Review for The Replaced (The Taking #2) by Kimberly Derting

TITLE: The Replaced
SERIES: The Taking #2
AUTHOR: Kimberly Derting
PUBLICATION DATE: April 28, 2015
PUBLISHER: HarperTeen
PAGES: 368 pages
FORMAT: eARC
SOURCE: Publisher via Edelweiss
RATING: 4 bows

Kyra’s life was turned upside down when she was abducted by aliens. That 5 year disappearance managed to take everything she cared about away from her and then, just when she starts to make new connections, her new love gets taken away as well. Now, Kyra is on the run from the NSA with the other Returned, Kyra goes to extremes to find Tyler. When they discover an email that implies Tyler is alive and well….in NSA hands, Kyra is willing to risk everything to get him back. Together with a select few of the Returned, they make a plan to bust Tyler out of lockdown and maybe steal some classified info while they are at it. But these things rarely go as planned and Kyra quickly learns that every action has consequences. What kind of trouble does she find herself in? You’ll just have to read to find out!

Kyra is still a character I adore. She’s a bit stronger here than she was in The Taking, but still basically the same character. She’s smart and caring and her devotion to Tyler had me sympathizing with her all the more. If you enjoyed her perspective before, you’ll continue to do so here. I can’t say too much else about the characters without going into spoiler territory, so I’ll leave it at this: you get a decent group of people all with interesting stories and quirks, but all is not as it seems.

I really enjoyed The Taking. It was one of those books that I just could not put down. From page one, I was hooked. I was desperate to learn not only what the hell had happened to Kyra, but also how everyone would react to her return. So I was ecstatic to see the sequel up on Edelweiss and I didn’t hesitate to grab it immediately. This, I thought, would be awesome. This would be a novel that I would burn my way through as I did with the first one. That, however, was not the case. While I did enjoy it and I think it’s a fair continuation of the story, I didn’t love it like I did with the first one. Some of the magic was missing. I think there are several things that contributed to this. The pass was quite a bit slower here and not much gets accomplished. It seemed to have just a little of that middle book syndrome thing going on. We get action and adventure, but it’s pretty clear that nothing is really going to be resolved here.

My big problem was the missing Tyler. Tyler was the magical ingredient, in my opinion. The first novel had this great contemporary science fiction vibe that I adored. A big part of that was the romance between Kyra and Tyler. Tyler was abducted at the end of The Taking, in order to save his life, and we don’t get him back early on here. We don’t get him back until the novel is half over. Even then, let’s just say the reunion is not everything you have been dreaming of, okay? In Tyler’s absence, Simon tries to put the moves on Kyra, pulling us into that dreaded love triangle territory. It was skirted around in The Taking and I was hoping we could continue to avoid it here, but no such luck. Simon has no qualms telling Kyra how he feels and that she can’t wait for Tyler forever. Which, quite honestly, made me want to slap him. Kyra, for her part, wasn’t much better. I won’t say much because I don’t want to have to label this as a spoilery review, but her reactions to him aren’t always the resounding rejection that it should be.

Basically, this novel is good, but it doesn’t quite live up to the awesomeness that was The Taking. It’s entertaining and has some twists that you don’t see coming, but that gets bogged down in a slow moving plot, love triangle, and yet another cliffhanger. I still recommend it to everyone who enjoyed the first novel and I think highly of it, but I just a little disappointed because it didn’t live up to my expectations. Regardless, it gave me quite a few answers and another peak into this world that Derting has created. That’s enough to satisfy me….for now.

