The Killing Woods by Lucy Christopher + Low Red Moon by Ivy Devlin

Series: N/A
Author: Lucy Christopher
Page Count: 369
Published: October 3rd, 2013
Publisher: Chicken House
  3.5 Stars ★★★

Emily's father is accused of killing a teenage girl when he comes home with her dead body one night. Emily's "friends" turn on her, and Damon, the boyfriend of the girl who was killed, is angry at Emily and Emily's father for what happened.

A war veteran with PTSD, her father's lawyers say that he might have had a flashback, killing the girl not on purpose, but in a horrible accident. But Emily is determined to find out the truth, which takes her into the woods where the girl died.

I enjoyed Stolen by Lucy Christopher, so I was excited to see that she wrote a thriller! This book really was nothing like Stolen, but enjoyable in it's own way. However, I was slightly disappointed.

I liked the way that the issue of Emily's father suffering from PTSD was added into the narrative. It made me wonder if he truly was innocent, or if he had killed the girl, either by accident or not. It added to the mystery! I suspected many different people throughout the book, but I must say that the big reveal was truly surprising for me.

I loved the woods. The descriptions of the woods throughout the book made them sound beautiful and creepy and menacing and mysterious all at once! I found myself wanting to visit these woods. Emily's father's bunker in the woods was another interesting location, with a bit of mystery and a possibility of sinister happenings. The setting was truly the strong point of the book, in my opinion.

I feel like sometimes the characters did not act realistically. For example, Emily's "friends" turning on her after her father is suspected of the murder. It's not like she was going around defending murder! She was just hopeful that her father was innocent...wouldn't anyone be? Yet those she trusted became nasty towards her. It seemed very out of place, like an extreme reaction, especially since I'd consider a friend in that predicament as a friends in need of love more than ever. Maybe I'm just too nice or naive.... but that's how I interpreted the characters' actions. Unrealistic.

I also wish that this book had a bit more creepiness in it. There definitely was some, especially with the setting of the woods. But there should have been more clues adding to the mystery. I would have liked more big reveals! More twists and turns!

This was an enjoyable book. However, something was missing.... the characters seemed a bit off, and I wish the author had added a big more creepiness to the story. However, the setting was marvelous.

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Series: Low Red Moon
Author: Ivy Devlin
Page Count: 244
Published: September 14th, 2010
Publisher: Bloomsbury USA Childrens
  2.5 Stars ★★

Avery's parents were murdered. She doesn't remember much about that fateful night, except that she was covered in their blood, and she saw a flash of silver. Leaving her house in the woods to go live with her grandmother, she is haunted by her parents' deaths. 

Ben is a new boy at school. Despite her being called "cursed" due to the blood-red pieces that appeared in her hair, he is drawn to her, and her to him. Soon, Avery learns that the legends of wolves, who are more than merely wolves, are true, and that something evil is after her. 

So this book had a few good things. First off, the mystery of who murdered Avery's parents. Really, that's the main thing that kept me reading. I also felt some empathy towards Avery's character as she struggled through the difficult time after their deaths, trying to untangle her memories and remember her childhood home in a more positive light. 

The rest of the book wasn't all that great. Ben was just a pretty face. Literally. I had no clue who he was as a person besides pretty and caring about Avery. He needed wayyyyyyy more character development. 

Then there's the romance between Avery and Ben. While their attraction is more of a paranormal or supernatural nature, it still bothered me how Avery literally falls for Ben after her parents are barely dead. And it's not a slow, building attraction. No, and a slight spoiler alert here, but she kisses him after visiting her childhood home in the middle of the night! And he's there with no explanation! I feel like the traumatic memories of her dead parents would probably overshadow her crush on this pretty boy but I guess not....

This book had a lot of potential. If it had been longer, it may have been a lot better. The author needed to develop the character a lot more, and the romance needed more development as well. Not to mention, the ending....very unsatisfying, in my opinion. 

I'd also like to mention that the sequel, Moonrise, doesn't appear to be available anywhere so...if you wanted to read the sequel, you've run out of luck. 

Overall, disappointing. I liked the murder mystery and Avery's struggles with coping with her parents' deaths, but the book was too short and the romance was not at all believable.

