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Review: Extras by Scott Westerfeld

Published on February 22, 2015February 23, 2015 by Heart Full Of Books1 Comment

Extras by Scott Westerfeld
Genre: Dystopian, Adventure
Published by: Simon Pulse
Pages: 417
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

This book takes place three years after ‘Specials’ in a completely different city. ‘Extras’ is based on a world where reputation is everything. In a Tumblr-esque way, resident ‘kick’ and ‘re-kick’ news stories in order to gain popularity. The more popular you are, the higher your rank and the more privileges you earn as a result. Out of the one million citizens, to be considered famous, you need a ranking of at least 1,000 or above.

It’s too bad that our protagonist, Aya, is about 450,000. ‘Extras’ follows Aya quest for fame and how far the fifteen-year-old will go in order to come out on top.

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Review: The Rain by Virginia Bergin

Published on February 19, 2015March 13, 2015 by Heart Full Of Books4 Comments

The Rain by Virginia Bergin
Genre: Apocalyptic
Published by: Macmillan
Pages: 384
Format: E-Book
Ratings: ★★.5
Series: The Storm (#2)
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

The Rain certainly had an interesting concept. Set in the southwest of England, where rain is abundant and constant, rainwater is contaminated with an alien organism that kills if touched. Excellent! But a great concept cannot fuel interest for over 300 pages….so I had a few problems.

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Review: The Sound by Sarah Alderson

Published on December 10, 2014January 2, 2015 by Heart Full Of Books1 Comment

The Sound by Sarah Alderson
Genre: Mystery, Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 310
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

I am so glad I picked this book up, because I’d heard absolutely nothing about it and just happened to spot it in the library. However, it’s also the kind of book that my conscience said ‘you shouldn’t be enjoying this as much as you are.’ I had some definite problems, but this book had everything, which almost made up for them.

Ren is an English girl who dreams of becoming a music journalist, she decides to take a summer out to nanny for a family in Nantucket, where she falls into a group of a preppy teenagers that warn her against Jesse Miller. So what does she do? She ignores them. I liked Ren as a character by the end of the novel, because she stuck up for her true friends and was ready to fight for justice, but she also lacked some common sense. As for her relationship with Jesse, it was very reminiscent of a Becca Fitzpatrick novel – actually extremely similar to the relationship in Black Ice. If you like Fitzpatrick’s writing, or the novels by Katy McGarry (very similar to Pushing The Limits as well!) I would definitely recommend The Sound!

If you’ve read my reviews on the books mentioned you will know that I really didn’t like Black Ice, and essentially The Sound is Black Ice, but it’s so much more engaging! The murder mystery and the truth about Jesse’s past isn’t really revealed until the last portion of the novel, and I was completely blown away by how thrilling the tense scenes were. The slow build up to the mystery really helped to make this book much more enjoyable. In the beginning I forgot that there was even supposed to be a murder mystery, I wouldn’t have known at all from the first 200 pages if I hadn’t read the blurb, but it was so well laid out that I didn’t see any of the plot twists coming.

As much as enjoyed the majority of this novel, I still had some issues. Here’s a list!

Problem Number 1: Girl on girl hate. Why? The word ‘slut’ and ‘skank’ appears every other page. It might be used jovially at times, but derogatory terms should not be used in jest, in any situation. As we all know, “If you call each other sluts and whores, it makes it okay for guys to call you sluts and whores.’ There was also a lot of insensitive comments on body types and whether or not those girls deserved their relationships. No, no, don’t like that either. I probably would’ve increased the star rating had this not been completely distracting to the storyline.

Problem Number 2: The book justifies its ‘girl falls for ‘bad boy” plot line with other bad ‘girl falls for ‘bad boy” books. Twilight is referenced a bunch of times, and the characters are self-aware of their ridiculousness so justify their actions with something along the lines of ‘well, at least this isn’t Twilight.‘

Problem Number 3: Lack of common sense. There are literal murderers on an island who seem to only be targeting foreign nannies and Ren does’t immediately book the first flight back to England. What?

