Book Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Author: Ransom Riggs
Series: Miss Peregrine's Peculiar Children #2
Publisher: Quirk Books
Release Date: January 14, 2014
Pages: 399
Format: Hardcover
Average Rating: 4.20
Read it in: 4 days
Source: Bought from Walmart

- Summary -

September 3, 1940. Ten peculiar children flee an army of deadly monsters, and only one person can help them — but she's trapped in the body of a bird.

The extraordinary journey that began in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London, the peculiar capital of the world. There, they hope to find a cure for their beloved headmistress, Miss Peregrine. But in this war-torn city, hideous surprises lurk around every corner. And before Jacob can deliver the peculiar children to safety, he must make an important decision about his love for Emma Bloom.

Hollow City draws readers into a richly imagined world of telepathy and time loops, of sideshows and shape-shifters—a world populated with adult "peculiars," murderous wights, and a bizarre menagerie of uncanny animals. Like its predecessor, this second novel in the Peculiar Children series blends thrilling fantasy with never-before-published vintage photography to create a one-of-a-kind reading experience.

Book Review: Velveteen by Daniel Marks

Author: Daniel Marks
Series: Standalone (?)
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Release Date: October 9, 2012
Pages: 464
Format: Hardcover
Average Rating: 3.64
Read it in: 5 days
Source: Bought from Amazon

- Summary -

Velveteen Monroe is dead. At 16, she was kidnapped and murdered by a madman named Bonesaw. But that’s not the problem. The problem is she landed in purgatory. And while it’s not a fiery inferno, it’s certainly no heaven. It’s gray, ashen, and crumbling more and more by the day, and everyone has a job to do. Which doesn’t leave Velveteen much time to do anything about what’s really on her mind.

Bonesaw.

Velveteen aches to deliver the bloody punishment her killer deserves. And she’s figured out just how to do it. She’ll haunt him for the rest of his days. It’ll be brutal... and awesome. But crossing the divide between the living and the dead has devastating consequences. Velveteen’s obsessive haunting cracks the foundations of purgatory and jeopardizes her very soul. A risk she’s willing to take—except fate has just given her reason to stick around: an unreasonably hot and completely off-limits coworker.

Velveteen can’t help herself when it comes to breaking rules... or getting revenge. And she just might be angry enough to take everyone down with her.

Series Review: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

Author: Beth Revis
Series: Across the Universe
Publisher: Razorbill
Release Date: January 2011 - January 2013
Pages: 1,153
Format: Hardcover/paperback
Average Rating: 4.07
Read it in: A few weeks
Source: Bought from Amazon

- Summary - 

A love out of time. A spaceship built of secrets and murder.

Seventeen-year-old Amy joins her parents as frozen cargo aboard the vast spaceship Godspeed and expects to awaken on a new planet, three hundred years in the future. Never could she have known that her frozen slumber would come to an end fifty years too soon and that she would be thrust into the brave new world of a spaceship that lives by its own rules.

Amy quickly realizes that her awakening was no mere computer malfunction. Someone - one of the few thousand inhabitants of the spaceship - tried to kill her. And if Amy doesn't do something soon, her parents will be next. Now Amy must race to unlock Godspeed's hidden secrets. But out of her list of murder suspects, there's only one who matters: Elder, the future leader of the ship and the love she could never have seen coming.

Book Review: Seven Minutes in Heaven (The Lying Game #6)

Author: Sara Shepard
Series: The Lying Game #6
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: July 30, 2013
Pages: 371
Format: Hardcover
Average Rating: 4.30
Read it in: 1 day
Source: Bought from Amazon

- Summary - 

My sister wants the truth. But sometimes the truth hurts.

For months, my long-lost twin, Emma, has been living my life and trying to solve my murder. She's unearthed dark secrets about my friends, my family, and my tangled past. But when it comes to finding my killer, she keeps running into dead ends.

Until my body shows up in Sabino Canyon. Suddenly everyone knows there are two girls who look like Sutton Mercer—and that one of them is dead. At first the police assume the body is Emma's. But as questions and accusations start flying, it's harder than ever for Emma to keep playing me. The truth is bound to come out eventually. And when it does, Emma will be suspect number one in my murder investigation. If she can't find my killer before time runs out, she'll end up behind bars . . . or worse.

Book Review: The Goddess Test (#1 & 1.5)

Author: Aimée Carter
Series: The Goddess Test
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: April 2011 and March 2012
Pages: 385
Format: Paperback, eBook
Average Rating: 3.89, 3.82
Read it in: 2 days
Source: Bought from Amazon

- Summary - 

Every girl who had taken the test has died. Now it's Kate's turn.

It's always been just Kate and her mom - and her mother is dying. Her last wish? To move back to her childhood home. So Kate's going to start at a new school with no friends, no other family and the fear that her mother won't live past the fall. Then she meets Henry. Dark. Tortured. And mesmerizing. He claims to be Hades, god of the Underworld - and if she accepts his bargain, he'll keep her mother alive while Kate tries to pass seven tests.

Kate is sure he's crazy - until she sees him bring a girl back from the dead. Now saving her mother seems crazily possible. If she succeeds, she'll become Henry's future bride and a goddess. If she fails...

