I NEED MORE // The Mirror King (The Orphan Queen #2) by Jodi Meadows

Title: The Mirror King
Author: Jodi Meadows
Publication Date: May 5th 2016
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book 2 of The Orphan Queen Duology
I Got A Copy Through: I bought it~
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Amazon UK || The Book Depository || Wordery || Barnes And Noble

Blurb Description: Wilhelmina has a hundred enemies.
HER FRIENDS HAVE TURNED. After her identity is revealed during the Inundation, Princess Wilhelmina is kept prisoner by the Indigo Kingdom, with the Ospreys lost somewhere in the devastated city. When the Ospreys’ leader emerges at the worst possible moment, leaving Wil’s biggest ally on his deathbed, she must become Black Knife to set things right. 
HER MAGIC IS UNCONTROLLABLE. Wil’s power is to animate, not to give true life, but in the wraithland she commanded a cloud of wraith mist to save herself, and later ordered it solid. Now there is a living boy made of wraith—destructive and deadly, and willing to do anything for her.
HER HEART IS TORN. Though she’s ready for her crown, declaring herself queen means war. Caught between what she wants and what is right, Wilhelmina realizes the throne might not even matter. Everyone thought the wraith was years off, but already it’s destroying Indigo Kingdom villages. If she can’t protect both kingdoms, soon there won’t be a land to rule.
In this stunning conclusion to THE ORPHAN QUEEN, Jodi Meadows follows Wilhelmina’s breathtaking and brave journey from orphaned criminal on the streets to magic-wielding queen.

SOMEBODY PLEASE EXPLAIN TO ME HOW I HAD THIS BOOK FOR MONTHS AND DID NOTHING WITH IT?

I DON’T KNOW HOW TO EXPLAIN THIS BOOK, BECAUSE THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR IT. I just sped through it, not knowing what was happening around me and not processing any of the heart-breaking reveals in it because it was ALL TOO MUCH for one simple Book-Dragon to bear. I think I’ll still live in my happy little denial place because I NEED MORE and there isn’t any.

If you have read The Orphan Queen, and haven’t read The Mirror King for some reason YET, then let me tell you THERE IS NO TIME BETTER THAN THE PRESENT, for this does not let you down! Jodi Meadows makes you fall – and I mean REALLY REALLY FALL – for all of her characters that you met in The Orphan Queen, more than you ever thought possible.

This book starts off exactly where The Orphan Queen left off, and I have no idea HOW I SURVIVED for so long.

In the Inundated City of Skyvale, Prince Tobias has been shot. Wilhelmina has been exposed as the person she really is – Flasher, Imposter and a Queen with a pet wraith on her leash. The Ospreys are divided, Patrick Lien is out of control, claiming to carry out assassinations on Wilhelmina’s behalf but more importantly, the Wraith are coming, and they’re coming now.

Since I’m not going to tell you the story, here are my reasons why you must read this series:

1.    The Multiple Identities: I ADORED HOW EVERYONE WAS ACTUALLY SOMEONE ELSE, AND SOMEONE WAS ALWAYS PRETENDING AND SOMEONE ELSE ALWAYS KNEW. It made it so intriguing, the game of keeping up pretenses and all the secrets within each pretense and I LOVED IT SO MUCH AHOIHAFOIDH.

2.    The Plot: This was such a cool, VERY WELL EXECUTED plot with so many twists that even if you saw one coming, the next one was IMPOSSIBLE. I love that there was so much actual GOVERNING as much as the dances and the angst, because being a monarch means GOVERNING, okay? Also, the magic, the wraith and the Kingdoms AAAAAAH.

3.    The Characters: THEY WERE ALL SO BEAUTIFUL, OKAY? Including the Wraith. And Tobias. And James. But especially Wil! Oh how I LOVE my flawed mistake causing babies, and there imperfect decision making and their passion and bravery. PERFECT. I love that there were so many secondary characters that were given importance!

4.    The Chemistry: I will admit, this took a while to grow on me, but I was sitting in the middle of the BEAUTIFUL GIANT that is The Mirror King and I realised I was shipping it ALL. ALL OF IT, I TELL YOU. *dies*

So that’s about it. If you haven’t read this book, it is SO WORTH IT! 5 GOLDEN STARS.

