VELICIOUS PART TWO
By: Shelique LizeSeries: Velicious Series #2
Publication Date: December 7th, 2015
Genre: Paranormal Romance, Mystery
* Velicious Part Two cannot be read as a stand alone.
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Shelique loves anything to do with the paranormal world. She’s a proud Canadian but dislikes winter. She prefers watching the snow falling beautifully from inside a warm home. The movie Grease is her all time favorite movie. She thinks everyone should still watch Disney movies. Sailor Moon is her favorite anime. Currently she likes to listen to The Weeknd and Lana Del Rey, and she’s pretty open to every other genre of music.
Shelique likes to surround herself with positivity and she enjoys a good meditation. Photography, a Shopaholic, and she’s an Aries.
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I am beyond thrilled to bring you all the Trailer Reveal for Jennifer L. Armentrout's OBLIVION! OBLIVION is a Young Adult Paranormal Romance being published by Entangled Teen, and is a part of Jennifer L. Armentrout’s New York Times and USA Today bestselling LUX Series, a series I love a lot with my heart. It is being released on December 1st, 2015!! Watch the trailer then pre-order your copy today!
Real talk though, I absolutely love The Lux Series and Daemon Black is one of my book baes, so if you haven't read The Lux Series, please do it right away so you can read this as well.
OBLIVION Pre-Order
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Add it to your Goodreads Now!
And don’t miss the first books in the LUX Series!
LUX: Beginnings
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LUX: Consequences
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OPPOSITION
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About Jennifer L. Armentrout:
# 1 New York Times and # 1 International Bestselling author Jennifer lives in Martinsburg, West Virginia. All the rumors you’ve heard about her state aren’t true. When she’s not hard at work writing, she spends her time reading, watching really bad zombie movies, pretending to write, and hanging out with her husband and her Jack Russell Loki.
Her dreams of becoming an author started in algebra class, where she spent most of her time writing short stories….which explains her dismal grades in math. Jennifer writes young adult paranormal, science fiction, fantasy, and contemporary romance. She is published with Spencer Hill Press, Entangled Teen and Brazen, Disney/Hyperion and Harlequin Teen. Her book Obsidian has been optioned for a major motion picture and her Covenant Series has been optioned for TV. Her young adult romantic suspense novel DON’T LOOK BACK was a 2014 nominated Best in Young Adult Fiction by YALSA.
She also writes Adult and New Adult contemporary and paranormal romance under the name J. Lynn. She is published by Entangled Brazen and HarperCollins.
Website ** Facebook ** Twitter ** Novel Goodreads ** Author Goodreads
Now this list isn't really of books because I don't reread particular books for Halloween. There are general things I do read for books. Just read the list and you'll understand.
5. May Bird and the Ever After
This book has a special place in my heart. I read it all the time as a child and really loved it. I don't know why, but I do. I think it is because I could identify with May Bird's loneliness. Anyway, sometimes I'll reread this book around Halloween time.
4. Murder Mysteries
Any murder mystery or thriller is fair game for this season.
3. Holly Black
For the most part, I like Holly Black's books and they are perfect for Halloween time, like "The Coldest Girl in Coldtown", my favorite book from her.
2. Anything with angels
As of recently, and by recently I mean like the past three years, I have become a sucker for angel books. No idea why. Wait, that's a lie. Supernatural the tv show. Enough said.
1. Anything with vampires
Vampires just get to me. I don't know why, but they do. I think it all started with "Vampire Academy" and went uphill or downhill, that has yet to be determined.
I don't really have anything to say, so onward!
5. Sarah J Maas
I read "A Court of Thorns and Roses" from her and absolutely loved it. Now I have zero intentions of reading her "Throne of Glass" series because of all the hype, but my book blogger friend here on campus really likes it, so I just might cave in...
4. George Orwell
I read "1984" for my AP Literature class and absolutely loved it. The man is a dystopian genius.
