City of Fallen Angels, by Cassandra Clare

*Disclaimer* This is the fourth book in the “The Mortal Instruments” series, so if you haven´t read the first three books yet please be aware of spoilers. I would not advise reading this post if you want to start this series without being spoiled, but if you don´t mind continue on, just be warned. However if you have read the other three books, this review won´t spoil the fourth book.

Title: City of Fallen Angels

Author: Cassandra Clare

Pages: 480

Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Rating: 4/5

The Mortal War is over, and sixteen-year-old Clary Fray is back home in New York, excited about all the possibilities before her. She’s training to become a Shadowhunter and to use her unique power. Her mother is getting married to the love of her life. Downworlders and Shadowhunters are at peace at last. And—most importantly of all—she can finally call Jace her boyfriend.
But nothing comes without a price.
Someone is murdering Shadowhunters, provoking tensions between Downworlders and Shadowhunters that could lead to a second, bloody war. Clary’s best friend, Simon, can’t help her—his mother just found out that he’s a vampire, and now he’s homeless. When Jace begins to pull away from her without explaining why, Clary is forced to delve into the heart of a mystery whose solution reveals her worst nightmare: she herself has set in motion a terrible chain of events that could lead to her losing everything she loves. Even Jace.

I enjoyed this book very much. It wasn´t as great as City of Glass, but I was happy to see all my little babies happy again, after having suffered through the events of the past books.  Well kind of happy, since Jace and Clary face lots of struggles in this book. This leads me to one of my complaints for this book: Why in the name of the angel (see what I did there?) is Clary always on the edge of tears? She is pretty much always sad or people worry about her being sad, where did that come from? Luckily that stopped halfway through, or else I would have been really annoyed. Another thing was their relationship in general. The prominent problem I have with Jace is that instead of talking to someone about his feelings, fears or whatever, he just bottles everything up. And now that he is in a relationship one would think that he would talk to Clary, but nope. He much rather leaves her standing and goes off distracting himself.

But let´s talk about Simon. This instalment is the most Simon we have gotten so far and I love it! He is one of my favourites from this series with Isabella, who we also see lots in this book, though by far not as much as Simon. There are new character intruded as well, like Kyle, whom I really like. Sadly we don´t get lots from Alec and Magnus until the end, except from hilarious vacation snaps. Also they went to Vienna, my hometown, so that was cool. Big fan of these two, I ship it.

But gosh the ending! Once again it was the highlight of the whole book! It was really intense and fast moving. For the first time it wasn´t fully relying on fighting, but rather on suspense, which I really liked. One thing I have noticed in Cassandra Clare´s books though is that I am not a big fan of the way she paces her books. They always start out slow, exploring what happened in the last book and slowly starts building plot until the last hundred pages or so, where we finally get tons of action. This is the main reason why I give most of her books only 4 stars, as for the most part of the book I feel like the story is dragging a bit, but then BUM last 100 pages, the action is finally here. Don´t get me wrong I like the formula, but by now it feels a bit generic. I would much rather prefer it if she would give us a bit more of a faster pace in the first three to four hundred paged as well. By now though I finally feel attached to the characters (finally, it took quite some time) and I really want to know what happens next, because that ending gurl, that ending!

Have you read “City of Fallen Angels” and if so, what did you think of it?

Read on xx

Lena

Finding the Raven, by Patty Dickson Piezca

I want to thank the author of this book, Patty Dickson Piezca, for providing me with an eARC in exchange for an honest review. I was really excited to read this book as this is my first ARC I have ever received, so I am really sad to say that I really did not like this book, which was why I did not finish it. My general policy before I stop reading a book is to read at least half of it, which I did so I put it down because I just didn´t enjoy it very much. Before I start with this review I also want to add, that this review is intended as constructive criticism and in no way as just bashing something I didn´t like. I respect how much work the author put into this, but I still want to say what I thought of this novel.