****Thank you to HarperTeen for providing me with an eARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review****

Review for Eyes Ever To The Sky (The Sky Trilogy #1) by Katie French

TITLE: Eyes Ever To The Sky
SERIES: The Sky Trilogy #1
AUTHOR: Katie French
PUBLICATION DATE: April 9, 2013
PUBLISHER: Katie French Books
PAGES: 198 pages
FORMAT: E-ARC
SOURCE: Publisher via NetGalley
RATING: 2 bows

Hugh wakes up in the middle of a crater in a park completely naked. He has no memory. The only thing he knows for certain is that he’s name is Hugh. The longer he wanders around, the more he realizes that there is something off about him. He is stronger than he should be and heals incredibly fast. He crosses paths with 15 year old Cece and things really get interesting. He’s instincts tell him to trust no one, but she’s so kind and caring that he wants to let her help him. Cece has enough on her plate without an amnesiac homeless teenage boy following her around, but she can’t help the desire to aide him. How can you not want to help a boy who is literally sleeping in a dumpster and scavenging for food? Add to these twos needs, there is also a murderer on the loose, ripping peoples throats out. Can they help each other and find the killer? Or will Cece be the next victim?

That was kinda a crappy description, huh? I’m sorry about that, I just couldn’t find a good way to tie it altogether that doesn’t give everything away. This was another one of those novels that I requested right when I started reviewing books because it had an interesting cover and it sounded interesting enough. Now my screening process is much stricter. I read the entire description several times, I check Goodreads to see if anyone I follow has read/rated/reviewed it so I have something to go off. I really think and consider what I’m downloaded. In the beginning, though, that is never the case. I think every reviewer can tell you that in the beginning they downloaded nearly anything they could. You, person I don’t know, are going to give me access to a book free of charge? All I have to do is leave a review?

As long as it sounded mildly good and was in a category I read (ie YA or NA or historical romance), I was all for it. I’m paying for that now because I’m making a point to read through all of them, in that better late than never spirit and get reviews up for them. What sucks is having to write negative reviews. I realize that negative ones help just as much as positive ones, but that doesn’t mean I don’t feel bad about shooting down some indie authors baby. Speaking of….

Cece was a character that was fine, if somewhat annoying. I feel like her story was so cliched. Teen girl with only one parent with is so affected by a mental illness that she can’t bring herself to provide so said teen girl must support them. I think that is part of what irritates me. I don’t understand anyone who has a mental illness that doesn’t want help. My husband actually is bi-polar, like Cece’s mom, and there wasn’t a day when he wasn’t on medication that he didn’t want help. That whole “the side effects aren’t worth it” argument just angers me more. There are hundreds of different pills! There are many different choices and options and tons of generic versions for each of them! I know the first set you try isn’t going to be a magic set. But you keep fucking trying. Period. I don’t understand or sympathize with anyone with a different view than that. Especially someone with a child! LADY! Get off your ass and take care of your kid! Go to a free clinic and get yourself an appointment and work something out. Make it happen! So…maybe it wasn’t Cece who irritated me. But she kinda did too because she was so trusting of Hugh. I mean, the audience knows he didn’t kill those people, but she has no real proof of that besides the fact that he seems kind. You do realize that sociopaths are usually very charming, right?

Hugh wasn’t really any better. I actually am trying to think about how to describe him and I can’t. He’s a non-person. He is personality-less. He is scared because he doesn’t know who he is or where he’s from or anything and then he becomes fiercely protective of Cece (oh yes, the dreaded insta-love).

As far as writing, it was written well, but it was a little boring. It was slow and all over the place. I felt like it almost had too much going on. The crazy mom, the forcing Cece into work, the Hugh-alien thing, the conflict with the aliens….just too much for this bitty 200 page novel. And then, the ending just felt forced. Cece’s family thing working out the way it did had me screaming “THAT’S NOT HOW REAL LIFE WORKS!”

In a nutshell, this novel was disappointing. The premise was intriguing, but it had no follow through. It felt very unfinished. It also is supposed to be the first book in a trilogy, but there is no word on releasing the next books. That really sucks for anyone out there who genuinely liked the novel because it ends on a cliffhanger.

