Arcana Rising (The Arcana Chronicles, #4) by Kresley Cole

Arcana Rising by Kresley Cole
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2019

My previous review still stands. This book is intense.

And chapter 35:



Book 80 read in 2018

Pages: 280

PREVIOUS REVIEW:
Whew! That ending! Next book, please, stat!

Dead of Winter (The Arcana Chronicles, #3) by Kresley Cole

Dead of Winter by Kresley Cole
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2018

Team Death. Forever. That is all.

Book 78 read in 2018

Pages: 321

Endless Knight (The Arcana Chronicles, #2) by Kresley Cole

Endless Knight by Kresley Cole
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2018

Aric, Aric, Aric. Always keeping things interesting and intense.

This may be my favorite book in the series so far (have not read book 5 yet, and book 6 is not yet published).

Book 77 read in 2018

Pages: 337

PREVIOUS REVIEW:
Wo-ow-ow! I thought book one was intense, but book two brought things up to a whole new level of chaos, dysfunction, and emotional warfare. I don't know whose team I'm on in this epic death battle between the 22 teenagers assigned to the lives of Taro Cards, but the characters don't seem to have it all figured out either, which keeps things interesting and surprising.

According to ancient prophecy and past games, only one character will be standing in the end, but I'm quite attached to the majority of them at this point, which makes every second of reading nail-bitingly intense.

Shatter Me Trilogy (Plus 2 Novellas) by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2018

Still love this!!! So much! It has such a unique, unexpected voice.

The audiobook is fantastic, but I absolutely insist you read it in print first, due to the unique format.

Book 66 read in 2018

Pages: 338

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Destroy Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2018

Team Warner, forever.

Book 67 read in 2018

Pages: 109

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Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2018

Chapter 62, forever.

Book 68 read in 2018

Pages: 461

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Fracture Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2018

In my opinion, this novella is necessary to the series, because it’s the first book in which you get to see more of who Adam truly is, without Juliette’s rose colored glasses. She always wants to think the best of him, so you miss a few facets of his personality and mindset as a result.

Honestly, in terms of enjoyment, I prefer Warner’s novella to this one. However, this is the point where you truly begin to understand how Adam thinks and what Adam sees in Juliette, as a person. That’s very informative.

I won’t say more, even though I want to, because it would be spoilery. I just suggest that even though this isn’t always the most comfortable read, that true fans should consume it as a good piece in understanding the inner-workings of Adam.

Book 69 read in 2018

Pages: 62

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Ignite Me by Tahereh Mafi
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

#BecRereads2018

Yep, I still love this. Kenji is everything.

Book 74 read in 2018

Pages: 421

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It was such a delight to reread this whole series and remember why I love it so much.  I deleted all my previous reviews to save space.

Fireblood by Elly Blake

Fireblood by Elly Blake
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

(Book 2)

Overall, I enjoyed this story. There were a few moments where things just did not ring true for me, and I had to suspend disbelief a bit further than I wanted to, in order to continue to enjoy the story. However, that could have just been me.

It's a decent follow up and has more action and plot than many 2nd books in a series.

Pages: 416

Perfect by Cecelia Ahern

Perfect by Cecelia Ahern
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Book 2 in a duology.

Overall, I really enjoyed this series, and this had a strong finale.

There are some flaws in the storytelling, that bothered me just a tiny bit, but I enjoyed the characters and story so much that I overlooked them. Most of it ran along the lines of repeating things we already knew, explaining/telling why something was significant, rather than just showing us and trusting the reader to understand the situation, and getting voice wrong for the age of the character (in the instance of an old journal entry from a child that sounded as if it was written by a college student).

Minus these flaws (which seems perfect, actually, considering this is the Flawed series), I really enjoyed this book. It makes a lot of great points, though sometimes I wish they would just be made and stand on their own (rather than being explained).

This story has a good amount of action and excitement, as well as some moments of horror, where I kind of just wanted to scream at people.

The audiobook is excellent, for those who like to listen.

Pages: 341

Children of Eden by Joey Graceffa

Children of Eden by Joey Graceffa
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

In the beginning, I thought this showed promised, but now that I've finished, I don't believe I will continue the series.

Before I try to explain why, if you are interested in this book, I strongly suggest you DO NOT listen to the audiobook. Choose print, because two of the main side characters have almost the same name (Loch vs. Lark---could be spelling both wrong, since I listened on audio and wasn't able to quickly Google for correct spellings). At first, these characters have separate storylines, but once they run together, the similar pronunciation becomes very confusing. 

To make matters worse, the MC has no consistency with Loch and half the time calls him Lochlan, making it further confusing...because one second he's Lochlan, and the next time she says Loch, Then, I'm not sure if she actually said Loch, or if she meant Lark. Let me stress that this is no fault of the narrator, who does a good job reading. She was just saddle with two incredibly similar names and an inconsistent text, which made her job more difficult.

Now that is off my chest, this is a standard illegal second child in an artificial world because earth has been destroyed story. Both of those are extremely common tropes, but since I typically find them interesting, that wasn't a huge problem. It obviously means you shouldn't expect a lot of originality in the storyline, but unfortunately, you're also not going to get much originality and growth with the characters in this novel.

The writing is not awful but also not great. There is less showing and more telling than I prefer, but it's okay. The action scenes never inspire much emotion in me at all, and it feels like I saw everything coming from a mile away. I honestly think it's more about how they've been written than that they aren't interesting scenes.

As for the rest:

The plot --meh. Nothing new here or all that exciting. Still, I would be totally fine with a cookie cutter plot as long as it was well-executed. I can forgive a lot for good execution and emotional investment, which I just didn't have with this storyline, particularly in the last half of the novel.

The characters -- started out okay but did not develop well. Most of them became less interesting to me as the story progressed, which was really disappointing, as I was quite interested in them to start. This is part of the reason I won't continue the series. The side characters start to feel like caricatures of the expected YA sidekicks. The adult characters, in particular, lack depth. Either that, or it's just how the MC views them...which means the MC lacks perspective. Either way, it bothers me.

The world -- definitely interesting, but also nothing really new here. The world building could be better for me. It's not terrible, but I don't really have any desire to visit or live inside this world, which is the case with most novels that I love (even when the worlds are dreadful).

The Sci-Fi elements: definitely not going to wow a sci-fi nerd.

That being said, I obviously like something about this novel, because I read it pretty fast. I think that there were just too many things that characters did that seemed unbelievable or untrue to themselves and their world that it pushed me to disconnect from the story.

For example: SPOILERS REMOVED

While reviewing, I have realized that there's actually quite a bit about this story that doesn't sit that well for me. I think I'll stick with 3 stars, but I may be leaning towards more of a 2.75 in my mind now.

Pages: 278