REVIEW: See How They Run by Ally Carter

Some secrets are better left unfound.

For the past three years, Grace Blakely has been desperate to find out the truth about her mother’s murder. She thought it would bring her peace. She thought it would lead her to answers. She thought she could put the past to rest.

But the truth has only made her a target.

And the past?

The only way to put the past to rest is for Grace to kill it once and for all.

On Embassy Row, power can make you a victor or a victim, love can turn you into a fool or a fugitive, and family can lead you forward or bury you deep. Trust is a luxury. Death is a very real threat. And a girl like Grace must be very careful about which secrets she brings to light.

I can honestly say that I did not enjoy See How They Run quite as much as I enjoyed All Fall Down. This isn’t to say that Ally Carter did not do an outstanding job on both of the books, it’s just that the second book in the Embassy Row series is blatantly and obviously a second book in a series. It suffers from the second book womp (and yes, that is what I’m officially calling it).

The reason this book suffered from the second book womp is because of the plot. This is an action series and yet nothing happened until literally a third of the way through the book. As second books go, this one wasn’t terrible, but it was a little slow. Took a third of the book to actually hit a major plot point that hadn’t already been addressed! Grace took the first third of the book to just complain about being alone in the world and how she’s the root of everyone’s problems and yadda yadda, give me your sympathies. Don’t get me wrong, I love Grace. I think she’s a great character, I just wish more had happened in the first third other than hearing about her sorrows over and over.

There were a lot of amends to Grace’s character, though, and that’s one thing I enjoyed reading. She apologized for her flaws and actions, but she still stayed true to her character. But her apologies were not the reason I love Grace. The following quote is why I love her:

“I didn’t mean to say it. Not so quickly. Not like that. But the words have been on a perpetual loop inside my head and now they’re out, tumbling free. I know I should have broken the news gently, eased Jamie off the cliff. But eventually, he had to fall. And I have never been one to fall when I can jump.”

This is the part that completely drives home Grace’s character for me. She’s blunt and broken, and she’ll take down anyone with her that’s in her path of destruction. She knows that anyone who get close to her in a domino and she’s the catalyst. She’s knows this, and bears the weight of such knowledge.

In this book, Jamie comes to Valancia because he’s has been informed that she remembers the night of their mother’s death. Now, while I love the strong relationship between Jamie and Grace, and the fact that Jamie is the one person who knows and accepts Grace through everything, I still kind of wish there was a little tension between them. The only tension we truly saw was between Jamie and Alexei, and I almost wish a little of that had been indirectly directed toward Grace. Does that make me mean?

Honestly, there wasn’t really a reason for Jamie’s character other than to bring the random victim to Valancia, hate on his best friend, and to comfort Grace during her times of need. I hope the third book offers more for Jamie’s character, because he seemed like one of those extra pieces that come with furniture building that you only use if you lose a piece (or if you’re lazy and can’t come up with something better for the plot). Jamie was always in the right place at the right time, and I found it very annoying.

Alexei on the other hand, I did not find annoying. I loved Alexei in this book. He was flirtatious, secretive, and dashing. It was great getting to see more of his character in this book, and I can’t wait for the next book because of his and Grace’s relationship. This isn’t my favorite series by any means because I find the plot a little womp, the twists a little lax, and the characters a little annoying. Nevertheless, I am hooked into the series and I will continue to read the rest of the books to come.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan

            Kami Glass loves someone she’s never met…a boy she’s talked to in her head ever since she was born. She wasn’t silent about her imaginary friend during her childhood, and is thus a bit of an outsider in her sleepy English town of Sorry-in-the-Vale. Still, Kami hasn’t suffered too much from not fitting in. She has a best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is in order, just the way she likes it, despite the voice in her head.

            But all that changes when the Lynburns return.

            The Lynburn family has owned the spectacular and sinister manor that overlooks Sorry-in-the-Vale for centuries. The mysterious twin sisters who abandoned their ancestral home a generation ago are back, along with their teenage sons, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami. Kami is not one to shy away from the unknown—in fact, she’s determined to find answers for all the questions Sorry-in-the-Vale is suddenly posing. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him? Does she hate him? Can she trust him?

