Wolfsbane

Title: Wolfsbane (Nightshade #2)
Author: Andrea Cremer

Initial Thoughts: not a lot happened.

Okay, so we met the Searchers. We've decided to ally with the Searchers. We learned a bit about the Scion. We lost friends. We rescued friends. We lost one base. We moved bases. We decided we love Shay. We still won't take off the Ren's ring. Kind of annoyed with that. Like, seriously, you need to decide on one of them or let them know that you are having a hard time making a decision and take a break from both while you do, don't keep leading them both on. That's just not right or fair. We learned that Ren is Monroe's son and thus Adne's brother. Ansel is no longer a Guardian. Ansel betrayed us. Poor kid. Don't totally blame him. He lost a big part of himself and he's struggling. Anything to restore it. Not good, but understandable. Logan is maybe on our side. Logan is a Keeper and could he maybe restore Ansel? It'd be a show of good faith. Yeah, nothing super memorable. It happened and it's moving us along in the series. Next!

Rating: 4/5.

The Kiss of Deception

Title: The Kiss of Deception (Remnant Chronicles #1)
Author: Mary E. Pearson

Initial Thoughts: too much romance.

So, I was kind of hyped for this to be some epic story of a girl fighting the system to gain her freedom but she got through that rather quickly and then over half the book is taken up by her slowly getting to know and falling for Rafe while Kadan looks on and starts falling for her, too, which was kind of disappointing. I was so happy with the fact that Kadan seemed friendly and protective, but for the most part didn't actually seem interested in her romantically. I didn't want a love triangle. I enjoyed the little contests and one-upmanship things they had going on (the log fight was brilliant), but I enjoyed them more because I thought it was Kadan being somewhat protective of Lia and Rafe showing-off for her and making it known that he'll fight for her but it didn't seem to have the animosity of two boys battling over the same girl; rather, they were both fighting for her so rather than a tug-of-war, it was more like friendly competition working towards the same goal of protecting her. Also, HOW DID I HAVE THEIR ROLES REVERSED THE ENTIRE TIME!!!!!!!!!! I thought I had caught onto a little detail that told me which one was the prince and which was the assassin and then when they made it official, I was caught totally off guard. I seriously had to go back and reread their chapters to check that they hadn't given something away and that they still made sense in the opposite roles. Honestly, I hadn't even realized that some chapters used their names while others only used their roles because I was so set on who was who that it didn't matter. I guess everything said in their chapters could have been either of them in those roles, but there are a couple points. Why was Rafe so offended when she mentioned Barbarians? Generally, Barbarian refers to the Vendans, not the Dalbreckians (?). Also, he was annoyed by her royal manner a couple times, which is strange because, he, too, is royalty. Really, it should have been Kadan who was annoyed by these things. I think that was what really threw me off. I was set in who they were and those little facts cemented it for me and then it turned out I was wrong and it just totally blew my mind. Well-played, Mary Pearson, well-played. There were a couple other details, and if I had been paying more attention I might have used those to find out the truth, but they were so small I just overlooked them until the reveal, like the thorn scratches on Rafe (pretty sure it was the prince who mentioned those in his search) and the fact that Kadan was apparently sending missives while the prince had said he wasn't planning on writing home at all. Aw well. I love a good romance, but honestly, in the first half of the book, it was all fluff and nothing really happened. I'll keep reading because the end has me curious about what will happen next but it was a bit too much fluff for my current mood. Not badly written and the world and its history seem interesting, but I was looking for a bit more action and adventure, not a princess prancing around as a barmaid in a quiet little town with two men fawning over her for half the book. Hopefully the other books in the series pick up a bit more.

Rating: 4/5 It was good, just not great.

