Book Review-The Hunt By Andrew Fukuda

I sit here still in awe of what a great read this book was. I went in thinking this was just going to be another young adult dystopian/ paranormal story and what I got was just so much more. From the first pages I was sucked into this story and world and I did not put it down until the last pages. Even after the last page I wanted more of this interesting world that Andrew Fukuda has created for us. I normally don't read many stories told from the male point of view and it's not that I don't enjoy them, but it seems more and more stories coming out today are all told from the females point of view. The Hunt was a refreshing change for me in that department and I am so glad for that. 


The Hunt is told from Gene's point of view. He has learned the only way to survive is to pretend to be one of them the zombie/ vampire race that now rules the world. It is not easy to pass off as one of them for there are many tell tale signs that we as humans do that gives us away. Even our body odor tells them we are human or as they consider us Hepers. Somehow even though the odds are not in his favor Gene has managed to hide amongst them. One day it is announced that there will be a lottery to select a special few to participate in a hunt of the last remaining Hepers. This is big news and when Gene is picked as well as the girl he can't seem to get out of his head the life Gene has so painfully and carefully created will be put in grave jeopardy.

Every thing about this story captivated me from this sad new world to the struggles Gene must face everyday to go unnoticed. This story has what I call some pretty disgusting moments, but I believe that was the point this world is not nice these creatures are not of your sparkly vampire variety. They drool and slobber just from the thought of heper/human blood. Once they smell they go completely crazy and go into blood lust. More or less these creatures are monsters. Gene I felt was a strong protagonist. He would have to be to survive in this world.

The Hunt was a very gripping fast paced novel from the awesome cover to the startling last page. It's a great book to pick up if you are looking for something a bit different from the normal dystopian/ paranormal genre. The author writes a very intriguing and different story that had me wanting to know more and to stay in the world he created a little longer to find out what was going to happen next. Thanks to Netgalley and St. Martins griffin for allowing me the chance to review this wonderful story.

This book is a hard book for me to review. I liked it but I didn't love it. To me it was a cute read but it just didn't grab me like so many books out there have done lately.

Bewitching is book 1 in the Kendra Chronicles. We met Kendra in Beastly she's the witch who made him a beast. Bewitching shows us some of the other people she has tried to help over the years. Mainly it follows Emma a girl who is having problems with her stepsister. So of course what is a witch to do but try and help out the people that need the most help. Yet sometimes Kendra's help doesn't always turn out how she wants in the end.

This book had the potential to be great for me, but it seemed like it was lacking. The writing was good and I liked the characters I just didn't connect with the story as a whole. My main problem was throughout the story we get to read about other people Kendra had tried to help through the years and it made me lose focus on the story as a whole. I did like the retelling of some of the tales we get to read. I also didn't like how some of the characters were portrayed and how everyone was so quick to believe everything the stepsister said about Emma. I mean come on here is a girl you have known forever and yet you are going to believe something someone that you just met recently said about her no questions asked. I would like to believe that people would question the stepsisters reasoning, but that's just me and I know there are people out there who are easily manipulated. It just seemed everyone who knew Emma was one of those easily manipulated people. Overall this was a good read just not a great read for me. I will probably read the next installment of this series just to see where the Author takes Kendra next.

Book Review Shatter Me By Tahereh Mafi

Wow I really loved this story. When I first started reading it I wasn't to sure if I was going to like it with all the metaphors the author used, but as the story progressed I found myself enjoying the authors writing style. I am sure there will be plenty of people who will not like the style of writing but I found it intriguing and it made the story all the more better for me.

Shatter Me is about Juliette a seventeen year old girl who has spent the last 264 days locked up in isolation in an asylum for an act she did not mean to commit. See Juliette has a curse or a gift depending on who you are and how you look at it. Juliette has always seen it as a curse. See her touch is lethal and one accident she committed when she was 14 years old has lead her to where she is. Then on day 264 everything changes when Juliette gets a cellmate a young man named Adam. Little does she know that his arrival will change the course of her life as she knows it.

