Transitive Verve

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance:   ** (It was okay) I was initially interested in this book because the blurb reminded me somewhat of E. Lockhart's The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks  (which is a fabulous book that I highly recommend). In some ways, it was similar - Reed Larson is smart and witty, and as a protagonist/narrator, she made me laugh quite a bit. But where Frankie Landau-Banks was a mastermind, refusing to let other people dictate who she is or where she can belong, Reed was the opposite - infuriatingly passive. Let me explain: Reed got expelled from her previous school, a really conservative Christian school, because someone told the principal that she was gay (even though she isn't). At her new school, one ultra-pushy girl finds out about this fact, falsely outs Reed to the entire school (which in turn makes Reed super popular because people think it's cool th...

Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) "No one should feel this invested in a couple they aren't a part of," says Inga, the creative writing professor. She is one of the 14 narrative viewpoints in Sandy Hall's A Little Something Different,  telling the story of Lea and Gabe, two college students who apparently everyone feels should be together. The problem is, Gabe is painfully shy and is also sorting out some other issues of his own which prevent him from really opening up to Lea. Lea is shy too, and she feels like she's getting mixed signals from Gabe, so she's not sure if she should be backing off or trying harder. Considering how they like the same shows and the same Chinese food and they keep turning up in the same places at the same time, it's clear that Fate wants them together... and so do Inga, and Gabe's brother, and Lea's roommate, and all of their friends, and Maxine the waitress, and Bob the bus driver, and Frank the Ch...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: * (I didn't like it) Three chapters. That's all I got through before I'd decided that I'd had enough. The book blurb says "Lauren Saft masterfully conveys what goes on in the mind of a teenage girl," but they forgot to specify that they were talking about privileged white girls who attend private school. I'm sure there are actual teenage girls like Alex, Mollie, and Veronica, but I sure haven't come across them where I teach. (Or even at the all-girls' school that I attended.) Here's the thing: I have no doubt that teen girls dabble in sex and drinking and that they constantly throw around f-bombs. I'm not shocked by any of that, nor do I judge them on it - I am a high school teacher after all. So I'm not bothered by the "raw, honest" discussions that the three main girls have, either with each other or as a...

Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) Assassin's Blade  is a collection of five novellas that take place before the book Throne of Glass,  about assassin Celaena Sardothien before she was captured and sent to the prison at Endovier (which is where ToG begins). Individually, they were released immediately after ToG in 2012 (though the collection was finally released in 2014), so as long as you've read ToG , even if you haven't read the rest of the series, you're good. If you haven't read any of them, then spoiler alerts for you! ---------- At sixteen, Celaena is the protege of King of Assassins, Arobynn Hamel. She's the best assassin in the entire guild, notorious for her skill and arrogance. Second to her is Sam Cortland, whom she has known and worked with her whole life, and though they are rivals, he is also the person she trusts the most and he eventually also becomes the man that she loves. But as we know from ToG, things do not end well f...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Polarity Weeks is not having an easy time. In addition to being new to her small Texas town, she is bullied relentlessly for living in a trailer park and for being the soft-spoken girl who loves poetry. Her mother has borderline personality disorder, and that doesn't make things easy at home either. The only good thing in her life is her crush on a boy named Ethan. Things get worse when her classmates discover a nude picture of her on the Internet. Polarity has no idea where it came from, no memory of ever posing for such a picture, but it's definitely her all the same. Suddenly her parents are being investigated for abuse, and she's being sent to the local alternative school for violating a rule about lewd conduct. Polarity, with Ethan's help, works tirelessly to unravel the mystery of the photo, and along the way she learns v...

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) This is book 3 of the Throne of Glass  series, so my post assumes that you've read the first two (or that you've at least read my posts on the first two here and here ). This review contains spoilers for both of them, and spoilers for this book will be under the cut. Okay, for real, I just cannot handle this series. It is so ridiculously epic that my heart just can't take it. When we last left off, assassin Celaena Sardothien was on a ship bound for Wendlyn, one of the last fae strongholds, and she had just revealed that she is in fact Aelin Galathynius, the lost princess. Remember how her parents had been brutally murdered when she was eight? Well, we have just learned that they weren't just ordinary people, but the heirs to the throne of Terrasen. The fact that she, Aelin, is still alive means that she is their rightful queen, and probably the only person left who might be able to take a stand against the King of ...

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) This is book 2 of the Throne of Glass  series, and my post assumes you've read the first book (or, at least read my post about it). There are DEFINITELY spoilers for the first book. Spoilers for this book will be under the cut. Having won the title of King's Champion, Celaena's job for the next four years is to do the King's dirty work - to kill anyone he wants killed. But Celaena is hiding a dangerous secret - she hasn't been killing anyone (on purpose, at least). She has been offering them all a chance to flee the country with new lives and identities, and then bringing home severed heads of corpses from sickhouses to present to the King, and so far, he's been none the wiser. When he asks her to seek out Archer Finn, an old friend whom he suspects is working with the rebel forces, things get a little more complicated. Things get even more complicated as she learns that the rebels are trying to find the los...