3. CC Hunter
I have really enjoyed her Shadow Falls:After Dark series despite having problems with the main love interests and that whole bonding bullshit. Her writing is nothing special, but I don't know, something about teen paranormal romance gets to me.
2. Aldous Huxley
Similar to Orwell, I read "Brave New World" in AP Literature and loved it. I loved his book more than "1984" because it had a very different view on society and the future and I just really enjoyed his writing.
1. Stacey Trombley
I read her debut novel "Naked" and absolutely loved it. It is by far one of my favorite books of the year. It was so special and the message behind it was incredibly powerful.
Book: Bone Gap
Author: Laura Ruby
Format: Ebook
Page Count: 373
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
My Rating: ★★★
Synopsis: Everyone knows Bone Gap is full of gaps—gaps to trip you up, gaps to slide through so you can disappear forever. So when young, beautiful Roza went missing, the people of Bone Gap weren’t surprised. After all, it wasn’t the first time that someone had slipped away and left Finn and Sean O’Sullivan on their own. Just a few years before, their mother had high-tailed it to Oregon for a brand new guy, a brand new life. That’s just how things go, the people said. Who are you going to blame?
Finn knows that’s not what happened with Roza. He knows she was kidnapped, ripped from the cornfields by a dangerous man whose face he cannot remember. But the searches turned up nothing, and no one believes him anymore. Not even Sean, who has more reason to find Roza than anyone, and every reason to blame Finn for letting her go.
As we follow the stories of Finn, Roza, and the people of Bone Gap—their melancholy pasts, their terrifying presents, their uncertain futures—acclaimed author Laura Ruby weaves a heartbreaking tale of love and loss, magic and mystery, regret and forgiveness—a story about how the face the world sees is never the sum of who we are.
So I read Bone Gap for the Four Corners of the Bookshelf October book of the month (although I'm not able to participate in the book discussion for it) and my university's college book club. Coming into the book, I didn't really know what it was about or what to expect from it. All I knew was that there was an element of magical realism, something I was kinda weary of, and for a good reason.
Overall the book just confused me. Maybe I just don't have the right mindset for this book, I don't know. It was intriguing, but there were so many elements of it that I just didn't understand, especially since it was told in many point of views, something I wasn't expecting. The main characters were strange, a little too strange for me, especially Finn. The way Finn described everything was interesting at first but after awhile every time he said or thought something I'd just be left sitting in my chair thinking "what the fuck did I just read"?
When it came to the writing style, I wasn't sure what to think. There were times when I liked it, there were times when I really didn't. I think the whole magical realism aspect was just too hard for me to grasp.
Plot-wise, I wasn't the hugest fan. Most of the plot, was just a waste of time and pretty irrelevant. Like the whole romance thing with Finn; I could care less. I wish more focus had been put on the kidnapping and finding Roza. Also, the whole kidnapping thing was weird with regards to where Roza was confined. Even in the end I didn't realize understand how it happened.
SIDE NOTE: The hell is up with this town's fascination with bees? Like I swear everyone had something to say about bees.
All in all, I'm just not really sure what to think of this book.
Author: O.E. Boroni
Release Date: October 20th, 2015
Publisher: Waves Corporation
Synopsis: Can love really conquer all?
Thirteen years ago, Lenora Baker and Nathan Roque ran into each other in their boarding school courtyard. Despite the bitter losses and experiences that they were both nursing in their hearts, they somehow managed to find in each other a passion that healed as powerfully as it burned. But demons aren’t chased away that easily.
Now, thirteen years later, everything is rekindled with a ferocity that neither of them can ignore. They’ve found their way back to each other but in this conclusion to the trilogy, their hope for the love-filled future that neither of them ever believed that they could have is on the line.
Life happens; disaster rocks the already shaky ground that they’re standing on, and dreams begin to seem like nightmares. Will they find the answers to the questions that have plagued them for so long, or will they once again succumb to their fears?