There are 99 reasons to love Unspoken by Sarah Rees Brennan, and most of them revolve around the protagonist, Kami Glass. Not only is Kami a strong, independent girl who don’t need no man, but she’s the knight in shining armor to not one but two damsels in distress. She’s a sass-a-frass of a girl with the wit repertoire of Loki from Supernatural. She’s a badass girl, and her best friends are too.

Angela and her brother, Rusty are the new kids to town. They’re not let in on town secrets, but they’re fine with that. They don’t care for gossip or social interaction. They like naps, and Rusty teaches self-defense. Rusty has taught Angela and Kami to be the badass girls they are today. Holly, on the other hand, is a bit of a natural badass. She drives a motorcycle and all the boys flock to her like bees to honey. Angela and Holly bond over their mutual distaste for boys and their boyish ways. It’s clear that they are absolutely in love with each other!

Along with her two best friends, Kami’s gang includes two damsels in distress. These damsels are none other than Jared and Ash Lynburn of the infamous Lynburns. I mention the gang members because they really make the story interesting. I love the cast of characters in Unspoken. I didn’t know a supernatural, gothic romance would have such a great cast, but it really does! I really didn’t know that it was going to be such a powerful and savvy females novel.

Aside from the characters and roles they had, the plot was amazing as well. There aren’t a lot of stories in YA that I’ve seen that involve imaginary friends. I think that’s probably something more prevalent in middle grade where kids are actually shifting out of having imaginary friends. It was great to get to read something dealing with such a theme. I loved it, and I think Brennan really handled the problems that would arise from finding out your imaginary friend is real quite well.

I’m incredibly excited to sink my fangs into the rest of the Lynburn Legacy. I can’t say that I found too many cons in the first book of the series. I really hated Jared’s mother, but I think that was the point. The one thing that stuck out to me as odd was how much Jared and Kami were one. Now, let me get to the point before you tell me how that’s the point.

Kami is such a strong character and Jared is too. Clearly there was the question throughout the book about where one person ended and the other began. Jared knew everything about Kami, but Kami really never knew a lot about Jared, and it felt obvious how different they were. Yet, Uncle Rob kept mentioning how their bond made them basically the same in a way. It might have just been something Rob had to say to get his way, but it’s odd to think that some of Kami’s personality is there because of Jared. I wonder if that will make Kami’s character read a little differently in the next book, and I don’t really know if I want that but shouldn’t that be the case? Odd.

That’s the only con I have, but it could just be my imagination.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve. Either you’re his true love…or you killed him.”

Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue never sees them—until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks to her.

His name is Gansey, and he’s a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.

But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul whose emotions range from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher who notices many things but says very little.

For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She doesn’t believe in true love and never thought this would be a problem. But as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

What I really loved about this book was basically everything. I actually checked out the book from the library a month ago and tried to read it, but ended up just having to return it. I checked it out again and began anew with new eyes. I must have just not been in the supernatural niche a month ago or something because I was totally hooked.

The book sort of had a slow burn, with a lot of pages dedicated to really defining the characters’ motives, thoughts, and actions. By the time the boys and Blue finally joined, I knew everything I needed to know about what made everybody tick.

In a way, this detailing of the characters bothered me somewhat. It was mainly Adam and Noah that bothered me the most. Now don’t get me wrong, I love them both, but one of them got too much emphasis and the other received little to none.

Starting with Adam, his character development keeps bringing up his resentment toward Gansey’s background and money and upbringing. It comes up time and time again and it really irks me how often it comes up. I understand the juxtaposition of Adam and Whelk, and I understand that Adam’s resentment paves the way for the ending of the book. Do I still wish there was less emphasis on this part of his character and maybe just a little more air time for the rest of his personality? Yes.

As for Noah, he’s a smudgy guy and reasonably so considering his history. The thing that bothered me was not so much how little we learn about him, but rather how much he and Blue seemingly bond in no time at all. There’s the time they meet, and then the next time we see them together they’re all BFFs. He pets her hair like she’s his own Blue-pet. I understand the contact thing, I do, but it was just a little odd. And I like odd. Blue just seems to adore Noah as much as he adores her, and I wish I had gotten to know more about the guy that is easily adorable.

