"This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence. Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.
When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own."
Ah... This is one of those books people call 'amazing' but I just don't get what they are saying. I don't get it. It think that this is perhaps the weirdest, strangest, and maddest book I've ever seen. (Actually no. I've seen some books that are much worst than this.) Splintered is a strange book that I don't understand. (If I don't understand, that means there are other people out there who don't understand either. Like one ant, there's always another.)
Splintered is recommended to twelve and up. There's some inappropriate stuff, but parents shouldn't be too concern about it. Wow, that has to be the craziest sentence that I have ever typed that doesn't make sense. (How about logic?) Anyway Splintered is an okay book. An okay book. Empathized on the "okay" part, okay?
Splintered's plot is rather boring. It reminds me of Alice In Wonderland without the innocent girl inputs. (For most part. Some parts the characters are so naive which annoyed me like crazy. The Red Queen screams "Off with your head!" and these characters aren't afraid of Wonderland? That's messed up to a crazy degree.) The writing of Splintered is exciting and entertaining. It is the one of the only factors pushing me into the book.
The beginning of Splintered is another interesting part of the book. It's interesting for the most part. But when there's positive, there's negative. There's a little of girl stuff like that thing that happens whenever it is that girl's time of the month. (Guys, I hope you're not blushing when you read this part.) Then again, I find that part the most useless piece of information in this book. I don't care about Alyssa having her period! I care more about the damn book! Damn it, authors. Useless information that doesn't change the story in whatever way isn't suppose to be plug into the book. Get to the program.
Characters:
Alyssa, I don't know what to say to you. When a guy like Morpheus comes along (and he's a bad boy too), you run the opposite direction! Even a girl like Alice knows to do that. (Actually, that's a bad example. She didn't ran from those people who I suspected were drinking tea with rum and moonshine.) Anyway, I don't like her innocent girl act. Morpheus has been teaching you all about Wonderland and you conveniently play innocent girl (Alice). Damn it, Alyssa. Stop being an idiot. I don't care about your boy-boy situation; you have a game to play, a game that can get you killed and you worry about boys!
Jeb is smarter and naive like Alyssa. I'm not even going to start on him.
Rating: Two out of Five
"While the other girls in the walled city-state of Baalboden learn to sew and dance, Rachel Adams learns to track and hunt. While they bend like reeds to the will of their male Protectors, she uses hers for sparring practice.
When Rachel's father fails to return from a courier mission and is declared dead, the city's brutal Commander assigns Rachel a new Protector: her father's apprentice, Logan—the boy she declared her love to and who turned her down two years before. Left with nothing but fierce belief in her father's survival, Rachel decides to escape and find him herself.
As Rachel and Logan battle their way through the Wasteland, stalked by a monster that can't be killed and an army of assassins out for blood, they discover romance, heartbreak, and a truth that will incite a war decades in the making."
Defiance isn't a book I've seen before in different names and a different cover. In other words, Defiance is unique.
Defiance is told from two POVs (Rachel and Logan, who else? This reminds me of Legend, which is June and Day). Defiance is fire-filled ride with deception, innocents, murders, deaths, assassinations, cruelty, truths, lies, monsters, and pawns (yes, now I'm going into chess).
I must tell my opinions on chemistry. Out of everything I've remembered about the book, chemistry (between Logan and Rachel) is perhaps the last thing I remember. (In this book.) It isn't unforgettable. It isn't hot, like hot, hot. (Divergent is.) It is just a steady romance that is threatening to happen, and isn't very surprising at all. In fact, I was bored to death. To death!
What now? Oh, yeah the plot. Well, let me tell you this, the plot is much more interesting than the chemistry. (Thank the skies!) Really, I usually don't care about the chemistry unless the author promises it to the readers. (Yeah, look how well that ended up). Defiance is a well written book, so no complaints on the writing.
The ending is a killer! I love how good everything seems to be in the end, but then everything goes downhill quickly. One lesson from the ending: Always enjoy while you still can.
Characters:
Rachel is filled with revenge and defiance to authority. It seems that it is quite obvious to nearly everyone that Rachel is one angry ticking bomb, just waiting to be engaged and explode. (Heh, red hair for revenge, fire, anger, hatred, and defiance.) She's fed up with people telling her that her father is dead. She is sick of people, like Logan (or so it seems), who doesn't want to help her find her beloved missing father. Everything builds inside of her until all she sees in revenge, murder, anger, her own sense of justice, defiance, and love, of all things. (Logan and her father and her grandfather. Who else is there to love? Mother is dead. And everyone else in her family is likely too.)
