July Book Haul & Unboxing

So this got a little too sentimental at one point and then it was just an overabundance of fangirling. Haha! Hope you enjoy! Don't forget to subscribe to my channel because a lot of exciting new things will be occurring on there!

Also, I'm incredibly behind on reviews and the summer is coming to an end. I'm trying my best to keep my blog updated, but my life is rather hectic. Sorry!

What books did you get this month? Have you read any of these? Let me know in the comments!

The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead

The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead

Fourth in the Bloodlines series

5 bajillion gazillion yes, it is a number


Sydney Sage is BACK! She’s an Alchemist stuck at a human school in California protecting Jill Dragomir, sister to Queen Vasilissa Dragomir. She’s finally getting ready to embrace her witch abilities and she even has admitted her growing feelings for Adrian Ivashkov. One thing is in the way. Her sister, Zoe, is now on her mission with her. Everything could go down with one misstep. Sweet, Adrian. Adrian has problems of his own. Like battling spirit and trying to protect Sydney and keep her safe. Finally, Richelle Mead gives us a dual POV of a fantastic pair that is completely opposite, but balances each other beautifully. I remember when I first picked up VA I loved the series to bits and when Sydney was introduced in Blood Promises, I liked her but didn’t think anything about her character growing into something more. When I picked up Bloodlines I devoured it in a day. Bloodlines was a fantastic ride for me and it brought back my love for VA. The Golden Lily was better than Bloodlines. It upped the score for this series and where it could. The Indigo Spell blew me away! I was completely excited for The Fiery Heart to be released. The Fiery Heart was released in November, but I didn’t pick it up until February and shame on me! I always get cold feet about the next book of this series. I leave it waiting to be read for a while and then dive right in. I wasn’t disappointed at all with The Fiery Heart. It was perfect. Just thinking about it actually makes me tear up a bit. I felt every emotion in this novel. Laughter at Adrian’s jokes and witty humor, anger at Zoe and also Sydney and Zoe’s father, love with Adrian and Sydney, anticipation, and worst of all despair. Oh, yes there was despair. I’m not going to lie to you. This book’s ending will rip your heart into shreds. That isn’t surprising because this is a Richelle Mead novel we’re talking about, but it hurt so badly.


The main female character is Sydney. Sydney has grown a lot from Bloodlines. If you remember my Bloodlines review (if not click on) then you’ll note that I gave Sydney a 7 on the Kick-Butt Heroine Scale. By The Indigo Spell she received a whopping 10. I REGRET NOTHING! I LOVE SYDNEY. She’s just as awesome as Rose. Sydney is such a fun character to read about and she’s one of my favorite YA heroines. She can kick you’re lame ass with a spell any day.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 10

The main male character is Adrian. ADRIANNNNNNNNNNNN!

Adrian finally got his POV. It was perfect and I love Adiran even more. In fact, I love Adrian so damn much. He was just absolutely perfect and I will fangirl as hard as I want to because he is like chocolate walking. One thing about him that bothered me though is that he flirts with people unintentionally. It drove me up the wall when the Moroi girl decided she wanted a piece of Adrian. NO! Sydrian forever! Back away insolent random girl.


Swoon Worthy Scale: Broken

The Villain- CURSE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Richelle Mead you make them obvious, but you also make them inflict intense amounts of pain on your readers.

Villain Scale: 9
I loved all these side characters even more. Jill was bearable and actually pretty cool. Eddie was adorable as always. Angeline and Trey need to be together because they are adorable together. Zoe can go jump in front of the car she so desperately wants to drive. Ms. T is awesome and I love her as Sydney’s mentor. She’s totally awesome. Oh, let’s not forget we get to see everyone from VA. There was Rose, Dimitri, Lissa, Christian, and Sonya. It was a big vampire reunion. I loved it!


Character Scale: 10

I’m sorry no I’m not for my fangirling review, but it’s the only way I can think to express my feelings for this masterpiece. Silver Shadows, I’m coming for you.