Nightshade

Title: Nightshade (Nightshade #1)
Author: Andrea Cremer

Initial Thoughts: so much better than I was expecting

So, I definitely thought this was just going to be some paranormal romance and I'm a little tired of those just at the moment. I should have known better. I grabbed this book because it kept popping up in a Facebook bookworm group. I should have more faith in my fellow readers to know that it would only continue getting posted about if it's actually a really good read. And it definitely is. Yes, it has romance, and seriously, I have to feel bad for Ren. Definitely see the Shay romance coming from page 1, but Ren is actually not a bad guy. I mean, he definitely has some alpha wolf tendencies, a little overprotective and bossy, but he's also got a good heart to help balance as long as someone is there to point out when he's taking things too far. Sadly, I don't think he and Calla would have worked out well. They would have made it work, but neither of them would have ended up happy. Ren would eventually get annoyed with her constantly questioning his orders and she would either become extremely rebellious or would lose her spirit and become a shadow of her former self and he would probably get annoyed with her for that as well. The problem is that they are both alphas, both used to giving the orders and taking care of their own, both used to being on top. Ren wants to treat her as an equal because she is an alpha, but he is, too, and that would be hard for him. He would really have to work for it and it would wear on him over time. She would have to learn to let him lead sometimes and that would nag at her. They would have tried oh so hard to make it work because they could understand each other, they are both good people, they both just want to take care of their own, but you can't really put two alphas together and expect it to work. I am really glad that Ren isn't the terrible monster I figured he would turn out to be. I mean, isn't that the usual, the guy you're supposed to marry seems nice and you think it can work and then you get to know him and you see what he's really like and you despair because you don't know how to get out of it until your true love comes along and somehow whisks you away into the sunset? Except, this time, you start out thinking Ren is pretty terrible and once you get to know him you find out he's actually kind of great and maybe there is hope for this marriage, except that Shay comes into the picture and Calla can't seem to decide (though you just have to know it's going to be Shay, duh) and now I'm feeling totally sorry for Ren because now he doesn't know what to do to protect her and he had definitely started caring about her and aarrrgh! Love triangles definitely annoy me. Moving on to the actual story, it was pretty great. I love a good mystery (and yet I don't ever try reading mystery novels...) and the secrets surrounding this site and Shay and everything are so interesting. Who exactly are the Searchers, how do they know about these sites, what do they need with Shay, who exactly is Shay and why is he so important, who are the Keepers and what is their grand plan and what is going to happen to her pack with her gone? I trust Ren to take care of them, but, unless he wants to disobey, there is only so much he can do and I'm worried about what they will do to her brother and friends. I kind of love Ansel, he's adorable. I am definitely looking forward to reading the next one once my TBR list goes down a bit (meaning only that I finish the books currently checked out, then I am grabbing the next one of these :) )

Rating: 5/5. Very good. Did not disappoint.

The Reader

Title: The Reader (Sea of Ink and Gold #1)
Author: Traci Chee

Initial Thoughts: I love Easter Eggs in books!!!!!

