Court Duel by Sherwood Smith

  rating: 5 of 5 stars

Part two/book two..depending on which version you read....um LOVED this book. I have to say it's really better compared to the first book (Crown Duel). 

I love the mystery of the (love?) letters/gifts (and hoping that they were from a certain someone). Loved the uncertainty of who we should trust and what people's agendas really were. It's pretty much a love story (certainly not like the first part/book one). 

I also love that these books are clean and I don't think they have any bad words in them. The only thing that kind of stunk about this book was that they killed 2 guys I really don't think they should have! 

Too bad the second part/second book won't really make that much sense unless you read the first book. 

But to summarize what this book is about: the marquis is headed to be king but there's this other marquise and possibly some others who would like to be ruler of the country. The main character Meliara is determined to make sure the right person rules the country...but who is the right person??

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare

 Spoiler Alert!!!

  rating: 4 of 5 stars

Pretty good second book. I felt like I was kind of reading lots of descriptions of things in the book though. I like it better when people are talking...but still it was a great book. I'm not accepting that Jace and Clary are actually brothers and sisters. No, I will not believe that. I bet Jace is really Michael Wayland's son and Valentine killed his own son that one day that he killed his in-laws. That's what I think could have happened. 

And I'm confused as to how Valentine did any "experiments" on Clary when I don't even think he knew that his wife was pregnant with her. So maybe one of his experiments was actually killing the real Jace and raising Michael Wayland's son as if he was his own. ????? Guess we'll have to wait for the third book!

 

Fire Study by Maria Snyder

This is the third book in the Poison Study series.


I took a big break in reading this book. At page 200 it got a lot better. Interesting story still. Lots of things seem unexpected. It was kind of annoying with Valek and Yelena. Seemed like they had sex a lot (although I don't think it explicitly says so.) But I didn't care for parts leading up to that and after...so it was kind of annoying the author wrote all that in. I could have done without it.) But I will say the whole series is an unusual story. But I am also glad I'm finally done reading the book.


That was my review for it on goodreads. Now I'm not sure how much I like the series overall. It's definitely an interesting series. Way different. But at the same time, she could have made the books better by omitting some things.

City of Bones by Cassandra Clare

Picture of book omitted because I don't really like it.

Anways...my review...well I mostly liked this book. It's a book about Shadowhunters (special people who's duty is to kill demons or something like that.) (There's also vampires, werewolves, warlocks, etc...)and the main character is a girl named Clary who doesn't know her heritage really and thus the story continues. At the end it kind of gets weird. People may not like the book in the end because of it. But I'm convinced that what happens at the end can't really be true. Which maybe by book 3 (which comes out next year) will show that my thought was true.

I gave it 4 stars. It's so weird at the end. The next book is weird too. But I still enjoy reading it. As my friend said, it's a very unusual love story. And I would totally agree.

Crown Duel by Sherwood Smith

3 stars....although that could be because I was tired while reading some of it...which could definitely distort my opinion. And it took me a long time to finish the book, not necessarily because I didn't like it that much...but I think I might have worn myself out previously. 

Anyway....

Get through about the first 45 pages and it will get better! I was kind of hesitant about finishing the book, but because it had such great ratings, I decided to do it. And the book does get better. Something exciting-ish is kind of constantly happening afterwards. 

There's a great heroine in the book. There's not really a people love story at all(although I think the second book in the series is more of it). It's somewhat a fantasy book, but the book itself doesn't really revolve around it though...not really. I mean the protag is not magical, and the people she's fighting isn't...(actually it is so hardly a fantasy novel. Hardly!)

But it's a good story about two seemingly nonthreatening count and countess who's mission is to fight the king and protect the Covenant (with the people who are magical) and their own people of Tlanth. 

It's not a very popular book, but it is a good one. Amazon has great ratings for the book. 5 stars from like over 250 ratings. That's not shabby. There's a different version that has the 1st and 2nd books combined, which I would probably suggest. 

Book of a Thousand Days by Shannon Hale

3 Stars. I liked this book. The beginning and ending were good. Well, I actually skimmed through the end parts mostly. I enjoyed The Goose Girl more. There wasn't much action in the book, so I guess it went a bit slow for me. 

The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale

    

4 stars.

 I'm really enjoying Shannon Hale's books. I've only read three so far-Austenland, Princess Academy, and now The Goose Girl. But I think Shannon is a great storyteller/re-storyteller. It was a cute/great story and I'm sure I'll reread the book again some time. 

I enjoyed the protagonist and her growth throughout the book to become a courageous girl. I really enjoyed the ending and was trying to figure out what the whole story was with Geric until it was written at the end. 

I see that the next two books in this "series" isn't really about Ani, which I'm kind of bummed about. But I guess I'll give them a try of course.

Ella Enchanted by Gail Carson Levine

Great book. 4 stars. 

 I've seen the movie and liked it, but it's also kind of different from the book, if I remember correctly. I think I like the book better. The ending was great and I'm glad I'm not cursed like she was. To have to be obedient to everyone who commanded it would be horrible. It's a cinderella story, but better. I think I read on Levine's website something like that it's a cinderella story, but cinderella, aka Ella, isn't really such a naturally good person. She is forced into obeying and can be quite rebellious. Which I think that is what probably makes her character more interesting than the old Cinderella. 

Princess Academy by Shannon Hale

I rated this book 4 stars!

This book has been waiting for me to read it for quite some time. I finally picked it up last night and finished it today. 

I really liked the book and the book ended great, even though I had mixed feelings about what I wanted the ending to be. But I'm glad the author ended it well. Great story and I'd recommend it to my friends. 

Poison Study and Magic Study by Maria V. Snyder

Oh my gosh these were some great novels. There's supposed to be 4 novels in this series, 3 are currently published. I started reading the first one for a book club thing and it was hard to put down. 

It's about this girl Yelena, who has killed this one leader's son, is waiting for execution. Because of the code, she is offered the position as food taster to the Commander (the big leader of all the different districts.) As food taster, she must taste the commander's food before each meal to make sure there are no poisons in it. She herself has been poisoned by the commander's advisor and must receive a daily antidote so she does not die. This prevents her from fleeing and becoming a free person. She also discovers her magic abilities, abilities which are unacceptable in their country--an ability which if discovered usually leads to the magician's death. 

This is quite an original story and I am so hooked. (I don't know how I will last waiting for the third book to become available to me from the library.) It does contain some torture though, murder, and some swear words, for those who don't handle either well. But it's easy to skip over. I skipped over some parts in the book due to my sensitivity. 

I was quite upset in the second book she added one line that I definitely could have done without, but overall the book was excellent...I could hardly put it down. In both books I skipped over parts I knew I wouldn't like. But the book really is so addicting. It's like no other book!

Despite the fact that some subjects aren't especially to my liking, I want to say that this series is my new favorite at the moment. I've become obsessed with it and I've decided that for Halloween this year I'm going to be Yelena. She is so awesome.