Excerpt
About the Author
I currenty live in England. My days are spent in the Project Management field while my nights are spent with books. I'm either reading them or writing the ones that I want to read. My favorite things and in this particular order are books, Korean dramas, ice cream, and people who smile through everything. I consistently tell people that these are the four things they need to be happy but do they believe me?
No! Well I believe me, and you should too.
I absolutely love hearing from my readers so feel free to leave me a message at any time.
GIVEAWAY
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Been awhile since I've done one of these but I have the entire month of October's Top 5 Wednesdays scheduled, so you guys will actually for once get a steady stream of these!
5. Penryn from Penryn and the End of Days (Angelfall)
I'm not entirely sure exactly what she is, but she is a racially ambiguous, badass female character. That's all I need.
4. Ridge from Maybe Someday
He is not diverse in the traditional sense but he is deaf, which in itself is different from most characters. He is my favorite character of Colleen Hoover's and I just wish he was real and could be mine.
3. Leonard Peacock from Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock
Once again, not traditionally diverse, but he is so different. I love this kid so much and I just want to hold him and protect him from the world.
2. Leo Valdez from Heroes of Olympus
My little Hispanic baby. I love him so much and all I have ever wanted from him is for him to be happy and not get screwed over.
1. Mandy from Everything, Everything
The only reason why she is number one is because she is racially diverse like myself. It was nice to read about a character of mixed races who was physically and socially described like I am, though not quite as secluded as she is.
So I know this is really late, but I just kinda forgot about the whole monthly wrap up thing. I wasn't even sure if I read more than like a book. Turns out I kinda read 6 books. I say kinda because 3 of them I read for my religion class, but I didn't read the entire book, but I still count them because I read them for the most part.
Total Books Read: 6
Physical Books: 5
Ebooks: 1
Books for Review: 2
Books for Pleasure: 1
Books for School: 3
Books for Review:
Lost in Geeklandia |review| ★
To Nowhere |review| ★★★
Books for Pleasure:
I'll Give You the Sun |review| |book talk| ★★★★1/2
Books for School:
The Sacred Canopy
The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion
A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects
Favorite Book:
I'll Give You the Sun. It was the only book I read for pleasure and I really could relate to it, as mentioned in the review and book talk.
Total Books Read: 6
Physical Books: 5
Ebooks: 1
Books for Review: 2
Books for Pleasure: 1
Books for School: 3
Books for Review:
Lost in Geeklandia |review| ★
To Nowhere |review| ★★★
Books for Pleasure:
I'll Give You the Sun |review| |book talk| ★★★★1/2
Books for School:
The Sacred Canopy
The Sacred and the Profane: The Nature of Religion
A History of Religion in 5 1/2 Objects
Favorite Book:
I'll Give You the Sun. It was the only book I read for pleasure and I really could relate to it, as mentioned in the review and book talk.
Aster Layne believes in physics, not psychics. A tarot card reading on the Ocean City Boardwalk should have been a ridiculous, just-for-fun thing. It wasn’t. Aster discovers she has a very unscientific gift—with a simple touch of the cards, she can change a person’s fate. Reese Van Buren is cursed. Like the kind of old-school, centuries-old curse that runs in royal families. Every firstborn son is doomed to die on his eighteenth birthday—and Reese’s is coming up fast. Bummer. He tries to distract himself from his inevitable death…only to find the one person who can save him. Aster doesn’t know that the hot Dutch guy she’s just met needs her help–or that he’s about to die. But worst of all…she doesn’t know that her new gift comes with dark, dark consequences that can harm everyone she loves. Goodreads | Amazon | Barnes & Noble
Excerpt from TOUCHING FATE