Title: Finding the Raven

Author: Patty Dickson Piezca

Pages: 292

Published by: Ravenswood Publishing

Rating: 1/5                         

When Julia Dulac's father is murdered onstage  and her inheritance is swindled away, she must work through her grief and fear of poverty to find both the killer and a means of survival with help from the Raven, a black crystal that reveals images of past and future truths. While having the crystal appraised, Julia finds love and her life takes unexpected turns through mystery and betrayal against the backdrop of the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis.
Through the boarding house window, Julia overhears an argument between Rose and her wealthy father over Rose's illegitimate pregnancy. He drops Rose off, saying he will return in one year, that she must be either single and childless or respectably married. Though from completely different backgrounds, Julia and Rose become fast friends, facing lessons of survival and redemption as their fates become irrevocably entwined.

Having never read a book that wasn´t published by a big publishing house before, I didn´t really know what to expect from this book, so I was really disappointed to see how botched it felt. The author took way too little time with practically everything. In my opinion, to make the story more realistic it would need at least 150 pages or so more. The whole thing just felt rushed, already beginning with the setup of the story. The reader just gets thrown into this world and while that may be refreshing if done right, it just doesn´t work. The whole plot in general just seems to fall into place. It doesn´t feel like it is neither character nor plot driven, but more as if the author knew what needed to happen next in order to get to the final point at the end, so she let the characters do something. Their actions just didn´t feel comprehensible to me. The characters in general are all definitely upgradeable. It seemed as if out of nowhere they suddenly had certain characteristics that just weren´t mentioned before.

Another thing that didn´t sit well with me was the pacing of the story. Time was a thrown around variable. While sometimes things just flew by, in an unbelievable amount of time, some things took way too little time. Some of the longest passages were the ones describing how terrible the food or the hostel were. While, yes I get that it was used to emphasize that there weren´t in a good place, which is fine, I do not need lengthy abstracts to remind me of that several times, thank you. On the contrary, I found that lots of details, which often were important to the story, were skipped, so when it came to use I was surprised. For example: As Rose gets sent away to St. Louis in no way was there mentioned that her father was coming with her, but suddenly he began talking to her. And I was just like: What? Where did he come from? So while we got a long description about the label of a wine bottle, the environment or even the looks of characters were hardly touched on.

In conclusion I just want to add that my main impression of this book is, that the author had a vision in her head, which could have worked out wonderfully, but just weren´t mainly due to the lack of description in certain places. But if you personally really enjoy a light guilty-pleasure read without thinking too much and you are thinking about picking this book up, I would say don´t let me discourage you, hopefully you will enjoy it more than I did.

Have any of you read “Finding the Raven”? And if so what did you think of it?

Read on xx

Lena

Clockwork Angel, by Cassandra Clare

Title: Clockwork Angel

Author: Cassandra Clare

Pages: 479

Published by: Margaret K. McElderry Books

Rating: 3.5/5

When Tessa Gray crosses the Atlantic to follow her brother Nate to England, she gets kidnapped by the mysterious Pandemonium Club. Tessa find out that there is much more to this world than she knew. Vampires, Faries, Demons exist and she is one of them. She takes refugee with the Shadowhunters of the London Institute, who promise her to help her look for her brother, if she will help them with her powers.

I am currently marathoning all of Cassandra Clare´s book in order of publication date. I know I am late to the game, but better late than never, right? Having heard lots about this series I expected two things from this book: That it would be faaaaar better than “The Mortal Instruments” and that I would absolutely fall in love with Will Herondale. Now I have read this book but I can´t really approve of either of these statements. I liked the Mortal Instruments. I didn´t love them like everybody else did but I liked them. To be quite frankly I didn´t really see the difference between the two series. Yes, they take place in two completely different time periods and TMI doesn´t have the clockwork monsters, but in both series the main character is a girl who finds out she isn´t who she thought she was and she plays a big role in the Shadowhunter universe, both have a love triangle, where one of the love interests is really rude *hust* Will Herondale *hust* and a girl, who acts like she doesn´t care about anything but can fight real good if she has to (=Isabelle/Jessamine).

