All posts tagged book reviews

Ruin and Rising is More Rising Than Ruin

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
Ruin and Rising cover

While reading Siege and Storm, I was so happy to find out that Ruin and Rising was available at my library! I loved the first two books of this series and wanted to find out what happened.

This isn’t exactly part of the story, but the dedication of this book was so sad. It was dedicated to Ms. Bardugo’s dad: “Sometimes our heroes don’t make it to the end.”

Since this is the third book in the series, there will be spoilers for the first two books.

The actual story begins underground. Alina is the Sun Summoner, and hordes of people see her as a saint. As a sun summoner, Alina doesn’t do so well being cooped up in the dark. And the Apparat is keeping her friend Mal away from her. Even though she’s the celebrity, Alina is more like a prisoner. As a prisoner, she has to find a way to break herself out. Along with the rest of her friends.

Once above ground, Alina and the group have to avoid the Darkling, as well as the forces at war that would do her harm. Fortunately, she ends up meeting up with Nikolai, and they make plans for the future. Nikolai still thinks that Alina should be his queen, even though that’s not really where her heart lies. First things first though: they have to find the third amplifier.

On their journey to find the third amplifier, they discover some heartbreaking news (which I will not share here). They also learn about Mal’s ancestry, and why he is such an amazing tracker. Mal’s family is not the only bit of interesting backstory that we discover in this book.

All of this leads to the final showdown. I can’t say what’s going to happen, but I will say that the ending (for me) was incredibly sweet. I know that some people have a different opinion as to how Ruin and Rising should have ended, but it was the ending I would have liked. If I ever write fanfiction about this book, it won’t be fix-it fiction, because it ended on a satisfying note.

Overall, I loved Ruin and Rising, and started reading Six of Crows (on audiobook) shortly afterwards. This series made me love Leigh Bardugo’s writing, and I even pre-ordered Ninth House, her next book, which comes out in the fall.

Shadow and Bone was Amazing!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
Shadow and Bone cover

Shadow and Bone is the first book in Leigh Bardugo’s Grisha Verse books. For months, I’ve heard people ooh and aah over the Six of Crows duology. Since I tend to believe in starting book series from the very beginning, I always said to myself “I have to read the Grisha Verse books first.” I finally started the series, and I was not disappointed.

Alina is an orphan girl who now works in Ravka’s army with her best friend, Mal. While Mal seems to be able to do everything right, Alina is mediocre at best. Everything changes when her unit tries to cross the dangerous Shadow Fold. When Mal is nearly killed, a dormant force inside her awakens and saves his life. It also changes her life forever.

Alina is kidnapped and taken to The Little Palace, where she learns that she is a Grisha (magically able to manipulate matter in some way) and hones her magic skills. She misses Mal, although she makes new friends along the way. One of the people she meets is The Darkling, who tells her that she is unique among Grisha; he tries to befriend her (and more). You’ll have to read the book to see how it turns out.

What I Loved

Is there anything I didn’t love about this book? I actually can’t think of anything. I loved the characters, and I thought Alina and Mal were so sweet together. It made me so sad to see them forced apart as they were. I know that some people who read this series rooted for Alina and The Darkling to develop a relationship, but I was rooting for Alina and Mal from the beginning.

I adored the Russian vibe of this book! Since I speak Russian and go to a Russian meetup group almost every week, when I discovered that Ravka has this Russian thing going on, I was overjoyed! I didn’t know about that before reading this book. Had I known this, I probably would have read this series sooner.

Conclusion

After finishing Shadow and Bone, I went on to read the remainder of the Grisha Verse series, and I loved it. I’m now listening to Six of Crows on audiobook. This universe is amazing and I love Leigh Bardugo’s writing. I highly recommend this book and plan to read more of her books in the future.

A Thousand Perfect Notes

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A Thousand Perfect Notes cover

What can we say about A Thousand Perfect Notes… it’s a beautiful book! I bought this book on the Kindle, but if you’ve ever seen the paperback copy with the beautiful butterfly that folds out, you’ll know what I’m talking about. It’s by C.G. Drews… AKA Paper Fury! That alone is probably enough to make you want to check out this book.

A Thousand Perfect Notes is about a boy named Beck. He loves his little sister and lives with an abusive mother who tries to compensate for her broken life by forcing him to become the person she wanted to be. This means practicing on the piano for hours a day, neglecting his school work in favor of the piano, and never having a social life. It’s a pretty dreary existence.