Cover Thoughts: I don’t really like these covers all that much, but these colors are pretty. The people though are a huge NO.

Black Beast by Nenia Campbell

Black Beast by Nenia Campbell

First in the Shadow Thane series

4.5 stars

Catherine Pierce is apart has a lot on her plate. She’s a shifter. When a witch and Council member of the Otherkind named, Finn, comes across a file that is incomplete of a shifter he decides to hunt her down and take matters into his own hands. Catherine has a lot of problems- her biggest one is that she never took a form after hitting puberty. She’s still shifting and now a witch is after her and dark magic hangs in the air around her. Slayers are hunting and things could spin out of control for the Otherkind. I have two quick notes to make before proceeding with my review:
1) Nenia is a friend of mine and this in no way affects my rating or review.
2) Dear Nenia, stop writing so well and making me read your books in one day. There's no sequel yet and this is torture.

Sincerely,

A Broken Reader


Seriously this book was awesome. I won this in a giveaway and I’m so happy I decided to pick this one up. Nenia knows how to write a good paranormal with touches of urban fantasy in her story. I fricken love the world created her. It’s full of prejudice, contempt, and paranormal awesomeness. This is a YA, but I would recommend it for 15 and up. It has more of an urban fantasy vibe with teenagers. I love this mixture. I don’t come across it very often and it’s fun when I discover gems like this.


The main female character is Catherine. Catherine was a pretty badass character. She works in a bookstore and is a shifter! I liked the whole Shifter aspect. My favorite thing about Catherine is the fact that she’s a Shifter who doesn’t have an exact form. I like even more what is brought up at the end as to why this may be. The one thing that bothered me about her is how she just had to do this prank. It was just kind of boring, to be honest. If that whole scene wasn’t in the book I probably would’ve given Black Beast a 5 star rating. Catherine’s high school high jinks are just boring and it’s the reason I struggled with this novel.


Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 9

The main male character is Finn. He’s a prick. I don’t like him, but at the same time I hate him so much I like him. I like characters like that. It’s really weird to say I hate a character so much it makes me like him because if I met Finn in person I would hate his guts. As a character, I like him and I enjoy what he brings into the world of the Otherkind.


Swoon Worthy Scale: 6 (cause y’know he’s kind of jerk)

The Villain- Well, I think there’s a huge villain hinted at continuously throughout this novel, but at the moment Finn is the bad guy. He can pretty scary so it fits him. I’m honestly curious to see if he continues to be a villain or if he becomes a hero.


Villain Scale: 8

The characters introduced in this novel show promise, but most of them were not touched on all too much. I’m anxious to see more of these characters.


Character Scale: 7

I love UF worlds and this for me felt very action packed. The first 65%ish was intense and had me captivated. I couldn’t put my Kindle down! Then something happened. I didn’t enjoy the last few chapters as much. Instead of the intense action packed story I was introduced to, Catherine became friends with a long lost friend and possible romance blooms. So does a really boring plan of high school stupidity. The story lost its flare a bit for me. I loved the action packed chase scene with Finn and Catherine. It was intense and something I would’ve enjoyed to have happened again. The last part of the epilogue though. It definitely caught my attention. I love where this story is going and I can’t wait to read the next book in the Shadow Thane series.


Cover Thoughts: This cover is absolutely gorgeous. I mean look at it. It fits how I pictured Catherine and it has a shifter feeling to it.

A Look on Plays: Oedipus and Midsummer Edition

Oedipus: The King by Sophocles

3.25 stars

This review will contain spoilers.