But there are some things The Mortal Instruments had that Clockwork Angel just doesn´t. Tessa doesn´t really care about anything except herself and Will and books. Don´t even get me started on Will. On Jace the rudeness was charming, but Will just takes it too far sometimes. It made me smile yes, especially Tessa´s answers, but was it something that made me fall in love with him, so that now he is my ultimate book boyfriend? Heck no! Maybe that will change, the farther into the series I get, because I will learn more about the characters and I will have a greater appreciation of them. We will see.

So what did I like about this book? The change in scenery and time period brought something different. Until now I haven´t really read a steampunk so I had a great time exploring this new genre, which I now really want to read more from, so if you have any good suggestions let me now in the comments down below! Also I loved getting these little nuggets Cassandra Clare put in for the readers of both series. For example the Pandemonium, some of the reoccurring families, church and mostly MAGNUS! I loved how he played a tiny part in this as well. It gave me, as somebody who reads both series right now, a real understanding of how old he really is.

I don´t really have any complex thoughts of this series, but the reason I think this book definitely deserves three and a half stars, was the plot twist at the end. Without it I would have only given it three stars, so yes read it till the end! I am still going to continue with the series, after I finished “City of Fallen Angels”. Hopefully I will love “Clockwork Prince” more, I still have hopes!

Have you read “Clockwork Angel”? And if so what did you think of it? Let me know down in the comments below!

Read on xx

Lena

Me and Ear and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews

This is a non-spoiler review

Title: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Author: Jesse Andrews

Pages: 304

Published by: Atlantic Books

Rating: 3/5

“Highschool sucks.” This is an universally acknowledged truth, which Greg Gaines lets the reader know as soon as you start the first chapter of this book. Greg managed to get through high school keeping a low profile, so at least his high school experience doesn´t suck as much. Everybody knows Greg, nobody dislikes Greg and he and Earl can continue making mediocre to bad movies. Until the first day of senior year, when his mom forces him to become friends with the Jewish girl, who has just gotten cancer. This inevitably brings destruction in his life.

This book was fine. I can see why so many people love it, but it just isn´t something for me. Maybe this is another case of me having too high expectations, since it got hyped up a lot on booktube etc.

I found the main character Greg to be quite unsympathetic and unlikeable. Even though he was quite realistic and dorky, which lead to a lot of funny moments, he was also really stuck up and I couldn´t relate to him at all. Also I wasn´t a huge fan of the story itself, due to the issues I had with Greg. The things he said/did were really rude, for example: He just didn´t care about Rachel. Like at all. Apart from Earl she is his only friend and he just sees her as a burden.  Also Rachel has like zero personality. It´s like she is a robot. But probably the most annoying thing was the story. You want to know why? Because there is none! Just like there is no character development, which is a pity, if you, like me, dislike Greg. Yes, Greg says at the beginning that there is no point in this story, but I expected at least a bit more, seeing how beloved this book is. You would think that being auround Rachel and becoming friends with her would have an impact on Greg, but no. 

But on the contrary there were a couple of great things in this book as well.

1.       The humour.

The humour in this book is great. It´s just so funny. Even though it didn´t make me laugh out loud, which is admittedly really hard, it had lots of big smiles on my face. I am in love with Greg´s father, Mr. Gaines. He is the best person on earth and I aspire to be like him one day, as should everybody else in this universe

2.       The formatting

This book is written in a very different way to most books. 50%, or maybe even more, is not normal text, but rather scripts, bullet points etc. It broke the fourth wall very well and engaged the reader into the story. (As far as possible because there is basically no story) It made the book so much more enjoyable and hadn´t it been for the formatting, I probably wouldn´t have finished the book.