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Night World Vol. 3 by L.J Smith

 Series: Night World
Author: L.J Smith
Page Count: 732
Published: April 7th, 2009
Publisher: Simon Pulse
  4 Stars ★★★★

In the third bind-up volume of the Night World series, the Wild Powers are rising. The millennium is almost here, and with it will come a new age of unity, or of darkness. Paranormal creatures such as vampires, shapeshifters, and witches will either work together to stop the darkness, or fight to win the battle at the end of the world. But who will win?

I loved this! First off all, the books contained in this volume are all fairly short, easy reads, so if you're looking for a lighter paranormal read, this series is great. I also love the inclusion of numerous paranormal creatures, from were-panthers to half vampires.

I also really loved some of the deeper messages I felt could be interpreted within these stories. In the first story, Huntress, the main character is a vampire who hunts down humans and sees them as less worthy than the Night People. But she finds out that she herself is only half vampire, and half human.... She has to question her prejudice. This really mirrors real-life, with people holding prejudiced views and then finding themselves challenged by their own origins, or the identities of those they love. Maybe I'm looking too far into this but....I really liked this deeper connection.

I loved that each story features different main characters. This sets it apart from other young adult paranormal series, and kept me interested. However, there were times when a character was supposed to be, or become, likeable throughout the book, but I just couldn't bring myself to like them. That was really the only issue I had with this series.

I hope the author finishes up the tenth and final book in the series soon! I need to know what happens next.


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The Longest Book Tag

I was tagged by The Butterfly Reader

Sorry it took me so long to actually complete this tag....I don't think I've completed this before so I'll give it a shot. If I have, sorry....my memory is terrible. 

 

The rules:

1) Make a list of the 5 longest books you've ever read

2) Select 2 of the longest books on your tbr

3) Discuss 

 4) Tag others 

1) 5 Longest books I've ever read

Note: I'm not counting nonfiction, reference books, or bindups. 

Breaking Dawn: 756 pages

Eclipse, 629 pages

Kingdom of the Wicked, 607 pages

The Dying of the Light, 605 pages

Mortal Coil, 604 pages

2) 2 of the longest books on my tbr

 

Outlander, 850 pages

  

Fallocaust, 829 pages

3) Discuss

Well, there are some very long books out there, that's for sure. They actually kind of scare me....I prefer books that are 350-500 pages, usually. That doesn't mean that I won't read a book because its longer than that....I'm just a bit wary. Especially if it's a physical book, because my hands hurt after holding it for a while. Although I also find that when I read a book on my tablet or eReader, that it seems longer? So reading a super long book could take ages.

Some of my favourite books have been super long, though. Many of the Skulduggery Pleasant books are over 500 pages. When I love the characters and the world-building, the longer the book, the better! 

I have a bit of a personal issue when it comes to big books, though. So I'm a writer and I want to write a novel. But I keep getting into depressive episodes or school gets really busy, or I think of a better idea to write about. And I can't finish writing a novel, and then I see these authors writing 500 page novels and I feel kinda like a failure. Yeah I know, woe is me. But it does impact me as both a reader and a writer. 

Tags:

So, anyone who wants to do this is tagged! But specifically I tag Kristen at Metaphors and Moonlight and Lauren at Always Me. 

Also I'd like to apologize for not posting as often....university is really stressful already! Don't worry, I'm not on hiatus or giving up blogging, and I swear I love everyone's blogs and I will keep on blogging, but don't expect me to be too consistent with my post schedule in the upcoming months. 

His To Possess by Opal Carew

 Series: His to Possess
Author: Opal Carew
Page Count: 256
Published: March 18th, 2014
Publisher: St Martin's Griffin
  3 Stars ★★★

Jessica is out job searching when she runs into a man who looks a lot like her ex-boyfriend. After a slightly embarrassing encounter, they happen to stumble into each other's path yet again when the man, Dane, offers to drive Jessica to her destination in his limo. They find themselves attracted to each other and end up sharing Jessica's hotel room for the night.

Jessica scores a job and is shocked to find that Dane is her boss. As they work to balance their physical relationship with their boss/employee relationship, things only become more complicated. When Jessica's ex-boyfriend unexpectedly shows up, she might end up losing both of them.