I’m not really sure how to go about explaining Oedipus because explaining gives away the whole story. If you don’t care about spoilers and want to hear an explanation of this play better than I could give I suggest this video. This video is where I first heard of Oedipus: The King and I was definitely intrigued. I was also excited to see that this was going to be a part of the SYNC summer audiobook program. I’m not a reader of plays. I’ve only read two, now three, in my life so far. I’ve only ever read plays during school because I had to. The story of Oedipus had me very curious and I thought maybe I would enjoy the audiobook more than actually reading the play. I did enjoy this audiobook! It has a huge cast of narrator. This gave off the feel of listening to a play. It was pretty enjoyable.


My favorite thing about Greek plays is that they enjoy making the characters life absolutely miserable. You think Shakespeare can be tragic. You haven’t read anything like Sophocles. He knows how to write a tragedy. There are all kinds of horrible things that happen to Oedipus. Don’t believe me? Well there’s incest, murder, plagues, and blindness.


Greeks also seem to love irony. There’s a part in the play when Oedipus tales a blind man:
"Eyes open now, you can't know how dark the nights in which you flounder in.”
His cruelness comes back to bite him and he himself eventually becomes blind.
Also Greeks have some weird fantasies. Oedipus’s wife says it’s okay to dream about having sex with your mother. I’m sorry, but what? Greeks are weird as hell.



Cover Thoughts: I like the symbolism I’m seeing in this cover. It’s nothing amazing and it’s kind of an ugly cover, but it isn’t bad. 

 

 

 

A Midsummer Night’s Dream by William Shakespeare

3 stars

A Midsummer Night’s Dream is one of Shakespeare’s most famous works. You probably have no clue with this story is about, but at one time or another you have seen a movie or TV show that involved a basic plotline within A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Basically this play is a play about love triangles. These triangles even turn into squares. Basically Demetrius and Lysander both want Hermia, but Hermia only wants Lysander. Hermia’s best friend, Helena, wants Demetrius, but he doesn’t want her. Then Lysander wants Helena while Hermia still wants Lysander and Demetrius still wants Hermia and loathes Helena. All the while fairies are in the forest. Puck causes mischief. Oberon tries to still a slave child from Titania, who also happens to be his wife, and ends up falling for a man with a donkey head. Ah… Shakespeare. This play is so much better than Romeo and Juliet. It’s funny lighthearted and entertaining. Once the climax hits, it does become boring though. I personally don’t feel like leaving a detailed review of this play because it’s fun and funny. Nothing really needs to be over examined and believe me, I’ve done enough of that in class. So here’s the best visualization of Bottom I've found yet.

Let's not forget that really awkward scene where they just so happened to show everyone's butts (but I'm not posting that).



Cover Thoughts: I like this cover much better than the one I had to read in class.

 

BookTube-A-Thon is Here!

BookTube-A-Thon started today and I've made some progress. Here's a video of my to be read list. I'm really excited to participate in this because it's my first BookTube-A-Thon. I'll only be posting the video from today on my blog, but if you are curious about my BookTube adventures (and I know somewhere deep down you are;)) then please subscribe to my channel! If you are participating let me know! I want to know your books to be read and if you are posting videos direct me to your channel. Yay BookTube-A-Thon!

Wonderland: Asylum by Raven Gregory and illustrated by Patrick Shand

Wonderland: Asylum by Raven Gregory and illustrated by Patrick Shand

1 star

I’m not really sure how to describe this fuckery. I don’t even know what I read. I decided to give this graphic novel a shot because I LOVE Alice in Wonderland. I also love asylums and stories with patients in asylums. Basically this book is a lot of random things thrown into a comic in hopes of being funny.



It was not funny and it was almost unbearable. I don’t read a lot of comics, but I used to be a huge manga fanatic so I do think I know good art from bad art as well as storylines surrounding the art. I’m just not sure this comic was any good. In fact, it was downright horrible. It gave me a headache as well as make me question what I was reading and if the authors were serious. I don’t think they are. I think they are trolls.



But then again I’m not sure. This was just really bad and it’s probably one of the worst books I’ve read this year. If there was good thing about this book then I would say JAMES FRANCO. Yes a James Franco look-a-like! Not a bad thing, but then again, just another oddity in the mix of this horrific comic.