Problem Number 4: Kissing. All of the ‘preppy boys’ would kiss Ren on the cheek, and although it does foreshadow the reveal later on, it seemed so silly at the time. Almost every time Jeremy saw her he’d go straight for a kiss on the cheek. When you don’t know someone you don’t just kiss them on the second chance encounter, surely?

In conclusion, although I’m only giving The Sound three stars it’s also made it to my favourites shelf. It was fun and lighthearted whilst also being incredibly serious and tense. I’d recommend it to anyone who is willing to look over the problems list – but still acknowledge that there are obvious faults – and just wants to read something where they can get totally carried away with the story.

Review: Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly

Published on October 25, 2014January 26, 2015 by Heart Full Of Books3 Comments

Rogue Wave by Jennifer Donnelly
Genre: Supernatural, Adventure, Romance, Middle-Grade
Published by: Disney Press
Pages: 320
Format: E-Book
Rating: ★★★
Series: Deep Blue (#1)
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

Most importantly, what a beautiful cover.

‘Rogue Wave’ had a lot to prove as the sequel to ‘Deep Blue’, a book that became less impressive as it continued on. ‘Deep Blue’ ended at a very climatic battle, with the six mermaid friends swimming into a mirror in order to escape from the hands of the enemy. I thought we would be instantly thrown back into the action at the beginning of this novel, but was severely disappointed.

The book began with the six mermaids having parted ways (when previously they’d been told they were strongest when together) and only three out of the six mermaids had a prominent role in this story; Sera, Neela and Ling. Becca, Ava and Astrid were hardly mentioned, and since we didn’t really get to know them at all in the first book, I was frustrated that they were still minor characters. Heck, calling them minor characters is an overstatement: they were basically non-existent.

I was especially surprised that the mermaids had split up to go on their quest, because, yes it would be quicker if they went their separate ways, but the blurb promised me an adventure with all six mermaids. There was no way I wasn’t going to be put out at their absence if I was expecting them all to be equally present.

Sera, Neela and Ling (and I assume the other three) are trying to find talismans that link to their Antlantian ancestors in order to defeat the villain of the novels and reclaim their realms. The third person narrator lent itself well to this story, as we were able to focus on both Sera and Neela as they were split up. Overall, I preferred Sera’s part of the story. Although a lot of what happened to her was very convenient (Oh no, I’m going to be attacked by death riders, oh look, there’s a secret safe house! Oh no, this ghost woman is going to kill me, oh look, this diamond is helping my life force! Oh no, my true love is a horrible person, oh look, he loved me all along!) there was a lot more adventure compared to Neela, who spent most of her sections just running away from different threats – and when she did do something adventurous, like defeat a sea dragon, it was only dwelled on for about a page of the novel. Brilliant.

This book was just as pun-y as the last and especially liked the use of transparensea spells (how many transparensea pearls are there? Are they hard to find? If so, the stock must be seriously low) to get out of tricky situations. I definitely think that this book was better than the first as there was a lot more going on, however, it didn’t feel as bitty as the last book. Everything had some sort of purpose, which would later be explained and the ending wasn’t ridiculous.

If this is a trilogy, I think the next book as been well set up, and I look forward to finding out how Becca, Ava and Astrid did on their half of the quest. (A lot of days seemed to pass in this book and I found the time scale quite hard to follow between Sera and Neela, so hopefully that will also be resolved)

My expectations for this series is for it to only get better, as there is a battle coming up, and with the combined powers of the six mermaids, it’s such to be exciting. Overall, I’d give this book three stars, because the book didn’t deliver what was promised on the blurb and the convenience of the story drew away from the action and suspense. Definitely recommended to girls age 10-12!

Review: Fire in the Woods by Jennifer M. Eaton

Published on October 22, 2014October 22, 2014 by Heart Full Of Books1 Comment

We were given this book for review courtesy of Month9Books in exchange for an honest review.

Fire in the Woods is about a girl called Jess, who gives on an army base. A UFO has crashed nearby, causing chaos very close to home. Perhaps not so coincidentally, Jess stumbles across a hot guy, called David, in the woods who isn’t exactly normal. Turns out, not normal means alien, and both Jess and David have to work together to try and get David back home without the forces of the US military raining down upon them. Sounds tricky? Well…a bit.

