Dark Frost Review

336 pages

I’ve seen so many freaky things since I started attending Mythos Academy last fall. I know I’m supposed to be a fearless warrior, but most of the time, I feel like I’m just waiting for the next Bad, Bad Thing to happen. Like someone trying to kill me—again. Everyone at Mythos Academy knows me as Gwen Frost, the Gypsy girl who uses her psychometry magic to find lost objects—and who just may be dating Logan Quinn, the hottest guy in school. But I’m also the girl the Reapers of Chaos want dead in the worst way. The Reapers are the baddest of the bad, the people who murdered my mom. So why do they have it in for me? It turns out my mom hid a powerful artifact called the Helheim Dagger before she died. Now, the Reapers will do anything to get it back. They think I know where the dagger is hidden, but this is one thing I can’t use my magic to find. All I do know is that the Reapers are coming for me—and I’m in for the fight of my life.

Review:
I have to say that this series has improved immensely from the first book in the series. There is a lot less repetition and Gwen has really grown on me as a character. Gwen is a strong person who sometimes misses the obvious despite her psychometry magic. I like that Gwen knows she's not the best fighter but fights anyway. However, I was sometimes annoyed with Gwen ignoring things that seemed so clear to me as the reader. It was interesting to watch Gwen's relationship with Logan go back and forth. The dynamics between them were extremely intense. Gwen has a lot to learn in this novel and it helps her to grow and change for the better. A lot of familiar characters are back in this book as well as some new ones. A lot more is explained in this story that helps you to understand some of the other characters better. This book just starts in on the action from the first few pages and does not stop. There is a lot of fighting as the Reapers try to free Loki and create general chaos. This book ends on a definite high note that has me anticipating the next novel in the series. I would recommend this novel especially if you have first read the other two in the series.

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The Last Princess Review

295 pages

A series of natural disasters has decimated the earth. Cut off from the rest of the world, England is a dark place. The sun rarely shines, food is scarce, and groups of criminals roam the woods, searching for prey. The people are growing restless. When a ruthless revolutionary sets out to overthrow the crown, he makes the royal family his first target. Blood is shed in Buckingham Palace, and only sixteen-year-old Princess Eliza manages to escape. Determined to kill the man who destroyed her family, Eliza joins the enemy forces in disguise. She has nothing left to live for but revenge, until she meets someone who helps her remember how to hope—and to love—once more. Now she must risk everything to ensure that she not become... The Last Princess.

Review:
This was a fast-paced and amazingly quick read. In this future dystopian world, England is a terrible place to live and being a member of the royal family is dangerous. Eliza has a lot to learn about the world outside of being a princess and she falls into it pretty quickly. At first Eliza seems like just another shallow and naive princess, but eventually Eliza has to go through a lot of growth and change when she ends up having to adjust to the world outside the palace. There was a lot about the other characters that I feel wasn't explored enough to cause me to understand or connect with them. This book moves really fast and there is a lot of action which makes sure that there are no dull moments. However, that also causes this book to seem to skip over a lot of information and at some points it felt a little confusing. Other than that this was a pretty entertaining and action-packed novel. I would recommend this novel to those who like dystopian novels and don't mind quick reads.

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Throne of Glass Review

416 pages
Release date: August 7th, 2012

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin
Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin. Her opponents are men—thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the kings council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she’ll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she’s bored stiff by court life. Things get a little more interesting when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it’s the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best. Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her to discover a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Review (ARC):
This book is absolutely amazing. Celaena is the type of heroine I love, snarky with amazing fighting abilities who can hold her own against anyone or anything. I enjoyed the fact that even though Celaena could keep up with the guys she was still remarkably female. While there was some kind of a romantic triangle in this novel, Celaena doesn't let it distract her from what she has to do especially when it comes to the competition. I loved the way a little bit of the paranormal was thrown into this novel unexpectedly. All of the characters that Celaena interacts with in this novel are interesting and different. There were a lot of unexpected surprises and twists in this novel which keep the story interesting and fresh. Even though there are still a few hidden things about Celaena's past by the end of the novel, it doesn't make you feel like you're missing out on anything. There is a lot of action and intrigue in this novel that is exciting and keeps you reading. I definitely enjoyed this novel and I recommend it to anyone who loves a good fantasy novel with assassins, action, and a bit of romance.

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Classic Monday: The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald

1925
180 pages

In 1922, F. Scott Fitzgerald announced his decision to write "somethingnew--something extraordinary and beautiful and simple and intricately patterned." That extraordinary, beautiful, intricately patterned, and above all, simple novel became The Great Gatsby, arguably Fitzgerald's finest work and certainly the book for which he is best known. A portrait of the Jazz Age in all of its decadence and excess, Gatsby captured the spirit of the author's generation and earned itself a permanent place in American mythology. Self-made, self-invented millionaire Jay Gatsby embodies some of Fitzgerald's--and his country's--most abiding obsessions: money, ambition, greed, and the promise of new beginnings. "Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us. It eluded us then, but that's no matter--tomorrow we will run faster, stretch out our arms farther.... And one fine morning--" Gatsby's rise to glory and eventual fall from grace becomes a kind of cautionary tale about the American Dream. It's also a love story, of sorts, the narrative of Gatsby's quixotic passion for Daisy Buchanan. The pair meet five years before the novel begins, when Daisy is a legendary young Louisville beauty and Gatsby an impoverished officer. They fall in love, but while Gatsby serves overseas, Daisy marries the brutal, bullying, but extremely rich Tom Buchanan. After the war, Gatsby devotes himself blindly to the pursuit of wealth by whatever means--and to the pursuit of Daisy, which amounts to the same thing. "Her voice is full of money," Gatsby says admiringly, in one of the novel's more famous descriptions. His millions made, Gatsby buys a mansion across Long Island Sound from Daisy's patrician East Egg address, throws lavish parties, and waits for her to appear. When she does, events unfold with all the tragic inevitability of a Greek drama, with detached, cynical neighbor Nick Carraway acting as chorus throughout. Spare, elegantly plotted, and written in crystalline prose, The Great Gatsby is as perfectly satisfying as the best kind of poem.

I think that introduction from Goodreads said it all... don't you?

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Upcoming Reviews

ARC:
Shadowfell by Juliet Marillier
Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

From Publisher:
The Six by K.B. Hoyle

Bought:
The Last Princess by Galaxy Craze
Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

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