Review: Splintered by A.G. Howard

Read: Feb. 3-March. 3, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5 stars      
Pages: 371
Genres: Fantasy, romance, retellings

Blurb from Goodreads:

"This stunning debut captures the grotesque madness of a mystical under-land, as well as a girl’s pangs of first love and independence.

Alyssa Gardner hears the whispers of bugs and flowers—precisely the affliction that landed her mother in a mental hospital years before. This family curse stretches back to her ancestor Alice Liddell, the real-life inspiration for Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Alyssa might be crazy, but she manages to keep it together. For now.

When her mother’s mental health takes a turn for the worse, Alyssa learns that what she thought was fiction is based in terrifying reality. The real Wonderland is a place far darker and more twisted than Lewis Carroll ever let on. There, Alyssa must pass a series of tests, including draining an ocean of Alice’s tears, waking the slumbering tea party, and subduing a vicious bandersnatch, to fix Alice’s mistakes and save her family. She must also decide whom to trust: Jeb, her gorgeous best friend and secret crush, or the sexy but suspicious Morpheus, her guide through Wonderland, who may have dark motives of his own."

Review: The Way I Used to Be by Amber Smith

Read: Feb.19-26, 2016
Rating: 4 of 5 stars
Pages: 384
Genres: contemporary, realistic fiction (abuse)

Blurb from Goodreads:

"Eden was always good at being good. Starting high school didn’t change who she was. But the night her brother’s best friend rapes her, Eden’s world capsizes.

What was once simple, is now complex. What Eden once loved—who she once loved—she now hates. What she thought she knew to be true, is now lies. Nothing makes sense anymore, and she knows she’s supposed to tell someone what happened but she can’t. So she buries it instead. And she buries the way she used to be.

Told in four parts—freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior year."

My Very Special Someone (part 1)!

Okay, peoples?!

I'm finally going to write this.  This is the post you've all been waiting for, have been begging me to write...I know it's going to be impossible for me to cover everything I feel about this person in only one blog post*...which is one reason why I've delayed the writing of this post...another would be the fact that I'm addicted to procrastination.  It's a horrible addiction, really.

Also...yeah, I know...I haven't posted something in quite a while, so bear with me as I unleash my words....

*actually, if you use your super investigative detector skills, you'll find that I refer to him in many of my posts...you may even find a name somewhere....

**also, I think this will be part one of a two part series...so there's this one...and there will be another one coming...on this one meeting we had...

***oh, and to my very special someone reading this...I hope you're happy now.  I've finally written this.  And now you'll know all about what I think of you...which is kinda unfair, really...why don't I get to read enormous posts dedicated to me, from you?  Yeah, yeah, you don't have a blog, but bah!  Minor details...send a post to me mentally, 'kay?

****WARNING: THIS WILL BE A VERY LONG POST.  Like, seriously, a giant post...one so big, your mind will explode!  But rest assured, I've take the necessary precautions...you'll just feel some small irritation in your eyes, and maybe some itching.... 

*****okay, last one...I'll be "talking" to this very special someone throughout this post, and you'll know because I've made the text a different colour...

So.  Since I can't possibly say everything I want to say...I have made a list of things I wish to tell you about...in long paragraph format.  And maybe some other stuff I'll randomly decide to throw in....so...pretty much just a regularly formatted post...and by that, I mean, a mess, with no format whatsoever.

Review: Ru by Kim Thúy

Read: Feb 12-15, 2016
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Pages: 141
Genres: Canada, historical fiction

Blurb from Goodreads:

"Ru. In Vietnamese it means lullaby; in French it is a small stream, but also signifies a flow--of tears, blood, money. Kim Thúy's Ru is literature at its most crystalline: the flow of a life on the tides of unrest and on to more peaceful waters. In vignettes of exquisite clarity, sharp observation and sly wit, we are carried along on an unforgettable journey from a palatial residence in Saigon to a crowded and muddy Malaysian refugee camp, and onward to a new life in Quebec. There, the young girl feels the embrace of a new community, and revels in the chance to be part of the American Dream. As an adult, the waters become rough again: now a mother of two sons, she must learn to shape her love around the younger boy's autism. Moving seamlessly from past to present, from history to memory and back again, Ru is a book that celebrates life in all its wonder: its moments of beauty and sensuality, brutality and sorrow, comfort and comedy."