First of all, we really, really enjoyed the beginning of the novel. The fact that Jess’s passion as a photographer was what led her to David, instead of being a girl seeking adventure was original and creative. Jess did not have the annoying traits of a dystopian protagonist, for example being dead set on self sacrifice, and was therefore an easy character to like and read.

The pacing of the novel was slightly irregular, with surges of action happening throughout, although the beginning of the novel was quite slow going. It took about 40% of the book for Eaton to set up the plot for the rest of the book, and to build the preliminary relationship between Jess and David (which did come across as insta-lovey, but if someone walked into my life resembling Jake Abel, I also wouldn’t hesitate to get as close to them as possible, as quickly as possible.) Plus, this book is the beginning of a quartet, so we can forgive any fudged over explaining within the debut novel. The one thing I was really impressed with was the reasonability of the whole plot. I’ve seen ‘Paul’, I know the military would be down for an alien goose chase. I though the descriptions of the aliens and their motives were realistic and complet fire in the woods ely not cliches (at least I wasn’t rolling my eyes because David’s skin was green – it was actually purple.)

I found myself a little lost once Jess and David had barely escaped from the hands of David’s captors, after the Walmart scene. A lot of things happened and I wasn’t sure about the direction Jess and David were going in (both figuratively and literally – they had to go north at some point!) And when we reached the climatic scene towards the end of the novel where David was ‘rescued’ by his own species and the ultimate face off occurred between the military and the aliens, Bee and I were both confused. First, they hated each other, then they were going to work in harmony, then more hate, more harmony, some plots for the destruction of the human race that came to nothing, then were back in action, then stopped, then continued. I wasn’t surprised that Jess blacked out. Was the constant change of plan making her head spin as much as mine?

I’m hoping that the final decision between the humans and the aliens, and what the aliens plan on doing to the humans is clear in the next book ‘Ashes in the Sky’, otherwise, I’m going to have to make a flow chart of events or something.

Overall, we both really enjoyed this book. It slightly reminded me of ‘Scarlet’ by Marissa Meyer because of the tension between David and Jess, knowing their relationship can only last so long, and of course, the train scene. The action, although very quick to transpire, kept me wanting to read on and wanting to know the outcome of David and Jess’s romance. The book started so strong, which was excellent, but then lost its touch a little towards the end as more things started to happen. For that reason, we’ve decided to give ‘Fire in the Woods’ 3.75 stars.

Thank you so much Month9Books for the opportunity to read this amazing debut! We can’t wait to read what happens next in this alien adventure.

Enter to Win:

· One of Five (5) Digital Copies of Fire in the Woods by Jennifer M. Eaton (INT)

· One (1) gorgeous necklace [The pendant is 1.75 inches, and the chain is about 26 inches long]

Winner will be drawn November 7, 2014

ABOUT JENNIFER M. EATON: Corporate Team Leader by day, and Ranting Writer by night. Jennifer M. Eaton calls the East Coast of the USA home, where she lives with her husband, three energetic boys, and a pepped up poodle. Jennifer hosts an informational blog “A Reference of Writing Rants for Writers (or Learn from My Mistakes)” aimed at helping all writers be the best they can be. Beyond writing and motivating others, she also enjoys teaching her dog to jump through hoops—literally. Jennifer’s perfect day includes long hikes in the woods, bicycling, swimming, snorkeling, and snuggling up by the fire with a great book; but her greatest joy is using her over-active imagination constructively… creating new worlds for everyone to enjoy.

