Friday, August 26, 2011

Book Blogger Hop (15) & Follow Friday (15)


 


Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books every Friday-Monday. It's a great opportunity to network and visit other blogs and meet new bloggers.

"Non-book related this week!! Do you have any pets?"
Yes, I have a cat and his name is Niko. He thinks he runs the world or something and can do whatever he wants. But that's okay because I love him to death.
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Follow Friday is a meme hosted by Parajunkiee's View. Basically, it is a meme to help you get blog followers. Check out her blog and the Featured Blogger of the week!

This weeks question:
"In books like the Sookie Stackhouse (True Blood) series the paranormal creature in question "comes out of the closet" and makes itself known to the world. Which mythical creature do you wish would come out of the closet, for real?" 
I honestly have no idea. I wouldn't want something scary that's going to kill everyone, but I guess not something boring either. And it'd have to be something semi-human looking so at least it could blend in. I think either vampires or werewolves, maybe even both. That'd be cool.

Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Review (17): City of Fallen Angels

City of Falling Angels 
by Cassandra Clare

Series: The Mortal Insturments, Book 4
Other Reviewed Titles: City of Bones, Book 1
Release Date: April 5, 2011
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing  Pages: 424
Source:
Bought
Challenge: None

The Mortal War is over, and Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She’s training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhuntrs are at peace at last. And -- most important of all -- Clary can finally call Jace her boyfriend.
But nothing comes without a price.
Someone is murdering the Shadowhunters who used to be in Valentine’s Circle, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second bloody war. Clary’s best friend, Simon, can’t help her. His mother just found out that he’s a vampire and now he’s homeless. Everywhere he turns, someone wants him on their side -- along with the power of the curse that’s wrecking his life. And whey’re willing to do anything to get what they want. At the same times he’s dating two beautiful, dangerous girls -- neither of which knows about the other.
When Jace begins to pull away from Clary without explaining why, she is forced to delve into the heart of the mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare. She herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace. 
Love. Blood. Betrayal. Revenge. The stakes are higher than ever in City of Fallen Angels.
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-- Might be spoiler-y if you haven’t read the first 3 in the TMI series --
Characters: Let me start with Simon. He is a badass vampire and an amazing friend. I wasn’t a really big fan of him before, but I think he’s starting to become one of my favorites, if not my favorite. I think he’s adjusting to being a vampire really well and I have a feeling he’s going to be very powerful. Isabelle’s also growing on me. I think she’s maturing and becoming kinder. She cares about Simon whether she wants to admit it or not. Jace is as emotionally damaged as he was in the first 3 books, if not more now. But I mean, that’s to be expected since he’s gone through so much. He doesn’t know who he is and he struggles because he doesn’t know where he belongs or if he’s good or bad. And last we have Clary. My opinion about her is constantly changing. I just wish she wasn’t so dependent on everyone else to always save her. I hope that changes when she’s gets more Shadowhunter training. Theres more, but this is way too long already hah...
Plot: I’ve loved this series since book one and continue to love it. I’m really glad she decided to continue and give us 3 more books. However, this one wasn’t my favorite of the four. It was kind of slow, but then again, it is the first book after the big battle so the new story is barely getting started. There was a lot of information we needed to learn and some new characters that needed to be introduced to us before any real action started. Once all of that stuff was out of the way, things really started to get good. Unfortunately, this took about 3/4 of the book to finally happen. The ending was really unexpected and I loved that. This book is filled with everything; romance, friendship, betrayal, mystery, suspense, supernatural, etc. 

Cover: The covers are all pretty much the same just different colors and characters on each, but I love that. I like it when book series’ follow a certain theme with their covers. 
Overall Impression: Amazing ending with an annoying cliffhanger. And I only say it was annoying because I have to wait a few months until I get to find out what happens next. It’ll be totally worth it though.
Rating: * * * * 1/2





Series:

Friday, August 19, 2011

Book Blogger Hop (14) & Follow Friday (14)

 


Book Blogger Hop is hosted by Jennifer at Crazy-for-Books every Friday-Monday. It's a great opportunity to network and visit other blogs and meet new bloggers.

