Fairest (4) Marissa Meyer

This is the fourth published book in the Lunar Chronicles series. The Lunar Chronicles is a delightful Sci Fi/Fantasy series taking beloved fairy tale characters and making them more badass. Cinder, the first book, is Cinderella-esque (ball and all!) but Cinder is a cyborg. I can't explain this series without making it sound ridiculous but I swear everyone I've talked into reading it has loved it. It's for the Once Upon a Time crowd more than the Game of Thrones crowd, it's lighter than Hunger Games and definitely leans on the prince/princess love stories. 

Fairest is the prequel to the existing series, where we see the origin story of the series' spooky villain Queen Levana. Winter, the fourth book in the actual series was supposed to be published in January, and instead we got Fairest. The book that nobody wanted. It's like the forth book of Game of Thrones* when we have to constantly listen to Cercei, and I almost quit the series. And I love this series. It's my new Harry Potter. Well, no, it isn't. But I need something to look forward to in my life, and Winds of Winter isn't going to be published ever.** 

Except it isn't actually. It's so dark and creepy and I couldn't put it down and begged my friend to read it so I could talk to her because I needed to talk about it with somebody. I think I gained a lot of respect for Marissa Meyer. I was worried she was more of a Stephanie Meyer and would name characters Renessme or some crap, but no! She can write a villain's story and you can understand her, and empathize with her, and still think she's scary and awful and hope Cinder and the rest of the original characters can defeat her. But maybe not too mercilessly because now you can see how damaged she is.  

Now I want to go back and re-read the series, but I can't quite bring myself to since I still need to finish The Bone Clocks (Day 77 and counting...). BUT GUESS WHAT?! As of this post, I have caught up! With this post. Which is adorable to look at. Oh, precious, you're 13 books behind? That's cute. Since I posted that I read 20 more books. TWENTY. And that's not even counting the daily doses of children's picture books I read. So what will I finish first? 20 blog posts or The Bone Clocks? Stay tuned...

PS Winter will be out in November and Facebook is already showing me adds for it. Facebook knows me too well. 

*Yes, it's called A Song of Ice and Fire but everyone knows it as Game of Thrones and I try not to sound as pretentious as I actually am. 
** Maybe 2017? GRRM stopped writing the show so he could work on it but I don't trust him. 

This is the creepiest cover ever...

This is seriously the creepiest f-ing cover in the world. I promise there is not some terrifying monster under there...oh wait that's probably exactly what it is.

I'm just writing to warn you that the 3.5th book in The Lunar Chronicles is coming out January 27th, so you should get started reading and catch up. Book one is Cinder and it's about Cinderella in the year 3000 or something and she's a cyborg. This is usually the point where people look at me like I'm a crazy YA fantasy reader who has no idea what a good book is. And there is absolutely zero way I can convince you otherwise and still talk about these books, because they are absolutely YA fantasy but they are also absolutely amazing and I'm more obsessed than I should be.

I keep telling myself that they aren't that great. I tried to not be excited about this book, in fact I was quite angry when I found out that instead of Winter (Book 4) we were getting Levana's origin story (Book 3.5??), but I'm a sucker for this series and I'm excited and I'm going to assume that we need this story to properly enjoy Winter when it comes out...supposedly November 24, 2015 which is in over a year. 

UGHHHHHHH. 

The Line (4)

I loved this book. The only reason I didn't give it five stars is because it didn't change my life in some profound way, but it was a perfectly fun book. I binge read the second half of instead of sleeping last night. (I mean, I slept, but not for a proper 8-hour length of time.)

Twenty-year-old Mercy has been following in her twin sister, Maisie’s, footsteps ever since they were born. Pretty, smart, and powerful Maisie is sure to be the next matriarch of their family. Mercy, on the other hand, is a redheaded tomboy who received none of her family’s powers. When disaster strikes her family, the twins are separated, and Mercy has to learn to rely on her own brand of power.

