Review: Sweet Evil

Sweet Evil
By Wendy Higgins
Published: Mary 1st, 2012 by HarperTeen

What if there were teens whose lives literally depended on being bad influences?

This is the reality for sons and daughters of fallen angels.

Tenderhearted Southern girl Anna Whitt was born with the sixth sense to see and feel emotions of other people. She’s aware of a struggle within herself, an inexplicable pull toward danger, but Anna, the ultimate good girl, has always had the advantage of her angel side to balance the darkness within. It isn’t until she turns sixteen and meets the alluring Kaidan Rowe that she discovers her terrifying heritage and her willpower is put to the test. He’s the boy your daddy warned you about. If only someone had warned Anna.

Forced to face her destiny, will Anna embrace her halo or her horns?

(Goodreads)

I'm going to start off by saying that I loved this book.  Devoured it in only a few days.  It was a real surprise.

At first, I was pretty skeptical.  Anna wasn't my favorite main character, at least, not at the beginning.  But as I kept reading, I started to like her voice a lot more.

I enjoyed all of the characters.  I think Kaidan was the man reason why I liked this book so much.  It'd been a while since I had read about some sexy boy like him.  So, that's probably one of the major things that had attracted me and made me read it so much.

The dark side was really nice too.  Anna going all bad-girl wasn't very interesting to me, but I liked how all of the others worked.  They were all pretty good.  Well, all of the characters were good.  They were developed.

The take on angels and demons was interesting too.  Along with all of the history with the Dukes.  I didn't really like Kaidan's father, but that could have been because I didn't really see his motives.  Maybe there wasn't really a motive, or it could've been because of his nature, or whatever you want to call it.  But he was hated, which I'm sure was the intention.

I can't really think about what it was that had bothered me, if anything. (Okay, that's a lie.  I don't remember what I was saying just know.)

Overall, I like the book, and am interested in what will happen next.  One thing I would have liked better is if Anna had really just given up on Kaidan and had gotten together with what's his name (is it really bad that I can't remember his name?).  Anna and Kaidan have a thing, but she's a little too obsessed with him and it really really annoys me.

Right now, I'd rather this between 3 to 4 stars.

Review: Dark Eyes

Dark Eyes
by William Richter
Published: March 15, 2012 by Razorbill

Get ready for the vigilante girl detective of the next generation.

Wally was adopted from a Russian orphanage as a child and grew up in a wealthy New York City family. At fifteen, her obsessive need to rebel led her to life on the streets.

Now the sixteen-year-old is beautiful and hardened, and she's just stumbled across the possibility of discovering who she really is. She’ll stop at nothing to find her birth mother before Klesko—her dark eyed father—finds her. Because Klesko will stop at nothing to reclaim the fortune Wally’s mother stole from him long ago. Even if that means murdering his own blood. But Wallys had her own killer training, and she's hungry for justice.

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo for teens, this debut thriller introduces our next big series heroine!

(Goodreads)

I will start by saying that yes, I really enjoyed this book, but it confused me at some points.  Oh, and I vow to never look ahead in a book again.  If you look ahead in this book (a.k.a last 100 pages), you will ruin the story.

Moving on.  Wally is a tough girl who doesn't let much of her feelings show.  She is the leader of her little gang, and once lived a life everyone would want.  The reason why she abandons that is because she isn't comfortable with her life--that's what I got from it, at least.  What really nags me is the thing about her mom, which I can't really talk about 'cause that'd ruin the whole book.  Let's just say that I didn't understand everything about her mother's reasonings.

The story does flow a lot like The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (I know I'm horrible for basing my views on the movie) in that it switches from different important characters.

Richter did a good job at keeping the reader guessing--even down to the point that, after I formed a question, it was answered within pages.  I found that rather cool.  As for the writing, it wasn't too spectacular.  It fit well for the story, though, but it didn't really wow me.

For a lot of the plot, I didn't completely understand why stuff was happening, but I think those were the instances where my question was answered after a few pages.  And the pace wasn't too slow.  I guess you can say I devoured the book in about a week, I think.

I will definitely be getting the next book.  I can't wait to see what will happen with Wally now that so many things have happened.

Overall, I'd say this would be 4 stars.

White Cat by Holly Black

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they're all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn't got the magic touch, so he's an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He's noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he's part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

Pitches and image provided by goodreads.

The reason I read this was because I'd forgotten my book one day, and knew I'd get some reading done at school.  Plus, I'd been interested in this book for a while and finally got to reading it.