I think this book is very unique, and that’s what sort of turned me off the first time but reeled and hooked me the second time. Quest books of this caliber in young adult are an easy find, especially if you were to look in the middle grade section. Love and supernatural are an easy find as well. What’s unique, however, is the merging of the two. The book, and ultimately the series I presume, is a bit of a witch’s cauldron. A little bit of contemporary issues, a dash of love and supernatural, a bug dollop of quest, a pitch of magic and mystery, a hint of chaos and whimsy. It’s got a little bit of everything.

The character I’ve fallen the most in love with would have to be Gansey, which is already a bad move on my part since he’s going to die by the end of series. He’s like an eagle willingly surrounded by broken canaries. He’s got such a depth of character that I haven’t quite experienced with any of the other characters. Ronan is my second favorite for this reason as well, and he might inch forward in the coming books. Blue was a fine character, but I much preferred reading about her when she was with the Raven Boys or her family. Her family was great, and I wish my own were that exciting.

All-in-all, I think the plot was incredibly well developed, and I love that I’ve finished the book and there’s still a lot of mystery. In some books there’s only one mystery that links the series, but there are already so many for this one. I think this series is going to do me in emotionally. I can’t wait!

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Doll Bones by Holly Black

            Zach, Poppy and Alice have been friend for ever. They love playing with their action figure toys, imagining a magical world of adventure and heroism. But disaster strikes when, without warning, Zach’s father throws out all his toys, declaring he’s too old for them. Zach is furious, confused and embarrassed, deciding that the only way to cope is to stop playing…and stop being friends with Poppy and Alice. But one night the girls pay Zach a visit, and tell him about a series of mysterious occurrences. Poppy swears that she is now being haunted by a china doll—who claims that it is made from the ground-up bones of a murdered girl. They must return the doll to where the girl lived, and bury it. Otherwise the three children will be cursed for eternity…

            Now I won’t lie. This review might just be a little bit of a love letter to Holly Black, so be forewarned. Ever since I first read Tithe, I fell in love with Black’s style of writing.  She’s always able to turn the most mundane, non-special of settings into something completely magical. With Tithe there was the industrial-ness of the setting that made it deadly for the fae, but then there was still the magical undertones and secret world. Doll Bones really brought me back to that enchanting feeling, but in a new way.

            The setting in Doll Bones is really anything but magical. All the magic occurs in the minds of the three main characters—Zach, Poppy and Alice. I really connected with these three because I was absolutely one of those kids that played make-believe with dolls for “too long,” but I never really stopped. I just moved mediums and became a writer! But it was amazing to get to see this ordinary world through the eyes of a group of friends with extraordinary imaginations.

            Since the world was ordinary, there wasn’t a lot of apparent magic, just whatever the kids came up with. There was, however, that little pinch of creepiness that Black likes to sow in all of her book. Most all of the adults, when looking at the friends, saw four kids instead of just three because of Eleanor the haunted bone china doll. It was the perfect amount of eerie to take the book to the next spooky level.

            The book was really a perfect look at childhood and growing up (and how much it sucks). This quest to lay the china doll to rest is sort of these kids’ last chance to be together and go on adventures like they’ve done so often throughout their lives so far. This is the last quest before they have to grow up, and that makes the book almost even more terrifying.

            What I would have really loved to see in this book is a more omniscient POV. The majority of the story is told through Zach’s eyes and that made him immediately a dynamic character. Poppy and Alice, however, were not so dynamic. I found myself getting confused as to which girl was which, and I think getting to see a little more about them would have been great. Of course, at the same time I loved the mystery of being in one, singular person’s POV.

            I honestly didn’t find much else to be wrong with the story. I think everything worked really well and I absolutely adored it. Holly Black has yet to let me down.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: The Name of the Star by Maureen Johnson

Jack the Ripper is back, and he’s coming for Rory next…

            Louisiana teenager Rory Deveaux arrives in London to start a new life at boarding school just as a series of brutal murders mimicking the horrific Jack the Ripper killing spree of more than a century ago has broken out across the city. The police are left with few leads and no witnesses. Except one. Rory spotted the man believed to be the prime suspect. But she is the only one who saw him—the only one who can see him. And now Rory has become his next target…unless she can tap her previously unknown abilities to turn the tables.