3.       It isn´t a “Typical cancer book”

This book doesn´t romanticise cancer, or illness in general. It isn´t even a love story. It is an honest book about friendship (Again not very well done because Greg doesn´t even really like Rachel, but you get the point) It takes a different spin on the whole “sick girl with cancer” trope, which I haven´t read before.

All in all, pick it up if you are want a light read, with a bit of a more serious topic/ have a desire for a new take on an illness YA book. Just don´t expect too much from it, like I did (but still the formatting is REALLY cool) I am still excited to watch the movie, as I think some of my issues will be solved in it.

What about you guys? Have you read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? And if so what did you think of it? Can you recommend me any other books with an unique formatting? Tell me down, in the comments below!

Read on xx

Lena

Me and Ear and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews

This is a non-spoiler review

Title: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Author: Jesse Andrews

Pages: 304

Published by: Atlantic Books

Rating: 3/5

“Highschool sucks.” This is an universally acknowledged truth, which Greg Gaines lets the reader know as soon as you start the first chapter of this book. Greg managed to get through high school keeping a low profile, so at least his high school experience doesn´t suck as much. Everybody knows Greg, nobody dislikes Greg and he and Earl can continue making mediocre to bad movies. Until the first day of senior year, when his mom forces him to become friends with the Jewish girl, who has just gotten cancer. This inevitably brings destruction in his life.

This book was fine. I can see why so many people love it, but it just isn´t something for me. Maybe this is another case of me having too high expectations, since it got hyped up a lot on booktube etc.

I found the main character Greg to be quite unsympathetic and unlikeable. Even though he was quite realistic and dorky, which lead to a lot of funny moments, he was also really stuck up and I couldn´t relate to him at all. Also I wasn´t a huge fan of the story itself, due to the issues I had with Greg. The things he said/did were really rude, for example: He just didn´t care about Rachel. Like at all. Apart from Earl she is his only friend and he just sees her as a burden.  Also Rachel has like zero personality. It´s like she is a robot. But probably the most annoying thing was the story. You want to know why? Because there is none! Just like there is no character development, which is a pity, if you, like me, dislike Greg. Yes, Greg says at the beginning that there is no point in this story, but I expected at least a bit more, seeing how beloved this book is. You would think that being auround Rachel and becoming friends with her would have an impact on Greg, but no. 

But on the contrary there were a couple of great things in this book as well.

1.       The humour.

The humour in this book is great. It´s just so funny. Even though it didn´t make me laugh out loud, which is admittedly really hard, it had lots of big smiles on my face. I am in love with Greg´s father, Mr. Gaines. He is the best person on earth and I aspire to be like him one day, as should everybody else in this universe

2.       The formatting

This book is written in a very different way to most books. 50%, or maybe even more, is not normal text, but rather scripts, bullet points etc. It broke the fourth wall very well and engaged the reader into the story. (As far as possible because there is basically no story) It made the book so much more enjoyable and hadn´t it been for the formatting, I probably wouldn´t have finished the book.

3.       It isn´t a “Typical cancer book”

This book doesn´t romanticise cancer, or illness in general. It isn´t even a love story. It is an honest book about friendship (Again not very well done because Greg doesn´t even really like Rachel, but you get the point) It takes a different spin on the whole “sick girl with cancer” trope, which I haven´t read before.

All in all, pick it up if you are want a light read, with a bit of a more serious topic/ have a desire for a new take on an illness YA book. Just don´t expect too much from it, like I did (but still the formatting is REALLY cool) I am still excited to watch the movie, as I think some of my issues will be solved in it.

What about you guys? Have you read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? And if so what did you think of it? Can you recommend me any other books with an unique formatting? Tell me down, in the comments below!

