


Have you done this tag? Drop me a link in the comments so I can check out your answers! Also, let me know what authors scare you and why, and recommend me a book that you think is powerful. I’d love to see your thoughts! 🙂

The Raven King by Maggie stiefvater, (spoiler free): An Epic Ending For An Awesome start!

The raven king
“What a strange constellation they all were.”
-Maggie Stiefvater, The Raven King
Title: The Raven King
Author: Maggie stiefvater
Series: The Raven cycle #4
Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Fantasy, SciFi
Pages: 400
Publisher: Scholastic Press
Published: April 26, 2016
My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆
Amazon
iBooks
Goodreads

Synopsis From Goodreads:

The fourth and final installment in the spellbinding series from the irrepressible, #1 New York Times bestselling author Maggie Stiefvater.

All her life, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love’s death. She doesn’t believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem, but as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

My Thoughts: ☆☆☆☆☆
Y’all know how I was kind of disappointed with The Dream Thieves and Blue Lily, Lily Blue? This made up for it! It somehow managed to circle back around and wrap up all that five star awesomeness that The Raven Boys started!
I was hooked on The Raven King from chapter one. It picked up right where Blue Lily, Lily Blue ended, and not a word was wasted! From the get go there was a demon, a set of creepy triplets, and a couple nasty women after those amazing characters I’ve been raving over, and I was immediately pulled through plot twist after plot twist! That awesome character growth was still happening, but this time the plot rose up to meet it. And guys! The romance! My one true pairing actually happened! I won’t tell you anything else though because you have GOT to read this book! Lots of spoilers abound in my head right now, so I’ll just leave it at this: The Raven King was an epic finish to an awesome start with a sagging middle, and it was worth reading every page. I am glad I stuck it out with the middle two books, and I hope you will too.

You can follow these links to see my previous reviews for this series:
◦Book 1: The Raven Boys
◦Book 2: The Dream Thieves
◦Book 3: Blue Lily, Lily Blue

Share Your Thoughts:

Have you Read The Raven King? Do you plan to read it, or did the middle two books detour you? Share your thoughts in the comments!

Blue lily, Lily Blue by Maggie Stiefvater

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 Dream thieves by Maggie Stiefvater

The Dream Thieves “He was brother to a liar and brother to an angel, son of a dream and son of a dreamer.” -Maggie Stiefvater, The Dream Thieves

Title: The Dream Thieves

Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Series: The Raven Cycle #2

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Mystery

Pages: 437

Publisher: Scholastic Press

Published: September 17, 2013

My Rating: ☆☆☆

Amazon

iBooks

Goodreads

Synopsis From Goodreads:

If you could steal things from dreams, what would you take? Ronan Lynch has secrets. Some he keeps from others. Some he keeps from himself. One secret: Ronan can bring things out of his dreams. And sometimes he’s not the only one who wants those things. Ronan is one of the raven boys—a group of friends, practically brothers, searching for a dead king named Glendower, who they think is hidden somewhere in the hills by their elite private school, Aglionby Academy. The path to Glendower has long lived as an undercurrent beneath town. But now, like Ronan’s secrets, it is beginning to rise to the surface—changing everything in its wake. Of The Raven Boys, Entertainment Weekly wrote, “Maggie Stiefvater’s can’t-put-it-down paranormal adventure will leave you clamoring for book two.” Now the second book is here, with the same wild imagination, dark romance, and heart-stopping twists that only Maggie Stiefvater can conjure.

My Thoughts: ☆☆☆

After my five star review of The Raven Boys, I was really hoping for a bit more out of the sequel. don’t get me wrong! The Dream Thieves is an AMAZING read, and I WILL be finishing the series, but I still ended up giving it three stars. Let’s analyze my reasoning and see what y’all think!

The Writing:

The writing of The Dream thieves is honestly what sealed the deal on that three star rating for me. The writing of The Raven Boys was tight! There was NO confusion about who was narrating at any given time, even though there were up to five points of view being shown. Every single word counted for something, and at NO point were you left wondering exactly why you just spent 30 minutes of your day reading that chapter. The Dream Thieves didn’t seem to have that tight writing style. It stays true to the characters and the series, but sometimes it almost became more like a decoration and less like a perfectly worded masterpiece. All the metaphors and descriptions are still beautiful and amazing and wonderfully full of things for me to learn from, but I did find myself flipping back a page a few times to see who was narrating. I guess the easiest way to describe the writing is that it had a dream-like quality, (pun totally intended), but I think that was meant to contribute to the plot of the story because so much of it took place in dreams. Oh don’t cringe over it taking place in dreams! These were dream scenes done right!