The spell was broken when some partiers ran up the beach screaming and laughing. Aster turned in the direction of the noise and spotted Reese standing there. He waved. A moronic move, he reprimanded himself. Strolling up the beach James Bond-style would have been better, but instead, struggling in the sand, he headed for her. He decided if she moved toward him as well, it would be proof that she was attracted to him. Aster spun around and faced the ocean again. Reese stopped. She was still angry with him. Just when he made up his mind to leave her alone, she started down the beach toward him. “Hi,” she said, staring up at him. The golden specks in her eyes were like stardust glinting in the low-lying sun. “What are you doing here?” “Leah invited Jan, and he brought me along.” “I see.” “Well, I didn’t put up a struggle. I have to admit, I was hoping to see you.” He held out the aster. “This is for you. A peace offering. One simple flower can mean so much more than a bunch, don’t you agree?” A shocked expression crossed her face, and Reese thought he had blown it. But then she gave him a sweet smile and took the flower from him. “Stolen ones are even better.” “Well, in all honesty, it was a spur-of-the-moment decision. A gentleman doesn’t court a lady without bringing a gift.” “So you’re courting me?” She tried unsuccessfully not to smile. It was rather fetching, her pink glossed lips twitching at the effort. “You don’t even know anything about me.” “Well, that is the point of dating, isn’t it? To get to know each other?” “I’m not sure.” When the silence between them got uncomfortable, she lowered her head and picked at the stem of the flower. “Not sure, huh?” This girl was a hard nut to crack. Reese got an idea. “How about we play a game?” She looked back up at him. “What kind of game?” “One where I tell you something about me, then you tell me something about yourself.” “Sure, why not?” She twirled around and padded across the beach, lifting up sand with her toes and flicking it into the air in front of her. “You go first.” “All right, then,” he said, keeping pace with her. “My family lives in a castle just outside of Amsterdam, complete with towers and turrets. It’s been in the family for generations. We only live in a few rooms. The rest of the place is open for tours. It helps pay for the upkeep and taxes.” “Really?” She knotted her fingers behind her back. “Does that mean you’re royal?” “No. But my father is a count.” He hated talking about his lineage. “It’s just a title,” he said, as if it wasn’t a big deal, which it wasn’t, at least to him. “That’s pretty awesome,” she said. “Now you.”
About the Author
Website | Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Pinterest | Instagram
Brenda Drake grew up the youngest of three children, an Air Force brat, and the continual new kid at school. Her fondest memories growing up are of her eccentric, Irish grandmother’s animated tales, which gave her a strong love for storytelling.
So it was only fitting that she would choose to write stories with a bend toward the fantastical. When she’s not writing or hanging out with her family, she haunts libraries, bookstores, and coffee shops, or reads someplace quiet and not at all exotic (much to her disappointment).
Giveaway
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Book: Forget Tomorrow
Author: Pintip Dunn
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Publication Date: November 3rd, 2015
Synopsis: Imagine a world where your destiny has already been decided...by your future self.
It's Callie's seventeenth birthday and, like everyone else, she's eagerly awaiting her vision-a memory sent back in time to sculpt each citizen into the person they're meant to be. A world-class swimmer. A renowned scientist.
Or in Callie's case, a criminal.
In her vision, she sees herself murdering her gifted younger sister. Before she can process what it means, Callie is arrested and placed in Limbo-a hellish prison for those destined to break the law. With the help of her childhood crush, Logan, a boy she hasn't spoken to in five years, she escapes.
But on the run from her future, as well as the government, Callie sets in motion a chain of events that she hopes will change her fate. If not, she must figure out how to protect her sister from the biggest threat of all-Callie, herself.
I had the pleasure of getting in contact with the author of "Forget Tomorrow", Pintip Dunn and the opportunity to bring to you guys a guest post from her. I also received an ARC on the book, so you'll be hearing my thoughts on the book come release day. I hope you enjoy the guest post and that you'll think about checking out the book!
Guest Post
10 things you didn't know about FORGET TOMORROW
1. Forget Tomorrow is dedicated to my sister, Lana, who is twelve years younger than me. I always joke that I love this story because I get to kill her in it. But really, this book is about how much I love her.
2. All my books have food in them because I'm obsessed with eating. So in Forget Tomorrow, Callie dreams of being a Manual Chef when she grows up. ("Manual" because most food in the post-boom era is produced straight from the Meal Assembler.)
