Jude is worthy of a MCM!

Clash by Nicole Williams

What emotions should a reader expect to experience while reading a good book?  Well it depends on what type of book it is, but for a good young adult/new adult book, I expect to laugh, maybe not out loud, but a small chuckle when a character says or does something in character that is funny, or you think “Oh, that Jude, he’s always finding himself in trouble.”

I also expect to be upset at one point.  One of the characters is going to do something that is upsetting, like find them in a hard to explain situation, for Jude that seems to always include another girl.  And the characters usually need a good sit down conversation where both parties are open and honest and trust what the other person is saying.  This does not always happen and that is usually where I get upset.  I’m thinking, please just sit down and explain yourself a little more openly and this mess wouldn’t be happening.  With Clash, I was upset with Lucy because she just kept getting in the way of the best relationship in her life.  I was upset.

I don’t always expect to cry, but if a book brings tears, it goes way up on the list of books that I enjoy.  I think when characters are so ingrained in you that you cry over the situation that is not really happening, but you feel it so deep within yourself to shed tears, that equals a good book to me.  I cried in Clash.  While Williams was explaining the looks on Jude’s face and the emotion that Lucy could see or hear in his voice.  I felt it.  I wanted to slap Lucy and hug Jude pretty much this whole book. 

I immediately started reading Clash after I finished Crash.  Both books were fast paced and easy to read.  I enjoy the characters and even the secondary characters like India (Lucy’s roommate) and Tony (the receiver that plays football with Jude).  I love the intimate moments between Jude and Lucy where we get to see their conversations and struggles within their relationship.  I also love that Lucy’s family is coming around.  It sounds like her dad is getting better and her mom is less “Ice Queen-ish” than in Crash.

Even though dancing is a huge aspect in Lucy’s life, I feel like we know more about Jude’s football than Lucy’s dancing.  She talks about it and says she went and practiced, but I just wonder if there should be more about what it means to Lucy, I just feel like it’s an afterthought and I felt like that in Crash as well.  My best friend was a dancer and everything about her screamed dance from the way she carried herself to how she walked, to how she talked about dance, every example from life could be brought back to dance.  All that to say, I think I figured out what I was missing in between Crash and Clash with the dancing theme feeling lost.  I wonder if we heard a chapter from Jude’s perspective if we would see more of who Lucy is as a dancer since Lucy obviously wouldn’t tell us how she walks, etc.

So, I liked it.  I can’t wait to jump right into Crush and see how this whirlwind ends up.  I’ll keep you posted!

Keep Reading my Friends!

Onyx- Not such a good Rock to have around

Onyx (A Lux Novel, Book Two) by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Spoilers from Obsidian, book one!

I know this is a separate book from Obsidian, but without even pausing, I picked Onyx up directly after finishing Obsidian, because I couldn’t wait to see what was going to happen next.  Obsidian left us with Katy walking right out of Daemon’s arms, she blames their freaky alien connection from Daemon healing Katy for his new found feelings.  Daemon healed Katy after she killed her second Arum by actually tapping into Daemon’s powers and striking that evil alien scum down, but she also almost lost her life in the process.  But I digress.  The point is, that I think I loved book the Onyx even more than I loved the book Obsidian.  Obsidian did a great job of introducing the characters, the premise of what’s going on and of course it gives us Daemon Black.  Onyx expands the story and shows us a little bigger picture of what is really going on with the Department of Defense.  What the Blacks have believed all of their lives is what the Luxen elders have told them, now through the help of the new kid in school, Blake they are learning more and more about what the DOD is really after.  So, what are they really after?  I think I will let you read the Onyx to find out.

I love the names of the Lux Series.  The different kinds of rocks and what they can be used for in this new alien world that Katy has stumbled into is absolutely genius.  Armentrout leads us into this foreign world that she has created and makes us fall head over heels in love with the Blacks.