HAVE YOU READ THIS SERIES? *Uses Cait (from Paper Fury's) book thumping method until you begin! Have you read any more Jodi Meadows books? 

What is your favourite fantasy novel? Any recommendations for me?

A Masterfully Crafted Tale // My Heart and Other Black Holes by Jasmine Warga

Title: My Heart and Other Black Holes
Author: Jasmine Warga
Publication Date: February 10th 2015
Publisher: Blazer + Bray (Harper Collins)
Part of a Series?: No, Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Harper Collins India (THANK YOU!)
Buy Links: Amazon US || Amazon IN || Wordery || The Book Depository || Barnes&Noble || Flipkart

Blurb Description: Sixteen-year-old physics nerd Aysel is obsessed with plotting her own death. With a mother who can barely look at her without wincing, classmates who whisper behind her back and a father whose violent crime rocked her small town, Aysel is ready to turn her potential energy into nothingness. There’s only one problem: she’s not sure she has the courage to do it alone. But once she discovers a website with a section called Suicide Partners, Aysel’s convinced she’s found her solution: a teen boy with the username FrozenRobot (aka Roman), who’s haunted by a family tragedy, is looking for a partner.

Even though Aysel and Roman have nothing in common, they slowly start to fill in each other’s broken lives. But as their suicide pact starts to become more concrete, Aysel begins to question whether she really wants to go through with it. Ultimately, she must choose between wanting to die or trying to convince Roman to live so they can discover the potential of their energy together. This is a gorgeously written and compulsively readable novel about the transformative power of love, heralding the arrival of an extraordinary new voice in teen fiction, Jasmine Warga.

"He squeezes my hand so tight, I can't feel it anymore. I wish someone would do that to my heart."

Truth be told, I haven’t had a great track record with books that deal with suicide. The only ones I’ve read were disappointments. The first was Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher, and somebody over-hyped it for me so much, I just couldn’t enjoy it. The second was Playlist for the Dead by Michelle Falkoff, which I DID NOT GET AT ALL. SIGH.

And while the description of My Heart and Other Black Holes intrigued me, you could call me a little jaded about books on this topic.

Long story short, THIS IS THE BOOK I’VE BEEN LOOKING FOR.

"Sometimes I wonder if gravity is the problem. It keeps us all grounded, giving us this false sense of stability when we're all really just bodies in motion."

Aysel Seran (pronounced Uh-zel) cannot live life as the ticking time bomb everyone sees at her as. She can’t bear to live causing pain to the ones she loves or with the whispers of the town people

And so in the town that would rather just see her gone, she finds a website connecting potential suicide partners, and that’s just what Aysel needs.

Roman (aka Frozen Robot) is not the kind of person who contemplates suicide. He is popular, a jock and has lovely over-the-top parents. Well, he used to be. Now Roman is haunted by a mistake he made, and one he can never forgive himself for.

Aysel and Roman, in a different world, would never have been friends. But in this screwed up world, can two people that want to die, convince each other to live?
following her around everywhere. She can’t live with herself when she knows the madness can take over, but, most of all, Aysel doesn’t want to sit around waiting to become her father.

"I wonder if that's how darkness wins, by convincing us to trap it inside ourselves, instead of emptying it out."

I think, the minute I opened the book, the only thing I wanted was for me to FEEL SOMETHING, and the only way to do that is to make it all believable.

And in the middle of Jasmine Warga’s masterfully crafted tale, there I was. HOOKED. HOPING. Falling. Believing. Loving. Living. Dying. My Heart and Other Black Holes, despite my slightly jaded attitude towards it, managed to blow me away. It was complicated where it needed to be, deep when the reader needed to understand, poignant in ways that cannot be described and hopeful in the darkest of times.

My Heart and Other Black Holes will make you feel everything in the most heart-breaking yet beautiful way possible. GO READ IT.

5 stars.

 Now that I've fallen head over heels for this book, I'm  DYING to read another suicide/ depression book. SUGGESTIONS? Have you read this book? What did you think of it?