            The Name of the Star is so much British boarding school love, so little time. Maureen Johnson put a lot of time and beauty into the details of the boarding school that Rory moves into in London. Did she spend a little too much time on the school details and not enough on the actual plot? That’s up for debate.

            While I really enjoyed this book, I definitely think the amount of detail that went into everything about the boarding school was overkill. I get it! Rory is living the dream. She’s moved to London and is living and going to school at a boarding school! I wish there’d been more exciting detail about London in general instead of so much focus on the school. Don’t get me wrong: I loved the school. Sign me up! But it was a bit much.

            As for other aspects of the story I enjoyed, there are the characters. While Rory’s classmates were kind of drab (other than the Hockey-loving Claudia and Rory’s roommate), I really adored the “Ghostbuster” squad. They didn’t get nearly enough time, detail, and characterization (because that all went to the school) and they were still way better than most of the people at the school. Give me Stephen over Jerome any day, because I feel like Jerome was an awful character and there was clearly no chemistry between him and Rory. I assume he’s not her forever love interest, and I really wish the Ripper would have just killed him because there was less than nothing between him and Rory and it was awful to read them get forced together. Boo (and her best friend, of course), Jazza, and Callum were all fine characters, but Jerome was the epitome of awful.

            Before I type out the words Jerome and awful together in any more sentences, I’ll digress. My favorite part of the book was the plot point of using people who’ve had a near-death experience and have been locked away in an insane asylum to hunt down ghosts. That’s not a bad idea at all! Either way, I really liked that part but overall the book was kind of a disappointment. I wanted to like it more than I actually did, and there were just a lot of things wrong.

            Firstly, there was way too much set up (too many details!). I seriously waited half of the book for something to actually happen, and when Rory finally became aware of her abilities she didn’t actually do anything with them. Then there were those extra chapters in different POVs that did absolutely nothing for the story. Plus, just because it’s an episodic sort of series does not mean that there shouldn’t be some overarching plot for the whole series (and so far there’s nothing). And finally, there was the fact that Rory expletive gave up at the end. Things were rough with the Ripper and she said, “Oh, just kill me!”. What a weak and disappointing character! I want a strong character that’s willing to do something, anything, to stop evil, but I guess that just wasn’t a part of Rory’s character chart. I honestly don’t think I can give this series another chance after the main character gave up, and that’s the biggest disappointment of all.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: The Fixer by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

            Sixteen-year-old Tess Kendrick has spent her entire life on her grandfather’s ranch. But when her estranged sister Ivy uproots her to D.C., Tess is thrown into a world that revolves around politics and power. She also starts at Hardwicke Academy, the D.C. school for the children of the rich and powerful, where she unwittingly becomes a fixer for the high school set, fixing teens’ problems the way her sister fixes their parents’ problems.

            And when a conspiracy surfaces that involves the family member of one of Tess’s classmates, love triangles and unbelievable family secrets come to light and life gets even more interesting—and complicated—for Tess.

            Despite my unadulterated love for Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ writing, I was sincerely concerned that I wasn’t going to enjoy this book when I initially heard about it. I’m not really into politics and that sort of this, so this book was mentally out of my comfort zone. Good thing I read it, though, because it was really great if a bit awkwardly bumpy in places. Look at me, reading a political thriller of sorts. Oh my gosh! Am I turning into an adult?

            First off, big spoiler in this paragraph, I’m going to mention a few of the things that turned me off and out of the book’s world a little. Now I realize that I am one of zero (and I do mean zero because as of right now I’m on the fence and holding my utter judgment until after book two), but I was not a fan of how Tess’s sister became Tess’s mom. It’s not that I didn’t love the plot twist, because trust me I loved it and the story potential is brings, it’s simply that I did not like how it was revealed. It just seemed so mundane. Blah blah, things are falling apart, I don’t want you not to know that I’m really your mother, blah blah. I thought there could have been more build up, or hey (better yet!), Tess could have figured it out on her own! Gasp! How does she come up with this?

