Transitive Verve

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Summary: This is book 2 of the Aurora Cycle series. To read my review of book 1, please click here . This review will contain spoilers for the first book. Tyler Jones and his misfit squad 312 from the Aurora Legion are on the run--from the law, from an ancient evil collective threatening to take over the universe, and now... from a psychopathic-but-also-strangely-attractive Syldrathi girl. They are mourning the loss of their good friend and squad member, and they are puzzling over a mysterious set of clues and objects that have been left for them. All the while, Aurora struggles to control her powers as they search for the weapon to help them save the universe. 

It's July, and apparently this is a thing bookish Internet people do :) 1. Best book you’ve read so far in 2019? 2. Best sequel you’ve read? (Well, I read all three of these this year, but yeah!) 3. New release you haven’t gotten to, but want to? 4. Most anticipated release for the second half of 2019? 5. Biggest disappointment? I can't say that I have one! I mean, I've read books this year that I didn't love, but to call them a disappointment would mean that I had high expectations to begin with, lol... 6. Biggest surprise? The plot twist was DEFINITELY one I didn't see coming, and plus, this book challenged me in surprising ways. 7. New favorite author (either debut or new to you)? Stephanie Garber, author of the Caraval  series (new to me) 8. Newest fictional crush? The gang of The Raven Cycle , but I'm a Gansey girl for sure. 9. New favorite character? The entire gang of Aurora Rising . Like, their entire dynamic together...

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Summary: Tyler Jones is the Golden Boy of his graduating class at Aurora Academy. He works the hardest, has the highest marks, and is slated to be one of the BEST squad leaders. Until he misses the big Draft, answering a mysterious distress signal and rescuing a girl who ends up being the sole survivor on a ship that was given up for dead... two hundred years ago. So now, Tyler, who was to have his pick of the best students at Aurora Academy, is now stuck with a squad full of rejects, outcasts, and sociopaths. And moreover, the girl he rescued? They don't really know who she is or what she's doing there, and neither does she, but there is something weird and scary about her. And suddenly Squad 312 finds themselves on the run from every major governing space body, space crime lords, and even warring alien races as they try to protect her. And also, this mismatched group might be the thing that saves the galaxy from an ancie...

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Summary:  This is book 3 of the trilogy The Illuminae Files . This review will contain spoilers for the first two books. Here are my reviews for Illuminae and Gemina . With the jump station Heimdall destroyed and nowhere else to go, Kady, Ezra, Hanna, Nik, and all the remaining survivors decide to head back to Kerenza IV on the Mao to see if there is anything or anyone left. And there is. Kady's cousin Asha, having survived the initial BeiTech attack, is now doing her best to survive BT's occupation of what remains of colony. With their jump platform damaged in the original standoff, the BT troops who weren't killed have now taken over. Asha is doing her best to stay under the radar as she helps the underground insurgent movement try to find ways to send out help signals and sabotage BeiTech. Unfortunately for her, as it turns out, one of the newly assigned ground soldiers happens to be her ex, Rhys. And conflicting ...

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Summary: 50 years ago, Earth received a transmission from space, from a group of beings who called themselves the Undying. In their heavily coded message, they not only gave warnings about their civilization destroying itself, but they also gave enticing clues for how to find what they left behind on their home planet Gaia. Now, Earth is dying, and everyone believes that the secret to saving Earth is somewhere on Gaia, after an initial exploration discovered tech that is helping to offset the effects of climate change that have been wreaking havoc on the environment. And with the coordinates of Gaia revealed, EVERYONE is trying to make their way--legally or illegally--to this new planet to try and find what they can. Enter Mia, a scrappy street scavenger who smuggles herself over to Gaia because she desperately needs to find some spoils that she could sell for money. Enter also Jules, an archaeology genius with a burning need for ju...

Valentine's Day is coming, and if you happen to be unattached, you may be looking forward to spending some time with your favorite book boyfriend. Hell, I'm even in a relationship myself, and I will probably end up spending Valentine's Day with a book. (Though, this is because we choose not to celebrate, so don't feel bad for me or anything.) I thought I would take some time to make a list of some of my favorite dudes. These are the guys who make me swoon every time I read, who are just too precious cinnamon-roll-y for the real world, but whom I love all the same. Note: I fully acknowledge that this post is absolutely heteronormative. Also note: For any teenaged YA guys that I choose, that crush is coming from Teenaged Me. Or I'm projecting them forward into adulthood. I am not literally imagining mid-30s me with a teenage boyfriend, because that would be Not Okay. Also ALSO note: Spoiler warnings for all the books listed below. There were MANY I could...

I can't believe it's that time again! Here are the books that came out this year that I enjoyed most. I did not read nearly as many books as I wanted to read, so if you're looking at my list and wondering where X is and why it's not on my list - it could be because I just haven't read it yet. *hides* Please don't throw books at me. (I mean, unless they're good and you think I should read them. But try not to hit my head.) This list is in no particular order, and even though these are all technically YAF books, some of them have some adult content. (I think you will know what I mean, if you've read some of these.) A lot of these books are continuations of a series, which I know can be frustrating if you've never read them, but hey... now you have some things to put on your 2017 reading list. =P

Alright, so... I have two Owlcrate boxes to share with you this time, because I recently moved to another state, and my July Owlcrate was delivered to my new address instead of my old one (which was fine, but it arrived there a week ahead of me), and then things have been hectic with the move ever since. I opened it and photographed stuff, but never got around to uploading the photos, and as such... now I have two boxes to share :) Let's start with July: July's box was special because the theme was Good vs. Evil, which meant that half of the subscribers were getting a "Good" box and the half were getting an "Evil" box. Which one did I get? Drumroll please....

