Top New Series I Want To Start

1. Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin. I know this series is ending this moth and it is Halloween season so I might pick this up. This has mixed reviews so I'm excited to see what I think of it. 

2. Magisterium by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black. This is kind of cheating because I am currently reading it, but I am still very excited. I hope this is as good as the Mortal Instruments!

3. Magyk by Angie Sage. A lot of Ms... Magisterium has gotten me into a middle-grade kick, and I have always wanted to read this even as a kid. I hope I enjoy this because it reminds me of Harry Potter, soooo...

4. Stoker and Holmes by Colleen Gleason. Many Youtubers I watch have been raving about this book and the concept really intrigues me, so I can't wait to read this!

5. Shatter Me by Taherah Mafi. Gah, how have you not read this!!! I know, I know, but I am still super excited to get into this because I have only heard raves. 

6. The 5th Wave by Rick Yancey. Everyone is talking about the Infinite Sea and I feel so out of it because I haven't read it yet! I hope to get to read this soon!

7. Lux by Jennifer L. Armentrout. This book is about a book reviewer and aliens. Enough said.

8. The Young Elites by Marie Lu. I LOVED the Legend series! Loved, loved, loved, loved it! And even though I don't know what this book is about, I am super excited to read another book by Marie Lu.

9. The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. I have been waiting to read a Brandon Sanderson book forever, and it feels like I should because I LOVE high fantasy, so I really want to read this series.

10. Dangerous Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl. I loved Beautiful Creatures and my favorite characters were Link and Ridley so this will be read once I reread the Beautiful Creatures series.

What books should I read first and do you have any more recommendations?

EXCITED COUNT: 4

The Perfectionists

If you have not read this book yet, YOU SHALL NOT PASS! But seriously, major spoilers from this point on.

First, the backstory: This May my best friend would not shut up about PLL, her favorite TV show. During the summer, I decided I would give it a shot and see if I liked the show. I feel in love and quickly read the first four books to know who A was. After that I marathoned the show until the Season 4 finale and am now waiting for Season 5 to come out on DVD. I slowly read the next four books but after book 8 they became a bit repetitive, so I put them down. (Besides, I was starting to act like this:

Me: Based on the placement of the blood the only logical cause of death is murder. And the prime suspects must be-

Random person: Dude. All I did was spill cranberry juice on the floor.

Me: Arson!)

But anyway I heard Sara Shepard was writing a new YA duology with an interesting concept, and I still liked her writing style. Besides, I was interested to see how she wrote when she was limited to two books instead of having to stretch a plot out for 16 novels. So I picked this book up.

And I was blown away. Was it my favorite book this year? No. But I was expecting just a rehashing of PLL in two books, not this intricate mystery! Does it have flaws? Yes. Were there similar themes, plots, and characters from PLL? Yes. Was it still great? YES!!! To me this felt like a better written PLL, as if she had more experience and less content she had to burn through.

I’ll take this review character by character.

Mac

To me, Shepard’s writing style has always reminded me of a movie I would see on Disney Channel. Is there a slightly darker plot, sure, but at it’s heart it still has that slightly unrealistic and cliche, yet slightly addicting feel. And this style was extremely clear in Mackenzie's story. She is working herself so hard trying to get into Juilliard while secretly swooning over her best friend’s boyfriend. The ending is kinda predictable but I actually didn’t see it coming. And I swear I actually gasped when I found out Claire made it into Juilliard too. *shudders*

Ava

Wow, do I feel bad for this girl! She is the first to be questioned by the police through no fault of her own, and wow did Nolan get revenge on her. And at the end with Mr. Granger I was so creeped out. I kinda saw it coming but I was still shocked he would be so horrible to her. I can’t say I was sad when he died at the end. I knew he didn’t do it, but still that was a jaw-dropper.

Caitlin

This girl had it hard. Out of all of the girls individual plotlines I found hers to be the most enthralling. Jeremy and her are so cute together and god do I feel bad for her poor brother. I wasn’t completely sure Nolan deserved to die until I figured out what he did to Taylor. The rest just became background noise to what he put Caitlin and Taylor (and Jeremy) through.