****Thank you to Katie French Books for providing me with an eARC via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review****

Review for The Taking (The Taking #1) by Kimberly Derting

TITLE: The Taking
SERIES: The Taking #1
AUTHOR: Kimberly Derting
PUBLICATION DATE: April 29, 2014
PUBLISHER: HarperTeen
PAGES: 368 pages
FORMAT: eARC / ARC
SOURCE: Publisher via Edelweiss / Freebie shelf at Malaprops
RATING: 4 bows

Kyra Agnew was just a normal high school girl, with a talent for pitching softball and a long term boyfriend to plan her future with….until she disappears without a trace. One night she was arguing with her father and poof! Gone. She wakes up the next morning behind a dumpster and goes home only to discover that’s 5 years have past since that night. Five years and her life has moved on without her. Austin, her boyfriend, is now off at college dating her best friend, her parents are divorced, and her dad is a conspiracy theorist over alien abductions. Even worse, she is freakishly drawn to Austin’s kid brother, who was 12 when she left but now is a 17 year old hunk who seems to be the only one that cares about her side of things. As they dig deeper into her missing years, only one thing is certain. Once they learn the truth, nothing will ever be the same.

I really liked Kyra instantly. It was difficult not to sympathize with her. One night everything is fine and literally the next day, everything is different. She boy she loves so dearly has moved on, to her best friend no less, and is now living the out the dreams that she helped plan with someone else. Her mom has remarried and has a new child (her brother, Logan). Her dad, who she was always so close to, has lost his damned mind, spending all his time obsessing over alien abductions. To his credit, he was the only person in her life that never really stopped looking for her. She goes through so many emotions that this felt just as much like a contemporary YA as it did a paranormal. In fact, I enjoyed those contemporary feeling bits more than the paranormal aspects. Either way, this girl has it rough. I get that everyone around her is doing their best and people need to move on with their lives, but it genuinely feels like nobody really wants her side of things, they just want her to go back to her life and for things to be as normal as possible. Except Tyler. The connection she feels with him is undeniable. He is the only person that just lets her vent without judging her for what she says or feels. It’s not hard to see why she falls for him so quickly.

Tyler, dear sweet Tyler, is so perfect. He’s hot and cocky and endearingly sweet to Kyra. He’s determination to show her that he is so much more than Austin’s kid brother was awesome to watch. Also, watching him go out of his way to help Kyra, even if it was just distracting her from the drama of her “new” life, was beyond sweet. I don’t know how she would have survived without him, at least mentally. Also, teenage boy who likes to read? ::drools:: That by itself is enough to catch my attention. Not only does he read, but he actively collects old and rare literary magazines? Excuse me while I melt into a puddle on the floor.

The one thing that stands out to me more than anything else is how addictive this is. When I started this, I just wanted to read a chapter or so to have something on my currently reading list. I had just finished When The Marquess Met His Match by Laura Lee Guhrke and I don’t like having my “Currently reading” slot empty, so the plan was just to start it. I know I can say I’m reading it when I haven’t started, but I don’t like doing that. If I haven’t started it, I’m not really reading it and it shouldn’t be on my currently reading list. ANYWAY, I started it and an hour later, I was still reading. I was forced encouraged to stop reading for a few hours to hang out with my husbands friends and it was a very long few hours with me sneaking the book out at every opportunity. It’s addictive. From the moment Kyra appears, you have this need to find out everything, not only who took her and why, but also how the people around her react to her reappearnce and how the confrontation with Austin goes and where the forbidden-feeling romance with Tyler leads. I was enthralled in a series forget-the-world kind of way.

As I said before, I really enjoyed the contemporary aspect of this novel and how it felt like a nice blend between contemporary and paranormal. I’ve read several reviews and the biggest problem I’ve seen people have is how long it takes her to start asking questions and looking for who took her, but I will play devil’s advocate on that. If you vanished but had no memory of disappearing, where do you look for answers? Who do you ask when no one knows? And are you just going to ignore they way your life has changed? Are you not going to experience some emotions over those changes? I felt like that would have been my first response because those are the things that are in front of you. When you are sleeping into your old bedroom that has been turned into a guest room down the hall from the 3 year old brother that you just learned about and your mom in bed with your brand new-step dad, that’s harder to avoid than the idea that you vanished for five years with absolutely no memory of it. Then, once that has been processed, you start to push the boundaries and go looking for answers.