So this is essentially a six-part series that was combined into one book. The book is divided up into these six parts, almost like chapters, with cliff-hanger endings and all.

There were some things that I really liked, and some that I didn't.

I liked Dane, and I liked Storm (the ex-boyfriend). They were both interesting characters with fleshed out backgrounds, very distinct, unique personalities and truly seemed reminiscent of a real person you could find walking down the street right now. Ideally, most characters should be this way, but unfortunately this wasn't the case. I'll come back to this issue later.

I also liked the pacing of the plot. Little twists and turns were placed at perfect intervals, with the cliff-hangers keeping me reading until my eyes hurt.

The sexy scenes were generally quite, well, sexy, as expected. It was obvious that the characters had some sort of chemistry in both their physical and romantic relationships with each other.

Now to the things I didn't like.

Jessica. Yep, I didn't like Jessica. Why? She seemed boring. I didn't get to know her as a person. She seemed like a blank slate almost. She didn't seem to have any quirks, beliefs, etc that distinguished her from any other random person. She was bland.

I really think the author needs to work on her usage of adjectives and adverbs. She used some words and descriptors waaaaaayyyyy too much. I swear I read the word "masculine" in this book more times than I've read it in six full-length novels combined. She also kept referring to these men being like "super male" or something.... like not in those exact words, but everything was like "his musky maleness" or whatever. It's like, we get it, they are men, they happen to also be quite masculine men. Move on already! It got to the point where I was rolling my eyes a lot.

Anyways, it wasn't the best book ever, but not the worst by any means. Will I read the sequel? Probably not. Do I regret reading this? Nope.

If you're a fan of erotic fiction, you might want to try this. However, if the issues that I had with the book would bug you, I don't recommend it at all.

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The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

 Series: The Raven Cycle
Author: Maggie Stiefvater
Page Count: 416
Published: September 18th, 2012
Publisher: Scholastic Press
  3.5 Stars ★★★

Blue's mother is psychic, and she lives in a house with a few other psychics, too. While Blue can't speak to the dead or see the future, she enhances the powers of those around her, so she's brought along so that those who will be dead within the next year can be identified. Among the dead is a boy from Aglionby, a nearby private school, and Blue can see him.

Blue has always been warned that she will cause the death of her true love, and after seeing the spirit of this boy, she wonders if she will be the one to kill him. When they finally come face to face, they form a friendship, along with three other boys from Aglionby. Together they investigate mysterious ley lines, with the hope that they may be led to Glendower, a sleeping king.

There seems to be a lot of hype around this book, but I didn't really enjoy the book as much as other readers have. It wasn't a horrible book by any means, but I was fairly disappointed in some of the elements.

One thing that I did like were the characters. Actually, I loved the characters. Blue was an eccentric and likeable main character, and Gansey's determination to find Glendower was admirable. Rowan, another of the raven boys, was truly frustrating, but I loved him. Adam, a scholarship student, lived in a tough situation and very much served as a juxtaposition or foil to the rich, fairly comfortable life of Gansey. As for Noah, the last raven boy, he was quiet, sweet, and mysterious in his own way. These characters worked so well together to bring this story to life, and they were written with a depth that made me pleasantly surprised. Despite my issues with other pieces of this book, I may continue reading the series just so I can read more about these characters!

The plot was a bit too slow, in my opinion. I would find myself bored for entire chapters, only reading to find out when the next interesting issue would appear. It feels like I only read half a book, really. While the conclusion was a great cliff-hanger type situation, the lack of truly exciting plot points in this book was disappointing. 

Not to mention my confusion about what went on at the end. I mean, there are cliffhangers, but then there are seemingly random occurrences, and this book combined these. The cliffhanger made me want to read the next book, but only because I need answers. What happened at the end? How is it all connected? While this would usually be seen as a good thing, I was more frustrated than excited to get my hands on the second book. Maybe I missed something, but some of the events in the last third of the book just seemed out of place.

Overall, I didn't like this book as much as I had hoped to. The ending was a cliffhanger, but it was also really confusing. However, the amazing cast of characters has me considering buying the second book in the series, because I need to know how their story continues. 

I recommend this book to fans of young adult paranormal books. If you like slower paced novels with likeable and unique characters, this book is for you.

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