Yes, I was the girl who, halfway through the Artemis Fowl series, no longer needed a key to read what was written along the bottom of the page in Gnomish. I will say, Traci Chee was sneaky with hers. I wondered about the smudges, but didn't do anything until I found the ones by the page numbers, which I didn't notice until nearly 100 pages in (as I said, sneaky). Then I had to go all the way back to the beginning and check each page, and this time I did actually make note of which words the smudges were next to. Though, the first smudge didn't seem to be next to anything important (it seemed to be the word "through"). The rest made sense (and were a little predictable - the smudges, not the page number ones - those were fun to find). It took me a while to get into the book, mostly because I didn't actually pick it up right away. I actually renewed it once before I ever opened it. Once I started, though, it didn't take me long to get invested. I love the idea of words having power and how we only live as long as our stories are told. It actually reminds me of a quote from another book, "Stories are as immortal as the gods" (The Tree of Avalon series by T.A. Barron). Stories live on as long as they are told and gods live in the stories. Once you stop telling a story, it's forgotten, it dies. The gods of old only live as long as we remember their stories. Once those stories are forgotten, those gods no longer exist. Like in Coco: you only exist in the afterlife as long as there is someone alive who remembers you. Once you are forgotten, you cease to exist. Honestly, it's fascinating because stories are how we live and how we communicate. it used to be that stories were told orally and passed on as such, changed and embellished with each retelling and each storyteller, and that was how people learned about their history. Now, with the written word, we can write things down so they can last longer and stay closer to the truth than was possible so long ago, but stories are still how we communicate. Think about your day-to-day interactions. "How was your day?" "Oh, it was terrible! This happened...." "What's your opinion on this?" "Oh, it's great! I had this experience once..." (Most people don't talk exactly like that, but you get my point.) We know people through the stories of their lives. If you want to know why someone thinks or acts a certain way, you need to know the story behind their reasoning. There's always a story. Even our social media world is focused on story. On Facebook you can "Add to your story" with pictures of what you're doing. You post about how "this one thing" happened to you today, or how so-and-so did this or that. Gossip is passing along stories. Twitter is the tl;dr version of storytelling: you get to the basic facts to sum up your story. "When such-and-such happens to you #life#storytelling". Instragram is storytelling through pictures. Telling stories is what we do. It's how we communicate. It's how we live. So in a world where stories cannot be written down and preserved for years on end, of course you want to live a life full enough to be remembered, for your stories to be told years after you die, because that's the only way the world will remember you. You don't think much about how the written word has changed our society, but it really has. Through writing our stories down, our lives can be remembered by people hundreds of years later and across the globe. Think of the historical characters you learn about in school, the scientists and philosophers, the inventors, leaders, and warriors, writers and artists that have shaped our society today. We only know about them and what they did because their stories were written down. We share our stories on social media with people all across the world so we can be remembered by people we've never even met face-to-face. Well, I guess I should actually get to the book (I tend to get off on tangents a lot, if you haven't noticed). I enjoyed the characters. The plot is good. Captain Reed is fun and I enjoyed learning that he was a real person still living and fighting and exploring and that we actually got to meet him. Lon and the Second turning out to be her parents was a surprise. Fun. I liked Archer and Sefia was good, too. No complaints on any of the characters (except maybe that one army dude you meet for all of three pages - what was with that?). I think maybe I got a little too caught up with the Easter Eggs and the idea of stories that I didn't focus so much on the characters, but I did really like the book and I can't wait to read more.

Rating: 5/5 (okay, so I gave it a 4 on Goodreads, but that's just because I likely won't reread it in the future unless it's many years down the road, which usually takes one star off the rating for me, but I did really like the story so here I'm going to go ahead and give it a 5)

Charlie Bone and the Time Twister

Title: Charlie Bone and the Time Twister (Children of the Red King #2)
Author: Jenny Nimmo

Initial Thoughts: better than the first as far as rereading goes.

The first book in a series has to have all the intro stuff, which can be very dull when you're rereading it for the umpteenth time. Luckily, you can skip a lot of that with the later books. This one was fun. I feel a little sorry for Billy sometimes, and others definitely not. Like, okay, he's only 7, he just wants to be adopted, you can't totally blame him for doing what Ezekiel Bloor says, especially when his best friend is a dog who seems to like Ezekiel Bloor well enough so there's a recommendation, I guess. Other times it's like, okay, you may be young, but even you should know that that isn't right, or he's just got a really bad attitude at points. To other topics, I like the Pets' Cafe, especially that little scene of Paton with a gerbil in his pocket. Lol. I like that Charlie and Henry will get to have a relationship and that Henry and his brother were reunited. Sadly, I don't think we see Henry again during the series, but I imagine that he and Charlie probably have a lot of fun together, teaching each other about their respective times, playing marbles, wandering the beach, etc. Plus, those visits are a great excuse for Charlie to get away from Grandma Bone and his evil aunts. They are seriously annoying. I don't think I really have a lot else to say about this one. Oh, except that I do wonder exactly what happened to poor Mrs. Bloor. What kind of time travel do they believe in? Would going back restore her hand or would there just suddenly be two of her? I mean, they didn't let Henry go back because that would change what had already happened, but if Mrs. Bloor went back, wouldn't that have changed things as well? They seemed to imply that going back would restore her hand, but I only see that happening if she takes the place of her old self, but then she would change things. If you want to avoid changing things, there could just be two of her and the second one just makes sure to avoid running into herself or her family, but then that wouldn't restore her hand. I don't really know. Now I'm finished. On to the next one!

