172 Hours on the Moon by Johan Harstad

Three teenagers are going on the trip of a lifetime. Only one is coming back. It's been more than forty years since NASA sent the first men to the moon, and to grab some much-needed funding and attention, they decide to launch an historic international lottery in which three lucky teenagers can win a week-long trip to moon base DARLAH 2.










Rating: 2/5 Stars

Alternative covers:




172 Hours on the Moon is like The Selection but in space, hence the alternative covers.

The premise is simple… well, kind of. NASA has a secret mission, they want to go back to the Moon but because of the lack of support they come up with the idea of starting a contest; they’ll select three random teenagers from all over the world to go to space, making NASA popular again (don’t argue the logic, there’s none). Problem is, when the three lucky kids arrive, they realize that NASA hasn’t been honest to them, because there is something on the moon and they might not get out of it alive.

I love space and mysteries, and if the two are combined even better! Unfortunately, this book just didn’t do it for me.

First, I found the entire premise rather ridiculous; I mean, taking teenagers with no testing or training to an isolated habitat on the moon? And make it a freaking contest to win support while they are sending three teens on a really dangerous mission? I can suspend my disbelief sometimes, but this just didn’t make any sense. Couldn’t they have just done it any other way?

Then there were the characters. I couldn’t really relate to any of them, from Mia who is the America Singer of the book, the lead vocalist of her band and who is inscribed in the contest against her will. The rest didn’t do an impression on me either, they were… kind of there but didn’t add much to the plot.

As for the mystery, I saw some of it coming so I wasn’t very much impressed by it.

To sum up, I think 172 Hours on the Moon had a great concept with the lunar mystery but it just couldn’t decide what it was and what it wanted to accomplish.

The Fill-In Boyfriend by Kasie West

When Gia Montgomery's boyfriend, Bradley, dumps her in the parking lot of her high school prom, she has to think fast. After all, she'd been telling her friends about him for months now. This was supposed to be the night she proved he existed. So when she sees a cute guy waiting to pick up his sister, she enlists his help. The task is simple: be her fill-in boyfriend—two hours, zero commitment, a few white lies. After that, she can win back the real Bradley.

The problem is that days after prom, it's not the real Bradley she's thinking about, but the stand-in. The one whose name she doesn't even know. But tracking him down doesn't mean they're done faking a relationship. Gia owes him a favor and his sister intends to see that he collects: his ex-girlfriend's graduation party—three hours, zero commitment, a few white lies.

Just when Gia begins to wonder if she could turn her fake boyfriend into a real one, Bradley comes waltzing back into her life, exposing her lie, and threatening to destroy her friendships and her new-found relationship. 

Rating: 2/5 Stars

DNF at 57%

I’m sorry I tried but… I just couldn’t do it.

Despite presenting a pretty cute premise (I’m a sucker for fake relationships going real, sue me) The Fill in Boyfriend was not able to capture my attention or my desire to continue.

Probably my main problem was Gia, the main character who gets dumped on Prom Night and convinces a total stranger to pass off as her boyfriend to impress her friends. I could not connect with her in any way; Gia is shallow, self-centered and immature. That’s the whole array of emotions she displays on the book, I’m supposed to believe her story is sad, she got dumped, her friends are turning on her and she has an unsupportive family the problem was, none of that it’s actually true.

Sure, she got dumped but because she didn’t really care about her boyfriend. She used Bradley as a prop to show off her superiority to her friends, but wasn’t really fond of him.

“You only care about your friends seeing me.”

(…)

“That’s not all I care about…”

“It’s all you care about and you confirmed it tonight when you saw me and the first thing you said was ‘My friends are going to die.’ Really, Gia? That’s the first thing you say when you see me after two weeks?”

The who thing of Jules “infiltrating” her group was dumb and immature, the more Gia went on and on about how horrible her “enemy” was, the more convinced I was that Jules was a mirror because she was describing herself perfectly.

“There was that familiar calculating look on her face, and I wondered what was going through her mind. I was sure of one thing—it wasn’t good.”

 I didn’t feel sorry for her, especially when, again, she seemed to care little about her friends. All that mattered to Gia was not losing her social status, if she had to ditch her friends to keep it she would do it without a second thought, for her the only thing that mattered was what people could serve her for, not real friendship.

Her family was absolutely perfect, they are always there for her and give her everything Gia could possibly want. Yet our MC feels mistreated by her family because… I don’t know, actually. I’m guessing that the author wanted for us readers to feel sorry for Gia, but didn’t put much thought into it?

However, there were a few relationships and moments that were cute and it is a fairly entertaining read (if you don’t have the problems that I do) so it’s not absolutely terrible.

