Eden's Wish (ARC Review)

Eden's Wish | M. Tara Crowl

Published by: Disney Hyperion, September 1st 2015

Genre: MG, Fantasy, Jinn

Pages: 272

Format: Ebook

Source: Disney Hyperion, via Netgalley

All twelve years of Eden's life have been spent in an antique oil lamp. She lives like a princess inside her tiny, luxurious home, but to Eden,the lamp is nothing but a prison. She hates being a genie. All she wants, more than anything, is freedom.

When Eden finds a gateway to Earth inside the lamp, she takes her chance. In a moment, she's entered the world she loves. And this time, she won't be sent back after three wishes.

Posing as the new kid at a California middle school, Eden revels in all of Earth's pleasures-but quickly learns that this world isn't as perfect as she always thought it was. Eden soon finds herself in the middle of a centuries-old conflict between powerful immortals. A ruthless organization run by a former genie will stop at nothing to acquire the lamp and its power-including hurting Tyler and Sasha, the mortal friends who have given Eden a home. To save her friends-and protect the magic of the lamp-Eden will have to decide once and for all where she belongs. 

My quest for the Jinn book of my heart continues...

I liked Eden's Wish. It wasn't exactly as I hoped it'd be, but it was very cute and I enjoyed it. It seemed to take a while to get going, into the main plot with the Electric and the loyal genies (which actually felt less important to the book than the friendships Eden made, which wasn't great), but I liked Eden enough to continue. This book never had that magical middle grade feel to me, and I wasn't over-fussed on Tyler and Sasha, but there was still a lot about it that I liked - mostly Eden and her wonder at everything on Earth, and how headstrong she was. I never proper loved it but I'd still recommend. If you're looking for a sweet Genie story, definitely read Eden's Wish.

Characters ★★★☆☆

Setting/world-building ★★★☆☆

Writing ★★★☆☆

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For The Right to Learn (ARC Review)

For The Right To Learn | Rebecca Langston-George & Janna Bock

Published by: Capstone Press, September 1st 2015

Genre: Childrens, Picture Book, Non-Fiction, Biography

Pages: 42

Format: Ebook

Source: Capstone, via Netgalley

She grew up in a world where women were supposed to be quiet. But Malala Yousafzai refused to be silent. She defied the Taliban's rules, spoke out for education for every girl, and was almost killed for her beliefs. This powerful true story of how one brave girl named Malala changed the world proves that one person really can make a difference.

*A fascinating story of peace, bravery, and non-violent protest*Malala Yousafzai won the Noel Peace Prize*An inspiring, illustrated nonfiction picture book for young readers

Powerful and vitally important, For The Right To Learn makes Malala's story accessible to the young generation who need it most.

I'm really sad that the galley I got hard a LOT of overlapped text formatting, which made whole pages impossible to read, because I would have loved to read the whole thing. But even with parts illegible, the message was stark and the story unforgettable. It reads like horrifying fiction, like the darkest most scared parts of someone's imagination, but for it to be true is unbelievable for someone like me, who has never lived with conflict or the threat of the Taliban. I hope this book will educate others like me, and reach those who may have heard the name Malala Yousafzai but never known the true extent of her bravery.

The art of this story is beautiful and accentuates the story perfectly. These pages are my favourite, art-wise, even if the story it's telling is God-awful. There's just something beautiful about the colours.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world building ★★★★☆

Writing ★★★★★

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Polaris (ARC Review)

Avalon: Polaris | Mindee Arnett

Published by: Balzer+Bray, January 20th 2015

Genre: YA, Science Fiction, Space

Pages: 432

Format: Ebook

Source: Balzer+Bray, via Edelweiss

Jeth Seagrave and his crew of mercenaries are pulled into one last high-stakes mission in this breathtaking sequel to Mindee Arnett’s fascinating and fast-paced sci-fi thriller Avalon.

Jeth Seagrave and his crew are on the run. The ITA, still holding Jeth’s mother in a remote research lab, is now intent on acquiring the metatech secrets Jeth’s sister Cora carries inside her DNA, and Jeth is desperate to find the resources he needs to rescue his mother and start a new life outside the Confederation. But the ITA is just as desperate, and Jeth soon finds himself pursued by a mysterious figure hell-bent on capturing him and his crew—dead or alive.

With nowhere to run and only one play left, Jeth enters into a bargain with the last person he ever thought he’d see again: Daxton Price, the galaxy’s newest and most fearsome crime lord. Dax promises to help Jeth, but his help will only come at a price—a price that could mean sacrificing everything Jeth has fought for until now.

