Procurement

eBook from Candlewick via NetGalley.

My Grade

Plot: 5

Setting: 5

Writing: 5

Originality: 5

Characters: 5

Romance: 5

Overall: 30/30!

Title/Cover Bonus: 2

Overall

An emotionally charged sci-fi of a young girl traumatized by her unfit parents who left her in stasis for 62 years; awoken to a new, unknown world full of technology and unending traumatic stress.  Continue reading…

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

Procurement

Received an eARC from HarperTeen via NetGalley.

My Grade

Plot: 4

Setting: 4

Writing: 5

Originality: 5

Characters: 5

Romance: 4

Overall: 27/30 = 90% A

Title/Cover Bonus: 5

Overall

An interesting, at times dark, look at life beyond death and the possibilities that be for a couple of teenagers.

Continue reading…

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

Image Source: The Cozy Reader, ARC edition

Procurement

I received this ARC while attending BEA 2010.

My Grade

Plot: 5

Setting: 5

Writing: 5

Originality: 5

Characters: 5

Romance: 5

Overall: 30/30! Perfect!

Cover/Title Bonus: 4

Overall

A brutal society where love is disguised as a disease and is ultimately tragically and beautifully worth fighting for.

Summary (Goodreads)

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that one love -the deliria- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.
But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

First Line

It has been sixty-four years since the president and the Consortium identified love as a disease, and forty-three since the scientists perfected a cure.

Most Memorable Scene

During one of the raids an ass of an enforcer encounters a barking dog. Lena handles the situation as best as she could but it still hit a nerve with me as an animal lover.

Also, Lena and Alex visit the insane asylum, or prison, and that entire situation had me on the edge of my seat.

Plot

Love as a disease? I’ve always been a fan of dystopian societies and this book proved to me why that is. They all have something you’re not allowed or supposed to have but ultimately you find a way to want it and grasp it and if you’re lucky keep it.

Delirium portrays Lena as a young girl about to meet her life partner (I can’t remember if there’s a specific term used or not) and about to get her treatment against the delirium, love sickness.

Every aspect of the plot was meshed together perfectly. I love that there was more to it then just the love story.

Setting

Lena’s world is a pretty brutal place. A required treatment to inhibit the ability to fall in love or feel anything remotely like love or hate is one of the ultimate free will abilities humans have.

There’s a citizen curfew and required badges or identification cards. Periodically there are raids to search homes.

Writing

This was the first book by Lauren Oliver I’ve read. I did try to read Before I Fall but I just couldn’t make my way through it. This book is written awesomely. I love that it was written from Lena’s point of view. I love the detail that was given to her feelings and her surroundings.

Originality

Again, love as a disease? Pure originality.

Characters

Lena doesn’t plan to fall in love or even rethink her governments plans for controlling their citizens. I like it when characters surprise themselves; learn more about themselves.

Hana is Lena’s best friend. She isn’t too exposed as a character but we grasp her as the pretty, popular one.

My awful secret is that I like to run with Hana partly because it’s the single, sole, solitary shred of a thing that I can do better than she can, but I would never admit that out loud in a million years. – page 47 – ARC edition

Lena and Hana run quite a bit together. This is one of the most important events of the entire story. Hana is also quite the rowdy one.

Lena and Hana both meet Alex while exploring the back of one of the government buildings while on a late afternoon jog. He’s a guard. But oh so much more. Alex’s character is awesome.

Romance

Lena and Alex are amazing together. They cover so much territory in such a short amount of time. Ninety-five days of one amazing love. One could almost be happy about that. Except, you can’t because you want to hold on to that forever. But what are your options when treatment day comes?

Cover/Title Bonus

The ARC cover is a bit too meek for my tastes but it fits fine. The title is absolutely perfect.

The final cover does not appeal to me at all. I’d much prefer the ARC edition.

Ending

One of the most touching endings I’ve ever read. I was so torn to see it end. I read this May 30 – 31, 2010. This doesn’t even come out until February 1, 2011 and who knows when the next book will be out. I have so long to wait to see how this will continue.

Series

The next two book titles are already on Goodreads.

Pandemonium – publishing sometime in 2012

Requiem – publishing sometime in 2013

I highly recommend this to anyone who loves dystopias or rebellious teens. :)

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

Today is the release day for one of the best books I’ve read this year. Not only have I enjoyed it but all the readers in my family have loved it as well (mother-in-law, aunt, and cousins).

If you haven’t ordered this book I’d highly suggest doing so.

Read my review.

Read an excerpt.

Trailer

I gave away an extra ARC copy in my Blogoversary giveaway!

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Mini Review (Reviewed 09/28/09)

This review is from last year, I’ve updated or crossed out irrelevant information.

I finished this book last night. It’s book 4 of KMM’s Fever series. It was amazingly good and I will not be doing a formal review of it.

"I’m not a dude. Lose it." I was not going to ask, "So, how did he look at me?"
"Like it was his birthday and you were the cake."
At least he hadn’t smashed this one into the ceiling. It seemed Barrons had finally gotten his cake and eaten it, too.

