Photo Friday

Found on Pinterest; Pinned from:
http://wickedwaysproductions.blogspot.com/p/halloween-party-planning.html

Reminds me of a Ransom Riggs novel...

!Happy Halloween!

Ruin and Rising

The capital has fallen.

The Darkling rules Ravka from his shadow throne.

Now the nation's fate rests with a broken Sun Summoner, a disgraced tracker, and the shattered remnants of a once-great magical army.

Deep in an ancient network of tunnels and caverns, a weakened Alina must submit to the dubious protection of the Apparat and the zealots who worship her as a Saint. Yet her plans lie elsewhere, with the hunt for the elusive firebird and the hope that an outlaw prince still survives.

Alina will have to forge new alliances and put aside old rivalries as she and Mal race to find the last of Morozova's amplifiers. But as she begins to unravel the Darkling's secrets, she reveals a past that will forever alter her understanding of the bond they share and the power she wields. The firebird is the one thing that stands between Ravka and destruction—and claiming it could cost Alina the very future she’s fighting for.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Dare I say that this final book in The Grisha trilogy was exactly what I wanted? In my eyes, Ruin and Rising, by Leigh Bardugo, had it all: light and darkness, love and hate, power and peasants, life and death, a winning side and a losing side. I'm surprised that I'm this happy with the ending but I can't imagine this series ending any other way. 

Alina was badly injured in the end of the second book and she was taken underground by the Apparat with her faithful followers, the Soldat Sol. While healing, her true friends concoct a diversion to replace the Apparat's power with Alina's and, in succeeding, they escape the White Cathedral. As Alina struggles to use her power in the darkness of the underground, readers will re-solidify their bond with her. Through this and the journey to find the firebird, Alina realizes that she has to be able to trust and rely on those around her. With this lesson learned, readers will be able to feel that Alina isn't holding back anymore. She's in this war one hundred percent and will walk into battle knowing that she helped everyone she could. 

The plot of this installment was almost unbelievable in its amazement. After escaping the White Cathedral, Alina and Mal (along with their invaluable team) set off to find Nikolai, who is rumored to have escaped the Little Palace in the attack. With success, they are carted off to the mountains and hidden atop peaks where they can prepare to track the firebird, the believed third amplifier for Alina. When the Darkling attacks the mountain, Alina and Mal barely make it out alive and there are many casualties. Then the hunt for the firebird begins as the Darkling prepares to widen the Shadow Fold. With a time limit and the lives of the world in her hands, Alina must face down the Darkling once and for all. And this time, there's no running away. 

As the series closes, I know I'm going to miss it. From the first prologue this series has enthralled me. Through the discovery of Alina's power, to the revelation about the Darkling's real goal, into the love story between Alina and Mal, and across the world on constant journeys to find the next necessity: it seems to have been more than a lifetime. The Grisha series is one that echoes, calling to its readers as it reverberates through time. I know one day I'll see the series on my bookshelf and feel the need to re-read it. And it will be just as magnificent as it was the first time through. 

Rating: 5/5 Cups

     

WWW Wednesday (121)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

          

01. Currently Reading:
Ruin and Rising by Leigh Bardugo. In the final book of The Grisha series, Alina and Mal escape the White Cathedral and go to the surface with what survived of the Grisha when the Little Palace was attacked. Now they're searching for the firebird and a way to defeat the Darkling once and for all.

02. Recently Finished:
#hashtagged by Kimberly Hix Trant. Very interesting book about artificial intelligence outgrowing the humans who created it.

03. Reading Next:
Lenin Lives Next Door: Marriage, Martinis, and Mayhem in Moscow by Jennifer Eermeeva. A humorous collection of essays about living and loving in Russia.

Teaser Tuesday (134)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers



Ruin and Rising (p.121)
   - Leigh Bardugo

"I can't tell who's who!" I protested.
"We're the side that's hopelessly outnumbered."
Unfortunately, I didn't think he was kidding.

#hashtagged

#hashtagged is a chilling new science fiction novel about a daughter's journey through her father's past and into a frightening future. This future is something that Oliver Smith has seen first hand and for which he has been preparing his daughter, Madeline. After Ollie's death, Maddy must follow a trail of secrets that leads her into the arms of her first love, Jagger, the only person that can truly help her fight against a future world governed by artificial intelligence. #hashtagged shows us in terrifying detail the dystopian world we create through every #hashtag, Twitter, and Facebook update.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Since the birth of the internet, data has been collected, categorized, analyzed. This data forms a picture. A picture that defines humanity. Through this extensive and carefully labeled definition, artificial intelligence has been taking notes. #hashtagged by Kimberly Hix Trant jumps into the future where the collection of data has been completed and the application of data is current. Just one problem, the application has pushed the human race into a dystopian world where machines rule. Enter Maddy Smith, thirty years earlier. She's been preparing for this her whole life. 

