Stacking the Shelves #1

Stacking The Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews and is all about sharing the books you are adding to your shelves, may it be physical or virtual. This means you can include books you buy in physical store or online, books you borrow from friends or the library, review books, gifts and of course ebooks!

I probably won't do this meme as often, because I don't often get books weekly, but I've always loved the idea of the Stacking the Shelves. That's why I only have three here. Maybe I'll borrow more books from the library. And enter more giveaways.

For Review

Oracle of Philadelphia - Elizabeth Corrigan

I know I'm not the only one to get this review request, but I'm kind of excited to read this, because it will be my first "adult" fantasy series. If anyone has any other amazing fantasy reads, please recommend me some, because I don't have enough :)

E-Books

A Monster Calls - Patrick Ness

Cinder - Marissa Meyer

Everyone keeps on telling me to read Cinder, SO YES HERE IT IS. I GOT IT. You don't have to keep reminding me haha. I have no idea when I'll read it, but at least I have it in the library! Also I now have a book by Patrick Ness, this one specifically because I've been eyeing it for awhile. Well, I've been eyeing all of his books really.

Yep, so that's my little book haul

Review: Graceling

Graceling by Kristin Cashore
Graceling Realm #1
Publisher: Harcourt
Release Date: October 1, 2008

In a world where people born with an exceptional skill, known as a Grace, are both feared and exploited, Katsa carries the burden of a skill even she despises: the Grace of killing.

Feared by the court and shunned by those her own age, the darkness of her Grace casts a heavy shadow over Katsa’s life. Yet she remains defiant: when the King of Lienid’s father is kidnapped she investigates, and stumbles across a mystery. Who would want to kidnap the old man, and why? And who was the extraordinary Graced man whose fighting abilities rivalled her own?

The only thing Katsa is sure of is that she no longer wants to kill. The intrigue around this kidnapping offers her a way out – but little does she realise, when she takes it, that something insidious and dark lurks behind the mystery. Something spreading from the shadowy figure of a one-eyed king...

Taken from Goodreads

Start: 3/7/2014 | End: 3/13/2014 | Pages: 471 | Rating: 3.5 Stars

My Thoughts:

I have seen this Graceling being reviewed over a dozen times now, and I decided to give it a try. And you know what? I don't regret reading it, even though I probably have the same complaint as everyone else who has read this.

Graceling starts off with Katsa, the king's niece, graced with the power of killing. She is skilled with any weapon, and is no match for the guards. Everyone knows how deadly she is, and the king uses this to his advantage to scare off his enemies. Obviously, Katsa hates this. She doesn't want to be used, and she longs to actually do something good for her and the people. As a result, the council is formed by her, the king's son, and some of her friends, unknowing to the king. 

Throughout her mission in rescuing the King of Lienid's father, she stumbles upon Po, one of the Lienid princes who is also looking for his grandfather. He is graced with fighting, and almost matches Katsa's ability. The two then decide to investigate further into the kidnapping, which means Katsa needs to leave her friends and the kingdom behind.

The start of the book was amazing. I loved the idea of being naturally, super-skilled in something, whether it's cooking or climbing trees or even swimming. Even the most useless skill can be a grace. Even I want to be graced! I don't even care if it's the most useless skill in the world, like drawing bunnies or baking bread. Ooh I would really like to be graced in making bread that would be so awesome (there's an anime specifically about baking bread in Japan, and it's absolutely hilarious, sorry this is me rambling).

About halfway through the book, it comes to a point where Katsa realizes she loves Po, and this apparently is a bad thing? Or that she realizes she actually does love someone. And this is a big problem because.....

.....well I'm not sure, I think maybe it's because she told herself so many times that she wouldn't marry, but now she found the perfect man, so she's upset and frustrated. But then, within a page or so, she comes to terms with her love, and she finally admits it. But honestly, what just happened?

Where did this come from? What. What just happened?

After that confusing point of the book, everything actually goes back to normal. The romance isn't that great, but I've never been a stickler about it. And plus, I really like Bitterblue, which is why I will most likely read Bitterblue sometime in the future. She definitely added more plot to this story, which is a smart move for Cashore. Because if the author focused more on the romance at this point, I honestly would have put the book down and left.

Overall, I'm enamored with the detail that went in to the kingdoms and the society itself. I loved Katsa and Po as characters, but their love story definitely needed more working on. This story would be flawless if it wasn't for that. I would definitely recommend this to readers that love adventure, and don't mind that the romance was kind of lacking.

So yes, kinda good read for me :)

Updates!

It's done!

Well, maybe.

If no one has noticed, I've recently decided to change my header and background. And now everything's purple. That wasn't supposed to happen initially but I can deal.

Anyways, I spent a good two hours yesterday drawing the girl laying back on the tree with a book. And then I spend two more hours trying to actually put it on my blog, nicely. Then I randomly added a purple border, and then added a purple background. Aligning images is hard on Blogger. Pain in the butt.

