Category: Reviews

Deity by Jennifer L. Armentrout Book Review

Leave a comment

Deity by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Fire flower

You Can Find the Book At:

GoodReads

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

Author Website

GoodReads Summary:

“History is on repeat, discount and things didn’t go so well the last time. “

Alexandria isn’t sure she’s going to make it to her eighteenth birthday–to her Awakening. A long-forgotten, sick fanatical order is out to kill her, and if the Council ever discovers what she did in the Catskills, she’s a goner… and so is Aiden. 

If that’s not freaky enough, whenever Alex and Seth spend time “training”–which really is just Seth’s code word for some up-close and personal one-on-one time–she ends up with another mark of the Apollyon, which brings her one step closer to Awakening ahead of schedule. Awesome. 

But as her birthday draws near, her entire world shatters with a startling revelation and she’s caught between love and Fate. One will do anything to protect her. One has been lying to her since the beginning. Once the gods have revealed themselves, unleashing their wrath, lives will be irrevocably changed… and destroyed. 

Those left standing will discover if love is truly greater than Fate…

My Review:

Please note that while this review will NOT have spoilers for this novel, it most likely will have spoilers for the first novel, Half Blood. You can read the review for that here. It may also include spoilers for the second book, Pure, the review of which can be read here. 

Is it possible to give this book 6 stars out of 5? Seriously. I keep thinking that this series canNOT possibly get better, and it totally gets better.

This one is SO steamy, and what I have waited for has finally happened, but not easily, of course. Sigh. I need to move on to the next book.

This book feels like the climax, which makes me wonder what happens in Apollyon to need Sentinel as the final book. There is so much build up, so much tension, so much electricity, and Alex is smack in the middle of it. She has so much to deal with. Her mother and best friend are dead. People hate her. She has to go Council, where half bloods aren’t exactly welcome. She is madly in love with Aidan but her bond with Seth makes her attracted to him as well. She has to train as a Sentinel and an Apollyon, and oh yeah, there’s that whole daimon plan that her mother told her about before she died. No big deal.

So all of that put together really makes for a tense filled novel. One minute, you’re sighing as Aidan and Alex share an intimate scene (I am so rooting for Aidan St. Delphi in this series), and you’re reluctantly also sighing when Seth and Alex share a scene. You’re on the edge of your seat as Alex is treated terribly at the Council and you know there is so much more to it than you know. Her life is threatened, she almost dies. SO much is going on in this novel that it was a wonder that I didn’t finish it in a couple hours.

I really loved that the problems of the books are continuing. New problems are coming up, but its an extension of the previous problems. Jennifer Armentrout is creating a great series by creating this building issue that eventually is going to explode. I keep thinking that maybe things will be figured out and then the world gets even more mysterious and slipperier. She really knows how to build the story for you, so you can’t help but want to continue. I finished this at 3:30 am, and it took a lot of resolve to tell myself to go to bed, and that I could read the next book in the morning. She is that addicting.

Plus, can I just add how seriously sexy both Aidan and Seth are? I mean, I’m all about Aidan St. Delphi, but Seth has his moments where you’re like, “I seriously hate to love this guy.” Props to Jennifer L. Armentrout for creating these characters that make me want to fan myself.

Read these books, seriously. I’m moving on to book four now. Ciao!

Rating:

5 out of 5 stars

Book of the Week: 3:59

1 Comment

Last week, illness I had the chance to meet the awesome author Gretchen McNeil again. I have had a chance to read her book Possess but her brand new book, 3:59, had just released. She had talked it up at the Ontario Teen Book Fest in May so I was definitely ready to dive into this novel.

The wait was worth it, and I definitely am glad that I picked up this book, and you will be too!

3:59 by Gretchen McNeil

15836516

GoodReads / Barnes and Noble / Amazon / Book Depository 

Genre:

young adult, science fiction, thriller

Part of a Series?:

Nope

You May Like if You Liked:

Unremembered by Jessica Brody, Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Age Recommendation:

This is a new feature on the Book of the Week. As most of the reviews I do are YA, and YA is starting to break apart into YA and NA, and that sort of thing, I will be recommending an appropriate age for the books. Keep in mind this is MY personal recommendation and it varies on the maturity of the reader. 

12+: Mild Violence

Plot Summary:

From GoodReads:

Josie Byrne’s life is spiraling out of control. Her parents are divorcing, her boyfriend Nick has grown distant, and her physics teacher has it in for her. When she’s betrayed by the two people she trusts most, Josie thinks things can’t get worse.

Until she starts having dreams about a girl named Jo. Every night at the same time—3:59 a.m.

Jo’s life is everything Josie wants: she’s popular, her parents are happily married, and Nick adores her. It all seems real, but they’re just dreams, right? Josie thinks so, until she wakes one night to a shadowy image of herself in the bedroom mirror – Jo. 