Like I said in the beginning of the review I loved this book and I felt myself drawn to the heroine Juliette. Her struggles with her curse/gift felt believable. Her anguish over what she did when she was 14 was very realistic. This book is definitely an either love it or hate it book and I am glad I am in the love it category. The metaphors were beautifully written. Granted there was a lot of them used in the telling of this story but that is what made this a great story for me. It was definitely a great start to what I hope will continue to be a great series. I will be keeping my eye out for the sequel. Till then I will be waiting impatiently till the next installment is released.

Book Review Every Other Day By Jennifer Lynn Barnes

What a great read. I have read Jennifer Lynn Barnes Raised by Wolves series which I thoroughly enjoyed, so I thought I would give Every Other Day a shot and it did not disappoint.  The book focuses on Kali a girl who every other day she is a normal teenager then ever day in between she becomes something else. She still looks like herself but she gets the urge to hunt supernatural beings and she heals at an accelerated rate. She has no idea why she is this way or even what she is. Then on one of her human days Kali spots a mark on a fellow student and she knows she has been marked for death by a supernatural creature. So Kali decides to try and save the girl and from that moment nothing will be the same for Kali again.

  I loved this story and the mysteries that followed. The characterization and world building was great. Some of Kali’s friend she makes along the way of her journey really helped make this story. Kali was a serious kick butt heroine and I love that in my lead character. It’s nice to see a girl who can take care of herself and she does it well. The mystery involving what Kali is was well written, but I feel I was left with more questions than answers in the overall scheme of things, which was kind of a disappointment.

    A very good plotted and well written story that grabbed me from the first few pages and didn’t let go till the end. The action, mystery and intrigue was very captivating. Overall Jennifer Lynn Barnes does it again with another terrific read; I can’t wait for the sequel so I can hopefully get some of my questions answered. 

Book Review- Partials By Dan Wells

Let me start off by saying wow I absolutely LOVED this book. The amount I love this book even surprises me. I honestly wasn’t sure if I was going to like Partials or not. The premise seemed to be a little more sci-fi then I tend to like, but I figured I would give it a shot and boy did it not disappoint. 
Partials is set in the year 2076. Humanity has all but been extinguished after the war with the Partials, engineered organic beings that appear to be human. The population has been reduced to tens of thousands by a weaponized virus that only a fraction of humans are immune. The survivors have come together at Long Island. Trying to pick up the pieces of what is left and too survive. The problem is no baby has been born immune in over a decade and time is running out. Kira is a sixteen year old girl who works in the Maternity ward trying to find a cure for the babies. When her best friend announces that she is pregnant it causes Kira to take a deeper look at the problem and try to find a cure before her friend’s baby is born. Little does she know that that deeper look will send her fleeing with the unlikeliest of allies and the answers are closer than anyone could believe. 
I found this book to be very fast paced. The world and character building were very believable. I felt myself being drawn into the world Dan Wells had created and I didn’t want to leave. Even when I got to the last page I wanted more of this awesome story. I loved Kira she was a strong girl who didn’t need someone to rescue her all the time. She could stand on her own two feet very well. The secondary characters were just as likeable and they weren’t weaklings either. 
My only problem was the story ended to soon I wanted more of it and I hope when book 2 comes out in the series we get answers to some of the questions we were left hanging with. I really enjoyed the scientific explanations throughout the story. Dan Wells get kudos for going deeper into the explanations then a lot of authors I have read lately who seemed to just graze the threshold. Overall a fantastic read and I cannot wait for the next one. 