What really irked me was how trusting she was from the people she got her information from. Once they are in the compound, it’s easy to see why, but when she is more or less kidnapped, I wouldn’t take anyone at their word. Also, why were the health side effects never mentioned in that first meeting? That kind of information is paramount and could have really helped avoid trouble. Serious, serious trouble.

Overall though, this is a highly enjoyable read. It’s one of those rare novels that even though it may have an issue or two, you just can’t put it down, you can’t let go of the story or stop thinking about it. Yes, it does have a cliffhanger and a minor love triangle, but it’s forgivable because of it’s awesomeness. I am impatiently awaiting the next installment!

****Thank you to HarperTeen for providing me with an eARC via Edelweiss in exchange for an honest review****

Review for Icons (Icons #1) by Margaret Stohl

TITLE: Icons
SERIES: Icons #1
AUTHOR: Margaret Stohl
PUBLICATION DATE: May 7, 2013
PUBLISHER: Little, Brown Books For Young Readers
PAGES: 428 pages
FORMAT: Audiobook / Hardback
SOURCE: Borrowed / Purchased
RATING: 4 bows

Always remember The Day: The Day that everything stopped, the millions of people died just so the Lords could prove their power, The Day Dol’s family died, but she miraculously survived. Cut to 10+ years later and teenage Dol is living in the country, far from the Lord’s powerful Icons. But when Dol and Ro, her best friend, are kidnapped and taken to the embassy, then nag change drastically. They meet two more people like them, with weird dot symbols on their wrists. Lucas, the ambassadors son and Tima, a fellow prisoner. The closer the four become, the more they realize that maybe there is more going on than meets the eye. Maybe these four are connected in a way that none of them could have predicted and maybe, just maybe, that are the key to bringing down the Lord’s and their malicious icons.

So, the plan with this was simple. I needed something to listen to on the 3 and a half hour drive to Charleston SC for YA`’ll fest and this was available. The plan, was to listen to it on the way there and then on the way back, then I’d be almost finished and it wouldn’t hinder my reading my massive stack of E-ARCs because I was using time that I wouldn’t have spent reading anyway. Perfect, right? Well, I ended up only listening on the way there and falling asleep on the way back home. So, I’m less than halfway through this thing and I feel guilty every time I pick it up. I have so many books I committed to read and this is not on that list, how can I justified spending time reading it? The other issue was, I met Margaret Stohl at YA`’ll fest and she fucking amazing, so I have to love this, right? But, initially I didn’t. It was good, but not great. Interesting, but not stay up all night addictive. So I deliberately read it slowly because I did NOT want write a negative review for this. I need to love it. And, eventually, I really got into it. Let’s see why.

The biggest reason I initially didn’t love this was because I’m not a big fan of Dol. I found her a bit immature and a whole lot annoying. Throughout the novel . People comment on her being clever, but I never saw it. She seemed a bit slow and can’t ever seen to make up her mind. She does that insanely annoying thing where she claims to “love” To, a male character, and its implied that it’s romantic feelings, but then she sees Lucas, and holy shit, she’s in love. Our at least she knows she doesn’t have romantic feelings for Ro. She also came across as gullible, always just believing what she was told without any investigation. Needless to say, I was not a fan.

Then there are the guys: Ro and Lucas. I wasn’t a huge fan of either, but I wanted her to end up with Ro because he is the one who has always been there for her. Also because I didn’t see the appeal of Lucas. He just wasn’t the hero for me. He seemed a little….well “uppity” is the only word that comes to mind. He’s the Ambassador’s son and has lived a privileged life. The whole love triangle thing pissed me off. I hate fucking hate them and I hate them passionately. Obviously I was less than enthused about this one.

I also had a bit of an issue with the amount of confusion. While I applaud Stohl for avoiding the infamous info dump, I felt like I was given too little information at times. Who the hell are the Lords? How do the Icons work? How is the weird government set up? I get that the Lords give the orders somehow and the Ambassadors carry them out, but who appointed the ambassadors? How do the Lords give information? I can even leave Dol’s part out because obvious that is supposed to be a mystery, but a bit more world building wouldn’t have gone amiss.