The conclusion to the story Mindee Arnett began in her acclaimed novelAvalon, Polaris is a dangerous journey into the spaces between power and corruption, life and death, the parts of ourselves we leave behind, and the parts we struggle to hold on to. 

I loved Avalon, LOVED it, so I heaped a bunch of expectations on this book. I think that's why I put it off for so long. And Polaris actually wasn't quite as good as the first book. But I did still love it, for the characters, the spaceships, and the plots. 

What I loved:

- The romance, oddly enough. I was never overly fussed on Sierra in Avalon but I really liked her in this book, and I loved her and Jeth's relationship, his she was a kind of moral compass for him.

- Avalon and Polaris themselves. I think they're probably my favourite ships in all YA sci fi.

- The relationships between all the crew and how they grew

- The high octane plot, the crazy high stakes, and the plot. Everything was action packed and thrilling and felt totally life or death. This series is one of the most exciting I've read.

What I didn't like:

- Empyria and the Pyreans. I mean, like, what the fuck? This was just so bizarre and weird and I didn't know what to do during those chapters. It just didn't fit in with the rest of this serious sci-fi series. It cheapened the ending for me.

- Marian. I'm not a fan of her at all and preferred everything when she was gone.

Characters ★★★★☆

Setting/world-building ★★★★★

Writing ★★★★☆

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Reading Round Up (86)

Reading round up is a weekly journal where I record my daily reading progress, my thoughts on each book as I read it, and any books I've acquired during the week. 

10th August

I read 28% of A Riddle In Ruby by Kent Davis, finishing it, and this was fricking awesome. Can't wait to see where the next book takes Ruby!!

I also started Polaris by Mindee Arnett, sequel to my fave ever Avalon!!! I read 30% and I love it so much.

11th August

Today I read another 30% of Polaris, which is awesome. But I had some spare time to read and wanted a break from all the angst of Polaris, so I started Daughters Unto Devils by Amy Lukavics (20% read.) Kinda thought she was going to be pregnant with the devil's child for a few chapters there but that's not the case. Shame.

12th August

I finished Polaris (40%), and wow that went bizarre with the alien thing. Loved everything else but that totally undermined the rest of the story. 

I also read 13% of Daughters Unto Devils, which is fairly okay. I'm not a hundred percent sure this is a horror novel, as I was led to believe. I'm a third in and the only horrific thing to happen is the treatment of women in this era.

13th August

Today I decided I wanted to finish Daughters Unto Devils, and since it's fairly short, it was achievable. I read 82% and the ending was a thousand times better than the rest of it. I did get bored, but that's because nothing happened for a while, but that seems to be par for the course with YA horror.

Oh, and I also read 5% of Cities and Thrones by Carrie Patel. Mostly I wanted to start this because I know it'll be slow going for the first third until I proper get into it and I want to finish it by the end of the month.

14th August

I started This Monstrous Thing (26% read), which is not as good as I'd expected. And I read another 5% of Cities and Thrones, which seems to be the most amount of book I can read before my mind wanders.

15th August

Okay I read like 16% of This Monstrous Thing and I'm just not feeling it at all. It's slow and I don't care about anything that's happening so DNF.

16th August

*major grumbling*

I started Undertow by Michael Buckley, which I thought would be awesome but turned out to be not. I hated it within 9% and DNFed. Which makes two, in two days, consecutively. Yay~~~

Failing that, I started The Unquiet by Mikaela Everett (27%), and I'm having much better luck with it. Thank God.

Books finished this week: 3
Books DNF'd this week: 2

For review:

This didn't sound terrible and it's LGBT inclusive so I thought I'd give it a shot. It's pretty short too, so it shouldn't be so bad. I hope. I don't historically love alice in wonderland retellings, though, and the publisher has been hit or miss for me. Hoping this hits.

I have friends that like it, and although it sounds too close to Angelfall for my liking, I'm assuming the non-post-apoc thing will set it apart. Plus it was on read now and I have no will power against that.

Night Owls (4.5 STARS) + a guest post from Jenn Bennet

This Monstrous Thing (DNF)

Undertow (DNF)

Top Five Reasons to Swoon Over Jack Vincent of Night Owls + ARC Review

I am crazy happy to have a guest post from Jenn Bennett, author of Night Owls, on Syntax Reviews today. I read this book in a blur and loved everything about it - especially Jack. (He's super cute but swoony at the same time and if you want to know more about him, this post is for you.)