Maddy is an intelligent main character who opens up more and more to the reader as the story progresses. Without her knowledge, Maddy has been trained for the day the world would need her to intervene. Ollie, her father, was a computer genius who kept secrets. Lots and lots of secrets. Readers will thoroughly enjoy traveling across the United States (and time) to help Maddy change the outcome of the human race. Though Maddy works more as the eyes and ears of the reader than a down to earth character. The future is the focus of the novel while Maddy is the chance to rewrite it. A simple connection will be made between Maddy and readers, but the story line will keep the pages turning. 

The plot begins with the introduction of Maddy and her unusual training. And then a game begins with the death of her father. A game that turns out to be more serious than life and death. Ollie left a clue for Maddy: a key to an old chest of drawers. In that chest of drawers is a box that Maddy cannot open. And thus, the journey to change the fate of the human race begins. #hashtagged is a unique futuristic novel that is both intriguing and horrifying to readers as we currently walk the path Trant marks as dangerous. 

Rating: 3/5 Cups

Wither

By age sixteen, Rhine Ellery has four years left to live. She can thank modern science for this genetic time bomb. A botched effort to create a perfect race has left all males with a lifespan of 25 years, and females with a lifespan of 20 years. Geneticists are seeking a miracle antidote to restore the human race, desperate orphans crowd the population, crime and poverty have skyrocketed, and young girls are being kidnapped and sold as polygamous brides to bear more children.

When Rhine is kidnapped and sold as a bride, she vows to do all she can to escape. Her husband, Linden, is hopelessly in love with her, and Rhine can't bring herself to hate him as much as she'd like to. He opens her to a magical world of wealth and illusion she never thought existed, and it almost makes it possible to ignore the clock ticking away her short life. But Rhine quickly learns that not everything in her new husband's strange world is what it seems. Her father-in-law, an eccentric doctor bent on finding the antidote, is hoarding corpses in the basement. Her fellow sister wives are to be trusted one day and feared the next, and Rhine is desperate to communicate to her twin brother that she is safe and alive. Will Rhine be able to escape--before her time runs out?

Together with one of Linden's servants, Gabriel, Rhine attempts to escape just before her seventeenth birthday. But in a world that continues to spiral into anarchy, is there any hope for freedom?

*May Contain Spoilers*

The beginning of The Chemical Gardens series is a whirlwind of dealing with scientific failure. Wither, by Lauren DeStefano, shares the story of a girl who only wants to be free for the last four years of her life. Even if that means hiding, worrying, and constantly watching her back. Being captured and sold as a willing bride, Rhine promises that the illusions of luxury won't eclipse her memories of freedom. 

Rhine is a smart 16 year old girl who knows how to act in order to get what she wants. She believes that if she can make her husband fall in love with her, then she'll be trusted more. So when the time comes to make her escape, it'll be easier to slip out. But she doesn't factor making friends into her escape plan. Rhine is an orphan whose parents were killed in a bomb explosion. She knows life is scary, hard, and often leaves bruises. She's down to earth with a strong will and has the advantage of being able to understand others. Readers will enjoy Rhine's hope in a desolate situation and connect with her through her desire to be with her family through the end. The relationships she forms with the other wives, the attendants, and her husband will reveal her as a sweet, caring, yet wary character. 

The story begins after Rhine has already been kidnapped. She, along with two other girls, is picked to be the bride of a House Governor while the ones not chosen are killed. Rhine wakes up in a mansion and is forced to prepare for her wedding. She believes that if she can convince Linden to love her and trust her as his first wife then she'll be able to escape. But she begins to fall for her own lies as she comes to care about those she's trapped with. Will Rhine be able to keep her focus on her escape plan or will she be taken in by the illusions and holograms that make her prison beautiful? 

I absolutely loved the writing style of this book. It's written in first person which immediately puts readers into the role of main character. The emotions that Rhine experiences are easily related to. The illusions that test Rhine, I found myself falling for, wondering how great it would be to experience that. Wither is a struggle between freedom and the false feeling of being free that will enchant readers.

Rating: 4.5/5 Cups

Photo Friday

http://www.buzzfeed.com/stmartinspress/the-epic-love-triangle-between-books-coffee-and-7rut?sub=2626802_1688042
Found on Pinterest

It's quite an intriguing question. Coffee or tea? And it's a struggle to answer. 