On the surface, this book has everything every other paranormal YA book has: a young woman whose mother died giving birth to her and has never known her father, being raised by a family who despises her for being different. AND she’s dating her best friend from birth but is actually in love with her sister’s boyfriend, and is torn between him and her love for her twin. But author J.D. Horn takes all of those paranormal YA stereotypes and turns them on their head and breaks them. Right when I think it’s turned all sappy BAM! You thought that was the direction the book was going but NOPE, isn’t this more fun? (Yes, it is. No one needs another cut and dry Edward-Bella-Jacob(-Bella’s Daugther???) novel ever again.) Yes, there was some stuff I saw coming, but it was framed nicely. Every character and every situation was put into the novel for a specific purpose, and it all tied together nicely.

Renesmee?? This is definitely how I named one of my characters when I was 15.
Also, creepy. I almost want to watch this movie now to see how they made this work.
(If you don't know what I'm talking about you don't want to. ...but google "Jacob & Renesmee" and you'll figure it out)

I did feel like the end dragged on a bit. I kept expecting it to be over with a nice “to-be-continued” swoosh so you have to go read the next book to see what happens, but unlike most YA series, I felt that this could be a stand alone novel, kind of like Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s (Philosopher’s) Stone. You come back to the next book for the pure enjoyment of reading and attachment to the character, not because you have to see if Bella and Edward get back together*. And I really appreciated that.

*I feel like I just ragged on Twilight a lot, which is silly because I totally binge read all four of those books and definitely enjoyed them. I get that the writing style felt like reading my 14-year-old journal but it was super entertaining and I was totally Team Edward. The end of the last book was RIDICULOUS. The movies were ridiculous. That being said, I found the whole story very satisfying. 

Miss. Peregine review (3.5) & Cress is coming!

“I used to dream about escaping my ordinary life, but my life was never ordinary. I had simply failed to notice how extraordinary it was.” - Miss. Peregine's Home for Peculiar Children, Ransom Riggs 

Jacob, 16, is a quiet loner who has one best friend, a misfit like himself, and is closest to his grandfather. As a child, his grandfather told him many stories about a magical house he lived in as a child during World War II, the kindly matron who protected them from the monsters, and the peculiar children he lived with. As Jacob grew older, he came to realize that the monsters were really the Nazis, and the pictures of magic merely illusions. But after he finds his grandfather half-dead in the woods, torn apart by an animal who he glimpses, Jacob begins to wonder if the stories were real after all. He ends up travelling with his father to the island his grandfather had spoken of, to find the house where it all began. 

This book started out really strong, but the more fantastic it got, the less connected to the characters I felt. I thought it was going to be a great, creepy, Halloween read but it turned into a less interesting X-Men meets Harry Potter and ended on such a blatant to be continued, I felt a little cheated. Maybe if I had known that it was the first book of a series, I would have accepted this more, but I thought it'd been out for awhile (only 2011) and was just a book all on it's own. 

Now, in the book's defense, I did read it immediately after finishing The Ocean at the End of the Lane, which became more beautiful as it got more fantastical, so it did have a lot to live up to. And the author's note that all the creepy pictures of fantastic children were actually real pictures he found in thrift shops was pretty cool. And the next book comes out January 14th, so you don't have long to wait if you want to know what happens. 

I, personally, am feeling a little overwhelmed by the authors/series I'm following, and If you're into YA, I am in love with the Cinder series, and the third book is coming out in exactly two months!! If you missed my earlier post about Cinder (which was really short), it's another one of those fairytales re-told, which I have a soft spot for. I am especially obsessed with retellings of Cinderella, so I probably like this series more then I should. I may have already read it twice this year. I tried really hard to say it was just ok, but it's the perfect fast read if you're into that prince falls in love with ordinary girl and you can see it all but she doesn't because she's just so ordinary except she really is special if only she could just see it. SPOILERS, sorry, but it's based off Cinderella, so you  have to see that part coming. Cinder's a cyborg, it's the year 3000-something, there are cyborgs.