Review: The Orphan Queen (The Orphan Queen #1) by Jodi Meadows

Title: The Orphan Queen (The Orphan Queen #1)

Author: Jodi Meadows
Publication Date: March 10th 2015
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Part of a Series?: Yes, Book One of Two
I Got A Copy Through: I bought it!
Buy Links: Amazon IN || Amazon US || Barnes & Noble || The Book Depository || Wordery 

Blurb Description: Wilhelmina has a hundred identities.
She is a princess. When the Indigo Kingdom conquered her homeland, Wilhelmina and other orphaned children of nobility were taken to Skyvale, the Indigo Kingdom’s capital. Ten years later, they are the Ospreys, experts at stealth and theft. With them, Wilhelmina means to take back her throne.
She is a spy. Wil and her best friend, Melanie, infiltrate Skyvale Palace to study their foes. They assume the identities of nobles from a wraith-fallen kingdom, but enemies fill the palace, and Melanie’s behavior grows suspicious. With Osprey missions becoming increasingly dangerous and their leader more unstable, Wil can’t trust anyone.
She is a threat. Wraith is the toxic by-product of magic, and for a century using magic has been forbidden. Still the wraith pours across the continent, reshaping the land and animals into fresh horrors. Soon it will reach the Indigo Kingdom. Wilhelmina’s magic might be the key to stopping the wraith, but if the vigilante Black Knife discovers Wil’s magic, she will vanish like all the others.
Jodi Meadows introduces a vivid new fantasy full of intrigue, romance, dangerous magic, and one girl’s battle to reclaim her place in the world. 

AAAAAHH.

This is my The Orphan Queen re-read which was initially done to serve two purposes:

1)      Prepare myself for the GIANT BEAUTIFUL THING that is The Mirror King

2)      To Write a Comprehensive Review for it BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME.

At this point it seems like I’ve also succeeded in breaking my heart yet again. I’m halfway through my FIRST read of The Mirror King (57% according to Goodreads. WHAT.) AND. UM. WELL. I’m just reading and reading and reading and not at all processing because that’s what I do with good books and wait for everything bad to hit me after.

YOU, HOWEVER, ARE HERE FOR The Orphan Queen, SO WELCOME.

What is The Orphan Queen?

Oh, it is only the book that will get you SO BLOODY ADDICTED you’ll need to have The Mirror King to open and devour right away.

Wilhelmina is a spy in the palace in the Indigo Kingdom. She’s the long lost princess of the Aecor Kingdom that stole her homeland and slaughtered her parents. Wilhelmina HAS MAGIC (which is illegal, just so you know).

And now, almost ten years later, IT IS TIME TO EXACT REVENGE AND SAVE HER HOMELAND.

Except in politics, sly games and vigilantism NOTHING IS BLACK AND WHITE. Especially a young queen’s feelings, and her magic.

Wil is, as I was told, A BADASS HEROINE! What makes her stand out SO MUCH in my head though is that the fact that she’s NOT ALWAYS RIGHT. Or holier than thou. Or anything of the sort. She’s scared, she makes mistakes, she pays for her mistakes and she’s ALSO BRILLIANT. She just seemed an all-around REAL character with her fear and insecurities and everything. I love Wil.

Another aspect I ADORE about TOQ is the Osperys (yes, even controlling Patrick) and the fact that they could just get things done. THERE WAS NO WAITING ABOUT IN THEIR MISSIONS, nothing less than true grief when they lost one of their own for they are family and all understanding all the time about who the other person is.

Also, BLACK KNIFE. AAAH.

I did love that there wasn’t a lot of importance given to court drama and social niceties because well, that happens in EVERY book and it would’ve just dragged this piece of gorgeous literature on.

I think the ONLY thing I didn’t like (in my first read) is the fact that I predicted a certain reveal about a certain character and it was kind of disappointing because I was hoping I wasn’t right.

All in all, A BEAUTIFUL BOOK THAT YOU SHOULD ALREADY BE READING.

If you had a group of fictional rebels, who would you choose to be in that group? Have you read this series? What did YOU think? Should I be reading the novellas?

