Guest Review: Blood Red

BLOOD RED

by Mercedes Lackey

Pages: 400

Publisher: Titan Books

Publication Date: July 14th 2014 

Received From:  Titan Books

Summary 

Little Red Riding Hood's real name is Gretchen Schwarzwald, and she isfrom the Schwarzwald (the Black Forest) in Germany. Ten years ago, she was orphaned by an evil Earth Master who wanted her parents' land and killed them all with the werewolves he created. She was rescued by a Fire Master, a member of the Woodsman's Lodge, and taught how to use her own Fire Powers. Now another werewolf pack is ravaging Exmoor, and she has come to help London's White Lodge eradicate it and find and destroy the Elemental Master behind it.

Review

I was very excited about reading this book. I absolutely love retellings of fairy tales and in the past have come across some very good versions of the classics. Hoping that this would be the same experience I picked the book up enthusiastically…

Unfortunately, for me, this experience was not as I was hoping. I really struggled with this book, hence my rating above. My main reason for this was that I found the book really difficult to get into. By this I mean the not-being-able-to-wait-to-read-what-happens-next feeling. I found that the characters were confusing as their relationship to the main character Rosa was not always made as clear as it sometimes needs to be in a book like this and the general storyline was not something that excited me as much as I was hoping it would.

To give the book its dues, the idea behind the book was originally what excited me and made me want to read it in the first place, however as mentioned above, I just found this difficult when actually reading it. The storyline took a long time to really get going and I found too many things were happening for me to really enjoy the book.

However, one positive thing I do need to mention is that Mercedes Lackey’s portrayal of Red Riding Hood is a very flattering portrayal any young modern woman would aspire to be. Against the tradition of the young, naïve girl who talked to strangers, Lackey presents a young, strong woman who has endured terrible horrors and learned from these to come out fighting, against all odds of her society where women are deemed fragile and incapable.

I think this book would be suitable for a majority of young adult readers but for those like me who read older books on a regular basis, you may struggle with this book. On the other hand, that may only have been me =)

**I received this book as an ARC from Titan Books to read & review. This is a 100% honest review.**

Picture Book Review: The Day The Crayons Quit

THE DAY THE CRAYONS QUIT

by Drew Daywalt 

&

 illustrated by Oliver Jeffers

Pages: 40pages

Publisher: HarperCollins 

Publication Date: August 1st 2013

Summary 

Debut author Drew Daywalt and international bestseller Oliver Jeffers team up to create a colourful solution to a crayon-based crisis in this playful, imaginative story that will have children laughing and playing with their crayons in a whole new way. Poor Duncan just wants to colour in. But when he opens his box of crayons, he only finds letters, all saying the same thing: We quit! Beige is tired of playing second fiddle to Brown, Blue needs a break from colouring in all that water, while Pink just wants to be used.
Green has no complaints, but Orange and Yellow are no longer speaking to each other. The battle lines have been drawn. What is Duncan to do?

Review

"Hey Duncan,

It's me, RED Crayon."

So I don't tend to read children's books and there are three reasons for this. One I'm not a child. Two I don't have a kid or kid brother or sister, niece or nephew, so no one to read them too. And then lastly the fact that I would get some strange looks sitting in Starbucks reading a book of three year olds. So when I walked into Waterstones and my mother pointed out this book I just looked the other way. Then she read one of the letters inside the book and that was it, I needed to buy it. I could pretend and say that it was my mum's idea but I talked her into getting this book and I'm SO glad I did.

The Day The Crayons Quit is a witty and creative little picture book that will give you an insight into the life of a crayon and let me tell you, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. This book is told through a series of letters addressed to a kid named Duncan. The letters are from his crayons, and they tell him just how they feel about it colouring habits.

From the perfectly content Green crayon to a neat Purple being forced to go against what comes naturally to him and colour outside the lines and then there's the bickering Orange and Yellow crayons who both think they're the colour of the sun (personally I think it's Yellow, sorry Orange), this book jam packed with personality and I laughed the whole way through it. Not to mention Oliver Jeffers' beautiful illustrations match Drew Daywalt's characters seamlessly.

Maybe it's just me, but I think there's a real air of brilliance to this picture book. So whether or not you have kids or your just a big kid like me give this book a read. It will brighten up your day and put a smile on your face.