Book Review: Epic Fail by Claire LaZebnik

Author: Claire LaZebnik
Series: Standalone
Publisher: HarperTeen
Release Date: August 2, 2011
Pages: 295
Format: Paperback
Average Rating: 3.72
Read it in: 1 day
Source: Bought from Amazon

- Summary - 

 At Coral Tree Prep in Los Angeles, who your parents are can make or break you. Case in point:

- As the son of Hollywood royalty, Derek Edwards is pretty much prince of the school—not that he deigns to acknowledge many of his loyal subjects.
- As the daughter of the new principal, Elise Benton isn't exactly on everyone's must-sit-next-to-at-lunch list.

When Elise's beautiful sister catches the eye of the prince's best friend, Elise gets to spend a lot of time with Derek, making her the envy of every girl on campus. Except she refuses to fall for any of his rare smiles and instead warms up to his enemy, the surprisingly charming social outcast Webster Grant. But in this hilarious tale of fitting in and flirting, not all snubs are undeserved, not all celebrity brats are bratty, and pride and prejudice can get in the way of true love for only so long.

Book Review: Enclave (Razorland #1) by Ann Aguirre

Author: Ann Aguirre
Series: Razorland #1
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release Date: April 12, 2011
Pages: 259
Format: Paperback
Average Rating: 3.92
Read it in: 2 days
Source: Bought from Amazon

- Summary -

WELCOME TO THE APOCALYPSE.

In Deuce’s world, people earn the right to a name only if they survive their first fifteen years. By that point, each unnamed ‘brat’ has trained into one of three groups–Breeders, Builders, or Hunters, identifiable by the number of scars they bear on their arms. Deuce has wanted to be a Huntress for as long as she can remember.

As a Huntress, her purpose is clear—to brave the dangerous tunnels outside the enclave and bring back meat to feed the group while evading ferocious monsters known as Freaks. She’s worked toward this goal her whole life, and nothing’s going to stop her, not even a beautiful, brooding Hunter named Fade. When the mysterious boy becomes her partner, Deuce’s troubles are just beginning.

Down below, deviation from the rules is punished swiftly and harshly, and Fade doesn’t like following orders. At first Deuce thinks he’s crazy, but as death stalks their sanctuary, and it becomes clear the elders don’t always know best, Deuce wonders if Fade might be telling the truth. Her partner confuses her; she’s never known a boy like him before, as prone to touching her gently as using his knives with feral grace. As Deuce’s perception shifts, so does the balance in the constant battle for survival. The mindless Freaks, once considered a threat only due to their sheer numbers, show signs of cunning and strategy… but the elders refuse to heed any warnings. Despite imminent disaster, the enclave puts their faith in strictures and sacrifice instead. No matter how she tries, Deuce cannot stem the dark tide that carries her far from the only world she’s ever known.

Series Review: Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake

Author: Kendare Blake
Series: Anna Dressed in Blood
Publisher: Tor Teen
Release Dates: August 2011 and 2012
Pages: 648
Format: Hardcover
Average Rating: 4.01, 4.0
Read it in: 1 day, 2 days
Source: Bought them from Amazon

- Summary -

Just your average boy-meets-girl, girl-kills-people story...

Cas Lowood has inherited an unusual vocation: He kills the dead. So did his father before him, until his gruesome murder by a ghost he sought to kill. Now, armed with his father’s mysterious and deadly athame, Cas travels the country with his kitchen-witch mother and their spirit-sniffing cat. Together they follow legends and local lore, trying to keep up with the murderous dead—keeping pesky things like the future and friends at bay.

When they arrive in a new town in search of a ghost the locals call Anna Dressed in Blood, Cas doesn’t expect anything outside of the ordinary: move, hunt, kill. What he finds instead is a girl entangled in curses and rage, a ghost like he’s never faced before. She still wears the dress she wore on the day of her brutal murder in 1958: once white, but now stained red and dripping blood. Since her death, Anna has killed any and every person who has dared to step into the deserted Victorian she used to call home.

And she, for whatever reason, spares his life

Book Review: Unravel Me (Shatter Me #2) by Tahereh Mafi

Author: Tahereh Mafi
Series: Shatter Me #2
Publisher: HarperCollins
Release Date: February 5, 2013
Pages: 461
Format: Hardcover
Average Rating: 4.37
Read it in: 2 days
Source: Bought from Amazon




- Summary -

tick
tick
tick
tick
tick
it's almost
time for war.

Juliette has escaped to Omega Point. It is a place for people like her—people with gifts—and it is also the headquarters of the rebel resistance. She's finally free from The Reestablishment, free from their plan to use her as a weapon, and free to love Adam. But Juliette will never be free from her lethal touch. Or from Warner, who wants Juliette more than she ever thought possible.

In this exhilarating sequel to Shatter Me, Juliette has to make life-changing decisions between what she wants and what she thinks is right. Decisions that might involve choosing between her heart—and Adam's life.

Book Review: Splintered by A.G. Howard

Author: A.G. Howard
Series: Splintered #1
Publisher: Amulet Books
Release Date: January 1, 2013
Pages: 371
Format: Hardcover
Average Rating: 3.99
Read it in: 3 days
Source: Bought from Amazon

- Summary -

Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own