Book Review- Kill Me Softly By Sarah Cross

Wow I surprisingly loved this book. I normally don’t get into retelling of fairy tales, but this story was really well done and I am glad I got the chance to review it. From the very first pages it hooked me and I ended up reading it all in one sitting. 
Kill Me Softly is about a teenage girl named Mirabelle Lively. She is about a week away from her 16th birthday. She lives with her 2 godmothers because her mother and father were killed when she was just a baby from a fire at her christening party. Her godmothers have always been good to her but she feels they have sheltered her from a lot of things out of life the most important being going back to Beau Rivage the city where she was born and her parents died at. So Mirabelle after careful planning decides to run away and go to Beau Rivage to find her parent’s graves. Upon arriving at Beau Rivage she meets a group of people who seem to be hiding secrets. In this group she meets 2 brothers Blue and Felix who couldn’t be more complete opposites. First there is Felix the sweet and caring older brother who seems to want to help her out and then there is Blue who is rude and mean and wants her to leave Beau Rivage. As she continues her search for her parents she realizes things are not quite what they seem in this city and she may be a part of something bigger than even she could have imagined. The boy she falls in love with kiss could turn deadly. 
This story had some really great moments and I loved the spin on the fairy tales it gives. Although there was some points in the story where I wanted to grab Mirabelle and shake her and tell her to stop being so naïve. That was just me though because in a lot of instances she was that naïve because her godmothers had sheltered and protected her from so much. I really enjoyed the world Sarah Cross created in this story and I hope I get to visit it again. My only real complaint was it seemed like the ending was really rushed and could have been done just a bit better. It was almost like the author said oh no I am on page 300 I need to wrap this up and shoved all kinds of things at us in a short amount of time. 
Overall I will definitely be reading this again when it finally comes out. I hope she writes more stories in the world she created because there was characters I would definitely like to see if they get there happily ever after or not. Thank you to Egmont USA and Netgalley for allowing me to read and review this wonderful story. 

Book Review- Dearly Departed By Lia Habel

First let me start off by saying I absolutely love the cover to this book. It definitely has become one of my favorite covers. Now the real question is did the beautiful cover live upto the book? That would be a oh yeah! I absolutely loved this story. It was a definite different spin on the vampire-zombie tales. Once I picked this story up I could not put it down. It grabbed me from the beginning and the pacing was perfect. It had just enough action plus world and character building to keep me glued to the pages till the final page turn. Then I wanted more, more, more of this story.

  Dearly Departed is told from multiple POV’s but it mainly follows Nora Dearly in the year 2195. It’s a high tech era which has gone back to a more simpler time of the Victorian era. Nora’s the type of girl who is more interested in military history then debutante ball. Being orphaned when her parents died she ends up living with her aunt who is more interested in money and status then what her niece wants out of life. Everything changes when a group of zombies tries to take Nora and she is saved by a team of soldiers and her life will never be the same again. In this team of soldiers Nora meets Bram Griswold a handsome man who makes Nora feel more alive than she has in a long time, but there is one catch Bram is undead.  They know there love is destined to be doomed but nothing can stop them from loving each other no matter how long they have left. Now together with a group of other undead they will try to find an end for the fatal virus known as Laz which is responsible for creating the undead.

 I don’t even know where to begin with this review except I loved this story.  Everything about it was well written. I felt myself being drawn in from the very 1^st pages. I loved the world building and the spin of the Victorian Era with the advance technology. I wasn’t very sure at this concept at first but the author makes it work and creates a fantastic world. I really felt for Nora who turns out to not be a typical heroine in stories as of late she manages to handle her own in a world that to her that has gone mad. Bram was so very lovable I could understand why Nora was drawn to him. I can’t wait for the next book in this series. I will definitely be keeping my eyes out for it.

