Review: Entice by Jessica Shirvington

Entice

by Jessica Shirvington

CONSEQUENCE HAUNTS EVERY CHOICE

Violet Eden is Grigori - part angel, part human. Her destiny is to protect humans from the vengence of exiled angels.

Knowing who to trust is key but, when Grigori reinforcements arrive, it becomes clear everyone is hiding something. Even Lincoln. The only thing Violet does know: Phoenix's hold over her is more dangerous than ever.

The race to find the one thing that could tilt the balance of power brings them all to the sacred mountains of Jordan, where Violet's power will be pushed to the extreme. And the ultimate betrayal exposed.

Enticed (now retitled ENTICE) is the second compelling book in The Violet Eden Chapters.

Paperback, AUS Edition, 413 pages

Published March 29th 2011 by Hachette

A Long Story...Short! 

This series never ceases to surprise me. I read the first book and found it refreshingly...good! And then I waited...a decade - at least that's what it feels like - to continue with book two, Entice, and found that it was incredibly fun and entertaining, as well. The old characters - and especially our lovebirds - go through some trouble again and there are so many new people - all of them interesting and likeable on the first - or second - view. No matter what you usually think of Angel books - you should try this series!

RATING:

3/3 Smarties

Review for You:

I think with this series it's the mixture of everything good that makes them great. The characters are realistic, yes, and some of them really have some chemistry, we get some steamy, but also adorable scenes between different couples that I couldn't get enough of, but that alone wouldn't have done it for me. 

Thankfully, all that relationship chaos got interrupted constantly by saving-the-world emergencies and kick-ass action - for the boys but also for the girls which made me very happy, being the feminist-y kind of girl that I am. Violet is not clinging to the guys to save her - and the guys know there's no need!

As for the plot, it does not seem to end. Seriously! Whenever I felt like I could put the book aside to maybe think of food or homework or sleep or something, there was a new plot twist or fight scene or mystery I wanted to figure out.

What I like about the series, too - something I also mentioned in my review of the first book - is that Steph is not just a random sidekick. If there's something going on, she always comes along or at least has her own important part to play. 

Something that could be criticized is that Violet's "normal" life as a teen does come a little bit short. School and her dad are very easily put in the background, but with that amazing storyline I didn't really care about that anyway. 

All in all, I guess what made this book even better than the last one are all the new characters and settings that the reader is introduced to. It makes the series more special and unique - if book three, Emblaze, is just as good this might turn into one of my new favorite series!

Wishlist Wednesday

SPOILER ALARM!  

This is the third in a series!

Once again Violet Eden faces an impossible choice ... and the consequences are unimaginable. 
Violet has come to terms with the fact that being part angel, part human, means her life will never be as it was.
Now Violet has something Phoenix - the exiled angel who betrayed her - will do anything for, and she has no intention of letting it fall into his hands. The only problem is that he has something she needs too. 
Not afraid to raise the stakes, Phoenix seemingly holds all the power, always one step ahead. And when he puts the final pieces of the prophecy together, it doesn't take him long to realise exactly who he needs in order to open the gates of Hell.
With the help of surprising new allies, ancient prophecies are deciphered, a destination set and, after a shattering confrontation with her father, Violet leaves for the islands of Greece without knowing if she will have a home to return to...
END OF SPOILERS!

Why I want this:
I've read the first and second book in this series and both were a lot better than I expected them to be. Now I've come to accept  that there is, in fact, an angel series that I like and I can't wait to read no.3 :D

Review: Embrace by Jessica Shirvington

Violet Eden dreads her seventeenth birthday. After all, it’s hard to get too excited about the day that marks the anniversary of your mother’s death. As if that wasn’t enough, disturbing dreams haunt her sleep and leave her with very real injuries. There’s a dark tattoo weaving its way up her arms that wasn’t there before.
Violet is determined to get some answers, but nothing could have prepared her for the truth. The guy she thought she could fall in love with has been keeping his identity a secret: he’s only half-human—oh, and same goes for her.
A centuries-old battle between fallen angels and the protectors of humanity has chosen its new warrior. It’s a fight Violet doesn’t want, but she lives her life by two rules: don’t run and don’t quit. When angels seek vengeance and humans are the warriors, you could do a lot worse than betting on Violet Eden…

Publisher: Hachette Australia
Series? #1
Pages: 382 (Paperback)
Release Date: October 1, 2010

LONG STORY SHORT:

Against all odds I liked this book. It is Paranormal Romance, it has a love triangle, it has the typical girl-plus-supposed to be funny - best friend. It's everything I usually hate turned into something I somehow like...You should believe all those people who said it before and read Embrace - I promise it's going to be worth it.

