Category: Review

Review: Divergent – Living With A Choice

Posted May 11, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Divergent – Living With A ChoiceDivergent by Veronica Roth
Series: Divergent #1
Publisher: Katherine Tegan Books (2011)
eBook (487 pages)
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

In Beatrice Prior’s dystopian Chicago, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue–Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is–she can’t have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.
During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles to determine who her friends really are–and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes infuriating boy fits into the life she’s chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she’s kept hidden from everyone because she’s been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers a growing conflict that threatens to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves . . . or it might destroy her.

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Review: Tortall and Other Lands – Wonderful Short Stories

Posted May 6, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Tortall and Other Lands – Wonderful Short StoriesTortall and Other Lands by Tamora Pierce
Series: Tortall
Publisher: Bluefire (2010)
Paperback (369 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Alanna the knight, Numair the mage, Daine the wolf-speaker and more! Favorite and unfamiliar characters in 11 tales, including three brand new stories!
Collected here for the first time are six tales from the land of Tortall, featuring both previously unknown characters as well as old friends. Filling some gaps of time and interest, these stories, some of which have been published before, will lead Tammy’s fans, and new readers into one of the most intricately constructed worlds of modern fantasy. Also included are four other fantasy stories . . . one set in a remote desert, two in an unknown town, and one set in a very familiar locale: New York City, in the present day. Also, as a bonus, there is a non-fantasy story set in contemporary Idaho that proves that Pierce’s ability to spin a tale is not limited to realms of dragons and magic.

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Review: Arriving At Amen – Reminding Me Why I Love Being Catholic

Posted May 4, 2015 in Faith, Reading, Review / 4 Comments

Review: Arriving At Amen – Reminding Me Why I Love Being CatholicArriving At Amen by Leah Libresco
Publisher: Ave Maria Press (2015)
eARC (192 pages)
Via: NetGalley
Rating:
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

A former atheist makes sense of Catholicism and learns to pray by relying on the rosary and the rumba, avoiding sin and the sunk cost fallacy, and finding communion along Cartesian coordinates.

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Review: Grave Mercy

Posted April 29, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: Grave MercyGrave Mercy by Robin LaFevers
Series: His Fair Assassin #1
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2012)
Hardcover (549 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Also by this author: Dark Triumph, Mortal Heart
Also in this series: Dark Triumph, Mortal Heart
Reading Challenges: Read 2015

Synopsis

Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?
Seventeen-year-old Ismae escapes from the brutality of an arranged marriage into the sanctuary of the convent of St. Mortain, where the sisters still serve the gods of old. Here she learns that the god of Death Himself has blessed her with dangerous gifts—and a violent destiny. If she chooses to stay at the convent, she will be trained as an assassin and serve as a handmaiden to Death. To claim her new life, she must destroy the lives of others.
Ismae’s most important assignment takes her straight into the high court of Brittany—where she finds herself woefully under prepared—not only for the deadly games of intrigue and treason, but for the impossible choices she must make. For how can she deliver Death’s vengeance upon a target who, against her will, has stolen her heart?

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Review: The Raven Boys – Searching for a Mythical Welsh King

Posted April 27, 2015 in Reading, Review / 0 Comments

Review: The Raven Boys – Searching for a Mythical Welsh KingThe Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater
Series: The Raven Cycle #1
Publisher: Scholastic (2012)
Hardcover (416 pages)
Via: Library
Rating:
Also by this author: Shiver, The Scorpio Races, The Dream Thieves
Also in this series: The Dream Thieves, Blue Lily, Lily Blue, The Raven King
Reading Challenges: 2015 Alphabet Soup, 2015 What's In A Name?, Read 2015

Synopsis

“There are only two reasons a non-seer would see a spirit on St. Mark’s Eve,” Neeve said. “Either you’re his true love . . . or you killed him.”
It is freezing in the churchyard, even before the dead arrive.
Every year, Blue Sargent stands next to her clairvoyant mother as the soon-to-be dead walk past. Blue herself never sees them—not until this year, when a boy emerges from the dark and speaks directly to her.
His name is Gansey, and Blue soon discovers that he is a rich student at Aglionby, the local private school. Blue has a policy of staying away from Aglionby boys. Known as Raven Boys, they can only mean trouble.
But Blue is drawn to Gansey, in a way she can’t entirely explain. He has it all—family money, good looks, devoted friends—but he’s looking for much more than that. He is on a quest that has encompassed three other Raven Boys: Adam, the scholarship student who resents all the privilege around him; Ronan, the fierce soul who ranges from anger to despair; and Noah, the taciturn watcher of the four, who notices many things but says very little.
For as long as she can remember, Blue has been warned that she will cause her true love to die. She never thought this would be a problem. But now, as her life becomes caught up in the strange and sinister world of the Raven Boys, she’s not so sure anymore.

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