The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco
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Book Review: The Sacrifice By Rin Chupeco

Having read Rin Chupeco’s The Bone Witch trilogy, I knew I was in for a treat. Let it be known that my expectations for this book were VERY high, and Rin Chupeco surpassed them all!

Book Review: The Sacrifice By Rin Chupeco

Spine-tingling, creepy, and ominous, The Sacrifice by Rin Chupeco is a terrifying horror story about a mysterious boy trying to guide a team from Hollywood as they try to film real footage of a cursed island in the Philippines, one where they say a powerful god sleeps, awaiting eight sacrifices that would wake him so he can remake the world.

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The Girl From The Well By Rin Chupeco
Book Corner, Home, Reviews, Thriller, Young Adult

Review: The Girl From The Well by Rin Chupeco

Riveting and full of suspense, The Girl From The Well is an amazing YA horror novel by Rin Chupeco. The creepy narration style combined with incredibly well-developed characters, The Girl From The Well by Rin Chupeco is quite an intriguing story, and unique in the way the story is told from the lens of a dead girl.

The Girl From The Well By Rin Chupeco

That’s right, our main character, Okiku, has been dead for several long years now. And she is the one who tells us a horror story about a cursed young boy named Tarquin, who has demons trapped beneath his skin, and a secret family history involving eerie doll rituals and exorcisms that follow ancient Japanese rituals. 

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Review: Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé
Home, Book Corner, Mystery & Thriller, Reviews, Thriller, Young Adult

Review: Ace of Spades by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé

An absolutely jaw-dropping and riveting novel that perfectly tackles all the ugliness of systematic racism, Ace of Spades is a terrifying and addictive story about two talented Black kids trying to survive in a world that is hell-bent on bringing them down.

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Book Corner, Home, Thriller, Young Adult

Review: The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones

An absolutely bewitching tale of a witch on the run, an unwilling muscle for hire who refuses violence, and an adorable corgi, The Drowned Woods by Emily Lloyd-Jones is a fast-paced and enchanting YA fantasy heist story that will keep you turning the pages late into the night.

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Adult, Home, Mystery & Thriller, Thriller

Review: The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters

The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters has been on my most anticipated July release list, and I am so happy that I got the chance to finally dive into this amazing, sapphic horror fantasy last month. It was everything the blurb promised: full of magic, a heaping of gothic horror, and an irresistible thriller/mystery to bind it all together.

Review: The River Has Teeth by Erica Waters
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Book Corner, Bookish News & Releases, Dystopia, Home, Other Bookish Stuff, sci-fi, Thriller, Young Adult

Blog Tour: Becoming Brooklyn [International Giveaway + Review]

Becoming Brooklyn by Amanda Deich follows the story of a superhero teenage girl, who in her quest for wanting to know more about her heroic father, agrees to join an elite military that will do anything to fight terrorism at home and abroad. What follows is just the beginning of Brooklyn’s heroic journey as the terrorists find out about her super powers and decides to bring the war to her.

Becoming Brooklyn

Thank you Xpresso Book Tours for having me as a tour host for this book. My review of this post is at the end of this post, where you can win a chance to enter an international giveaway too!

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Blog Tour: Whisper By Tracy Bilen

Whipser by Tracy Bilen Book Blitz Xpresso Tours

I am thrilled to be a blog tour host for Whisper by Tracy Bilen, which just got released yesterday on May 8th! I’ll be sharing my review of this book very soon; for now take an exclusive sneak peek into this new YA thriller novel.

Thank you Xpresso Book Tours for having me as a tour host for this book.

Blog Tour: Whisper By Tracy Bilen

Stop him

After her friend Samantha is murdered, seventeen-year-old Olivia is the only one who still hears her voice.

Years ago, Jacob closed his eyes. In a park. Playing hide-and-seek. His little brother is still missing. And Jacob’s mom is the FBI agent who couldn’t find him.

Now Jacob has dreams he can’t explain. And draws faces of those about to die.
In a town terrorized by a serial killer, Jacob meets Olivia. Sparks ignite. Their flame burns bright.

Until the voice in Olivia’s head echoes the warning in Jacob’s dream…

You’re next.

