Book Review | Gotham High by Melissa de la Cruz

Title: Gotham High

Author: Melissa de la Cruz

Illustrator: Thomas Pitilli

Expected Publication Date: April 7, 2020

Pages: 208 pages

Genre: YA graphic novel/Comic books

Format: ARC via Publisher

Find It Here: Goodreads

Synopsis from Goodreads:

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Alex and Eliza and The Witches of East End comes a reimagining of Gotham for a new generation of readers. Before they became Batman, Catwoman, and The Joker, Bruce, Selina, and Jack were high schoolers who would do whatever it took--even destroy the ones they love--to satisfy their own motives.
After being kicked out of his boarding school, 16-year-old Bruce Wayne returns to Gotham City to find that nothing is as he left it. What once was his family home is now an empty husk, lonely but haunted by the memory of his parents' murder. Selina Kyle, once the innocent girl next door, now rules over Gotham High School with a dangerous flair, aided by the class clown, Jack Napier.
When a kidnapping rattles the school, Bruce seeks answers as the dark and troubled knight--but is he actually the pawn? Nothing is ever as it seems, especially at Gotham High, where the parties and romances are of the highest stakes ... and where everyone is a suspect.
With enchanting art by Thomas Pitilli, this new graphic novel is just as intoxicating as it is chilling, in which dearest friends turn into greatest enemies--all within the hallways of Gotham High!

Review:

I've never been into the whole superhero thing. I had a stint where I tried binge watching some superhero movies and I couldn't tell you what they were about if you asked me to recall them. Turns out, I'm much much more inclined to remember if I'm reading rather than watching movies about them.

 I knew I recognized the illustration style somewhere so I looked Thomas up on Goodreads and realized he also worked on the Archie/Riverdale comics. So cool!

I loved how diverse the cast was. Bruce's mother hails from Hong Kong, so he's half-Asian. His uncle Alfred is gay, while Selina Kyle is Cuban. I see a lot of people having issues with the fact they Bruce ends up being switched from white to Asian. I think the diversity that stems from this book is a response to us asking for more diversity. While it's a definite change, it's not that bad to me. 

Book Review | Crave by Tracy Wolff

Title: Crave

Author: Tracy Wolff

Expected Publication Date: April 7, 2020

Pages: 592

Audience: 14 and up

Genre: YA Fiction

Series: Book 1 of 3

Format: ARC

Find it here: Goodreads

Synopsis from Goodreads:

My whole world changed when I stepped inside the academy. Nothing is right about this place or the other students in it. Here I am, a mere mortal among gods…or monsters. I still can’t decide which of these warring factions I belong to, if I belong at all. I only know the one thing that unites them is their hatred of me.

Then there’s Jaxon Vega. A vampire with deadly secrets who hasn’t felt anything for a hundred years. But there’s something about him that calls to me, something broken in him that somehow fits with what’s broken in me.

Which could spell death for us all.

Because Jaxon walled himself off for a reason. And now someone wants to wake a sleeping monster, and I’m wondering if I was brought here intentionally—as the bait.

Review:

I got an amazing package from Entangled Teen accompanied with this book. There were so many goodies in it including some marshmallows and hot cocoa. Perfect for a novel centered around snowy Alaska. 

It's been a long, long, longgggg time since I picked up a book about vampires. I first started with the Twilight series, which I admit I enjoyed a lot. Then I read The Vampire Academy series and I loved that just as much. This novel arrived on my doorstep and it's the first vampire book I've read in years. I'm in love! The novel doesn't just center on vampires though. We've got werewolves, dragons, and witches a'plenty!

Grace shows up in Alaska, still reeling from the sudden and traumatic death of her parents. She's been whisked away from everything she's known and planted firmly in a brand new world. She quickly picks up on the fact that some things are just plain weird around this secluded school she now calls home.

We're quickly introduced to an awesome cast of characters. Not only is Grace a bad-ass, her crush is just as swoon-worthy as can be, her cousin and Uncle are amazing and super supportive. Grace makes other friends soon but she soon realizes she can't trust everyone she calls her friend...

Bonus points for an extreme amount of sexual tension!