BLOG TOUR: The Killer in Me by Margot Harrison - Review + Quotes + Giveaway

Title: The Killer in Me
Author: Margot Harrison
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion
Release Date: July 12th 2016

Genre: Young Adult, Mystery, Thriller, Horror, Contemporary, Fiction

Synopsis: Hasn't he lived long enough? Why not? I could take him like a thief in the night.
This is how the Thief thinks. He serves death, the vacuum, the unknown. He’s always waiting. Always there.
Seventeen-year-old Nina Barrows knows all about the Thief. She’s intimately familiar with his hunting methods: how he stalks and kills at random, how he disposes of his victims’ bodies in an abandoned mine in the deepest, most desolate part of a desert.
Now, for the first time, Nina has the chance to do something about the serial killer that no one else knows exists. With the help of her former best friend, Warren, she tracks the Thief two thousand miles, to his home turf—the deserts of New Mexico.
But the man she meets there seems nothing like the brutal sociopath with whom she’s had a disturbing connection her whole life. To anyone else, Dylan Shadwell is exactly what he appears to be: a young veteran committed to his girlfriend and her young daughter. As Nina spends more time with him, she begins to doubt the truth she once held as certain: Dylan Shadwell is the Thief. She even starts to wonder . . . what if there is no Thief?

WHAT EVEN WAS THIS BOOK?

And I mean that in an I'm feeling everything, but I don't know how to process it kind of way (not the terrible kind)

THIS BOOK IS MADNESS PERSONIFIED.

Nina Barrows can see a serial killer in her head. She can see him when he's driving his car, when he's with his family, when he's in his secret lair with all of his weapons and she can see him killing people. And she's inside his head when she does.

At first, she tried not sleeping. After all, if she never sleeps, she can never see him, right? But after a pill incident and rehab and a brutal murder, Nina Barrows decided that if she was the only person who knew this man - The Thief - then she has to do something about it. 

She looks into his mind, into everything he does, trying to find the next opportunity to take him down. There's just one problem - she doesn't know if he really exists. 

I LOVED THIS. AND ALL THE CRAZY IT BOUGHT WITH IT.

Never in my life has a book caused me to question it and myself so much. There were these bouts of insanity from Nina, where I thought that she was making all of it up in her head, then it switched to Warren (poor, sweet, SWOONY Warren) who was a reliable narrator and he found evidence, and I was believing EVERYTHING, until he started second guessing himself and then I went WHAT.

I loved that Margot Harrison had the power to keep me guessing and FEELING ALL THE MADNESS until the very end.

If you're looking for a book to play with your mind, THIS SHOULD BE YOUR NEXT ONE.

QUOTES:

"He serves death, the vaccum, the unknown. Always waiting. Always there. 

"Which was worse, being a thing or being nothing? 

People are eager to believe the best-case scebario, don't want to know the worst."

Follow the The Killer In Me by Margot Harrison Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

I was raised in the wilds of New York by lovely, nonviolent parents who somehow never managed to prevent me from staying up late to read scary books. I now work at an alt-weekly newspaper in Vermont, where my favorite part of the job is, of course, reviewing scary books and movies. The Killer in Me is my first novel.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Review: An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes, #1) By Sabaa Tahir

Title: An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes #1)

Author: Sabaa Tahir

Publisher: Harper Voyager

Publication Date: June 4th 2015

Part of A Series?: Yes

I Got A Copy Through: Guardian Children's Books 

Blurb Description:
Laia is a slave. Elias is a soldier. Neither is free.
Under the Martial Empire, defiance is met with death. Those who do not vow their blood and bodies to the Emperor risk the execution of their loved ones and the destruction of all they hold dear.
It is in this brutal world, inspired by ancient Rome, that Laia lives with her grandparents and older brother. The family ekes out an existence in the Empire’s impoverished backstreets. They do not challenge the Empire. They’ve seen what happens to those who do.
But when Laia’s brother is arrested for treason, Laia is forced to make a decision. In exchange for help from rebels who promise to rescue her brother, she will risk her life to spy for them from within the Empire’s greatest military academy.
There, Laia meets Elias, the school’s finest soldier—and secretly, its most unwilling. Elias wants only to be free of the tyranny he’s being trained to enforce. He and Laia will soon realize that their destinies are intertwined—and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.

What if you were a ember, a spark that could ignite a revolution?

There are some books that you just don't expect to be that good- you think you've read the best the genre has to offer, and then, once again, something leaves you so shocked; so numb, that getting into another one is impossible for quite a while!