Steelheart by Brandon Sanderson

Ten years ago, Calamity came. It was a burst in the sky that gave ordinary men and women extraordinary powers. The awed public started calling them Epics. But Epics are no friend of man. With incredible gifts came the desire to rule. And to rule man you must crush his wills.

Nobody fights the Epics...nobody but the Reckoners. A shadowy group of ordinary humans, they spend their lives studying Epics, finding their weaknesses, and then assassinating them.

And David wants in. He wants Steelheart — the Epic who is said to be invincible. The Epic who killed David's father. For years, like the Reckoners, David's been studying, and planning — and he has something they need. Not an object, but an experience.

He's seen Steelheart bleed. And he wants revenge.

Rating: 4/5

"Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."



I am ashamed to say I’ve had Steelheart on my shelf since July and hadn’t once thought about reading it before Friday, when a storm hit and power went out, leaving me to reach out for the few paperbacks I have to entertain myself for the six hours the storm raged on.

In my defense, I bought not the English version but the translated one (I live in Argentina so obviously all the books that come here are translated), and I have had bad experiences with translations; not that they are terrible, but sometimes there are things that won’t wor in both languages, and that leaves the writing looking clunky.
There were a few instances when translation played against me, and I can’t say that the things that bothered me were really the book or just reading it in Spanish, but those things were few and it didn’t keep me from enjoying the rest of the novel.

Steelheart is a book about superheroes, or Epics as they are called; people who gained extraordinary abilities after a bright explosion, named Calamity, broke into the sky ten years ago. Ever since then, Epics have ruled and enacted chaos on the world, all trying to one up each other in a struggle for ultimate power and dominance.

Of all the epics, Steelheart is the most powerful. He is thought to be invinsible for he has no known weaknesses like the other Epics. Only David knows that’s not true, he saw Steelheart bleed when he was a kid, the day his father was killed at the hands of the Epic and he took control over the city of Chicago. Ever since then, David has dreamt of revenge and he knows that if he wants to defeat Steelheart he needs help. Everybody is too afraid to fight against Epics, if they do they are killed. Only the Reckoners are willing to stand against them and David has to join them if he wants to find the truth behind Steelheart’s weakness and destroy him.

I’ll admit, I found the main character a bit annoying at the beginning. His thirst for revenge and obsession crush on Megan, a Reckoner got tiresome pretty soon. He just seemed too perfect sometimes, the “good guy” in the novel and it was boring. It wasn’t until he actually started to fail and be part of the team, instead of simply trying to kill Steelheart, that began to warm up to him, this kid with an obsession with crappy metaphors and revenge.

The rest of the group was alright, although again, I had problems trying to remember which character was which at the beginning, they just seemed to blend together until their personalities started to come through.

I wasn’t fan of the “romance” if you could call it that, basically because David was an annoying kid who couldn’t understand why Megan wasn’t interested in him, so he kept pushing and pissing the poor girl off even more.

I loved the action and how fast-paced this book was. I wasn’t sure if I would be a fan of a book with superheroes (not because I have something against them, I’m just not crazy about them) but the twists and surprises the author put into the story made it incredibly entertaining and fun.

Now, that ending… was criminal. I can’t wait to read the next one in the series, Firefight!

Furiously Happy: A Funny Book About Horrible Things by Jenny Lawson

In LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, Jenny Lawson baffled readers with stories about growing up the daughter of a taxidermist. In her new book, FURIOUSLY HAPPY, Jenny explores her lifelong battle with mental illness. A hysterical, ridiculous book about crippling depression and anxiety? That sounds like a terrible idea. And terrible ideas are what Jenny does best.

According to Jenny: "Some people might think that being 'furiously happy' is just an excuse to be stupid and irresponsible and invite a herd of kangaroos over to your house without telling your husband first because you suspect he would say no since he's never particularly liked kangaroos. And that would be ridiculous because no one would invite a herd of kangaroos into their house. Two is the limit. I speak from personal experience. My husband says that none is the new limit. I say he should have been clearer about that before I rented all those kangaroos."

"Most of my favorite people are dangerously fucked-up but you'd never guess because we've learned to bare it so honestly that it becomes the new normal. Like John Hughes wrote in The Breakfast Club, 'We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it.' Except go back and cross out the word 'hiding.'"

Jenny's first book, LET'S PRETEND THIS NEVER HAPPENED, was ostensibly about family, but deep down it was about celebrating your own weirdness. FURIOUSLY HAPPY is a book about mental illness, but under the surface it's about embracing joy in fantastic and outrageous ways-and who doesn't need a bit more of that?


Rating: 4/5 Stars

I can tell you that “Just cheer up” is almost universally looked at as the most unhelpful depression cure ever. It’s pretty much the equivalent of telling someone who just had their legs amputated to “just walk it off.”