Both pair overly well with a great novel. 

The article this photo comes from knows the battle. 

Braineater Jones

Braineater Jones wakes up face down in a swimming pool with no memory of his former life, how he died, or why he’s now a zombie. With a smart-aleck severed head as a partner, Jones descends into the undead ghetto to solve his own murder.

But Jones’s investigation is complicated by his crippling addiction to human flesh. Like all walking corpses, he discovers that only a stiff drink can soothe his cravings. Unfortunately, finding liquor during Prohibition is costly and dangerous. From his Mason jar, the cantankerous Old Man rules the only speakeasy in the city that caters to the postmortem crowd.

As the booze, blood, and clues coagulate, Jones gets closer to discovering the identity of his killer and the secrets behind the city’s stranglehold on liquid spirits. Death couldn’t stop him, but if the liquor dries up, the entire city will be plunged into an orgy of cannibalism.

Cracking this case is a tall order. Braineater Jones won’t get out alive, but if he plays his cards right, he might manage to salvage the last scraps of his humanity.

*May Contain Spoilers*

When a man wakes up without a pulse and a lot of questions, his only real option is go into the detective business. Well, at least when it's Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski. The novel, set in 1934, covers a little more than a month in the life of a zombie private eye that will have you dying with laughter. I know, I know, obvious pun. I couldn't resist.

Jones is a talk first, shoot directly after kind of zombie. He's a bit naive when it comes to trusting certain people and with the entire undead thing completely. He was shot and left to die in a mansion's outside pool. This being the only thing he knows, Jones is determined to get revenge on whoever murdered him. He's a likeable guy with a bit of a forceful attitude. Readers may struggle with forming a connection with Jones, whose real name is not Jones by the way, based on his after death status and desire to uncover his murderer. However, that won't stop anyone from enjoying this book, which is written as the journal of Jones. 

The plot of the novel follows Braineater's awakening, his stumble into the detective business, and the uncovering of a rather large deceitful bootlegging system. Kozeniewski keeps the book at a quick pace, revealing pieces of the mystery in exactly the right way, keeping readers from seeing the bigger picture until the end. Though, this book is not for everyone. It's definitely full of inappropriate, crude language and adult zombie-style situations. This writing style fits the storyline and book perfectly, but young readers or those who don't enjoy this specific type of humor may want to pass. 

Rating: 3/5 Cups

WWW Wednesday (120)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

          

01. Currently Reading:
Braineater Jones by Stephen Kozeniewski. When a man wakes up dead with a lot of questions, it seems to only make sense that he become a private detective for the community. But he may wind up in more trouble than it's worth.

02. Recently Finished:
Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. This was the second novel in The Grisha series and I absolutely loved it. Can't wait to get my hands on the third one. Hoping Alina saves the world and gets the guy. Ya' know. Typical girl wants.

03. Reading Next:
Wither by Lauren DeStefano. I'm definitely intrigued by The Chemical Garden series and I ran across the book in the library so I'm giving it a try. I'm excited to start it.

Teaser Tuesday (133)

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
• Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers



Braineater Jones (Kindle (32%)
    - Stephen Kozeniewski

"Walking dead, yes, but your minds are intact. If I could harness that power somehow, who knows what I could do?"

Siege and Storm

Darkness never dies.

Hunted across the True Sea, haunted by the lives she took on the Fold, Alina must try to make a life with Mal in an unfamiliar land. She finds starting new is not easy while keeping her identity as the Sun Summoner a secret. She can’t outrun her past or her destiny for long.

The Darkling has emerged from the Shadow Fold with a terrifying new power and a dangerous plan that will test the very boundaries of the natural world. With the help of a notorious privateer, Alina returns to the country she abandoned, determined to fight the forces gathering against Ravka. But as her power grows, Alina slips deeper into the Darkling’s game of forbidden magic, and farther away from Mal. Somehow, she will have to choose between her country, her power, and the love she always thought would guide her--or risk losing everything to the oncoming storm.

*May Contain Spoilers*

The epic battle between darkness and light continues in the second book of The Grisha series, Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. Alina and Mal escaped the Darkling once and are fleeing as fast as they can. But they fail to stay below the radar and soon find themselves back inside the Darkling's evil grasp. 