3. Logan's name was originally Tony, and Jessa's name used to be Jessamine. Callie has always been Callie.
4. In the very first version of the book, Callie doesn't go to prison.
5. Forget Tomorrow finaled in RWA's prestigious Golden Heart® contest for unpublished manuscripts in 2012. It was up against Romily Bernard's FIND ME, Natalie Richards' SIX MONTHS LATER, and Cecily White's ANGEL ACADEMY. Instead of being competitors, we became great friends because of this contest.
6. Speaking of contests, right after I wrote the opening of Forget Tomorrow, I entered every writing contest I could find in a two-month period, hoping that I would final in at least one of them. To my utter shock, FT finaled in eleven out of fourteen contests and won seven of them.
7. My agent, Beth Miller of Writers House, found me in one of these contests. In her words, she "stalked" me until the manuscript was ready for submission. And then, she made me an offer within 24 hours.
8. Forget Tomorrow is the fifth book I sold, but it will be the first one to be published.
9. Forget Tomorrow was my fourth book, but it was the first YA I ever wrote. The moment I wrote the first sentence, I knew I had found my genre. It felt like home.
10. The premise for this book came from a hazy afternoon nap with my son. Maybe I need to take naps more often!
About the Author:
Pintip Dunn graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with an A.B. in English Literature and Language. She received her J.D. at Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the YALE LAW JOURNAL. She also published an article in the YALE LAW JOURNAL, entitled, “How Judges Overrule: Speech Act Theory and the Doctrine of Stare Decisis,”
Pintip Dunn graduated from Harvard University, magna cum laude, with an A.B. in English Literature and Language. She received her J.D. at Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the YALE LAW JOURNAL. She also published an article in the YALE LAW JOURNAL, entitled, “How Judges Overrule: Speech Act Theory and the Doctrine of Stare Decisis,”
Pintip is represented by literary agent Beth Miller of Writers House. She is a 2012 RWA Golden Heart® finalist and a 2014 double-finalist. She is a member of Romance Writers of America, Washington Romance Writers, YARWA, and The Golden Network.
She lives with her husband and children in Maryland. You can learn more about Pintip and her books at www.pintipdunn.com
We are so excited to be a part of the blog tour for James Knapp's newest YA novel, ALICE IN NO-MAN'S-LAND!
ALICE IN NO-MAN'S-LAND is a Young Adult, Alice in Wonderland, Sci-fi re-imagining that is just in time for the 150th Anniversary.
Make sure to click one of the buy links below to grab your copy, and make sure to enter the giveaway at the bottom!
About ALICE IN NO-MAN'S-LAND:
When her escape pod falls to earth, crashing in Ypsilanti Bloc, privileged seventeen-year-old Alice Walshe is dashed from the wonderland of wealth and prosperity into a ruined, walled city overrun with militias, gangs, and even cannibals. On top of this horror, her younger brother’s escape pod is missing.
Alice isn’t naïve – she’s always known blocs like Ypsilanti exist, left behind after a foodborne illness ravished the country decades earlier and left pockets of severe urban decay in its wake. Men like her father - a major player at Cerulean Holdings - renew the devastated blocs and bring stability back into the areas. But, Ypsilanti is even worse than the tales she’s heard, and rumor has it the bloc is faced with the threat of extermination by Cerulean, not renewal.
Trapped within Ypsilanti’s borders and left for dead, Alice teams up with a pair of teen scavengers who tracked the wreck of her pod. Despite their rough exterior and vulgar speech, they’re her only option for navigating the hostile and violent environment of Ypsilanti, finding her brother, and getting out of No-Man’s-Land alive.
Buy Links:
Excerpt
Barks overlapped one another, popping up over the sound of claws on blacktop as the dogs closed in behind me.
Three of them raced ahead and then turned back to block my path, barking and growling as the others moved in from behind. I veered toward a box truck that rested on two of its rims in front of the bus but in seconds they’d surrounded me and had begun to move in. When I turned back I saw there were now easily ten or fifteen dogs in the pack, of all different sizes and breeds.