P.S. My favourite crayon is Peach. He should come and live with my crayons!! They're all naked so he'll get on just fine.

Review: The 100

THE 100

by Kass Morgan

Pages: 336 (paperback)

Publisher: Hodder 

Publication Date: 29th August 2013

ISBN: 9781444766882
Received From:  Hodder via Chapter5

Summary 

Ever since a devastating nuclear war, humanity has lived on spaceships far above Earth's radioactive surface. Now, one hundred juvenile delinquents -- considered expendable by society -- are being sent on a dangerous mission: to recolonize the planet. It could be their second chance at life...or it could be a suicide mission. 

CLARKE was arrested for treason, though she's haunted by the memory of what she really did. WELLS, the chancellor's son, came to Earth for the girl he loves -- but will she ever forgive him? Reckless BELLAMY fought his way onto the transport pod to protect his sister, the other half of the only pair of siblings in the universe. And GLASS managed to escape back onto the ship, only to find that life there is just as dangerous as she feared it would be on Earth. 

Confronted with a savage land and haunted by secrets from their pasts, the hundred must fight to survive. They were never meant to be heroes, but they may be mankind's last hope.

Review

"Maybe, here in the ruins of the old world, they could start something new."

First of let me say that The 100 (book) is NOTHING like the TV show. That's not to say it's bad, it's just different and if you want to read the book to find out what's going to happen to our favourite characters later on in the series then it's not really going to work! 

The story itself is well thought through and jam packed with plot lines and character developments. The multiple points of view gives us a chance to see how The 100 are coping and evolving on Earth but also to the evens unfolding in space. Each chapter’s flits between the past and the present showing how each character ended up in confinement and, subsequently, on the drop ship speeding towards Earth. Will the hundred survive on a planet that's been inhabitable for the past 300 years? And can the people left in space afford for them to fail? Things are about to get messy. 

We still have some of the regular suspects, Clarke, Wells, Bellamy and Octavia however they're not quite the same characters we've come to know and love. There are also a couple of newbies thrown into the mix. Glass, Luke and I'm going to say Wells too... because he is not, in any way shape or form, the same character I'd got to know and I’m not sure I like this version of him.

Bellamy is without a doubt my favourite character! He is so protective of his little sister and having chapters told from his point of view only increases my love for him. I can't help it; I'm a sucker for a bad boy with a soft side. 

Overall I did really liked this book. I think that because I had seen the show first it could, at times, feel a little slow but I think that's because the TV show covers so much in every episode. The book would have to be Game of Thrones length to cover even a per cent of the show. However, in general, ignoring the TV show tie in, it's a fun and fast read and I'm super excited to start Day 21! I need more Bellamy!!

**I received this book as an ARC from Hodder via Chapter5 to read & review. This is a 100% honest review.**

Inside Out Book Tag

INSIDE & OUT

~ Book Tag ~

nside flap / Back of the book summaries: Too much info? Or not enough (Discuss)

Paperbacks - no. Hardbacks - yes & here's why... with a paperback the summary is more of a blur. It gives you just enough although at the same time can be a little cryptic when it comes to giving you the good stuff. However with a hard back the they seem to think just because the summary is on the inside of the book means that they can give you WAY too much info. So I guess it's completely dependant on the book but as a rule that tend to be the case. 

ew book: What form do you want it in? Be honest: audio book, e-book, paperback, or hardcover?

If I can afford it at the time Hardback although I don't mind a paperback. I only really get ARC's as ebooks and I never get audio. I find the voice, however nice it may be, grating after about two hours. 

cribble while you read? Do you like to write in your books, taking notes, making comments, or do you keep your books clean clean clean? (Tell us why)

I've NEVER understood how people can write in their books. I couldn't even do it will text for school. I need to keep my books clean and pretty!! 

n your best voice, read for us your favourite first sentence from a book.
I don't remember first lines! So this is the first line of the book I am currently reading, Ten Tiny Breaths by K.A. Tucker. 

"A soft hiss... my heart thumping in my ears."

Good book but maybe not the best opening line in the world. I read a book once where the first like was something about the character wanting to fire her mum. That was cute but I can't for the life of me tell you want book that was! 

 oes it matter to you whether the author is male or female when you’re deciding on a book? What if you’re unsure of the author’s gender?

Not in the slightest. What does gender have to do with how well a book is written? 

ver read ahead? Or have you ever read the last page way before you got there?

