The Beautiful and The Cursed (Review)

The Dispossessed: The Beautiful and The Cursed | Page Morgan
YA, Historical, Urban Fantasy

Characters ★★★★★

Setting ★★★★★

Writing Style ★★★★☆

After a bizarre accident, Ingrid Waverly is forced to leave London with her mother and younger sister, Gabby, trading a world full of fancy dresses and society events for the unfamiliar city of Paris.

In Paris there are no grand balls or glittering parties, and, disturbingly, the house Ingrid’s twin brother, Grayson, found for them isn’t a house at all. It’s an abandoned abbey, its roof lined with stone gargoyles that could almost be mistaken for living, breathing creatures.

And Grayson has gone missing.

No one seems to know of his whereabouts but Luc, a devastatingly handsome servant at their new home.

Ingrid is sure her twin isn’t dead—she can feel it deep in her soul—but she knows he’s in grave danger. It will be up to her and Gabby to navigate the twisted path to Grayson, a path that will lead Ingrid on a discovery of dark secrets and otherworldly truths. And she’ll learn that once they are uncovered, they can never again be buried.

REVIEW

Entrancing, beautiful, magic.

If you listen closely you will hear the sound of my heart breaking. And look to your left, on the ground there you will see me rocking back and forth whimpering. And to your right is the shattered remnants of my e-reader because THAT ENDING WAS NOT OKAY. Goddammit, Luc, get your shit together.

But, the review! Ah yes, the review. I'll do that now.

The Beautiful and The Cursed tells the story of Ingrid and her family who have recently relocated to Paris from London following a social disgrace caused by Ingrid. To cut a long and marvelous story short, they move into an abbey adorned with gargoyles and Ingrid discovers that Luc, one of their staff, is a living gargoyle - one of The Dispossessed - charged to protect all humans in the grounds of the abbey by the Angelic Order.

Page Morgan weaves a fantastical tale of thrills and terror that will have you gasping. Her writing is beautiful; she has a way of taking historical fiction, blending it seamlessly with fantasy/supernatural, and delivering a book that isn't hindered by the details and dialogue of a time gone by, but enhanced by it. 

The characters are equally infuriating, endearing, and lovable, and I adore all of them. I was quite surprised by how attached I got to characters I weren't expecting to - Gabby, for example. I loved her tenacity and her drive, her stubborn refusal to allow anything to take her down. While Ingrid gave the story heart and compassion, Gabby gave it fight.

I love every single thing about this book. Every. Single. Thing. Is it Spring 2014 yet?

Simply put, this book will leave you breathless.

Vicious (ARC preview review)

Vicious | V. E. Schwab

Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, AWESOME.

A masterful, twisted tale of ambition, jealousy, betrayal, andsuperpowers, set in a near-future world.
Victor and Eli started out as college roommates—brilliant, arrogant, lonely boys who recognized the same sharpness and ambition in each other. In their senior year, a shared research interest in adrenaline, near-death experiences, and seemingly supernatural events reveals an intriguing possibility: that under the right conditions, someone could develop extraordinary abilities. But when their thesis moves from the academic to the experimental, things go horribly wrong.
Ten years later, Victor breaks out of prison, determined to catch up to his old friend (now foe), aided by a young girl whose reserved nature obscures a stunning ability. Meanwhile, Eli is on a mission to eradicate every other super-powered person that he can find—aside from his sidekick, an enigmatic woman with an unbreakable will. 
Armed with terrible power on both sides, driven by the memory of betrayal and loss, the archnemeses have set a course for revenge—but who will be left alive at the end?

Gahh!! What a place to end a preview!

I only got 100 pages of this (Thank you Tor/Forge & Macmillan, and Netgalley) and as is the nature of previews I've only read a small part of this book so cannot fully review it. But I will say certain things about it.

I had a couple of issues at the beginning. It switches times a lot - some chapters are 'A Week Ago', some are 'Two Days Ago', but once you get into the story you don't even notice the changes and it becomes less of a problem. Another thing is sometimes the scenes are quite short, and with it flipping between times it has a hurried, stunted feel about it in the beginning. It's not detrimental to plot exactly but it doesn't flow as well as it could at times.

And that's all the niggly bits out of the way. Here's all the amazing stuff!

Things I adored:

It blurs the lines of superheroes/supervillains. There's no bad guys and good guys here, just guys. And I'm assuming there will be more of this in the rest of the book, which I need RIGHT NOW.

The characters are rich, deep, and individual. Can't say I've ever read a Victor or an Eli before; they're absolutely unique.

The method of becoming ExtraOrdinary! This is my favourite thing about this book. Granted at times it's a little biology-science-heavy for those of us who aren't Super Intelligent Science Folks, but it's remarkably easy to understand. So, to become an EO - someone with superhuman abilities - you must have had a NDE (Near Death Experience), meaning to become Superawesome, you've gotta die. And then come back. Easy, right? Nope. The idiot boys of Vicious almost kill themselves more times than is recommended (that is to say, it's not recommended at all. Don't do it, folks!)

Weirdly, I like how selfish Victor is. He still cares about people, and he helps them out when they need it, but he's incredibly selfish, and it's not necessarily presented in a negative way. People are selfish, that's just the reality of it, and Victor is a human being. He has flaws, and mighty big ones at that, but he's real and human. Eli, on the other hand, presents a flawless front, someone with no cracks or secrets or faults, and in the first 100 pages of this book Eli comes across as emotionless, desperate, and frankly unhinged - all the traits of a good supervillain? Well, we'll find out in the rest of the book.