The Characters:

Oh my gosh the characters! Yeah… I thought I was over my fangirl stage, but no… These characters are just too amazing to be real! Oh wait… They’re not real… They’re just little bits of story! But if you’re a bookworm of any kind you will excuse my sleep deprived brain and know exactly what I mean! These characters are the kind of characters who seem like they should just come out of the pages and be real! And those character arcs…

Blue: Blue is undergoing a transformation, and I LIKE IT! She kind of had these preconceived judgements of people who I will not name at the beginning of the series, and I can see them slowly slipping away.

Gansey: Like I said before, I do not particularly care for Gansey’s character. It’s not because his character is badly written, but because of his personality, and I think that maybe he’s one of those characters that readers are supposed to love/hate until something major happens to make them drop everything and love them. Shatter Me ringing any bells for anyone??? anyway… I can kinda see him slipping a little into somebody I can’t help but love, especially in his interactions with other characters. He reeeeeally cares for Ronan and Adam and now Blue, and it is SO sweet when that shows through.

Ronan: Ok… Y’all know about my love for Ronan if you read my review of book 1, and that love didn’t lessen any after reading The Dream Thieves. In The Raven Boys, Ronan didn’t get much time at the mic, but his story really starts to show through in The Dream Thieves. We still have that multiPOV thing going on, but there’s a definite focus on Ronan. There were a few times where I kinda questioned whether certain things were true to his character, but for the most part I LOVED it! He went through a MAJOR transformation and admitted some stuff to himself and his friends that kinda shocked me, but now that it’s out I kinda feel stupid for not seeing it earlier… Let’s see if you can guess what it is!

Adam: Can someone please just pick Adam up and put his heart back together because oh my gosh! I almost cried a couple times! And I can’t even tell you why cause spoilers!!!

Noah: Noah didn’t get a whole lot of focus in this book, but he is definitely undergoing a transformation of his own, and I don’t know if it’s a good one or not. It makes sense for his character, but I have a feeling that it’s really going to destroy my little bookworm heart when he reaches the end of it.

Mr. Gray: Yeah! We have a new character! He gets some mic time, and he is quite intriguing! But he hurt Ronan so I hate him a little!!!

The Plot:

The plot structure was VERY tight, and there was no slow spot at the beginning like there was in book 1. It jumped right into the story, although the first chapter was a little metaphorical. I do think it worked for the opening though, and it definitely fits Ronan’s character. The Dream Thieves continued the trend of weaving the individual story of each character into the bigger picture, and it was done extremely well! I love watching all the stories intertwine and connect and fall into place like puzzle pieces right where I wasn’t expecting them to join. They’re woven so tightly together that you can’t have one story without the other without the plot falling flat somewhere. And the ending? The ending was a TOTAL cliff hanger that I will NOT spoil, but somebody goes missing… I feel like that should be followed by epic music but there is none…

In Short:

You’re probably all wishing I’d get to the point now, so… You should read it! But after you’ve read The Raven Boys! Don’t go starting in the midst of a series! EVER! The writing does get a little weird at times, but I think it’s a writing technique, and it doesn’t detract from the amazingness of the story enough to make it not worth reading! If you liked book 1, book 2 will only be a minor let down, and then you’ll get sucked into book 3 just like I am now! In fact, I am going to leave you to ponder over my review and leave me comments whilst I go read and then do algebra homework!

What are Your thoughts?

Have you read The Dream Thieves? Do you want to read it? Are you reading anything creepy for October? Tell me in the comments! Until next time… Happy spooky reading to all you bookworms! Oh come on… You know you’re reading something at least a little creepy! I’m thinking Three Dark Crowns by Kendare Blake is gonna be my next creepy read! If you’ve read it, share your thoughts on that as well! From Cheyenne 🙂

Book Review: The Raven Boys by Maggi stiefvater

The raven boys Title: The Raven Boys Author: Maggie Stiefvater Series: The Raven Cycle, (Book One) Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fiction, Mystery Pages: 416 Publisher: Scholastic Inc. Published: September 18, 2012 My Rating: ☆☆☆☆☆ iBooks amazon Goodreads

Synopsis From goodreads:

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them–until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her. His name is Gansey, a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble. But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little. For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn’t believe in true love, and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

My Thoughts: ☆☆☆☆☆

Can I just fangirl for a second? I waited a week before writing this review so maybe it might come out coherent, but no such luck! I am still not over the amazingness of this book, and I really hope I can do it justice! This is possibly the most well written book I have ever read that has more than two narrating characters! The narration alternates between four, sometimes five, characters, but there was NO confusion as to who the POV character was at any given time. And don’t let the blurb fool you! I thought it sounded like some fairytale knockoff at first, but I was WROOOOOOONG! The Raven Boys is one of the most original books I’ve ever read, and it’s so believable as you’re reading it that you get sucked into the story and you read 416 pages in two days like I did! How do I even communicate this? Let’s do an in depth analysis because this book deserves it!