Well shit, this was one hell of a ride!

I had heard about Furiously Happy for quite some time but wasn’t sure about reading it because books in essays format are not really my thing. I’m glad I did though, because each essay was like mine gold.

In Furiously Happy, Jenny Lawson details her life and afflictions with incredible humor and honesty, while at the same time sending a message of acceptance to all its readers. I loved all the advices she gave, even though they might sound silly to some I’m never sharing another book with you, mom it is important to listen to them every once in a while; things get better, there is nothing wrong with getting help, and ignore that voice in your head that tells you you are worthless.

If well Furiously Happy deals with serious subjects such as depression, self-harm, anxiety and such, it is mostly a fun and witty book about trying to see the good in life.

Reading this was interesting to me because I’ve read books about these subjects before and yet stories such as “All The Bright Places” have never been able to move me, whilst I found myself crying more than once at some of the chapters even though they weren’t exactly what I would call “sentimental”. It was amazing how, with just a few words Jenny Lawson could describe things that happened to me, but that I couldn’t exactly explain.

But above all, it was just really, really funny. Some of my favorite chapters were:

I Left My Heart in San Francisco. (But Replace “San Francisco” with “Near the Lemur House” and Replace “Heart” with a Sad Question Mark.)

Because I think we’ve all been there.

Why Would I Want to Do More When I’m Already Doing So Well at Nothing?

Because the title is self-explanatory.

Koalas Are Full Of Clamidia.

Because KOALAS.

Some of my favorite quotes:

"Someone else told me that capitulating to my depression made me seem ungrateful because Jesus died so that I wouldn’t have to suffer, but frankly Jesus seemed to have more than his fair share of bullshit in his life too. That guy got nailed to death. I bet people walking past Jesus were like, Wow! That guy should have more God in his life.”"

"I’d recently been to a spa that offered wrinkle removals but I’d just read  that some places use dead people’s donated skin to fill in wrinkles, which is insulting because it’s like saying “You look so awful that we think injecting dead people into your face might be an improvement.”"

"The worst thing is when the person outside waits and rings again. Someone who rings once is just doing his job, but someone who rings twice is a mad man."

In conclusion, if well sometimes I did feel like the book was too much well, it’s called “Furiously Happy” for a reason, right? I recommend it to everybody who wants to have a fun time!

Uninvited by Sophie Jordan

The Scarlet Letter meets Minority Report in bestselling author Sophie Jordan's chilling new novel about a teenage girl who is ostracized when her genetic test proves she's destined to become a murderer.

When Davy Hamilton's tests come back positive for Homicidal Tendency Syndrome (HTS)-aka the kill gene-she loses everything. Her boyfriend ditches her, her parents are scared of her, and she can forget about her bright future at Juilliard. Davy doesn't feel any different, but genes don't lie. One day she will kill someone.

Only Sean, a fellow HTS carrier, can relate to her new life. Davy wants to trust him; maybe he's not as dangerous as he seems. Or maybe Davy is just as deadly.

The first in a two-book series, Uninvited tackles intriguing questions about free will, identity, and human nature. Steeped in New York Times bestselling author Sophie Jordan's trademark mix of gripping action and breathless romance, this suspenseful tale is perfect for fans of James Patterson, Michelle Hodkin, and Lisa McMann.


Rating: 1/5 Stars

I really like learning about serial killers. Don’t ask me why, but the whole psychology behind them is fascinating to me; what drives a person to do something so horrible? Is it nature, nurture or both?

Maybe my expectations for Uninvited were too high, but try as I might I just couldn’t say anything good about this story.

Davy has always known she’s especial. She’s a musical prodigy, she’s beautiful, skilled, clever. Perfect. I hate perfection in characters, really perfection simply does not exist and that’s exactly what Davy’s life is like, until her test for Homicidal Tendencies comes back positive and she loses everything.

The novel lacked logic, right from the beginning you could tell that the author hadn’t done any research and that’s a shame because a bit of insight into what would turn Davy into a killer was exactly what I was looking for.

The world made little sense; they had people who had tested positive for homicidal tendencies and what did people do? They treated them like crap, isolated and abused them. It was literally the LAST THING you want to do with people like that!

I can’t say that I liked any of the characters. Maybe Davys brother because he was really sweet and was for her no matter what, but Davys barely paid any attention to him. The main character was really annoying, I couldn’t take her seriously; she was mean, self-centered and doesn’t grow or learn from what she goes through.

The romance, what can I say? It was insta-love so I didn’t enjoy it very much.

I recommend it for people who are looking for a light read but without any real substance.

The Sin Eater's Daughter by Melinda Salisbury

I am the perfect weapon.
I kill with a single touch.