            More on her figuring things out on her own, though. When hearing about this book, I really thought that I was going to get to see Tess become a fixer for this “high school” scene. I wouldn’t have even minded more “cases” being thrust upon her before the big conspiracy case. There just needed to be more of her becoming a fixer alongside her sister and then there needed to be a cross and some links between cases. The way that occurred in the book just seemed flat. It was a nice variation to the usual to kid in high school trope but I don’t think it was executed well enough to be an acceptable differentiation.

            The last thing that bugged me was how quickly Tess forgave Ivy for leaving her with her grandfather and for stopping writing letters. I would be livid if that sort of person uprooted me from the life I love to move to Boston and live with them. I’d never forgive them, even if they did tell me a huge secret that really “changes things”. I understand that tragedy brings people together, but to me Ivy was a bully that tore Tess from her home. Considering Tess’s key character trait of despising bullies, her forgiving Ivy so quickly just didn’t ring true.

            Now on to what I loved about the book: which is a lot! As I mentioned before, I’m not a huge politics fan but this book had me hooked. The more of the conspiracy that got revealed, the more I got invested. I would have liked if Tess could have figured out some secrets before her sister, but in the end she really got to determine her own fate and figure things out on her own (which I loved).

            Tess was a dynamic character for sure, and I loved her interactions with her friends and I adored Henry. Now there’s a ship for which I’ll knit a sail! But characters are never something with which I’ve seen Barnes struggle. She can build great characters that I will fall in love with inevitably and no matter what.

            One thing I was a huge hopeful for in the beginning was the maybe love triangle between Bodie and Adam. I thought it was so inventive to have a love triangle with the sister rather than the main character. In that instant, the book really felt like a TV series with the clear life of Ivy and then the life of Tess. An almost split POV story, if you will, and I thought it was going to be amazing! But then I was denied that joy by Ivy lackluster “love-type” emotions for Bodie. Finishing the book, however, I’m still hopeful that there’s a love triangle in Ivy’s future that I’ll get to read all about.

            And yes, there were the twists, thrills, and all other Barnes amusement park rides. There’s never a dull, untwisted moment in the book, and never a person without some sort of ulterior motive. But I’m guessing that’s just D.C. and I can’t wait for more.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

            Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there. It can.

            She believes there must be more to the accident she can’t remember that killed her friends and left her mysteriously unharmed. There is.

            She doesn’t believe that after everything she’s been through, she can fall in love. She’s wrong.

            That’s it. It’s done. I’m officially on the heart transplant list after this book caused the implosion of my heart in my chest and the explosion of it out my mouth in the form of rainbow vomit all over the floor. I love this book. The book made me realize a couple of tropes I adore, that I’ll be adding to my list.

            In the end, this book is really just what I needed after my last book. One of the biggest issues that bogged me down in the last book I read, was what kept me reading this book during every inch of free time I had just to finish it (seriously, I started a new job today and every single second of free time had me reading this book like water in a desert). The chapters were succinct, and the descriptions were both heartwarming and terrifying at the same time. This book was a perfect mesh of creep-topia and shoot-me-in-the-foot-love.

            Starting with the creep factors brings me to one of the new tropes I’ve realized I love. Broken, female, protagonists. I love characters that are insane (literally in-the-psych-ward-insane). Michelle Hodkin gave just the right amount of schizophrenia in this book. I believed that Mara had PTSD and I believed the things she saw. It was the little details that brought it all together. Starting and ending with the Ouija board bit was so awesome and just Mara avoiding looking in reflective surfaces was perfectly eerie. I had no idea what to expect, and that was so refreshing and scary!

            The love part brings me to another trope. Opposites attract (cliché, I know). This one was a little different from the usual “opposites attract love story,” however. They clearly liked each other, but they fought it and just the way it was written was very opposites falling for each other. I am just in love with Mara and Noah. They’re perfection-incarnate. The things that Noah said to Mara towards the end of the book when things were getting revealed made me die inside from warm and fuzzy things. I think I could do a whole post on all the things absolutely pristine about their ship and love (but I won’t).