Josie and Jo realize that they are doppelgängers living in parallel universes that overlap every twelve hours at exactly 3:59. Fascinated by Jo’s perfect world, Josie jumps at the chance to jump through the portal and switch places for a day.

But Jo’s world is far from perfect. Not only is Nick not Jo’s boyfriend, he hates her. Jo’s mom is missing, possibly insane. And at night, shadowy creatures feed on human flesh.

By the end of the day, Josie is desperate to return to her own life. But there’s a problem: Jo has sealed the portal, trapping Josie in this dangerous world. Can she figure out a way home before it’s too late?

From master of suspense Gretchen McNeil comes a riveting and deliciously eerie story about the lives we wish we had – and how they just might kill you.

The Bad:

I honestly just wish it would have gone on longer. I really wanted to get to know the characters more and really dive into the differences between Jo and Josie, and the different parents and Nick and all of that. I think that I wanted more character exploration in this book. I am so used to books that are multiple books in a series that I was surprised to have a story wrapped up in one book and I had to tweet Gretchen to make sure that this was just one book. So I think maybe if I go back another time around, I may find more to the character development than I saw the first time around because I was prepared for it to happen so fast.

The Good:

Okay, first off, I have to really give Gretchen a round of applause for pulling this off. Currently I’m writing a novel where I bounce back and forth between the past and the present, with the same group of characters, and its been really tough for me. But I can’t imagine having to write two parallel universes with characters that have to be the same, except with small differences. That sounds like a headache to me, and I know that it can’t have been easy to write and I seriously applaud her for that.

And I think that’s what really makes this book so intriguing and addicting at first, because you’re so curious at the small details and at the mystery that it builds. You know that each side is different but its interesting to find out exactly how each one is different. I think that Gretchen really is so subtle with creating each side, that you are caught right off the bat, because you’re just dying to know what is going on. We figure out that there are two different worlds, with these two girls that look exactly alike, and yet we don’t know anything else. I don’t know how many other people were so apprehension and a little scared when Jo and Josie decide to switch so easily. They don’t know anything about each other’s worlds and they jump so easily to switch places. That is insane! But I think that’s what’s great. We aren’t told everything so we’re clutching the pages in excitement as these girls take on the unknown.

I also love how intelligent Gretchen made these characters, especially Josie and her friend Penelope. I think it took a lot of research and some brain power for Gretchen to have this wrapped up in so much physics. My head was reeling at all of the physics talk but she both made it incredibly confusing and mind boggling but made it so it was totally believable that this sort of thing could exist. I really think its great that Gretchen made her characters so intelligent and capable of understanding these kind of phenomenons. A few days ago, it was discussed at a book event that, in YA literature mostly, strength in a female character is literal physical strength and the capabilities of being physically strong. I think that there is something to say when a character is incredibly smart and is able to save the day with the intelligence she wields.

Oh, and I am just going to say this: Gretchen’s ability to create two parallel Nicks, one who is sleazy and awful and you want to punch in the face, and the other who you won’t to throw against the wall and make out with, is awesome. That’s the magic of this book, that she is able to create all these doppelgängers and you are able to feel so differently to each one because of those subtle differences.

Lastly, I really enjoyed the story, especially since it wasn’t at all what I expected. I knew that it was science fiction, but I thought it was mostly going to focus on the idea of those two worlds existing, but what really comes forward from that is so surprising and super fun. Its all thrilling and scary, and I literally was breathing heavily because I didn’t know what was going to happen next. I was terrified. If a movie was made of this book, I would probably hide under the covers, and watch it with it was in the middle of the day, and the sun was shining. The story is exciting, unexpected and addicting. One minute you’re in a romance, the next in a drama and then its action packed. It has everything that a YA sci-fi novel needs, with that little added twist of thrill and it was fun to read.

Rating:

4.5 out of 5 Stars

Recommended or Not?:

Definitely. Gretchen is fun to read, and it was worth the time, even just for the unexpected twists and turns that kept happening in the book. Every time I felt like I had figured it out, I was totally wrong, and the book went veering in another direction. Definitely pick up this book, and head out to meet Gretchen, who is doing a TON of events soon!

*      *      *      *      *

I hope you enjoyed this week’s edition of the Book of the Week. Stay tuned in soon for more book reviews and a special guest interview with Gretchen herself!

Happy Reading everyone!

Stuck in Love Movie Review

1 Comment

Stuck in Love

stuck-in-love-poster

Rated:

Rated R for language, treat teen drug and alcohol use, and some sexual content

Directed By:

Josh Boone

Cast:

Lily Collins, Logan Lerman, Nat Wolff, Jennifer Connelly, Greg Kinnear, Kristen Bell, Liana Liberato

Find the rest on IMDB here.