REVIEW:

Looking back I don't even know what it was that made me fall in love with this book. It wasn't love, either. It was more that feeling when you get sucked into a story and you can't stop turning the pages and then you look up and realise you've made it through the first half of the book.

I do blame the characters, too. Violet did have that rather stereotypical cynical tone to her voice that most PR heroines have but it was not too much. She still seemed unique. And all those martial arts, and the running and boxing she did made her a real believable kick-ass female lead that I could take seriously.

The best friend had some of those stereotypical features, too but like Violet she really got to have her own personality. She wasn't over present, but she had a few occurrences and played a role that actually mattered!

The love interests...oh well...number one - my personal favorite - was SO so cool. Endlessly cool! I wouldn't even have to think to decide which boy I'd want. I didn't really get all the affection for no.2 actually, but he was alright, too. Sometimes it just bothered me how long it took Violet to realize when people were...not quite honest with her.

The story was so believable because it was so close to the real world and Violet's life. The paranormal aspects made sense, they were explained, they didn't just exist.

All in all, this is Paranormal Romance how I think it should be :)

Review: Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia and Margeret Stohl

Is death the end . . . or only the beginning?

Ethan Wate has spent most of his life longing to escape the stiflingly small Southern town of Gatlin. He never thought he would meet the girl of his dreams, Lena Duchannes, who unveiled a secretive, powerful, and cursed side of Gatlin, hidden in plain sight. And he never could have expected that he would be forced to leave behind everyone and everything he cares about. So when Ethan awakes after the chilling events of the Eighteenth Moon, he has only one goal: to find a way to return to Lena and the ones he loves.

Back in Gatlin, Lena is making her own bargains for Ethan's return, vowing to do whatever it takes -- even if that means trusting old enemies or risking the lives of the family and friends Ethan left to protect. 

Worlds apart, Ethan and Lena must once again work together to rewrite their fate, in this stunning finale to the Beautiful Creatures series.

Hardcover, 451 pages

Published October 23rd 2012 by Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

LONG STORY SHORT:

This is the finale to an epic series. Although I expected to see a lot more action and drama in this one than there turned out to be, I still enjoyed the book a lot. It's great to see the best of all of your favorite characters again and to make one more visit to Gatlin and its crazy citizens. If you are a hardcore Caster Chronicles Fan and if you don't get your hopes up way too high, you are very likely to close this book with a satisfied grin on your face and a tear in your eye.

RATING:

3/3 Smarties

REVIEW FOR YOU:

With Beautiful Redemption one of my favorite YA series comes to an end - and it's a good one!

In a lot of ways it reminded me of the end of Highschool Musical or Harry Potter, of that nostalgic feeling. Beautiful Redemption is different from the other books because it doesn't have the strong teenage vibe to it that Beautiful Creatures had, or the introduction to the new magical element, the tunnels, from Beautiful Darkness or the series of events that rained down on us in Beautiful Chaos. It's more like that moment when either the curtain closes and you see each actor smiling, but also almost crying or that HP scene when he's there with his kids, having left his original story behind.

Every single character that fans grew to love and care for from this series has his or her smaller or bigger comeback in BR. There's one important moment, one scene for Link, John, Abraham, Serafine...you name them. Everyone. It's like they all take a bow before leaving the stage for good.

Ethan and Lena both get to tell a part of the story - a first that I think was necessary for the plot but that didn't struck me - and we get introduced to some people whom we've only heard of some times in the earlier books.

