Winner of YA Giveaway Hop

Thanks to everyone who participated in the YA Giveaway Hop!

The winner was Sarah from Inklings Read

There were 307 entries and the winner was chosen using random.org.

Early Review - The Nightmare Garden (The Iron Codex, Book 2) By Caitlin Kittredge (5/5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Steampunk
Size: 432 pages
Publisher: Delcorte Books for Young Readers
Release Date: February 14, 2012
ISBN: 978-0385738316
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the Iron Codex Trilogy
Source: eBook though Edelweiss
Rating: 5/5 stars

This is the second book in the Iron Codex series by Kittredge. This third book is supposed to be titled, The Mirrored Shard, and from what I could find is scheduled for a late 2012/early 2013 release. I absolutely loved the first book and couldn't wait to read the second. In this book we venture into the Mists and get to meet the secret Brotherhood that Aoife's father was part of. I love the world and the characters created in this series; although I was a little disappointed that Aoife kept making the same mistakes over and over again.

Aoife has destroyed the Great Engine, unintentionally loosing the monsters of the Thorn (faerie lands) into the Iron lands (our world). She is forced to flee into the Mists with her brother, Cal, Dean, and Bethina. Eventually Aoife meets up with her father back in the Iron land. She finally decides that rather than slowly go insane in the Iron land waiting for her father to do something, she is going to take matters into her own hands and try to find the Nightmare Clock. With the Nightmare Clock she should be able to turn back time and mend the world.

I know a lot of people are upset that Aoife makes the same huge mistakes in the second book that she does in the first. In a way though I kind of liked this, it made the story ironic and makes Aoife a perfect tragic heroine of sorts. I love Aoife's blend of toughness, rashness, tenderness, and vulnerability. This blend makes her a very realistic character. The fact that she makes her decisions out of a well-intentioned need to protect those she loves makes the whole story all that more gothic and tragic.

I continue to absolutely love this world. In this book we get to venture deeper into the Mists and deeper into the land of Thorn. We also join the characters on a trip to the Brotherhood's icy and distant headquarters. The worlds are beautifully described and absolutely came alive for me. I was sucked into these worlds and really want to read more about them.

I enjoyed most of the characters as well. There are no simple characters in this story; they all have tragic backgrounds and complicated motives. Dean is another favorite of mine; he continues to be supportive and respective of Aoife in a way that makes me just love him. Cal also continues to be a wonderful addition to the story.

I will say that the story starts to a get a little ambiguous at parts. Especially as Aoife begins to teeter on the edge of insanity again, sometimes it is hard to tell her dreams from her real actions. Some readers may not enjoy this, but I thought it was cleverly done and gives the reader an excellent feel for what Aoife is going through.

The end of the book is heart-rending and ends on a super horrible cliffhanger. It had me dying to know what happens in the final book, The Mirrored Shard.

Overall I absolutely adored this book. I love the dark and gothic steampunk world that the story takes place in. I love Aoife's realistic personality and how she is a tragically flawed heroine. I love the supporting characters. I love the strange and unpredictable shifts in the plot and I love the new worlds we get to explore in this book. I highly recommend this book to steampunk and fantasy fans of all ages.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- 150+ Books Reading Challenge
- Steampunk Reading Challenge

News - The Graveyard Queen Series

Okay so I absolutely adore the The Graveyard Queen series by Amanda Stevens.  I loved the first book, The Restorer, and just finished the second book, The Kingdom, and loved that one as well (review coming early next week).

I almost had a heart attack when I logged onto Netgalley.com tonight and saw that the third book in the trilogy, The Prophet, is on NetGalley.

So if you are a NetGalley.com user and a fan of this series go and grab it!

If you are an urban fantasy/gothic mystery fan why haven't you read this series yet!

  

Early Review - Pure (Pure Trilogy, Book 1) by Julianna Baggott (4/5 stars)

Reading level: Young Adult
Genre: Dystopia/Post-Apocalyptic
Size: 448 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: February 8, 2012
ISBN: 978-1455503063
Stand Alone or Series: 1st in the Pure Trilogy
Source: ARC from Book Expo America
Rating: 4/5 stars

I got an advanced reading copy of this book to review at Book Expo America last summer. I wasn't sure what to expect when reading it. It ended up being a very well done novel; it is intruguing and well written...yet also disturbing and discomforting. The second book will be titled Fuse and is schedule to release later in 2012, the third will be titled The New After and is scheduled for a 2013 release.