The white one lunged at me and I recoiled, tripping over my own feet and almost tumbling to the ground. I grabbed the door handle to the truck and pulled but it was locked.
Up. You have to get off the street.
I scrambled up the side of the cab, using the runner, then the side view mirror to climb toward the roof. One of the dogs grabbed the bedroll on my back in its jaws and shook its head with such violence that it pulled me off balance and I went face down on the hot metal but before it could drag me down the fabric ripped, and it fell away. I managed my way up onto the roof, and then hoisted myself up on top of the tilted surface of the truck's box car.
The dogs swarmed around the truck, growling and barking. They paced back and forth, lips pulled back from their teeth as their hungry eyes glared up at me.
They can't get up here, I told myself. They can't climb. They can't come up here.
One of them jumped up on the hood and put its paws on the windshield. Another one joined it, claws tapping on the metal as they paced, judging the distance to reach me. I looked around. There was a fire escape with a ladder on a track in the alley just to the right of the bus’s back end. If I could make the jump...
The first dog scampered up the windshield, strands of drool trailing from its jaws as it stared up at me with rheumy eyes.
“Good boy,” I told it, as it advanced. Another dog, a patchy black one, leapt up to join it. Both of them growled.
“Good boy...”
I turned and ran the length of the box truck and jumped across, landing on top of the bus with a hollow metal thud. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the man reach the other side of the street and head for the alley there as I thundered down the length of the roof.
My foot found the edge and I launched myself toward the ladder, arms flailing in the air. Below the dogs followed, yipping in anticipation as I lost momentum much sooner than I thought I would.
As I began to fall, I made a desperate grab for the ladder. One hand banged off the side, pain jabbing up the length of my arm as my other just managed to grab the bottom rung. I held on as rust flaked loose, and the ladder began squealing down on its track toward the street below.
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About James Knapp:
James Knapp was born in New Hampshire in 1970, and has lived in the New England area since that time. He developed a love of reading and writing early on, participating in young author competitions as early as grade school, but the later discovery of works by Frank Herbert and Isaac Asimov turned that love to an obsession.
He wrote continuously through high school, college and beyond, eventually breaking into the field with the publication of the Revivors trilogy (State of Decay, The Silent Army, and Element Zero). State of Decay was a Philip K. Dick award nominee, and won the 2010 Compton Crook Award. Ember, The Burn Zone, and Fallout were all written under the name James K. Decker.
He now lives in MA with his wife Kim.
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Giveaway:
Book: The Rosie Project
Author: Graeme Simsion
Format: Hardcover
Page Count: 304
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
My Rating: ★★1/2
Synopsis: Don Tillman, professor of genetics, has never been on a second date. He is a man who can count all his friends on the fingers of one hand, whose lifelong difficulty with social rituals has convinced him that he is simply not wired for romance. So when an acquaintance informs him that he would make a “wonderful” husband, his first reaction is shock. Yet he must concede to the statistical probability that there is someone for everyone, and he embarks upon The Wife Project. In the orderly, evidence-based manner with which he approaches all things, Don sets out to find the perfect partner. She will be punctual and logical—most definitely not a barmaid, a smoker, a drinker, or a late-arriver.
Yet Rosie Jarman is all these things. She is also beguiling, fiery, intelligent—and on a quest of her own. She is looking for her biological father, a search that a certain DNA expert might be able to help her with. Don's Wife Project takes a back burner to the Father Project and an unlikely relationship blooms, forcing the scientifically minded geneticist to confront the spontaneous whirlwind that is Rosie—and the realization that love is not always what looks good on paper.