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Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings: A lusciously dark, mysterious fantasy

Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings: A lusciously dark, mysterious fantasy

This is without a doubt one of the best standalone fantasy novels I’ve read in 2020. Flyaway by Kathleen Jennings is a lusciously dark and mysterious story that follows Bettany Scott as she tries to find answers to the disappearances of her father and brothers.

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Review: Champion by Marie Lu

He is a Legend. She is a Prodigy.

Who will be Champion?

June and Day have sacrificed so much for the people of the Republic—and each other—and now their country is on the brink of a new existence. June is back in the good graces of the Republic, working within the government’s elite circles as Princeps-Elect, while Day has been assigned a high-level military position.

But neither could have predicted the circumstances that will reunite them: just when a peace treaty is imminent, a plague outbreak causes panic in the Colonies, and war threatens the Republic’s border cities. This new strain of plague is deadlier than ever, and June is the only one who knows the key to her country’s defense. But saving the lives of thousands will mean asking the one she loves to give up everything.

5 out of 5

The third and final book of the Legend trilogy by Marie Lu surpassed all of my expectations—and let me tell you, my expectations were pretty high. I know I have said this before in my review of Prodigy, but Marie Lu’s writing improves dramatically after the first book in this series, and Champion was no exception. Here is a quick rundown of all the things that I loved about the book (and none of the things I didn’t like because guess what…I loved EVERYTHING!)

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Review: You by Caroline Kepnes

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When a beautiful, aspiring writer strides into the East Village bookstore where Joe Goldberg works, he does what anyone would do: he Googles the name on her credit card.
There is only one Guinevere Beck in New York City. She has a public Facebook account and Tweets incessantly, telling Joe everything he needs to know: she is simply Beck to her friends, she went to Brown University, she lives on Bank Street, and she’ll be at a bar in Brooklyn tonight—the perfect place for a “chance” meeting.
As Joe invisibly and obsessively takes control of Beck’s life, he orchestrates a series of events to ensure Beck finds herself in his waiting arms. Moving from stalker to boyfriend, Joe transforms himself into Beck’s perfect man, all while quietly removing the obstacles that stand in their way—even if it means murder

3 out of 5

 

 

Trigger warnings: extremely sexual content, violence and stalking

I gotta hand it to Caroline Kepnes–for a debut novel, You is very, very, well-written, especially when considering the subject matter. The narration is the best part about this book–despite the unbelievably and disturbingly sexual language that Joe uses, despite the way he blames everybody but himself for his actions and his choices, despite the cold and calculating way he makes his plans without any thought to who he is harming, there were many instances throughout the story when I forgot that he was the bad guy. I am not gonna say that I ever rooted for him or supported his thoughts, but there were times when I found myself reading the book and thinking of him as just another regular male protagonist who is madly in love with a woman who does not love him back. That is not the story here though, and Joe’s obsession with Beck was something that will probably haunt me for a long time. I also loved the unreliability of Joe’s narration. Because of the way he perceives others and the world itself, and because we are reading the story from his perspective, I often had to figure out myself what the reality really was because Joe’s reality is extremely deluded.

However, despite the strong narration, the plot was flimsy at best. Everything was too easy for Joe–from stalking Beck to being able to interfere in her life the way he did–he was able to do all of it because of the carelessness of both Beck and the other supportive characters. I truly do not mean to blame the victim, but there are certain things you know not to do no matter how screwed up you are or how safe you feel in your neighborhood, especially when you are a twenty-something adult living all by yourself. In fact, the more I think about it, the more I realize that it wasn’t really that much of a challenge for Joe to do the things that he does in this novel, because all the characters are so incredibly stupid and reckless about their own personal safety.

In fact, this book has a plot simply because the characters lack common sense and intelligence. If the characters here did not make the mistakes that they did, the plot really would not have progressed very far.

Speaking of the plot, although Joe’s narration made it really easy for me to fly through the book, halfway in to the story I became extremely bored because of how repetitive and predictable everything was. I feel like this book should have been shorter, and several chapters here should have been simply cut, because they just were not necessary. The predictability and repetitiveness of the story made it difficult for me to finish this book, because after the 50% mark, every time I picked up the book I put it down again thinking “meh I know what’s gonna happen.” And I did. There really was no element of surprise after the 50% mark.

All in all, this was a good read, but not good enough that I would recommend it to anyone.

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Have you ever read a book that gave you nightmares? Or haunted you for a long time? Which one was it and what made you want to read it?