An Ember in the Ashes is definitely one of those books. Don't get me wrong- I was always expecting a really good book, but what I got blew me away completely.

Oppressed for generations, The Scholars live with earning next to nothing, living in fear of raids, of imprisonment, or simply disappearing in the dead of the night and never be heard of again. Not even by the people who love you them the most. The once great Scholar empire, trembling at the hands of the Marshals that conquered them.

Even though The Resistence has been working for years, it has never succeeded. They are just rumours at every child hears of- ones where they break people out of prison, ones where they can make people leave this land and escape to the free land. But association by them is punishable by death. After such horrendous torture that you're practically begging for it.

The Masks are the Marshal's strongest weapon. Trained from an early age to be the most cold-hearted, dangerous assassins to help keep Law and Order in the Empire, they are what haunts the Scholars- they are killers without remorse. Elias Veturius is one of these Masks, about to graduate and inflict a world of pain onto the Scholars.

Laia is a Scholar, who was apprenticing to become a healer, until a Mask in a nighttime raid took her only brother away, for possible association with the Resistance. Left with nothing, Laia has but one choice. Find the Resistance. Even if it means death.

If there is one thing I didn't expect from An Ember in the Ashes, it was the brutality. There were no pretty palaces with cunning games being played. There were no princes or their swoony admirers. This was set in the front lines, with fights, loyalty, slavery, magic and death with no sly pretences. And I loved EVERY moment of it. I loved that this wasn't love at first sight, that the characters were more than two people that fell in love and fought for a happily ever after, but that despite their attraction, they were still fighting for the same purposes that they were before each other. Which is how it should be.

I loved how there were other characters with stories brought to the front and not just two main characters. I loved how loyalty and freedom played such a big part in this, because it is, in a way, a military based story. And I'm rambling- but I did love it!

POINTS FOR: Brutality, the trials, the resistance, Helena, and the fact that this has SO much of a build-up for book two

POINTS AGAINST: A sort of insta-love. 

To conclude, An Ember In the Ashes is a brutal, harsh and real story cunningly woven with magic and myth, loyalty, betrayal and freedom and family and friends to produce a marvellous book! 5 stars!

Review: What We Left Behind by Robin Talley

Title: What We Left Behind
Author: Robin Talley
Publisher: MIRA Ink
Publication Date: October 22nd 2015
Part of A Series?: Standalone
I Got A Copy Through: Guardian Children's Books

Blurb Description: From the critically acclaimed author of Lies We Tell Ourselves comes an emotional, empowering story of what happens when love may not be enough to conquer all.

Toni and Gretchen are the couple everyone envied in high school. They've been together forever. They never fight. They’re deeply, hopelessly in love. When they separate for their first year at college—Toni to Harvard and Gretchen to NYU—they’re sure they’ll be fine. Where other long-distance relationships have fallen apart, theirs is bound to stay rock-solid.

The reality of being apart, though, is very different than they expected. Toni, who identifies as genderqueer, meets a group of transgender upperclassmen and immediately finds a sense of belonging that has always been missing, but Gretchen struggles to remember who she is outside their relationship.

While Toni worries that Gretchen won’t understand Toni’s new world, Gretchen begins to wonder where she fits in Toni's life. As distance and Toni’s shifting gender identity begins to wear on their relationship, the couple must decide—have they grown apart for good, or is love enough to keep them together?

**MY REVIEW**

I’ve never given much importance to gender, or sexuality or gender orientation on a personal level. I’m all for not following the standard norms of whom society says you should be, and if someone who was born male feels more comfortable female, who am I to judge them? If someone female is attracted to females, great for them, right? Like I said, I’ve always accepted that nobody is alike, and I have always been the Live and Let Live kind of person, but until What We Left Behind popped into my life, I never really understood how important all of it really is.

Neither the words ‘discovering a new gender identity’ nor the various combinations of the standard gender symbols on the cover clued me in onto what this book is really about, which I will get to later. What I was expecting, however, was a standard college separation story with peer pressure and new friends and trying to figure out how your significant other fits into the new world you’re a part of and the person you’re evolving into. Which is going to be my life very soon, as I go off to college and half my friends travel half the world away, and I felt like What We Left Behind would be a brilliant book to read at this point.