The novel ends in a cliff-hanger and I'm already wanting the second book. This one isn't even actually out until April 7th of this year. Sad face.

Book Review | All of This Is True by Lygia Day Peñaflor

Hey, y'all! First book review of the new year. I had been wanting to read this one for quite awhile. I saw it one day browsing BookOutlet during a Christmas sale and finally picked it up.

All of This Is True is about four girls who befriend an author named Fatima. The author ends up using the girls and their friend Jonah to her advantage and writes a novel that ends up putting them in a pretty horrible predicament.

The concept was amazing. I love books that are set up like this one, through diary entries to note-taking and interviews. What I didn't like was the fact that some of these characters weren't as fleshed out as they needed to be. The only character I connected with was Jonah and Fatima because they were the most emotionally compelling characters to me. Everyone else was just background noise to them.

Nothing too jaw-dropping but I did love how it was a slow-burn with the few reveals and twists the novel did have. That ending was maddening to me, though!

Book Review | War Is Over by David Almond

Short review for a super short story! I received a package via Candlewick Press filled with some ARCs and this gem was among them. Almond wrote War Is Over out of respect for the hundred year anniversary of the First World War.

This book is an illustrated short story about a little boy named John. His father is away at war and his mother seems to always be at work at the munitions factory. War doesn't sit well with John and he begins to feel for social outcast Uncle Gordon and for some reason has a sudden connection with a picture of a boy from Germany.

I was in love with the illustrations by Litchfield and how Almond didn't hold back on his talk of how war was. I'll be passing this one onto one of my client's so she can read it! I think it's a book that she could learn from as well as enjoy simply for the poignant story itself. 

Book Review | Scythe by Neal Shusterman

I know, I know. "Sabrina, how come you haven't picked this one up yet?" I have an issue where I have too many books on my TBR and too little time to read all of them. I did finally get around to buying and finishing this one finally so I can mark at least one more book off my TBR and feel at least a decent amount of satisfaction about it. Scythe by Neal Shusterman is the first book I've picked up by this author. He's extremely well-known, he just wasn't ever on my radar until this series came out.

What It's About:
The perfect world has been achieved. Death has been conquered. In order to keep population down, Scythes were formed. Scythes are basically reapers who have the ability to "glean" (kill). A girl named Citra and a boy named Rowan were chosen by a Scythe named Faraday to be his apprentice. Under his wing, they learn endless ways to glean others and why it's necessary but that it's also an extremely necessary job to have around.
Not every Scythe is fair in their gleanings, though. It's up to Citra and Rowan to stop that by any means necessary.
At the end, only one of them can be chosen as an apprentice. The winner's first task? To glean the loser.

What I Liked:

• Dystopian isn't my favorite genre by far, but somehow Shusterman managed to make me fall in love with this insane world of reapers doling out death to people as they see fit. There's no racism or war or negativity. Every complaint we have right now as a world is gone in this fictional one.
• It's a subject I've never read about before. I know they're called Scythes but we all call them grim reapers in our world. Some of them are good, some are bad, but all of them are without a doubt badass.
• The evil characters were extremely evil. They had zero conscience and were all-around everything I could have asked for in villains. 
• Even though humans don't have to worry about politics or war or anything like that anymore, it's very apparent that within the Scythedom there is unrest. Extremely complex politics and non-stop headbutting between the good and the bad Scythes are seen. 
• It brought a ton of questions to my mind. What would life be without death? Would I be able to become a Scythe if it were required of me? How far would I go, and how do you keep your morale whilst still killing others?
• It's an alternating viewpoint novel. Told in Citra and Rowan's perspectives as well as diary entries from different Scythes. I love books told in different perspectives rather than just one the whole time I'm reading.
• The main characters are also bad-ass and they struggled with asking themselves the same questions I would ask of myself had I been put in their positions. They were both extremely relatable. 

What I Didn't Like:

• I feel like I could have gotten more out of Rowan. We caught glimpses of him and his inner workings but I feel like he was always removed from the story and never actually really there. This may have been due to the fact that he was in a very stressful situation but I wanted so much more dialogue from him that I didn't get in this first novel. Hopefully I'll get my fill of Rowan in the next one. Literally my only complaint! 