This book has some steamy scenes and all throughout the book I am longing for Daemon and Katy to get over the hurtles set in front of them and finally be together.  Of course you know what that means, in walks the love triangle, Blake.  He’s the new, drool worthy, boy in school and he focuses his attention on Katy much to my dislike and also to the chagrin of Daemon.  You can see the jealousy rolling off of him and it makes me like his character even more.  Daemon doesn’t like Blake or trust him from the first time he sees him.  Katy needs him to help her through this new life that she is being introduced to.  And also, she just wants to have a normal date with a normal boy, is that too much to ask?  Poor Katy, I think that it is too much to ask because Blake is just like Katy, a mutated human.  He also was healed by a Luxen and has absorbed powers and learned to use them. 

I loved the ending to this book, I cannot wait to read Opal, so I probably won’t.  This series so far is worthy of a read and I hope that you will read it soon!  Keep Reading my friends!   

One Choice Can Transform You

Divergent by Veronica Roth

Divergent, a curse, a secret.  No one wants to be Divergent and no one wants them to be around.  It’s a death sentence.  Beatrice Prior has never heard of the term until she is labeled Divergent after she is prone to 3 of the 5 factions that rule her world. 

This has got to be one of the best books I have ever read.  The first two chapters were hard to get into, but after our heroine Beatrice Prior wakes up from her test, it picks up the pace and is like the train that moves throughout their city.  I loved Tris.  I loved her inner struggle throughout hiding who she is and also trying to figure it out at the same time.

I love Four.  I have a major book crush, even though his character is secretive and mysterious, he is major crushable.  I loved Four and Tris’ interactions during training and his strong character to protect her.  They have these moments that are incredibly written and wonderfully forbidden and sigh worthy. 

I loved the training month.  I loved that Tris has found friends in her new Faction like she has never had before.  I love how the training changes her and she becomes more Dauntless every day.  With addition of tattoos and changes in her behavior the audience gets to see her grow from the Abnegation “Stiff” that she grew up being to the hard fighting, brave Dauntless champion.  I love that even though she didn’t do great in the first round, she dominated round 2 and 3.  I loved that she jumped off the building first and that Four noticed her from the very beginning.  I can’t wait to hear more about his story and even hear it in his own voice. 

So, as you have noticed, I loved this book, I don't want to give any spoilers, the characters are unique, they are well developed and the story is addictive.  I would recommend this book to all ages and reading levels.  It's excellent on so many levels.  The author is also a Christian, so buy her book to keep money in the family!

The movie comes out in March and I can’t wait.  I hope they do it justice.  Until next time, Keep Reading my Friends!

The First Man Crush Monday Blog, Daemon Black!

Obsidian by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Let’s talk about “Man Crush Monday,” shall we.  I’m not sure that I can consistently complete a weekly blog where I talk about the best written, swoonable book guys, but I’m going to try.  I have to clarify here that these are my fictional crushes, and therefor not real, but I only have one real MCM and that is every day not just Mondays, which of course is the love of my life, my husband, Simon.  So back to the fiction, let’s start with Daemon Black.  Daemon is the bad boy example of a MCM.  He has the dark hair and the dark look with the penetrating eyes that has Katy ready to slap him and kiss him all at the same time.  Of course he can’t be bad boy 24/7, we start to see the cracks in his hard, muscled exterior pretty quickly as he gets closer to Katy while trying to protect his sister.  Daemon has all the great qualities of a bad boy, from the protective big brother, the rescuer from all things evil, and the smart mouth that has the reader giggling.  Daemon is MCM worthy, probably for more than just one week.    

I loved this book.  Correction, I LOVED THIS BOOK!  I know that a book is going to receive 5 stars on good reads, when I can’t put it down, that was Obsidian.  I started reading it Wednesday night and finished it Friday night with working eight hours, commuting about an hour, and still completing my wifely duties of cooking, but probably not cleaning (because I was reading).