The bond formed between readers and Alina in the first book suffers a little throughout this installment. Alina still has the first amplifier for her power, mainly because if she took it off it would create another Shadow Fold or worse. When the Darkling catches up with Alina and Mal, taking them both prisoner once again, their sights are set on a second amplifier from a sea dragon of ancient myth. Up to that point, Alina is still the girl readers were introduced to in the first book. After the sea dragon scales are added, Alina changes. She becomes an angry, power-hungry version of herself. Alina recognizes the darkness within her and hides it, letting it grow in isolation through abandonment. But she can only fight it for so long. Yes, Alina still wants to save Ravka. Yes, she's still brave, sarcastic, and in love with Mal. However, readers won't feel as connected to this changing Alina even if they understand her internal struggle. 

Siege and Storm opens a few months after Alina and Mal escaped the Fold. They're caught pretty quickly by the Darkling and then saved by a pirate who takes them back to the Ravkan capital. The Darkling has new shadow monsters fighting for him and Alina must convince the remaining Grisha of the Second Army to fight with her. Through all of this, Mal is slowly slipping away from Alina as she becomes more powerful and more distracted. Readers will love the intense politics of the palace and revel in the action, but their hearts will ache with Alina and Mal's when darkness tries to pull them apart. 

Rating: 3.5/5 Cups

Book One of The Grisha Series

Demon Stones

It’s been almost a hundred years since warlock meddling freed the demons from their underground domain. Their eventual capture has encased them in large stones across all the lands. They became known as the demon stones.
Over time, the truth of their imprisonment devolved into legend and tales to frighten children.
Now, the seven kingdoms are in upheaval. The demon stones are being opened and the vile creatures once more roam the land. War has broken open between realms as the fingers of accusation are pointed.
Caught in the middle is Gar Murdach, a farm boy who recently passed the age of ascension of sixteen marking him as a man, and his younger sister, Darlee, as they both struggle in their separate ways to escape the horrors wrought by the demons and the war that swarms round them.

*May Contain Spoilers*

Michael Drakich writes of a fantasy land that is about to experience how much trouble demons can cause in his novel, Demon Stones. When a young boy is compelled to release a demon from its prison, war becomes inevitable and death touches all. 

Gar is the main character of the novel. He's a teenage farm boy who doesn't know responsibility or consequence. His immaturity and naivety is his downfall, and the downfall of many others. Gar is tricked into opening a demon stone, releasing a previously caught demon back into the world. The demon, who Gar names Hiss, promises to serve Gar but instead Gar is manipulated into opening other stones and releasing more demons. Gar isn't an easy character to connect with. His feelings and misunderstandings as a teenager are easily sympathized with but he's also very easy to disagree with, allowing readers to pass judgment on the bad decisions he makes. Gar is arrogant and inexperienced. However, near the end of the novel readers do witness how much Gar grows through his manipulation. 

The plot of Demon Stones introduces Gar and then depicts how he is deceived through a dream to open the first demon stone. In consequence to the demon's actions, Gar's home country goes to war and Gar decides to join the army to escape his father. When the army is overran, the demon helps lead Gar to safety and thus begins the manipulation to open more and more demon stones. It doesn't take long for the country's people to learn that demons are being released and deciding that the Warlock Pact has been broken. 

The first half of the novel is a little slow, but the story line really picks up after the halfway point. Gar wasn't a relatable or particularly likeable character but the understanding that he was being manipulated helped me dislike him a little less. The plot is enjoyable and creative, filled with fighting and magic. The story is definitely what pushed me to finish the book, not the characters. Well, except for Devron and Pap, supporting cast members. I did enjoy their roles in the novel. For most of the other characters, I either disliked or pitied them. 

Rating: 2.5/5 Cups

Photo Friday

http://www.buzzfeed.com/ariellecalderon/things-that-belong-in-every-bookworms-dream-home?sub=2625138_1806676#199cuw
Found on Pinterest 

This is amazing creative craftsmanship. I would very much like a pair, please. :) 

WWW Wednesday (119)

To play along, just answer the following three (3) questions…

• What are you currently reading?

• What did you recently finish reading?

• What do you think you’ll read next?

          

01. Currently Reading:
Demon Stones by Michael Drakich. Interesting story about a young boy who is tricked into releasing demons into the Seven Kingdoms, breaking the Warlock Pact and igniting a war.

02. Recently Finished:
Love and Peaches by Jodi Lynn Anderson. The concluding novel of the Peaches series, this book wraps up the story of three young girls and introduces them into the world of adulthood.

03. Reading Next:
Siege and Storm by Leigh Bardugo. The second novel in The Grisha series, Alina and Mal are fugitives and the Darkling is searching for them.