If I'm being completely honest I wasn't going to write a review for this book. I read this for my book club and while I didn't say everything I had to say, I really didn't want to talk about the book anymore. For the sake of my conscious, I will briefly state my feelings towards this book. I did not like it. Don bothered me, Rose bothered me, Gene bothered me, to be honest I did not like anyone in the book except Daphne and she was barely even in the book. The plot also bothered me. It was illogically logical yet logically illogical. In other words, it was dumb as hell a lot of the times. There were times when nothing made sense. Don is supposedly a smart, logical, geneticist, yet to me he wa a complete idiot. Rosie... she's just not my type of character. Also an idiot. Her mom was an idiot, especially for a doctor. Basing the father on eye color alone, are you kidding me? She should have been disbarred cause she clearly didn't pay attention during school. The general idea of the story was likeable and the writing could have been really good if I didn't like Don so much cause he is an idiot.
*I apologize for my highly illogical and wordy review. This might be the worst array I've written, but let me be real: I didn't want to write it in the first place but I felt like I had to write it, and I'm also trying to take notes in my computer programming class, so I shouldn't even be writing this review right now*
TALKTIME #8: I'M FALLING OUT OF THE BOOKSPHERE AND THAT IS OKAY
So unlike most of the other talktimes I've done, all seven of them, gosh I'm so bad at this, this one isn't going to be as much discussion based. This one is going to be mostly entirely all about me, my life, and the booksphere. If you don't want to read about me talking about my life, that's cool. You can leave right now. I won't be offended. I won't even know because this is the Internet.
Where to begin... I guess I'll just start with the obvious. I have fallen almost entirely off the face of the booksphere. Now when I say booksphere, I mean out of the book blogging community and booktube. I remember before I moved to college I promised to write a blog and film a video once a week. I have come to realize there is no way in hell that is going to happen. To be honest, I'm lucky if I can muster up the motivation for once a month, and that is terrible. I used to love this booksphere. Everyday I would go through my feed and look at everyone's reviews, comment, and be hella involved. Now... well now I'm just not feeling it. I have to force myself to read people's blog posts. Don't get me started on booktube. My subscriber feed will have 70 videos and then one day I'll decide to binge watch a bunch. If it is over 5 minutes I am or a review, I'm not watching it. It's that I have fallen out of love with the whole book community, I just don't have the time or the mentality to do it.
College is time consuming and stressful. I am biomedical engineering pre-med major, the hardest major at my college, probably the hardest major period. With so much science and math, my brain is on technical overdrive. My computer programming class also takes a huge chunk out of my schedule. Most of the reading I do is spent towards my religions class where I have to read 120 pages in less than a day...
Don't get me wrong. I still love reading. Reading is bae. When I do have time to do my own reading, I have a ball. It's the entire blogging/recording aspect that has me down in the dumps. For instance, I read "The Rosie Project" for my college book club and finished it like on Sunday (today is Thursday). I have yet to write a review. And I kinda don't want to write a review. I'm kinda falling out of love with reviews. I don't want to review cause it's time consuming, and I don't feel like reading other people's reviews because I honestly don't care what they have to say cause I know I will not be able to read whatever they are reading anytime soon.
In general my entire emotional spectrum is down in the dumps. I'm incredibly stressed and college is not nearly as fun as I thought it would be. Everyone always says how you make lifetime friends in college, but I've barely even made what I would call friends. I have a "friend" group, but they always forget about me, like all the time. They always forget to text me to join them for dinner, when we do hang out, they always talk about when they hung out and forgot to invite me, and the list goes on and on. Not having a solid friend group kinda depresses me.
On the bright side, I did meet a fellow book blogger at the book club meeting. It's nice to have someone to talk and text to about books. Her name is Saloni and here is a link to her blog. http://myfantabulousbookshelf.blogspot.com/
I guess what I'm trying to say is, right now my mental state is in shambles and my feelings towards the booksphere is affected because of this. I have no doubt that I will get better. Come Fall Break, Thanksgiving Break, and especially Winter Break, I should be better, but I don't know if I'll ever be at the same caliber of excitement I had before.
So how are you guys? For those of you in school, can you relate to what I am feeling? Have you ever thought about just quitting? What do you do to get yourself out of an emotional stink?