Where this novel shines, however, is in its side characters. Namely, Fortis and Dr. Orwell Bradbury Huxley-Clark. Now, had the novel been told by Fortis’ perspective, I’d have been in love. Fortis is all rebellion. Hot, sarcastic, british, intelligent…::drools:: From the first moment Dol met him on the train, I was head over heels. Then there is Doc, a fucking COMPUTER PROGRAM. But this computer program has snark and spunk and had me smiling and giggling even when I wanted to scream in frustration from dealing with Dol. The sarcasm and the jokes and the over serious observations made all the bad parts completely worth it.

Really, this is a 3.5, but Goodreads doesn’t allow half-star ratings and I’m too damn tired (read: lazy) to crop one of those crappy bows in half to post. It only ends on a very mild cliffhanger, so at least we don’t have the love triangle/insta-love/cliffhanger trifecta! It’s an interesting mix of dystopian and scifi, with light romance and quirky side characters to keep you smiling. It’s not perfect, but it’s definitely worth the read. And the last 100 pages or so get truly interesting. It’s no coincidence that it’s also when Fortis appears again and we learn a bit more of Doc’s origins. 🙂

Review for Onyx (Lux #2) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

TITLE: Onyx
SERIES: Lux #2
AUTHOR: Jennifer L Armentrout
PUBLICATION DATE: August 14, 2012
PUBLISHER: Engtangled Teen
PAGES: 366 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 4 stars

***If you have not read Obsidian, this will give away spoilers***

Onyx picks up right where Obsidian left off. Daemon turns on the charm to try to win Katy over while she fights with her hormones to resist him. All the while, they are trying to figure out the freaky alien connection that has opened up between them since he healed her after the epic battle. Katy dear is still stupidly denying that she feels anything for him and then a new guy shows up in town and suddenly Katy has a new date. You can imagine how Daemon feels about that. But when Katy starts moving things with her mind, we come to learn that Blake (the new kid) is just like her and can train her to control these new abilities, things get intense pretty quickly. Chaos, tension, intrigue, and mayhem are all ingredients in this installment of The Lux series.

As completely in love with this series as I am, I spend the better part of this book screaming at Katy. If she were a real person, I probably would have hunted her down just to smack her in the face and scream “WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH YOU?” at her. Though this book doesn’t feature a love triangle, she does date 2 different guys in this book. She is still doing that flirty dance around Daemon, but she also goes on several dates with Blake, much to Daemon’s irritation. While I understand the thrill of someone liking her and the frustration of Daemon trying to tell her what to do, this is unacceptable. Lady, you have DAEMON pouring his heart out to you, what the fuck are you even hesitating for?!?!?!? When you walked away from him saying that you couldn’t excuse his dickheaded-ness, he started trying to….well the word “woo” doesn’t seem to suit Daemon, but it’s the only word that comes to mind, so he started to woo you in earnest. You finally get to see more of the guy beneath the ass, the one who is nice and thoughtful and downright sweet. How can you say no to that? How can you even think of another guy, much less date him when Daemon is offering to defy his very species to be with you? You can’t, you just can’t. So you Katy-bug get an epic fail for this book. You do the wrong thing, the exact wrong thing. The whole time Daemon is telling you that he doesn’t trust Blake and you assume it’s nothing more than jealousy, but you are wrong.