Things change when his teacher teams him up with August for a school project. Even though he keeps telling her no, she won’t give up on him. Her intrusion into his life changes his family forever.

What I Liked

There were a lot of things I liked about this book. A Thousand Perfect Notes brings us into an impoverished fictional town somewhere in Australia. Beck and August weren’t the only characters I felt for in this book. Everybody seemed to have a difficult life. But aren’t we all facing something?

The main characters were great. Beck’s mother was a monster, but she had her own personal demons to deal with too. Beck was a sweet, caring cinnamon roll who you just have to with a better life for. August was a sweet, optimistic girl with a dash of crunchy-granola.

Drawbacks?

This is a beautiful story and I think the only thing that separates this book from one of my favorite books that I read this year is a matter of taste. It’s a sweet story with a small but adorable cast. There’s no world-shaking politics, oh-no-we’re-all-gonna-die! moments, or anything like that. The book is light on romance. And that’s okay. We need stories like this one.

Conclusion

If you’re in the mood for a sweet contemporary with adorable characters that deserve better in life and find comfort among each other, A Thousand Perfect Notes is a good choice. I enjoyed this book, although I think I will choose to read C.G. Drews next book, The Boy Who Steals Houses, at a moment when I’m tired of dark fantasy and need something lighter. Because this author is definitely worth reading again.

Finale Goes Out With a Bang

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
Finale cover

I was so excited when I got an email from Netgalley saying I was approved to read Finale by Stephanie Garber. I loved Caraval and Legendary, and had already pre-ordered it. My Advanced Review copy was given to me in exchange for an honest review. I absolutely loved this book.

Because this is the third book in a series, this review contains spoilers from the previous two books.

Finale starts shortly after Legendary ends. Legend is going to be the emperor, and after leaving Tella at the end of the last book, only visits her in dreams. Their mother is still asleep. Scarlett has decided that she wants to get to know her former fiancée Nicholas even though she has feelings for Julian. Nothing is perfect.

And everything is about to get worse.

When the Fates start waking up, Tella witnesses something heartbreaking… and disturbing. She vows to get back at The Fallen Star, who seems to be the worst of the Fates. In order to hurt him, she has to find out what his weakness is. Then she has to exploit it to kill him.

Meanwhile, Scarlett decided that she wanted to have Julian and Nicholas compete with each other so she can decide who she will marry. Almost as soon as she makes that deal, she realizes that she wants Julian. Before she can tell them both that, her life turns south as well.

What follows is a beautiful, twisty story where secrets are revealed, people have to work with people they otherwise wouldn’t want to work with, and love triangles resolve quite nicely. All of this neatly packaged amidst a sea of gorgeous words and lines that give me all the feels.

I recently started a book journal where I write down some of my favorite quotes and reactions to books I read. There were so many quotes I wrote down from this book. “She looked the way Love might have looked if Love looked in a mirror, infectuously happy and radiantly beautiful.” Also I loved the line “maybe no one deserved love. Maybe love was always a gift.” My favorite line in the book was the last two sentences of chapter 59. I can’t quote it here because of spoilers.

The heart on the cover of Finale tells you exactly how I feel about it. The ending was amazing. I highly recommend it.

Hundreds

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Hundreds cover

After reading Pennies and Dollars by Pepper Winters, I had to read the next book in the series, Hundreds. Never mind that I still haven’t read the next two books (I will though). This third book in the Dollar series has more twists and allows us to get to know Pim and Elder a little bit more.

Since Hundreds is the third book in the series, there are spoilers for the first two books.

Pim is now talking, but as you would expect, she’s still dealing with the hurts of her past. She’s falling for Elder, but he doesn’t seem to think it’s such a good idea. In this book, we learn why.

We learn a lot about Elder in this book. Despite his dark past, I still like him. He’s written in such a way so that even though you know he’s made mistakes, you still like him (or at least I do). I root for his character, and I root for him and Pim to get together.

Elder tries to get Pim to become a thief like he was, and in a way, I’m rooting for Pim not to go down this dark path. I don’t know what direction this series is headed in (and since I haven’t read the last two books yet, I still don’t know), but I hope that she doesn’t go down the path of darkness.

This is another great book in the series, although it’s left at something of a cliffhanger. I imagine that Hundreds will take quite a different turn in the next book. There were revelations in this book that will probably raise their heads in Thousands.

