Review: Sing Me to Sleep by Angela Morrison

THE TRANSFORMATION Beth has always been “The Beast”—that’s what everyone at school calls her because of her awkward height, facial scars, and thick glasses. Beth’s only friend is geeky, golden-haired Scott. That is, until she’s selected to be her choir’s soprano soloist, and receives the makeover that will change her life forever.
 THE LOVE AFFAIR When Beth’s choir travels to Switzerland, she meets Derek: pale, brooding, totally dreamy. Derek’s untethered passion—for music, and for Beth—leaves her breathless. Because in Derek’s eyes? She’s not The Beast, she’s The Beauty.
 THE IMPOSSIBLE CHOICE When Beth comes home, Scott, her best friend in the world, makes a confession that leaves her completely torn. Should she stand by sweet, steady Scott or follow the dangerous, intense new feelings she has for Derek?
 THE HEARTBREAK The closer Beth gets to Derek, the further away he seems. Then Beth discovers that Derek’s been hiding a dark secret from her …one that could shatter everything.

Heartbreaking, haunting and sweet, Sing Me to Sleep is a book that will linger in your thoughts long after you've turned the last page. The blurb of this book gives nothing away and while it's a little slow to get going, once you've met Derek it soon becomes pretty obvious what's going on, and what's going to inevitably happen. The story also starts speeding at an incredible pace from there and I wasn't able to put it down!

There's definitely a lot of sweet, romantic scenes throughout this novel and I think Morrison has done a wonderful job making them both realistic and sigh-worthy at the same time. However, even though Derek's erratic possessive and controlling behaviour is explained in the end of the book, I still felt rather put off by it. Also, the whole part of the book about how Beth was a "beast" also felt rather unnecessary for me, although I do understand why it is there.

Overall, I really did enjoy reading this book. In fact Sing Me To Sleep is one of my favourite contemporary books I've read so far this year!

Overall:  ♥♥♥♥

Published: March 4th 2010 by Razorbill

Review: The Iron Daughter by Julie Kagawa

Half Summer faery princess, half human, Meghan has never fit in anywhere. Deserted by the Winter prince she thought loved her, she is prisoner to the Winter faery queen. As war looms between Summer and Winter, Meghan knows that the real danger comes from the Iron Fey, iron-bound faeries that only she and her absent prince have seen. But no one believes her. Worse, Meghan's own fey powers have been cut off. She's alone in Faery with only her wits for help. Trusting anyone would be foolish. Trusting a seeming traitor could be deadly. But even as she grows a backbone of iron, Meghan can't help but hear the whispers of longing in her all-too-human heart.

The Iron Daughter was fast paced and every bit as exhilirating as it's predecessor, if not even more so! Every time I tried to find a not-so-interesting passage to place my bookmark, I failed- there wasn't a page that didn't have me wanting to continue!

The trademark of Julie Kagawa's style of writing- her descriptiveness in both the setting and interactions between her characters- is evident here again and make this novel a real treat for your imagination, while still being absolutely engaging and believable. Ash and Meghan's relationship only gets more intense and heart wrenching this time, but Meghan and Puck fans will be pleased to see their relationship grow too. Grimalkin returns in this adventure, which I was so happy about because I loved him so much in the last novel (I am very much a cat person!). Another unexpected and unlikely character is also back, and I have to say I became very attached to them by the end of this book. And of course, we meet a whole host of new characters as we learn much more about both the faerie world, Nevernever, and each of the main character's back stories.

This novel has everything- action, adventure, love, tragedy and humour. It's the kind of book that'll keep you up late at night and late for work/school because you really won't be able to put it down. I absolutely cannot wait for the next book in this series!

Overall:  ♥♥♥♥♥

Published: 27 July 2010 by Harlequin Teen

Review: Need by Carrie Jones

Zara White suspects there's a freaky guy semi-stalking her. She's also obsessed with phobias. And it's true, she hasn't exactly been herself since her stepfather died. But exiling her to shivery Maine to live with her grandmother? That seems a bit extreme. The move is supposed to help her stay sane...but Zara's pretty sure her mom just can't deal with her right now.

She couldn't be more wrong. Turns out the semi-stalker is not a figment of Zara's overactive imagination. In fact, he's still following her, leaving behind an eerie trail of gold dust. There's something not right - not human - in this sleepy Maine town, and all signs point to Zara.

In this creepy, compelling breakout novel, Carrie Jones delivers romance, suspense, and a creature you never thought you"d have to fear.

Lately I've been in a bit of a book rut. Nothing seems to impress me anymore- even books that I've been anticipating for months are being thrown to the floor in frustration at how little they seem to hold my interest. Need however, was the book that brought me out of all that. It was amusing, different and will have you needing to finish it in one sitting (haha yes, lame pun I know).

