Sunday Showcase and Mailbox Monday - 4/1/13

Hello and welcome to Showcase Sunday. Inspired by Pop Culture Junkie and the Story Siren, the aim of Showcase Sunday is to highlight our newest books or book related swag and to see what everyone else received for review, borrowed from libraries, bought in bookshops and downloaded onto eReaders each week. For more information about how this feature works and how to join in, click here.

Mailbox Monday can be found at: The Printed Page

Mailbox Monday is the gathering place for readers to share the books that came into their house last week (checked out library books don’t count, eBooks & audio books do). Warning: Mailbox Monday can lead to envy, toppling TBR piles and humongous wish lists.

I got four wonderful books this week you can see them below.  You can also watch the video below from more detail.  

Hope you all got a lot of great books and have a great week of reading ahead of you!

For Review:

 

Swapped:

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News - Book Releases for Week 13 (Mar 31st - Apr 6th)

          

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Review - Fuse (Pure, Book 2) by Julianna Baggott (4/5 stars)

Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Post-Apocalyptic
Size: 480 pages
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Release Date: February 19, 2013
ISBN: 978-1455503087
Stand Alone or Series: 2nd book in the PUre trilogy
Source: Borrowed from Library
Rating: 4/5 stars


This is the second book in the Pure Trilogy by Baggott. The third and final book, Burn, doesn’t have a release date yet that I could find. I enjoyed this installment in the series. Baggott has created a highly imaginative and bleak world, with heartfelt characters.

In the last book Partridge escaped the Dome in search of his mother, his girlfriend Lyda also ended up outside the Dome with him. Now Partridge’s father has unleashed a horrible type of explosive spider that is holding Wretches hostage unless Partridge returns to the Dome. Separately Pressia and Bradwell are trying to unlock the secret of the Cure so that they can save both the Wretches and the new young children that are showing up Purified on the streets.

As with the first book this book alternates between the viewpoints of Pressia, Partridge, Lyda, and El Captino/Helmud. In the last book I had a bit of trouble engaging with the characters. In this book we grow to know and understand these characters so much better.

Pressia surprisingly becomes a mental force to be reckoned with. Her and Bradwell work desperately to find the cure and it is Pressia’s quick mind that saves them time and time again. Pressia is slowly growing as a character and learning that sometimes it is okay to care about others.

Lyda also grows a ton in this book. She has been living with the Mothers, and they have started to teach her how to fight and survive on her own. In this book she becomes something of a warrior and really matures a lot.

Patridge is forced to face a lot of awful truths and make a lot of heartbreaking decisions in this book as well. El Captino/Helmud also become much more significant characters and have changed quite a bit.

The elements of having humans fused both to inanimate and other living things is less startling in this book than the last. I still do have some trouble picturing some of the characters. For example I never have a clear picture in my mind of how Bradwell looks with those birds in his back. So that is still a bit of a problem for me.

The world though it incredibly interesting and creative and well done. The majority of the plot is driven by two things; what will Partridge do if he returns to the Dome and will Pressia find the Cure before time runs out.

This book is a long read but a very interesting one. It’s not a fast read by any means, you need to take your time reading it to follow everything that is going on. The POV switches slow the story down some, but are very well done and overall I think they add a lot to the story.

Overall a very good continuation of this series. We really get to know and understand these characters and what drives them a lot better in this book. Things are fast-paced and engaging throughout. I love this crazy and bleak world and can’t wait to see how everything wraps up in the final book. This series is recommended to those you love YA dytopian novels that are a bit crazy :-)

This book goes towards the following reading challenges:
- 150+ Reading Challenge
- Young Adult Reading Challenge

Review - The Daylight War (The Demon Cycle, Book 3) by Peter V. Brett (2.5/5 stars)

Reading Level: Adult
Genre: Epic Fantasy
Size: 656 pages
Publisher: Del Rey
Release Date: February 12, 2013
ISBN: 978-0345503824
Stand Alone or Series: 3rd book in the Demon Cycle
Source: eGalley from NetGalley.com
Rating: 2.5/5 stars


This is the third book in the Demon Cycle by Brett. The fourth book will be titled, The Skull Throne, and is scheduled for a 2014 release. I got a copy of this book to review through NetGalley. Thanks to NetGalley and Del Rey for the chance to review this book. Like the previous book, this book was incredibly slow moving until the last 100 pages or so. There is a lot that I didn’t really enjoy about this book.

The story starts out following Arlen and Renna as they journey back to Cutter’s Hollow. Then it flashes back to Inevera’s past. From then on we bounce between Inevera’s past and present; while occasionally hearing from Arlen or Leesha in the present.

The story about Inevera’s past recounts a lot of events we have already been present for, but this time we see them from Inevera’s perspective. These parts are lengthy...but still seem rushed...like Brett is trying to give a quick outline of a whole series full of events from Inevera’s perspective. The book would have been better without this back story...it just bogged things down so much.

Much of the book is spent basically getting everyone back to Cutter’s Hollow. We hear from Arlen and Renna as they travel back. We hear from Leesha and Rojur as they travel back from Jardir’s conquered city. Then we spend a ton of time listening as Cutter’s Hollow is expanded and fortified.

Additionally we visit Jardir’s new capital and listen as he deals with bickering between his sons and people, and as he tries to make plans to conquer the rest of the Northern lands. Mostly it’s fairly boring and slow moving stuff.

Having Arlen and Renna proclaim their love for each other was cute in the first couple chapters. Having them repeat “Love you Arlen”, “love you Renna” continuously is just silly and obnoxious. Seriously it felt like half of these two characters’ dialogue through the entire book was “Love you Arlen” “Love you Renna”. Ugh...it got to be too much.

There is also way too much in here about Leesha’s love life and her struggle to find men to have sex with. Also I am not impressed with how our chosen few characters keep gaining more and more unbelievable powers (Arlen, Reena, Rojur). Arlen, Reena, and Rojur are gaining seriously crazy powers at a very rapid rate.

Additionally new types of demons pop up randomly with no previous explanation or structure. It’s like “Oh look there is lightening...hey let’s make that a lightning demon”...it’s never even been mentioned before but they must exist!...so whatever.

As with the previous book the last part of this book features a huge epic battle with mind demons and mimics. This part is very engaging. There are a couple of surprises right at the end that will really grab and engage the reader.

Just be warned this story ends on an absolutely horrible cliffhanger. After spending forever wading through this excruciatingly slow story and finally getting to the good part at the end....then to be left how Brett left his readers....well...it really pissed me off. I hate it when authors depend on cliffhangers to engage their readers. They should really just work on making the story tighter and more engaging.

Overall not my favorite installment in this series. I am so sick of unnecessary flashbacks into random characters’ pasts. It just drags out the story forever. The characters that were so heartfelt and complex in earlier installments are turning into superpowered caricatures of themselves. The pace is excruciatingly slow...after nearly 700 pages we aren’t all that much further along in the story than we were in The Desert Spear. Then there is the horrible cliffhanger that the book ends up. Seriously, I am done with this series. Just absolutely done.

Check out Brandon Sanderson’s books, Robert Jordan, Brent Weeks, or Michale J. Sullivan for excellent epic fantasy that is entertaining and actually goes somewhere. I would personally skip this series...it started out pretty good...but has just degraded from the first book on.

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