Book Corner, Dystopia, Home, Thriller, Young Adult

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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Home, Stray Thoughts

The Hard Part

((cue nervous laughter because this is the first personal post on this blog hehehehehe))

This has been on my mind for a while now, and I am not sure how best to express this in words without embarrassing myself, but I tend to form emotional attachments a little too quickly, a little too strongly, and at the same time, I find myself unable to really open up to people, to share the things that friends are supposed to be sharing with each other. It makes friendships hard enough as it is for an introvert like me–on one hand I can’t make my friendships more meaningful even though I want to; without intimacy, without the feeling of trust that comes with sharing and keeping secrets and other things you wouldn’t tell most people, it’s difficult to cross the borderlands between “acquaintance/friends” and “good friends”.

On the other hand, just because I cannot share these things that matter so much to me, the important things, does not mean I don’t care deeply about the people surrounding me. I do. It’s just hard to prove it when I can’t open up to them.

And we are just talking about friendships here, not romantic relationships. Let’s not even go there, hahaha.

((Actually we are going to go there))

A little more than a month ago, I gathered up the courage to text a crush I have only known through social media. Mind you that this was a really stupid crush–an absolute school girl infatuation–I didn’t actually like the guy. It was more like a he-seems-interesting kinda thing.

Anyway we started talking and I was surprised by how quickly we became friends. One of the first things I learned early on was that he had a girlfriend, which, as disappointing as it was, didn’t bother me that much because I did not really like him seriously. At first.

I guess you all know where this is going.

Well, no point beating around the bush: now, after having talked to him for some time and getting to know him better, I am starting to think I have feelings for him. I am not going to go into the details of that or why I even started having feelings for him because that’s not what I want to get off my chest. I want to talk about the hard part.

The part where I start to forget myself because of how emotionally attached I can become to a person.

I guess it happens to a lot of people when they fall in love. As cliche as it sounds love really can be…overwhelming. And I guess it’s normal that when you fall in love, this one person becomes so important to you that you start to forget that you are important to yourself too. That all the people around you are characters in your story but you are the protagonist. That this story is about you.

Especially if the other person doesn’t reciprocate or (if they are a shitty boyfriend/girlfriend) makes you feel like they don’t love you as much back.

At times like this I guess it’s hard to remember that the love we want isn’t some thing that only one person can give. I think that’s part of why it’s hard for us to leave those people, even when they hurt us and make us unhappy,  because we want them to be the one to give us the love that we give them. To quote Charlie from The Perks of Being A Wallflower (the book not the movie): we accept the love we think we deserve.

And I think all of this is part of why it is so hard to love ourselves first–to give ourselves the love that we actually deserve. That’s the hard part.

For myself, I have been doing a little better lately. I am putting a bit of distance between myself and this guy, and using that time to focus on me instead. I am not talking trips to the spa or shopping mall (but if that makes you feel good do that, you do you) but more like things that I know will make me happier in the long run: running every alternate days to get in shape a bit, writing more often, talking to other people, reading more, etc. Things that require me to think about other things instead of him. He is still on my mind, more often than I like, but at least now I am trying to become the person I wish I could be, and focus on all the other kinds of love I have in my life instead of the one I can’t have. It’s hard, not talking to him, not trying to have a little more of him even if just as friends, but hey it’s a start.

Dear reader, if you are reading this, I am sorry for telling you so much that you didn’t ask to know, and I thank you for “hearing” me out anyway.  I am done for today. All the love!

Home, Uncategorized, Young Adult

Review: Daughter of Smoke and Bone

 

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Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages—not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers—beautiful, haunted Akiva—fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself? 

Ratings:

5 out of 5

As someone who makes a point of avoiding the romance genre and has a particular distaste for any story that even remotely has the true-love-conquersall trope, Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone caught me by surprise. This is a fantasy novel where the whole premise is based on the fates of star-crossed lovers–and yet, this story has so much more to offer: this is a story that explores colonization, racism and the pointlessness of war in a way that very few Young Adult (and even Adult) books have been able to do.