Twylla is blessed. The Gods have chosen her to marry a prince, and rule the kingdom. But the favour of the Gods has it's price. A deadly poison infuses her skin. Those who anger the queen must die under Twylla's fatal touch.

Only Lief, an outspoken new guard, can see past Twylla's chilling role to the girls she truly is.

Yet in a court as dangerous and the queen's, some truths should not be told...




Rating: 2/5 Stars

“She has taken everything from me and now I will do the same to her. I will take the one thing she values and she will know what it is to suffer.”

I would be lying if I said I didn’t read this because it looked like Shatter Me… and because I have to study for college but want to escape my responsibilities (though that’s beyond the point.)

Truth is, The Sin Eater’s Daughter is nothing like Shatter Me despite the main characters having basically the same ability; their touch kills.

I was engrossed in the reading since the beginning, the writing is beautiful and it goes along nicely with the world the author has created;  fantasy and religion combine to provide a wonderful setting. I’m not usually a fan of religion in books but I can’t argue with the results here. I found myself looking forward to knowing more about this world, its history, its wars and its customs.

Twylla is Daunen Embodied, the daughter of the Gods. She’s life, for she can drink poison and not die, but she’s also death. The poison she drinks to prove her worthiness is kept in her skin, making her touch lethal. As Daunen she represents hope that the Gods are still present through her and the Royalty but she must also inflict punishments; she’s an executioner, inflicting fear and obedience in the hearts of her people.

The main character was interesting, at least in the beginning. She used to be the daughter of a Sin Eater; when a person dies, all of their sins true or assumed are laid on top of their casket and must be eaten by a woman who comes from a line of Sin Eaters; mothers train their eldest daughters and they in turn will pass on that knowledge to their own daughters. If a Sin Eater chooses not to eat a particular sin, therefore not finishing the ceremony, she’s condemning them to spent all eternity trapped in this world with no chance of moving forward.

I liked Twylla’s ambition, she didn’t want to be a Sin Eater but instead fancied to be royalty and rich. When the Queen comes to her home and announces she’s the daughter of the Gods, Twylla is more than thrilled to leave her old life behind, albeit as a little girl she didn’t know she was forsaking her family forever. Still, she seemed ambitious, smart and even cunning. I was happy to read about her because we hardly ever find selfish female characters like her in Young Adult, girls who like power rather than being horrified by it (see Shatter Me).

However, it lasted up until the romance started and then everything was just thrown out the window.

As soon as the Prince and the new guard appear, Twylla becomes this catatonic girl unable to speak or move for no reason at all!

“I fumble for the words to thank him and accept but can’t find them.”

“My mouth falls open and the Prince bites his lower lip as it begins to curve upwards. I blink at him, unsure whether I heard him rightly.

‘Twylla? He says when I continue to stare at him in awe. ‘Are you ready?’”

“Still I say nothing, my eyes burning from staring at the table top.

‘You will not reply?’”

Not to mention how she gets when another girl merely looks at one of the guys:

“She’s very pretty. I don’t like her.”

Both love interests were equally bad. The Prince is Twylla’s betrothed and he is also an entitled ass who thinks he owns Twylla simply because he likes her, and never care about what she really wants.

The Guard, Lief, is supposed to protect her but all he does is manipulate her and make Twylla feel bad whenever she “hurts his feelings” whether she actually did something about it or not. He was my least favorite.

The villain was the Queen and she was… well, she was crazy but I wish there had been more depth to her. She ended up being petty and one-dimensional.

I’ve seen a lot of mixed reviews on this book, and I can see why. There are both good and bad qualities to The Sin’s Eater Daughter I guess it all depends on how much you like romance in fantasy because this is actually a love story on a fantasy setting.

Trust Me, I'm Lying by Mary Elizabeth Summers

The first book in the Trust Me series...

Fans of Ally Carter, especially her Heist Society readers, will love this teen mystery/thriller with sarcastic wit, a hint of romance, and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.

Julep Dupree tells lies. A lot of them. She’s a con artist, a master of disguise, and a sophomore at Chicago’s swanky St. Agatha High, where her father, an old-school grifter with a weakness for the ponies, sends her to so she can learn to mingle with the upper crust. For extra spending money Julep doesn’t rely on her dad—she runs petty scams for her classmates while dodging the dean of students and maintaining an A+ (okay, A-) average.

But when she comes home one day to a ransacked apartment and her father gone, Julep’s carefully laid plans for an expenses-paid golden ticket to Yale start to unravel. Even with help from St. Agatha’s resident Prince Charming, Tyler Richland, and her loyal hacker sidekick, Sam, Julep struggles to trace her dad’s trail of clues through a maze of creepy stalkers, hit attempts, family secrets, and worse, the threat of foster care. With everything she has at stake, Julep’s in way over her head . . . but that’s not going to stop her from using every trick in the book to find her dad before his mark finds her. Because that would be criminal.


