Hey y'all. I have no idea why, but I'm having a really hard time getting back into blogging after finals. Maybe 'cause I'm still trying to find my summer rhythm while working 2 jobs. I'm going to spend today organizing my life, and getting May's new releases ready.

On that note, today is the last day you can nominate a new release for May (The book must be released in July in order to be featured in May). As a reminder, if you nominate a book and it wins, then you'll get five extra entries in the giveaway. Also note, that not all nominated books are featured, but that shouldn't stop you from nominating!

Click here to nominate an upcoming release

Release Date: September 22nd, 2009
Genre:  Horror, Sci-fi
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 454
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click Here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Series: The Monstrumologist #1
Summary:

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for nearly ninety years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.

So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphan and assistant to a doctor with a most unusual specialty: monster hunting. In the short time he has lived with the doctor, Will has grown accustomed to his late night callers and dangerous business. But when one visitor comes with the body of a young girl and the monster that was eating her, Will's world is about to change forever. The doctor has discovered a baby Anthropophagus—a headless monster that feeds through a mouth in its chest—and it signals a growing number of Anthropophagi. Now, Will and the doctor must face the horror threatening to overtake and consume our world before it is too late.

Review: Apparently I'm on some kind of horror-kick. I always feel strange reviewing horror books. My blog is all sunshine and flowers (most of the time) and then suddenly I reveal to you my dark side. Hope I don't scare you off. The truth is, I won the sequel to this book, so I figured I should read the first one. I'm SO glad I did.

Be warned. This book is SOOOOO gruesome. Lots of people being torn apart. If it were a movie, I would have run from the theatre screaming within the first two minutes. But as I said yesterday, gore don't bother me none.

This is the kind of story that will keep you up late into the night because you're afraid to put it down. It had man-eating monsters, mystery, murder, non-stop action, and CREEPINESS. SERIOUS CREEPINESS. This book was much more gruesome than any zombie book (it even features Jack the Ripper!).

Are you all completely terrified of me now? As I said: these books are my guilty pleasure. I think I liked it so much because I'm in a very anti-romance mood. It's hard to feel romantic when there's monsters eating people everywhere.

So, even though I LOVED The Monstrumologist, I think I have purged paranormal romance enough from my mind to give the horror genre a break. There's only so much even I can take.

If you like horror, READ THIS BOOK.


*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.

Release Date: June 14th, 2011
Genre:  Horror, Zombies
Publisher: Disney Hyperion
Pages: 496
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click Here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Series: Companion to The Enemy
Summary:

THE DEAD begins one year before the action in THE ENEMY, just after the Disaster. A terrible disease has struck everyone over the age of sixteen, leaving them either dead or a decomposing, flesh-eating creature. The action starts in a boarding school just outside London where all the teachers have turned into zombies. Together they begin a terrifying journey to find safety, and home.

Review: This was exactly the book I needed to both break me into summer-reading, and break me OUT of my paranormal romance bind. Little to no romance in this book, but a lot of action.

I've said this before, but I'll say it again since this is a zombie book. I have very little tolerance for sex and profanity in books. Can't stand it. But I don't have a problem with violence or gore. Why? The answer is simply because I have a very dull imagination. When I read a book the images aren't very vivid for me. It's like I'm watching a TV through several dozen layers of wax paper. And since I don't read what most people would consider "edgy" books, these horror books are my guilty pleasure.

With that said, The Dead has lots of violence and gore. So if that stuff bothers you, feel free to check this off your list right now. For me it was awesome. The action held my attention, and my eyes skimmed lightly over the particularly gross bits. What's really nice about The Dead is that you don't need to have read The Enemy in order to enjoy it. It's a completely new group of people, in a completely different time and place. You will have certain "aha!" moments if you've read The Enemy, but it isn't necessary.

If you're looking for a high-action book that doesn't have any romance, sex, and only mild profanity, then The Dead is for you. I enjoyed it significantly more than The Enemy, which had far too much talking for my taste.

TEAM ZOMBIE!



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.

I hope to have a review up by the end of today(clarification: a review of an entirely different book. I am not lucky enough to own this one yet). But for now, pretty, pretty, pretty

I've just begun my summer reading-binge, but I'm still working my way through the first book, so nothing to post yet. However, today I am hosting a giveaway over at Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing for Fairy Tale Fortnight. You have to head over there to win! There are some of my FAVORITE fairy tales up for grabs.

