January Wrap Up!

Hey everyone and welcome back to my blog!! I hope everyone had a great start to their new year. Personally, things have been good for me. My first semester of senior has finished, and because of snow and exams I was exempt from, I had almost two weeks off from school.

Reading-wise, I am off to a pretty great start. All the time off from school allowed me to just relax, hang out with my friends, and also read. 

Here are all the books I read to kick off this new year! All of these are in order from date read.

1) The Substitute by Denise Grover Swank
I had such a weird reading experience with The Substitute. I wasn't liking the first half, and I was actually thinking about DNF-ing it. Then, the book picked up and I really started to like it. I don't know if I'll read another adult romance by Swank, but it wasn't bad!

2) The Valiant by Lesley Livingston

The Valiant was such a solid read. I did have a couple issues, but they were few and far between. I loved the characters and all the kickass females. I really appreciated how there were no knights in shining armor in this book!

 3) Spellcaster by Claudia Gray
Spellcaster is the first book in Gray's witch trilogy. the only other book I've read by Gray was A Thousand Pieces of You, which I did enjoy. I would say though that I liked Spellcaster more, but I'm more excited for the sequel of A Thousand Pieces of You. Though the ending opened some new doors for the series, it didn't make me want to pick up the next book right away.  

Waiting on Wednesday #15

Hey everyone and welcome back to my blog! This week I will be participating in Waiting on Wednesday. WoW is a weekly meme hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine. Every week we showcase upcoming releases that we are excited about. Tressa @ Wishful Endings has recently taken lead in this meme, considering Jill hasn't been posting on for a while. Learn more here!

This week I chose The Last Magician by Lisa Maxwell!
 

Stop the Magician.
Steal the book.
Save the future.

In modern day New York, magic is all but extinct. The remaining few who have an affinity for magic—the Mageus—live in the shadows, hiding who they are. Any Mageus who enters Manhattan becomes trapped by the Brink, a dark energy barrier that confines them to the island. Crossing it means losing their power—and often their lives.

Esta is a talented thief, and she's been raised to steal magical artifacts from the sinister Order that created the Brink. With her innate ability to manipulate time, Esta can pilfer from the past, collecting these artifacts before the Order even realizes she’s there. And all of Esta's training has been for one final job: traveling back to 1901 to steal an ancient book containing the secrets of the Order—and the Brink—before the Magician can destroy it and doom the Mageus to a hopeless future.

But Old New York is a dangerous world ruled by ruthless gangs and secret societies, a world where the very air crackles with magic. Nothing is as it seems, including the Magician himself. And for Esta to save her future, she may have to betray everyone in the past.

Waiting on Wednesday #14

Hey everyone and welcome back to my blog! This week I will be participating in Waiting on Wednesday. WoW is a weekly meme hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine. Every week we showcase upcoming releases that we are excited about. Tressa @ Wishful Endings has recently taken lead in this meme, considering Jill hasn't been posting on for a while. Learn more here!

This week I chose Seven Days of You by Cecilia Vinesse!

Here are some stats!
Genre: Young Adult Contemporary Romance
Pages: 336
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Expected Publication Date: March 7, 2017 

Sophia has seven days left in Tokyo before she moves back to the States. Seven days to say good-bye to the electric city, her wild best friend, and the boy she’s harbored a semi-secret crush on for years. Seven perfect days…until Jamie Foster-Collins moves back to Japan and ruins everything.

Jamie and Sophia have a history of heartbreak, and the last thing Sophia wants is for him to steal her leaving thunder with his stupid arriving thunder. Yet as the week counts down, the relationships she thought were stable begin to explode around her. And Jamie is the one who helps her pick up the pieces. Sophia is forced to admit she may have misjudged Jamie, but can their seven short days of Tokyo adventures end in anything but good-bye?

MOVIE REVIEW | Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children

Movie: Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children
Book: Same title, by Ransom Riggs
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Release Date: September 30, 2016
Length: 127 minutes

A mysterious island. An abandoned orphanage. A strange collection of curious photographs.

A horrific family tragedy sets sixteen-year-old Jacob journeying to a remote island off the coast of Wales, where he discovers the crumbling ruins of Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children. As Jacob explores its abandoned bedrooms and hallways, it becomes clear that the children were more than just peculiar. They may have been dangerous. They may have been quarantined on a deserted island for good reason. And somehow—impossible though it seems—they may still be alive.