IMDB Movie Synopsis:

An acclaimed writer, his ex-wife, and their teenaged children come to terms with the complexities of love in all its forms over the course of one tumultuous year.

Okay, I thought that was possibly the lamest synopsis ever so here is mine: William Borgens (Kinnear) is a published author and he’s always taught his children to love books and to love writing. Three years ago, his wife (Connelly) cheated on him and left him for another man, and yet he still holds on to her. His children, Samantha (Collins) and Rusty (Wolff) are both effected by this, of course, in vastly different ways. Rusty is a hopeless romantic, pining after a troubled girl, Katy (Liberato), while Samantha is cynical and doesn’t believe in love, and pushes away the advances of Louis (Lerman). The story is a course of a year as all three of them experience the different stages of love and how they change in that year.

My Review:

First off, can I just comment on the fact that this movie was like my YA hero dream? You have Lily Collins who plays Clary in The Mortal Instruments, Logan Lerman who plays Percy in Percy Jackson and now Nat Wolff who plays Isaac in the upcoming The Fault in Our Stars movie. So that was enough to make me want to watch it. Then all these people online started watching it out of nowhere, and I thought, okay, I have to get on board with this.

And I absolutely LOVED this movie. It was such a beautiful movie and a great story. There is realism in every part of the story. The dad holding on to the cheating ex-wife and unable to move on, the cynical daughter unable to accept the ideas of love and a son who wants nothing more than to find that love. Watching those stories unfold, watching them all go through hurt and heartbreak and love and all of that, was just a beautiful thing to watch.

The thing about the characters is that Josh Boone doesn’t hold back on the intelligence of all of them. Every single one of them is extremely intelligent in their own way and I think that’s why makes watching them make the wrong decisions or take the wrong turns so addicting, and so compelling. I think every actor and actress here has a lot of heart and does an amazing job capturing their characters.

I think Logan Lerman brings around the kind of performance that he has in Perks of Being a Wallflower and I think that he can really stand out in these kind of roles. Lily Collins really shines, and I’m not just saying that because she’s absolutely beautiful and I have a crush on her. I adored her as Clary Fray, and I don’t think anyone else could have been Clary Fray but I think this is more of a winning role for her. She was absolutely beautiful in this movie, and I think she stood out big time.I think she is really the highlight of this movie.  This is the first time I’ve ever seen Nat Wolff in anything besides pictures that John Green puts up of the TFiOS set, and he really captured my attention and my affection in this movie. He plays the awkward, sincere and lovable Rusty so well and I can’t imagine that he won’t be able to capture Isaac as well.

I love the adults as well, don’t get all cranky at me. I think the adults were an important part of the movie, especially Kinnear and Connelly as the parents. They were there, they had their own story to figure out but their story was so reflective on the stories that we got between Samantha and Louis and Rusty and Katy. I think that was the important part.

The music? Beautiful. There was just this indie sort of feel to it, combined with some songs that were recognizable. The music just seemed to fit so well with the movie and the story.

Loved the Stephen King cameo. I’m just saying.

I also just…I felt a real connection to how everything was just so wrapped in books and writing. William is a writer and he has inspired his children with books and writing. Samantha is about to become a published author (I had a mini fangirl attack at the thought of Lily Collins being an aspiring novelist), and Rusty is obsessed with Stephen King and with writing stories. Louis is a writer. The love that connects them all through stories and books was something that I couldn’t help but feel connected to. As a lover of books and of words and of writing on paper, I couldn’t help but understand how a book and a story could bring people together, whether it was a family or two people in love.

The only reason the movie doesn’t get 5 out of 5 is the predictability. It is a very predictable movie. It was beautiful and enjoyable to those with a hopeless romantic heart, who love to see pretty bows at the end of a movie about love (not in books though. I’m seriously sadistic when it comes to books…) but I love seeing romance. But you can almost predict what is going to happen in the end, and that might deter some people from liking it. But for me, it is still a wonderful story, and one that you enjoy even if you can already guess the ending.

Rating:

4 out of 5

*     *     *     *     *

Book of the Week – The 5th Wave

Leave a comment

Last week’s Book of the Week was Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, a book that left me feeling like I could never recover. It was an absolutely beautiful book, order and I just didn’t know how to keep moving on past that.

But books are my life, and I read fast, and of course, I keep reading. I’ve read about six books since then. But none of them were really fitting for the Book of the Week. Some of them were textbooks, even, but hey, I count those for my reading goal. I read them, they’re books, they count.

Anyway, I was reading today, in between class and homework, and I just finished this week’s (belated) Book of the Week not even twenty minutes ago, as I’m writing this.

Continue reading →