Not so much anymore but I was really bad at this at one point. I would always read the last paragraph before I even thought of starting a book. Also is I'm reading a scene that a little dull, which in all fairness most books have the odd one, I used to skip a couple of chapters and read an odd sentence just to see what was going on. This is almost as bad an idea as reading the last page! You have no idea how many books that has spoiled. 

FYI I read ahead in Allegiant by Veronica Roth... worst book related mistake of my life!!!!

&

rganized bookshelves, or outrageous bookshelves?

Somewhere in the middle. I mean my bookshelves are probably the most organised things about me but at the same time I have so many books it's impossible for there not to be at least a little bit of chaos on my shelves. 

nder oath: have you ever bought a book based on the cover (alone)?

Just every other book I ever buy. I'm a total book snob and I usually won't buy a book unless I like the cover unless I'm sort of desperate for it! However, I have many a book on my semi-organised shelves that I have no clue what they are about just that they have pretty covers. Is that bad?

ake it outside to read, or stay in?

Depends on the weather. Inside, snuggled up in bed when it's cold and outside in the garden when the sun is shining. Although this is England so 80% of the time I'll be inside.

How about you? Let me know your answers in the comments below or if you've done the tag yourself leave a link so I can check it out. If not? Then give it a go!!

Review: ANOMALY

ANOMALY

by Krista McGee

Pages: 312 (paperback)

Publisher: Thomas Nelson Publishers

Publication Date: July 9th 2013

ISBN: 1401688721
Received From: YA Bound Book Tours via NetGalley

Summary 

Thalli has fifteen minutes and twenty-three seconds left to live. The toxic gas that will complete her annihilation is invading her bloodstream. But she is not afraid.
Thalli is different than others in The State. She feels things. She asks questions. And in the State, this is not tolerated. The Ten scientists who survived the nuclear war that destroyed the world above believe that emotion was at the core of what went wrong—and they have genetically removed it from the citizens they have since created. Thalli has kept her malformation secret from those who have monitored her for most of her life, but when she receives an ancient piece of music to record as her community’s assigned musician, she can no longer keep her emotions secreted away.
Seen as a threat to the harmony of her Pod, Thalli is taken to the Scientists for immediate annihilation. But before that can happen, Berk—her former Pod mate who is being groomed as a Scientist—steps in and persuades the Scientists to keep Thalli alive as a test subject.
The more time she spends in the Scientist’s Pod, the clearer it becomes that things are not as simple as she was programmed to believe. She hears stories of a Designer—stories that fill her mind with more questions: Who can she trust? What is this emotion called love? And what if she isn’t just an anomaly, but part of a greater design?

Review

I really wanted to like this book. I mean on paper it has everything I need in a book but when it came to actually reading it I found the characters so unbelievably dense and one-dimensional that I struggled to really get into the story. Now it may have just been a case of wrong book, wrong person however it was a mission to get through Anomaly and when it came time to write my review I've struggled to find anything positive to say.

After reading about two chapters of this book I was reverted to this!

Anomaly is a book set in a far off future where what is left of human civilisation lives underground in monitored pods. There are every few people left in The State and those who are live by the rules and only ever see the same people day after day. It's a routine not a life and as the book progresses we see how Thalli copes with this life and the extremes she will go to to escape.

Okay so I found something positive! The very VERY beginning was good. I liked books that start at the end and work backwards however by the end of chapter two I didn't care how it got to the point were Thalli was going to die. Thalli is probably the main reason I struggled with this book. She was a hard character to get behind with all her actions and speech reading as robotic and inhuman. There was no emotion to her and I had nothing, and I mean NOTHING, to connect to.

Me neither Russ! Not about the characters, not about nothing!!

This isn't going to be a long review because I feel like I'll just be repeating myself. Also after about a third of the book I was simply skim reading, dying to move onto something interesting. Overall the story was unoriginal and the characters unimaginative. There was nothing for m to sink my teeth into and the idea of having to read the second book makes me want to cry.

But look, that's just my opinion. It's a strong opinion, but you never know you might find something in this book to like. If you do, then I'm happy for you. There's nothing worse than reading a book you don't like.

Sorry I can't recommend this one lovelies.

Let me know what you thought of this book!