Today, I cleaned up the purple section of the header, and then added CHARACTERS! Poorly drawn ones! Yay. Here's a list of the books/movies being shown:

Harry Potter - Harry Potter Series

Katniss Everdeen - the Hunger Games 

Peter Pan - Disney Movie 

Rapunzel - Tangled

Hazel Grace and Augustus Waters - Fault in Our Stars
Eleanor and Park - Eleanor & Park (edited)
Liesel Meminger - The Book Thief (edited)
Olaf - Frozen (edited)

I really need to add more, but I'm not entirely sure on which characters I should add. I haven't read that many books that have notable characters that many people would know of....so yeah. And plus they should be easy to draw (and recognizable). Like just look at my Katniss, I TRIED. And then I just gave Hazel and Augustus random clothing. Rapunzel was the easiest to draw.

I wanted to add Elsa and Anna or just Olaf from Frozen, but that means I'll be drifting away from books entirely, so I'm not sure. But I probably will leave it like this for a while.

Notes: I used a Wacom Graphire tablet with the very nice Fire Alpaca art program (compatible with mac). Then I used PicMonkey to add the title because I can't write nice letters. 

Review: Attachments

Attachments by Rainbow Rowell
Publisher: Dutton Adult
Release Date: April 14th, 2011

"Hi, I'm the guy who reads your e-mail, and also, I love you . . . "

Beth Fremont and Jennifer Scribner-Snyder know that somebody is monitoring their work e-mail. (Everybody in the newsroom knows. It's company policy.) But they can't quite bring themselves to take it seriously. They go on sending each other endless and endlessly hilarious e-mails, discussing every aspect of their personal lives.

Meanwhile, Lincoln O'Neill can't believe this is his job now- reading other people's e-mail. When he applied to be "internet security officer," he pictured himself building firewalls and crushing hackers- not writing up a report every time a sports reporter forwards a dirty joke.

When Lincoln comes across Beth's and Jennifer's messages, he knows he should turn them in. But he can't help being entertained-and captivated-by their stories.

By the time Lincoln realizes he's falling for Beth, it's way too late to introduce himself.

What would he say . . . ?

Taken from Goodreads

Start: 3/5/2014 | End: 3/5/2014 | Pages: 336 | Rating: 3.5 Stars

My Thoughts:

I picked up Attachments because it's by Rainbow Rowell, and I had read Fangirl previously and fell in love with it. Basically I came into this book with high expectations, when I really shouldn't have. After recently finishing up the second book in the series of Daughter of Smoke & Bone, a highly intense book full of action, Attachments went down a completely different path. 

Don't get me wrong, I love Rowell's writing, especially Beth and Jennifer's email messages. But I have to admit that this book started off a little slow. Lincoln, the IT guy at the The Courier, has the job of going through everyone's emails and internet searches for inappropriate behavior. Every time a flag word pops up, it gets sent to Webfence, a filter for the internet. Then he has to read or see what the person has been up to, whether it's gossip or porn, and send them a warning. Everyone is afraid of Lincoln, because of his job, and even he's getting tired of being paid to do nothing. Until, he finds himself being entertained by the email conversations of two column writers, Jennifer and Beth.

Jennifer and Beth talk about everything, literally, especially about their husbands and their love lives. If it wasn't for Rowell's incredible ability to put together words and sentences, I would have scrapped this book already. 70 pages in, and I'm still waiting for something to actually happen. I think this is my punishment for just rambling on my review of Days of Blood & Starlight. Oh well. 

I finished Attachments in one day, because I became so frustrated with Lincoln and Beth never meeting. And that's why I have mixed feelings about this book, because it was well-written and had good characters, but the frustration was just, overbearing. The story really dragged out. I wish I got to see more of the dating aspect of the relationship too, because Rowell just ended the story when they finally found each other. I know the theme was "falling in love with the idea of a person", but I don't think it worked for me.

Overall, don't read this book if you want action in your stories. Attachments also is somewhat similar to Meg Cabot's The Boy Next Door, but not nearly as good. 

Top Ten Tuesday #3

Hosted by the Broke and the Bookish

Top Ten Popular Authors I've Never Read

This is going to be a tough one because I have read at least one book from a lot of popular authors, but not all of their books. I've only read one book by Rainbow Rowell, and two by John Green, so those are out. And then I'm not sure what it means to be popular, especially since I'm new to the blogging world. 

But I'll give this a try though. I'm going to focus on authors that either have series I've heard about and just never picked up, and authors I constantly see on my blog feed.

  

1. Marissa Meyer - The Lunar Chronicles
I will pick this up sooner or later I just don't know when.

2. Cassandra Clare - The Internal Devices and The Mortal Instruments
I have no idea why I never read City of Bones as a child, I've seen the cover everywhere. And now Clare has another series that I want to read. 

3. Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl
This book kind of scared me for some reason, but I'll get around to it. It just seems creepy

4. Deborah Harkness - All Souls Trilogy
I literally took this out from my library over the summer, planned to read it, but didn't. It sat on my desk for the three weeks that I had it out.