Obsidian is about a girl named Katy that moves from sunny Florida to small town West Virginia after she and her mother could not move past her father’s death three years previous.  As she tries to find a grocery store, who shows up?  The “can’t believe he’s that hot” neighbor and his twin sister, but this book would be totally boring without a huge plot twist.  Within the first day of her arrival she sees the missing poster of a girl her age along with the creepy men in black that seem to lurk around the town and she knows that something is different about this town.  Katy also realizes that there is something different about her new neighbors.  She loves Dee, the sweet sister that is soon becoming Katy’s best friend, but she cannot stand Daemon, Dee’s cocky, arrogant, quick witted twin brother.  But she also can’t stop thinking about him either.  Well I can’t go into a lot of details because this book is so fun to read, you’ll just have to jump in and read it yourself to see what is going on, once I picked it up I couldn’t put it down, I hope you feel the same.

So, I have to say that I loved Katy, what an excellent lead character.  Her pain was so real from her father’s death, her unwillingness to start over in a new town and to make friends was tangible.  I hated the move for her.  I also loved Daemon, what an excellent antagonist.  I mean that in every sense of the word, he pushes Katy’s buttons from day one and his smart-alecky attitude and his arrogance make me love him even more.  Even though Katy has this anger in her heart against him, we all know that she is hot for him.  I also love that you can feel the tension between Katy and Daemon from the very beginning.  He wants to hate her, and she can’t stand him, but you can feel the yearning right under the current of the story. 

So, I have mention the great big pink elephant in the book, so beware: Spoiler Alert!!! 

Aliens, who doesn’t love a good sci-fi young adult novel?  I’m not sure, maybe idiots… just kidding, probably people who don’t like the paranormal, but that is not me.  I am always up for some hot alien action.  I loved how Armentrout invented what the alien’s true selves looked like.  I loved the picture of light vs. dark with the Luxen being the embodiment of light and the dark shadowy character of the Arum being the inky shadows lurking in the dark.  The Arum is the alien race that is out to kill the Luxen to take their powers.  Did I mention that Daemon and Dee along with their other alien friends have powers?  Of course I can’t leave our that the American government knows all about the Alien race and their seems to be more about the Department of Defense lurking in the background that I am sure we are going to hear a lot more about in books to come.

Well, not sure what else to say, except, this book is action packed, romance/hate filled and once you start, you can’t stop reading this book.  So, do it!  Keep Reading my Friends!

I Hate Spinnerbait!

This Lullaby by Sarah Dessen

I challenge you to read this book.  Ok, so only if you have read the book would you understand my sentence about taking a challenge.  I enjoy Dessen’s books so much.  Each character is absolutely wonderful.  She makes each story that I’ve read stand out and is wonderfully different yet has strains of the same within each of her books.

This Lullaby is about a girl named Remy who has one summer before she goes off and starts her new and very own life now that she has graduated high school.  She has big plans, to be single and have fun with her friends and live it up, while trying to be a better person.  But of course, the boy of our book fantasy dreams walks in and messes all of it up.  The only problem is that Remy likes it and she loves hanging out with Dexter, she just doesn’t understand where all of these new found feelings are coming from since it’s not like Remy to get attached and she also doesn’t date boys in bands.

I like the Beetles theme that kept popping up.  First with the drummer’s nick name in the first 8 or so chapters was Ringo in Remy’s mind and then when Remy’s mom was finishing her novel she played the Beetle’s loud and proud.     

This is not my favorite Dessen novel thus far.  It was sweet and I did like the theme of the Lullaby throughout the novel.  Remy’s character was a little different from other Dessen characters.  She had this hard façade and she always called herself a hard cold B. Actually out of all the novels I’ve read of hers, she uses a lot more language and gives the persona of an easy or slutty character. 

I only gave this book 3 stars on Good Reads because I didn’t enjoy the ending to the book.  I like to read at least a chapter of the love interests to be together and see them together.  We got 2 sentences of, “I’ll see you after we have all these gigs.” 

It’s a story of bad girl meets good guy and when the bad girl stays true to character she ruins it all.  This book is not a waste of time but Dessen has better books out there, enjoy them all!  Keep Reading my Friends!

Disasters Welcome Here!

