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| 1442409142
| 9781442409149
| 1442409142
| 4.03
| 9,836
| 2011
| Mar 08, 2011
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I was excited to read this book after finishing the previous one 'Soulmates' yesterday, but some things bothered me. This book is set about eight month I was excited to read this book after finishing the previous one 'Soulmates' yesterday, but some things bothered me. This book is set about eight months after the last one, which was written, I believe in 1995. My version of Soulmates was 'updated' for 2009 so there were references to dead Heath Ledger, Google, and the X-Men films - however, there were no iPhones, iPods, GPS systems etc. Evercrossed was absolutely littered with up-to-date technology and it was just so strange to jump from Soulmates to Evercrossed because of that. Although the setting has changed, the characters haven't. Suzanne has a stand-in who's exactly like her, down to the mind games she plays with the boy she's chasing, who plays exactly the same game that Gregory played with Ivy. In fact, a lot of the boys in the book have a weird attraction to Ivy and most of the time I was just thinking 'why?' There's nothing particularly interesting about her personality or looks, so we're lead to believe, yet a lot of boys leer at her and it's just weird. This book is also almost the exact same story as Kissed By An Angel: there's a car crash and a romance developing in much the same way - the two bond over swimming and getting to know each other. I was enjoying this book, for the most part, until 'Guy' was introduced. Then it was just tedious. It's almost like Chandler couldn't think of any other way to build a romance so she went back to the formula that worked in Kissed By An Angel. And once again I kept overestimating the book because of the red herrings. My plot of this book was more interesting than the actual plot, which went something like (view spoiler)['Oh, Gregory's back, except he's not, except we think he might be Guy, except it's not, and there's a big bad who never even makes a move or does anything! (hide spoiler)] My plot was (view spoiler)[Chase is being possessed by Gregory and that's why he's obsessed with Beth and he's going to kill her and then come after Ivy but Will is going to save her AGAIN and then Guy/Tristan will see how Ivy needs someone like Will and finally move on. (hide spoiler)] If I have to wait until Book 6, whatever comes after Everlasting, for something interesting to happen and for there to be an actual climax I'm going to be mad! I certainly won't pay full price because Chandler has shown she can't be trusted to deliver a completely interesting and exciting story all the way through. Book 4 suffers from the same fate Books 1 and 2 did - nothing interesting happened beyond the romance and the climax was... well, I can't pass judgement on the climax because there wasn't one. Also, I've decided I hate Ivy. She's one of the worst self-centred obsessive paranormal romance heroines I've ever read. She's worse than Nora, but not worse than Bella or Luce. I probably enjoyed the last three books because of Tristan, but he's conspicuously absent from this book. Ivy is so obsessed with Tristan that she convinces herself he's trapped in the body of a near-dead homeless amnesiac... (view spoiler)[which turns out to be true but (hide spoiler)] WHO IN THEIR RIGHT MIND WOULD DO THAT? She puts complete faith and trust in him with no evidence that he's harmless besides her own feelings... I know this is a book about angels but it's not a book about faith. Those who believe in angels see tangible proof they exist. Ivy's faith in Guy has absolutely no evidence to support it, and it bothers me greatly. Especially seeing as how Guy has no recollection of anything and, as Will rightly points out, could be dangerous: there's even evidence on Guy that Icy sees over and over again (his bruises and cuts) that he's been in some kind of fight before he was found... but no, Ivy's too busy being in her little love bubble to realise people actually want to hurt her again. Stupid. It's funny... normally my hatred of Ivy would leave this book with only 2 stars, but I would very much like to follow Tristan and Ivy's story all the way through and see how it ends. So it gets 3 stars. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Feb 03, 2012
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Feb 04, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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Hardcover
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| 0575090898
| 9780575090897
| 0575090898
| 3.91
| 31,829
| Mar 09, 2010
| Apr 2010
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I’m not particularly into zombie stories. So why did I read it? Well, when I bought the first book I didn’t realise it was about zombies, and I like t
I’m not particularly into zombie stories. So why did I read it? Well, when I bought the first book I didn’t realise it was about zombies, and I like to see things through to the end. Ryan’s writing is decent – better than a lot of other writers out there, believe me – but I wasn’t gripped at all through this novel. The first half was very slow. The second half got better and I got a little invested in the characters. The climax was pretty original as far as I’m aware, and it unfolded like a movie in my head. The details were great. The love triangle was not original, but at least Gabry’s struggle to choose the boy of her dreams represented the part of her that struggled with herself, and her choice was the part of her that she wanted to be. The best thing about this book is the backstory, both Gabry’s particular one and the one that applies to the world in general. I enjoyed learning about both. The fast zombies are also explained which were not in book 1. I liked the explanation. It doesn’t particularly make sense to me, but it makes sense in the terms of the book. Gabry was an awesome character. She was very flawed and grew A LOT. I really liked her. She was also extraordinarily kick ass – not in a Buffy/Xena/knock your heads/kick your ass kinda way, but in a very realistic kind of way. A very quiet sort of awesome. The kind of character that doesn’t usually get appreciated, that gets overshadowed by the Rose Hathaways and Anita Blakes of the world. She’s definitely not your average passive YA heroine, and she makes plenty of mistakes with her choices that drive the plot forward. I loved watching her grow from a frightened child to a brave young woman. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jul 03, 2012