Julie

I knew Ashley would be the one to give away her secret. I swear Ashley creeped me out. It really felt like Single White Female... I felt bad for Julie and her mom, especially the scene where the mom’s cats were evicted. I love cat’s even though I’m allergic. Well that was random. I really like Julie’s friendship with Parker. They felt very true to themselves.

Parker

Parker reminded me quite a bit of Jenna Cavanaugh from PLL the same way Nolan reminded me of Alison. They were both scarred for something someone else did. I felt bad for Parker and I hope she is happy at the end of The Good Girls. Again I liked her bond with Julie. I’ve got to say, I found the therapist guy really creepy, stalker or not.

The overall verdict is four stars and I can’t wait to see The Good Girls on my shelf. Who do you think the killer is?

The Blood of Olympus

If you have not read this book yet, YOU SHALL NOT PASS! But seriously, major spoilers from this point on.

First, the backstory: The first time I read Percy Jackson was when I was in the fourth grade and The Last Olympian had either just came out or was coming out. All of the kids were excited in the way only little kids can be when it comes to books. I loved to read but was too invested in Harry Potter and the 39 Clues to notice what everyone was talking about. My friend insisted I read it, and so I checked out the first book from the library. I loved it! I checked out the next three from the library, and finished them the next night. And the day The Last Olympian finally came to the school library, I had my parents drop me off half an hour before the school even opened so I could get it first. year by year, I have eagerly awaited the next books in the Heroes of Olympus series as I have changed from a nerdy, awkward fourth grader to a nerdy, awkward freshman. And on the day this book came out I eagerly ran to my nook to see whether it had appeared at midnight.

It hadn’t.

So I had my parents drive me to the bookstore (on a school day) and I finished this book. It’s taken me a couple of week to get my thoughts together enough to coherently portray what I have been feeling. You see The Blood of Olympus wasn’t bad. I enjoyed it immensely. It was a fun read and I had this been a random fantasy adventure I would have loved it. But this was a Rick Riordan book. I had been so eagerly anticipating this book with such excitement that my expectation were way too high and I was let down. I feel the easiest way to take this review is character by character so here we go.

Hazel

I love you, Hazel! You are so awesome! So where was your point of view? The thing about BoO was that there was so much build up without any pay-ff. As you’ll be hearing a lot in this review: loose-ends. Where was Hazel becoming an Amazon? Remember in SoN when it said the Amazon’s greatest warrior could tame Arion. That’s never explained or taken into detail. Shouldn’t that make Hazel in Amazon?

I loved Reyna and Nico’s PoVs don’t get me wrong, but Rick, if you were only going to do 5 PoVs you needed Jason, Piper, and Leo who you had, as well as Hazel and...

Frank

I love Frank so much! He really grew as a character in HoH and I was excited to see how he handled himself in the next book. I didn’t see that. It simply felt as if Frank and Hazel were there, just existing. They went on a couple of quest, sure, but they really didn’t fight. It seemed their only purpose was to hide what Leo was doing, which I guessed halfway through the book. And on the loose ends, what happened to the firewood? I get why Hazel didn’t go back to the underworld (though that should have been explored as well) but we get this build up that the wood was important to the quest and that Frank’s life was short yet this is never explored!

Instead we get insight on the quest to Camp Halfblood from PoVs of Nico and...

Reyna

All of Rick’s characters are awesome but truly love Reyna more than most. I was so glad to hear we got her PoV, until I saw who she had replaced. She replaces people whose plotlines should have been further explored, and instead introduces us to a new plotline, that was resolved rather quickly. And did anyone else thing that she was going to turn Orion around? We get this whole thing about how no demigod will be her love and I thought she was going to fall in love with Orion. That would have been a brave choice on Rick’s part that would develop both her and Orion’s character, but instead he fell short and didn’t explore that at all.

But that isn’t to say I didn’t love her Pov, she was my second favorite character to hear from after her partner-in-crime...

Nico

Out of all the PoVs he was my favorite to hear from. I know in my heart I would have rather had Percy, but he was the saving grace of this book for me. And remind me, when did Nico become such a bad-ass? He was cooler than ever in this book and I loved seeing how he grew! His romance with Will Solace was cute, and I would like to see it further explored. I really wanted to see an in-depth discussion with Percy about his emotions, though that is sort of breezed over. Still, it was my favorite scene in the book, so...