Rating: 2/5 Stars

Trust Me, I’m Lying brought me back to childhood.

When we were little, my cousins and I used to play a lot at “Spies” which meant we would spend the day hiding or running in the backyard pretending to be hiding from other spies, or we would grab the phone and set it in front of the TV, pressing arbitrary numbers and pretending it was a computer (and running the hell away when grandma saw that we had disconnected her phone).

We were pretty much amazing, if I’m honest. I mean, no kid will fantasize about being an “ok” spy! So yes, we were (despite logic or reason) the absolutely best and most amazing spies that had ever graced this Earth.

Trust Me, I’m Lying is pretty much exactly that, except that I wasn’t looking for a childish fantasy but more of a criminal/mystery book with real characters and with real capabilities.

I think the problems begin with the summary, it’s deceptive:

Fans of Ally Carter, especially her Heist Society readers, will love this teen mystery/thriller with sarcastic wit, a hint of romance, and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.

I haven’t read any book from Ally Carter, so I really don’t know about that but this it’s where it gets deceiving:

“, a hint of romance”

If by a hint you mean the entire plot of the book, then yes! It’s like when you are watching a cooking show and they go “Just a pinch of salt” and the Chefs basically turn the soup into the Dead Sea.

Then there is:

“and Ocean’s Eleven–inspired action.”

First, there isn’t even a hint of Ocean’s Eleven, and second what action??! One of my main problems with this book was just how boring it was, nothing happens up until 70% and even then I still didn’t care.

Julep Dupree is a con artist just like her dad, but she’s tired of that life. That’s why she goes to a prestigious high school filled with the children of the rich and powerful, so she can make connections and someday go to Yale. But when her father goes missing, Julep will spend her time crushing on the hottest guy at school that never paid her any mind to her up until then, doing stupid shit that would have gotten her killed if this were real life and occasionally remembering her father.

I wasn’t a fan of the book as you can see. When I’m reading I want to be convinced that it’s real, but instead of the book showing me how Julep was the best, it just hit me over the head over and over with how amazing she was supposed to be, when in fact, she’s pretty clueless and lacks common sense:

·         Doesn’t realize that her best friend is in love with her (or even that he had a crush on someone) even though she claims that she’s the best at reading people.

• She trusts Tyler, the popular guy at school that suddenly pays attention to her when her father goes missing.

• She takes said guy to her father’s bookie, revealing that her father is missing (and she could end up in foster care), and putting them both at risk of being killed.

•   Doesn’t know how to avoid/identify someone following her because “the best con artists never get caught”.

• She confronts the guy following her in an empty alley, making it easy for the guy to kill/assault her.

• She trusts what everybody says with little thought, even though she knows how easy it is to trick people.

• For someone who is the best Julep gets caught all the time.

• They are being chased by someone who tries to kill them by taking them off the road and she wants to stop the car to “talk it through” with the wanna be assassin.

• Another thing, the head master of her school has confidential information about her and her family, things Julep doesn’t even know about and she doesn’t find that strange?

• Julep is “careful” not to get caught in her schemes by the head master or else she’ll be expelled, and yet everybody in town knows what she does!

• This it’s not about Julep but more about the logic of the book. Her best friend Sam is great with computers. However, he has problems creating a web page (and has been working on it for weeks apparently) but in a couple of hours he’s able to hack the FBI’s data base.

It was pretty dumb and annoying. The love story overtakes any plot there might have been and the reason behind her father’s disappearance was boring. Him being gone was the main plot, the author could have made it interesting, instead she chose the blandest result she could come up with.

I would recommend this to people who don’t mind things not making sense and a great focus on Insta-love.

Rebel Spring by Morgan Rhodes

The road to power... is paved with blood and magic.

Cleo is now a prisoner in her own palace, forced to be an ambassador for Mytica as the evil King Gaius lies to her people.
Magnus stands to eventually inherit the new kingdom but is still obsessed with his feelings for his adopted sister, Lucia.
Lucia is haunted by the outcome of the breathtaking display of magic that allowed her father to capture the kingdoms.
Jonas watched at the palace gates a troop of rebels behind him, waiting for him to tell them how he plans to overtake King Gaius.

After a bloody siege, Auranos has been defeated, its young queen orphaned and dethroned. The three kingdoms—Auranos, Limeros, and Paelsia—are now unwillingly united as one country called Mytica. But the allure of ancient, dangerous magic beckons still, and with it the chance to rule not just Mytica, but the whole world over...