DISCUSSION | Why Throne of Glass was a huge disappointment

So this month, I finally picked up Throne of Glass. After years of being pushed to read this book, I made the decision and checked it out from my library. And maybe it's because of the years of anticipating/dreading reading the book, or maybe it's the lack of execution, but Throne of Glass was lackluster for me. 

My biggest issue lies in the characters. To give you a backstory, my best friend read Throne of Glass, Crown of Midnight, and Heir of Fire last summer. She dnf'd Queen of Shadows. Her main reason was that Dorian and Chaol are basically thrown away by the time Queen of Shadows rolls around. According to her, there are not a lot of chapters in their POVs and neither of them are endgame for Celeana. Knowing this, it was so hard to invest in any relationship in Throne of Glass. I was connecting with Dorian and Chaol, but I kept stopping myself. Because what is the point in rooting for Chaol and Celeana to end up together if I know that their ship sinks already? I had a hard time balancing knowing that the series goes in a completely different direction and still enjoying the book. Also, is Nehemia even in the sequels?? Because I genuinely liked her character.

Waiting on Wednesday #13

Hey everyone and welcome back to my blog! This week I will be participating in Waiting on Wednesday. WoW is a weekly meme hosted by Jill @ Breaking the Spine. Every week we showcase upcoming releases that we are excited about. Tressa @ Wishful Endings has recently taken lead in this meme, considering Jill hasn't been posting on for a while. Learn more here!

This week I chose Bad Blood by Demitria Lunetta!

Here are some stats!
Genre: Young Adult Fantasy
Pages: 272
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Expected Publication Date: March 14, 2017

A girl discovers a family secret and a past full of magic that could both save her and put her in mortal danger in this suspenseful novel that’s perfect for fans of Katie Alender and Natasha Preston.

All sixteen-year-old Heather MacNair wants is to feel normal, to shed the intense paranoia she’s worn all year like a scratchy sweater. After her compulsion to self-harm came to light, Heather was kept under her doctor’s watchful eye. Her family thinks she’s better—and there’s nothing she wants more than for that to be true. She still can’t believe she’s allowed to spend her summer vacation as she always does: at her aunt’s home in Scotland, where she has lots of happy memories. Far away from all her problems save one: she can’t stop carving the Celtic knot that haunts her dreams into her skin.

Good friends and boys with Scottish accents can cure almost anything…except nightmares. Heather can’t stop dreaming about two sisters from centuries ago, twins Prudence and Primrose, who somehow seem tied to her own life. Their presence lurks just beneath the surface of her consciousness, sending ripples through what should be a peaceful summer. The twins might hold the key to putting Heather’s soul at rest…or they could slice her future deeper than any knife.

AUDIOBOOK REVIEW | Spellcaster by Claudia Gray

Title: Spellcaster
Series: Spellcaster Trilogy
Author: Claudia Gray
Publication Date: March 5, 2013
Length: 11 hours and 11 minutes
Source: I listened to the audiobook via my online local library.

When Nadia's family moves to Captive's Sound, she instantly realizes there's more to the place than meets the eye. Descended from witches, Nadia can sense that a spell has been cast over the tiny Rhode Island town—a sickness infecting everyone and everything in it. The magic at work is darker and more powerful than anything she's come across and has sunk its claws most deeply into Mateo . . . her rescuer, her friend, and the guy she yearns to get closer to even as he pushes her away.

Mateo has lived in Captive's Sound his entire life, shadowed by small-town gossip and his family's tormented past. Every generation, the local legends say, one member of the family goes mad, claiming to know the future before descending into insanity. When the strange dreams Mateo has been having of rescuing a beautiful girl from a car accident actually come true, he knows he's doomed.

Despite the forces pulling them apart, Nadia and Mateo must work together to break the chains of his terrible family curse, and to prevent a coming disaster that even now threatens the entire town, including Nadia's family, her newfound friends, and her own life. Shimmering with magic and mystery, New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray's new novel depicts a dark and unforgettable world of witches, curses, buried secrets, and star-crossed romance.

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