Read on xx

Lena

Me and Ear and the Dying Girl, by Jesse Andrews

This is a non-spoiler review

Title: Me and Earl and the Dying Girl

Author: Jesse Andrews

Pages: 304

Published by: Atlantic Books

Rating: 3/5

“Highschool sucks.” This is an universally acknowledged truth, which Greg Gaines lets the reader know as soon as you start the first chapter of this book. Greg managed to get through high school keeping a low profile, so at least his high school experience doesn´t suck as much. Everybody knows Greg, nobody dislikes Greg and he and Earl can continue making mediocre to bad movies. Until the first day of senior year, when his mom forces him to become friends with the Jewish girl, who has just gotten cancer. This inevitably brings destruction in his life.

This book was fine. I can see why so many people love it, but it just isn´t something for me. Maybe this is another case of me having too high expectations, since it got hyped up a lot on booktube etc.

I found the main character Greg to be quite unsympathetic and unlikeable. Even though he was quite realistic and dorky, which lead to a lot of funny moments, he was also really stuck up and I couldn´t relate to him at all. Also I wasn´t a huge fan of the story itself, due to the issues I had with Greg. The things he said/did were really rude, for example: He just didn´t care about Rachel. Like at all. Apart from Earl she is his only friend and he just sees her as a burden.  Also Rachel has like zero personality. It´s like she is a robot. But probably the most annoying thing was the story. You want to know why? Because there is none! Just like there is no character development, which is a pity, if you, like me, dislike Greg. Yes, Greg says at the beginning that there is no point in this story, but I expected at least a bit more, seeing how beloved this book is. You would think that being auround Rachel and becoming friends with her would have an impact on Greg, but no. 

But on the contrary there were a couple of great things in this book as well.

1.       The humour.

The humour in this book is great. It´s just so funny. Even though it didn´t make me laugh out loud, which is admittedly really hard, it had lots of big smiles on my face. I am in love with Greg´s father, Mr. Gaines. He is the best person on earth and I aspire to be like him one day, as should everybody else in this universe

2.       The formatting

This book is written in a very different way to most books. 50%, or maybe even more, is not normal text, but rather scripts, bullet points etc. It broke the fourth wall very well and engaged the reader into the story. (As far as possible because there is basically no story) It made the book so much more enjoyable and hadn´t it been for the formatting, I probably wouldn´t have finished the book.

3.       It isn´t a “Typical cancer book”

This book doesn´t romanticise cancer, or illness in general. It isn´t even a love story. It is an honest book about friendship (Again not very well done because Greg doesn´t even really like Rachel, but you get the point) It takes a different spin on the whole “sick girl with cancer” trope, which I haven´t read before.

All in all, pick it up if you are want a light read, with a bit of a more serious topic/ have a desire for a new take on an illness YA book. Just don´t expect too much from it, like I did (but still the formatting is REALLY cool) I am still excited to watch the movie, as I think some of my issues will be solved in it.

What about you guys? Have you read Me and Earl and the Dying Girl? And if so what did you think of it? Can you recommend me any other books with an unique formatting? Tell me down, in the comments below!

Read on xx

Lena

A Court of Mist and Fury, by Sarah J. Maas

*Disclaimer* If you haven´t read the first book yet please be aware of eventual spoilers. I would not advise reading on if you are interested in starting this series and are hugely repelled by spoilers. The spoilage is not very deep though, so if you don´t mind continue on, just be warned. However if you have read the first book and just haven´t continued on yet, this review will be Spoiler free until after the free space underneath.

Title: A Court of Mist and Fury

Author: Sarah J. Maas

Pages: 626

Published by: Bloomsbury UK

Rating: 5/5

A Court of Mist and Fury, or let´s just call it ACOMAF for short, starts only a couple months after the events of A Court of Thorns and Roses, ACOTAR. Feyre is back in the Spring Court about to get married to Tamlin, when Rhysand appears to call in his end of the bargain. Now Feyre has to spend one week each month at the Night Court, where she learns that not everything is not as black and white as it seems.

