Category: Young Adult Fantasy
Keywords: Fantasy, romance, competition, assassins, spirits
Format: Hardcover, eBook
Source: e-ARC received from
NetgalleySynopsis: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 king's 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.
Alethea's review: I did not expect reading
Throne of Glass to be so laborious; I expected I'd fly through it like I did Robin LaFevers's
Grave Mercy, or Leigh Bardugo's
Shadow & Bone. Not so. It's not difficult reading in terms of language or complexity; it's more that I had trouble suspending my disbelief. This all stems from the most basic premise of the book: The King needs a champion; therefore the sponsors select as their candidates the meanest, baddest, scariest killers and sneakiest thieves in the land. Wait,
what?
The entire time I kept asking, wouldn't it have been more believable to have the sponsors select the most shining paragons of valor and heroism from their military personnel and private bodyguards? So you could, you know, have them be in the same room as the King or Crown Prince or important people you don't want dead
without having to slap the heavy duty chains or hiding all the silver? Why choose people least likely to honor a contract?
If you really had such a great military already that the infamous Adarlan's Assassin won't bother running away because you could easily hunt her down, why do you need her to try to win this contest? Just hire the guy she's afraid of and send her back to the salt mines already!
Not talking specifically about any one candidate, I get that a true champion might not be willing to overlook morality in favor of a nice fat paycheck for doing the King's dirty business. But I also don't understand how the King might think it's a good idea to let loose upon the land an unscrupulous rogue who
might have reason to disagree with the King's own politics, since some of the people vying for the position hail from countries he very recently conquered? In my mind, the King was the villain of the piece from the get-go, and he could have been craftier about selecting a champion. Why not rope some honorable and respected warrior into the job by letting him think he's really defending his king and country, then corrupt him with wealth and power or threats against the people he loves? For most of the book, I could not shake how backwards it all was in my mind. I couldn't justify people's motives and that made for a very slow, torturous read (with lots of breaks to go play with my new kitten, who has claws like freshly sharpened knives).
This book is not entirely without merit. Some of the secondary characters are well drawn and even likeable. I really enjoyed Celeana's friendship with another female who is, like herself, an outsider. The love triangle develops gradually enough not to be jarring, though Celeana mooning over Crown Prince Dorian still had me rolling my eyes often. I think fans who are new to fantasy and have not already read lots of it will really enjoy this book. Inexperienced noobs, you win this round.
Overall, I found the story derivative and not terribly well-plotted. I don't think the elements that I deemed derivative were intentionally copied; I just think the author is very much a fan of fantasy and that her debut ended up reading like a big fanfic mashup of some of my favorite fantasy worlds. I felt that Maas was pandering to her audience too much with Celeana and Dorian's book addiction. Also, if someone can please tell me the significance of the title, I'd dearly love to know what it was. It took me a week to read this book and that little bit of trivia still managed to elude me. While I wasn't completely disappointed,
Throne of Glass was still quite a let-down, and I hesitate to read the sequel.
*I received this book free of charge from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. This, in no way, affected my opinion or review of this book.
Visit the author online at www.sarahjmaas.com and follow her on Twitter @SJMaas*FTC disclosure: I participate in the BookDepository affiliate program. Clicking on the link and making a purchase may result in revenue for this blog. I also participate in Indiebound, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble affiliate programs but the links from this post do not contain my affiliate code.
ISBN 10/13: 1599905280 | 9781599905280
Category: Young Adult Realistic Fiction
Keywords: Sailing, Friendship, Boyfriends, Summer
Format: Hardcover, eBook
Source: e-ARC received from Netgalley
Jacket copy:
Sophomore year broke Clementine Williams’ heart. She fell for her best friend’s boyfriend and long story short: he’s excused, but Clem is vilified and she heads into summer with zero social life.
Enter her parents’ plan to spend the summer on their sailboat. Normally the idea of being stuck on a tiny boat with her parents and little sister would make Clem break out in hives, but floating away sounds pretty good right now.
Then she meets James at one of their first stops along the river. He and his dad are sailing for the summer and he’s just the distraction Clem needs. Can he break down Clem’s walls and heal her broken heart?
Told in alternating chapters that chronicle the year that broke Clem’s heart and the summer that healed it, Unbreak My Heart is a wonderful dual love story that fans of Sarah Dessen, Deb Caletti, and Susane Colasanti will flock to.
Kimberly's Review:Clementine's summer is not going as she planned. She lost her best friend, by doing something that wasn't so nice, and is now on a summer sailing trip with her family. Isolated from everyone and everything she knew, Clementine tries to learn from her mistakes, open her heart to the future and start the road to forgiveness, including herself.
The story jumps back and forth between the present day when Clem is on the boat with her family during the summer, and her memories of her life back home. She recounts how her and her best friend Amanda were insepera
Category: Children’s Picture Book
Keywords: Picture book, children’s, adventure, imagination, animals
Format: Hardcover
Thuy's Review:
Those of you who know me in real life will not be surprised that I picked up this book. For those who don’t know me, let me confess that I have a slight obsession with pugs. I don’t know what it is about them that I love so much. They’re kind of weird looking and they make strange sounds but their little faces are just too adorable and I can’t help but squee every time I see one. When I saw the cover to
Chick ‘n’ Pug at my local library, I just knew it had to come home with me.