The Writing:

The writing of this book is beautifully simple. To make a conflicting statement that probably won’t make sense to anybody but me, the writing is a form of showing by telling. You know how writers always end up in the “showing not telling debate?” This book does both and neither. The words are so intertwined that we’re told everything without really being told anything, and we’re shown everything, and told nothing at the same time. Yeah… I’m confused too, but you’ll get it if you read it! It’s very metaphorical and… fantasy like intone, but the words are simple enough that it doesn’t seem like that. It’s also not so simple that it seems like a book for younger readers, but not so overly metaphorical that you feel like you’re slogging through old English stuff either. Sorry to anyone who actually enjoys old English stuff and doesn’t have to slog through it. I wish I could be like you!

Character analysis:

Oh my gosh… The characters! They’re all so amazing and they feel so real and they’re all unique and I LOOOOOOOVE them! Let’s break it down before I go into hardcore fangirl mode… Blue Sargent: Blue seemed flat to me at first. I mean… That blurb put me off quite a bit from the get go. Killing her true love with a kiss? Yeah, no, NOT my style! But that’s not how Blue is AT ALL! She is eccentric, and weird, and cool, and sensible, and adventurous, and kind, and… generally an awesome character who isn’t like one of those characters who thinks she’s average but has every boy throwing themselves at her and can literally do anything she wants including fight off murderous bad guys with little to no training! She’s got an attitude, a strong set of morals, and the kind of mindset that doesn’t take nothing from nobody! Oh yeah! There’s also the fact that she acts like a kind of energetic battery for anything that can tap into it, including ghosts and her psychic family! How’s that for awesome and original?

Gansey: I do not care for Gansey’s character at this point in time. He just seems SO FAKE! But I also think he’s supposed to seem that way. and I have a sneaking suspicion that he and Blue are going to end up together at the end of this, and I reeeeeally don’t want that to happen unless he undergoes a MAJOR transformation! I like what he stands for, but can we please just drop the sixty-year-old politician act? That being said, he is very unique, and I can’t wait to uncover more of his past. I can’t tell why though because that would be a spoiler, and I refuse to spoil this book in the review even though I’m way late to reading this.

Adam: Where to start with Adam? Adam is… complicated. His story nearly made me cry, and I won’t tell you why for the same reason I won’t tell about Gansey. Let’s just say he’s had a rough home life, and no matter how much he wants to blend with the other Raven Boys, he just doesn’t. He’s different, strange, somehow more aware and yet unaware of the big picture. He’s the outsider of the group, but I think he’s got a part to play, and it’s gonna be a big one judging by the ending, which I won’t spoil.

Ronan: Can Ronan pleeeeease just come out of the pages so I can hug him and tell him everything is going to be ok even though things are probably going to be the polar opposite of ok?! I mean he’d probably just tell me to f* off, but I don’t really care! He try to be so strong, but really he’s a word away from falling apart. I have this thing for tragic heroes, and if Ronan doesn’t get his act together and do something amazing by the end of this series, I WILL cry.

Noah: Oh my gosh spoilers!!!! I must be careful. Noah isn’t actually there. He’s a “smudge,” to quote Gansey, just an imprint of something that once was. And that’s all you get on Noah, even though I had things half way figured out by the second time he was mentioned. Let’s see if you can get as close as I did! 😉

The Plot:

The beginning was SLOOOOOW… Stuff happened, and it was pretty big stuff, but the pacing was off. The writing made up for it though, and I am SO glad I stuck with it! After about… let’s say chapter 8ish, things got better, and better, and better… And that ending… That ending was epic! It was a total cliff hanger, but it was a good cliff hanger! When you read the last line, you will immediately want more! And it’ll be the good kind of wanting more, not the angry kind of wanting more that leaves you at a total complete loose end.

Final Thoughts:

You NEED to read this book! Just DO IT! And tell me what you think! The ending is slow, but you will NOT regret sticking with it! Here’s just one teaser quote for you from Ronan’s psychic reading… “A secret killed your father, and you know what it is.”

Did That Make sense?

Please share your thoughts of my review in the comments! I hope it was actually coherent, but I have a feeling it wasn’t because I am still too obsessed to make anything look sane. I LOVE every single character, and the writing style is amazing! And also I am in desperate need of some Ronan giffs… He’s my favorite character, (because I’m crazy like that), and none of the gifs on Tumblr had descriptions…. cries You guys should really put your favorite Ronan, or just raven boys in general, gifs in the comments and describe them so i can make a collage out of them and make it my screen saver. Yeah that sounded pathetic… Y’all don’t really have to find me gifs unless you just wanna make me really happy! Ok… I’m just rambling now… I’ll stop! Go read The raven Boys, and tell me what you think! I will be very sad if you don’t like it, but you will like it, so it doesn’t matter! From Cheyenne 🙂