If you enjoyed the first two books in the Dollar series, you’ll probably want to continue with Hundreds. I enjoyed this book as much as I did the first two, and plan to continue reading this series with the last two books at some point.

Dollars and More…

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Dollars is the second book in the Dollar series by Pepper Winters. It was another book that was difficult to put down. After reading Pennies, I was happy that my library had this one ready to read (I had to request that they buy Hundreds, I’ll probably buy the last two books). It is far less disturbing than the first book, and deals with a person in recovery.

Because this is the second book in a series, there are spoilers.

Dollars starts where Pennies leaves off. Elder has rescued Pimlico from Alrik, but the damage done from over a year of abuse has already occurred. Not only is her mind damaged to the point where she can’t even wear clothes without being uncomfortable, her tongue is damaged and her body bears the scars and burdens of someone much older than she is.

Even though she has been “rescued”, she still is not free. Pimlico may be in a gilded cage rather than a torture chamber, but she still belongs to someone. With her damaged mind, will she ever be able to be truly free? There’s a scene where Pimlico and Elder are on a business trip and Elder runs into someone who plans on attending one of the auctions run by the same company that sold her in the first place. Her mind nearly shatters again at that. She fears that she might be sold again.

In Dollars, we get to know the mysterious Elder, although there is still much about his past that needs to be revealed. He says he’s dangerous, but there doesn’t seem to be much that he does to hurt Pim.

The book was difficult to put down. It’s hard to put a finger on why, but there’s something about this book that was addictive. Fortunately, Dollars isn’t as dark as Pennies, otherwise I’d have trouble finishing this series. Pim and Elder are obviously developing an attraction to each other, but Pim still refuses to talk.

Pennies is still free (probably with the hopes of sucking you into the rest of the series) and Dollars and the rest of the series is reasonably priced. I haven’t had the chance to read any of the series past Hundreds, but I do plan on reading the last two books at some point. If you liked Pennies, I recommend continuing with this book.

King of Fools… On April Fool’s Day!

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments
King of Fools cover

Happy April Fool’s Day! It’s entirely a coincidence that I’m reviewing Amanda Foody’s King of Fools on April 1st; the book just happens to be coming out within a month and this was the next book on my list to review. I was provided with an Advanced Reader Copy in exchange for an honest review.

After beating the Shadow Game, Enne and Levi’s lives are about to change. Enne has earned a notorious reputation as her alter ego, Séance, and Levi’s gang is in ruins, but he wants to rebuild it. Levi sees a potential opportunity when Harrison, Vianca’s son, contacts him and wants to 1) win the upcoming election, and 2) see Vianca dead. The difficult part is going against Vianca when she has an omerta against him (and Enne).

While Levi is trying to rebuild his gang, Enne (Séance) is forming hers. Enne’s girl gang is a lot different than your typical gang. Instead of your typical guy clothes, these girls wear fancy gloves and skirts. And they have cats (so does that make them crazy cat ladies?).

King of Fools excels in many areas. First, the relationships are great. Levi and Jac’s friendship is tested in several ways, as is Levi and Enne’s budding relationship. There are several characters, not just Levi and Enne, that have lives and make independent decisions that drive this story. They also have to deal with their consciences and past demons. It’s well-done.

Another place where this book is great is in how it deals with power. Power (both among the gangsters on the lower rungs and among the powerful politicians) is a huge theme of this story. The way the politicians’ decisions affect the people’s lives and the way they fight back is great.

While this book kept me interested the whole time, it did seem to lag a little bit towards the middle, but then picked up and I stayed up a little too late so I could finish it.

The ending of King of Fools! I definitely plan on reading the next book because I want to find out what happens.  I don’t want to say what happens because – spoilers – but the next book will definitely see some changes.

I definitely recommend King of Fools if you like power manipulation and exciting books with gangsters and a little magic. You’ll want to read Ace of Shades first though, if you haven’t, otherwise you might be lost.

New Release Challenge First Quarter Reviews

By Brookelorren on 2 Comments

Can you believe that the first quarter of the year is already over? It’s time for my first quarter review of the New Release Challenge, hosted by Unconventional Bookworms. I might be doing it wrong and I’m supposed to link up all of my reviews? Either way, I’m linking them all here.

I read 13 new releases this quarter, although I haven’t reviewed them all yet (reviews will be incoming). I’m partially done with King of Fools and expect to review that on April 1st, but that will go in the next quarter. I’ll link here to the reviews that I did write.