Rating: 4 (it's fun and I've reread it multiple times so it kind of keeps a higher score than if I was reading it for the first time at this age)

Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda

Title: Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda
Author: Becky Albertalli

Initial Thoughts: Good read. Really fast.

I started it, and then I had a really hard time putting it down. Like, I was up a couple hours later than I meant to be when I knew I had to get up for work early the next day. So, I ended up actually going to sleep around 3 a.m. and getting up at 7 a.m. Yeah, that's how I roll. I'm a night owl and a bookworm. It was definitely an enjoyable book. I believe I've said it before, but I am a hopeless romantic so the whole emails-with-Blue thing was really cute. Honestly, my very early guess was that it was going to turn out to be Nick (I decided that the longing looks at pretty girls were a cover-up) but that was squashed at the Halloween party because he was there and Blue wasn't. I had Bram pegged about a third of the way in and was almost certain of it because initials. I didn't remember at that point if they had said his last name earlier in the book, but I was like, "His last name must start with a G." bluegreen = B.G. = Bram Greenfeld. So, yeah, I called that one. (Honestly, it probably wasn't really all that hard to do, I just like to make myself feel good by getting to claim that I figured something out before it was officially revealed.) I like them together, they're super cute. Like, I like imagining that they do cute couples things together. Like, maybe Simon actually goes to the Homecoming dance next year because he just wants the excuse to see Bram dressed in a tux and to dance with him. I'm not sure what I personally think of double dates, but they could double date with Nick and Abby if they wanted. And Bram starts hanging out at Simon's house a lot. And joins their little group of Simon, Nick, Abby, and Leah. And Bram introducing Simon to his mom. And his dad. Etc. Just cutesy couples things. (I did say I'm a hopeless romantic, right?) Ooh! Couples Halloween costumes! Lol. Making each other mixed CDs. Definitely going to a concert together. I should stop. I totally felt sorry for Simon at the one point where Leah was made at him and Abby was annoyed and Blue wasn't emailing and since Nick was dating Abby he wasn't around either so poor Simon was kind of left all alone for a time and that would suck. And what Martin did was absolutely terrible, but I liked in his explanation email that he said how Simon actually has a lot of friends and is really lucky. Like, we don't always realize how blessed we are by the people around us. Yeah, he has a select group of best friends, but he gets along well with a lot of their friends and other people as well. There are a lot of people around him who enjoy his company. We tend to be so focused on our select best friends that we miss the people in the periphery. Like, when I make plans, I invite by close friend-group, but I'm also surrounded by coworkers and church family, and others, who, while I'm not super close to them, do accept me for who I am and would be great to get to know better. Martin doesn't seem like he has any close friends, and he probably has a hard time getting close to anyone, but there are a lot of kids at his school who know him and like him and if he really needed to talk or get away or something, at least a few of them would be there for him. I don't think he realizes this. He just sees the lack of best friends in his immediate vicinity and completely misses the opportunities surrounding him. Like, when he just tried hanging out with Abby and Simon, they could have become pretty good friends and it was definitely going in that direction (if only he hadn't blackmailed Simon). He couldn't see the forest for the trees, I guess. How many missed opportunities because he only focused on what he lacked rather than trying to build something new? I'm not sure if that totally made sense. I think I wandered away from my original point, but anyway, I enjoyed the book and the characters. I felt bad for Leah too because I know how she felt. Like, your friends are telling each other secrets and going off to do things but leaving you behind. It's not that they didn't like her, or want her along, but sometimes it's just easier to leave someone behind when you know that it's not really their thing. I know what it is to be left out, and I'm sure I've made plans and left other people out before. Life is hard. We need to learn to let the hurts slide off or confront them. All the reading I've done, one of the most important lessons I've learned is that communication is key. People aren't going to know what you're feeling unless you tell them. Sometimes they just don't realize what they're doing and they need someone to point it out. If you don't say anything, though, you can't blame someone else for not understanding you. If after you talk to them they continue to mistreat you, then it's on them and they're maybe someone that needs to be cut from your life. If they're a true friend, they just need help seeing the world the way you do. Okay, this got kind of ranty. I don't usually read contemporary so I don't usually get to get up on my soap box and talk about these issues because they are much more subtle if included in fantasy. I'm done now.