What I got however, was everything I expected and SO SO SO much more.

Meet Toni/ Tony/ Anatonia. Sexuality: Genderqueer. College: Harvard.

Meet Gretchen. Sexuality: Female. College: NYU (Previously, Boston University, but that’s not the point.)

They’re that high school couple. The ones most likely to make it, and make it together. They never fight, they’re perfect for each other, and they’re gorgeous, smart, and going to the same city. Most of all, they’re crazy for each other.

But college is a whole new life, and only the strongest survive.

“I hate pronouns. Why do we even need he and she? Neither one feels right. Why can’t everyone just use the same pronouns? Or if they have to be separated into categories – if our language absolutely needs multiple pronouns – why divide them up by gender? It’s so arbitrary. We might as well have different pronouns based on how old you are, or what your favourite colour is, or your astrological sign.”

Told in dual viewpoints, get ready to feel. Get ready to feel how terrible Gretchen feels as she changes their plan and heads off to New York. Get ready to feel what it feels like when the most important person in your life feels like you can’t understand what you’re going through. Get ready to feel the workload of college, get ready to make new friends.

Most of all, however, get ready to really feel what it’s like to not know who you are; to not be able to define who you are, gender oriented and otherwise, even if you already know who you are. Because that’s what reading Robin Talley’s What We Left Behind will do to you. Make you question, make you feel, and help you take your first step in understanding what it’s really like to not be black and white like society initially defined us to be.

What We Left Behind is the most beautiful coming of age novel I have ever read, filled with some of the most important questions our generation has to answer for themselves. I couldn’t recommend it more! – 5 stars!

ARC Review: Not Okay, Cupid by Heidi Kling

Title: Not Okay, Cupid
Author: Heidi Kling
Publisher: Entangled Crush
Publication Date: January 11th 2016
Part of A Series?: No.
I Got A Copy Through: ARC via NetGalley

Blurb Description: Her wicked revenge, or his wicked heart...

Hazel McCallister loves her life. Perfect grades. Perfect best friend. Perfect boyfriend. Until her perfect boyfriend cheats on her with her perfect best friend. Now Hazel’s in free fall—until her best friend’s brother, Felix, gives her the perfect idea. Reclaim her power by taking revenge on her cheating ex.

Felix James loves his life. Casual relationships. Loads of surfing. He’s as drama-free as they come. But he can’t stand by when his sister steals her best friend’s boyfriend, and the dude insists it was Hazel’s fault. So Felix vows to help turn Hazel into a girl her ex can’t resist—so then she can break his heart.

With an alliance in place, Hazel’s revenge is all but assured. But with each piece of payback, she feels a stronger attraction to Felix, even though revenge will turn her into a girl Felix could never be with. And soon Hazel has to make an impossible choice: revenge...or Felix, the boy who’s stolen her heart.

WARNING! This book contains betrayal, revenge, and that most tempting vice of all, the bad boy you know you can't have

**MY REVIEW**

For reals, I’m conflicted about how I feel about Not Okay, Cupid.

Let me elaborate. I’m a high school senior, and despite me reading an awful ton, I’m Indian, which means the world I live in isn’t as socially liberal as the West. And yet, I’m a free thinker out here compared to previous generations. So, since I’m the same age as the characters in this book, I expect most people at seventeen to have grown up past the point of all of the ‘like OMG!’ and the ‘for reals.’

And for whatever reason, even though the characters were sixteen or seventeen, I’m not entirely sure which, they seems to me like they were just tweens. All of them. With their cupid and psyche obsession, where the guy where a DIAPER (?) and the bad boy who sleeps around can’t get over how cute this girl is. I’m all for the girl that tames the bad guy – the worse the guy is the better – but come on, at least make me believe he is who you say he is.

For the first half of the book, I was rather dumbfounded at how it was reading like something twelve year old me would have read. How her boyfriend and her best friend were hands down each other’s pants in the CAFETERIA and yet nobody notices, what a terrible best friend her best friend was with ‘but your boyfriend and I have something special’ and how she herself was ready to get MARRIED and have KIDS with her high school boyfriend who was a complete ASSHAT.