This ARC was provided to me for free.  Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Summary:  This book is the second book in the series The Illuminae Files . Thus, this review will contain spoilers for the first book, Illuminae . You can read my review for that one here . Gemina  picks up just after the end of Illuminae , with the Hypatia  racing towards Jumpstation Heimdall after the mutual destruction of the UTA vessel Alexander  and the BeiTech ship Lincoln , as well as the rescue of Kady Grant. Heimdall is essentially shutting down for a long holiday as well as some wormhole maintenance, leaving behind a skeleton crew that includes the station captain and his daughter, Hanna Donnelly, and her boyfriend, Jackson Merrick; Chief Engineer Isaac Grant (yes, Kady's father); and the members of the Malikov crime family, including drug dealer Nik and his elite hacker cousin Ella. Unfortunately, also joining them for this long holiday is a mercenary BeiT...

Last week was kind of a fantastic week for bookish fangirling: First, on Tuesday, I got to see/talk to Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff for the second time, and also got to meet Stacey Lee, whose book Under the Painted Sky  has been on my TBR list for a while. Second, on Wednesday, I got to meet MY QUEEN. (More on that in a sec.) And then on Saturday, I WENT TO WIZARDING WORLD OF HARRY POTTER. (I'll post on that soon.) So yeah, it's been a pretty major week for me, in terms of books!

There is a neverending battle between those who love e-readers and those who love physical books. I fall somewhere in the middle. I love my Kindle, I love how easy and convenient it is to own hundreds of books and to be able to access them at any time, and I like how easy it is to read privately on a Kindle (because, let's face it, no matter how well-written a book is, if it has an embarrassing cover, I won't be carrying it in public). But I love physical books too. I know people talk a lot about the smell of books, but to be honest, I don't sniff books, unless there is some scratch-and-sniff feature to it. Old books smell like... really old books. Like dust and must and other people's hands. So the "old book smell" is not what draws me to physical books. Nope. What wins me over? Beautiful endpapers and interesting design features. These are things that you absolutely need physical copies to appreciate.

I decided to keep close track of the books I read this year for the Goodreads Reading Challenge, which is not something I've done before (and this blog only just began in March!), so this is my first top ten list! These are my favorite books that were released this year. I know there are a GREAT many books that were left off my list (like books from Sabaa Tahir, Rainbow Rowell, Patrick Ness, etc.), and that's because I haven't gotten around to reading them yet! I know, sacrilege! If only there were more hours in the day and more of me to get things done. But these are my top ten that I've read  from this year. Without further ado, here they are, in no particular order: Illuminae  by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff Okay, I know I said "in no particular order," but I'd be lying if I didn't say that this was probably my FAVORITE book from this year. It was clever and unique in terms of its format, but it also just had a fantastic, gripping story. ...

Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) Summary:  This is book 3 of the Starbound  trilogy. Unfortunately, I read the first two before I started book-blogging, so I don't have any previous reviews to link you to, but suffice it to say that I gave each of the two previous installments five stars as well, so full disclosure: I LOVE this series. Starbound  features three books, each one about a different couple, but they are all sequential and take place in the same universe. Their stories are connected, and if you go back and look, you'll see that the later characters were mentioned in earlier books, and earlier characters make appearances in later books. These Broken Stars  kicks off the series, with Tarver Merendsen and Lilac LaRoux. He is a jaded soldier on a victory tour onboard the luxury spaceliner Icarus , and she is the daughter of the most powerful man in the universe, Roderick LaRoux of LaRoux Industries; the Icarus  is Daddy's ship. Sudden...

If you've read my recent review  of Illuminae , you should not be surprised that I was super excited about authors Jay Kristoff and Amie Kaufman coming to my area on tour to promote the book. It was great! They are funny and charming and Australian  (which is cool, because yes, I'm an American who likes hearing accents other than mine!), and it's easy to see how their partnership and friendship led to the creation of such an amazing story. The copy that I read for review was an ARC that wasn't in its final stages, so something that actually surprised me when I heard them speak was that in addition to the casualty list that is in the book (that's all I'll say, because spoilers), there were also photos. I immediately checked my actual purchased copy, and yes - there was a "gallery" of people who died in the [redacted] and it actually brought tears to my eyes. As if this book didn't make me cry enough the first time around. If I didn't lo...

This book was provided to me for free through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. Thoughts at a glance: ***** (It was amazing!) That morning, Kady Grant broke up with her boyfriend, Ezra Mason. That afternoon, both of them were scrambling for their lives as mega-corporation Bei-Tech bombed and destroyed their tiny planetary settlement. While Ezra is conscripted as a pilot aboard the battlecarrier  Alexander , Kady puts her computer skills to use aboard the science vessel Hypatia  as a series of mysterious and suspicious events occur, decreasing the number of survivors at a steady rate: a dangerous virus begins to spread aboard one of the other ships in the fleet, and the Alexander 's AI system may be more sentient (and dangerous) than anyone could have imagined. As Kady uses her hacking skills to wade deeper and deeper into the truth, she finds that the fleet's commanders are covering up something huge, and Ezra is all that she has left, as Bei-Tech closes in o...