Rating: 4/5 (sorry, but while I may be a hopeless romantic, I tend to prefer longer stories and series so standalones get points off, just how I rate things) Good book. Thought provoking. May or may not read again someday.

Midnight for Charlie Bone

Title: Midnight for Charlie Bone (Children of the Red King #1)
Author: Jenny Nimmo

Initial Thoughts: Umm...honestly, I've read this too many times to have initial thoughts.

This is a fun series. Definitely Juvenile Fiction, and a little strange, but a fun read nonetheless. I started reading it when only about four of the books were out so I ended up reading it a few times throughout the years as new books came out. I've only ever actually finished the series once, which is kind of why I'm reading it again now, because I want to remember how it all ends. It's a very interesting world in which a few families have these powers and no one else around them thinks it's really all that strange. Like, usually you'd have some sort of discrimination, but instead the other students and families in the area are just like, "Oh, you're one of the endowed. You can do weird things and weird things happen around you. Okay, then. Are you staying for tea?" They're really not surprised or anything. Manfred can hypnotize people. That is understood. Such is life. Moving on. If you're not close friends with one of the endowed and strange things start happening, you just wait to see what the consequences are for you, and leave all the action for the endowed children to handle. "Got nothing to do with me. Let the endowed do what they will. Oh, cool, they saved a kid. Party!" Also, it took me too long to figure out where they lived, America or England. When I first started reading the series, I was young enough to just assume that everything I read happened in America unless they made it blatantly obvious that it was somewhere else. (I made that assumption with Artemis Fowl, too.) A couple rereadings later, I started questioning it because it didn't totally sound like America but the language wasn't obviously British and I could never quite figure it out. Apparently I was just not reading carefully enough because at one point, Uncle Paton definitely says that some of the descendants of the Red King "came here to the British Isles". Yeah, and I still thought it was in America for years. Though to be fair, they use the word "soccer" which is technically only called that in America, I believe. The rest of the world calls it football. So that threw me. And she never writes it "mum", always "mom" (unless that's just the US editions). Pretty much, there were a few conflicting and confusing details that made it way too hard for me to figure out if it was America or England when I was a kid (because I somehow always seemed to miss that little British Isles bit...). It should be a  quick reread, then I can move on with my life.

Rating: 4/5 (when I was younger, this probably would have been a 5, but now when I read it, the writing is just a bit too JFIC for me to fully appreciate it)

The Raven Boys

Title: The Raven Boys (Raven Cycle #1)
Author: Maggie Stiefvater

Initial thoughts: better the second time around.