All in all, Beautiful Redemption is a good ending to the series because it gives each character the chance to shine for one last time which again helps the reader to remember why he or she loved the series so much. On the downside, the novel definitely lacked pace and appeared pretty predictable at some points.

Review: Beautiful Chaos by Kami Garcia and Margeret Stohl

Ethan Wate thought he was getting used to the strange, impossible events happening in Gatlin, his small Southern town. But now that Ethan and Lena have returned home, strange and impossible have taken on new meanings. Swarms of locusts, record-breaking heat, and devastating storms ravage Gatlin as Ethan and Lena struggle to understand the impact of Lena's Claiming. Even Lena's family of powerful Supernaturals is affected - and their abilities begin to dangerously misfire. As time passes, one question becomes clear: What — or who — will need to be sacrificed to save Gatlin?
For Ethan, the chaos is a frightening but welcome distraction. He's being haunted in his dreams again, but this time it isn't by Lena - and whatever is haunting him is following him out of his dreams and into his everyday life. Even worse, Ethan is gradually losing pieces of himself — forgetting names, phone numbers, even memories. He doesn't know why, and most days he's too afraid to ask.
Sometimes there isn't just one answer or one choice. Sometimes there's no going back. And this time there won't be a happy ending.


Hardcover, 518 pages
Published October 18th 2011 by Little, Brown and Company

LONG STORY SHORT:

Amazing. This book is everything I love about series, epic fantasy novels, YA in general. Everything and more. Maybe my disappointment with Beautiful Darkness triggered how much I enjoyed book three of the Caster Chronicles, but that's only a side factor next to the amazing character development - and chemistry, the action packed plot and the overall atmosphere created in the novel. I can't wait for Beautiful Redemption - also because of that cliffhanger in the end....

REVIEW FOR YOU:

Oh my...whatever I expected when I openend this book for the first time - this was not it. You all could read about my mixed feelings towards Beautiful Darkness, the second book in this series. I complained about whiny characters, slow plot and all those second-book-in-a-series cliches. I swore if Beautiful Chaos didn't turn out much better than that, I'd stop reading after one hundred pages and leave this series  - that started out so amazingly - unfinished.

It did not take those one hundred pages to convince me to fall for the Caster world all over again. It's like a good friend stopping by again. Gatlin - the small southern town that works as the main setting for the series - is crazier than ever - as are its citizens. My stomach hurt from all the laughing I head to do as the authors described the behaviour of small town inhabitants facing the apocalypse. It takes a lot to make me laugh out loud when I'm reading a book - JK Rowling is one of the authors who did accomplish that - so this actually means a lot!

This book wasn't just funny, though. It was also pretty...I don't want to say sad. It's rather tragic. And the characters themselves are pretty helpless and desperate, but at the same time for the reader it's so suspenseful to try and guess how things are going to work out, who is good and who is evil and who plans what...it's a novel full of mystery and magic and ...

...great chemistry. Another element that I think makes a good series an awesome one. I always get that feeling of epicness when the characters not only grow and develop throughout the books, but if the relationships between them and their creators -the authors - deepen aswell. This might be complete nonsense  but I believe that you can feel it when the author(s) really know their characters and let them appear and act as more than just people in a book, but as people in real life. I don't know if this made any sense to you, but in my eyes it did ;)

Before this review is getting a novel as well, one last thing I have to mention: the plot.SO much happens SO fast. Okay, that's everything. See for yourselves!

RATING: one whole bag full of Smarties!!

I'd recommend this book to...

everyone.

Specifically if you...

love a really good series, epic fantasy books, paranormal romance that is brilliantly done

Review: Geek Girl by Holly Smale

Geek Girl

by Holly Smale

Harriet Manners knows a lot of things. She knows that a cat has 32 muscles in each ear, a "jiffy" lasts 1/100th of a second, and the average person laughs 15 times per day. What she isn't quite so sure about is why nobody at school seems to like her very much. So when she's spotted by a top model agent, Harriet grabs the chance to reinvent herself. Even if it means stealing her Best Friend's dream, incurring the wrath of her arch enemy Alexa, and repeatedly humiliating herself in front of the impossibly handsome supermodel Nick. Even if it means lying to the people she loves. 