Chick ‘n’ Pug is the story of Chick, a young chicken who longs for adventure. Life in the coop isn’t very exciting but he entertains himself by reading his favorite book,
The Adventures of Wonder Pug. One day Chick escapes from the coop looking for his own adventures and runs into his very own Wonder Pug! Chick tries to engage Wonder Pug in his quest for adventure. However, this Wonder Pug has his own ideas about how he wants to spend his afternoon and he sleeps through most of Chick’s attempts at adventure. Chick finally declares himself Wonder Pug’s sidekick to create some adventure of his own.
This is a really fun story that the whole family will enjoy. Funny and cute, it would be great for really young children (or pug-obsessed adults like me).
Chick ‘n’ Pug is also filled with adorable illustrations. The facial expressi
ISBN 10/13: 0802722849 | 9780802722843
Category: Young Adult Paranormal Romance
Keywords: Vampires, Politics, Romance, Fiction
Format: ebook, Hardcover, Paperback
Kimberly's review:
Well, hell. Another fantastic installment in the Drake Chronicles series. In this story, we follow young Christabel, Lucy's cousin that has come to live with her. Christabel is a girl after my own heart. She reads, reads, reads. She's fun, strong and mostly a loner. Don't get her wrong, she likes Connor Drake. He's nice, and sweet and an overall good guy. But she's not interested in him. She likes the bad boys, you know? And Connor isn't a bad boy. Is he?
Once she's kidnapped, accidentally mistaken for her cousin Lucy, she is thrown into the Drake vampire politics and find out why the mysterious Drake brothers are the way they are. And why her cousin Lucy acts so weird...
I loved how Christabel was thrown into this world. Circumstances beyond her control wheeled her in and now she's playing catch up! I really liked her sense of humor and fearlessness. I enjoyed her murmuring poetry when she was nervous. She's a wonderful character. And of course the
By: alethea aka frootjoos,
on 3/5/2012
Blog:
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ISBN 10/13: 0802720749 | 9780802720740
Category: Young Adult Paranormal
Keywords: Vampire, Romance, Fiction
Format: ebook, Hardcover, Paperback, Audio CD
From Goodreads:
On Solange’s sixteenth birthday, she is going to wake up dead. As if that’s not bad enough, she also has to outwit her seven overprotective older brothers, avoid the politics involved with being the only daughter born to an ancient vampire dynasty, and elude Kieran Black—agent of an anti-vampire league who is searching for his father’s killer and is intent on staking Solange and her entire family.
Luckily she has her own secret weapon—her human best friend Lucy—who is willing to defend Solange’s right to a normal life, whether she’s being smothered by her well-intentioned brothers or abducted by a power-hungry queen. Two unlikely alliances are formed in a race to save Solange’s eternal life—Lucy and Solange’s brother Nicholas, and Solange and Kieran Black—in a dual romance that
I agree with everything you said, and then some. The only thing I can think of is that glass castle they keep talking about..
I'm glad I'm not the only one who rolled their eyes a lot and took a lot of breaks. Definitely wasn't what I was expecting out of this one.
Oh no! Thanks for the review Alethea! It is on my To Read list. Maybe I'll read a few other things first before rolling around to this one. Sorry you didn't like it!
i really want to read this one, too. i love assassins! but i've been on a streak of so-so reads lately so i might save this one for later just in case.
This makes me very sad because I've heard really great things about it! I think I still might read it but this review is making me think that maybe I'll wait a little while longer. Thanks for sharing :)
You know, if anything read it sooner so we can discuss, haha!
That's exactly it, Kristen! I was kind of expecting the title to mean something or be tied into the plot... If there is meaning, it's not communicated well. Sad trombone.
I'd say wait until you have a block of time to devote and see if you get hooked in more than me. If you're not hooked by p. 50, it's time to read another book.
Some readers really enjoyed it! I'm a bit jealous, actually. I wanted to like it.
If anything, read it sooner so we can talk about it, haha!
yeah i'll give it a go for sure. um someone needs to read dark companion so we can discuss. i haven't managed to convince anyone to finish it yet.
LOL! I think I have it; I'll give it a go.
The title comes from the last chapter, I think. When she goes off to sign her contract, and she "approached the glass throne" or something like that.
I agree with you in some aspects, especially your reasoning. But still I found it good. Great review!
AWWW. I have heard mixed reviews for this one--I guess it's a love it or hate it book. I have an ARC of this and I was trying to decide if I wanted to read it or not.
Hey, if you can get to page 50 without rolling your eyes more than twice, you should be ok ;)
Hi Vicky! I know, but usually the title is referring to something symbolic of what the book is about, but it's not a symbol if it doesn't mean anything, haha. It's just an actual throne of glass. Boring!
Most of the reviews I've read for this book have been very good. It's always good to read one that goes in a different direction. Great review, I'm still intrigued with this book and can't wait to see how I will feel about it
Hi Jolene! I'd love to hear what you think. Feel free to reply here!
so i am really close to finishing this now. i like it a lot more than you. and i get what you're saying about hiring the noble warriors to be your champions though i have to disagree. i think to win, you sometimes need those who are ruthless and who will play dirty. but i do have issues with the how the tournament was set up in general. i should finish it tonight. we shall discuss.