Thursday, December 13, 2018

Review for "Catwoman: Soulstealer" by Sarah J. Maas

"But once she’d gone to the League, Nyssa and Talia had taught her far, far more. Bring Gotham City to its knees."

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Rating: 3 stars

My disclaimer for this review is that I know very little about the DC universe. I've never read any of the comics, seen any of the movies besides Wonder Woman and Justice League, or even read the preceding books in this series. I enjoyed the book enough, I would recommend it to people who love superhero stories, but I personally probably won't pick it again because of how slow it moves through the beginning and middle.

This book gets three stars, two stars for the first half of the book and four stars for the second half.
I just felt like this story dragged horribly through the first 150 pages. The whole thing was supposed to heist and action, yet I still felt like nothing was happening. 

“There are good people in Gotham. Protect them.”

Also, I had unanswered questions by the end of the novel and I hate that. I love how Selina was doing everything for her sister, but then why did she keep insisting through the beginning-middle that she wanted to "bring Gotham City to its knees"? I understand if she had to keep up that facade in front of Harley, Ivy, and Luke, but why was it in her personal thoughts? She could have just referred to a plan vaguely without making it seem like she really was what everyone thought she was. I wouldn't have had a problem with the evilness of it, it's just that it was contradictory to her personality at the end of the book. I suppose, though, that she did continuously try to get Luke to "protect the good people of the city", but overall Selina's personal moral compass and personality confused me.

"Her face was white as death. Blood covered her suit. A stab wound in her back, piercing through the shoulder. Still bleeding out. Yet she still held her sister over a shoulder. Fingers white knuckled as they clenched her. She'd been stabbed, and yet Selina had carried her sister here. Tears began sliding down her face. Her mouth trembled. "Please," Selina whispered. One word. Just one, as those tears rolled down her face, through the dirt and blood. Please."

I loved the ending of this book. I love the dynamic between Luke and Selina, I love the way Selina "stealing something" from Nyssa ties into saving her sister, I love the resolution between Selina and Ivy about their friendship. I wasn't fond of the whole "Harley's getting psychiatric treatment because she wants to be good" thing. It just doesn't seem canon to Harley Quinn's character, and I like her crazy lawless personality. 

Wednesday, December 5, 2018

My Life in Books Tag

Here's a book tag so you can get to know me!! These will mostly be books I recommend too, so you should pick some of them up if they look interesting to you. This is called the "My Life in Books" tag and I will link the creator here: https://booklovingnut.com/2017/08/24/life-books-tag/

1. Pick a book for each of your initials: 

L -
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The Lucky One by Nicholas Sparks

M -
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Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs

D -
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The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

2. Count your age along your bookshelf. What book is it?
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I Am Malala by Malala Yousafzai. I couldn't really control this one, but coincidentally it is also a book I highly recommend!

3. Pick a book set in your city or country.
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I'm choosing Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief for this one because I do highly recommend it, and it features a journey across the U.S.

4. Pick a book that represents a place you'd like to travel to.
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The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller. I would love to go to Greece!

5. Pick a book that's your favorite color.
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Kissed by an Angel series by Elizabeth Chandler. It's kind of multicolor, but I love the combination of colors, and it does feature my favorite color, pink.

6. Which book do you have the fondest memories of?
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Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce. This is a book my sister and I really bonded over because of how much we both loved it.

7. Which book did you have the most difficulty reading?
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When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi. This is one of my all-time favorites, and I say it's "hard to read" because from the onset, you know that the author dies before the book is finished and that he's writing about his own physical demise. It's difficult to read because it's a heavy topic, but absolutely worth it.

8. Which book in your TBR will give you the biggest sense of accomplishment when you finally read it?
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The Chronicles of Narnia by C.S. Lewis. This is a huge book/series, and it's daunting to think about reading, but I know I will get around to it eventually!

Monday, December 3, 2018

Hyped Books That I Want to Read

I've been active on Goodreads and Booktube for a few months now, and I've found a lot of super hyped books that I want to read (eventually!). I'm going to share them here. Most of these books are YA/NA fantasy series, and I'm so okay with that!

The reason I wanted to do this post is because I recently read the A Court of Thorns and Roses series by Sarah J. Maas and I really loved it so it makes me excited to read the other books that are heavily recommended by other readers.

In no particular order:

#1: The Throne of Glass series by Sarah J. Maas
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I'm not sure if I'll like this one as much as ACOTAR but I'm definitely excited to give it a try! Overall, I think people like ACOTAR more, but that doesn't mean this one isn't also hyped in its own right.

#2: Six of Crows duology by Leigh Bardugo
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I feel like I hear about this series every day. I have already bought both Six of Crows  and Crooked Kingdom and I'm hoping to get to them soon!