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Jul 11, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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Paperback
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| 0062001035
| 9780062001030
| 0062001035
| 3.87
| 37,636
| Mar 29, 2011
| Mar 29, 2011
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I’m not really into retellings. I’m not. I’d rather an author tell me an original tale spun from their imagination. Sometimes I feel retellings are ch
I’m not really into retellings. I’m not. I’d rather an author tell me an original tale spun from their imagination. Sometimes I feel retellings are cheating. However, I quite enjoyed Cinderby Marissa Meyer earlier this year, so I thought I’d give Entwined a shot. It has one of those generic white-girl in a pretty dress YA covers, which I must confess I do think are really gorgeous. However in this instance I'm not convinced this is the best cover for this book. I don't feel it really represents the book, explains what the book is about nor even represents any of the scenes. I would even go so far as to say that this cover put me off reading this book sooner because of its generic-ness. I was terribly excited about this book only a few pages in, but this cover did not elicit the excitement I should have felt. Once I opened the book, I was blown away. Just blown away. I did not expect this calibre, wit, and execution. The characters were simply gorgeous. The writing was incredible. And the humour! I have never laughed out loud so many damn times in a novel that wasn’t 1) a comedy or 2) written by a comedian. It’s just… the humour! The fluff! The witty comebacks and fantastic situations! It was just amazing. I have a firm idea how Dixon managed to write twelve sisters so masterfully. Apparently she has a lot of siblings herself. Although Azalea was our main character, I fell in love with Bramble (just as prickly and defensive as her name) and adorable little Ivy. In fact, my heart leapt whenever Ivy appeared in the pages, and I almost cried when (view spoiler)[she took the food from the dancers, got spooked, and cried to ‘Lea’ for help (hide spoiler)]. I actually re-read that part just for the sheer enjoyment of it. I just adored the greedy little mite. I want one! And yes, some of the sisters are not as well developed as the others. Some of them you see so little of that they blend with one another (Hollyhock, for one. She tended to fade into the background). But all of them, from mothering, leadership-material future queen Azalea all the way down to tiny little Lily, stole my heart. I’m not a mother yet, but it made me want my own little army of dancing princesses. (Don’t tell my fiancé.) And because this is my review and I can write whatever the damn hell I want, I’m goign to give a brief rundown of the princesses. I'll spoil tag it so those of you who haven't read this can discover the princesses on your own. (view spoiler)[ Azalea: the forthmentioned leader. Caring and protective, and very, very brave. Bramble: as prickly as her name. Defensive and boisterous, with a mouth to match any wit. One of my favourites, it was always a pleasure to watch her on the page. She was possibly the most witty. Clover: the luckiest of the sisters, for she is blessed with the most beauty and blossoms into a woman during the book. Soft-spoken and with a stutter, she eventually overcomes this and turns into a woman who knows what she wants and how to get it. Delphinium: Kind of bossy and a bit of a know it all, but still loyal to her sisters. Also a drama queen, and pretty damned funny as well. She and Bramble bounced off each other really well! Eve: Wears glasses and was caught reading once or twice, but is one of the ones who blended, along with Hollyhock. Flora and Goldenrod: twins. Closer than your average sisters. Goldenrod tends to be quieter than Flora, but they share a special bond. Hollyhock: From memory, kind of bland. A blending sister. Not quite sure what makes her stand out. Ivy: My favourite. Five year old Ivy was a greedy girl who loved to eat: however, this was encouraged by the other sisters as they often gave her their uneaten meals. Ivy's weakness was the cause of a few ratehr awesome situations. Jessamine: Delicate and vulnerable, she was also a surprise contender in the bravery stakes considering she’s only four years old! Kale: Too young to really have much character, Kale tended to be the whinging, crying child when one of the sisters needed to wail. I also get the feeling she was kind of favoured by the king, which is weird, because he has so many daughters to choose from. He picked her from the bunch a few times. Lily: the baby. Adorable. So much squee. (hide spoiler)] On top of the twelve dancing princesses, there were also several love interests, an entire household to contend with, and a villain who, to begin with, I was enamoured with. Each of these characters were lovingly developed and had their own quirks and speech patterns. If there were no tags, you could easily decipher who was speaking. Azalea was a great heroine