I'll give an extra entry to anyone who follows Books from Bleh to Basically Amazing and leaves a comment on this post telling me you did so.

Has anyone read The Goddess Test by Aimee Carter? Does it fall under my boycott? Is it more romance than paranormal/mythical? How is the romance? Cheesy? Help!

Hey y'all! I just finished writing my 5,300+ word paper. Boy! That took forever. Still no brain for blogging, but I did write a guest post for Fairy Tale Fortnight. Y'all should go check it out! It's just me rambling about how I love fairy tales and how they've impacted me. But I had fun writing it.

Just thought I'd update y'all. I'm not dead. Not yet, at least. My last "test" is in about 90 minutes, but then I have a monster paper due Thursday night. After that I'm free, but I'll probably spend Friday and Saturday catching up with my non-school life. So don't expect to see much of me until Monday.

Hope y'all are having a great week!

Release Date: May 10th, 2008
Genre:  Romance, Paranormal
Publisher: HarperTeen
Pages: 352
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click Here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

My life had always been blissfully, wonderfully normal. But it only took one moment to change everything.

Suddenly, my sister, Georgia, and I were orphans. We put our lives into storage and moved to Paris to live with my grandparents. And I knew my shattered heart, my shattered life, would never feel normal again. Then I met Vincent.

Mysterious, sexy, and unnervingly charming, Vincent Delacroix appeared out of nowhere and swept me off my feet. Just like that, I was in danger of losing my heart all over again. But I was ready to let it happen.

Of course, nothing is ever that easy. Because Vincent is no normal human. He has a terrifying destiny, one that puts his life at risk every day. He also has enemies . . . immortal, murderous enemies who are determined to destroy him and all of his kind.

While I'm fighting to piece together the remnants of my life, can I risk putting my heart—as well as my life and my family's—in jeopardy for a chance at love?

Review: Y'all are smart people. And as smart people you have probably noticed that this is the first book review I posted since my rant. Does that mean that this book is the inspiration for that rant? Oh yes.

That is not to say that this book is the only reason for for the rant, but it was the final straw. (If you have not yet read the rant, you should probably do so. Otherwise this review may be a little confusing)

This book had SUCH POTENTIAL! When we were introduced to the paranormal element I gave a little "squee" of delight! I've never read anything like that before. What an amazingly original idea! I was so excited to read on about how this paranormal phenomenon would affect the characters and the world they lived in.

And then I read 300 pages about teenage angsty romance. BLARGH! Where was this awesome plot I was expecting? Is it buried somewhere under the hormones? I can't see it!

Oh, naturally there was a very dramatic, action-filled ending... which lasted about 20 pages. Other than that it followed this basic formula:

GIRL: "I think I like him. Does he like me?"
BOY: "I like her. I want her to like me."
GIRL: "I'm going to be incredibly nosy and stalker-ish"
GIRL: "Oh my! I want to like you, but now that I know this thing, I dont' know if I can."
BOY: "Please try."
GIRL: "Okay!"
GIRL: "Wait, no! I changed my mind. Goodbye."
BOTH: "I can't live without you! Let's be together again."
BOY: "I'll protect you! I'll kill the evil!"
GIRL: "Oh no! BOY is not here to protect me! What will I do?"

THE END.

Now, as always, I am not trying to be rude when I post this. This formula is NOT based solely off of Die For Me. Off the top of my head I can list *quickly lists in head* at least four books that follow this EXACT formula (perhaps with some genders changed).

In conclusion, Die for Me came at a really bad spot in my reading career. If I had read any other paranormal romance right now, it would have gotten the same response. As I said before, I'm tired of saying this over and over. I'm done. And Die for Me wasn't a bad book to end on. It had a really great paranormal twist/element, but it got buried under the romantic debris.

I hope and pray this is the last review I'll ever have to write like this.



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.

The winner of my Divergent ARC is...


Iris commented on my review of The Swan Kingdom. She said:

I'm so going to buy that book ASAP. Everything sounded great about it (even though the cover is a bit interesting.) your review makes me want to buy it more!

I hope you do purchase it and love it! It's FANTASTIC!

Thank you to everyone who entered/commented. Your comments made me so happy!