To sum up: freaking awesome plot, unique characters, and a really cool concept. If I had to rate it now, I'd give it between 3.5 to 4 stars, but I suspect by the end of the book I'll be raving about it and throwing five stars to the wind.

Now someone give me the full book before I implode with desire.

Team Human (Review)

Team Human | Sarah Rees Brennan & Justine Larbalestier

YA, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal, FUN!

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting ★★★☆☆

Writing Style ★★★☆☆

Mel and Cathy and Anna have passed vampires on the street, and sat near them in cinemas, but they don’t know any. Vampires stick to their own kind, and Mel and her friends hang out with other humans—until a vampire boy in a bizarre sun-proof suit shows up at school and captures Cathy’s heart.
Mel is horrified. Can she convince Cathy that life with a vampire is no life at all? Should she? And then all her assumptions about vampires are turned on their head when she meets Kit, a boy who makes her laugh—a boy with a very unusual family history.
Will Mel’s staunch anti-vampire stance jeopardise her closest friendships? And where does Kit fit in? In the end, who will choose... Team Human?

REVIEW

This book is fun, super fun! Seriously, read it. It's such an enjoyable book.

I laughed, I didn't cry (nope, not even once!), and I was totally on Team Human as opposed to Team Vampire. And even though the book is written from the perspective of a girl completely anti-vampire, it presents the pros and cons of both remaining human and transitioning, and it makes you question your own stance on the whole thing. But don't think this is a serious, angsty novel. Oh no! It's humorous, intelligent, and (I use it again) fun.

I wasn't sure what to expect of Team Human, partly because I've only seen co-written books done well once before, and partly because vampires have been way overdone, but this put a cool twist on the whole vampire thing and told it from a different angle.

But do you know what I love about this book? The friendships. Team Human is very much about the complex relationships between friends and how the decision of one friend can affect another. I could literally jump for joy because A VAMPIRE BOOK NOT ABOUT CRAPPY ROMANCE! Okay, it's totally about crappy romance as well but that's beside the point. It's about more than 'Oh, swoon! Attractive dead guy wants to court me!' It's about how important it is to research before jumping into major decisions, it's about supporting your friends even if you disagree with their desires, it's about letting your friends fly the nest even if they are your babies.

I did not expect to find a pretty morally prolific tale between the pages of a vampire romance parody. I did not expect lessons to be learnt. I did not expect this book to be as seriously good as it was. (I'm a vampire cynic, bite me.)

To sum up: A vampire story that I haven't read a thousand times before in other books? Huh. I'm in shock.

[Oh and isn't the Francis on the cover just creepy as hell??]

Reboot (Review)

Reboot: Reboot | Amy Tintera
YA, Sci-Fi, Dystopia

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting ★★★★☆

Writing Style ★★★★☆

Five years ago, Wren Connolly was shot three times in the chest. After 178 minutes she came back as a Reboot: stronger, faster, able to heal, and less emotional. The longer Reboots are dead, the less human they are when they return. Wren 178 is the deadliest Reboot in the Republic of Texas. Now seventeen years old, she serves as a soldier for HARC (Human Advancement and Repopulation Corporation).

Wren’s favorite part of the job is training new Reboots, but her latest newbie is the worst she’s ever seen. As a 22, Callum Reyes is practically human. His reflexes are too slow, he’s always asking questions, and his ever-present smile is freaking her out. Yet there’s something about him she can’t ignore. When Callum refuses to follow an order, Wren is given one last chance to get him in line—or she’ll have to eliminate him. Wren has never disobeyed before and knows if she does, she’ll be eliminated, too. But she has also never felt as alive as she does around Callum.

The perfect soldier is done taking orders.

REVIEW

Exciting, dark, heart-wrenching.

Oh, this book! *sighs* This book!

Reboot took everything I thought I knew about robots, zombies, people who have come back from the dead, and turned it on its head. It's a pretty common thing to think of people who have returned from the dead as emotionless machines, and the beginning of this book goes along with that. Wren, a girl who was dead for 178 minutes before coming back, is a thoughtless cog in the machine known as HARC. She is a soldier and she follows every order without a second thought or a single question. Pretty in-keeping with what I expected.

But then a new Reboot, comes to the facility - a guy who was dead for only 22 seconds - and he shakes up Wren's world. He still has a lot of human emotions, he questions everything, and he refuses to carry out orders to kill. He changes her, makes her question things she hadn't before. Amy Tintera creates a world where the undead can have emotions, thoughts, and desires like a living person. Personally I haven't read anything like this before.

It's a lot sci-fi, a little bit dystopian, and a hell of a lot of 'Lets kill the establishment'. From start to finish I enjoyed it. It was thrilling, chilling, and other things that end with illing. As a long time fan of science fiction I adored how this book read and I flew through it. Wren was a unique MC, and Callum was an adorably human Reboot love interest. The antagonists were not your usual antagonists, and the concept of the book should have felt overdone but didn't.

Overall, a fresh science fiction with heart-warming emotion and a chilling danger. Would recommend to everyone who likes their books edgy and different.

Unpoken (Gif review)

The Lynburn Legacy: Unspoken | Sarah Rees Brennan
YA, Urban Fantasy, Paranormal

Characters ★★★★★

Setting ★★★★★

Writing Style ★★★★★

Review:

IF YOU WANT ME I'LL JUST BE IN THE FETAL POSITION ON THE FLOOR CRYING BECAUSE JARED.

I can't write. I can't emotions. I can gif!

Beware all ye who enter here. There be spoilers abound.