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Review: The Iron Queen (The Iron Fey#3) by Julie Kagawa

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Note: This review is for the third book of The Iron Fey series and may therefore contain spoilers. Click here for the review of the first book and here for the review of the second book.

RATINGS: 5/5

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I am Meghan Chase.
I thought it was over. That my time with the fey, the impossible choices I had to make, the sacrifices of those I loved, was behind me. But a storm is approaching, an army of Iron fey that will drag me back, kicking and screaming. Drag me away from the banished prince who’s sworn to stand by my side. Drag me into the core of conflict so powerful, I’m not sure anyone can survive it.

This time, there will be no turning back.

I am trying my best to write a coherent review for this book, one that will do this book justice, but sometimes when you read a really good book it is almost impossible to express into words the feelings that the book leaves you with. The Iron Queen is one such book.

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Our MC, Meghan Chase, who is forever going to be one of my favorite female leads in literature comes a long way from being the quiet, shy sixteen-year-old she was in the first book. Though she does not lose her humor or her endearing moments of Continue reading “Review: The Iron Queen (The Iron Fey#3) by Julie Kagawa”

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Review: The Iron King (The Iron Fey#1) by Julie Kagawa

The Iron KingRatings: ☕☕☕☕☕

Meghan Chase has a secret destiny; one she could never have imagined.
Something has always felt slightly off in Meghan’s life, ever since her father disappeared before her eyes when she was six. She has never quite fit in at school or at home.
When a dark stranger begins watching her from afar, and her prankster best friend becomes strangely protective of her, Meghan senses that everything she’s known is about to change.
But she could never have guessed the truth – that she is the daughter of a mythical faery king and is a pawn in a deadly war. Now Meghan will learn just how far she’ll go to save someone she cares about, to stop a mysterious evil, no faery creature dare face; and to find love with a young prince who might rather see her dead than let her touch his icy heart

Oh where do I begin?

The last time I read The Iron King was back when I was thirteen and the only other YA book I had read before was the Twilight Saga (before then I mostly would read Bengali titles and Classics). Obviously, since thirteen is quite an impressionable age, lately I couldn’t help but wonder if this book is actually as good as I thought it was. Hence the reason why I decided to re-read this book after nearly eight years of first reading.

And boy oh boy did I love it!

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The Iron King is a wonderful fantasy novel that has an excellent world building, and incredible plot, and characters who not only develop and change in major ways

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Dystopia, Home, Young Adult

Review: The One (The Selection#3) by Kiera Cass

Ratings: ★★★★☆

18635016This book started off terribly but got progressively better in the middle, and then went spiraling downhill again in the end. In fact, up until reading the very last chapters, I was ready to give this book four stars–it was even better than The Elite–and I hadn’t been expecting that–but then Kiera Cass had to ruin it with a loosely tied plot.

The Writing: The writing was just as good as the other two books, except that in The One, it was a lot less predictable and a lot more entertaining than in The Elite and in The Selection. Once again, Kiera Cass had me Continue reading “Review: The One (The Selection#3) by Kiera Cass”

Dystopia, Home, Young Adult

Review: The Elite (The Selection#2) By Kiera Cass

Ratings: ★★★☆☆16248068

I have to thank shinichimegumi123 from When Curiosity Killed The Cat for encouraging me to continue with this series, because it did get better, just like she promised it would. Many of the problems I had with the first book The Selection were fixed here, and while this is still not the best book I have ever read, I definitely enjoyed reading The Elite much more than I enjoyed reading The Selection.

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Dystopia, Home, Young Adult

Review: The Selection (The Selection#1) by Kiera Cass

10507293Ratings: ★★☆☆☆

Oookay…where do I start?

I have a love/hate relationship with this book and at the moment I’m leaning towards hate, because even though this book was very well written and works great as a romance novel, in the beginning it promises to be something more than a mere love story, despite what the blurb and the trailer (check it out here) says. And yet, by the time I was done, I realized it had failed to deliver.

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