I tried to garner sympathy for this silly main character, I really did, but I just couldn’t. She was whiny, she didn’t know what she wanted out of life, or how to do anything when life got even a little hard. She somehow always needed a guy by her side, and then there was this bad guy (yes, I’m going to say this again) that she could be sarcastic with (not really though, that was all just silly, not sarcasm) and that made her feel like herself. He even called her Basil. UM. UHM.

Anyway, I kept hoping that this book would get better, but it simply did not.

I guess I’m quite disappointed. 2 stars.

Firsts by Laurie Elizabeth Flynn - ARC Review

Title: Firsts
Author: Laurie Elizabeth Flynn
Publisher: St Martin's Griffin
Publication Date: January 5th 2016
Part of A Series?: No - Standalone:)
I Got A Copy Through: The Publisher via NetGalley

Blurb Description: Seventeen-year-old Mercedes Ayres has an open-door policy when it comes to her bedroom, but only if the guy fulfills a specific criteria: he has to be a virgin. Mercedes lets the boys get their awkward, fumbling first times over with, and all she asks in return is that they give their girlfriends the perfect first time- the kind Mercedes never had herself.

Keeping what goes on in her bedroom a secret has been easy- so far. Her absentee mother isn’t home nearly enough to know about Mercedes’ extracurricular activities, and her uber-religious best friend, Angela, won’t even say the word “sex” until she gets married. But Mercedes doesn’t bank on Angela’s boyfriend finding out about her services and wanting a turn- or on Zach, who likes her for who she is instead of what she can do in bed.

When Mercedes’ perfect system falls apart, she has to find a way to salvage her reputation and figure out where her heart really belongs in the process. Funny, smart, and true-to-life, FIRSTS is a one-of-a-kind young adult novel about growing up.

**MY REVIEW**

“Everyone’s a version of somebody else.”

A girl that does other girls the awkward favour of getting their boyfriends through their first times? Just so that (honestly) these girls she barely knows will have the best possible first time they could have – but with one catch – absolute discretion? In high school? 

First WOAH - I mean pretty original, right? And also, there’s no way that a secret like that doesn’t get out…

I’m always on the lookout for a Young Adult book with a new take on things, and Firsts definitely gave me one. The thing I wanted most from the book was for it to make me believe the story – for Laurie Elizabeth Flynn to make me believe the story she had written, and to understand everyone’s motivations in it. And while she did, while I definitely understood where Mercedes was coming from, she wasn’t the girl I thought she would be, after having the courage to do what she was doing. (Yes, I mean courage, because even if the sex was partially for her, she was also doing it with the intention of helping AND come on, would you? Do what she did that is?)

Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t at all about the sex – that part (the why part) I completely understood – but more than anything, I felt like she spent the entire time feeling sorry for herself, and then trying to justify what she was doing, and then feeling sorry for herself again as she pushed the people who cared about her away. I mean, so what if sex is what gives her comfort? Why is that the worst thing in the world? Why is that a bad thing at all? Why is it so shunned? 

During some parts in the book, I felt like she understood what I was talking about – that sex itself was so regressed, nobody likes to talk about it, and no girl in the entire universe should want to do it, because she’s definitely a slut if she does. And then came the self-pity spirals. And then I lost her. Because Mercedes Ayres is a character that I can only describe at this point as someone BEGGING for attention (NOT because of the sex, because of what came after – what she said and did- not whom)

I guess, I just felt, that when dealing with a topic this sensitive, that the girl willing to help other girls because of what was inflicted onto her at such a young age would actually know why she was doing what she was doing and that she could own it, and not use it as an excuse to feel sorry for/ hate herself.

But SECOND, I admire that story. It took guts to write, and that gutsy writing made me feel like the characters were extremely gutsy as well. I liked the characters, especially Faye – who, coincidentally, is what I expected Mercedes to be – and Zach as well *swoon*

I’m not very sure if I explained what I felt with this book, but it’s way too fresh in my head to form anything more coherent…

In the end, however, I just think you should read this book because of the powerful message it manages to send across in the end!