I'm done. Through. Finished. That was the final straw. I'm at the end of my rope.

I'm done with paranormal romance.

No joke. I'm finally declaring my independence from a genre which has repeatedly disappointed me. From now on I'm only going to be reading paranormal romances from authors I know and trust.

Is it so much to ask for a story that doesn't depend on sexual tension? A plot that isn't based on on pining? Action that isn't driven by amorous liaisons? No! Good heavens, no! (If you'd like to read my rant that is all about this phenomenon, click here)

I'm like an abused puppy. I read a PR, it disappoints me to no end, and yet I then go out and find another one and think "maybe this time it will be everything I dreamed of. Maybe the paranormal will outweigh the romance." But it never does.

Well, that's a generalization. It sometimes does. But usually not.

I'm sick and tired of writing reviews that say "This book wasn't a paranormal story, it was a romance story." And "This was just like all the other PRs out there." I feel like a broken record. And it terrifies me that the word "paranormal" is slowly starting to imply romance.

I just can't take it anymore!!!!

I'm not asking you to join me. There's nothing wrong with these PRs, and their authors need your support. However, I'm feeling buried under the slew of new PR releases and I just want it to stop. Therefore, I am banning myself. Unless it comes recommended from a trusted source who knows my tastes, or unless it is written by an author that I already know and love, I will no longer be reading paranormal romance. And in case you doubt my seriousness, I made a button (albeit hastily).


How long will this self-proclaimed boycott last? I don't know. Until I have scrubbed my mind with enough non-PRs to be able to enjoy PRs again I suppose.

And since today was the last day of class, and one week from now I will officially be FREE until September, I need your help. I have amassed quite a pile of books that I intend to dig into as soon as finals are over. However, maybe some of these will need to be removed from my list due to my boycott. Can you look my list over and tell me what you think?

I should clarify that it isn't the paranormal romance genre that I'm having trouble with. It's the paranormal romances that are 75%+ ROMANCE. If it's mostly paranormal/action, or even a 50% split between the two, that's fine. I just don't want to spend 300-400 pages reading about some inter-species relationship anymore, ya know? I love romance as a plot element. I don't love romance as the WHOLE plot.

With that said, here's my list:


What say you? Any I should avoid? Any I should move to the top of the pile?

Thank you for reading my rant. I'm done now.

As I mentioned earlier, it's finals week from now until next Wednesday. So I'm purty swamped. Posting will be minimal. But the good news is that after the 20th I'm free!!!!!! I can read as much as I want! And I will! I'm like a dam ready to burst!

But until then, check out this cover!


This was the largest picture I could find. What do you think? Prized is the sequel to Birthmarked (Goodreads | Amazon), which was one of my favorite books of 2010. I LOVE the cover to this one, but I don't really feel like it matches the cover of the first book.

What say you?

I'm getting ready for finals, so not a lot of time for reading or posting, but here's this for now. Tee hee.

Hey squeakers! First off, the winner of the box of ARCs is: Erinberry!
And now for some REALLY exciting news!
Through some magical circumstances, I ended up with an ARC of the highly-anticipated Divergent by Veronica Roth! However, I already had the chance to read a copy thanks to my blog-buddy Resugo, so I'm going to give this ARC away!

Hurrah!

Y'all, this book is amazing. Seriously. You WANT to read it. You NEED to read it. For riz.

I'm going to make entering simple. You do NOT need to be a follower. However, you DO need to have a US shipping address. And all you need to do is comment on one of my reviews. Easy peasy. Please don't leave a comment that just says "great review!" or something like that. I have over 200 reviews for you to choose from, so I hope you can find one that actually inspires a meaningful comment. (To see reviews organized by title click here, to see them organized by author name click here) After you comment, just fill out the form! Also, please try to keep comments nice. The comment doesn't have to be positive. Just nice. If you disagree with my review, that's fine, and I'd love to hear why! Just keep it clean and kind.

Just so there's no confusion, I am giving away a finished copy of Divergent as well, but you can't win that one until may, it wouldn't arrive until mid-May. You could have this one as soon as mid-April!