I won’t spoil what happens, but I will say that there were some things that went down that I do not approve of. That being said, it was still an emotional rollercoaster ride and I loved every minute of it. That’s the mark of a good writer is that even when I hated Katy, I still couldn’t stop reading. I was still rooting for her to fix her stupid mistakes ****SPOILER****which she doesn’t, she just keeps being stupid and not trusting Daemon enough to tell him the truth and then Blake finally shows his true colors and Adam ends up dead just when things were starting to get good between him and Dee. Which really fucking sucks. I was not amused at all, I may have actually cried.****END SPOILER***

Finishing this book left me in whatever the opposite of a book high is. Book depression? Book melancholy? I rushed through these two novels because they were so good that I couldn’t get enough and even though I know the journey isn’t completely over because Opal will be release in December, I still can’t bring myself to feel anything but incredible sadness. I can’t believe it’s over. I can’t stop thinking about this story. It’s been all I could do all day not to go back and start re-reading it….I might have even read a chapter of Onyx to refresh my memory which is absurd considering that I just fucking finished it at 10 last night. I had to physically stop myself from reading. To add impact to that statement, I don’t really re-read many things because I feel like I have too much to read and can’t justify revisiting a story I already know, which the exception of a few scant things that I just can’t help but go back to and I think these novels are going to be added to that list.

Review for Obsidian (Lux #1) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

TITLE: Obsidian
SERIES: Lux #1
AUTHOR: Jennifer L Armentrout
PUBLICATION DATE: May 8, 2012
PUBLISHER: Engtangled Teen
PAGES: 335 pages
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: Borrowed
RATING: 5 stars

Damn….dayum…just fucking wow. I….it was….how do I……I think my brain just exploded into a puddle of pure joy.

Far warning with this review, it’s gonna be a hell of a lot of fangirling and might be a bit rambly because it’s killing me to wait the tinsy bit of time it takes to write this to read Onyx.

I was beginning to think I was too damn picky to love anything these days. It seems like every book I pick up is good but not great. Amusing but not hilarious, I like it but it could be better. And this was just perfect. One word people, just one, Daemon. He’s hot as hell and he fucking knows it. Oh, and he’s an alien. He’s also a dick to Katy for the majority of the book, but she doesn’t just roll over and take it. Nope, she tells him to back the fuck off and mind his own business.

…Okay people, I am truly sorry, but I can’t review this book. Seriously, all that is pouring out of my mind is rabid fangirling which can only carry the review so far. Just know that this book is amazing and if you like fantasy, paranormal romance, aliens, and kickass heroines, this is for you. SO GO READ IT NOW. (I’ll try to review it again in a few days when the fangirling has (hopefully) subsided).

Alrighty, let me try this again. I started this book because over half the blogs I follow are rabid fans of this series and I wanted to see what all the hype was about. To be quite honest, I’ve been rather disappointed with most of the books I’ve read recently. Everything has been irritating me. They have love triangles or cliffhangers or mediocre writing and I’ve been getting rather frustrated. I don’t know if I’ve become more picky or maybe I’ve just had a bad streak of book choosing but either way, I was hoping with all the blogger hype, this would be the great book I’ve been searching for. And fuck, it really was. I should also preface this by stating that I was a huge fan of the tv series Roswell, so I have a huge soft spot for aliens when they are done right.

We follow Katy in her move from Florida to West Virginia. She is less than thrilled about the move, even though she understands her moms reasons for uprooting them, she still misses her life in Florida. After a few days of pushing from her mom, she finally ventures out into the world, walking next door to ask the neighbor for directions. But when Daemon Black answers the door in nothing but a pair of jeans, she is floored because Daemon has more muscles on him than any seventeen year old boy has the right to. He also has a smoking face, with high cheekbones, full totally kissable lips, and gorgeous green eyes. She is completely enraptured by him….until he opens his mouth. He goes from completely date-able to the lowest level of scrum within a few scant seconds with his bad attitude from hell. After leaving His Royal Dickhead, she goes in search of the grocery store with his begrudgingly give directions and runs right into his twin sister. Dee profusely apologizes for Daemon and soon the two become fast friends, which seems to piss Daemon off. Katy doesn’t know what he’s problem is, but he keeps trying to blatantly push her away from Dee. Like hell, Katy isn’t going to let some overbearing, overprotective dickhead keep her from a being friends with Dee. But it’s obvious that Dee is keeping something from her. She doesn’t want to pry, but she can’t help but question why Daemon keeps saying Dee doesn’t need “friends like her”. Then she accidentally walks out in front of a truck and Daemon stops time to keep her from becoming road kill. Why? How can he do that? Because they are aliens. And things just get weirder from there.