**I received this book as an ARC from YA Bound Book Tours via NetGalley to read & review. This is a 100% honest review.**

Blogging Confessions

Back in July one of The Broke & The Bookish's Top Ten Tuesday's topic was Top Ten Blogging Confessions. It's a post that Jamie has done a couple of times and I wanted to give it a go. So these are my Top 10 Blogging Confessions.

Make sure you check out Jamie's original post on The Broke & Bookish. 

Also, while you've got your search engine open check out Jamie's other blog The Perpetual Page-Turner. It's one of my favourite book blogs!

1. I NEVER feel that I'm reading enough.

I've got my weekly average up to around 3 books a week now however, I still feel that I'm slacking! I'm always comparing what I read to other bloggers and they all seem to be reading so much more than me it makes me feel like the slowest reader ever. 

2. Until two weeks ago I was totally winging it and didn't schedule a single post. 

So I'm not the most organised person. The people who have had rescheduling emails from me will back this up. In all honesty I didn't even know you could schedule posts until a couple of weeks ago and now I have posts all lined up into next month. I'm slowly, but surly, organising myself but I'm still new at this and I feel like I'm totally winging it. 

3. I have serious blogging envy

I don't mean too. I love the other bloggers and I have some great chats with them and I adore reading their posts. However, when someone gets a book I'd like to read or they've come up with some amazing idea of a post I get really jealous. Envy is probably the worst part of my character and I'm working really hard to be better. Promise! 

4. My NetGalley's feedback % is 30.

Ah! I guess I have a problem where I just need MORE books. They're free and lovely and there. I forget that I have to actually read them. I'm working through my list though and I've stop requesting books on NetGalley unless I REALLY want them. So in theory this should go up soon enough. 

5.  I buy more books now than I did before I was blogging. 

You'd think when you're being sent books for review that you'd buy less. But being part of the book blogging community you find out about SO many more books than you did before and you can't get arc's of all of them. Which in the end equals an empty bank account a fuller shelves. 

6. I sometimes feel that I let my blog take over my real life.

Maybe sometimes is an understatement. I manage to spend a good couple of hours a day on social media sites and writing posts that my whole life feels like it's in this blog. I'm not complaining I love writing these posts. I started blogging because I was struggling to write the ending to the book I was working on and I didn't want to stop writing because I knew if I did I would never go back to it. I'd like to think that my writing skills have improved some since I started, I know I'm the typo queen but I feel that the posts themselves are becoming more interesting. 

But you might disagree. 

7. I hate writing negative reviews.

Why would anyone send their book to a reviewer that writes negative reviews? I know we're meant to be honest and I am, but it does make me a little nervous when I post a negative review. I had one last month that I was really worried about, I keep thinking what if the author reads it? I don't want to hurt anyones feelings but at the same time I can't lie. I mean if I wrote 5 star reviews about every book I read you'll stop trusting my judgements... that's if you do anyway, I'm just making assumptions now. 

8. I have a TBR list so long I'll never read them all and yet it just keeps getting longer.

I have this feeling of impending doom every time I look at my TBR list. There are so many worlds I want to explore and stories I want to loose myself in and there just aren't enough hours in the day! 

Real life keeps getting in the way! 

It feels like every time I tick one book of my TBR 5 more have been added! It's never ending and actually a little daunting.

9. I sometimes feel that when other blogger's are commenting about the state of the blogging community now-a-days, they're talking about me.

Okay they're not really complaining, it's more like they're commenting on how the blogging community isn't what it was. I think it's because I'm new I can't help buy feel like they're talking about me. I don't know what blogging was like 'before' but I haven't got any complains. Everyone is lovely and I love it. But I would be lying if I said when people post that they feel like the blogging community is a shadow of what it once was that they're talking about me, because of course, I'm part of this 'new' community. 

Although I will point out that I have paranoid narcissistic tendencies so there is a very good chance I've made this all up in my head. 

10. I don't always read the blurb of a book before I get it.

Yeah this is a bad one! I'd say about a third of the books I own I have no idea what they are about. If I see a book that has a really great cover or I've been told it's a good book I've been known to just buy it without actually reading the blurb and finding out what it's about. It some times makes reading them a lot more fun, you have no idea what going to happen and no expectations. It's like a little adventure. I'd say 7/10 times this works for me... although sometimes I'll be cursing myself for not finding out what the book was about first. 

So those are MY blogging confessions, what are yours? Do you feel the same as me on some of these point? Let me know!