I really enjoyed this book. I liked the idea of people able to do different things through touch, and that there was a limited variety of different powers. And that it appears to be genetic.  But what I didn't like was the fact that it was hard to follow.  I forgot the drawbacks for the powers, especially the ones that were brought up a lot.  I felt that those points need to have been brought out more, instead of random glimpses of it.

Cassel himself ... well, it was obvious after a while that he had powers too.  But it's one of those things that an author can't really hide--not unless they're some sort of master.  Black didn't do so good at the secrets; they weren't well hidden, but that may or may not have been the point.  Really, it didn't bother me.


What did bother me was his brothers.  They were so uncaring!  Black definitely made sure that I didn't like them, but I did feel sorry for Barron at the end.  I wished that Cassel would feel more toward him, considering what had happened.  


I enjoyed the relationship between Lila and Cassel.  I just wished that Cassel's relationship with his previous girlfriend had been brought out.  Give them more depth, because his previous girlfriend (I forgot her name) was mentioned, but not really used.  One of those characters that wasn't really important.


Overall, I did like the plot, and the characters, no matter how evil they were to each other.  I didn't find any really noticeable flaws (none that kept with me, at least). I'd give this 4 stars.

Daughter of Smoke & Bone: Review

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

Pitch from goodreads. 


I have to say, I'm disappointed.  The beginning was really interesting, with everything Brimstone did, and what Karou did for him.  The names were a little hard to follow, but by page 100, I remembered everything.

I really loved the fact that I couldn't predict a whole lot.  Toward the end, there was one thing that I figured out, but it was after a lot of the flashbacks.  Otherwise, the secrets were all well kept, so bonus points for that.  I don't think I've read a book that managed to hide things so well.

What I didn't like was the insta-romance.  Karou and Akiva seemed to fall in love too quickly, and the same goes for Madrigal.  Granted, they are the same person. It was starting then that I started getting really annoyed with this book.  The next part that didn't help was the large jump from when Akiva realized who/what Karou was and when they did whatever (sorry, trying not to spoil stuff), to the end.  All that happened was interesting, but it was badly placed.  I wanted to read the story that was happening now, not the stuff that built up to it.

And now that I will go back to the good stuff, the background history was really good.  The mythology that powered Brimstone's world was really cool.  And I enjoyed all of the characters, even though I'd have preferred to see more of a few characters.  Karou was awesome at the beginning of the story, but once she met Akiva, she started going down for me.  She wasn't as ... funny, I guess, than the beginning.  She didn't say quip remarks like before, and started going into a more serious manner.  I guess that all could be put off as her character changing with all of the events, but I really didn't like her as much anymore.

It probably didn't help that she wasn't as focused on toward the very end.

If Karou had managed to keep her same personality from the beginning, and if the last hundred pages weren't filled with background information (more like filler), maybe I'd have enjoyed this a lot more.

Overall, the beginning was great, but the rest ... not so much.  And the very ending was horrid.  Nothing really changed from page 300 to 400.

I'm between (going goodreads rating) saying it was 'okay' and 'liking it'.  2.5 starts.

The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern review

The circus arrives without warning. No announcements precede it. It is simply there, when yesterday it was not. Within the black-and-white striped canvas tents is an utterly unique experience full of breathtaking amazements. It is called Le Cirque des Rêves, and it is only open at night.

But behind the scenes, a fierce competition is underway—a duel between two young magicians, Celia and Marco, who have been trained since childhood expressly for this purpose by their mercurial instructors. Unbeknownst to them, this is a game in which only one can be left standing, and the circus is but the stage for a remarkable battle of imagination and will. Despite themselves, however, Celia and Marco tumble headfirst into love—a deep, magical love that makes the lights flicker and the room grow warm whenever they so much as brush hands.

True love or not, the game must play out, and the fates of everyone involved, from the cast of extraordinary circus per­formers to the patrons, hang in the balance, suspended as precariously as the daring acrobats overhead.

I'm going to start off by saying that the pitch is a lie. It isn't a duel; it is a super long ... game, really.  The pace is slow, and really, I'd suggest not reading the pitches.  I didn't, or, at least, I don't remember them. Consider me lucky: my expectations weren't so high.

I did enjoy reading this. My only complaint is that the pace was way too slow.  It dragged a lot of the time, and there were scenes that I wanted to skip.  A lot of the chapters, though, do tie in to everything.  But I have a strong feeling that there are chapters that could be skipped, and the reader would still understand the ending.

Oh, and speaking of the ending: have you heard of The Outsiders by S. E. Hinton?  Well, the ending is similar to that.  I found a lot of things I could compare this to, like an anime I've been watching, and a movie I recently watched.  They were little aspects of the stories.