The above quote is one of the best of the book. If you haven’t read this series, you are sorely missing out. Although, I’d recommend waiting until [January] after Shadowfever is released that way you’ll have ALL the books of the series and won’t have to wait an ENTIRE YEAR or more to find out what the hell just happened at the very end of this freaking book! KMM is the Queen of Cliffhangers.

Now, you’d have to understand my predicament. I was reading this on my Kindle and it has these little dots at the bottom that shows my progress. I can usually tell about how many more pages are left in a book by this timeline. And by pages I mean roughly the number of clicks or even minutes of reading left. However, Dreamfever ended with 4 more dots to go!!!! I was SO upset you don’t even understand. I was NOT prepared for it to just END. GAH! 4 more dots would be at least 50 more pages……

Anyhow, this series is well worth all the angst it’s proving to be. KMM is a brilliant storyteller, world builder, and heart breaker. BUT she promises a happy ending, and for that I have faith.

Series

Darkfever (Fever Series, Book 1) by Karen Marie Moning 384 pages, Dell, (2007-08-28) $7.99 (Amazon.com) MacKayla Lane’s life is good. She has great friends, a decent job, and a car that breaks down only every other week or so. In other words, she’s your perfectly ordinary twenty-first-century woman. Or so she thinks…until something extraordinary happens. When her sister is murdered, leaving a single clue to her death–a cryptic message on Mac’s cell phone–Mac journeys to Ireland in search of answers. The quest to find her sister’s killer draws her into a shadowy realm where nothing is as it seems, where good and evil wear the same treacherously seductive mask. She is soon faced with an even greater challenge: staying alive long enough to learn how to handle a power she had no idea she possessed–a gift that allows her to see beyond the world of man, into the dangerous realm of the Fae…. As Mac delves deeper into the mystery of her sister’s death, her every move is shadowed by the dark, mysterious Jericho, a man with no past and only mockery for a future. As she begins to close in on the truth, the ruthless Vlane–an alpha Fae who makes sex an addiction for human women–closes in on her. And as the boundary between worlds begins to crumble, Mac’s true mission becomes clear: find the elusive Sinsar Dubh before someone else claims the all-powerful Dark Book–because whoever gets to it first holds nothing less than complete control of the very fabric of both worlds in their hands…. – Goodreads

Bloodfever (Fever #2) by Karen Marie Moning 368 pages, Dell, (2008-08-26) $7.99 (Amazon.com)

Faefever (Fever, #3) by Karen Marie Moning 416 pages, Dell, (2009-07-28) $7.99 (Amazon.com)

Dreamfever (Fever, #4) by Karen Marie Moning 512 pages, Dell, (2010-10-26) $7.99 (Amazon.com)

View all my reviews

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Initial Review

Enjoyed this very much! A great read.

Page 108: Fun, cute, and easy to read. :)

And that about sums up this book! It was one of the most adorable books I’ve ever read! I’m usually not a fan of contemporary and while I didn’t have any interest in reading this one I decided to give it a try. I was unable to put it down. I credit the amazing writing as the reason as well as the incredibly likable characters.

The setting of being in Paris was a very nice touch. The boarding school was very attractive and I wish I could have gone there in high school!

Anna and St. Clair’s relationship maturing along the way with real teen drama such as drinking, school, current and ex girlfriends and other friends dramas were a really good blend of plot details that made this even more enjoyable.

The falling in love feeling you get from this book is the sweetest feeling ever. You want them to be together so bad you’re practically ripping your hair out towards the end of the book!

I enjoyed this so much I’ll probably read anything Stephanie Perkins releases!

I’ll be giving away my copy sometime in the near future so keep an eye out!

View all my reviews

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

Sisters Red by Jackson Pearce 336 pages, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, (2010-06-07) $16.99 (Amazon.com)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Page 133: Loving it so far!

Finished: A good read. Wasn’t a fan of the fight scenes but loved the chemistry between all 3 characters.

What an interesting retelling of Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf!

The March sisters were an unstoppable pair! And Silas was an awesome sidekick.

I’m not going to mention much of the plot but suffice it to say that it will keep your attention. It was all very engrossing.

The only issue I had while reading this were some of the fight scenes. I’ve read a ton of urban fantasy that centers around confrontations and general ass kickings. The fight scenes in Sisters Red are lacking. It was torturous to read some of them as they just didn’t flow like I’m used to. And some of the descriptive words used to describe the fight were kind of out of place. It was very apparent that this might have been Jackson’s first go at writing fight scenes.

I enjoyed this book mostly because of the originality and the relationship of the characters.

I cannot wait to read Jackson’s next retelling, Sweetly, which will be out sometime in 2011 and then another book is already on Goodreads to be the third book of this series, Fathomless.