Offical Blurb of Fire in the Woods When a plane crashes in the woods near Jess’s home, the boy of her dreams falls out of the sky—literally. But David’s not here to find a girlfriend. He’s from another planet, and if Jess can’t help him get back to his ship, he’ll be stuck on Earth with nothing to look forward to but the pointy end of a dissection scalpel. But her father runs their house like an army barracks, and with an alien on the loose, Major Dad isn’t too keen on the idea of Jess going anywhere. Ever. So how the heck is she supposed to help the sweetest, strangest, and cutest guy she’s ever met? Hiding him in her room probably isn’t the best idea. Especially since her Dad is in charge of the squadron searching for David. That doesn’t mean she won’t do it. It just means she can’t get caught. Helping David get home while protecting her heart—that’s gonna be the hard part. After all, she can’t really fall for a guy who’s not exactly from here. As they race through the woods with Major Dad and most of the U.S. military one breath behind them, Jess and David grow closer than either of them anticipated. But all is not what it seems. David has a genocide-sized secret, and one betrayal later, they are both in handcuffs as alien warships are positioning themselves around the globe. Time is ticking down to Armageddon, and Jess must think fast if she’s to save the boy she cares about without sacrificing Earth—and everyone on it.

Review: The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion

Published on October 5, 2014January 26, 2015 by Heart Full Of Books1 Comment

The Rosie Effect by Graeme Simsion
Genre: Contemporary, Adult
Published by: Penguin
Pages: 411
Format: ARC E-Book
Rating: ★★★
Series: The Rosie Project (#1)
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

I finally did it! It feels like I’ve been reading this book for ages and now it’s finally over. Am I relieved? Maybe.

I really did enjoy ‘The Rosie Project’, the first book in this series. It was different, fresh and new (and one of the only new adult books I’ve read so I didn’t have much to compare it too!) But this book…well, it didn’t spend five years in the making.

Things I loved about this book include:
– Don’s consistent personality: just because he got his Rosie happy ending didn’t mean he lost any of the quirkiness he had before Rosie.
– The introduction of George, Dave and Sonia: lovely additional characters, who all helped Don grow as a person in some way.
– The gradual progression of the relationship between Don and Rosie: Data – check. Marriage – check. Pregnant – check.
– Some humorous episodes, like the Plane Incident: sometimes I wonder how Simsion researched these things….

Things I didn’t love about the book:
– How one person’s opinion defined Don’s capability to be a father.
– The distance between Don and Rosie that did not coincide with a year of marriage.
– The web of deceit that was created: it felt kind of like a Shakespeare play, complete with pretending to be someone else!
– Rosie’s inability to accept Don for who he was and actually pay attention to all the effort he was making to improve his chances of being a good father, no matter how many court trials were drawn up against him.

That’s a pretty balanced list! (and definitely something Don would appreciate.) There were a lot of elements within the book that reminded me of ‘The Rosie Project’ and showed great continuity between the characters. I was a little confused, in ‘The Rosie Project’ to how long Don and Rosie were actually together (it turned out to be six months or something!) and a year of marriage on top of that did little to show how much they understood each other.
I guess that’s the problem with loving someone who is so different from you. Sometimes you won’t see eye to eye. I just wish that Don and Rosie were able to reach more of a compromise, rather than doing what Rosie wanted the majority of the time.

I’d recommend this book to people that liked the first (we all know how risky a sequel is!) and to anyone that’s interested in reading about a more adult relationship. Overall, I’d give this book about 3 stars, because the negatives drew a lot from the positives.

(The UK haven’t got a very interesting cover for this series!)

Review: Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo

Published on July 17, 2014January 26, 2015 by Heart Full Of Books7 Comments

Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo
Genre: Fantasy, Romance
Published by: Indigo
Pages: 308
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★★.5
Series: Siege and Storm (#1)
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

I didn’t think I was a massive fan of fantasy, until I realized that the majority of my favourites were, indeed, fantasy. Which is why I am so glad that I picked up Shadow and Bone (although I may have been persuaded to do so because COVER LOVE.)

You’re chucked head first into the world, which even after finishing the book I’m not sure I completely understand. I guess I will just have to fill in any gaps by just rereading, and rereading, and rereading. But, on the other hand, in a fantasy novel that’s almost exactly what you want. You don’t want fifty pages of explanation, and I think Shadow and Bone almost had the ratio of plotline of to backstory completely perfect.