And now I go back to the story.  The main characters' father figures were rather ... odd.  I did, however, love Celia's relationship with her father.  Rather inspiring to my writer's side.  All of the relationships were well crafted, and the characters all distinct and interesting. The backgrounds to a good majority of the major characters were pretty cool, too.

The plot was very, very slow.  The writing weighed it down a lot; the descriptions were elaborate.  All of the pictures painted were beautiful, and a lot of the scenes were great.  But when those dull scenes popped up every few chapters, I would end up thinking about other things.  Which happened quite a lot.

Then there's the ending (actually talking about it now). It tied up everything rather nicely, in my opinion. Kind of sweet, too, at some places.

Overall, I would definitely recommend this to other people, but warn them about the slow pace. I'd give this a 4.0 rating. The pace was too slow for me, and some scenes were too boring, but I'd say everything else was great.

Unearthly by Cynthia Hand review

In the beginning, there's a boy standing in the trees . . . .

Clara Gardner has recently learned that she's part angel. Having angel blood run through her veins not only makes her smarter, stronger, and faster than humans (a word, she realizes, that no longer applies to her), but it means she has apurpose, something she was put on this earth to do. Figuring out what that is, though, isn't easy.

Her visions of a raging forest fire and an alluring stranger lead her to a new school in a new town. When she meets Christian, who turns out to be the boy of her dreams (literally), everything seems to fall into place—and out of place at the same time. Because there's another guy, Tucker, who appeals to Clara's less angelic side.

As Clara tries to find her way in a world she no longer understands, she encounters unseen dangers and choices she never thought she'd have to make—between honesty and deceit, love and duty, good and evil. When the fire from her vision finally ignites, will Clara be ready to face her destiny?

Pitch from goodreads.

I just finished this moments ago, so bare with my rather short review.

Overall, I enjoyed this book. A lot. Which is rather surprising. I always heard that this would be a horrible book (maybe because one friend who didn't like it doesn't like love triangles (yes, there is a love triangle)).

The writing's right up my alley: first person present tense. It was easy for me to slip into it. And the setting, I'm both familiar with: I'm a born-and-raised Californian, been to the San Francisco area, and have been to Jackson, Wyoming, and to the Grand Tetons. But some aspects I liked were the facts that it took place during the winter, the originality of the angel ordeal, how Clara was flawed (which was pointed out), and other things. (Like who she ends up with.)

(Make sure you don't skip to the ending like I do; I kind of regret it. But I'll end up doing it to another book.)

There's also how the characters' react. 90% of the time, I was happy/satisfied with everything. The characters were all real. I actually noticed that there were quirks to the characters. That's some major bonus points in my opinion.

I hated, though, Clara's views on cliques. Yes, people automatically form their cliques, but they aren't always labeled. She labels everyone, thinks about popularity, etc. That part really irked me and makes her feel shallow, because she thinks about how different angels are and their aspects every hundred pages.

But, that's my only complaint. I was absorbed in this book. The past two days, I read over half of the book. Which is surprising for me. I don't have any rants, nor will I rave too much. I recommend it to those who enjoy love triangles, angels, and ... yeah, that's basically it. The book's not too mushy for me to gag, and it isn't too slow. One of the best books I've read this year (which isn't saying much; I haven't read a whole lot this year).

I'd give this five stars.

Carrier of the Mark by Leigh Fallon

Their love was meant to be.
When Megan Rosenburg moves to Ireland, everything in her life seems to fall into place.  After growing up in America, she's surprised to find herself felling at home in her new school. She connects with a group of friends, and she is instantly drawn to darkly handsome Adam DeRis.
But Megan is about to discover that her feelings for Adam are tied to a fate that was sealed long ago--and that the passion and power that brought them together could be their ultimate destruction.

(Back of cover pitch.)




My review:
This was a hyped up read. I was excited to finally get this book because of two things: the fact it was published after inkpop (which I am on) and it sounded really cool. But after reading only the first page, I was weary of my good thoughts. I will say now that I only enjoyed two things: the setting and the idea.

Let me start by talking about the characters. For me, they were all 'meh.' Megan was developed, but she felt inconsistent in some places. She fears water, yet her first choice for somewhere to sit by herself is on a dock, with her feet dangling over water. Even I can freak out when it comes to walking on docks, because they move so easily because of the water. And then her thoughts about Adam and how she treated her friends were rather sad. She ignores nearly everyone and only thinks about Adam. All the time. Usually, I notice when my friends space out; not that hard to notice. And the fact that she's spacing out to think about Adam just doesn't make me like her. I hate how she treated her friends.

