Wednesday 29 September 2010

Waiting on Wednesday #1

Okay, so this is my first time doing waiting on wednesday, and I know that loads of other people have done this book but, um, here goes...

Angelfire by Courtney Allison Moulton
This debut, the first novel in a trilogy, is achingly romantic, terrifying, and filled with blistering action.

When seventeen-year-old Ellie starts seeing reapers - monstrous creatures who devour humans and send their souls to Hell - she finds herself on the front lines of a supernatural war between archangels and the Fallen, and faced with the possible destruction of her soul.

A mysterious boy named Will reveals she is the reincarnation of an ancient warrior, the only one capable of wielding swords of angelfire to fight the reapers, and he is an immortal sworn to protect her in battle. Now that Ellie's powers have been awakened, a powerful reaper called Bastian has come forward to challenge her. He has employed a fierce assassin to eliminate her - an assassin who has already killed her once.

While balancing her dwindling social life and reaper-hunting duties, she and Will discover Bastian is searching for a dormant creature believed to be a true soul reaper. Bastian plans to use this weapon to ignite the End of Days and to destroy Ellie's soul, ending her rebirth cycle forever. Now, she must face an army of Bastian's most frightening reapers, prevent the soul reaper from consuming her soul, and uncover the secrets of her past lives - including truths that may be too frightening to remember.

Looks epic, right? And also because I watch a lot of the YA Rebels, a group of YA authors Courtney Allison Moulton used to be a part of, and she seems really nice, so I sort of feel obliged to buy all of their books. And my mums last name used to Moulton.

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine.

Cicely

Sunday 26 September 2010

Banned Books Week

Okay, so I know I'm a little slow onto the whole banned books week bandwagon and it probably doesn't happen in the UK, but that doesn't stop me from having something to say about it.

How could anyone ban a book? I mean is there like some sort of panel that decides whether a book is suitable or not? How can they decide how mature a person is and whether they can cope with reading about certain topics in a book? Surely it is the parents decision, right?

I've read that they've banned books from books about drugs and sex and sort of understandable things to 'promoting witchcraft' (Seriously? That is ridiculous! How the hell does Harry Potter 'promote witchcraft'. Any sort of magic that goes on in those books is like nothing compared to the sort of magic that supposedly happened in the past!)

Anyway, the big book that is up for debate this year (or so I've heard) is Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson. Now, I haven't read this book, but have heard what its about and read mny a good review about it, and will surely be purchasing it soon. I don't really understand why people ban books about subjects like rape, because they are obviously NOT trying to promote sex, or any such thing. They are just stories, and they are giving out good messeges, like to SPEAK up about rape or abuse, and it shows what some of the consequences of such things are. These books are not trying to poison teens, like myself, minds. They are not trying to make people do bad things. And how are young people meant to learn about real life if you try stupidly hard to protect us from it. Lucikly my mum is a bibliophile and she lets me read whatever I want unless she thinks I'm not ready yet,and I trust her opinion on these things. Also she would probably have the same viewpoint on this subjct as I do. Oh, yeah, and if you think the 'F-bomb' is bad in a book, just come to the UK because teens use curse words in conversation all the time.

On a more bloggy note, I have just ordered Perfect Chemistry by Simone Elkeles, which is like my first book from that sort of a genre, and I think I've chosen a good book to start with. And I'm going to put up a review for Infinite days soon as I've nearly finished reading it. And I'll probably put up loads of other reviews as well over the next week, as Ihaven't really done anything on the blog this week.

Cicely : )

Wednesday 15 September 2010

Glass Houses by Rachel Caine: Review

Claire Danvers is a freshman at college in Morganville, Texas.  It’s an unprestigious college in equally unprestgious small college town.  Clever and geeky, Claire never expected to fit in with the in-crowd of fashionable and popular girls but when she inadvertently makes an enemy of the clique’s leader Monica, she had no idea how bad things would get. 
Unable to stay in the dorm, Claire looks for off-campus accommodation and answers an advert in the paper for a room-to-let in a creepy old shared house.  Accepted into the house, she finally feels like she is making some real friends, even if they are a little odd.
Firstly, there is Michael the owner of the house, he’s only eighteen and a complete night owl.  In fact, nobody has ever seen him during the day.  Ever. 
Eve, a Goth girl who works at the local coffee shop and is a fellow roommate in the Glass House swears that Michael’s okay and is not a vampire and she would know because she’s checked….  Although, she also claims that Morganville is a town run by vampires, so she could just be crazy.
Finally, there is Shane.  He’s eighteen and although he doesn’t seem to do anything much all day apart from make chilli and kill zombies whilst playing computer games, Claire thinks he’s totally cool.
Her new roommates are the best thing about living in Morganville because, as it turns out, Eve isn’t crazy and the town is run by vampires.  In Morganville you have two choices - you either work for the vampires and have their protection or you are fair game.
When Monica says she’s going to see Claire dead, she really means it.  Luckily Claire’s new friends have her back and they hatch a plan to deal with the vampires and help her stay alive. 
However, Morganville is a town full of secrets and some of the roommates have secrets of their own…




I liked this book. I didn't love it, but I will definitely invest in getting the rest of them (mainly because of the HUGE cliffhanger at the end, but I'll get to that later.) It fulfilled all my expectations of it, being a fun, relatively easy to read book with loads of fast-paced action and a couple of sweet underlying romances (I love Eve and Michael), and the vampires were interesting too.