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Epic. EPIC! Celaena Sardothien is only 18, but she has earned herself the title of Queen of the Underworld by becoming the continent's deadliest assassin, having trained under the tutelage of the King of Assassins since the age of 8. But she has spent the last year of her life in Endovier, an absolutely brutal prison where she endures day after day of backbreaking labor and whippings, after being captured in what was probably an act of betrayal. However, she is given a chance at freedom - the Crown Prince of Adarlan himself, Dorian Havilliard, shows up declaring that she will be his sponsored contestant in a competition the King is holding for what is essentially the position of royal assassin. Training with Chaol Westfall, the captain of the Royal Guard, she will need to defeat 22 other dangerous criminals in a series of tests as well as a final duel, in order to become the King's Champion, and after four years of servitude...

Thoughts at a glance:  The Elite  - ** (It was okay) The One  - *** (I liked it) Okay, so I'm reviewing the two books together because I kind of marathoned through them one right after the other. I said in my review for The Selection  that the politics and history of Illea, the country where the story takes place, was more interesting than the Bachelor -esque story about Prince Maxon choosing his bride from 35 girls while the rest of the country looks on. Welp, still true. At the end of the first book, the field had been whittled down to 6. You'd think it'd have been over quickly after that, but it stretches on for two more books. Frankly, I got tired of America's back and forth of "I don't know if I want Maxon or if I want Aspen," followed by, "How can Maxon keep stringing me along like this???" Are we supposed to feel sympathy for her when she gets upset about Maxon's inability to commit when she behaves the same way? Well, Maxon ...

Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it) I kind of resisted reading this one for a while, based on the summary: 35 girls vying for the chance to be the prince's bride? It sounded like a YAF dystopian version of The Bachelor . I'm not a big fan of anything that furthers the societal notion that female relationships are fraught with contention and competition. I am not about that life, yo. But, I definitely wanted to see what the hype was about (since book #4 just came out recently), so I read it. I'm surprised that the Divergent  series gets so much flack for being too similar to The Hunger Games , when The Selection  is faaaaaar closer - it's set in a newly formed country sprung from the ashes of the USA, and instead of being divided into numbered districts, everyone is divided into numbered castes , with Ones being the royal family and Eights being the criminals and outcasts. The main story is that Prince Maxon has come of age, and the method for choosing a bride i...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) It is said that friends are the family you choose, and in Saint Anything , Sarah Dessen gives us a great juxtaposition of the family you choose versus the family you're born into and how they can change your life. Sydney has been overshadowed her whole life by her older brother Peyton, whose larger-than-life personality got him into increasingly more trouble until he hits a guy on a bike while driving drunk one night and lands himself in jail for a year and a half. Sydney feels more invisible than ever, with their mother becoming overly invested in babying Peyton and their father going along with whatever she says, ignoring her protests to be looked after by Peyton's creepy friend Ames. So when she transfers to a new school and meets Layla and Mac Chatham, whose family is loud and loving and owns a pizza parlor and likes bluegrass mus...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: *** (I liked it) <--- Look at that cover. Just look at it. How could I resist? Asian chick protagonist with purple hair who turns out to be a badass? This book was probably written with me in mind, right, Sarah Nicolas? ;) Kitty Lung looks like an ordinary teenage girl, but actually, she's a shapeshifting weredragon working for the government, tasked with keeping the President's son Jacob safe. Training since the age of four, she is senior to agents twice her age at the Draconic Intelligence Command (DIC)... and when one of those agents reveals their secret to the world (on her watch) and then Jacob gets kidnapped by some other shape-shifting person (on her watch), her life suddenly turns upside-down. Suddenly all other known dragons, including her parents, are being rounded up and detained, and it's up to her and her partner/best friend/true love Sani...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Eros and Psyche... Beauty and the Beast... and now Feyre and Tamlin... A Court of Thorns and Roses  is yet another rendition of the old, old tale of a man bounded by magic, who must win the love of a human girl to survive. If that girl were Katniss Everdeen. Feyre's life consists of hunting and hard labor - anything she can do to feed her father and two ungrateful sisters. One day she kills a wolf who is actually a faerie soldier in disguise, and when the High Fae (prince/lord/dude), Tamlin, demands her life in exchange, she has no choice but to go with him. In this world, humans and faeries have a long history, one fraught with violence and servitude - humans were once slaves in this book's universe. Their lives are full of fear and hatred for these magical beings that took pleasure in torturing humankind. It's no wonder that ...

This copy was provided for free from Netgalley in exchange for a fair and honest review. Thoughts at a glance: **** (I really liked it) I actually did judge this book by its cover - I was very drawn to the purple and the title font and all that, and the description sounded interesting, so I had to read it. The Girl at Midnight  is about two ancient, magical races at war with each other and the human girl who becomes a key figure in stopping that war. On the one side, you have the Avicen, who have feathers instead of hair. On the other side, you have the Drakharin, identified by beautiful patches of scales on their faces and bodies. It's an ancient feud, violent and bloody on both sides and fueled by prejudicial hatred. Echo, a runaway and thief who makes her home in the NYC library, was taken in by the Avicen as a young child, and now, at the age of seventeen, is sent on an errand to find the firebird. Previously thought to be a myth, the firebird is supposed to do the bi...