Book review- On A Dark Wing By Jordan Dane

I was really looking forward to reading this book, but in the end the anticipation was more exciting then the book itself. I’m not saying that I didn’t find the book good, just that I found it boring in parts and because of that it didn’t hold my attention like some of my favorite books have. 
On A Dark Wing is a story about Abbey Chandler who cheated death 5 years before, when a horrific car accident took her mother’s life but not hers. She believes and Ethereal boy took her hand and saved her life. Now 5 years later Abbey is an outcast at school she still carries the guilt of what happened 5 years before and she is seeing deaths ravens and her long time secret crush Nate Holden appears to be deaths taget. As Nate begins his dangerous climb up Alaska’s Denali she will learn that death never forgets. 
The premise for this story sounded very intriguing and I was so glad when I was approved to read this off of Netgalley, but as I began to read it I felt like something was lacking and it never grabbed hold of me like I wanted it to. The authors writing was good and I enjoyed the characters, but I never could connect with anyone of them and maybe that’s why I couldn’t get engrossed into this story. In the end it left me wondering if maybe had I connected with the characters better if I would have enjoyed this story more. Overall it was an ok read. I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. What saved the story for me was I loved the idea behind it I just didn’t love the execution. I am not completely brushing off this author I will definitely give her a try again. 

Book Review-Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Where do I start this review? For starters I need to say that for this being a debut novel it didn’t feel like it. This book was so well written. It was like a shark that sunk its teeth in me and never let go until the heartbreaking conclusion. 

Nikki vanished for 6 months, but now she has returned. She was in the underworld known as the Everneath. Time works differently there. What was 6 months here was a century there. She went to the Everneath willingly as a forfeit for Cole an Everliving. Somehow she escapes and she now has 6 months to say her goodbyes before the Everneath comes and claims her forever. She longs to connect with her old boyfriend Jack but Cole decides to follow her and make her 6 months a little bit more complicated. 

This story is told from alternating between the past and the present. I initially didn’t think I would like the story being told this way, but I found that it actually made the telling of the story that much better. The mythology this was based on really helped make this story but yet it shines as its own story to tell. I pretty much gulped this up in one sitting. The characters were very relatable and I felt for all of them. The world building was wonderfully done. Like I said in the beginning it’s hard to believe that this is a debut novel. Brodi Ashton really wrote a wonderful story. From the very first pages I could tell that this was going to become one of my favorite reads and it did not disappoint. Now I am impatiently waiting for the next book in the series to come out so I can join this world and characters again. 

Book Review-Life Eternal by Yvonne Woon

Let me start off by saying I really didn’t know what to expect when I started reading Life Eternal the second book in the Dead Beautiful series. Dead Beautiful was such a great read I tried not to let my expectations for Life Eternal to get too high, but I had nothing to worry about this book far exceeded any expectations I could have had. If you haven’t read Dead Beautiful please don’t read any further because there will be spoilers for the 1st book. 
Life Eternal starts off a few months after the events that happened in Dead Beautiful. Renee Winters feels likes she has changed she looks older and is having dreams or visions she isn’t sure which. The condition has everyone a little baffled, but Renee can never tell anyone what really happened. Her undead boyfriend Dante brought her back to life Last May. Renee heads to a different school in Canada instead of Gottfried Academy. While there she misses Dante more than she ever thought she could, but she knows Dante doesn’t have much time left unless she can figure a way to change things. Renee learns about the Nine Sisters and a secret that may be the answer her and Dante have been hoping for. 
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. It was very engrossing and kept me interested till the last page. Yvonne Woon has created a very believable world with characters I love. In Life Eternal we meet a new group of characters and they add to the story. The only complaints I have about this story is that we don’t see enough of Dante and Renee’s insistent whining through the first half of the book made me want to reach through the pages and smack some sense into her. I also began feeling really bad for Dante because Renee is so quick to think the worse of him. My other complaint is how Yvonne Woon ends these books in this series. The cliffhangers are enough to drive me crazy. How can you end a book like that Grrrr. Now I have to wait till the 3rd book comes out and I am definitely counting down to see how Renee and Dante’s journey continues. I want to thank Disney-Hyperion and Netgalley for allowing me to receive an ARC of this book and the privilege to read and review it.