After I was not the biggest fan of ACOTAR, due to various problems I had with the story and the characters, I was quite hesitant to continue on with this series, let alone pre-order ACOMAF. But thankfully I did. A Court of Mist and Fury was everything I wanted and needed the first book to be and more. It had a fast moving story, plot twists, great character development, lots of snarky humour and so much more. Sarah J. Maas did an especially brilliant job in not only introducing us to the Night Court, but making me falling in love with it and lots of new characters as well. She transferred me right into this beautiful world, that I didn´t want to leave, which lead to me almost falling asleep, while reading at 2am numerous times, because I just couldn´t stop reading. If you need more proves to convince you to pick up this book I want to let you know that it is a big book. I was really shocked, when this monster of 600 and something pages turned up on my doorstep one day. But I finished it in three days. Not even on a weekend. It took me three normal school days. And I am not that fast of a reader, especially not during school. So needless to say I absolutely ADORED this book and everybody should pick this up, especially if you weren´t too keen about the first book.

Entering Spoilerland

LET´S TALK ABOUT RHYSAND! In the first book I wasn´t a big fan of neither Tamlin nor Rhysand, but I did have a preference for Rhys. I found the relationship between Tamlin and Feyre to be a bit uncomfortable and weird, mainly because some of the things he did in ACOTAR. And oh boy. He looked Feyre into his house! That´s like some serious dominance issue right there, and I just can´t fathom why he would do that? She is like one of the most powerful fae to live right now and she has all these powers, which she could use to defend herself, but that douchebag just treats her like a five year old, who doesn´t know what´s best for him. But not only that, but he also ignores her and her wishes, just to go off to hunt some moose or whatever he does. So of course, I was really happy when Rhys turned up at their wedding. He takes her in, teaches her how to read and build that wall and treats her like an equal, so by what? Page eighty or something I was already on team Rhys and stayed there for all of the remaining story. I found his character to be great as well, because not only does he treat Feyre like a person, no he is witty and snarky. It was amazing how much he gave up to protect his family and Velaris.  Velaris was another highlight in this story. Sarah J. Maas to make me fall just as much in love with it as Rhysand does. I felt like I was there, strolling around, watching the theatre performances and more. The worldbuilding in general was just done phenomenally.

One of my favourite scenes hands down, was when they went into the Court of Nightmares to get the orb. It was so steamy and just ugh! Give me more! Feyre was just so conflicted about her feelings and she didn´t even know why! And OMG they are mated! I´m so excited. Loads of people already guessed that Rhys and Feyre were mates at the end of ACOTAR, but I was pretty oblivious until somebody pointed it out to me on Goodreads. I was afraid that the suspicion would spoil my reading experience, but I completely forgot during all the other amazing stuff that went down. So when Feyre  found out that Rhys was her mate I still freaked out. I understood why she dealt with the situation the way she did, but found it really awkward when they were just having sex all the time. While I love how Maas writes the flirtatious, necking scenes, hence the scene in the Court of Nightmares being a standout, I am not the biggest fan of her sex scenes. I just find them weird and a bit uncomfortable to read.

A thing I didn´t see coming as well, was the twist at the end, when Lucian finds out Elain is his mate. Like, who saw THAT coming?! And Feyre being the High Lady of the Dream Court? You go girl! Show Tamlin what a girl can do. Reason 697 why I just love Rhysand. He treats her like an equal. But now that the deal is broken and Feyre is back at the Spring Court, urgh in between, Lucien needs her or else he won´t see Elain again. At least Rhys and Feyre can still communicate with each other, or else I would have a fear that we won´t have enough Rhysand in the next book.

All in all I completely unexpectedly fell in love with this book and can´t recommend it highly enough. It has, for sure, been one of the best books I´ve read this year and I can´t wait for May 2017 for the next book to come out. By the way, what do you guys think it will be called? My guess is on A Court of Spies and War.  And what will the cover look like? Maybe green with Feyre holding bow and arrow? Let me know your guesses down below, as well as what you thought of ACOMAF!

Read on xx

Lena