to read about. I don’t normally enjoy third person perspective as much as first person because I feel that we don’t get inside the character’s head and really feel their story the way we can with first person perspective. I am also wary that lesser writers tend to headhop without even realising it. It’s one of those little things that annoys me. I also feel, a lot of the time, that if you’re not going to change perspective in third person PV, you may as well write it from first person POV. HOWEVER. In this book, third person perspective worked really well. There was no headhopping or changing POV. It was firmly Azalea’s story. I thoroughly enjoyed it. Azalea was brave, caring, and loved her sisters. She would bully them to make sure they were safe. It was difficult to juggle eleven sisters, but Azalea managed it. She also managed to grow from the princess who had just lost her mother into the future leader of her tiny, impoverished nation. I didn’t even mind that she fainted a bit! I liked the fact that the royal family wasn’t rich. The king hasn’t raised taxes in 200 years, which I think was awesome. And the king was another character that developed really well. You understand, even if the princesses don't, why he is so stern and strong. The princesses, although royal, slept under mended bedspreads and wore shabby, repaired dresses. It made sense for their famous dancing slippers to fall apart. Speaking of which, I loved all the dancing terminology. I also feel that Dixon really managed to get inside the head of a dancer and convey how it feels to dance. Personally? I don’t dance. I don’t enjoy it and I’m no good at it. But I loved reading about it. I also want to talk about pacing. I didn’t have a problem with it. The inciting incident doesn’t happen for a LONG time – BUT. BUT BUT BUT. There is still a LOT of interesting things that happen BEFORE that, things that are valuable to the plot and drive it forward. I did however feel that the end of the novel could have been a little bit closer to the climax. That’s a matter of personal taste. I know that to wrap up everything in a stand-alone novel as good as this takes time, so I was happy to read on. However, the anti-climax stood true to its name. Keeper was awesome. He was totally seductive. In the beginning he was everything I wanted for Azalea. Then, as the story unravelled, I realised what Keeper was. He was manipulative in the worst kind of way – when you don’t know you’re being manipulated. I even liked his description – I like guys with ponytails! Although I never really wanted Azalea to get romantic with him, I saw the appeal. Another character I want to mention is Lord Teddie, because he was just so damn funny. I loved reading about him and his interactions with the many girls around him, demanding his attention. I kept imagining this as a movie and trying to cast the twelve princesses. I failed because I don’t know anyone of the appropriate ages. The writing was so cinematic that I often felt like I was reading a grown-up slightly gothic Disney princess film. And guys? I FREAKING LOVE DISNEY PRINCESS FILMS. I also love the title of the novel. Entwined didn’t mean anything to me at first. Then I read the background story, and fell in love with it. It’s everything the novel is. It’s everything the central plot of the novel is. I borrowed this from my library, but I will be adding a hardcover version to my personal library. I just want to hug this book to me. One of my all-time favourites. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jun 08, 2012
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Jun 11, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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Hardcover
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| 1442409053
| 9781442409057
| 1442409053
| 3.80
| 100,625
| Mar 22, 2011
| Mar 22, 2011
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Also appears on . She broke my heart! 4.5 stars. Contrary to just about everyone else, I don’t like this cover. I like the model and her hair a Also appears on . She broke my heart! 4.5 stars. Contrary to just about everyone else, I don’t like this cover. I like the model and her hair and makeup and dress, and I like the set decoration. What I don’t like is those stupid big circles around Rhine’s ring and the bird in the cage. DeStefano started out as a literary writer, and the stupid circles linking Rhine’s marriage to the caged bird is way too obvious for the subtleties of literary novels. I hate those circles. They ruin a gorgeous cover. Now that that’s out of my system, allow me to tell you a story. Once upon a time a middle-class Australian girl moved to England to be with her fiancée. After six months he lost his job, and even though she was well educated she couldn’t find a job in England either. The couple LOVED books, but they had no money to spend on them. They tried to avoid bookshops with their sweet allure of fresh literature, and only dared to enter when they had some spare cash from birthdays or Christmas. Then one day the girl saw Wither in the bookshop. The book – even with its big stupid circles on the cover – sang to the girl and she knew deep in her heart that she wanted to own it. But with no income, the girl had to be careful of which books she bought. In England, books aren’t taxed, so they’re relatively cheap. Most books are about 7 or 8 pounds, which is about an hour’s worth of working in a not very good job. But even 7 or 8 pounds is a lot when you’ve had no income for two years. The problem is that Wither was a big book, with lots of white space. It was 10 pounds. And that tiny difference meant that the girl would spend her very precious birthday money on other books like Unearthly and Divergent, which were the average price, rather than on that big book Wither. Then the girl and her fiancée found out they