Since I read the majority of these as ARCs, most of them already have reviews. Up until today, I hadn’t realized that I hadn’t reviewed Four Dead Queens yet. Whoops.

So many of these books were amazing… it’s hard to pick a favorite, but I think I liked Sky Without Stars and Four Dead Queens the best.

What new releases did you read this quarter?

The Light Between Worlds

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The Light Between Worlds cover

I recently read The Light Between Worlds by Laura E. Weymouth. Look at that cover! Plus, Ms. Weymouth is a really sweet lady, so I ended up pre-ordering her book. The Light Between Worlds is inspired by Narnia. Who doesn’t love Narnia? I found that my favorite aspect of this book didn’t have anything to do with C.S. Lewis’s world, however.

In The Light Between Worlds, Evelyn (the Lucy character) longs to return to Narnia, errr… The Woodlands, and is having difficulty functioning in the real world. Just like in The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, the characters spent years in the alternate universe, and when they returned to World War II Britain, they had to re-adjust to being children again. Evelyn couldn’t make that transition.

Philippa (the Susan character) would like Evelyn to become a functioning member of society again, and when it doesn’t happen, she’s frustrated, and this puts a strain on their relationship. Not only does Philippa feel guilt over what happens next, she feels guilt over a decision she made long ago…

The book is told in two sections, with the first half focusing on Evelyn’s voice, and the second half in Philippa’s.

Narnia Inspiration

To be honest, the Narnia inspiration was my least favorite aspect of this book. The Narnia books are still copyrighted until 2034. It doesn’t look like the Lewis estate is interested in allowing permission for an extension of their work. Another author, Francis Spufford, actually tried to get a Narnia work published; the estate won’t talk to him. So the book is like trying to tell the story without any of the original characters or the original world. Although we know who all the characters are supposed to be, it’s just not the same.

Where This Book Shines

Although I wasn’t exactly impressed with the Narnia inspiration, this book does shine when it comes to the relationship between sisters and how they deal with guild and depression. Philippa is overwhelmed with guilt. Evelyn is depressed because she had to leave the place where she felt most at home and could never return. I enjoyed the second half of the book (where this seems to be the main focus) better than the first part.

The setting, characters, and language of the book were nice enough and I enjoyed it quite a bit.

Conclusion

If you’re looking for Narnia fanfiction, then you’re probably better off heading over to AO3 – there are thousands of stories there to choose from, and they don’t have to hide the characters behind false names. However, The Light Between Worlds is much more than just thinly disguised fanfiction. This is a fantastic story about sisters, guilt, and depression, and I recommend it for that aspect.

Tower of Dawn

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Tower of Dawn cover

Tower of Dawn is the sixth book in Sarah J. Maas’s Throne of Glass series. Like the other later books in this series, this book is epic in size, but it’s well worth the read.

I was sad to say goodbye to Aelin and her friends to read this book, but a lot goes on in this book that will tie into the big finale when I finally get around to reading Kingdom of Ash.

Chaol and Nesryn have traveled to the Southern continent in hopes of finding a healer that might be able to repair Chaol’s broken body. At the same time, they’re hoping to find some allies to help them in the upcoming war. Here, we find more major worldbuilding going on, as well as some new characters. In a book series this epic, it can be a little difficult to keep track of everyone and every place. Fortunately, there are plenty of clues for those of us who get a little hazy on the details after a while (it’s been a few months since I read the last book with Chaol in it, Queen of Shadows. I can imagine what it would be like if you haven’t read that book since it was first released!).

Chaol’s healer Yrene is talented, but she has a few things against the old king, and she initially takes this out on Chaol. Yrene is a complex character like many other people in this series, and I enjoyed learning about her and her family. Eventually, Yrens is able to see Chaol as more than just the former king’s Captain of the Guard.

The royal family in Tower of Dawn is roughly based on the khaganate, which I thought was pretty cool to see. As a student of history, it was interesting to see elements of this historical civilization come to life.

You won’t want to skip over Tower of Dawn and move straight to Kingdom of Ash, because there are some significant revelations you’ll find in this book. My husband is better at guessing where plots are headed than I am, but I was surprised at some of the things that were revealed. Plus, you want to find out whether Chaol is healed or not.

I don’t think Tower of Dawn was my favorite book in the series, but I still enjoyed it a lot and was glad to read it. Perhaps the only drawback to this book is that 700 pages can be a bit much sometimes. Anyway, if you’ve followed this series so far and liked it, I recommend you continue with this book.