This book has a certain strange air to it, and I think the later books are even more so. Rereading it means that you already know what strange things are coming so they don't blindside you and you can watch them develop. It's much easier to understand the second time around and I'm glad I'm rereading it. Actually, the air of strangeness kind of reminds me of when I read Charlie Bone when I was younger (I actually decided to reread that as well so I checked it out from the library alongside this book. Coincidence. Of course. ;P ). Anyway, I rather enjoyed rereading this. The characters are fun. For all that he's a ghost, Noah might actually be my favorite, I don't know why. Noah is dead. Blue grew up among psychics. Ronan is a little crazy. Gansey is obsessed. Adam is the only one with a life that resembles normal (not good, what with his father, but, sadly, it could still be counted as normal), but he "wants to believe". He's probably got the most to gain, and the most to lose, from this venture. Noah is already dead, so he's kind of on borrowed time here. Blue just wanted to touch magic to feel more like the rest of her family. Ronan just wants to understand what happened with his dad, which he might get to on his own eventually, what with his dreams. Gansey just wants to pay Glendower back for his second chance at life. Adam, though, wants a different life entirely. He's not in it to satisfy some little part of himself, he wants to escape everything that makes up his life right now: his father, the trailer, lack of money, working 3 jobs, wearing secondhand clothes. If he doesn't escape, he'll slowly fade away until he loses his spirit completely or decided to just end it. He's proud and logical and sometimes that combination limits his options and actually keeps him in the very life he doesn't want. To Adam, he NEEDS to find Glendower or he'll have no life to speak of because he can't see any other way out now, which is a little sad, but it's also how a lot of people trap themselves in their own lives, because they can't see, or refuse to accept, other options, all because they are too proud or too narrow-minded. Blue, for all that she works so hard to stand out, actually just wants to fit in, it's just that she wants to fit in with her family rather than the rest of the world. Noah just wants to exist as long as he can since his life was ended too early and he wants to help those who allow him to do so. Gansey, having been given a second chance at life, wants to make sure it means something. Being grateful to Glendower, he has decided that that is how he can make a difference, by waking Glendower. Glendower or no Glendower, Gansey is going to do something with his life, find a passion to follow. For now, it's Glendower so that he can thank him or repay him for the life he was given. Eventually, though, he'll either find Glendower and move on to a new goal, or he'll have to set his search for Glendower aside if he wants to actually do something. He's so focused on Glendower that he's going to miss other opportunities to make something of himself and change the world. I'll analyze Ronan after one of the other books.

Rating: 4.5/5 Definitely rereading material.

Illuminae

Title: Illuminae (Illuminae Files #1)
Author: Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

Initial Thoughts: That was....brilliant.

Intense. Love and action and rogue AI, spaceships and bio-warfare, thousands of lives lost but still hundreds saved. It was epic and awesome and why did I wait so long to read it? Honestly, I only picked this one up because it kept cropping up in a bookish fb group I'm in and I wanted to know what all the hype was about. I get it now. I don't actually even know what to say other than that it was brilliant and awesome and amazing and I absolutely cannot wait to read the next one (though I will have to wait because I already have a number of other books from the library that need reading before they are due back :P). The one thing I will say pertaining to an actual specific part of the story and not just it's overall epicness (I need to find more synonyms for awesome...) is that I was definitely blindsided by AIDAN saying that Ezra had died. I had not figured that. With it, though, I figured Kady was for sure going to die as well. Most books I read don't actually kill off the main character (supporting characters, yes, but not your narrator) but I was fully expecting this one to do so and to actually be okay with it. I couldn't see Kady being happy with her life once Ez had died. I don't condone going and killing yourself if someone you loves dies, that is actually a terrible thing to do, but I totally could have seen her doing it and I wouldn't have been annoyed at the authors for writing it in. I don't like killing off characters (even nameless ones, like seriously, that was over 2,000 characters that died just on the Alexander alone and they all had lives and families and I know they're just characters but loss of life is never acceptable - inevitable, yes, but not acceptable), and I actually might have cried had Kady died, but I wouldn't have railed against it. It would have been a little beautiful, even. Romantic in that she was going to join the only person she had left. (That probably still sounds kind of terrible, but even though I say I hate characters dying because of loss of life, I do know that they're characters and I can appreciate the necessity and beauty in their deaths because I do know that they aren't actually real.) Anyway, yay for them both being alive! Another thing I did catch on to was that her mother was on the Copernicus because Kady never mentioned her and avoided talking about her and would just continue the conversation or change the subject when Ezra would bring her up. That I did catch, though I was a bit confused because I knew she had started out on the Hypatia with Kady. It was explained and I'm all good. I loved the format of the book with the different files and everything. Genius. Also, for anyone reading it later, that pulse in binary code does actually say something if you have to patience to type it into a converter and figure it out.

