Reader Rayna

Month: March 2015

  • Firelight Book Review

    firelight

    Title: Firelight
    Series: Book #1 in the Firelight trilogy
    Author: Sophie Jordan
    Publisher: HarperCollins
    Publication Date: September 7, 2010
    Genres: Young Adult – Urban Fantasy, Romance
    Pages: 323
    Format: Purchased Paperback

    “Firelight” by Sophie Jordan is my TBR Jar Challenge book of the month (reread a favorite book), and so I reread it and enjoyed it just as much as I did the first time. This story is about a girl named Jacinda and how she and her family, among others, are descendants of dragons, called draki. They are able to shift into dragon form (mostly dragon) either on command or when they’re having a heightened sense of emotion, such as fear. But one day when Jacinda and her best friend, Az, go out for a morning flight – which is forbidden in fear of being caught – they are chased by hunters and almost struck down. Jacinda lures them away while Az hides and comes face to face with a hunter: Will. But he doesn’t harm her; in fact, he’s struck by her beauty.

    But then when her pride finds her later, they are furious, as her mother. Though she is the only fire-breather to have been born in generations, they won’t hold back on their punishments. And her mother knows just what the pride will do to Jacinda for disobeying the rules. So her mother decides to uproot her and her twin sister, Tamra, out of the safety of the pride to a desert region where Jacinda will most likely lose her draki because there is no fresh air, coolness of mist, or anything really lively about the land they move to. And her mother knew it.

    And then things start getting really interesting when Will attends the school they two girls now attend.

    Okay, so as far as plot goes, I love this story. The fact that it’s about dragons is really cool in and of itself, and just the overall concept I find intriguing. There’s romance, there’s some action… I mean, I like it a lot.

    Jacinda, herself, is a… well, she’s often a whiny character and goes back and forth on what she wants or what she should do fairly often. It can be annoying, but I also understand that she is a sixteen year old who just had her life ripped away from her and her mother is trying to kill off a very large part of her. So really, I understand her gripe. If I were put in her position, I’d probably do the same thing. She doesn’t really go through extensive character development until the next two books in the trilogy, but this was a good start to get to know her and who she is as a person and a draki.

    Will is the boy who hunted her but didn’t kill her, finding her beautiful and unable to do what everyone else wants him to do. He’s a kind guy with a good heart, and though he was sick before, he has a way to survive now that makes him very valuable to his family of hunters. He is instantly drawn to Jacinda when she arrives in his town, and she is instantly drawn to him, though they don’t know why or really understand it until much later in the book. When you find out why, though, it’s shocking (even though I already knew it since I had read the trilogy before).

    Tamra, Jacinda’s twin sister, is a defunct draki – she never manifested, never gained any power, so she feels isolated and all alone in the pride. When they move to the new town she’s able to make a new life for herself and make friends and do other kinds of activities that were otherwise not welcome to her back in the pride. She’s much more hot headed than Jacinda, in my opinion, but she’s strong in her own way.

    There are other characters that make appearances in this book, but they make more appearances that I can talk about in the upcoming books later on. For now, just know that I’m not a big fan of any of them, really. Except Nidia and Az, they’re cool.

    My biggest peeve with this book was the writing style. The sentences are short and choppy, and where there easily could have been a single stream of thought was cut short and make smaller by these small sentences. It was actually really annoying. I often found myself just stringing the sentences together in my head because I felt that was the only way that they made sense to me. Otherwise, I enjoyed the fast pace plot of the book, I really enjoyed the romance, and I just thought that the overall concept was cool.

    So, let me compare my first read through to now in terms of rating:

    Before: 5/5 stars hand down.

    Now: 4/5 stars, mostly because of the writing and some other things (such as Jacinda’s whiny voice) that played a factor into this rating.

    I still really enjoyed the book, though, and recommend it if you’re into dragons and romance.

  • Top Ten Tuesday: Revisiting Books from Child/Teen Years

    Welcome to another Top 10 Tuesday! Today’s T10T topic is: books from your childhood (or teen years) that you’d like to revisit. This sounds like a fun one, going down memory lane, so here are my top ten picks!

    1. “Breaking Dawn” by Stephenie Meyer. This is the only book in the saga that I haven’t reread, and frankly I can’t remember everything that happened, so I’d like to revisit this book and try to refresh my memory (because I really feel like the movie didn’t match up to the book…).

    2. The Vampire Diaries series by L.J. Smith. I read all four books in my junior year of high school, and I remember liking them, but I can’t really remember much about them. So I’d like to revisit these books and see if I still like them as much as I did at the time.

    3. “Stellaluna” by Janell Cannon. Though this is essentially a children’s picture book I remember loving the artwork and the simple story behind it that I would love to revisit this one and hope that it puts a smile on my face.