"What's the longest book you've ever read?"
I'm not sure what the longest book I've ever read is. I think it might possibly be Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead though. That ones almost 600 pages and it's not one of those books where they combine 2 or 3 of the same series in one. I don't think I've read a book longer than that.
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Follow Friday is a meme hosted by Parajunkiee's View. Basically, it is a meme to help you get blog followers. Check out her blog and the Featured Blogger of the week!

This weeks question:
"If you could write yourself a part in a book, what book would it be and what role would you play in that book?"
If I could be in any book or series, I'd pick Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead or the Mortal Instruments by Cassandra Clare. Those are probably my two favorite series so it'd be cool to be in them. As for my role, I guess I'd be either a Dhampir, right? In TMI I'd want to be a powerful downworlder like Magnus and Camille, but I'd use my power for good obviously. 

Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Review (16): Falling for Hamlet

Falling for Hamlet
by Michelle Ray


Series: None
Other Reviewed Titles: None
Release Date: July 5, 2011
Publisher: Poppy
Pages: 368
Source: ARC from publisher
Challenge: 2011 OTS, 2011 DAC
Author Website: www.michelleraybooks.com
Meet Ophelia, high school senior, daughter of the Danish king’s most trusted adviser, and longtime girlfriend of Prince Hamlet. She lives a glamorous life and has a royal social circle, and her beautiful face is splashed across magazines and TV. But it comes with a price -- her life is dominated not only by Hamlet’s fame and his overbearing royal family but also by the paparazzi who hound them wherever they go.
After the sudden and suspicious death of his father, the king, Hamlet spirals dangerously toward madness, and Ophelia finds herself torn between loyalty to her boyfriend, her father, her country, and her true self. 
In this stunning contemporary retelling of Shakespeare’s Hamlet from Ophelia’s point of view, debut author Michelle Ray Brilliantly weaves together old and new. Filled with drama, romance, tragedy, and humor, Falling for Hamlet is a compulsively readable novel. And this time, Ophelia doesn’t die.
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Characters: The book focuses on Ophelia, her family, and the royal family. Ophelia’s father has worked as the King’s advisor for as long as she can remember so she lives at the castle and is close to the family, especially the prince. The poor girl is thrown into the spotlight just because she is the prince’s longtime girlfriend, but she handles it well (for the most part anyways). She is strong, funny, and clever. Her only fault is that she loved Hamlet too much. I don’t really blame her though because he was sweet, handsome, and funny and everyone else in the kingdom probably wanted to date him too. Unfortunately, he became drunk with revenge after the death of his father and that’s when everything started to go from wrong to worse. I could not stand the queen at all; all she cared about were appearances and nothing else. Claudius, the king’s brother and also his murderer, was awful and evil. Horatio, Hamlet and Ophelia’s best friend, was as loyal as anybody could be and he tried to help his two very best friends until the end. 
Plot: I have yet to read the original Hamlet by Shakespeare so I wasn’t really sure what to expect from this modern retelling of the classic, but I actually really enjoyed it. I’m not sure how accurate it is to the original, but it is definitely worth the read. The book is told by Ophelia, who this time does not die. There are 3 parts to each chapter, kind of like a past, present, and future type thing. At the beginning of each chapter Ophelia is being interviewed on a talk show about the events that took place after the king was killed, the middle is the actual story of what happened, and the end is Ophelia being interrogated by the police because they think she was responsible for everything that happened to the royal family after the kings death. I really liked how the chapters were organized and did not find it confusing at all despite everything that was going on. That being said, the action only really starts about half way through the book. There was suspense, mystery, romance, some supernatural, and so much more. It had a sad ending, but that’s the point of a tragedy, right?  

Cover: The cover isn’t really anything special. I don’t know…for me it doesn’t really represent what the book is about I guess. It’s kind of plain and boring, just two teenagers making out with a floating throne next to then…  
Overall Impression: I wish I had read Shakespeare’s version before this so that I knew what the original story was, but it was still a pretty good book. I think that if anyone’s a little apprehensive about reading the original, this could really help push them to want to.
Rating: * * * *