All in all, I'm definitely ready to pick up the next two novels ASAP. Enjoy the book trailer below.

Book Review | Tear Me Apart by Sara Sligar

Take Me Apart by Sara Sligar definitely threw me for a loop. For some reason I expected this novel to be one of those cliche thriller tropes that are chalk-full of twists and turns just to end up with an ending so out there there's no way anyone would be able to guess it.

This was not one of those novels.

In Callinas, California, a well-known artist named Miranda Brand suddenly died and the shock-waves were felt high and low. Years later, Miranda's son, Theo, hires an archivist (also an ex journalist) named Kate to go through his mother and father's things to create an archive of their work to put up for an auction.

As Kate delves deeper into Miranda's personal belongings she begins to piece together tiny fragments of her life and in turn, learning more about her enigmatic yet frighteningly handsome and sometimes terrifying boss. Through Kate's discoveries we see that Miranda was under so much pressure due to her job, motherhood, and being a wife that she was slowly buckling underneath it all.

Kate doesn't have it all together herself, so we slowly see her decline as well over her summer stay at her aunt and uncle's. She soon spirals into an obsession over trying to figure out who killed Miranda and it takes over her very being. There are quite a few parallels to Kate's life and the deceased Miranda so we can understand Kate's need to figure things out.

What I Liked:

• Learning about Miranda and her life through her personal belongings like receipts and diary entries was interesting. You can see her slow decline and feel her pain and confusion through them.
• It deals with more than a few tough subject matters like spousal rape/abuse, post-partum depression, bosses taking advantage of their positions, and gas-lighting. These issues are handled with care yet still provides an honest and raw depiction of the matters at hand.
• It had The Seven Lives Husbands of Evelyn Hugo vibes. With that being one of my favorite books within the past few years, I had to check to make sure the author of this book wasn't the same author as that one. It isn't. Lol!
• The ending. While there wasn't a massive amount of twists and turns to end up at a mind-blowing revelation, I quite enjoyed how everything was wrapped up in the end.
• I did not feel like I was reading a debut book from a debut author. I feel like I just read a novel by an extremely well-seasoned author who's been around for awhile and I believe that speaks volumes to Sligar's writing abilities. 
• It's a slow-burn novel. Things aren't in your face so it's definitely more psychological than anything else.

What I Disliked:

• I only have one complaint and it has zero to do with Sligar or her writing, it's more of a personal quarrel with things in general.
  Why do most characters seem to make their minds up then when one thing happens they end up questioning literally EVERYTHING about the thing/person they made their mind up about. If you're so sure of something, why does one tiny thing someone else says sway your opinion so easily? Maybe Kate was purposely written that way to show how having a mental illness can warp your sense of judgement or something but it's so aggravating because I know people in real life do this as well. Que eye roll. Lol.
  
  

  So yeah, there you have it! I definitely enjoyed this one and I'm going to start following Sligar as I can tell she has promise and talent. She'll be going far for sure!

Book Review | Egg & Spoon by Gregory Maguire

I bought this at Half-Priced books in Louisville, KY and I am just honestly so taken aback by how much this amazing novel by Gregory Maguire managed to move me. I'm not normally into the kid-lit fantasy genre if it's not a short novel. This one was 475 pages of an amazingly epic fairy tale-esque adventure and I did not regret a page of reading it.

Basically, a peasant girl from Russia named Elena is taking care of her mother all alone. Her brothers gone, her dad dead, her mother on the brink of death. She thinks everything is hopeless until a train stalls in her village due to a lightening bolt. 

This is when she meets a girl named Ekaterina. She's rich and is traveling to St. Petersburg in order to impress the Tsar's godson, something she doesn't really much care for to begin with.
One day, the girls were hanging out and with a jolt of the train, their lives change forever. They end up switching places when Elena decides she should go ahead and try to find her brother and bring him home to help her take care of their mother.

While Elena is pretending to be Ekaterina, Ekaterina encounters a witch named Baba Yaga and together they travel to St. Petersburg. Baba for her own reasons, Ekaterina to reunite with the people she knows after being ran out of Elena's village.