Rating: 5/5. Loved it, will continue the series, may even reread someday. Probably want to own.

The Darkest Part of the Forest

Title: The Darkest Part of the Forest
Author: Holly Black

Initial Thoughts: That was really good.

I wasn't really sure what to expect. I like books with the fae, but the last book by Holly Black I read did not leave me with a great impression of her work. She had mixed modern day and the fae and it just seemed strange to me. This book sounded interesting, but I was a little worried that it would have that same strange mix. And yeah, it mixed modern day and fae, but in a different way that worked beautifully. The characters were fun and totally human (figuratively, at least). They had problems and doubts and hopes and dreams, they wanted to change things but didn't know how or were too scared, they made mistakes and stupid decisions, but they were so real. The only character I didn't quite connect with or understand or figure out (I'm not quite sure of the correct phrase for how I dealt with the characters) was Severin. I'm not sure that I fully grasped his motives or feelings or thoughts or whatnot, but he is fae, so I guess that is actually rather fitting and thus his character was well-written. I do like how the relationships all worked out. I was a little confused by a little piece of the ending. So, Jack's dad is mortal, right? That's why his mom hid him away was because the Alderking had taken a fancy to her but then she went off and dallied with a mortal and he was angry and she wanted to spare Jack from the Alderking's wrath. But near the end when Hazel is eavesdropping, his mom starts to imply something about who his father is, but he wouldn't let her finish. Was she trying to say that it was actually the Alderking after all? That with both the king and Severin out of the way, Jack would be next in line? I was a little confused and they didn't give a full explanation, though it did say that Severin embraced a changeling like a brother, which seems almost to imply that yes, the Alderking was maybe Jack's father. If anyone has an actual answer, I would love to know it. I hate not knowing things.

Rating: 5/5. I really enjoyed reading it and stayed up much later than I should have because it was just so hard to put down. I don't reread standalones a lot, but if I did, this would potentially be one of them.

Ascend

Title: Ascend (Trylle #3)
Author: Amanda Hocking

Initial thoughts: I'm just imagining any time that Duncan walks into their room to get them now, he has his hand over his eyes.

So, I really enjoyed it. All the romances worked out about as I figured they would, maybe even better. Honestly, I even called the pregnancy. The bonus stories included in the editions I read were really enjoyable and I'm glad they were included. The climax was a little short, and maybe even a little anti-climatic. To me, I think maybe that's because it was never really about killing Oren, but about following your heart and working to enact change. Elora finally told Wendy that she had loved her this whole time and that Elora thought Wendy should actually work to find happiness and not completely give herself over for the kingdom. This frees Wendy so she is no longer trapped feeling that she has to please her mother by following all the old ways. Her and Tove are able to admit that their marriage isn't going to work. She wants to be with Loki. Once she makes up her mind to make a move, Oren is barely an obstacle. Yeah, it has to be a challenge otherwise someone would have done it long before, but he represented the old ways and she was already making advances in moving forward by making Markis and Marksinnas help out with Oslinna and by taking the fight to the Vittra. He was already defeated as soon as she decided to change the game. So the real point of that scene was that she held Loki as he nearly died in her arms, she gave him her life energy to bring him back, and they both fully admitted to loving each other and didn't care who knew it. I will fully admit that the scene with Duncan's legs scared me a bit. He wasn't important to any of the romance so she could kill him off if she wanted to and I was worried it was going to be like, they would honor his memory, use him and the fact that he gave his life to ending this war as a way to get more equality for the other trackers. He was such a genuinely good soul, though, that his death would have been absolutely terrible. It'd be like killing off Jack in House of Night, but worse because there was a reason for killing him off but killing Duncan would have just been getting an extra character out of the way and not actually accomplishing anything with it. I was genuinely worried. Huge sigh of relief when he wasn't dead and they kept him from becoming so. Also, I really enjoyed how much Wendy grew up throughout the books. In the first one, she was all whiny and "I don't want to do any of this." Get to this one and she's being a responsible adult, making decisions based on more than her own selfish desires. Don't get me wrong, you should do things that make you happy and you shouldn't sacrifice your entire life to doing what others want you to do, but you do need to keep in mind that there are consequences to your decisions and those affect other people. Wendy learned this and I think by the end she found a good balance of following her heart and doing what she believed to be right, but basing it on what was right for the kingdom, not just for herself and not just what others told her would be right.