As Harriet veers from one couture disaster to the next with the help of her overly enthusiastic father and her uber-geeky stalker, Toby, she begins to realise that the world of fashion doesn't seem to like her any more than the real world did. 

And as her old life starts to fall apart, the question is: will Harriet be able to transform herself before she ruins everything?

Hardcover, 378 pages
Expected publication: February 28th 2013 by HarperCollins

RATING:
3/3 Smarties

A Long Story...Short!

This book is so much more than you might expect. It's everything! It's lovely and funny and witty and sweet and intelligent and socially critical and ...everything you could ask for in a YA contemporary novel. The main character is sympathetic and someone I, at least, could identify with. The plot - although not exactly original - made for an entertaining read and the message of the book got across without the author having to raise their pointing fingers at you - or the fashion industry and media. If you feel the need to laugh your butt of and don't expect a super serious and deeply moving novel - Geek Girl is for you.

Review for You:

I have to say, after having read this book I don't exaxtly consider myself a geek anymore. Harriet Manners, the main character of Geek Girl, just owns this title and I guess I will never steel that crown no matter how many times I swoon over fictional YA characters. This girl's head is going to explode at one point from random facts she picked up somewhere and friendly enough shares with the reader. After a few pages, I was not only on the floor, unable to stop laughing, but also desperately looking for a way to memorize all the facts Harriet throws into her story randomly. And that was just the beginning! 

Geek Girl got better with every chapter. Not only does Holly Smale handle the balance between fun and seriousness, action and slower writing perfectly - she also has that ability to make characters appear real, relationships pure and just display life as it is - for teenagers. This book certainly features some well-known cliches when it comes to the fashion industry later, but especially the problems Harriet has at school are issues many people probably face in their teen years and different from other stories, Harriet doesn't just find the solution after a time or learns to "deal with it". No, she has to work her way through it and it's hard and it hurts and it makes her do things she will later regret but it also shapes her personality.

I talked about the image Smale creates of the fashion industry earlier and I called it cliche. And it kind of was. But then, it also kind of wasn't. Because we didn't just have one big mass of people acting the way you'd expect them to. You know, models starving themselves, or gay assistants or ice cold fahion icons. We had a mix of everything. Even though all the fashion industry characters were sidekicks, they were three dimensional and had personality - another aspect I liked.

Lastly, I have to say that although this book was fun and entertaining and brilliant and thoughtful - you can't completely ignore the resemblance to Hannah Montana and The Devil Wears Prada. It is there, yes, but that's not a bad thing. I, at least, am part of the generation that grew up with Hannah Montana and that nowadays does quite a poor job at denying it, so doesn't it feel a little bit like coming home? That's what I think, anyway.

Review for me:

Favorite Quote:

Arghh...forgot marking them on my Kindle!!!

What I want to remember from this book:

Not to take things so seriously!

When I want to reread the book:

Whenever I feel crappy about myself. Or when I'm in a reading slump. Or when I just really need something to cheer me up :)

Wishlist Wednesday

A hilarious new novel from Elizabeth Eulberg about taking the wall out of the wallflower so she can bloom.
Don't mess with a girl with a Great Personality.
Everybody loves Lexi. She's popular, smart, funny...but she's never been one of those girls, the pretty ones who get all the attention from guys. And on top of that, her seven-year-old sister, Mackenzie, is a terror in a tiara, and part of a pageant scene where she gets praised for her beauty (with the help of fake hair and tons of makeup).Lexi's sick of it. She's sick of being the girl who hears about kisses instead of getting them. She's sick of being ignored by her longtime crush, Logan. She's sick of being taken for granted by her pageant-obsessed mom. And she's sick of having all her family's money wasted on a phony pursuit of perfection.
The time has come for Lexi to step out from the sidelines. Girls without great personalities aren't going to know what hit them. Because Lexi's going to play the beauty game - and she's in it to win it

This book sounds like my kind of contemporary - I'm so sure I'll love it. I just recently read a review on it and the blogger (forgot who it was) really loved it, so I'm even more excited!