Logan is different. He's more controlled on the outside, yet still has the same potential of being engaged like a bomb like Rachel. He is somewhat wiser, tactical, smarter, and more resourceful than Rachel. Best of all, he's a tech geek.
Rating: Three out of Five
"When you’ve been kept caged in the dark, it’s impossible to see the forest for the trees. It’s impossible to see anything, really. Not without bars . . .
Andrew Winston Winters is at war with himself.
He’s part Win, the lonely teenager exiled to a remote Vermont boarding school in the wake of a family tragedy. The guy who shuts all his classmates out, no matter the cost.
He’s part Drew, the angry young boy with violent impulses that control him. The boy who spent a fateful, long-ago summer with his brother and teenage cousins, only to endure a secret so monstrous it led three children to do the unthinkable.
Over the course of one night, while stuck at a party deep in the New England woods, Andrew battles both the pain of his past and the isolation of his present.
Before the sun rises, he’ll either surrender his sanity to the wild darkness inside his mind or make peace with the most elemental of truths—that choosing to live can mean so much more than not dying."
This will be a short review.
The first thing you should know about Charm & Strange is that only mature teenagers and older should read this book. Like really mature. I shudder to think of the young and immature's line of thought, mouth, action, and mind.
Anyway, it would have been helpful if someone told be that this isn't a "The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" book. Well, sort of. It's true that Andrew Winston Winters is at war with himself, but it's more of instinct versus moral code. There's no Drew persona or Win persona. I think it's more of a, like I said before, instinct versus moral code, or Andrew Winston Winters.
Charm & Strange has its own charm and strangeness. It's a short book with a lot of violence, drugs, hormones, and more violence. Obviously, this isn't very suitable for young children. (I'd already said that.) With that, Charm & Strange is guarantee to never bored the reader. It helps that Charm & Strange is a short book, which helps with the 'no boredom' idea.
I find it annoying, the chapters. I didn't figure out which chapter is the past and which chapter is now. What is the difference between "Antimatter" and "Matter". It takes me, let's say, about ten chapters in when I finally figure out the difference between then and now.
Characters:
Andrew Winston Winters is a broken young boy, who is scarred by the deaths of his siblings, the craziness of his family, and the dark side in his mind. He's lost, determined to shut everything up and pretend that he's normal, even though he knows he isn't. He isn't like normal boys, who dreams of hooking up with a girl and doing what every guy always dreams of doing. (Yeah, I don't really want to get into this cause, well... Do you really need to ask?) There's a bad boy hidden within him. A shadow. He fights to stay sane yet also wants to become insane.
Rating: Four out of Five
"Until now, he's existed only in her dreams -
but fate is about to bring them together.
I shove through the crowd, knocking into girls and bouncing off boys, until one in particular catches me, steadies me.
I feel so secure, so at home in his arms.
I melt against his chest-lift my gaze to meet his. Gasping when I stare into a pair of icy blue eyes banded by brilliant flecks of gold that shine like kaleidoscopes, reflecting my image thousands of times.
The boy from my dream.
The one who died in my arms.
Strange things are happening to Daire Santos. Crows mock her, glowing people stalk her, time stops without warning, and a beautiful boy with unearthly blue eyes haunts all her dreams. Fearing for her daughter’s sanity, Daire’s mother sends her to live with the grandmother she’s never met. A woman who recognizes the visions for what they truly are—the call to her destiny as a Soul Seeker—one who can navigate the worlds between the living and dead.
There on the dusty plains of Enchantment, New Mexico, Daire sets out to harness her mystical powers. But it’s when she meets Dace, the boy from her dreams, that her whole world is shaken to its core. Now Daire is forced to discover if Dace is the one guy she's meant to be with...or if he’s allied with the enemy she's destined to destroy."
Now, I'm a partial Alyson Noel fan when it comes to The Immortals. For the first two books, I was starstruck and absolutely in love with it. Then comes the rest of the gang. Ugh! I was so bored for most of the time I'd spent reading it. The only time I was interested, for the last four books of The Immortals series, was the time when the main character almost, almost died. Unfortunately she didn't, so I wasn't spare the dread and boredom for the remainder of the books. (What a terrible shame. I hated her and her personality. Not the author, the character.)
Anyhoo, Fated is, so far, a good book. (Then again the first book in The Immortals series was good too, so that's saying something. What if The Soul Seekers follow the same pattern?) This one appears to be so much better than The Immortals. I think I might stick around a little longer. It's intriguing; there's something delicious about it. (Okay, that just sounded creepy.)
