Chiara

This week went by so fast! I had so much work to do for school that I didn't get around to reading much. I also did not read what I had planned. I wanted to read Crown of Midnight and The Assassin's Blade, both by Sarah J. Maas, but they hadn't arrived until friday. And when I did finally have them, I wasn't really in the mood for it.

 

So instead, I read Don't look back by Jennifer L. Armentrout. I liked it but I didn't love it. I gave it 3,5 stars and I hope to get a review up soon. 

 

So unfortunately, I didn't read much this read-a-thon. The timing just wasn't right for me and maybe I'll try another read-a-thon in the summer.  

Jamie Craig

Aliens have come to earth and are decimating it's inhabitants. They are doing this in different waves and each wave comes with a new form of destruction. Cassie has survived all the four waves so far and is now trying to survive in a world which is losing its humanity. But what does it mean to be human in a world without humanity?

 

This is a matter Cassie regularly wonders about. I think the book perfectly and very realistically shows what it would be like to survive in a post-apocalyptic world. Yancey did this very well, the book has all the desperation and fear but also the hope (or lack of it) you would imagine to emerge as the world ends. 

 

Usually I don't like books about aliens. Their stories are often hard to imagine or just unrealistic. That's also why I was hesitant about reading this book, but I'm so glad I did. It didn't feel like an alien book at all; and it isn't really. It's more about the survival aspect of the story and how to find something to die for when you have nothing to live for. 

 

There was only one aspect of the book that I didn't like and that was the romance. I just didn't really feel the connection between the protagonist and the love interest and it felt a little weird. I think the story would have been stronger without it. Cassie is such a strong character and somehow I think she even could have been stronger without the love interest. But that's really just a minor flaw, since the love story takes a backseat to all the action.

 

In short, the book is action-packed, fast paced and has an incredible story. It is totally amazing and will pull you in from the first page. 

 

So I'm planning to participate in the Bout of books read-a-thon that begins May 12th. I have never participated in a read-a-thon and I'm very excited to see how it will go. I'll still have to go to school and work but I'll try to read as much as possible. Because I will be very busy with schoolwork, I have only 2 books in mind to read and will see whether I'll be able to read more. Those 2 books are:

 

- Crown of Midnight (Throne of Glass #2) by Sarah J. Maas

- The Assassin's Blade (Throne of Glass #0,5) by Sarah J. Maas

 

Down below is the official blurb about the read-a-thon: 

 

The Bout of Books read-a-thon is organized by Amanda @ On a Book Bender and Kelly @ Reading the Paranormal. It is a week long read-a-thon that begins 12:01am Monday, May 12th and runs through Sunday, May 18th in whatever time zone you are in. Bout of Books is low-pressure, and the only reading competition is between you and your usual number of books read in a week. There are challenges, giveaways, and a grand prize, but all of these are completely optional. For all Bout of Books 10 information and updates, be sure to visit the Bout of Books blog. - From the Bout of Books team 

 

The first three quarters of the book were great. After that, it went downhill. No, not just downhill, it crashed and tumbled into the valley beneath.

 

So it started out great. I loved everything about it: a girl, Alison, with a special ability (in this case synesthesia which I found really interesting), her being in a psychiatric institution and struggling with herself (she wasn't crazy, right?), the unsolved mystery of the disappearance (or murder) of Tori Beaugrand and what Alison had to do with it. But then things started happening that I didn't love. There was for example no reason whatsoever for Alison to have this synesthesia. There was just a small part of it that connected to the story and it felt more like something to add more story to the book when this wasn't really necessary. It kind of felt like ''Oh the story is still kind of flat.. Let's add something that doesn't have anything to do with the main story line!''

 

Also, if you add something like this, at least make it good. It was interesting in the beginning but later on I didn't like the way the synesthesia and Alison's view of the world were described. It felt like a bit too much and sometimes you read about these weird things but they are still totally realistic, but that wasn't the case in Ultraviolet. It really started out as a great story and it had so much potential but it just didn't live up to that. I expected some great psychological twist at the end, but no, something entirely else showed up. 

But besides the descriptions of the synesthesia thing, the first three quarters of the book were great. The last quarter, though, took a completely different turn. Suddenly it had all to do with this one thing which, in my opinion, ruined the entire book. Sure, the synesthesia thing was annoying at times but I could live with that. It was still interesting. But then everything suddenly revolved about this one thing and that blew it for me (if you read the book, you will know what I’m talking about). There was also almost no mentioning of this thing throughout the entire book until it just suddenly appeared at the end. Maybe I would have liked this part of the story better if there would have been some mystery about this whole thing, and I think Anderson kind of attempted to create some mystery (there were a few suggestions about Sanjay being right) but this didn’t really work out.

Some pieces of the story just didn’t fit together. A lot of things were unfinished and unexplained or got sloppy explanations that didn’t make any sense. Alison’s relationship with the love interest was also very hard to believe. There was no chemistry whatsoever and I found the whole relationship to be kind of weird actually.

 

So overall, I didn’t really like this book. But I did enjoy some things and I was really invested in the story. Because of this and because I do think the first three quarters of the book were good, I’m giving this book 2,5 stars. 

I really did not enjoy reading this book. The book consists of 16 short stories in which appears a bracelet that brings bad luck to everyone that gets hold of it. I really like the idea of this but the authors just didn't make it work.

When you read this kind of book you expect that the stories are short, without too many details and complicated characters. And that's okay because there are 16 stories in one book, all written by a different author. But in this case it just seemed like important parts were missing in every story. It wasn't just that it was short, there were important things left out that were necessary to understand the story. I constantly felt like I had missed something so I had to flip back through the pages to see what I had missed. What also didn't increase my opinion about the book was that some stories were very, very weird. I mean, I like fantasy but this was just bad.

I also feel like there should have been said something about the bracelet itself, about the history or the purpose of the bracelet. I had hoped that every story would unravel something about the bracelet and that it would become clear why the bracelet brings bad luck. But no, absolutely nothing about the bracelet itself, only what charms hung on it. The point of it all seemed to be missing.