Then there's loverboy Adam. Nothing about him hooked me. I preferred Rian over Adam, but even then, I didn't know who Rian really is (which is bad because he's one of the more important characters (or at least that's what I would think)). Adam wasn't all too developed, and I didn't even know Rian. And Aine came off as an Alice. How she (and Rian) joked Adam and Meg's relationship annoyed me. They did the same thing every time.

Another thing that happened with the characters is that I would forget who's speaking, when it came to some info dumps. At one point, I thought Fionn was talking to Meg, yet it was Adam. These two boys are the ones who do the most info dumping, and it doesn't surprise me that I mixed them up.

Now for those info dumps. As I writer, I've learned to avoid info dumps. And this book is riddled with them. I wanted to skip them (and I don't remember if I did or not). There's also the fact that they were confusing. What I've learned as a student is to provide info and then explain it (like on a pretest). If Fallon had replaced the Prologue with something to do with the background to how Meg and the DeRises got their powers, it would remove some info dumping. That, or take one of them many topics later explained in one of the chapters, and use the Prologue to explain it, no matter how cliche it may have seemed. The Prologue barely caught me when I read it, which is where I should have been hooked.

Motives were also unclear for me. I didn't understand why Meg couldn't just do things; I believe I didn't understand because I didn't get what all the info dumps were trying to explain. There was just too much info that needed to get across, which is the problem with books like these.

And, now that I've gotten all the bad out, I'll talk about what I liked. I loved the setting, and I loved the idea of the book. Got to learn some mythology out of it. I love the elements, I loved the Marks, and I believe the setting was rather interesting. The whole idea, though, is what just might make me buy the next book. I'd like to see the plot (because, in reality, it didn't get interesting until the last 50 pages).

All in all, I'd rate this a two. The characters need development and I'd have liked to see more of the story, not the info.

The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin review

Mara Dyer doesn't think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can.

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed.

There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love.

She's wrong.

Pitch from here.

(I’m going to start working on my reviews’ structures next time around. Sorry if it’s too hard to follow.)

I loved the cover, and the promotional stuff I’d seen/read all really caught my attention. But, I was a little let down.

To break down what parts I liked and dislike:

First two chapters: liked

Next fifty chapters: blah

Last seven chapters: loved

So, out of fifty-nine chapters, I only liked nine of them. Doesn’t sound real good, does it? Well, let me explain.

The beginning, I really liked how present Mara’s voice is, and what happened in the first two chapters. Having ‘fun’ with friends, and then what happened months later. But Mara’s voice didn’t appeal to me after a while. Too much of ‘blah blah blah’ and not enough of what was going on.  It was at the end that I really started liking the writing, due to the fact that something actually happened.

And, being the Grammar Nazi/writer, my opinions on a few of the grammar bother me. Like all caps with someone’s yelling. This is a place that calls for italics. At least, that’s what I’ve been taught. This appears much more professional in my opinion. And then there were quite a few places where I found run-on sentences (which I tend to write myself) and lack of proper dialogue formatting. There were a few times where I felt like writing in my book, which I never have done nor what to ever do.

There were a lot of things that annoyed/confused me.  The first little annoyance was the love interest: Noah. He is a British boy who doesn’t really play by the rules. He is rich, and he can speak two other languages fluently. He carried around thousands of dollars at one point. And he’s beautiful.  Many times, the word beautiful was used to describe little aspects of Noah, which got real annoying. Then he acts like a real jerk at some points. Oh, and Mara has to hate him for some reason. AND she thinks she’s the slut when she starts dating him. That utterly confused me, being that sluts are thought to be girls who go out with multitudes of guys, instead of one. Unless I and hundreds of other teens at my school are wrong.

Another thing was plot holes. Or what appeared to be plot holes. There were many times where I had no clue how much time had passed, and then points where I was pretty sure that it was one time, only to find out it was another time.  That irked me a lot. Time consistency was not real present.

There were quite a few predictable places. Like when Mara envisions a person’s death. After the first one, I could predict that the next death would happen. The only thing that took me by surprise was one little fact toward the end of the story. Not the huge one at the very end of the story, but a chapter or two before that. I was rarely surprised by anything which bothered me. I want to be taken by surprise, rather than know what happens next. (I guess I could come up with an excuse for this, but I’m not too sure it’d be reasonable.)