When the Detonations went off some people made it into the Dome and others didn't. Pressia is one of the ones who didn't and she now lives with her grandfather in a small shed where she has a cabinet to hide in. As her sixteenth birthday approaches she knows she will be taken unless she escapes. Partridge lives in the Dome but doesn't want to; he thinks his mother is still out there somewhere alive and wants to escape the Dome to find her. When Pressia and Partridge meet up they uncover mysteries behind the Detonations that will change the world as they know it.

This book is told from four viewpoints. Pressia, Partridge, Luna (a girl who is friends with Partridge) and El Captain (an official who ends up entangled with Pressia's story). The viewpoint changes actually work fairly well in this book. Having two viewpoints from people in the Dome and two viewpoints from people outside the Dome makes for an interesting balance in the story.

This is a dark story and as a reader you have to suspend your disbelief for a large part of the story to work. A big part of what happened during the Detonations was that people were merged with things. This is explained away as happening because a mixture of radiation and nanotechnology that was included in the Detonations. I had a lot of trouble with that hand-waving explanation. Let me elaborate...so Pressia has her arm ending in a doll's head because she was holding a doll when the Detonations happened. Bradwell has a flock of birds merged into his back so he forever has birds flapping in his back. Mothers are merged with the children they were holding, the children are part of them and never age. Humans are merged with the Earth, creating monsters called Dusts. Humans are merged with a variety of debris as well and have glass and metal pockmarking their bodies. I don't know why I had so much trouble with this but it just seemed like you would have to have some pretty special nanotechnology to have this happen and have people be able to live this way. It seemed inconsistent...but whatever...I guess it is a fantasy of sorts...so let's try and get beyond that.

The chapters are very short, so you get snippets from each characters viewpoint. The story progresses in a stark and halting way because of this, but it works for this story because of the bleakness and starkness of the surroundings. The characters are all very well done, multi-dimensional and interesting to get to know. They do suffer a bit from the common problem a story has when it has so many viewpoints; you never feel like you get to know any of them all that well...it is hard to engage with them.

The main thing that propels the story forward is the mystery behind the Detonations and how Partridge's mother was involved in it. The plot itself is a bit too neat and convenient at times and makes the story seem somewhat contrived. The story itself is kind of grossly fascinating in that you never know what strange and deformed thing Baggott will throw at you next. What will be merged with what living thing next? Will the next person have a plate of glass for a face or a toy protruding from their arm?

Is this a ground-breaking novel? Not really. It blends a lot of elements from other dystopia and post-apocalyptic novels out there. It is well done and engaging. The inclusion of nanotechnology as a bioweapon that causes humans to merge with inanimate (and occasionally animate) objects is unique and interesting but unbelievable and never well explained. The novel ties up nicely leaving our characters at a good starting point for the next book in the series, Fuse.

Overall I enjoyed this gritty and slightly disturbing dystopia/post-apocalyptic YA book. The characters are well done, if a bit hard to engage with because of the multiple viewpoints. The story is well done and engaging, the world of humans merged with inanimate objects (or sometimes other living objects) is fascinating if a bit unbelievable. This isn't a ground-breaking novel, but it is a good read for fans of the genre and left me wondering what will happen next.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- Dystopia Reading Challenge
- 150+ Books Reading Challenge

Waiting on Wednesday - 2/1

"Waiting On Wednesday" is a weekly meme hosted by Jill at Breaking The Spine.

This week my Waiting on Wednesday book is Black Howl (Madeline Black, Book 3) by Christina Henry.  I love this urban fantasy series and can't wait to read the next book in it.  Click on the image to go to Amazon and read more about this book.

Black Howl (Madeline Black, Book 3) by Christina Henry

Release Date: February 28, 2012
Publisher: Ace
Length: 288 pages
ISBN: 978-1937007331

Synopsis from Goodreads.com:

"Agent of Death Madeline Black is finding out that some of the spirits of Chicago aren't ready to cross over.

Something is wrong with the souls of Chicago's dead. Ghosts are walking the streets, and Agent of Death Madeline Black's exasperating boss wants her to figure out why. And while work is bad enough, Maddy has a plethora of personal problems too. Now that Gabriel has been assigned as her thrall, their relationship has hit an impasse. At least her sleazy ex-fiancé Nathaniel is out of the picture — or so she thinks..."