Another book I had to read for English...this being one of the shorter ones...but...frankly...not the most interesting.
 

...Valentine's Day....

Soooooooooooooooooooooooooo...Valentine's Day happened peoples!

Roses!  Hearts!  Chocolates!  All that good stuff!

Now, I was going to post this AFTER I posted the post introducing you to this special guy...buuuuut, oh wells!  You'll just have to read along and hope I've told you enough to understand the intense passion I put into writing this.  Tee hee!

*or...you could just NOT read this and wait for the other post to come out first...but...who knows how long that'll take me.  Heh, your call.
**also keep in mind that I had originally planned to post this the day BEFORE Valentine's Day...or at the very least, ON Valentine's Day...but life had other plans for me...so I may have mixed up some tenses....

Review: Wide-Awake Princess Series by E.D. Baker

Hey peoples!

As you will clearly see later on in this post...I started reading this series a long time ago...so...my reviews are pretty much nonexistant...and I didn't even organize my dates as meticulously as I do now...also...you might notice that I became more harsh and critical with my reviews as the years went by...or maybe not...I don't know...you be the judge...then remember to tell me, okay?

I'd also like to confess something...I may have read the first two maybe three books in this series without any inhibitions, but as I grew older, I started becoming more conscious of what other people thought of me...so I now find myself reading up to five books at a time:

• the book I'm not ashamed of reading and bring to school to read for our beloved silent reading periods (which are irritatingly not silent)

• the eBook that I read on my HTC, the much more mortifying reads that I hope none of you ever find...(nono, don't you go purposely looking for my secretive stuff now, okay?)

• the childish book belonging to a series I started way back in elementary school but am now too old to be seen carrying to school, also...I bring these books out on weekends when my other non-shameful book is too thick, or a hardcover. 

• the ARC that I received and must read so that I can review, hopefully before the book is published....

• and the occasional audiobook I happen to be interested in.

But I digress.  Back to the post at hand!  So here we have a series that I started reading way back in 2013, practically a century now.  As you can see in 2013, I haven't really understood the concept of reviewing yet (a pity), so...non existent reviews coming your way...well, I have a star rating, but that's not a review.

Review: Poet Robot by E.I Wong

Read: Feb. 2-8, 2016
Rating: 3 out of 5 stars
Pages: 124
Genre: humour
Expected publication: April 20th 2016

Blurb from Goodreads (okay...not really a blurb, just some information I found about the book...):

"a collection of humor, poetry and short stories from E.I. Wong's blog, "A Narcissist Writes Letters, to Himself." "

Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Read: Jan. 27-Feb 3, 2016
Rating: 3 of 5 stars
Pages: 338
Genres: Romance, Fantasy (Paranormal)

Blurb from Goodreads:

"I have a curse
I have a gift

I am a monster
I'm more than human

My touch is lethal
My touch is power

I am their weapon
I will fight back

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior."  

Aaaah! I'm Scared!

Hello everyone!

I've had this post in my "draft" for at least a millennia now, maybe more...so.  I'm going to finish writing this today!

*Also...YOU PEOPLE FORGOT TO REMIND ME TO POST A CERTAIN POST BEFORE THE END OF JANUARY!  THAT'S IT.  I KNOW I CAN NEVER RELY ON YOU PEOPLE AGAIN!  GAAAAH!

So...if you know me well, or have been lucky enough to see me jump (when I'm surprised), you would probably know I'm...very easily scared.