3.75 Stars.

BLOG TOUR: Half In Love With Death by Emily Ross - Review, Favourite Quotes and Giveaway

Half in Love with Death by Emily Ross
Publisher: Merit Press
Release Date: December 18th 2015
Genre: Young Adult, Historical Fiction
Rate: 4 STARS 

Synopsis: It's the era of peace and love in the 1960s, but nothing is peaceful in Caroline's life. Since her beautiful older sister disappeared, fifteen-year-old Caroline might as well have disappeared too. She's invisible to her parents, who can't stop blaming each other. The police keep following up on leads even Caroline knows are foolish. The only one who seems to care about her is Tony, her sister's older boyfriend, who soothes Caroline's desperate heart every time he turns his magical blue eyes on her. 

Tony is convinced that the answer to Jess's disappearance is in California, the land of endless summer, among the runaways and flower children. Come with me, Tony says to Caroline, and we'll find her together. Tony is so loving, and all he cares about is bringing Jess home. And so Caroline follows, and closes a door behind her that may never open again.

Inspired by the disturbing case of Charles Schmid, ‘the Pied Piper of Tucson’, Half in Love with Death is a heartfelt thriller that never lets up.

While the title - Half in Love with Death - is extremely misleading (this is a straight up contemporary, not anything paranormal) there's something about this book that tends to strike that naive, childlike nature hidden in each of us, where we just want to believe something, even though all the evidence points in the opposite direction.

I know pretty much nothing about the 1960's, not on a social basis at least. What was the status of women? What was life like in general? And yet, despite not knowing, the very thing that stood out to me in Half in Love With Death, is the same thing that annoyed me at times. 

"We all die." She stared at me. "You can't believe everything everyone tells you."

"I don't," I said, though I wanted to believe in things like that."

Jess was the bad sister and Caroline was the good one. Jess got thrown out of boarding school in three months because she stole liquor. Jess dyed her hair blonde with no ones permission. Jess smoked, Jess drank, Jess snuck out and now, Jess is missing.

With not even a goodbye to anyone, or even a note left lying around somewhere, The rumours are that Jess got into a red car with a boy and drove away. That's it. Poof.

Caroline's life is falling apart. Her mother seems to be having an affair. Her father turns to the bottle every time things get even a little hard. Her friends are fake - tattling to her parents and copying her poems. The only person who understands her is Tony. Tony, who everybody tells her is nothing but bad news and that she should stay away from him. Tony, who Caroline has been in love with since he first started dating her missing sister. 

And together, with the boy who can apparently defy death, Caroline starts looking for clues that will lead her to her sister. That is, if her sister even wants to be found...

As I said before, while I commend Emily Ross for giving me such an authentic feel of a young, naive girl's mind, I'm not exactly in a position to judge was lifestyles were like in the 1960's, I just don't know if it should offend me, or amaze me that people were so brazen and yet not back then.

Caroline's voice is only I can only assume is authentic, and it moved me. I completely bought that she believed what she was thinking, even if it at times, I couldn't believe she was thinking it. 

At the end of the day, it's a book I would definitely recommend. 4 stars.

QUOTES: 

"You said he was boring."

"I did, but things changed. It's complicated for us. You can't expect me to not feel what I feel just because of what you feel. That wouldn't be fair, would it?"

Reaction: Um, Wow. Do you say that to your friends. Really?

"Remember I told you that the you were as pretty as May?" he finally said. "The only thing she has over you is her hair." he leaned close. "I'm going to let you in on a little secret. If you dye your hair blonde, you'll get Billy back."

"Tony's an expert at hair dyeing," she said. "He likes his girls to look a certain way."

Reaction: Just a slight comment to you, Tony: We girls aren't here to 'look a certain way' for you. Suck it up. What you want doesn't really matter, so don't go around changing what girls look like just so you can jack off more.

"The thing is, once you don't fear death, it loses its power over you. You live life differently."

Reaction: I guess...

Follow the Half In Love With Death by Emily Ross Blog Tour and don't miss anything! Click on the banner to see the tour schedule.

Emily Ross's YA mystery/thriller HALF IN LOVE WITH DEATH is forthcoming from Merit Press(12/2015). She received a 2014 MCC Artist Fellowship finalist award for fiction, and is a graduate of Grub Street's Novel Incubator program. When not writing she works as a web developer and is the mother of two millennials. Find out more at http://www.emilyrosswrites.com/ or https://twitter.com/emilyross816.

US ONLY

a Rafflecopter giveaway