            Another thing that was done amazingly in this book were the plotlines. There were clearly multiple plotlines in the story and they all interlocked, but were clearly separate lines. The love story. The mystery of the asylum. The murder trial. Clearly separate, but oh so interwoven. It was amazing writing that Michelle Hodkin did in The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer. I feel like so often writers put too much focus on one plotline and the overall story ends up flat. This story was 5D it was so deep.

            Of course, every story has its flaws and this one did have some toward the end. The story got very murky when Noah wakes up Mara with the news about Joseph. I wasn’t sure if it was dream or not until after Mara wakes up after the Mr. Lukumi bit. I was reading it and thinking “is this all a dream?” and I think it’s because Noah knocking on the window just came out of nowhere without any good buffer. I wish the murder trial story mingled into the overall story at least one time between that scene and the creepy phone call. It just needed something. Then there’s the Mr. Lukumi part that was just weird. I felt like I tripping or something, and it was just too rushed and weird.

            After that, though, everything started falling into place and truths were revealed and it was crazy! There were just so many brilliant things going on in this book that they all far outweighed the awkward flaws toward the end. I’ve wanted to read this book for a long time and I am so happy I finally have because I absolutely loved it and would recommend it to everyone (I already am).

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: Killer Instinct by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

None of us had normal childhoods. If we had, we wouldn’t be Naturals.

Seventeen-year-old Cassie Hobbes has a gift for profiling people. Her talent has landed her a spot in an elite FBI program for teens with innate crime-solving abilities, and into some harrowing situations. After barely escaping a confrontation with an unbalanced killer obsessed with her mother’s murder, Cassie hopes she, Dean, Lia, Michael, and Sloane can stick to solving cold cases from a distance.

But when victims of a brutal new serial killer start turning up, the Naturals are pulled into an active case that strikes too close to home: the killer is a perfect copycat of Dean’s incarcerated father. Dean wants nothing to do with his father or the case, but the FBI needs his insight. As much as his friends want to help him, Cassie isn’t sure how they can, especially when her feelings for Dean are almost as complicated as the case itself. And on top of all that, the crew has to contend with a supervisor who wants to shut down the Naturals program, the drama that comes with five very different teens living under one roof, and a slew of cold cases that need their attention.

While I really enjoyed this book, I’m not sure I enjoyed it nearly as much as the first one. The first book made the killer personal to Cassie whereas this one was personal to Dean, who happens to be very personal to Cassie. Somehow, this one just wasn’t as bang as the last one. I still really enjoyed it. I love Jennifer Lynn Barnes’ writing. It’s easy like a Sunday morning to read, and always amazing.

First off, I wanna say that the way the killer was revealed in this one was very ingenious! Such plot twists. Much wow. And I really felt like the gang came together as more of a team in the one. It just sucked because Cassie had that sort of epiphany moment at the end just a little late. It rang a little sour in my mouth. Cassie’s supposed to be this amazingly gifted profiler, yet she doesn’t follow through on her instincts all the time. Granted, there was a character, Agent Sterling, who was trying her hardest to make sure Cassie didn’t follow her instincts.

I loved all the reveals in the book, but I wish there’d been a little more about Cassie’s mom. It was such a driving force in the first one that I wish there’d been just a little more. Granted, I loved the nuance similarity made between Cassie’s and Dean’s backgrounds with familial killers. That all worked perfectly.

Aside from that, Briggs got really mean in this book, and that startled me. I know the case was getting to him, but it might have been too much. There were also secondary characters that did not get nearly enough book time. Sloane and Judd. Their stories started unraveling, and then I was given nothing! I adore Sloane so much and she was not integral enough in the story. Then Judd’s reveal, and there’s no real evidence that any of that has an effect on him when it should! I just think Judd wasn’t fleshed out enough.

Overall it was a great book though. Daniel Redding reminds me of Joe Carroll from The Following, and that was very cool. I really enjoyed seeing Dean’s father and hearing his background, I just wish there’d been more in the other storylines instead of focusing so heavily just on that one. Bring me more Sloane in the third book!

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: All Fall Down by Ally Carter

 

Grace Blakely is absolutely certain of three things:

1. She is not crazy.

2. Her mother was murdered.

3. Some day she is going to find the killer and make him pay.

As certain as Grace is about these facts, nobody else believes her—so there’s no one she can completely trust. Not her grandfather, a powerful ambassador. Not her new friends, who all live on Embassy Row. Not Alexei, the Russian boy next door, who is keep his eye on Grace for reasons she neither likes nor understand.