Even though this book is aimed towards the younger crowd, I think you have to be older to truly acknowledge some of the aspects of Maguire's novel. There's struggle between classes and they're discussed in an type of way that makes you pay attention.

The narrator is someone with infinite amount of wisdom, and wise beyond his years. You can tell it in his dialogue as he tells Elena and Ekaterina' story.

This one was fun and entertaining, but also a novel to ponder over. I know I'll be thinking of it for months to come.

"Your life story is really about how the hands of history caught you up, played with you, and you with them. History plays for keeps; individuals play for time."

REVIEW: Enchantée by Gita Trelease

Hi! I won this book in a contest and I was so excited because just a couple of days prior to entering I had added it to my TBR.
Needless to say I started reading it as soon as I got it and flew right through it.

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Paris in 1789 is a labyrinth of twisted streets, filled with beggars, thieves, revolutionaries—and magicians...
When smallpox kills her parents, Camille Durbonne must find a way to provide for her frail, naive sister while managing her volatile brother. Relying on petty magic—la magie ordinaire—Camille painstakingly transforms scraps of metal into money to buy the food and medicine they need. But when the coins won’t hold their shape and her brother disappears with the family’s savings, Camille must pursue a richer, more dangerous mark: the glittering court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.
With dark magic forbidden by her mother, Camille transforms herself into the ‘Baroness de la Fontaine’ and is swept up into life at the Palace of Versailles, where aristocrats both fear and hunger for la magie. There, she gambles at cards, desperate to have enough to keep herself and her sister safe. Yet the longer she stays at court, the more difficult it becomes to reconcile her resentment of the nobles with the enchantments of Versailles. And when she returns to Paris, Camille meets a handsome young balloonist—who dares her to hope that love and liberty may both be possible.
But la magie has its costs. And when Camille loses control of her secrets, the game she's playing turns deadly. Then revolution erupts, and she must choose—love or loyalty, democracy or aristocracy, freedom or magic—before Paris burns…

Review: 

If the cover drew you in then the inside cover would blow your mind! It's a beautiful sprawling map of Paris that transports you right into the story with Camille and the rest of the characters.

Camille can do magic but it comes at a cost. When she starts performing it in order to get her and her sister out of a bad situation, she quickly becomes addicted to it and slowly gets caught up in a wretched plot.

I adore the magic system because it's not like others I've read about and a massive part of this story is Camille's enchanted dress. I loved it even though it was an object met with a ton of apprehension for good reasons.

The romance was wonderful. I'm usually not a fan of romance but Trelease knows how to balance it perfectly in time with all the other aspects of her novel so it's not so blatant and up in your face.

The pacing is quite slow but I loved the way I was eased into the setting slowly and completely. In this way, I felt like I was walking the street of Paris with Camille and attending card games at court, getting into mischief. The pacing was perfect for me!

Diary of a Murderer: And Other Stories by Young-ha Kim

Hello, everyone! I don't remember requesting this one but it showed up on my doorstep so I decided to pick it up. It's a collection of short stories so I knew I would finish it quickly even if I didn't like it.

The first story follows a murderer who ends up getting dementia years after he quits murdering.
I really enjoyed this one as it was a slow, horrifying buildup. The thought of losing your memories is terrifying. Alzheimer's creeps up on you before you know it, and its shown as such in this novella.

As for the other three short stories...I feel like I wasn't intelligent enough to understand the point of them. They were beautifully written, don't get me wrong! I just feel as if some things got lost in translation or maybe I really am just not smart enough to grasp the concept of why I was reading what I was reading.

The plot of them were decent and the characters interesting, I just...didn't get it. I don't know what else to say about it. I need a discussion group to open up so I can join and get different perspectives on this.

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzie Lee

I finally picked this one up on a trip to Barnes and Noble with my boyfriend a couple weeks ago! I went in for some books that have been on my TBR list for quite some time now and this one made the cut!

The Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue follows a group of three friends on a Grand Tour during the 18th century.
Henry Montague, along with his biracial friend and true love Percy, plus his sassy sister get into all kinds of trouble on their tour. It's like their last hoo-rah before they have to be adults.