At the heart of the fray are four brave young people grappling for that magic and the power it promises. For Cleo, the magic would enable her to reclaim her royal seat. In Jonas's hands, it frees his nation, and in Lucia's, it fulfills the ancient prophecy of her destiny. And if the magic were Magnus's, he would finally prove his worth in the eyes of his cruel and scheming father, King Gaius, who rules Mytica with a punishing hand.

When Gaius begins to build a road into the Forbidden Mountains to physically link all of Mytica, he sparks a long-smoking fire in the hearts of the people that will forever change the face of this land. For Gaius's road is paved with blood, and its construction will have cosmic consequences.

Rating: 3/5 Stars

Spoilers for Falling Kingdoms and Rebel Spring.

Before I start this review I feel that I should clarify; I wasn’t exactly in the right state of mind when I read this book. What I mean with this is that I was feeling like crap, I still do actually, so when I’m in that sort of mood it’s hard to enjoy simple things like reading, instead I get pissed off, annoyed or angry. So this is not going to be a very encouraging review, I had a few problems with the book that I didn’t with the previous one, even though they were still there. And there were others that were entirely the book’s fault too.

I didn’t enjoy Rebel Spring as much as Falling Kingdoms which is a surprise considering how I always enjoy the sequels better. In the first book it’s usually me trying to figure out if I like the characters, the world and the writing whereas in the second ones it’s more about returning to something familiar and I can enjoy it better.

Falling Kingdoms was all about the start of the revolution that would lead to the fall of the Auranos Kingdom to the hands of the King of Blood, Limeros’ ruthless ruler. I found the first book much more exciting, we were doing a Buddy read with Jaz (same as with this book) and we had settled into reading five chapters per day, but I was so anxious to see what happened that I read fifteen or so chapters in the first day alone. That was not the case with Rebel Spring. This time we did the same, but I struggled to read five mere chapters per day, the story wasn’t as exciting for me as it was in the last and I found myself rolling my eyes at some of the ridiculous plot lines and romances that came up in RS.

First, the characters:

Cleo:

She was one of my favorites from the previous book and I was really looking forward to seeing what would happen to her now that she was a prisoner in her own palace. Her engagement and marriage to Magnus was something that I wasn’t expecting (I mean yes, I suspected it but for some reason I never thought it would really happen, you know?) and their developing relationship was one of my favorite aspects of this book. Especially after I was brainwashed by Jaz started seeing them forming an interesting pair.

However, that was pretty much all the excitement I got from her. This is something that happened not just with Cleo but with the entire book, not much happened. It was frustrating seeing Cleo doing nothing. Sure, I get it, she’s in no position of power now. But there were so many missed opportunities, so many little things that she could have done or started that would have made a difference later on and given her leverage. She was so fixated on the big picture, taking back her throne, that she did nothing. Cleo spent most of the novel waiting for things to happen rather than going and doing them herself because… I DON’T KNOW WHY. Seriously, it was annoying. What’s the fun of a character who does absolutely nothing?

Every little plan she came up with was easily squashed down by the King, and no wonder because they were dumb as fuck. I really hope she gets to learn more in the upcoming books.

I liked the ending with Cleo helping/manipulating Lucia with her Elementia, but based on what we have seen so far I got a feeling that she’ll end up without her ring and any supporters in less than a chapter, that’s how crappy her luck is.

Jonas:

I gotta say, I enjoyed Jonas in the first book and shipped him a little bit with Cleo too but all of that was gone in this book. Jonas was just so… stupid.

Seriously, all of his plans were dumb as shit. He was in an enemy Kingdom ruled by a freaking dictator who kept tabs on everyone and he and Brion (his best friend) walked down the streets claiming to be rebels and asking everybody how they felt about the new King… and then they were surprised when they got caught?

I mean the idiot started vandalizing a poster of the King in the middle of the street with guards watching and the two assholes almost died because of it.

Later, his plan to kill the King in the wedding was also dumb. They were supposed to hide inside the church where Cleo told them, instead they showed up dressed up as guards… how the hell could they think that the King wouldn’t have thought of that?

Instead of coming up with something smart, Jonas decided it would be a good idea to attack during the wedding because most of the guards were waiting outside keeping tabs on the crowd. I don’t understand how they thought the King would have absolutely no protection inside? And, even if there were no guards posing as guests, there were still hundreds of people inside the church who could rise against them! Or did they think people would just stay sat and watch like some kind of sick show?

Of course Jonas had to fuck it all up giving a ridiculous speech about how he would kill them all instead of, you know, ACTUALLY KILLING THE FUCKERS! The idiot gave the King enough time to position his soldiers and slaughter all the rebels. How the fuck did he not thought of that? NOOOO, he had to give a stupid speech and got them all killed.

His romance with Cleo, although I was sort of shipping it in the last book it didn’t do wonders for me now. It was dumb and not very well executed; they were fighting and the next second they kissed and… what?