Sweetly by Jackson Pearce 320 pages, Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, (2011-06-07) $17.99 (Amazon.com)

View all my reviews

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

The Candidates by Inara Scott

My rating: 1 of 5 stars

Initial Review

Wasn’t that great. Official review to come.

Page 83: Getting interesting…finally.

Edited orignal post: 11/03/10 9:16 am.

I’m usually a big fan of the boarding school for gifted students with super powers. And while I enjoyed the characters, to an extent, this book just didn’t wrap it all together as good as I’ve come to expect from other series that have this sort of theme:

The Summoning (not a “boarding school” but almost!)

Hex Hall

And while those two are more paranormal I think they are still comparable.

I felt that the story line took too long to get moving that the setting, while interesting, was dragged out a bit too much and more details to what was actually going on needed to be addressed but in a better fashion than it was already being done. ETA: I realize that this was the first of a series and that the setup is necessary but OMG get to the point already. Beating around the bush about what was really going on in that school was not necessary. I’m thinking maybe a younger reader wouldn’t have been as frusturated by this; I don’t know.

The timing was also arranged weird. Dancia was able to go home to her grandmother’s for the weekend but that was hardly ever shown. I really liked her grandmother and wanted more interaction between them.

The love triangle was also pretty infuriating. Jack was mysterious but real. Cam was just uncomfortable to me as the reader. Kind of like those scary movies where you yell at the girl “DON’T GO IN THERE!” cause you  know that the bad guy is in there waiting for her. I felt like dragging Dancia away from Cam everytime they were together.

And the ending pretty much sucked. I was not a fan. ETA: I realized after this posted that my explanation, or lack there of, is terrible. I didn’t like the ending because nothing was really accomplished. I felt no closure of anything. I felt that the overall story should have been rewritten to speed the unveiling of the mysteries much faster. Maybe switching the POV between characters, I don’t think that was done, but I would have enjoyed that.

Lastly, the main character’s name: Dancia, was a little too weird for my tastes. I tripped over it everytime I saw it. I wasn’t sure if it was to be pronounced as what it looks like DANCE-ia or something else entirely. I eventually renamed her to just “D”. I could not for the life of me grasph her name. It just didn’t flow.

At this time I have no plans of picking up the next book of this series. Unless of course Disney wants to give me a second shot at liking this series, then I’d consider reviewing it. :)

I received a review copy from the publisher: Disney/Hyperion.
Continue reading…

Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

Insatiable by Meg Cabot 464 pages, William Morrow, (2010-06-01) $22.99 (Amazon.com)

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Initial Review

Wasn’t a fan of the ending but it was a good read.

This was my very first Meg Cabot book and I probably wouldn’t have read it if it wasn’t for James of Book Chic Club who so very nicely sent me his extra ARC that he used for his ARC Tour! Thanks so much James!

I’m pretty sure that this would be considered an adult series because all the characters are very much adults. There’s nothing too rated X or even R really to keep the young adult crowd from reading this though.

Insatiable is the name of the daytime show that Meena works for as one of the writers. She lives next door to some vampires who are always trying to hook her up with someone. Meena has the gift of seeing how everyone around her is going to die. She does her best to warn them vaguely to prevent them from dying. She ends up in the middle of a vampire war that’s funny in some ways, dangerous, sexy, and of course action packed.

This is written in alternating points of views between several of the characters and while this was enlightening in some ways it flickered around too much for my liking. If it was just between Meena and the Prince then I wouldn’t have had a problem but sometimes Meena’s brother, a vampire hunter or best friend or even the neighbors popped in to steal the show. It felt very much like watching a soap opera.

I wasn’t a fan of the ending either because I have a soft spot for vampires, especially when they find true love. I’m pretty sure there will be a follow up to this and I would love to read what happens next. While I might not be on the Meg Cabot bandwagon I certainly will follow this paranormal series of hers!

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Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Initial Review:

Emotionally strong. Not a fan of the ending though. I’m thrilled to see a sequel is releasing in ’11.

Procurement

I won this over on Book Chic Club. Thanks James!

Review

This book was kind of hard for me to get through. It was a weird subject matter: horrible accident causes girl to go into a coma and ends up walking around watching her friends, family, nurses, doctors and boyfriend basically fall apart in one form or another.

The ending isn’t much of an ending. It basically sets up a possible sequel, which I was thrilled to see there would be one, or a really horrible open ended ending that lets the reader interpret as they wish, which in this case isn’t a worthy ending at all.

I enjoyed the characters but it’s such a tragic book that the connection of the reader to characters isn’t completely needed because it just happens.
Lastly, I’m glad I read this before I became pregnant as I know that my pregnancy hormones would never had let me finish this book without tons of waterworks. Be prepared.

The next book in the series, Where She Went, will release 04/05/2011.

Where She Went by Gayle Forman 208 pages, Dutton Juvenile, (2011-04-05) $16.99 (Amazon.com)

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Disclosure: Amazon.com Associate. If you click on my links and purchase anything a very small percentage of the purchase price will be awarded to The Cozy Reader.