Percy is to go off to law school, Monty is to take after his father running the estate, and Felicity is set to go to finishing school. None of them want what their lives are set to turn out to be.

After a petty theft happens, the trio are thrust into a world of highwaymen, pirates, sinking and dangerous islands, and a cure-all for ailments. For sheltered children, they sure do endure a lot and overcome the many obstacles thrown their way. Many a time during this book I would have thrown in the towel at some of the situations they were put in!

I loved all of the characters and the plot was wonderfully unique. I had no idea what the Grand Tour was before reading this so I actually learned something! I really like that it's an LBGTQ+ story. And the adventuring is amazing! It also covers quite a few other topics such as suicide, epilepsy, and racism and slavery to name a few. They were touched on in a nice manner in my honest opinion.

I'm not really a romance kinda gal, but this was right up my alley. Flamboyant and not ashamed of it, Monty stole the show. I loved him the most. This novel comes highly recommended from me. Click here to buy it!

Book Review: Thicker Than Water by Brigid Kemmerer

Good morning, everyone! I finished this one in the wee hours earlier today and hopped on to write this. It was definitely a book that throws you for a lot of loops but overall I actually liked it.

Synopsis:
Thomas moves to a new town with his mother but before long he's suspected of her murder. The town turns against him but he's sure he didn't do it. He loves his mother.
The only person who thinks he's innocent is Charlotte, who also happens to be in a family full of cops who suspect him of his mother's murder.
20 year prior to this, Charlotte's ballet friend had been murdered but the murder remained unsolved.
They both have questions begging to be answered but the truth is worse than they could imagine.

Review:
For the better part of this book it read like a mystery. Then a surprise is thrown in and suddenly it becomes a paranormal mystery. It honestly threw me off for some reason and I put the book down for a total of two days to recover from that whiplash.
Kemmerer helped me recover easily though because as soon as I picked it up I finished it within the hour.
I really liked the dynamic between Charlotte and Thomas. There's always something about a bad boy and an innocent girl that draws people in. Forbidden relationships are my forte apparently. Oh, the teenage angst!

The only downside to this novel is the fact that it ended abruptly with no plans for a sequel. I had more than a few questions that needed to be answered that weren't and I'm quite upset about it! I need more. 

Book Review: The Antidote by Shelley Sackier

Synopsis: 

Fee is harboring a horrible secret. She has certain abilities that have been outlawed for years.

After an illness swept through Fee's homeland, Fireli, was quarantined for 10 years. They finally get to meet with their neighboring kingdom but things don't go as planned.

Fee, her best friend Xavi, and her betrothed Rye are thrown into a battle that started years ago with Fee's parents. In order to save Xavi, Fee must come to terms with who she really is and unleash what she's been hiding all these years.

Thoughts:
This was a quick read for me. The chapters are the perfect length the font is the perfect size to me. I love books like this because I feel like I get through them quicker. The plot of the story definitely helped with that as well.

Quickly we see Fee and Xavi are best friends. I loved their dynamic and the fact that it wasn't a romantic one added to it. Although some may agree Xavi is more suited for Fee than Rye is, I think you'll come around as you finish up the book. I did want to throttle him a few times but you can't blame the poor soul. He was horribly mislead and went on what information he was given at the time. The romance isn't all up in your face nor does it feel like it's forced which is always a plus for me.

I do feel as if this book could have been more fleshed out. I would have liked to see more of some of the characters because they were important to the development of the story but I didn't see as much of them as I wasn't to. I also believe the world-building could have been written better as it had a lot of potential but what we were given is sufficient enough.

Friendship and love and bravery are core concepts in this novel. I loved it!

Book Review: The Missing Years by Lexie Elliott

Synopsis:
An eerie, old Scottish manor in the middle of nowhere that’s now hers.

Ailsa Calder has inherited half of a house. The other half belongs to a man who disappeared without a trace twenty-seven years ago—her father.
Leaving London behind to settle the inheritance from her mother’s estate, Ailsa returns to her childhood home, nestled amongst the craggy peaks of the Scottish Highlands, joined by the half-sister who’s almost a stranger to her.
Ailsa can’t escape the claustrophobic feeling that the house itself is watching her—as if her past hungers to consume her. She also can’t ignore how the neighbourhood animals refuse to set one foot within the gates of the garden.
When the first nighttime intruder shows up, Ailsa fears that the manor’s careless rugged beauty could cost her everything.

