Review: Lover at Last

Lover at Last by J.R. Ward
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Just like the last book, Ward had WAY too much going on in this one. I still feel like she’s going to try to have a Band of Bastards spin off or something once all of the Brotherhood are happily hooked up. All the crap with the Bastards, Assail, and Sola was just annoying and very distracting. It was also like the Lessers were barely part of the story this time around too. We’re getting too far away from all of the original plotlines that still haven’t been solved (hello, John Matthew?!).

With that said though… I’ve been waiting for this book for years and I LOVED the Qhuinn and Blay parts! I didn’t even hate the typical format that Ward uses (I love you, but I can’t love you, but let’s hook up, but we still can’t be together even though we love each other, but one of us almost dies so we get close only to break up again before finally letting ourselves love each other) because I’ve been so invested in these two boys that their back and forth made more sense than it does when one of the Brother’s falls in love with a new character. I hope we get to see a lot more of these boys together in the next book since they kind of got screwed out of their own book with all of the added side plots.

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Review: The Implosion of Aggie Winchester

The Implosion of Aggie Winchester by Lara Zielin
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Another great book by Lara Zielin! I had all good intentions of just reading a few chapters before bed but I read the whole thing in one sitting. I would definitely recommend this one to older YA readers, at least high school aged. I don’t think I’d want middle school kids reading this one especially if they’re feeling tempted to rebel. I’m working right now with a child who is a lot like Aggie and as much as I’d love for her to read this, I feel like she might latch on to the wrong things. But that’s just the social worker in me coming out.

I really did enjoy the book. The characters either made me love them (Fitz, Jrex) or hate them (Sylvia, Beth) which is always a good sign. I really wish there had been a little more to the end though. I wasn’t ready for it to stop where it did.

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Review: Beautiful Darkness

Beautiful Darkness by Kami Garcia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Loved this one just about as much as I loved the first book. Lena was kind of a pain in the ass throughout the book though. In fact, she wasn’t in much of the book but it was totally okay because I really enjoyed the addition of Liv as a character. I also liked learning more about the other characters.

This book included an odd POV change just like the last book did and it confused me just as much. I really think that the last chapter should have been somehow pointed out as an epilogue or something since it wasn’t in Ethan’s POV. I get why the POV changed, but it was still annoying to be reading along and all of a sudden be reading in a different person.

Looking forward to book #3!

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Review: Warm Bodies

Warm Bodies by Isaac Marion
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

This might be the only time that I was glad to have read the book after seeing the movie. I simply adored the movie (Oh, Nicholas Hoult… *swoon*) and I really loved the book but they’re SO different that I wonder if reading the book first would have ruined the movie for me.

This book was pretty brilliant. In fact, as a writer, I’m pretty jealous that this is a first novel and it’s so amazing. There were some really great nuggets of dialogue in this book that I’d read and then just sit there amazed. Marion did a wonderful job bringing this weird zombie world alive and making the reader fall in love with R immediately.

I can see why they chose to make the changes they made when converting this to a screen play, but it’s interesting how much of it they changed because it’s great both ways.

Definitey worth the read, and I totally suggest reading it after you see the movie if you can.

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Review: Beautiful Creatures

Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Wow, what a great book! I love that it’s in the POV of the boy instead of the girl (for the most part) and that he’s a boy in a book who actually has feelings! I really fell in love with the characters and the story wasn’t the typical YA paranormal book that everyone seems to be writing lately.

I forgot within the first chapter that this was written by two people… they did a great job of co-writing without it feeling like it was co-written. Not once did i find myself thinking, “Oh the other chick must have written this section…” like I have with other books. *Ahem… PC & Kristin Cast*

I wanted to read this before the movie came out and I had no idea if I was going to like it, but I loved it and can’t wait to continue the series. How many days til the movie is out?

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Not okay.

I got a comment on my 50 Shades of Domestic Violence post this week that was so incredibly rude that I wasn’t sure what to do with it.  (Yeah, I’m talking about you, “bluelove.”) My first thought was to just delete it.  It’s my blog and I don’t have to let anyone’s awful victim blaming comments have space here.  Then I thought that maybe I should approve the post and then let my readers go to town on the person because I’m too pissed off to do it myself.

The more I thought about it though, I decided that I want you to see the bullshit comment that this woman posted in response to one of my readers saying that her husband gave her this book that is full of emotional abuse in hopes that it would improve their already abusive relationship.  I think people need to see what complete lack of empathy looks like.  What victim blaming looks like, and how incredibly WRONG it is. So instead of approving the comment where it was made, I’m going to just put it here.  She wrote the following:

Get back in the kitchen or leave your husband because women act like they don’t have a choice. Stop blaming men, stop blaming the media and stop blaming books. If you have the nerve to tell strangers on the internet that youre being abused, you should have the balls to leave him. There are two types of people:prey and predators. You decide which one you want to be. Does anyone blame the lion for eating the weak gazelle?

Bluelove, you clearly have no idea what it’s like to live in fear of your life because of a partner who uses power and control over every aspect of your being.  You have no idea how hard it is to “just leave” or how many victims are killed by their abusers when trying to do that.  You don’t know any of the pain that these victims go through.  You’re lucky.  My hope is that you never have to live through domestic violence whether it’s emotional or physical.  I also hope that if you do have to endure the spirit crushing pain that abuse brings, that no one is ever so insensitive to you.  Because I can say that as a survivor, comments like the one above are exactly what we don’t need to hear.  Comments like that are just as bad as the abuse and do absolutely nothing to encourage change.  Blaming the victim is never, ever okay.

Review: I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats

I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems by Cats by Francesco Marciuliano
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I got this for Christmas and have to say that I truly did laugh out loud while reading some of the poems. Very cute book and very creative writers!

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