Now, before any of you run screaming with the whole “I don’t do science fiction, no aliens for me!” bit, let me just say that this isn’t really scifi. It comes off as paranormal YA and for those of you who think aliens can’t be sexy, just watch one episode of Roswell and tell that you don’t want Max Evans saving your life! This series has so much to love and I think people who won’t try it simply because it’s aliens are really missing out.

I’ll start with Katy. I loved Katy, like really loved her. She starts off shy and quiet, but working to overcome it. She also is a book blogger with I found highly entertaining. I’ve read so many books where it’s mentioned in the beginning that they love to read, but you never actually see them pickup a book or show interest in them and that’s so not the case here. This lovely heroine would rather spend her days lounging in her living room reading and reviewing books than anything else and that doesn’t change when Daemon and Dee start making her life a three ring circus. I love that she stands up to Daemon and doesn’t let him push her around. In fact, she typically does the opposite of what he wants. He tells her to stay and she goes, he tells her to be quiet and she rattles on just out of spite. I loved that she was fowl-mouthed as well. Not super bad, but she calls Daemon a dickhead on more than one occasion (and he usually deserves it).

I also really loved the dynamic between these two. It’s one of those “I hate you, but I’m attracted to you” things and damn does it work for them. There are times when I’m not sure which would be better, watching them finally get together or watching them kill each other with insults. It’s obvious to everyone that they are head over heels for each other, everyone that is, except Katy who refuses to admit she likes him. She’s in denial so deep I’m not sure she’ll ever figure out the truth.

I loved almost all the characters in this, especially Katy’s mom. In most YA’s, the parents are absent without a legitimate reason, but bless Jennifer Armentrout because she explains it all before I could even ask. Katy has always been a good girl and since her father died, mommy dearest works extra nursing shifts to make ends meet and have extra money. So when Katy’s off running around with Daemon and getting in trouble, we know why her mom isn’t popping up with questions.

Now, on to the fangirling bits. I will state that you can skip the rest of this review without missing anything of substance, just me raving about how awesome Daemon is. Where to start? Let’s start with appearance. Tall, with wavy brown hair and bright green eyes, not to mention the muscles…..::swoons:: With his penchant for answering the door shirtless, can he just move next to me? I can deal with the foul mouth, in fact he doesn’t need to speak at all….anyway, when he does speak, he’s arrogant, stubborn, cocky, and sarcastic as hell. That’s right, he knows he’s awesome and he knows you think so too. And he doesn’t want Katy anywhere near his world. It’s not safe and he doesn’t want her involved. So, he’s a total dick, doing things to purposely piss her off, but he always gets unexpected results. When he tells her that he doesn’t want her sitting at the lunch table with him and his sister, that she is unwanted, he expects her to walk away with her tail tucked between her legs. So when she dumps her tray of food on his head, he is surprised to say the least and he can’t help but admire her. Underneath the asshat, hides a sweet guy who is just trying to make the best of a bad situation. He must protect his sister at all costs and that means pushing everyone who could present a danger away. So yeah, it’s a bit of the typical, “I’m only pushing you away because I want to protect you, but secretly I want you so hard it hurts” thing, but it’s so believable coming from him that it’s okay. Besides, he really does get a kick out of pissing Katy off. If you don’t fall in love with this guy from the story, there is an extra scene at the end from his perspective that will change your mind. And I think the cover model they got for him was beyond perfect. Have you seen the cover for Opal?

Look at it! Look at him. Not only am I head over heels for the character, but also for the amazing looking Pepe Toth, the model. Damn…just fucking damn. That admiration is only depended by the fact that Pepe is total and completely in love with his co-cover model, Sztella Tziotziosz. But seriously, look at them:



::drools:: how can you not love them?…sorry, they are just so gorgeous, I want to share it with the world.