Audiobook Review - Territory by Emma Bull (3/5 stars)

Reading level: Adult
Genre: Western Fantasy
Size: 320 pages
Publisher: Tor Books
Release Date: December 6, 2011
ISBN: 978-0765330192
Stand Alone or Series: Stand Alone
Source: Audiobook through Audible.com
Rating: 3/5 stars


I loved War for the Oaks by Bull and was excited to see that she had another book out. I ended up listening to this book on audio. I enjoyed the Western take on the fantasy and the intricacy with which the world and characters were created. The story moved a bit slow for me though and in the end there were too many things left unresolved.

The audiobook was well done, the story is told from three main viewpoints. The male ones are read by one narrator and the female one by another narrator. In general I really enjoyed the way the story was read.

The story is complicated and includes some of our favorite Western heroes. Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday, and Ike Clanton are all part of the story. And the story is a complicated one. The story is mainly told from three viewpoints. Jesse Fox has decided to travel west and when he shows up in Tombstone he ends up drawn into a political battle that may end up being about more than politics. The second viewpoint is Doc's, he has tuberculosis but it seems to ease when he is around Wyatt, he trying not to get drawn into the seedy events happening in Tombstone but he is. Mildred Benjamin is the third; she is a widow who sets type at a local newspaper...she can sometimes sense or see things that shouldn't be there...because of this she also gets drawn into some strange goings on.

Just trying to give a good synopsis of this story makes my head hurt. I am not at all familiar with Western history, so I didn't really recognize or relate to any of the characters right off the bat. There are a lot of characters introduced and it was difficult for me to keep them all straight in the first third of the story. To add to this difficultly we change viewpoint a lot and the plot is not at all clear. The story starts as a recounting of seemingly unrelated events that happen in Tombstone. It takes a long while for the reader to figure out how all the events are connected and even then the story doesn't seem to have a real point.

It also takes a while for the magic to show up. You can tell that Wyatt isn't quite right from the beginning of the story; but it seems more like a misuse of power than anything magical. You also know that Jesse Fox is struggling with accepting that he has more than normal abilities. All of this isn't very well explained until late in the second half of the book; so it takes awhile to realize that there is magic and it does have relevance to everything that is going on.

The plot itself isn't much of a plot. Basically you are reading about Tombstone and what is going on there; the main plot is basically the mystery to unravel why all of these people are doing what they are doing and why they are all in Tombstone in the first place. I found the first part of the book to be slow and boring and had a hard time figuring out what the point was.

There were some things I did enjoy. You can tell that Bull put a ton of work into research for this novel; I loved the detail and the way things were described. It seems like she put a lot of effort into mirroring the true history of Tombstone; it would have been nice to have an afterward addressing this.

I also really enjoyed the characters of Mildred and Jesse. Mildred was a wonderful example of how the Wild West let women take on more responsibilty and start to carve their own futures without giving up being women. Jesse Fox was mysterious, yet very easy to relate too. It was funny how daring he could be at times but how when it came to Mildred he always put his foot in his mouth. I enjoyed these two characters and though they were well done. The surrounding characters were okay but never came alive for me like these two did.

The book ends pretty ambiguously. The main problem is kind of dealt with but not in a permanent way. You never really find out where all of the characters go or end up. The story just kind of stops. I looked to see if there was going to be a sequel but it doesn't look like it.

Overall an okay book. I really enjoyed the detail and intricacy in the story; you can tell a lot of research went into this story. I also enjoyed the two main characters. I thought the story was poorly paced though and had trouble with all of the viewpoints. The plot wanders a lot and takes a lot of time to get to the point, when it does get to the point it's kind of anti-climatic. The ending is pretty open; the story just stops. I would tentatively recommend this story to those who like Weird West stories with a touch of magic in them. Just make sure you have patience if you are going to read this.

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- 150+ Books Reading Challenge
- TBR Pile Reading Challenge

January 2012 - In Review

This month I read 29 books. You can see below for my stats on them all.