At the beginning of the story, I liked a lot of characters. By the end, I only liked two: Jamie and Joseph. Mara’s brother got annoying halfway through the story with the rude things he said to Mara. Mara was annoying for being so idiotic when it came to so many things. Noah got real rude too, but I started to warm up to his sweetness toward the end. Mara, though, still annoyed me. I might check out the next book just because of Noah.

Then there’s the mean girl that comes with every private school. I have friends in private schools, and I’m pretty sure they don’t have the classic high school movie’s mean girl clique. But that’s what Anna is.  I hate this stereotype, especially since I’ve grown up in one of those places where one would think that this stereotype would be present, and it isn’t.

Now, the beginning of the story was all info. No plot—at least, not really. Not until the last few chapters where things picked up. I guess it was good to actually ‘build’ Noah and Mara’s relationship (which still wasn’t too good at the beginning), but it was otherwise blah. The most character changes were in the last chapters, which were the few good ones.

What I’d tell me to do is read the first two chapters, maybe ask me about the middle part about how Noah and Mara get closer, Mara thinks she’s insane, and … that’s really it. Well, after that, then read chapter 52 on, because that’s how much of the story seemed really necessary. If this were to be just a contemporary mystery/romance, I’d say the story was good. But because this has a paranormal aspect, it goes down in my opinion.

To tell you the truth, something compelled me to keep reading after the first 100 pages, and I’m kind of glad. The good part of the story was at the end, and I really enjoyed it.

Overall, I’d recommend this, but warn readers (depending on what genre they like) about the middle section. It bothered me, and I’m pretty sure you could skip that section after receiving a brief summary (if that’s even necessary) and still understand the last bit of the story.

The fact that this somehow kept me reading probably makes me want to give it 3 out of 5. Some characters were good/okay, the good ideas were hidden between the bad, and the end of the story really hooked me. 

Blood Red Road by Moira Young review

Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back.

Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization. 

Let me start off with the writing. It took me about twenty pages to get into the Western-type style. Then, there were some areas where the “Carin fer somebody that much means you cain’t think straight”-type writing dropped. Everything’s written in this way—or at least should be—but there were a few long-ish sentences that were written “properly.” But, everything was really easy to follow. There’s a lack of dialogue quotations, but, again, real easy to follow. I applaud Young for that.

Otherwise, the story sucked me in. Everything’s short—the sentences and sentences—which definitely kept my pushing through the story. I enjoyed it quite a lot.

The beginning of the story was amazing. Saba and her family live in the middle of nowhere, a storm comes, and Lugh is kidnapped. Took a few pages to get that bit rolling, but it helped show the characters’ relationships. Saba and her brother? Closer than anything. Saba and her little sister? Not so much. What I liked was that, after their brother was kidnapped and Emmi (Saba’s sister) disobeyed Saba and decided to tag along, the relationship between Emmi and Saba grew. Saba wasn’t so mean, and they became more like sisters.

But their relationship seemed to change a lot. At least, that’s what happened when Jack came in. He caused a lot of problems with Saba and Emmi’s relationship, along with his own relationship with Saba. I won’t go into my Jack ordeal just yet.

One of my favorite places was when Saba was change fighting. Best part of the book. Saba’s the best of the change fighters and needs to find a way out so she can continue on her journey to find Lugh. Then Jack comes along, which I believe is where the story starts to fall.

There’s something about Jack that draws Saba. She obviously is in love with him just after a few sentences. A lot of the scenes with Jack and Saba reminded me of a lot of paranormal romances. The main character is in love with the hot guy, yet she doesn’t want to admit it. Then there’s the dialogue between the characters. Again, reminded me a lot of paranormal romances. This killed my joy of reading the book.

Then there’s the whole Lugh-prophecy type thing. Yeah, he’s part of a prophecy—that was before my Jack problem, which probably started my not-so-happy-with-this-book thing. But, the prophecy thing was real small. The start of the quest cage fighting took up a good majority of the beginning, then Saba and the other fighters’ freedom took up another chunk, and the last chunk was some development of Saba and Jack’s relationship while off to go save Lugh.

The ending, though, is redeeming. Characters' relationships get a lot better, and except for the large amounts of predictable dialogue and events, closes the story rather well.

Overall, I enjoyed the beginning, which is really saving the book for me. I’ll probably look into the next book, but otherwise, I’m disappointed. I thought it’d be a lot better. Loved the beginning. The ending went downhill, a bit. One thing I would have liked to see, though, was the background history of this dystopia and where exactly this takes place. As an American, I’m guessing some form of the US in the mid-west.

After some contemplation, I’d say this is 4.0 in rating. I'd still recommend this, but warn people of the not-so-good character relationship.