    4. The Just Ask series by Chris Arvetis. I LOVED these books as a kid. I think I even had the whole set. They were science books that were easy to understand with drawings and illustrations as told from the point of view of a kid mouse. So good. Out of date, but so good.

    5. The Wishbone series by a variety of authors. Do you remember Wishbone? He had his own TV show and everything where he was a DOG who loved BOOKS. Oh, I loved it. I tried getting into the books, but I never did, so I’d love to revisit them now.

    6. The Fushigi Yuugi manga series by Yuu Watase. It’s my favorite manga series of all time and I always love revisiting it. Love, action, adventure, death. I mean, what’s not to love? Plus a beautiful art style. Really, anything by Yuu Watase I want to get my hands on (again or otherwise).

    7. “A Certain Slant of Light” by Laura Whitcomb. I read this for last summer reading project for school in high school and I absolutely loved it. It’s about a ghost who takes over a girl’s body (not in a malicious way) and falls in love with another ghost who’s in a boy’s body. It’s a really great story.

    8. “Blood and Chocolate” by Annette Curtis Klause. I remember loving this book when I read it in my teen years. There was something about the werewolves and the world in this one that just sucked me in. Though the movie version of it sucked hardcore, the book itself was spectacular. I’d love to reread it and see what I think now.

    9. “The House of the Scorpion” by Nancy Farmer. I’ve praised this book several times before in various posts, but I haven’t read this book since high school. I’d love to read it again and see if I still feel the same about it after all of this time. It is a really good book, though, from what I remember as it deals with clones and the repercussions of living in a world where your only value is for your master.

    10. “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” by C.S. Lewis. I haven’t read the Chronicles of Narnia since middle school, and I think I’ve only ever read the first book. I remember loving it, though I think it was difficult to get through at the age I was at because Lewis writes with much more intricate prose. But I do remember loving the movies… So yes, I’d revisit this one and all of them, really.

    What books from your childhood or teen years would you revisit?

  • The Book Combo Tag

    This tag was created by Jesse at jessethereader on YouTube. I thought this tag was creative and it really got me thinking, so I figured I’d share it with you!

    1. What two authors would you like to see put their writing skills together to write a book?

    I’d love to see Cassandra Clare and Sarah J Maas put their writing skills together. Can you imagine? Two fantasy authors coming together to create epic characters, epic plot, an epic world… Oh! I’m getting all excited just imagining my own mash-up!

    2. What is your favorite author collaboration? Whether it be a short story collection or just a book that the authors worked together on.

    Hmm, I think that “These Broken Stars” and “This Shattered World” by Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner take the cut because they wrote characters that are likable and relatable, as well as worlds that are truly captivating. I love their sci-fi exploration and how the two work together. It’s truly great.

    3. If you could combine two stories and make them a book of their own, which would they be? & what would the reworked title be?

    Oooh, what if The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare was mashed with the Divergent world by Veronica Roth? I think that would be kind of interesting. Clary is part of the society of factions and discovers that, not only is she Divergent, but there are monsters out there, too? Ahhhh, so cool!

    And the reworked title would be… The Mortal Instruments: Divergent. (Okay, yeah, it’s horrible, moving on…)

    4. What two characters from different books do you ship?

    Hmm… Why is this always a hard one? I think I’d pair… Maxon from the Selection series by Kiera Cass with Cleo from the Falling Kingdoms series by Morgan Rhodes. They’re both royals, they’re both kind of stubborn in their own ways, but I think Maxon’s calm demeanor can help to reign in Cleo’s outgoing personality.

    5. What two worlds from different stories would you like see come together to be one epic world?

    Maybe the world of “Cinder” by Marissa Meyer coming together with the world of “Snow Like Ashes” by Sara Raasch. One world is much more decimated than the other, while the other has magic in some ways and flourishes. I think it would be cool to combine technology with old world magic.

    6. What duology/trilogy/series would you have liked to see be combined in to one book?

    Well, in all honesty, I think any novella of a series should be included at the end of any of the books in the series rather than being a separate entity entirely. I enjoy the side stories and they usually add to the characters or the plot already, so it’s always enjoyable to read them. I just wish they were more often than not included in the main books, you know?

    What are your answers for these questions? Let me know in the comments!

  • The One Book Review

    theone

    Title: The One
    Author: Kiera Cass
    Series: Book #3 in the Selection series
    Publisher: HarperTeen – an imprint of HarperCollins
    Publication Date: May 6, 2014
    Genres: Young Adult – Dystopian, Romance
    Pages: 323
    Format: Purchased Hardcover

    “The One” by Kiera Cass is the third book in the Selection series. It’s the conclusion to Maxon’s and America’s story and oh my, did I love it. Obviously since this is the third book there will be spoilers so if you haven’t read the first two books, or checked out my reviews for them here and here, please do.