I started the following series:
- Firelight (Darkest London, Book 1) by Kristen Callihan (4.5/5 stars)
- The Iron Thorn (The Iron Codex, Book 1) by Caitlin Kittredge (5/5 stars)
-  The Dragon's Tooth (The Ashtown Burials, Book 1) by N.D. Wilson (4/5 stars)

I finished the following series:
- The Bride Wore Black Leather (The Nightside, Book 12) by Simon R. Green (4.5/5 stars)

My Favorite Books of the Month Were:
- The Jungle (The Stuff of Legend, Book 2) by Mike Raicht, Brian Smith and Charles Paul Wilson III (5/5 stars)
- Courtyney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics (Courtyney Crumrin, Book 2) by Ted Naifeh (5/5 stars)
- The Mouse Guard: Fall of 1152 by David Peterson (5/5 stars)
- Geek Wisdom by N. K. Jemisin, Genevieve Valentine, Eric San Juan and Zaki Hasan (5/5 stars)
- Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (5/5 stars)
- Switchblade Goddess (Jessie Shimmer, Book 3) by Lucy A. Snyder (5/5 stars)
- The Iron Thorn (The Iron Codex, Book 1) by Caitlin Kittredge (5/5 stars)
- The Bride Wore Black Leather (The Nightside, Book 12) by Simon R. Green (4.5/5 stars)

Here are the stats on the reading challenges I am participating in:
- Graphic Novel Challenge (7/12 read)
- Dystopia Reading Challenge (2/10 read)
- Zombie Reading Challenge (0/12 read)
- Horror and Urban Fantasy Challenge (10/48 read)
- 150+ Books Reading Challenge (31/150+ read)
- Debut Author Reading Challenge (2/12 read)
- TBR Pile Reading Challenge (13/50 read)
- Steampunk Reading Challenge (1/12 read)


The full list of books that I read this month are shown below.
1. Scarlet by Brian Michael Bendis and Alex Maleev (4/5 stars)
2. The Gathering Storm (Katrina Trilogy, Book 1) by Robin Bridges (3.5/5 stars)
3. The Thorn and the Blossom by Theodora Goss (4/5 stars)
4. The Jungle (The Stuff of Legend, Book 2) by Mike Raicht, Brian Smith and Charles Paul Wilson III (5/5 stars)
5.   Neverland by Joe Brusha (4/5 stars)
6.   Crossed (Matched, Book 2) by Ally Condie (3/5 stars)
7.   Courtyney Crumrin and the Coven of Mystics (Courtyney Crumrin, Book 2) by Ted Naifeh (5/5 stars)
8.   The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate (4.5/5 stars)
9.   Geek Wisdom by N. K. Jemisin, Genevieve Valentine, Eric San Juan and Zaki Hasan (5/5 stars)
10. Firelight (Darkest London, Book 1) by Kristen Callihan (4.5/5 stars)
11. The Mouse Guard: Fall of 1152 by David Peterson (5/5 stars)
12. Fuzzy Nation by John Scalzi (5/5 stars)
13. Switchblade Goddess (Jessie Shimmer, Book 3) by Lucy A. Snyder (5/5 stars)
14. Hatter M: The Looking Glass Wars (Volume 1) by Frank Beddor, Lez Cavalier, and Ben Templesmith (3/5 stars)
15. Tortured by Caragh O'Brien (3/5 stars)
16. Katana by Cole Gibson (3/5 stars)
17. The Iron Thorn (The Iron Codex, Book 1) by Caitlin Kittredge (5/5 stars)
18. Raised by Wolves by Jennifer Lynn Barnes (3/5 stars)
19. Touchstone (Glass Thorns, Book 1) by Melanie Rawn (2/5 stars)
20. The Darkest Edge of Dawn (Charlie Madigan, Book 2) by Kelly Gay (4/5 stars)
21. Bewitched (Jolie Wilkins, Book 2.5) by H.P. Mallory (4/5 stars)
22. Courtney Crumrin in the Twilight Kingdom (Courtney Crumrin, Book 3) by Ted Naifeh (4/5 stars)
23. Fodor's Costa Rica 2012 (4/5 stars)
24. Fractured Light by Rachel McClellan (1.5 stars)
25. Witchful Thinking (Jolie Wilkins, Book 3) by H.P. Mallory (3/5 stars)
26. The Dragon's Tooth (The Ashtown Burials, Book 1) by N.D. Wilson (4/5 stars)
27. Bake Sale by Sara Varon (4/5 stars)
28. The Bride Wore Black Leather (The Nightside, Book 12) by Simon R. Green (4.5/5 stars)
29. Territory by Emma Bull (3/5 stars)