5. Stephen King - 11/22/63
The most intimidating book I have ever seen. It's still on my bookshelf.

6. Tahereh Mafi - Shatter Me Series
Heard about this series too. I should probably start it as well.

7. Patrick Ness - A Monster Calls, The Knife of Never Letting Go, and More Than This
I want to read one of his books so bad! They all look so cool, yet scary. Look at that creepy monster on that cover!

8. George Orwell - 1984
I never read Orwell for my high school English classes and I don't know why.

9. Leigh Bardugo - The Grisha Series
Also need to pick this up as well.

10. Rick Riordon - The Lightning Thief and The Lost Hero
AND SURPRISE I NEVER READ THESE. But don't worry, I will take time over the summer to read them all, since they're short.

I know I said that I would have a hard time coming up with a list of ten, but this took me about 5 minutes to come up with. 

I should actually get on with my reading. 

Are there any authors that you haven't read yet? TELL ME!

Review: Days of Blood & Starlight

Days of Blood & Starlight by Laini Taylor
Daughter of Smoke & Bone #2
Publisher: Little, Brown Books
Release Date: November 6th, 2012

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.

This is not that world.

Art student and monster's apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.

In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she'll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.

While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.

But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream?

Taken from Goodreads

Start: 2/21/2014 | End: 3/1/2014 | Pages: 513 | Rating: 5 Stars

My Thoughts:

WHY did I wait SO LONG to pick up the second book of the series?

Did I not have access to the book? * bzz * Wrong, the library had it. Also Amazon had it.

Did I not have the time? * bzz * Nope. Plenty of time to read other books.

Was I just not interested? * bzz * I loved the first book and I wanted more.

Was I lazy?

. . .

. . .

* DING DING DING * We have a winner! Yes. I was a lazy bum, and a poop. BUT NO WORRIES NOW, because I have finally finished this 500 page beast of a book. And I just want to say that it was incredible! Amazing! Fantastique! Superb! 

I. Want. MORE!

For anyone that's never heard of this series, I am here to ENLIGHTEN YOU. When I first stumbled upon the first book on Goodreads, Daughter of Smoke & Bone, I was blown away by everything. The characters, Karou, Akiva, Brimstone, Zuzanna, and Mik, and the world of Eretz as well. In this second book of the series, we are introduced more to the world of Eretz and the war between the seraphims and the chimaera. 

There's not much to say without spoiling the first book. I did try to explain the plot to my boyfriend by saying that "the 'demons' and the 'angels' are at war with each other, but then this girl, who thought she was a human, finds out she's a 'demon'. She also has the ability to resurrect dead 'demons' by creating new bodies to move their souls into, because she was trained by her caretaker, who was a 'demon', but she just didn't know it. But then she falls in love with this 'angel', when she wasn't supposed to, and then everyone dies."

See? It's hard to explain it without all the fancy terms. 

But other than my "amazing" book summarization skills, Days of Blood & Starlight pulls you straight back into the story. I read the first book a year ago, but after a few chapters I was hooked. 

However, I do have to admit that Karou did get a little to angst-y for me. To me, she felt like a completely different character from Madrigal, her past self, and even the Karou in the first book. I really hope she straightens herself out in the last book, because if not, then there's going to be a lot of drama. And a love triangle. Yay.

I also loved how Taylor made you experience every emotion Akiva had to go through. When he was in the dark about things, you were also in the dark. I remember being so confused when something happened that wasn't supposed to happen, but at the time Akiva was also just as confused, and angry. I literally was in his shoes. And I also acted in the same way. 

I am super excited for April. 

I want to read the third book now. NOW.

5 stars. 5 stars for everyone. 

Movie Review: Gravity

If you haven't watched Gravity yet, you should take 90 minutes out of your time to go see it. Yep, it's only an hour and a half of amazing visuals and music.

The first ten to fifteen minutes basically explains the plot of the movie. It starts off in space, with Dr. Ryan Stone (Sandra Bullock) trying to fix something on the Hubble Telescope, with Matt Kowalski (George Clooney) monitoring the team. A couple of minutes in, they get a signal from Earth that debris from a nearby destroyed Russian satellite will be passing by, and it may or may not hit them. 

It obviously hits them.

Along with the International Space Station as well. 

And with that, this movie is all about survival in space, where there's no sound, no gravity, and no one to hear you. 

Here's a list of what I liked about the movie:

• Soundtrack = SUPERB. Literally. It's being nominated for an academy award for best soundtrack tonight, and I really hope it wins. If you don't watch the movie, just listen to the soundtrack on Youtube. You will not regret it.
• The visuals of Earth from above. It is stunning
• I'm glad that they got all the facts right with space, like how there is no sound at all and that an object does not stop moving in space unless there's a force stopping it.
• The scene where Sandra Bullock just keeps working on unscrewing something while the station blows up behind her, silently.
• The fact that this movie did not go over 90 minutes. I don't think I could've handled 2 hours of space, because only so much can happen without it being repetitive. 

I'm definitely going to be watching the Oscars tonight. I'm hoping that Frozen wins best animated and best song and Gravity wins best soundtrack.

And now time to write that review on Days of Blood & Starlight