Thoughts: 

If you're anything like me, you've been getting tired of the same old suspense books that authors seem to be doling out like no other. I requested a review copy of this book solely based on the fact that it centers around a massive house in the Scottish countryside. I didn't expect much from it, but I was pleasantly surprised. This novel has its way of delivering a slow and steady creeping feeling. It makes you question whether the bump you heard in the night really was just a bump. 

In addition to the creepy house, Ailsa has to deal with the fact that when she was a young girl her father disappeared. It left her with questions that she has no idea will ever be answered. On top of that, she feels like the house is against her as well as having the feeling that everyone has something to hide in her old hometown. 

The scenery is beautifully Gothic. The characters are a somber cast which aids the novel along wonderfully and sets the mood well. Add in the Scottish dialogue and you've got a book that transplants you right in the middle of Scotland.

Everything ties up well in the end but during your read Elliott only gives away half of what you need. Guaranteed to make you ask questions, guaranteed to make you turn the pages the find the answers to those questions. 

I was thoroughly surprised at the end and I didn't guess anything at all. I'm usually good at figuring out what's going on in these types of books but I honestly had no clue whatsoever. Anything you think you know is called into question as soon as you think it. 
Are you and Ailsa both going crazy, or are things really as they seem?

Definitely a book I'm recommending. Read it! 

You can pre-order it on Amazon here.

Book Review: Before I Disappear by Danielle Stinson

I'm not crying...you're crying!

Before I Disappear is marketed as Arrival meets A Wrinkle in Time. I've never Arrival nor have I ever read A Wrinkle in Time, so I went into this novel pretty blind.

Rose Montgomery has had a hard life. After their latest setback, her, her brother Charlie, and her mother find themselves in Fort Glory, Oregon.
Rose's goal is to make a better life for her younger brother and her mother. Before she knows it, everything is flip-turned upside down and Fort Glory seems to be gone. Poof, into thin air. Taking Charlie and her mother along with it.

Rose finds herself trapped in The Fold with four others who have to rely on each other to figure out how to survive. The Fold is a 30 mild wooded area hell-bent on killing them if they're not careful.

The whole time they're separated Charlie is sending Rose signals that help pave the way to save the group and their whole town.

I love the characters. Rose is amazingly grown up for her age due to the circumstance that led Rose and her family to Fort Glory. She's strong and resilient and hard-working. There's no one she cares about more than Charlie. Charlie is a wonder and he's selfless and it's not hard to see why Rose goes through everything she does to get him back.

There's a small relationship that blossoms between Rose and another character and I like the way Stinson wrote it in. It isn't the main plot of the story but it helps the story along. It's subtle and I'm all about subtle. Romance that's too in your face isn't for me so I really appreciated this aspect of the novel!

If sci-fi isn't your thing, take a leap of faith because it's not mine either and I still enjoyed this one quite a bit. Stinson focuses more on the driving forces of life like love and longing instead of making it all about sci-fi.

The Expedition (The Initiation #2) by Chris Babu

The Expedition (The Initiation #2) by Chris Babu

The Good:

- I really like the characters of this book. They're all unique in their own way and they have their strengths and weaknesses as well. In order to survive, they all have to work together. Where one falls short with their weaknesses, another picks up with their strengths. It really creates a bond between the groups that gradually grows on you.

-I read The Initiation and The Expedition back to back so I didn't need much of a recap but it was there for others who may not have read the first book. I'd say it's much easier to make sense of the second one if you know everything that happened in the first, but from Babu's recapping it's not completely necessary. I do recommend the first book, though. It's amazing!

-The group centers around teenagers who are just now getting a feel of the real world. There's love, betrayal, confusion, loss, gains. The story feels fleshed out due to this. The way the characters are exploring their world along with their newfound feelings on love and relationships makes it a great read. You can really connect with the characters because you can look back on when you were just starting out with a relationship and can recognize some of the errors you may have faced as well.

