Book: Her Dark Curiosity

After finishing The Madman's Daughter I could not wait to get my hands on this book.  Also with such a beautiful cover this book was kinda hard to say no to.

When I first started reading the book I was totally in love with how with it. I liked where the story picked up and what had happened. And as the murders started I got even more into it. 

Sadly as the story started to reach the turning point ( somewhere around the point when Juliet went to Lucy's party) the book lost me. 

Everything I had loved about the first book was gone.  I found that this book was pretty much just Juliet torn between two guys. yes it was like that a little in The Madman's Daughter, but that book had so much else going on and going for it. 

However I kept reading hoping that it would get better. It sadly did not.  What really has me let down about all of this is I know that the author has the power to do something wonderful. She can weave such great stories. Set up great characters, plant little clues and twist and turn it all about until you have a can't miss book. 

This book did none of that.  I found that were in the first book that I liked  Juliet, while in this book she rather got on my nerves at times. 

The two characters I liked most in this book was of course Elizabeth and Lucy. I felt that they made the most sense and did their part to balance the story while adding a little life to it all. 

 Over all the book was good but it was still a let down something I am still trying to get over. 

I'm praying as hard as I can that the next book will be more like The Madman's Daughter and therefore can not wait to get my hands on it. 

( YA- 15 and up)

Stars: * * * 3.4                                 LEVEL:HATBOX 

Book:The Elite

I loved and adored The Selection. It was one of the most enjoyable  YA books I have read over all.
THis book was not like that. I was so let down with this book on the whole.
I felt like nothing really happened.  Two much of the book was spent on things that didn't matter. What would have been much better is if more of the  book had been on the been spent on the politics of the book. I would have liked to have learned more about the world. Or more about the the other girls. That would have been awesome. I would have liked it much more than america trying to find out who she loved and how she felt about things.
But stil there was something too the book that I liked. I did like how we learned more about some of the characters and how points in the plot got deeper. I did like the things that we learned about some of the characters. The added details about them really helped bring the world alive.
 But still I would loved so much more from the author. After being blown away by The Selection I was let down with this book.
Over all it could not live up to the selection but still was a good read and left me very excited for The One.

( YA - 13 and UP)
Stars: * * * 3.4                                   LEVEL: Reality TV

Book: Timepiece

So for those of you who read the  Hourglass review know how much I loved that book. And while this book was good it did not have the same spark to it that Hourglass did. 

One high light of this book was that it was not from Em's point of view but from Kaleb's. Now while I did not like Kaleb all the time and I found that his character  flawed.  I liked how he was broken and because of that he spent a lot of time feeling for other people. I know it was part of his power but he spend much of his time thinking about other people. When things were hard for him he focused on the people around him rather than himself.  Did he lack something that makes him stand out from the other boys in YA.But what I liked was seeing Em from someone else's point of view and getting to know Lily better.  And I also really like to read books from the male point of view.

I liked how Kaleb's and Lily's story. Though it felt that things were a little weird with how Lily did not pick up on Kaleb having a crush on Em.  Being a girl and knowing what good friends Lily is with Em, I'm pretty sure that Em would have told Lily, that Kaleb was crushing on her. 

I had very mixed feelings on the rest of book over all. I liked the story of this book but found the pacing  to slow and to fast at the same time. It moved to slow for 3/4 of the book. Then at the very end right when I was getting in to it everything moved way to fast giving me way to little of what I really cared about. Without giving anything way I found the end twist, and then the finale scene/part with Kaleb's family moved way to fast. There are so  many things that I cared about and wanted to know from Kaleb's point of view! But the author did not give them to me! 

Over all the book was a bit of a let down but I'm still keeping my hopes up for the book.

( YA- 13 and up ) 

Stars: * * * 3.4                          Level: TIME RIP. 

Book: The Dark Unwinding

This book is yet again one of the those books that I just had to pick up because of the cover. I feel in love with the clockwork,Downton Abbey like house and beautiful blue dress.

Though the book had it's bumps and little problems over all I think that it had lots of good points and was worth reading.  Some of the bumps was the way things at times that I felt should have been made more clear were not. And thing about them being made clear was it felt like either Katie was not smart or that we had to read between the lines on everything. And I myself found that to tiresome very fast. At other points the passing of the book was a little off. To fast then to slow. And up until the end those were the only problems - I will go over the end of the book in minute - that I had. 

The characters were over all pretty realistic for the time. I really liked Katie and found that for the most part she kept a good blance in the book of being smart without pushing it. And there were little things here and there about her that were different from so many of the girls in YA. She was more level headed and pulled together. In someways it made me think of Nancy Drew - in the way that she was so pulled together and thought things through. 

Also one of the biggest pluses of the book ( which I sadly did not know until the end) was how much of it was based/inspired by a real life duke! Which just adds to the coolness of it all. 

The thing that has me still a little mixed on the book really is the end. It's hard for me because some parts of it I liked and others I would really have liked to seen done differently.  But over all I think that the book was pretty good and that fans of The Sweetest Dark and Downton Abbey as well if that makes any sense.

( YA 13 and up)
Stars: * * *  3.4

Book: Sweetest Dark

I read this book a while back and never posted a review. But with the next book coming out soon I thought that a late review is better than no review.
This book was both wonderful and a little bit of a let down at the same time for me. First off there are many things about it that are wonderful and it made me think the Gemma Doyle series. Which is one of my favorite series of books ( though I have not read the last one).  This was a lot like those books both in writing and time. But I feel that this might have had less action than those books. Some how Libba turns every little thing in to a huge deal.
First off I love the time in which this is set mostly because of Downton Abbey.  But something that I love is how they deal with the how hard life was back then. And in a lot of ways I felt like the book should have been a little longer. I liked the book and I was never bored reading it but the story did not really seem to go anywhere very fast. and even looking back on it there was no huge change in the book. Yet , none of it bothered me which normally it does. I think it was because of the honesty of the characters. Which I loved them all by the way and would have liked to learn more about any and all of them. I loved the story and its twist and turns.
For me the only down side of this book was that the love story was to rushed. it  was to fast. And I would have really love to see them fall in love slowly over time because I think that the character had so much to give us the reader.

( YA - 13 and up )

Stars: * * * 3.4

Book:Clone Codes

I really liked it. the story was great! I think this will be a very big book! I really got in to it. it had ever thing a good book should. I just love the way the story goes. I love swifting,that was great to have that in there. it is a really good book. the writers should be very happy with it. I love that it means as a book. I think a lot of you should read it. but a lot of people will not read it because it follows  a story plan. which people do not like. I on the  other hand do like it. not always but a lot of the time.

Stars: * * * *  3.4
 ( YA)