Everybody wants Grace to put on a pretty dress and a pretty smile, blocking out all her unpretty thoughts. But they can’t control Grace—no more than Grace can control what she knows or what she needs to do. Her past has come back to hunt her…and if she doesn’t stop it, Grace isn’t the only one who will get hurt. Because on Embassy Row, the countries of the world stand like dominoes, and one wrong move can make them all fall down.

That was really unexpected. You know, I thought I understood Ally Carter’s writing. She likes to write serial series’ that don’t delve into too much graphic content. She does it so well. I love her writing. I expected this book to be kind of like it. My first thought was that I was so glad the Scooby Gang got together so soon in this one, and then BANG! Carter went and changed everything with this book! It’s so much darker and twistier than what she’s written up till now. And I loved it!

From the start, I knew that Grace was gonna be a great protagonist. She’s a strong, independent woman who don’t need no man and has seen some stuff. She’s a dark character with a dark past, similar to Rachel Vincent’s protagonist in her Soul Screamers series. More than that, she has flaws for days. She knows she’ll never be one of the guys, and she hates it. She knows her whole family doesn’t love her like they used to before her mother was killed, and she knows everyone she’s her as the crazy, broken little girl.

It was kind of annoying how much the adults refused to little to Grace, but it also kind of made sense in the end. I just wish Grace had quit talking to them. We get it in the end, but the scenes got a little old. I also can’t say there were a lot of twists throughout the book, just simply the huge waterfall of them at the very end. I wish there’d been a little more throughout, but it was still a great book. I wasn’t hooked on the first couple chapters but after that I was flying through the book. (Spoiler alert) She leaped off a cliff and I leaped into the book. The book was dark and deep, and a great read. I can’t wait for the next one!

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes

Seventeen-year-old Cassie is a natural at reading people. Piecing together the tiniest details, she can tell you who you are and what you want. But it’s not a skill that she’s ever taken seriously. That is, until the FBI comes knocking: they’ve begun a classified program that uses exceptional teenagers to crack infamous cold cases, and they need Cassie.

What Cassie doesn’t realize is that there’s more at risk than a few unsolved homicides—especially when she’s sent to live with a group of teens whose gifts are as unusual as her own. Sarcastic, privileged Michael has a knack for reading emotions, which he uses to get inside Cassie’s head—and under her skin. Brooding Dean shares Cassie’s gift for profiling, but keeps her at arm’s length.

Soon it becomes clear that no one in the Naturals program is what they seem. And when a new killer strikes, danger looms closer than Cassie could ever have imagined. Caught in a lethal game of cat and mouse with a killer, the Naturals are going to have to use all of their gifts just to survive.

Creepy times 10 billion, and brilliant to boot. When I picked up The Naturals by Jennifer Lynn Barnes, I knew I was going to love it. I mean, how many times does one get to read a police procedural type YA? I can count on one finger how many times, thank you very much. I can honestly say that I believe this to be one of Barnes’ best books so far. Her use of second person for the small chapters in the killer’s perspective was not only absolutely terrifying, but also absolutely fantastic. And even with these killer POV chapters, this book still read at a level acceptable for middle grade as well as young adult. A feat, I tell you.

            The book cover is beautiful and the writing style is very succinct and to the point as a police procedural should be. The characters were good, though they could have been more dynamic. Lia did not seem like an important enough character and was not in the story enough for her to have had to be there. As for the rest of the characters, they were really well done and their Naturals ability truly shone through and developed their characters further. Dean wasn’t as developed as I wanted, though he was supposed to me tall, dark and mystery and thus I did not give a damn! The plot was great, though rushed and a bit clique at the very end. I was reading the big twist at the end about a paragraph before it actually occurred. That was disappointing. The writing wasn’t necessarily poetic or deep but it worked for the story written. With an analytical story such as this, where the characters are all Naturals at what they do, having that stylized critical sort of writing worked amazingly. I mean, all Sloane did was give statistics throughout the book, no other sort of dialogue really, and I feel like I know that character like the back of my hand.