    Thirty-five girls entered the Selection in the hopes of winning Prince Maxon’s heart. Six girls were left. Only one can be crowned.

    In this book I believe that America grew so much as a person and her character really shined throughout. She made sacrifices and lost a lot in this novel, but she always came out strong in the end with her head held high. I think that she really grew as a person in this book not only for those losses and sacrifices, but that she finally realized what she wanted, how strong her love for Maxon was, and just what she was willing to do not only for him, but for Illea as well.

    Throughout this book America has to make tough decisions: can she send a practically innocent man to jail for the rest of his life? Can she fully give up her love for Aspen? Can she admit, not only to herself, but to Maxon that she loves him? Can she be the new princess of Illea?

    In many ways the way the plot lead up to her making the decisions based on those situations definitely proved to show her character. Not only did we learn more about the Northerners and their support of a change in the way the government is run, but we got to learn that America’s love for the people and how well she relates to them goes. She spared a thief who committed a petty crime for his family his life in prison by giving away jewels that Maxon had given to her as a gift, as well as the necklace her father had given her. She took all of the king’s threats in stride, though they scared her whenever they were delivered, but she never backed down. She allowed some girl who was an Eight on the street to work in the palace, asking Maxon for permission for her to do so, and he allowed it.

    Overall I think America did pretty well in this book and I am so happy for her.

    Maxon grew, too, I think, though I was upset that if he loved America so much that I didn’t understand why he just couldn’t say it. If he had before and she had sooner, they could have been happier a lot earlier, but I get that he was conflicted and couldn’t really understand her feelings. Though he was kind of a jerk a few times, he overall impressed me with how mature he was and how much he had to go through. The beatings from his father, learning about that, was probably one of the hardest. I really shouldn’t be surprised, but I was when I read about it. I think it made him a better man, though, because he stood up against his father, never backing down. His character really showed in this book, as well, and I’m glad that he grew.

    Aspen grew, too, and he grew away from America. Both of them did, actually, in their own way and time. I’m glad he found happiness in the end and that he was always the protector.

    Now, as for the plot, I enjoyed it. There wasn’t as much drama, in terms of the relationships and everything, but there was drama via the attacks and destruction at the palace. We got to learn more about Celeste and I really came to like her in the end. In fact, all four of the remaining Elite I came to like in their own way. We got to learn more about the Northerners and how they operate, as well as their goals, and I thought that they were respectable and kind.

    Everything sort of became intense, in a way, especially toward the end. I was so peeved at Maxon for not giving America time to explain certain situations, but after that I think he redeemed himself. There are a few things I wish had been in the book, and a few things I wished hadn’t happened, but overall I am pleased with this third installment. It didn’t disappoint.

    Really, overall, I highly enjoyed this book. I was mad, sad, super happy, and overall I loved it.

    I rate this book 5/5 stars and highly recommend it.

    Overall, this trilogy (since it originally was a trilogy) gets a rating of 4.5/5 stars.

    Accompanying video: The Selection Trilogy Book Review

  • Top 5 Wednesday: Bookish Habits

    Welcome to another Top 5 Wednesday! Today is all about bookish habits, and I believe any and all readers have them. So, without further ado, let’s get started!

    5. I smell my books.

    I’m pretty sure everyone does this. (No? Am I weird?) There’s just something about physical books and smell, man. They smell like nostalgia and they just smell… nice. xD I don’t know how else I can really explain this one, but yes, I sniff my books.

    4. I don’t let people borrow my books.

    This isn’t really a habit, but I just hate letting other people take hold of my possessions. It’s a thing I’ve had for a long time ever since I let someone borrow a book and it came back to me with the cover completely ruined (and she tried to say I gave it to her like that when I KNOW it was in pristine condition). Ever since I don’t let people borrow my things unless I have 100% trust in them that they won’t somehow wreck them.

    3. I start multiple books at a time.

    I start reading multiple books at the same time sometimes. Even though I do this I can still separate the worlds from one another and enjoy each story individually rather than getting them confused.

    2. I flip to the back and read the last paragraph or two of the book.

    I do this before starting a book. I’ve been better lately and haven’t done it in a while, but I still just want to know the end so I’m not surprised. Is that bad?

    1. I have to finish a chapter before I put the book down for the night.

    When I’m reading a book it’s really hard for me to just put it down and pick it up later if I stop at a random place. I need to finish the chapter or a section before putting it down. It feels more completed that way and it’s easier for me to remember what I read last.

    What are your top five bookish habits? Let me know!