I really liked the main character, Alina, I thought she was head strong and she dealt with her new surroundings and situation extremely well, even though she’d just been horribly separated from her soul mate – we will talk about the ultimate cuteness of Mal later, don’t you worry. I loved being in the Little Palace, despite the Dark undertones (intentional pun.) Genya was also a wonderful addition, because when you lose one best friend then someone has to be there to fill in the slot.

The Grisha powers, although slightly hard to keep track of, were interesting and unique, and the concept of amplifiers kept the story going. I love it when protagonists are actually willing to learn new things, so Alina ticked that box for me. It was very reminiscent of Poison Study by Maria. V. Snyder, especially with the fight training and the alluring but dangerous love interest. I imagine Alina and Yelena being close friends, the similarities between these girls do not stop at the ‘lee-na’ suffix. I’m interested to see where the King ends up at the end of this series because treasonous talk was everywhere. I love some good forSHADOWing. (That one was unintentional.) I’m looking forward to the sequel immensely, and hope that it isn’t just going to be an ‘on-the-run’ sequel, as that could be mildly disappointing, but if necessary then so be it.

Mal. Where to begin? He was wonderful, and I’m so sad that he only had a cameo role in the first half, but was relieved when he was there full force in the final third. I’m quiet partial to a love triangle that is executed well, and liked this one even more because it wasn’t bittersweet as I do not like the Darkling. Well…maybe a little bit. I’ve prepared myself for the likely probability that Alina ends up with my less preferred candidate, but I still hold out hope for Mal. Maybe if he can’t be will Alina then a lovely secondary character will be introduced to pose as his new love interest. Or he dies. But I’d rather not think about that unfortunate scenario.

With such a raving review it might come as bit of a surprise when I say that my star rating is only 3.5 out of five. This is because there were moments were the plot got a tiny bit dry and I had to encourage myself to continue, this was made up by some plot twists and some plot gems that I was not expecting. Overall, I love the characters and am invested enough in their story to continue. Also, the 3.5 was a tactical decision as I have a feeling that the series is only going to get better so rather than saying the series plateaued at 4 stars I can say it was a beautiful journey of a rising incline in the star spangled rating system.

Review: Tape by Steven Camden

Published on May 7, 2014January 2, 2015 by Heart Full Of BooksLeave a comment

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Tape by Steven Camden
Genre: Contemporary, Romance
Published by: Harper Collins
Pages: 363
Format: Paperback
Rating: ★★.5
Where to Find: Goodreads | Amazon

In 2013, a girl called Ameliah discovers a tape that a boy was recording a diary on. She had no idea who the boy is. She’s recently lost both of her parents to a car crash and illness, meaning she lives with her Nan. In 1993, a boy called Ryan decided to record a diary on tape to help him recover from the death of his mother. He is falling in love with a girl called Eve, who is living with her nan for a while during the summer.

The parallels are definitely obvious, though the identity of Ryan isn’t revealed to Ameliah straight away. Due to the time difference between the two, it was somewhat easy to guess how Ryan was significant to Ameliah butequally enjoyable to be with her when she discovers small things to connect the two of them, for example Nirvana mix tapes and sea shells.

The book is told in two very realistic voices. It was interesting to see how the behaviour of teenagers hasn’t changed much in twenty years. Despite being realistic, the book contained too many obvious coincidences – I know it was meant to, but as said, Ryan’s identity was easy to guess after the first…100 pages or so.

Generally a very quick read due to the big font size and average settings. There are no speech marks; the book is formatted like French novels with dashes to represent a new speaker. Strange.

The blurb makes it sound like there’s going to be more inter-dimensional discussion between Ameliah and Ryan, which I was looking forward to, having watched and enjoyed ‘The Lake House’ movie, yet there was barely any conversational overlaps, despite Ameliah and Ryan both having the opportunity to speak to each other across twenty years. That would have definitely made the plot more captivating.

Apart from that, there was little fault with the novel overall. Ameliah slightly overreacts at the entrance of a new character, Joe, a 30 year old man who happened to know her dad, but then again, we’ve all imagined stalking someone, haven’t we?

An enjoyable and fast read, lacking somewhat in time travel, or love story as the blurb promised. 2.5/5 star