Zara surprised me as a character who I could relate to very easily. She was complex and doesn't easily fit into a description. She wasn't a pushover, but she was a pacifist in the way she tried to deal with her problems. She was strong and yet vulnerable too, especially after the death of her father. Though the way she reacted and dealt with things were not always agreeable, they were realistic, and that is what I like most about her. The story itself was also suspenseful and fast paced, though sometimes a little too much so. Some parts of the novel needed to be better explained and just built up more, however overall it was still a very entertaining read.

I know the whole pixie thing can sound like a bit of a lame rip-off of faeries, but there's a lot more to this book than meets the eye. There's depth, there's humour, there's mystery and there's some very sweet romance- pretty much everything a good YA book needs to be absolutely awesome!

Overall:  ♥♥♥♥

Published: First published April 2010 (Australia) by Bloomsbury/Allen&Unwin Australia 

Love Letter To My Literary Crush

In honour of all the other poor (and definitely more swoon worthy) literary men who will no doubt be rather neglected when Eclipse is released today/tomorrow if you're in Australia, Frankie from Frankie Writes is holding a blogfest for everyone to write to their non-Edward/Jacob literary crushes. It was so hard to choose the most crush worthy guy from all the books I've read, so I cheated and picked two =) If you want to participate or check out others who are participating, follow the link here

Dear Ariel (from the Theatre Illuminata Series by Lisa Mantchev) ,

You do know that you're meant to be a girl right? Or at least that's what most people assume Ariel from The Tempest is supposed to be. And then there's the whole mermaid thing. Don't worry though, I'd totally pick you over Nate any day- girly name or not.  You're complex and I love that. You aren't particulary good or bad, and its nice to find someone who isn't completely one or the other in YA fiction once in awhile. Your love for Bertie is magical, and it's your intensity which makes me swoon. You're almost like a sick puppy in the way that you keep coming back after Bertie keeps rejecting you in Book 2, just because you love her ridiculously. I very much hope that you two work out, but I promise to love you and your butterflies either way.

Lara
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Dear Jonah (from Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta),

That one scene where you and Taylor are cuddling in bed after an awful day and she ask's you what you're thinking and you reply "That you deserve romance", will forever be imprinted in my mind as one of the sweetest moments in YA fiction (yes I realize it doesn't sound so great there but in context it was lovely). I don't watch Glee, but I know a character said something like that too, but heck you said it first!  Being built like a rugby player and quite inclined to violence, you're definitely not the kind of guy I usually go for. But you stick by Taylor through everything, despite being as broken as you are as well, and that is beautiful. You also automatically know exactly what to order her for breakfast and that says more about how much you care about someone than 3 little words ever could.

Lara

Review: On The Jellicoe Road by Melina Marchetta

My father took one hundred and thirty two minutes to die.
I counted.
It happened on the Jellicoe Road. The prettiest road I’d ever seen, where trees made breezy canopies like a tunnel to Shangri-La. We were going to the ocean, hundreds of kilometres away, because I wanted to see the ocean and my father said that it was about time the four of us made that journey. I remember asking, “What’s the difference between a trip and a journey?” and my father said, “Narnie, my love, when we get there, you’ll understand,” and that was the last thing he ever said.
We heard her almost straight away. In the other car, wedged into ours so deep that you couldn’t tell where one began and the other ended. She told us her name was Tate and then she squeezed through the glass and the steel and climbed over her own dead – just to be with Webb and me; to give us her hand so we could clutch it with all our might. And then a kid called Fitz came riding by on a stolen bike and saved our lives.
Someone asked us later, “Didn’t you wonder why no one came across you sooner?”
Did I wonder?
When you see your parents zipped up in black body bags on the Jellicoe Road like they’re some kind of garbage, don’t you know?
‘Wonder dies.’

When I finished reading Jellicoe Road, tears were streaming down my face and all I could do was lie in bed for the next 30 minutes, trying to calm down. An hour later, and I was still an emotional wreck. This book is beyond brilliant. It is ridiculously tragic and yet beautiful and hopeful, all in the same breath.

Jellicoe Road intertwines the story of Taylor and the territory wars between her country boarding school and the Cadets and Townies in the area, with the story of kids that lived there 20 years before. As a result of the two stories being told simultaneously, it can be a little confusing at the start. Everything is connected however and if you keep at it things will click and you won't be able to put it down- I know I said that the first thing I did was lie down and cry, but actually the first thing I did was run to the bathroom because I had been so engrossed in the story well, let's just say I forgot about anything else!

