Category Archives: Young Adult

Review: Inbetween by Tara Fuller

 

Inbetween
(Kissed by Death, #1)
By: Tara Fuller
Publisher: Entangled
Published: Aug 28, 2012
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble 

Since the car crash that took her father’s life three years ago, Emma’s life has been a freaky — and unending — lesson in caution. Surviving “accidents” has taken priority over being a normal seventeen-year-old, so Emma spends her days taking pictures of life instead of living it. Falling in love with a boy was never part of the plan. Falling for a reaper who makes her chest ache and her head spin? Not an option.

It’s not easy being dead, especially for a reaper in love with a girl fate has put on his list not once, but twice. Finn’s fellow reapers give him hell about spending time with Emma, but Finn couldn’t let her die before, and he’s not about to let her die now. He will protect the girl he loves from the evil he accidentally unleashed, even if it means sacrificing the only thing he has left…his soul.

 

Read More →

Review: Shadow Kiss by Richelle Mead

 

Shadow Kiss
(Vampire Academy, #3)
By: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Published: Nov. 13, 2008
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Is Rose’s fate to kill the person she loves most? It’s springtime at St. Vladimir’s Academy, and Rose Hathaway is this close to graduation. Since Mason’s death, Rose hasn’t been feeling quite right. She has dark flashbacks in the middle of practice, can’t concentrate in class, and has terrifying dreams about Lissa. But Rose has an even bigger secret . . . .She’s in love with Dimitri. And this time, it’s way more than a crush. Then Strigoi target the academy in the deadliest attack in Moroi history, and Dimitri is taken. Rose must protect Lissa at all costs, but keeping her best friend safe could mean losing Dimitri forever…

Read More →

Review: Kissing Shakespeare by Pamela Mingle

 

Kissing Shakespeare

By: Pamela Mingle
Publisher: Delecorte
Published: Aug. 14, 2012
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon 
Barnes & Noble

Miranda has Shakespeare in her blood: she hopes one day to become a Shakespearean actor like her famous parents. At least, she does until her disastrous performance in her school’s staging of The Taming of the Shrew. Humiliated, Miranda skips the opening-night party. All she wants to do is hide.

Fellow cast member, Stephen Langford, has other plans for Miranda. When he steps out of the backstage shadows and asks if she’d like to meet Shakespeare, Miranda thinks he’s a total nutcase. But before she can object, Stephen whisks her back to 16th century England—the world Stephen’s really from. He wants Miranda to use her acting talents and modern-day charms on the young Will Shakespeare. Without her help, Stephen claims, the world will lost its greatest playwright.

Miranda isn’t convinced she’s the girl for the job. Why would Shakespeare care about her? And just who is this infuriating time traveler, Stephen Langford? Reluctantly, she agrees to help, knowing that it’s her only chance of getting back to the present and her “real” life. What Miranda doesn’t bargain for is finding true love . . . with no acting required.

Read More →

Review: Fallenmore by Lucy Swing

Fallenmore
(Feathermore #2)
By: Lucy Swing
Publisher: Self-pub
Published: July 31, 2012
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

When darkness consumes you; will it be hard to find the light?

After Jade’s world was torn apart, she is unsure of where she belongs, if anywhere at all. Deceived by those she trusted the most, she must now accept her fate and the life that lays before her. The voices are back but this time, they are trying to lure her into the darkness. But could they be telling her the truth? That the only person she has been able to trust since the death of her boyfriend, Avan, is lying to her too? If the voices are right… Could she really trust him?

In Fallenmore, the second book in the Feathermore Trilogy, Jade will embark in a quest through the pits of Hell. The question now is: once she is in, will they ever let her out?

Read More →

Review: Shut Out by Kody Keplinger

 

Shut Out
By: Kody Keplinger
Publisher: Poppy
Published: Sept. 5, 2011
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Most high school sports teams have rivalries with other schools. At Hamilton High, it’s a civil war: the football team versus the soccer team. And for her part,Lissa is sick of it. Her quarterback boyfriend, Randy, is always ditching her to go pick a fight with the soccer team or to prank their locker room. And on three separate occasions Randy’s car has been egged while he and Lissa were inside, making out. She is done competing with a bunch of sweaty boys for her own boyfriend’s attention

Then Lissa decides to end the rivalry once and for all: She and the other players’ girlfriends go on a hookup strike. The boys won’t get any action from them until the football and soccer teams make peace. What they don’t count on is a new sort of rivalry: an impossible girls-against-boys showdown that hinges on who will cave to their libidos first. But what Lissa never sees coming is her own sexual tension with the leader of the boys, Cash Sterling

Review: Frostbite by Richelle Mead

 

Frostbite
(Vampire Academy, #2)
By: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Published: April 10, 2008
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Rose loves Dimitri, Dimitri might love Tasha, and Mason would die to be with Rose…

It’s winter break at St. Vladimir’s, but Rose is feeling anything but festive. A massive Strigoi attack has put the school on high alert, and now the Academy’s crawling with Guardians—including Rose’s hard-hitting mother, Janine Hathaway. And if hand-to-hand combat with her mom wasn’t bad enough, Rose’s tutor Dimitri has his eye on someone else, her friend Mason’s got a huge crush on her, and Rose keeps getting stuck in Lissa’s head while she’s making out with her boyfriend, Christian! The Strigoi are closing in, and the Academy’s not taking any risks… This year, St. Vlad’s annual holiday ski trip is mandatory.