-The scenery! The kids are exploring a brand new world outside of their cut off civilization. The world-building is amazing due to the fact that some 90% of the population has died. Babu writes that the world is lush with greenery and animals you normally wouldn't find in a bustling city roaming around on highways due to Mother Nature's regrowth.

-There's so much humor within the story! Seeing as this is a group of teenagers embarked on a seemingly impossible mission, they rise above and beyond while still maintaining their sanity while they're at it. The bickering and short one liners are what make the story.

-There's a plot twist! I live for those, and I'm excited to see what pans out in the next book! Threw me for the biggest loop.

The Bad:

- I really wanted to yell at Drayden and tell him to stop being so MEHHHH. He aggravated me with all of his internal struggling. I wanted to shake him and tell him who he is and what he's capable of. He went back and forth between who he wants to be and who he really is so bad it started grating on my nerves. I understand that becoming who you are and getting there is a challenge and Babu really showed the internal struggle a lot of people have. So it's not a negative per se, but I needed Drayden to know he doesn't have to be anyone other than himself because he is enough.

The Gilded Wolves by Roshani Chokshi

It's Paris in 1899. The Tower of Babel fell long ago and the fragments from it gives some people the ability to Forge.

Where there used to be four houses, only two remain: House Vanth and House Nyx.

Séverin is the rejected heir of House Vanth who's main mission is to restore his inheritance.
Hypnos is the House Nyx patriarch who also happens to be Séverin's childhood rival. He knows what Séverin is after and offers his help under one condition: Séverin recovers an artifact called the Horus Eye. The Horus Eye can locate Babel fragment.

Séverin won't be alone in his mission. Joined by his brother Tristan, Zofia who's an engineer, Enrique, a historian who also happens to be bi-sexual, and Laila, an Asian Indian dancer.

I haven't read any other books by Roshani, but I've seen praise. If her other books are written anything like The Gilded Wolves, I can easily see why.

There's something I enjoy about reading novels set in France. I feel like everything is 10x prettier in description. But Roshani has the ability to forge beauty out of death and you'll find yourself transported to the catacombs of Paris during the group's race to the Horus Eye.

One of the main things I really appreciated about The Gilded Wolves was how intricate it was. There are so many puzzles the group have to pull together to figure out how to advance to the next part of their plan. The way they all use their individual gifts and come together to help one another was beautifully well-written.

A+ for a bi-sexual representation along with a great diverse cast as well! The romance was written in a way that felt natural and not all in your face. I was rooting for the love that was slowly blossoming for sure.

Thanks to BookishFirst for allowing me to review this book! You can pre-order it here.

The Night Before by Wendy Walker

Hello readers! Today I'm going to be talking about THE NIGHT BEFORE by Wendy Walker. I was lucky enough to receive an ARC well before its release date, which is in May of this year. 5 months in advance! I call that a major score in the book blogging world! ;)

Walker has a distinct way of hooking you. I was intrigued within the first 15 pages and finished this in two days. I didn't want to put it down, so reading is how I rung in the New Year's!

The story is told in alternating views between Laura (who's missing) and her sister Rosie. Laura doesn't come home after a date and instantly Rosie is on high alert. What follows is a whirlwind of a search with more than a few twists and turns you won't see coming. When I caught my footing and thought I knew what was going on, Walker managed to sweep them out from underneath me with the next big revelation she had about one of our characters. This is a heck of a ride, and one I'm glad I got on.

Our characters have all been intertwined in each other's lives since they were children. They all thought they knew each other inside and out. What happens when that facade begins to crack and the biggest revelation of all is finally out? All of their lives are inevitably changed. You won't want to miss out on this one.

Watching You by Lisa Jewell

Watching You by Lisa Jewell is chalk-full of suspense and has a twist at every turn. No one in Melville Heights is 100% who they say they are and they all have their own fair share of secrets that are hell-bent on getting out one way or the other.
I haven't read any of her other novels but I think I need to remedy that, and quick!

Joey, one of the central main characters, has just arrived in Melville Heights to stay with her brother and his wife until her and Alfie, her hubby she brought back from living abroad in Ibiza, can get on their own two feet.