Walking Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Who has two thumbs and loves the same book from a different character’s point of view?  This girl!  I love when I fall in love with characters and then I get to see them from a whole different angle.  I’m having a hard time starting another book since I finished this book (it’s been less than 24 hours), but my heart belongs to Pigeon and of course Travis.  I also loved the best friends, America and Shepley, what wonderful friends.  I loved how scared Shep was that he was going to lose America because of his crazy cousin Travis and that he was so in love with her and he wouldn’t let anything come between them, even Travis’ happiness. 

I love Travis, isn’t he wonderful?  Who’s Team Travis?  I guess there are no reason for teams since there is no love triangle, but there should be teams and we should have cheers for Travis because he is so cool.  Bad boy exterior, soft loving heart, he makes all reading girls swoon!  No one should like him as a character, but Abby brings out the good guy in Travis so it’s easy to like him and all readers fall for him.

So, the question we are all asking is, what was different between Beautiful and Walking (Disaster)?  Great question, here are a few of my opinions, first of all I loved seeing inside Travis’ head, there weren’t any surprises, but I loved that he spent more time with his family than we knew about.  So sweet.  It was also sweet to see how much he loved Abby Abernathy and that he truly never gave up on their love.  While in Abby’s Point of View we just knew that he was up to his old habits during their time apart, that he was drowning his sorrows (which happened to be true) and sleeping with every woman that walked by (which did not happen, but was believable). 

Since these books are literally the exact same books (Beautiful Disaster and Walking Disaster) I’m not going into any more detail.  Just download them as soon as humanly possible and read them.  You will not be disappointed, you will actually be mad at me for not recommending them to you sooner! 

One disclaimer, this is not Young Adult Literature, instead it is from the New Adult Genre and is not recommended by me for anyone younger than 17 years old.  Keep Reading my Friends! 

I've only known one Phoenix, his name was Fawkes.

From Ashes by Molly McAdams

From Ashes is a love triangle between Cassidy, the girl with the horrible past, Tyler, the boy that helped her through the horrors and his good looking, mysterious cousin Gage.  A story of love at first sight had some bumps along the road for Cassidy and Gage.  Will love prevail or will Cassi’s troubled past keep her from love forever?

What I did not like, this book started out a crazy great story, but it had huge plot holes, bad communication between characters increased those plot wholes.  There were several instances that were not realistic.  That I couldn’t believe two people in love would just believe or take someone’s word without making sure from the other person.  Tyler made some stupid mistakes and lied to both Cassi and Gage. But the lies were so dumb and with all of the time that Cassi and Gage were spending together you would think that Cassi would have asked why he hated her living with the guys so much, etc.  There were some unnecessary characters and story lines that did nothing for taking the story forward or developing the characters.  This of course is my opinion, so take it or leave it.  I absolutely hated the story with Conner Green and though it was dumb and not necessary.  Even with these dislikes, I really liked the book.  I gave From Ashes 3 out of 5 stars on Good Reads. While I'm at it, follow me on Good Reads!    

What I did like, was the story.  It was fun and the love story was good.  I enjoyed Gage’s character and enjoyed the story when it was from his point of view.  I also like the phoenix and the “from ashes” idea from the story.  I liked that her mom changed in the end and that there was a good part of her before she died.  I loved Gage’s big family and especially his mama.  I loved the house he built and how forward thinking he was at such a young age.  If you have not known someone like that it’s hard to imagine, but I have known people that have always known what they wanted to do where they wanted to live and they have achieved these goals.  So this is easy for me to comprehend.  Have you ever known anyone like this?  Both of my brothers are in a way like this, they have both known that they wanted stay in the city they were born in and on the most part have known what they wanted to do for a living and pretty much have known the course of their lives or have made their own dreams come true. 

I would recommend this book to my 17 and older audience, but to anyone younger than that, there are plenty of other books on my blog for you to read.  This is not a young adult book, but rather from the New Adult genre and is not suitable for teenagers.  There are some graphic scenes and some things that are talked about that would not be ok for younger audiences.

I want to read another book From Molly McAdams, I enjoyed her characters and look forward to more from her.  Thanks for stopping by and Keep Reading my Friends!