Jellicoe Road is a book that ruins every other book you try to read after it because it just blows everything else out of the water.  I can't tell you anything about the characterization, or the setting or any other technical aspects about the writing in this book because I was too swept away by Taylor, Jonah (oh, Jonah...) and Narnie's stories to notice any of that.  All I know is that Jellicoe Road was amazing. Just absolutely, wonderfully amazing.

Overall:  ♥♥♥♥♥

Published: First published September 2006 by Penguin Australia

Books I loved but would never read again

Sometimes you get a book that’s just so heartbreaking, so disturbing or just so downright depressing that you never want to read again. Not because the writing is atrocious, or the story is boring and bland, because let’s face it, no book that can leave you that emotionally crippled for days can be called bad. The book was amazing, but it’s precisely because you never want to relive those awful moments that affected you so deeply that you’d never reread it again. Of course, I'm a firm believer in the happy ending and pretty emotionally frail in general (I cried while watching Pokemon once for crying out loud) so you may or may not agree with my choices.

The Pact by Jodi Picoult

I struggled incredibly to get through The Pact.  I hated all the characters and yet I felt so much sympathy towards them. The situations they were left in were awful- honestly having someone who was your best friend, lover and basically family die itself would be one of the worst things in the world, never mind being accused of and convinced that you were the one to kill them. I don’t do the story justice of course- there is so much more to it than that. It’s a crazy whirlwind of emotions all scrambled up into one very good book. I cried, I laughed and I wanted so much to throw the book across the room at times. I went days were I couldn’t bear to pick it up anymore because what was happening was just too horrible. And in the end, when I finally finished it, I was left thinking about it for days. Probably one of the most powerful, beautiful and tragic books I have ever read.

The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson
I was drawn to this one not only because of the hype but because stories of past lives and romance have also had an appeal to me. I expected an epic love story and a happy ending. What I got was an engrossing disturbing tale of addiction, abuse and tragedy every which way. The scenes of burn debridement completely grossed me out and the MC’s sex and drug addiction surprised me completely. The tale of the couple's past life was so tragic, and the ending left me confused and emotionally unsatisfied. It was a very different book to the ones I read normally and, despite not being able to put it down after I started, given a choice again, I would probably not have picked it up at all. In the words of my sister after she finished it and handed it back to me- “Next time can you please not give me something so…haunting?”

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan
I’ve already mentioned how depressing this book was in my review a few weeks ago, but I figured it deserved its place on the list. Unlike so many other dystopian novels, this one is just devoid of hope. There is no movement against The Sisterhood or the Consecrated like there is against the government or whatever higher, evil power like there is in most other dystopian novels. There is no great love story shining against the bleakness of the world. It’s just a miserable, miserable tale of fighting for one's existence. One in which most fail.

Review: Hex Hall by Rachel Hawkins

Three years ago, Sophie Mercer discovered that she was a witch. It's gotten her into a few scrapes. Her non-gifted mother has been as supportive as possible, consulting Sophie's estranged father--an elusive European warlock--only when necessary. But when Sophie attracts too much human attention for a prom-night spell gone horribly wrong, it's her dad who decides her punishment: exile to Hex Hall, an isolated reform school for wayward Prodigium, a.k.a. witches, faeries, and shapeshifters. 

By the end of her first day among fellow freak-teens, Sophie has quite a scorecard: three powerful enemies who look like supermodels, a futile crush on a gorgeous warlock, a creepy tagalong ghost, and a new roommate who happens to be the most hated person and only vampire on campus. Worse, Sophie soon learns that a mysterious predator has been attacking students, and her only friend is the number-one suspect. 

As a series of blood-curdling mysteries starts to converge, Sophie prepares for the biggest threat of all: an ancient secret society determined to destroy all Prodigium, especially her.

Despite the rather tacky looking cover of the UK/Australian version, Hex Hall was a fun read with quite a bit more depth than what its exterior would have you believe. There isn't really anything here that hasn't been done before, but the fresh, hilarious narrating and crazy twists and turns of the story is what makes all the difference.

The story started at a good pace, but raced as it got closer and closer to the end. All the revelations caught me by a huge surprise- I never saw any of them coming! I absolutely loved the unpredictability of it all. The characters were mostly likeable too, even if somewhat cliche at times. I don't know if I was just lucky, but I have never once met girls like Elodie and her gang before- you know, the uber popular biatches that rule the school, and so whenever I see them on TV or in books I can't help but think it's all a little unbelievable. Regardless, each character did bring their own spark to the novel and made their mark.

In a lot of ways this book reminded me of Evernight. I won't tell you exactly why, but if you liked that book, chances are you'll probably like this one. The ending was such a killer though, and I cannot wait for the sequel!

Overall:  ♥♥♥♥

Published: March 2nd 2010 by Hyperion Book CH