When it comes down to it, I recommend this book to everyone. It is so amazing and keeps you begging for more. This is easily the best book I’ve read all year and it’s clear that it will be one that I go back to over and over again when I’m looking for something to make my heart race with excitement.

Review for Mothership (Ever-Expanding Universe #1) by Martin Leicht & Isla Neal

TITLE: Mothership
SERIES: Ever Expanding Universe #1
AUTHOR: Martin Leicht & Isla Neal
PUBLICATION DATE: July 10, 2012
PUBLISHER: Simon Pulse, a division of Simon & Schuster
PAGES: 308
FORMAT: Ebook
SOURCE: PulseIt
RATING: 5 stars

I’ll be totally honest, when I started this novel I didn’t have a clue what it was about beyond the vague notion that it would involve aliens. I never read the synopsis. The thought process was simple, I just finished Second Chance Summer and while it was good, it was a bit of a downer and I wanted to read something uplifting and funny. I saw this little novel up on PulseIt and vaguely remember reading various reviews proclaiming it to be laugh out loud funny, so I thought I’d read it while I had the chance. I’m glad I did. The reviews were right, this book is one of the most original, funny stories I’ve read in a while.

Elvie Nara is in a fairly common situation, she’s knocked up and the father disappeared right after hearing the news. She finally fesses up to her father (who I adore by the way) and she decides that the best thing for her is to enroll her in this new school for pregnant teens make on an abandon party cruiser that is orbiting the earth (which is possible because this book takes place in 2074). Perfect solution, right? WRONG. Everything goes rather smoothly for the first few months, or as smoothly as things can go for an expecting teen mother who’s ex lover also happens to have father a kid with her archnemesis who is stuck in the same floating school and determined to make her life hell, until…..Cue the dramatic music: ALIENS ATTACK! From that point on, Elvie’s world gets turned upside down, which she didn’t think was possible at this point. I can’t really go into detail with the plot after this point because there are too many potential spoilers, but suffice to say that you’ll never see a lot of it coming and you’ll be rolling on the floor laughing if you figure it out. Everything that can go wrong does and Elvie ends up face to face with Cole (aka the father of “Goober”).

I cannot say enough good things about this book. All the character’s were completely perfect. Ducky is an amazing best friend and they could have easily pushed that into love triangle land but thankfully they don’t. Instead of trying to be all Jacob and “I love you and I’m better for you”, Ducky never confesses his love and just supports Elvie in every endeavor, no matter how deranged. Cole was the perfect leading man. He’s hot and dimwitted and completely sincere in his affection for Elvie, though it’s not apparent in the beginning. Then there is Elvie, who though I was irritated with in the beginning, turns out to be a completely badass lovable character. She’s been dealt a shitty hand (though by her own admission, it’s for choices she made) and instead of whining and moping about what could have been and how things should be, she just rolls with the punches makes sarcastic jokes as the goes. Thanks to all her younger years being raised by her father, she is a mechanical genius and that skill comes in rather useful for what’s in store for her. Speaking of her dad, I love him. He’s doesn’t have a huge role in this novel, but the small amount you see of him makes me wanna give the guy a big hug. He’s got a plan for any (well almost any) worst case scenario and when Elvie confesses that she is knocked up, his response isn’t anger, but just acceptance and then he proudly digs out his “teen pregnancy” contingency plan and starts dealing with the current dilemma.

The plot keeps you guessing until the end. Just when you think it’s all over, something else happens. Just when you think they are all doomed, Elvie pulls a new plan out of her ass and saves the day. It’s a delightful read and anyone looking for a kickass novel that will have you snorting for hours, this is your book!

Quotes:
“Ducky seems intent on working on a strictly psychological level. Like sneaking into Britta’s house every morning to swap out her bra with a series of nearly identical brassieres with infinitesimally larger cup sizes, causing her to believe her boobs are shrinking.”

“If anyone can ever find a way to explain to me how carrying around a sack of flour with a diaper on it is supposed to prepare you for motherhood, I will personally bake that person a chocolate cake with my practice baby’s insides.”