Top Five Reasons to Swoon Over Jack Vincent of Night Owls

 No matter what you’re looking for in a hero, there’s practically a smorgasbord of hot boys in YA literature. Want a tough footballer with a heart of gold or the shy guy who can write all the poetry to melt your heart? What about the damaged rich kid with the horrible abusive parents or that cute boy next door with one month to live? You found him, you read him, you wept all the tears, and now you’re ready for your next book boyfriend. Could Jack be the one? Let’s find out, shall we?

…………….

Reason #5: Jack Vincent is an anonymous seventeen-year-old graffiti artist who’s been spray-painting enormous gold words across San Francisco (BEGIN, FLY, BELONG, JUMP) under the Golden Apple tag, attracting attention of local media—not to mention the police. No one can figure out what the words mean, exactly, but he’s got the whole city buzzing. (Admit it: this is kind of cool.) No one knows who is is…until my heroine, Bex, meets him on a midnight bus and puts two and two together.

Reason #4: One word: pompadour. I mean, come on. Bex jokingly describes Jack as the offspring of David Beckham and James Dean. He wears a vintage leather jacket, has great boots, and is into Rockabilly music, which will always be cool.

Reason #3: Think you’ve got him pegged as a rebel and a bad boy? Think again. He’s a vegetarian and a self-described “really bad Buddhist.” Jack’s dealing with something super depressing at home. I can’t tell you what it is, because that would be a huge spoiler. But trust me, it’s not fun or easy. A lot of people in his situation might have reacted differently—lashed out, drowned their troubles in drugs or alcohol, given up trying at school. Instead, Jack started going to meditation classes at the local Zen Center. He’s not very good at being a Buddhist, which he fully admits, and his teachers probably wouldn’t be down with his whole secret graffiti agenda, but he tries.

Reason #2: The boy can kiss. If Jack and Bex’s first kiss doesn’t melt you into a pool of goo on the floor, then you aren’t alive. (Did I mention that this book is sex-positive? It is. Big time.)

Reason #1: He’s madly, passionately, CRAZY in love with Bex. He knows it from the first time they meet on the bus. He does stupid (illegal) things to prove himself to her and get her attention.  He doesn’t try to make her jealous with other girls, and when something from his past comes up, he immediately clears it up, because he does not want to lose Bex. And best of all, he likes Bex for who she is—quirky, kind of weird, kind of dark, and a girl who’s got her own agenda and goals. He supports that. He’s cool with that. Heck, he even helps her.  That’s swoon-worthy gold, right there, folks.

His name is Jack Vincent, and he’s your next book boyfriend!

Night Owls | Jenn Bennett
Published in the US as The Anatomical Shape of A Heart

Published by: Simon & Schuster UK, August 13th 2015

Genre: YA, Contemporary

Pages: 272

Format: Paperback

Source: Simon & Schuster UK

Feeling alive is always worth the risk.

Meeting Jack on the Owl—San Francisco's night bus—turns Beatrix's world upside down. Jack is charming, wildly attractive...and possibly one of San Francisco's most notorious graffiti artists.

But Jack is hiding a piece of himself. On midnight rides and city rooftops, Beatrix begins to see who this enigmatic boy really is.

I wanted to read Night Owls pretty much as soon as I learned the main character was into anatomy and wanted to get into a Willed Body department to draw the cadavers. That's not the kind of heroine you find everyday. I hoped - rightly! - that her interest in anatomy would only be the start of this book's charm and quirks. I did not, however, expect Jack.

The love interest in this made me swoon and squee and make a tonne of ridiculously cheesy grins. He flips from being adorable, to being haunted, to being hot as hell without warning and it totally took me off guard. He charmed me, well and truly, and because of Jack I fell in love with Night Owls (I do think the US title fits the book better than ours but I'm nitpicking.) Reading this book just felt real, in a way I've wanted a bunch of contemporary books to before - but they never did, and this book achieved the impossible. I loved everything, the anatomy stuff, the family issues (what? I liked issues? Who has this book made me into?) because they weren't run of the mill, because they were interesting.

Other things I liked: Bex's gay brother (thank you for the diversity), Jack's mentally ill sister (also thank you for the inclusion), kids using public transport (because hella realistic), how every minor character had their own life (Bex's boss was my fave), and how the relationship grew at a natural pace, sparked merely by curiosity about Jack's nighttime activities (I wanted to know EVERYTHING about him too.)

This book was everything I hoped for and never expected to get. My favourite contemporary, for the swoony love interest, the awesome and complex and wholly interesting main character, and for the romance. Dear lord, the romance. Read this immediately.

Characters ★★★★★

Setting/world building ★★★☆☆

Writing ★★★★☆

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