Joey's felt like she's been lacking something her whole life but when she meets her next door neighbor who seems perfect to her in every way, her life gets twisted in ways she never could have imagined.

There are quite a few elements to this novel I like. The first being how perfect everything looks in the character's lives until slowly the facade begins to crack with every turn of the page. It's slow and methodical and Jewell really knows how to get us in the grips of suspense. The short chapters added to my ability to keep turning the pages, each chapter a slight cliff-hanger leaving me wanting more and more.

A second thing I liked was how the novel is told. Alternating voices between a decent amount of characters while somehow managing to give them all their own stories and flesh them out so they don't seem hollow is amazing to me. In 324 pages Jewell managed to give me everything I didn't even know I wanted in a novel all wrapped up in a bow. The incorporation of police transcripts of interviews done with some of the characters are thrown in sporadically was well-executed and I thought they were a good addition to the novel. This is a novel that switches between the present and the past but I promise it's not hard to follow in the least.

You can buy the book here!

 

Mythicals by Dennis Meredith

This was a pretty unique book. I feel like I've been picking a lot of those up recently and I am not disappointed at all. This was definitely a fresh breath of air from reading what's considered "popular."

Blurb: 

What if fairies, pixies, vampires, werewolves and ogres weren’t just legends—but real-life creatures living in disguise among the natives! And what if they decided those natives were ruining their planet’s ecology, and should be driven extinct?
In this riveting scifi/fairy tale, our hero joins with fairies, pixies, and other sympathizers in a fight to save the planet from the Mythicals, as well as the mysterious alien group called the Pilgrims, who have their own nefarious plans for the future of the world.
MYTHICALS is a rousing sci-fi fantasy where mythological and fairy tale creatures are not only real; they’re on a mission to make the planet their own.

Review:

Unique, intriguing, spell-binding. These are the first three words that come to mind when I started writing this review. I'd say they pretty much cover my feelings on MYTHICALS. Meredith has such a big imagination and that is what brought this amazing story to life. It's unlike anything I've ever read before and I appreciate the fact that I've gotten the chance to read it.

A thing I really enjoyed was the fact that the cast was so diverse. There's humans, fairies, pixies, trolls, vampires, even Bigfoot was included in this. They all have distinct voices and mannerisms and I adore how well thought out each individual species was.

Another thing I loved was the fact that the romance between Jack, our main character, and Sam, a pixie wasn't rushed or the main plot of the story. It's something that enhanced the book, not something that managed to overtake the actual plot which I think is a great quality to have in a writer.

A third thing I have to bring up is the fact that Meredith challenges us in his upcoming book. It weirdly parallels how we live and view different cultures even if it is about mythical creatures. A lot of tough issues are tackled like sexuality, global warming, politics among other topics heavily debated.

Don't expect a PG book if you're picking this one up either. It's for people with a sense of humor who can laugh at crude jokes and take minor explicit scenes with a grain of salt. None of it was overly explicit but it's definitely not a book for children.

Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones by Micah Dean Hicks

Have you ever finished a book and after you finished it you had to sit it down and take a deep breath? Yeah, that was me with Break the Bodies, Haunt the Bones.
It's a book unlike any other I've ever read before in my life.

The story centers around Jane, her brother Henry, her mom, dad, her boyfriend, an invasion of pig people, and ghosts.
The ghost that haunts Henry has the ability to make things unlike anyone has ever seen. Henry's latest experiment was the pig people. He actually managed to make walking, talking pigs.
Because they're different, this causes tension between the townsfolk and the ghosts feed off of it.

I don't know how to explain it other than to say that this book is heavy. Heavy on both my heart and my mind. An overall theme is "feelings" and my oh my are there so many of them. And you feel all of the feelings our characters are feeling right along with them. It's hard not to.
Hicks has the ability to pluck your heart out of your chest. He did with me during so many scenes in this book.
So many times I wanted to reach in and give some sort of comfort to Jane or Henry or the pig people. I even felt bad for the ghosts.

If you're looking for a book that's "different" because you're tired of the same old recycled ideas, pick this one up. At first you'll wonder how in the world you came to hold the book in your hands, then realize it's what you needed all along.

You can purchase the book from Amazon here.
Find out more about the author here.