#3: Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe by Benjamin Alire Saenz
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Honestly I don't even remember what the basic plot of this is, I just remember hearing everyone talk about it and reading the synopsis and plopping it down on my TBR list a while ago. And it has like 4 medals on the front, so it has to be good I guess??

#4: A Gentleman's Guide to Vice and Virtue by Mackenzi Lee
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Ever since I read The Song of Achilles by Madeline Miller, I've been hooked on the premise of forbidden love because of "out of time" societal barriers. This is like George Washington but... with GAYS! Amazing. Or at least that's what I've heard.

#5: The Raven Cycle series by Maggie Stiefvater
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This is another series that I hear about constantly, with all amazing ratings. I really loved Maggie Stiefvater's Shiver trilogy (which I actually want to reread), so I'm very excited to collect and read all of these.

#6: The Astonishing Color of After by Emily X.R. Pan
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This book deals with a topic I have not read a lot about or (thankfully) ever come close to experiencing, so I think that it will be refreshing for me. I also think it will break my heart in half, but it's fine.

#7: Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma
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I've seen this book get mixed reviews, and the bad reviews are mostly from people who are too uncomfortable with the taboo theme of it. And that's exactly why I was intrigued to read it. Again, here's another book that I'm pretty sure will snap my heart like a twig. But  i t ' s  f i n e.

#8: I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson
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Here's another book that I don't actually know what it's about, but the reviews, recommendations, and synopsis were enough to set it on my TBR. Also the cover is pretty :)

#9: The Wrath and the Dawn duology by Renee Ahdieh
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I think this is the only book on my list that the synopsis stopped me from immediately putting it on my TBR. I heard really good reviews, went to look it up, and thought that the plot/theme/setting were not really my style in fantasy series. After a few more recommendations, I went back a few times and finally put it on my TBR. It might end up being my favorite series ever, who knows??

#10: Vicious by V.E. Schwab
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This book sounds exactly like something I would like, and everyone is always talking about Victoria Schwab so I wanted to see what all the fuss is about.


There we have it, my list of hyped books that I am most anxious to read. There are plenty of other hyped books that are on my TBR but these are my top ones. I know I am super late to the party on all of these books/series (which I'm fine with actually because I hate starting series and then having to wait months-a year for each new book to come out *cough* ACOTAR *cough*), so I'm hoping to knock them out in 2019, and I'll probably be posting reviews for most of them!

Saturday, December 1, 2018

Review for "Artemis" by Andy Weir

"When they designed Artemis, someone said, 'What if there's an explosion at the reactor? It's like, a thousand meters from town? That'd be bad, right?' A bunch of nerds furrowed their brows and pondered this. Then one of them said, 'Well... we could put a bunch of dirt in the way?' They gave him a promotion and a parade."

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Rating: 4 stars

I was so impressed with this book. It doesn't have as good ratings as Andy Weir's other novel, The Martian (which I haven't read), so I didn't have super high hopes for it, but I am so so glad I read it.
So first of all... Jazz is hilarious. Her personality and narration was what made this book so enjoyable for me. I loved her snarkiness, her sarcasm, her dry humor, her no-BS attitude, and the way she was trying to do the right thing without being pegged as "the good guy". For example, throughout the book she keeps talking about how she needs 416 thousand and some specific amount of slugs (their currency), and in the end (SPOILER) you find out it's to repay her dad for ruining his shop as a teenager, when the whole time she seemed like she couldn't care less about her dad/being a bad daughter. ANYWAY. I love Jazz. The only problem I had with her was that I thought she acted a little bit too young for her age. Making jokes about boobs, handjobs, etc. It's not that I thought the jokes shouldn't have been in the book, I just thought Jazz's age should've been set as 22-23, not 26.
I also really loved Svoboda, but I felt that some of the things that happened were only to advance his character and not anything relevant and it was annoying. Like the thing with the reusable condom? Why did that have to happen at all? Why???
The other problems I had with this book were that I felt like there was not enough explanation of some things, or that the explanations came really late. The world-building itself is pretty good, but I never got answers to: 1) What is EVA? (I had to look it up myself because I'm not a space person) 2) What is KSC? (It may have been mentioned but I didn't catch it), and 3) What year is this set in? They make references to "century old technology" and Clint Eastwood movies, so I wanted to know how far in the future this was supposed to be. I also wondered often about the population of Artemis before it was finally revealed.
I loved the story. I expected a very straightforward space adventure plot, but this one was full of twists with secrecy, crime, murder, betrayal, the whole nine yards. Overall, a really amazing story with fantastic characters, and the narration is wonderful too!