(Did I just say Anyhoo? OMG, the advertisements from tv must be getting into my head. Noooo!)
Ignore my subconscious thoughts. (Parentheses.) They like typing themselves into this review and all reviews. Anyhoo (Progressive must be so proud), the plot of Fated is brilliant and so twisty. Fated carries the same trend of The Immortals Series. The character succeed or they think they are successful, then the enemy turns out that he has something wicked under his sleeve. Yeah, I think that pretty much sums it up.
Noel's writing is trained and well written. I have absolutely no problem with it although I'm slightly annoyed by how she orders the chapters.
The ending of Fated is going to ruin me. What did evil twin of Dace mean by "Echo"? Seriously, "Echo", "Echo", "Echo." What is it?
Characters:
Daire (Noel has to name her characters a bit better. I kept on thinking that Daire was Dace and Dace was Daire) is violent and crazy. Or at least to me, at first. It turns out she isn't crazy, after all, but instead a soul seeker. (And it upsets me how the author doesn't tell me exactly what is a Soul Seeker. What is it, anyhoo?) Daire is one of those characters who is begging to be slapped in the head. (Damn it, Daire! Why can you not believe it when there's tons of evidence pointing in that direction?)
Dace (now that a hottie) fairs a lot better than Daire. He's the only one who seems to have a sense of mind. (Mind or brain, either way). While Daire is off running around doing who knows what (like doing the opposite of what Grandma tells her), Dace is actually doing something productive.
Rating: Four out of Five
"Cas Lowood, armed with his late father's athame knife, kills ghosts. In Thunder Bay, Anna, forever 16, drips blood on her white dress from throat slit in 1958, and rips apart anyone who enters her house - except Cas. He makes new friends - high school queen Carmel, jock Will, admiring nerd Thomas and Tom's voodoo grandpa Morfran - to fight this demon."
Blood makes every book more fascinating yet also nauseating. There's, of course, a lot of blood. You can obviously tell by the cover and the title. (Nice cover, BTW.) Plus a lot of strange deaths and haunted houses make Anna Dressed In Blood even more creepy. *Sigh* I don't see why a lot of people like this book so much. Sure, it's easy to settle into. It's easy to read. But I don't see how Anna Dressed In Blood is appealing and pretty. (I hate it whenever people like things, when I can't see what exactly what they're liking.) In general, Anna Dressed In Blood is a book. And a book is a book. Not fantastic. Not a 'WOW!" Just a book, to me.
Overall, Anna Dressed In Blood is an okay book. Again, I don't see why Anna Dressed In Blood is such a big deal. There's so questions. Why did Anna spare Cas? ('Because he's special.' Please don't say that.) Why is Cas so obsessed about Anna's situation? ('There's something about her' doesn't cut it.) Why does Cas's mom let her only son hunt ghost who may kill him? (In my defense, moms don't let their sons do anything dangerous. Especially killing dead ghost, who may have a bloodthirsty vengeance.) Why Cas doesn't kill Anna at the first chance he has? (Oh, because he is overpowered by a damn ghost. He had a chance to kill her, but no...[Look at the first parentheses in this paragraph. Same explanation.])
The plot. I'm not even going to start on that. Anna Dressed In Blood's writing doesn't suck me into the story. I read it and tolerate it until about halfway through when I started to get bored. (Luckily it gets sort of interesting in the middle.) The writing is simply what it is. There's no strong or appealing call to it. It's not addicting or boring. It's what it is.
The ending is perhaps the best thing in Anna Dressed In Blood. It's when I start to like Anna Dressed In Blood. I like the determination and persistence Cas shows in the end. Even though I don't see why Cas is so "I like her, I think" towards the end. Anna's a damn ghost, Cas. I don't get it.
Characters:
Let's start with Anna even though Anna isn't the one telling the story from her POV. (Cas is. I do not want to know what is Anna thinking.) Even though Anna really wants to kill Cas, or at least her dark side does, I feel as if she only exist as a cursed challenge to Cas.
Now Cas is left trying to tie in his pieces. I hate how the author gives him a pretty tragic past which he barely mentions in the book. (His father died by a ghost's ghostly hand. Cas really want revenge.) Cas, you must be ill. Why would you end up liking a girl who almost killed you? She killed your classmates, nearly kill the girl who likes you and might have ending up killing your new best friend in the long run. I like how determined and persistent he is, but sometimes it is annoying.
Rating: Two out of Five