There was also one other interaction I missed and that was the bromance between Nico and...

Jason

This was a letdown for me. it seems most readers dislike Jason and Rick tried to make them like him in this book. I’ve always like Jason and this book made me hate him. Okay, hate is a strong word, but Rick tossed aside old characters to make Jason look better. I don’t care what happened in Tartarus, Percy should not get knocked out UNDERWATER!!! This isn’t anger at Jason as much as the idea of Jason, or what Jason made Rick do. Jason and Nico’s relationship was so cute, and we missed it in this book.

But one of my favorite scenes was when Jason asked, “I have annoying qualities?” That was one of my three laugh out loud moments in the book and I was glad it was with Jason and...

Piper

Piper is so awesome! I always thought she was okay, but in HoH she became so awesome! And I was glad that continued in BoO! I was glad Piper didn’t have many loose-ends because she is now one of my favorite characters! Piper is so badass in this installment. I would like to see how she leads the Aphrodite cabin, but its okay Rick didn’t put that in there.

Okay, I can only gush about Piper, so let’s talk about our final PoV character...

Leo

Leo and I had the most bumpy relationship in this book out of all the characters. I loved Leo in TLH, MoA, and HoH, but in this novel he fell flat for me. My favorite quest, capturing Nike,  was from his PoV but that was more the quest than him. In this book he felt darker, which was a brave chance on Rick’s part. I was glad he had grown and developed but I felt I was missing some of the best Leo humor, instead of his darkness being off, whenever he cracked a joke it just felt out of character. and I want to say that Rick’s “big twist” anyone could see from a mile away. I mean, we all knew Leo wasn’t really dead, so I wished we hadn’t spent so much time pretending he was. Still, Leo did have the two biggest awwwwwww... moments. First, the one where he and Percy talked about Calypso. So cute! And when he and Calypso flew away. Though I was sad Rick left it open ended, that was one of the most beautiful last sentences I have ever read!

I did miss Leo’s humor but not as much as I missed the relationship between Percy and...

Annabeth

As much as I missed Percy PoV, I had braced myself for it. It is now the norm for YA writers to take big risks in their last books as Veronica Roth did with Allegiant. It seemed like just what Rick would do to take away Percy’s PoV from us, but I was still counting on Annabeth. And out of all the loose-ends she had the biggest if only falling short to Frank and his firewood. In MoA, Annabeth and her mom a have a rocky start due to her moms conflicting Greek and Roman sides. I was really interested to see how that was resolved but it wasn’t. There were no Percabeth scenes. Yeah, it was cute when they kissed under the cave, but seeing it from Piper’s eyes felt unnatural.

Before we get to the final character there are two things I want to say. One, Camp Halfblood I really missed you. THere was no Rachel, Grover, or nothing. Octavian’s death fell short and I wished Rena and Nico’s PoVs had been more about Camp Halfblood instead of getting there. I honestly thought Nico was going to zoom Reyna ahead to Camp Half Blood, while he handled the statue.

The second thing was, why were the battle scenes so short? In the past books fighting a single giant took at least ten pages! Here, the whole giant army was like three pages! And Gaea the Earth Mother, the biggest battle of all... took like a page or two.

Now onto the one and only...

PERSEUS JACKSON!!!!

The rant: Even though I braced myself for not having his PoV I still missed it! I know his journey was in Tartarus but I just wished we had seen him! And also, why did you become useless so Jason could look better? Your nosebleed woke Gaea, but that wasn’t really your fault. I was glad you didn’t die, but PERCY YOU SHOULD BE PERFECTLY FINE UNDERWATER! RICK I AM SO MAD!

The gush: Percy you were so cute! You are funny and nice and it has been a pleasure being your companion for these past ten books, nine PoVs, eight books with you, seven demigods (to answer the call), six years, five PJO books, my inability to come up with something for four, three big bad guys Gaea, Kronos, and Luke), two series, and one journey. I miss you.

Should we just promote Adidas shoes are something?