Basically Jonas plot was going around doing dumb shit that everybody but him knew it wasn’t going to work, and being involved in boring ass love triangles… although to be fair that’s pretty much the plot of every character in this book.

When they mentioned that Phaedra, a Watcher, was keeping tabs on a human and they showed a golden hawk watching over the camp I thought “Wouldn’t it be great if the watcher is in love with Cleo?” Because this is the Falling Kingdoms series, of course that hawk/watcher/thing would be part of the love story, so if it had to be, it might as well offer some much needed diversity and give us a girl/girl romance.

But no, of course she had to be in love with Jonas. And so freaking in love that she gives up her immortal life to save his ungrateful ass? And dies the next second?!

What it’s so fantastic about Jonas that people follow him and girls give up their immortality to be with him? Sure, he’s described as gorgeous but in a book when even the slaves come from a Victoria Secret runway, you’ve got to offer something else, and Jonas doesn’t.

Magnus:

My sweet Magnus, again I was undecided on whether I loved or hated you, mostly because you are a fucking dick, but at the same time… you are not and your dickness is a way to survive under your father’s scrutiny so I do love you. And even if I didn’t, you killing Aron would have definitely made me love you because FUCK YEAH THE FUCKER IS DEAD. BURN IN HELL YOU LITTLE COWARD PIECE OF SHIT.

I was wondering how he would still deal with his love towards his sister and, unfortunately, he still loves her which is sad because she doesn’t, not like that at least, which makes for a very miserable Magnus. His engagement to Cleo is not helping either because, who the heck would want to marry someone that hates your guts and it’s pretty much your enemy in every way?

Still, I loved the relationship between them. It wasn’t insta-love and they are still far from…well, touching each other voluntarily, but the thought it’s there. It’s not in crying to be in love after talking with that person four times (Yes, I’m looking at you Lucia) but it’s about developing feelings slowly, like normal people do.

Magnus went from wanting to be ruthless and uncaring like his father (as well as believing he already was) to swearing to himself he would not become him.

Lucia:

WHY????

That’s pretty much all I have to say about Lucia, why is she even in this story? In rebel spring we see a much darker and hypocrite version of Lucia, turning an otherwise bland character into a bland character who thinks it’s better than everybody else… not the greatest thing in the world.

After the explosion that took countless lives, Lucia is trapped in a dream world where she meets with Alexious, a super-gorgeous-will-make-you-vomit-beautiful Watcher who tells her how she’s part of the prophecy and, pretty much all the things we already know. They also kiss after talking four times and she claims to be in love with him.

Four motherfucking times.

After which she says she is still not sure whether she trusts him or believes he is real which is just as dumb.

Her dismissal over the deaths she had caused baffled me, especially as she started to become more and more of a villain, treating everybody as lowly and enjoying causing pain and fear on other people. I love villains, I was reading The Rose Society at the same time and the way the author portrayed Adelina was wonderful; I rooted for her, I wanted Adelina to succeed and the good guys to loose. Here with Lucia instead of “Don’t kill her please!” I was more inclined to “Just fucking kill her, please!”

I was curious to see how the relationship between her and Cleo would be, but it all started with the wrong foot when Lucia, even though she hadn’t known her, was dreading the time she would meet the spoiled Princess, because God forbid Cleo complains about having her family and kingdom butchered!

It was worse when they actually met and Lucia hated her on sight:

“Princess Celiona was just as beautiful as she’d heard. And Lucia found that she hated her immediately.”

Another thing was her relationship with the King. Despite having witnessed countless times her father’s cruelty toward everyone including his own son, she doesn’t hesitate to trust him and believe his words because he “never had been cruel to her”. THAT’S BECAUSE HE WANTS SOMETHING FROM YOU, YOU IDIOT!

Lyssandra:

I’d heard about a new female character that would appear in this series, and I had my hopes up. I’m not going to lie, however, when she appeared and was great with arrows and had a thick braid down her back my mind instantly went to this:

Can you blame me? She doesn’t have to save her little sister, but she does want to rescue her older brother which is still pretty similar to Katniss. 

Still, Katniss aside I was really disappointed with this girl. At first I thought she was going to be one of Jonas love interest (why don’t you just pull my eyes out and end this quickly, book?) but when that didn’t happen I was relieved. Sure, there was still Brion who had a crush on her but it didn’t take anything from the character. Lyssandra was more focused on the revolution than a guy making moves on her.

She didn’t have a lot to do besides complaining about Jonas idiocy (which I will admit it must be hard work) and thinking about her brother very… veeeery occasionally. The rest of the time was just her being… there.

I didn’t like how she treated Cleo. Just because she was a Princess Lyssandra thought she had never suffered or was ok with the King of Blood having killed her father and taking away her Kingdom, killing her people. No, Lyssandra had been sort of poor so she was the only one who suffered.