were moving back to Australia. A short time after that, the girl started talking to the author of Wither, even though she hadn’t read the book yet. The author seemed like the most lovely down-to-earth friendly celebrity she’d ever met on the internet. The author offered to send a review copy of Wither to the girl. After the girl calmed down and graciously accepted the offer, she found some extra money and bought Wither’s sequel, Fever, in a 3 for 2 deal at the local bookshop. Wither would be waiting for the girl when she moved to Australia. Fever came with her on the plane. So it is with much anticipation and forewarning that I leapt into Wither. I’d read the reviews where people lamented the worldbuilding, and although this was a big deal to some, it was just about the only thing they didn’t like. I knew DeStefano came from a literary background so I expected nothing less than gorgeous prose. I was right. Wither is a very atmospheric book, a stifling Gothic tale of a young beauty trapped in a big house with an older gentleman. What makes this different to other Gothic novels is that Rhine is in a polygamous marriage that is linked to the dodgy worldbuilding in that all women die at age 20 and all men at age 25. So young girls are stolen off the streets and forced into marriages, prostitution, or shot. That part makes no sense to me and is why the book loses half a star. I don’t know DeStefano’s logic in this (and I would love to find out HINT HINT) but surely girls would be a valuable commodity in this weird future, so why on earth would anyone shoot them for not being pretty enough? A breeder is a breeder, a womb is a womb. I can understand the girls being reduced to baby factories but I can’t quite wrap my head around them being disposable. After all, that’s the point of the polygamous marriage. Stick five women and one man together and tell them to breed and in a year you’ll end up with five babies. Stick one women and five men together and in one year you’ll only have one baby. So with the culture revolving around polygamous marriage – namely unwilling polygamous marriage – I just can’t quite understand why rejected girls would be shot. Some people complain that having the United States as the only country left in the world and the polar ice caps melted as not working either, but I’m of the opinion that Rhine is an unreliable narrator. We as the audience can only know what Rhine knows, and if she’s been taught something - say, that the United States is the only country left in the world as the others have been destroyed by wars – then that’s what she’s going to tell us. Doesn’t mean it’s necessarily true. So I’m of the belief that Rhine’s wrong. Apart from the weird worldbuilding, the actual story itself is breathtaking. Like I said, it’s an atmospheric Gothic polygamous marriage tale, and it’s very powerful. It actually caught me by surprise, especially something that happened to one of Rhine’s sister wives. (view spoiler)[When Cecily gave birth (hide spoiler)] I found it so emotional that even though I was annoyed that I had to go do normal stuff like eat and sleep and work which interrupted my precious reading time, I willingly put the book down and dissolved into noisy sobs in my partner’s arms. I just… I can’t even. I didn’t even like the character and here I found a huge emotional response. That’s how I judge books. I judge them on how they make me feel. I feel that Wither was amazing, but the worldbuilding needs half a star knocked off. It made me cry. It make me laugh. I loved the pace and the plot and Rhine’s character. She has a very minor flaw that makes her speshul, but apart from that she’s a caring, manipulative, awesome heroine. She never gives up on what she wants, she never loses sight of it and she goes through a lot to reach her goal. She doesn’t need saving, she has goals that extend beyond becoming someone’s girlfriend. She’s realistic and probably one of my favourite heroines. I loved living in Rhine’s head while all those new relationships developed. I was very pleased when I read the end and I’m very much looking forward to reading Fever. I received a review copy of this book from the author with an agreement that I was in no way obligated to write a positive review. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Mar 20, 2012
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Mar 21, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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Hardcover
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| 4.34
| 9,451,577
| Sep 14, 2008
| Oct 14, 2008
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Wow. This was an emotional journey for me. While it’s not the best written book in the world and the writing sometimes made me very confused and frustra Wow. This was an emotional journey for me. While it’s not the best written book in the world and the writing sometimes made me very confused and frustrated, some of the later action scenes make up for those poorer parts. I also dreamed about The Hunger Games after the first night of reading it. It prompted me to create an entirely new bookshelf. I dreamed I was in the arena watching the other tributes, and it was quite intense. I really enjoyed the first part of the book. Katniss’ self-preservation in the beginning really levelled out once she claimed her sister’s place in the Games. Katniss quickly became very admirable for me, even though I don’t approve of everything she did. I especially enjoyed the part in the novel where Katniss is treated like a princess. It was okay for this little fantasy to play out, because we all knew she’d be fighting for her life in a short time. Most times when heroines are spoiled like this, they don’t earn it, or want it, but they do love it. Katniss didn’t like it, didn’t want it, but was going to earn it regardless of whether or not she won