Claire was an OK character, but I didn't fall in love with her, and for a teen genius, she did a lot of stupid things. I liked the fact that she didn't always have someone around to protect her (although Shane...) and that most of the time when she got hurt she only had herself to blame for it and not everybody was doting over her when she got a tiny scratch or whatever, cause that kinda annoys me in books. But it was a bit annoying when  even though she'd done A LOT of damage that nobody got pissed off with her. I mean she literally, albeit unknowingly, led a load of vampires to their house, which  then wrecked the house, nearly got everyone killed ect. But she did feel plenty enough guilty about it at the time though, so I guess it's okay...


I thought the vampires were good, as they actually wanted to kill people and all y'know, and as a kid who's watched Buffy since she was five, that's what you want in a vampire novel. And I thought it was interesting how they completely ran the the town of Morganville, and that tax was paid in blood donations, and that two percent of the college students got eaten, and the whole protection thing, as I said, interesting.


Monica was kind of unbelievable though, for me, because even if you were a psycho, you don't just go around pushing people down stairs because they said that World War Two wasn't some Chinese thing. Or burning down someone's house because you have a crush on them (Monica, we all know you said you didn't like him, but we know the truth.)


The plot was good, but quite busy as there was a new plot element like every twenty pages, but it did keep me reading, and the rest of the cast were cool and I can't wait to read the other books and see how they develop, and how the plot develops, and to see if in their reviews I use the word 'and' quite as much.


Anyway, I give this book four stars. It was a good, enjoyable read, which kept me going, but didn't blow me away. Though I will definitely get the rest of the series.=)

Monday 13 September 2010

Clockwork Angel review

Magic is dangerous—but love is more dangerous still.
When sixteen-year-old Tessa Gray crosses the ocean to find her brother, her destination is England, the time is the reign of Queen Victoria, and something terrifying is waiting for her in London’s Downworld, where vampires, warlocks and other supernatural folk stalk the gaslit streets. Only the Shadowhunters, warriors dedicated to ridding the world of demons, keep order amidst the chaos.
Kidnapped by the mysterious Dark Sisters, members of a secret organization called The Pandemonium Club, Tessa soon learns that she herself is a Downworlder with a rare ability: the power to transform, at will, into another person. What’s more, the Magister, the shadowy figure who runs the Club, will stop at nothing to claim Tessa’s power for his own.
Friendless and hunted, Tessa takes refuge with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who swear to find her brother if she will use her power to help them. She soon finds herself fascinated by—and torn between—two best friends: James, whose fragile beauty hides a deadly secret, and blue-eyed Will, whose caustic wit and volatile moods keep everyone in his life at arm’s length . . . everyone, that is, but Tessa. As their search draws them deep into the heart of an arcane plot that threatens to destroy the Shadowhunters, Tessa realizes that she may need to choose between saving her brother and helping her new friends save the world. . . . and that love may be the most dangerous magic of all. 
Okay... I may be a bit biased in this because I love Cassie Clare and I wish so badly that I could write like her. I think that she is awesome. But anyways, onto the actual book.
When I first heard Cassie Clare was writing a prequel series I was so excited I was jumping up and down with joy. seriously. I loved the Mortal Instruments and I couldn't wait to get back into the world of shadowhunters. I only had one worry that it would just be a carbon-copy of the Mortal Instruments, but then I saw other peoples reviews telling me that this was not the case. And it most certainly wasn't.
Tessa was an awesome character and I liked her. I liked her more than Clary and considering the time that she's living in she is kick-ass. I wish I could be like her, an awesome, ass-kicking, book reader with two amazing yet troubled guys after her, and a super cool downworlder power...  Which brings me to Will and Jem. I am definitely teen Will, but I loved Jem too. Will was in the same vein as Jace, But at the same time completely different. He had the same cool, sarcastic demeanour about him, but they are related, and Will being the older of the two, clearly he is the one who started the whole 'I'm in pain, but I'll hide it by being a sarcastic, awesomely cool, sexy dude' thing. But I seriously love him, and I hope he can let Tessa love him too. Jem is so sweet as well. He is no Simon. (I do love Simon, but y'know they're just completely different people.) I would love to have Jem as a best friend. He's so nice and patient, and despite his circumstances he I still determined to live out his live as a shadowhunter.
The plot of the book is interesting too, and totally different form the Mortal Instruments. There's literally like two demons in it (though one is quite central) but there are no evil shadowhunters in this one. But there are lots of vampires (the awesome non sparkly kind), lots of automata (which is cool, I like robots, though I once read someone say that they were jerky and old and why aren't they all like robots now. Well it IS in the Victirian Era where they hadn't even invented half the technology to build highly advance androids like we have now.) and MAGNUS!!!! (which automatically gives this book at least 3 stars :P) Who doesn't love Magnus. I also think it's cool that she decided to set it in the Victorian Era and in London, because it made it easier to relate to the story as in where and what it looked like. For example, reading the chapter set on Blackfriar's Bridge, I could just imagine the setting perfectly, and not just because of the great descriptions, because I had been there myself. I'd seen the view, and it was nice because with every book I've read lately I've always had to conjour up an image from scrap, not that I mind doing that, it's just it adds to the story when you have an almost exact creation of the setting in my mind. 
I give this book 5 stars. I really loved this book. I loved the time, I loved the characters (team Will and Henry, he's so cute how he makes all his inventions and how they all fail), I loved the place (I had literally been to the area of London where it was set a week before so the picture was incredibly vivid in my mind. Also London is and incredibly atmospheric place, the perfect setting for a paranormal book) and I loved the story. I cannot wait for Clockwork Prince to come out, and am so looking forward to City of Fallen Angels. (I can't believe she's writing another three Mortal Instruments books. Epic) And if you haven't read any of Cassie Clare's books, go out and buy them now. Seriously. Right now.
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