Side note: why do they wait until the glossary, located at the very back of the book and only located in the final novel of the series, to give me the correct pronunciation for Trylle? I've been going back and forth between a couple pronunciations this whole time and I finally learn how to say it correctly only after I've finished the series. Someone needs to rethink that.

Rating: I'd give this series 4/5. It was very enjoyable, fairly predictable, but I'm always a sucker for a good romance. I probably won't read it again, but maybe some day when I'm bored I'll find another book by this author to read.

Torn

Title: Torn (Trylle #2)
Author: Amanda Hocking

Initial thoughts: I'm team Loki.

I feel like there's not a lot to these books.You get very quick descriptions and explanations, nothing really in-depth. I guess if you're trying to keep it within a certain number of pages, that makes sense, but I would love to get to know so much more about the Trylle community and the people in it. It works well as a YA fantasy; better even than many newer YA books that are coming out that are less for a YA audience and more for an adult audience but are written with characters and plots that put them into YA. Those kinds of books include more adult scenes that the YA audience doesn't really need to be introduced to unless you want to encourage teen pregnancies and such things. I don't mean to be a prude, but sex scenes really should be limited to adult books. You can make it obvious that two characters are together or even that they're sleeping together without going into details. When you describe it in such magical terms, of course teens are going to want to do it even more. Anyway, these books happily haven't included any such scenes and thus are fully appropriate for a YA audience. They do have romance, and the love triangle (square?) is forming. Out of the three potential boys, I definitely am rooting for Loki. Yes, Finn loves her and she loves him, but he doesn't give her the respect she's due. Oh, he honors her as the princess, but he puts her status above who she actually is. He won't allow himself to love her because she isn't allowed to love him back, despite what they both feel. When she tries talking to him, he retreats and tells her that it can't happen, and then he shows up and does things that contradict his words. If he truly believes it's his duty to stay away from her, then he just needs to do that and stop leading her on. If he would rather follow his heart then he needs to stop running away all the time. Finn's problem is that he is torn between the two and won't fully commit himself to one. Tove is a lot of fun, and they make good friends, and he would make a good king to her queen, but she doesn't love him and he doesn't love her. It's just going to make things super awkward between them and could even ruin the great friendship thing they've got going on. Then you have Loki. She likes him, though she won't admit it because she knows she can't be with him because he is from a rival tribe and she wants to do right by her kingdom. He likes her, though he has a hard time truly showing it because he prefers to act the clown than be serious, though he's more honest than he lets on. I figure he is at least Tove's equivalent status-wise in the Vittra society so he is high enough to marry a princess as well as plenty powerful (those two things are nearly interchangeable here). They want peace between the two kingdoms, which is why Elora married Oren in the first place, but that didn't work because they didn't love each other; honestly, they practically hated each other. Wendy and Loki actually do care about each other so a marriage between them might be able to accomplish what Elora and Oren couldn't and unite their two tribes. That's what I want to see in book 3.

In general, these books are fairly simplistic, but they are fun. Set in more of a modern society, they would be easier for general readers to understand while still getting their dose of fantasy (similar to Harry Potter). I'm waiting to see if there's a good take-away message or if I'm going to dislike how things end.