Book: To Nowhere
Author: C.E. Wilson
Format: ARC
Page Count: 295 (Final paperback)
Publisher: Christina Snyder
My Rating: ★★★
Synopsis: A world no one would believe.
From the moment Lyris is treated to coffee by a beautiful stranger, she has no idea that her life is about to change forever. In her enthusiasm to start at a new school with a new boyfriend, Lyris is almost able to look past his oddities.
Almost.
The way he eyes up her striking red hair.
The way he loves that she’s seventeen. “The perfect age.”
And the way he’s gone from all but begging to show her a specific room in a specific house to making her swear never to even think about it again.
When Lyris doesn't take his strange warnings seriously, she finds that nothing could have prepared her for what lay behind that door.
Suddenly, Lyris finds herself in a world no one would believe. A world where she’s only a few inches tall and giants aren’t creatures from fairy tales. Where humans are no longer the dominant race, but pets auctioned off to the highest bidder. Lyris understands the true danger of such a place, but there seems to be one person on her side.
Her kind and surprised captor.
And while Brindt appears to be sweet and trustworthy, he also straddles the line between seeing her as an equal and a cute animal.
Lyris has to get home… before the one person can turn to becomes the one person who can’t let her go.
REVIEW
As many of you know by this, I am a pre-med engineering student away at college, which means I have like zero time to read. Well this author of this book, C.E. Wilson approached me with a review request. At first I almost declined, but the premise sounded really interesting and she gave me a flexible amount of time to read and review, so I accepted the request.
Going into the book, I wasn't really sure what to expect other than the fact that this girl was going to go into a world where giants treat humans like pets. Overall impression of the book was okay; it definitely had room for improvement. I think my main problem with the book was that I hated all the characters, every single one of them. There was not a single person introduced in this book that I liked. It is hard to like a book when the characters make you want to hate the book, especially when the main character is the one you hate the most.
Lyris, the main character... what can I say about her that isn't spoilery... Gosh I just hated her so much. She was an incredibly annoying, dumb, ignorant, naive, and gullible character. There wasn't a single point in the book where I pitied her. No, every singe time she was "shocked" by something or felt sad or basically thought or did anything, I wanted to hit her. She lacks any common sense whatsoever. Everything that happens to her is her fault.
Brindt, the giant who Lyris becomes close with... let's just say he creeps me the hell out, especially for a 15 year old. My brother is 15 years old, and if he was like Brindt, I would smack the hell out of him.
On to Wyatt... I never understand why Lyris liked him. It was blatantly obvious from the moment we meet him that he is shady as hell and quite creepy and selfish.
Plot-wise, I was quite intrigued to see where things would go. There were times when things were a bit slow, irrelevant, or just eye-roll worthy, but it was still pretty captivating. Even though it took me damn near two weeks to read this book (that's because of school though), every time I picked up the book I was focused on it and wanted to get through as much as possible.
When it came to the actual writing, it wasn't anything special. Actually at times it felt incredibly basic, kind of like a middle school or high school girl wrote it. I can't tell you how many times it says "I was shocked", "I was flushed", "I found myself", or "I gasped" or stuff along those lines. Most of the sentences were pretty basic and the description wasn't much. I felt like the writing was very proverbial. It could use some more elevated language, better syntax, action tenses as well as description, and overall in general I think the writing style has a lot of room to grow into something more memorable and not necessarily sophisticated, but something more suited to people that aren't in middle school.
Overall, it was a good book. It was interesting and definitely something unique. I don't I have ever read anything like it before.
GIVEAWAY
Now on to the fun! The author was kind enough to provide me another signed copy for review that one of you could win! To enter, simply do the rafflecopter down below. The giveaway will run from today to October 22nd.
UNFORTUNATELY I AM A BROKE COLLEGE STUDENT SO CONTINENTAL U.S. ENTRIES ONLY. [IF YOU'RE FROM CANADA, I MIGHT BE PERSUADED TO SHIP TO YOU.]
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