I got mad when Brion accused Lys of being in love Jonas because:

a.       Lyssandra had told Brion over and over how she wasn’t interested in him but apparently it took another penis for him to show respect and stop?

b.      The whole bullshit of “She realized she never tried to deny it.” Thing. Jonas and Lyssandra had shown no chemistry whatsoever, they barely talked or liked each other and suddenly they were in love?

Worst romance ever.

Random things to notice:

THERE’S A NON-STRAIGHT CHARACTER!

He’s the Prince that comes from the land across the sea, and he kisses Nic (and Nic kisses him back!!!) I expect great things from him but, is he friend or foe?

The Queen:

In Falling Kingdom’s Magnus mother had been more of a background character than anything else, but in Rebel Spring she steps into the stage when she confesses that she’s the one keeping Lucia asleep with a potion until she finds a way to kill her, because she realizes that her daughter is evil and so she has to end her life before the magic consumes her.

Unfortunately, she was killed off before anything could happen, which leads me to my next point.

Deaths being meaningless:

Falling Kingdoms kicked us in the gut with its deaths, the author made us feel pain, the importance of a life cut at a short time. In this book the author kills, but she doesn’t dwell on it, the deaths are more as a shock factor rather than or anything else.

Do you remember how heartbroken Cleo was about the death or Theon? Her sister and her father? Well she’ll barely think about them here! It’s as if nothing had ever happened. Cleo kisses Jonas, who is the person Theon died rescuing her from, and she doesn’t even blink an eye.

Mira, her friend and Nic’s sister dies and the characters are like “Oh no… who was she?” Not even Nic pays much attention to that, we don’t even see him breakdown, only Cleo saying “he was sad” and that’s all!

Same with the rest of the deaths, like Brion. “Oh no he’s dead… wow, Lyssandra turned gorgeous all of the sudden???!” If you are going to kill a character at least make it memorable, don’t throw it away as if they were disposable.

Overall, Rebel Spring was an entertaining book but it was plagued by insta-love, convenient plot devices and bullshit. I’m looking forward to the next book because of the magic and Cleo/Magnus, if the rest of the characters disappear, that’s fine by me.

A School for Unusual Girls by Kathleen Baldwin

It’s 1814. Napoleon is exiled on Elba. Europe is in shambles. Britain is at war on four fronts. And Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, has become one of Regency England’s dark little secrets. The daughters of the beau monde who don't fit high society’s constrictive mold are banished to Stranje House to be reformed into marriageable young ladies. Or so their parents think. In truth, Headmistress Emma Stranje, the original unusual girl, has plans for the young ladies—plans that entangle the girls in the dangerous world of spies, diplomacy, and war.

After accidentally setting her father’s stables on fire while performing a scientific experiment, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to Stranje House. But Georgie has no intention of being turned into a simpering, pudding-headed, marriageable miss. She plans to escape as soon as possible—until she meets Lord Sebastian Wyatt. Thrust together in a desperate mission to invent a new invisible ink for the English war effort, Georgie and Sebastian must find a way to work together without losing their heads—or their hearts...

Rating: 1.5 Stars

After being in bed with a fever for a couple of days and my computer getting broken, I’m now finally back to reviewing! At least until college starts again…

Emmm… so, A School for Unusual Girls had the promise of being an interesting historical Young Adult novel, with a woman training young ladies to become spies. However, when the only thing that happens is the main character falling in love with a guy she’s talked to three times and little else… well, I felt a little ripped-off.

There is nothing remarkable about this novel, it’s the typical YA book in which you are presented with an incredible premise only to open it and find that you have a boring love story covering the pages of the novel, sticking to your fingers with all its extra sweet nonsense.

The main character is Georgianna or Georgie and she’s special (duh). She’s too smart for a society that demands women to be mindless little perfect dolls to be married off, and after Georgie sets her father’s stables on fire, she’s sent to the Strange House where she’ll be turned into a suitable lady.

Now, considering what I’ve said before about the novel you’ll realize that Georgie is neither special nor smart and she’ll throw all of her “silly feminist” agenda as soon as a hot guy comes around. You see, Georgie doesn’t want to get married because she claims to be too smart, even though she’s a total idiot, but then throws us off with her complaining on how she has red hair and it’s therefore a horrible freak of nature who will never be loved by a man, no matter how much she wants to.

Which one is it??! Ugh, I swear the sheer stupidity this girl possessed made me want to shake her.

The rest of the characters and plot seemed interesting enough, but they were severely underdeveloped.

Overall, not recommendable if you are looking for some cool spy-story set in the nineteen century. If you are looking for a boring love story with no plot, you’ve found your book!