Cover Thoughts: The art work in this book is very well done. If you just look at the art it can redeem the story, a little bit. Certain pages I would suggest not even looking at because it’s ridiculous. The art is pretty though and very well done.

Thank you, Netgalley and Zenescope Entertainment for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

Blog Tour: Ruthless People by J.J. McAvoy

Ruthless People by J.J. McAvoy

First in the Ruthless People trilogy

4 stars

Liam Callahan and Melody Giovanni are from two very different families. Liam is Irish and Melody is Italian. This doesn’t seem like much of a difference but when it comes to the mafia and the rivalry between these two groups it’s a border. Liam thinks he’s in for getting a wife who shops and does charity, but he gets a woman who is known as the Boss. I wasn’t expecting to like this one. I thought I would loathe it with every fiber of my being. I actually enjoyed it though. I’m conflicted with it, though. I hate these characters. They are scum. They are disgusting and foul, but they are ruthless. Just like the title promises. They show no one mercy and at the first sign of you crossing them you can be sure to be set on fire (it did actually happen at one point).
"It is just business. Every last person we kill is for family. If we do not kill them, they kill us. It is the way of the world. It is self defense. It is survival.”
#ruthlessasfuck


The main female character is Melody. I HATE her. I can’t stand her. She’s callous and cold. Everybody always talks about wanting a badass heroine, but what happens when your heroine is such a badass that she is a ruthless murderer for it. She’s pretty scary, but towards the end she became a little broken when a turn of events occurred. It didn’t last long though. She also says the worst things that make me want to kill her.
"Does it make me a hypocrite if I still consider myself pro-life?"
She says this after shooting a pregnant woman!

It comes back to bit her in the ass though. Melody may be a bitch, but Karma is the BITCH.

Kick-Butt Heroine Scale: 7 (she can kick butt, but she’s too scary for me)

The main male character is Liam. Liam is a dick. He slut shames everyone who isn’t Melody. Of course, Melody isn’t any better. Basically I don’t like him and even if he was charming I still wouldn’t like him. I think he’s just as bad as Melody if not worse.


Swoon Worthy Scale: 5

The Villain- I know that they face a villain in this story, but everyone seems to be the villain. No one is innocent.

Villain Scale: 9

I do like the characters well enough. The only characters I liked were Adriana, Olivia, and Caroline. Liam’s brother, Neal, and his cousin, Declan, didn’t seem all that good. I actually hate Declan because of his treatment towards Olivia. I do like Liam’s parents though. They seem to be the only actual sensible people in this novel.

Character Scale: 7.5

You know what I’m beginning to hate about New Adult sex scenes. They use the most awkward descriptions. The last book I read used the description of a kitty when talking about female parts. Can’t we just say vagina? It’s not a big deal. In this book, though Liam’s thoughts go a little extreme. Prepare to laugh your ass off.
"The moment my eyes saw the spring of honey begging for my tongue, I latched on, sucking and lapping up all the juices she had provided for me.”

This is just so awkward and it’s totally unnecessary. Also USE A CONDOM! You two were saying a baby wouldn’t be good and look what happened.


"The other half knew that we, as humans, sometimes learned the best lessons from pain.”
The book does have good points. I think of Ruthless People as something like Bates Motel. You hate Norman Bates because you know what he becomes, but you love him and can’t stop watching him. Ruthless People is very much like that. It’s good brain candy. Is it fluffy? If you consider skinning people alive fluffy then, yes. It is a good book though. It has a lot of problems, but it’s also very enjoyable. I suggest this if you enjoy novels about serial killers or even watching Mob Wives.


Cover Thoughts: I don’t like the words around the cover, but I do like the faces and the overall aspect of it. If it didn’t have words all over it, I would probably love it.

Thank you, Netgalley and The Writer’s Coffee Shop Publishing House for providing me with a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.