the Games. (view spoiler)[And all the over-eating was actually essential to the plot later on, which I thought was totally awesome. (hide spoiler)] While I feel Katniss deserves her place on my shelf of kick-ass heroines, it’s not because of what she does in the Games. It’s because she can take care of herself outside of the Games. (view spoiler)[Inside the Games I felt that Katniss was way too much of a goody-goody. She killed four people, but it only feels like she killed one, and it’s framed in such a way that you’re supposed to cheer for that guy’s death because he brutally murdered Katniss’ child ally. The three other people, the two girls who died from wasp stings and the boy at the end mauled by the mutts were entirely her responsibility as well, but because the wasps were a case of you-didn’t-move-fast-enough and Cato’s death was out of pity, I guess it mostly gets glossed over. (hide spoiler)] I also felt that the reports that the violence in this book was beyond horrible were grossly exaggerated. But hey, I grew up on Animorphs. (view spoiler)[The deaths of the other tributes were often glossed over and mostly happened off-screen. I almost shed a tear when Rue and Foxface died, and my favourite scene is probably when Thresh killed Clove, but all up I feel the Games just weren’t that violent to the reading audience. Katniss’ tactic was to avoid the other tributes and let them kill themselves, and it was a great tactic. Not so great for an audience. (hide spoiler)] In fact I spent a lot of the time feeling like this was a survivalist novel, and worldbuilding what was safe to eat and how to hunt it, not a gladiator-style fight to the death. I felt that sometimes there was way too much contrivances on behalf of the plot. I almost felt like Collins was being a bit of a helicopter author. Yes, Katniss went through some horrible stuff, because she’s fighting for her life… but she always got what she needed in the end. (view spoiler)[I can accept the healing balm gift for her burns as essential to plot because she’d barely be able to move without it, but the sleeping draught for Peeta just stank of contrivance. There were other options she could have taken and maybe things wouldn’t have worked out so great. (hide spoiler)] It seemed to me that more than once, when given the chance to create conflict, the opportunity was missed. I labelled this book a romance but it’s not really. It’s not about her relationship with Peeta. It has romantic elements but basically I didn’t feel that Katniss felt anything other than affection for Peeta because they were from the same District. Certainly she’s not in love with him at this point but she does need his support from their shared experiences. I won’t deny that they have a bond, but Katniss spends the majority of the book completely ignorant of his feelings, or convinced he’s doing it just for the show. Speaking of show, I was very confused about the concept of the cameras filminf the Games. Katniss kept mentioning how she’d look to the audience and how her face should be visible and stuff like that, and I never once saw a camera or any evidence she was being filmed at all. She was even convinced she was being filmed in a cave. In a cave! There was no camera crew running around the arena, there were no hoverdrones filming anyone, no cameras stuck in trees or clothing a la The Truman Show. It frustrated me because as far as I was aware, from the information Katniss was feeding me, there was absolutely no evidence she was being filmed. Yet she was constantly aware of being filmed… and there was nothing there. Ever. For a long time I was very excited that Katniss was one of those rare heroines who, once she got into a fight, kept her wounds and scars and didn’t come out perfect and preened and primped and gorgeous-looking, like they haven’t just been in a brawl to the death. I didn’t get the feeling that Collins was deliberately trying to make or keep Katniss beautiful, (view spoiler)[especially faced with starvation, burns, wasp stings, dehydration and covered in blood, (hide spoiler)] and I liked that. That’s why I’m a little torn about what I feel at the end. (view spoiler)[While I agree that Katniss earned her right to be beautiful, I disagree with her losing all her scars, especially the ones she earned pre-Games. (hide spoiler)] What I liked about Katniss was that she was intelligent and capable, and although she often felt despairing, she never gave up. Also, I like Effie quite a lot – her job must be absolutely horrible – but Cinna was my favourite secondary character, after Rue and Foxface. So in conclusion, although there were several things I disliked about this book, or that frustrated me (such as a lack of polish around dialogue construction), I thoroughly enjoyed this book and I very much would like to add the hardcover trilogy to my collection so that I can read the other two books. ...more |
Notes are private!
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1
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Jan 21, 2012
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Jan 23, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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Hardcover
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my rating |
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| 4.03
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Feb 04, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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Mar 13, 2011
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Mar 21, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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| 4.34
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Jan 23, 2012
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Mar 13, 2011
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