But the glittering winter landscape and the posh Idaho resort only create the illusion of safety. When three friends run away in an offensive move against the deadly Strigoi, Rose must join forces with Christian to rescue them. But heroism rarely comes without a price.

Read More →

Review: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

 

Vampire Academy
(Vampire Academy, #1)
By: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Published: Aug. 16, 2007
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger…

Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.

 

Read More →

Review: Croak by Gina Damico

 

Croak
(Croak, #1)
By: Gina Damico
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
Published: March 20, 2012
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

Fed up with her wild behavior, sixteen-year-old Lex’s parents ship her off to upstate New York to live with her Uncle Mort for the summer, hoping that a few months of dirty farm work will whip her back into shape. But Uncle Mort’s true occupation is much dirtier than shoveling manure.

He’s a Grim Reaper. And he’s going to teach Lex the family business.

She quickly assimilates into the peculiar world of Croak, a town populated by reapers who deliver souls from this life to the next. But Lex can’t stop her desire for justice—or is it vengeance?—whenever she encounters a murder victim, craving to stop the attackers before they can strike again. Will she ditch Croak and go rogue with her reaper skills?

 

Read More →

Review: Bloodlines by Richelle Mead

Bloodlines

(Bloodlines, #1)
By: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Published: Aug. 23, 2011
Genre: YA
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

When alchemist Sydney is ordered into hiding to protect the life of Moroi princess Jill Dragomir, the last place she expects to be sent is a human private school in Palm Springs, California. But at their new school, the drama is only just beginning.

Populated with new faces as well as familiar ones, Bloodlines explores all the friendship, romance, battles and betrayals that made the #1 New York Times bestselling Vampire Academy series so addictive – this time in a part-vampire, part-human setting where the stakes are even higher and everyone’s out for blood.

1thoughtsThis is a spin-off series from Vampire Academy series. If you haven’t read that series yet and plan to don’t read my review. It will have spoilers in it.

 
 
I held off for so long on reading this book. I pre ordered a copy and then was nervous to read it when it finally came in the mail. Would I like it as much as VA? Even though I am not 100% in love with it, it has potential to steal my heart with the books to come.

Instead of sassy outspoken Rose as a narrator, you have timid, sheltered Sydney. She is sort of a pushover at first but gets her bearings as the story progresses. She is ordered to go into hiding with Jill, to keep her safe from further attacks on her life. Since Lissa needs one family member to remain queen and Jill is all the family she has left, the attacks have been directed at Jill, so that Lissa will be removed from the thrown. Eddie and Adrian join the ranks in this book and take the adventure to hot and sunny Palm Springs. (Which by the way is literally right around the corner for me). Jill, Sydney and Eddie enroll into a private school and try to fit in with the humans as best they can. Eddie becomes friends with his roommate, Micah, who reminds him of his old best bud Mason (who was killed in VA), Jill is actually making enemies with the girls at school when Micah shows interest in her and Sydney seems to be getting along fine. She makes friends with a pair of human girls…  one just so happens to be named Kristin (no one ever spells my name with an I, so I was thrilled by that).

I loved that part of the team was back but I wish that there was more Adrian and Eddie time. They were so carefree in VA and now Adrian is heartbroken over Rose and he literally mopes around the entire time. Eddie has gone from serious guardian to an extremely overprotective guardian. I also wish that there was more of a surprise to the conflicts that take place in the book. Right away I knew who was behind the attacks and what was going on. Whereas in previous VA books, where Dimitri gets attacked or when Mason dies, I didn’t get that same surprise reaction from this one.

However, I cannot wait to see what happens with the gang over time. I hope Adrian licks his wounds soon because I miss the snarky sarcastic guy he used to be, even though you see glimpses of it, it isn’t nearly enough. This book seemed more of an adjusting section for Sydney to get used to being around the moroi and their magic and a small process of healing for Adrian. Hopefully with the upcoming books everyone settles down with their feelings and they get back into the action.

1favequote
“The only thing keeping me alive is that he keeps a hefty supple of liquor on hand. But at this rate I’m going, that’ll be gone by the weekend. Jesus Christ, I’m climbing walls here.” His eyes fell on the cross at my neck. “Oh. Sorry. No offense to Jesus.” -Adrian

 

Review: Oh. My. Gods by Tera Lynn Childs

Oh. My. Gods.

(Oh. My. Gods., #1)
By: Tera Lynn Childs
Publisher: Penguin
Published: May 1, 2008
Genre: YA
Source: Library
Rating:
PhotobucketPhotobucket

Goodreads
Amazon
Barnes & Noble

A modern girl’s comedic odyssey in a school filled with the descendants of Greek gods.

When Phoebe’s mom returns from Greece with a new husband and moves them to an island in the Aegean, Phoebe’s plans for her senior year and track season are ancient history. Now she must attend the uberexclusive academy, where admission depends on pedigree, namely, ancestry from Zeus, Hera, and other Greek gods. That’s right, they’re real, not myth, and their teen descendants are like the classical heroes-supersmart and superbeautiful with a few superpowers. And now they’re on her track team! Armed only with her Nikes and the will to win, Phoebe races to find her place among the gods.

Read More →