            Overall, I loved the book. I thought the writing was great and made for a really quick read, which I like. I loved the characters, Sloane and Michael being my favorites, and little plot twists throughout (which I won’t mention because spoilers kill baby animals) were well thought out and cunningly brilliant. I really enjoyed the found family trope in this, as well as the tension between Cassie, Michael and Dead. It was a great love triangle of sorts and I honestly have no idea who she’ll choose, much less who I actually want her with. It’s a mental struggle I’m going through, I swear. Also the tension between how Dean used I when profiling and Cassie used You really helped separate and unify the character together despite them both being Natural profilers. It worked incredibly well and helped define their unique backgrounds and how they’ve shaped them.

            I can honestly say that I have not seen a book quite like this one in YA, and rightly so. Who in their right mind thinks, “I’m going to turn Criminal Minds into a YA novel”? Nobody sane is who. Jennifer Lynn Barnes is amazing, and her psychology background really pushed this book to a whole other level. It was an awesome read and I honestly feel like I could recommend it to anyone. What’s next for this author? The YA Grey’s Anatomy? I would actually keel over if that ever happened. I actually tried to think of a way to do it and I have absolutely nothing and so I’m now determined to figure out a way. I may never write it because I didn’t even get past high school biology (I’m graduating with my undergrad in December) in terms of non-social sciences and so I would fail miserably. Anyway, read this book if you haven’t already. It’s great. Sloane is to The Naturals as Abby is to NCIS. If that doesn’t peak your interest then I just don’t know what will.

XOXO Tia

REVIEW: We Were Liars by E. Lockhart

            A beautiful and distinguished family.

            A private island.

            A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.

            A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.

            A revolution. An accident. A secret.

            Lies upon lies.

            True love.

            The truth.

            I honestly have to say that this was not one of my favorite books. I contemplated giving it a half star less than I did, but the ending and my after thoughts of the entire book brought it up that little bit.

            A lot of people will mention how the ending is insane and so unpredictable, but I knew about halfway through what the ending was. Granted, if you’re not as great a guesser as I, the ending will completely blow your mind most likely. That being said, the fact that I knew what the ending was going to be was still not the main reason I gave this book such a low rating.

            There was no reason why the four main characters were identified as the Liars by Cady. This really grated on my nerves, so get ready for a wee rant. Cady has amnesia throughout the majority of the book, and the slow build through all the years at the island leading up to the accident gave no suggestion toward the four characters being liars. They did not lie about anything except for the accident, but Cady doesn’t remember the accident so why would she be calling them the Liars for the entire book? I would have been okay with it a little more had the story been told in past tense rather than present. As is, Cady had this omniscient feel that was unfitting for the story since she was the least omniscient of all given her amnesia and the fact the story was happening as we were reading it. Of course, after the accident is revealed there are so many nuances about every character’s actions that suddenly makes sense, but the Liars title was not one.

            Aside from that, I wasn’t a huge fan of how the story was laid out. It was a very short book, which was good because not a lot happened, but it had such a slow-as-snails-riding-on-turtles build. The slow build is great for mysteries such as this one, but I don’t feel as though the author, E. Lockhart, offered up many crucial mystery-solving clues during this slow build. The book could have honestly started during the seventeenth summer on the island, and I would have had a lot less dead pages to get through.

            Don’t get me wrong, the beginning and the ending of the book are great. The ending had me bawling like a baby, and Lockhart gave such beautiful metaphors throughout the book. However, everything that was revealed in the first half of the book could have been done just as easily during the last two summers. I’m sure that watching the characters grow into who they become during the accident is great for character building, had such a thing occurred. Honestly, the descriptions Cady gives about her “Liars” throughout the book told me more about them that the actual story did.

            Sorry if this isn’t the huge appraisal review most have been giving about this book, but it just wasn’t enough for me. It wasn’t enough mystery, or thrill, or character building. I knew light-years more about every secondary character than I did about all of Cady’s “Liars” combined. Granted, the ending was amazing and it did bring every character into new light and I’m so glad I got to read that beautiful ending. I’m just sad I had to wade through the rest of the book to get there.

XOXO Tia