Requirements:

• Must comment on a review
• Must fill out the form
• Must live in the US
• Must be 13 or older

Extra Entries:

• n/a. Everyone who comments on a review will have one entry

Additional information:

• Giveaway runs 4/8-4/15 at 7:59 MDT
• Winner announced 4/16

Release Date: March 25th, 2008
Genre:  Fairy Tale, Fantasy, Romance
Publisher: Candlewick
Pages: 272
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click Here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

When Alexandra’s mother is slain by an unnatural beast, shadows fall on the once-lush kingdom. Too soon the widowed king is entranced by a cunning stranger — and in one chilling moment Alexandra’s beloved brothers disappear, and she is banished to a barren land. Rich in visual detail, sparked by a formidable evil, and sweetened with familial and romantic love, here is the tale of a girl who discovers powerful healing gifts — and the courage to use them to save her ailing kingdom.

Review: About 18 months ago I saw this book while at the bookstore with my grandparents and just commented "oh, that looks cool" and my grandfather (being awesome) bought it for me. It then proceeded to sit on my shelf all year, and disappeared into a box when I moved last April. My new shelves brought this book out of hiding exactly when I needed it.

As you might have been able to tell from yesterday's review, the last book I read left me feeling pretty... dark. I just felt gross and down in the dumps. So I picked up The Swan Kingdom. It was short, and seemed safe enough.

Oh. My. Word. This book is AMAZING. Honestly. It's like this fabulous combination of Shannon Hale's The Goose Girl and Heather Tomlinson's The Swan Maiden while still being TOTALLY original. I read the entire thing in one sitting because I just could. not. put. it. down. It's been a long time since I've read a book that has just been so purely lovely.

Some twisted fairy tale (TFT) plots don't stray at all from the original tale. And those are fine, but I never like them as much. I want the author to add something original to the tale, otherwise I would just read the short version. And while Marriott draws on "The Wild Swans" in this novel, the story is completely her own.  Every single element of the novel was expertly crafted to have the same, wonderful, fairy-tale essence as the original tale, but I was still kept on my toes.

I felt like I living inside this tale, and I never wanted to come out. The story was gripping, the love was so cute, and the end nearly had me crying tears of joy. I immediately purchased Marriott's second book and plan to dive into it post-haste.

Looking back, I'm pretty sure that it's taken me so long to get to this book for a reason. It was exactly what I needed to pull me out of the dark place my last book put me in. If you're at TFT addict like me, you must get The Swan Kingdom in your hands RIGHT NOW! It's golden!



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.

I'm going to add this at the end of the post, because I didn't want it to disrupt the positive flow of the review. If there's one thing I don't like about this book, it's the cover. First of all, why is the girl in that position? Second, the MC's hair is RED, not black. Just something that irked me.

Release Date: February 1st, 2011
Genre:  Supernatural, Paranormal, Romance
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Pages: 340
Rating:
Amazon Link*: Click Here
Goodreads Page: Click here
Summary:

Riley Blackthorne just needs a chance to prove herself – and that’s exactly what the demons are counting on…

Seventeen-year-old Riley, the only daughter of legendary Demon Trapper, Paul Blackthorne, has always dreamed of following in her father's footsteps. The good news is, with human society seriously disrupted by economic upheaval and Lucifer increasing the number of demons in all major cities, Atlanta’s local Trappers’ Guild needs all the help they can get – even from a girl. When she’s not keeping up with her homework or trying to manage her growing crush on fellow apprentice, Simon, Riley’s out saving distressed citizens from foul-mouthed little devils – Grade One Hellspawn only, of course, per the strict rules of the Guild. Life’s about as normal as can be for the average demon-trapping teen.

But then a Grade Five Geo-Fiend crashes Riley’s routine assignment at a library, jeopardizing her life and her chosen livelihood. And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, sudden tragedy strikes the Trappers’ Guild, spinning Riley down a more dangerous path than she ever could have imagined. As her whole world crashes down around her, who can Riley trust with her heart – and her life?

Review: This book is a GREAT story. I know many of you struggle with "demon" books and such because of religion. I am a very religious person, however, when I read books like this I don't see the "demons" as actual demons. I just see them as any other paranormal creature. And in this regard the story was awesome. It was original, gripping, and well written.

The romance in the book bugged me (I just had a hard time connecting with the love interests), but it wasn't at the forefront of the story. This story was about Riley and the things she went through, and that included her relationships, but was not dominated by it.

I also really wished that MORE had happened. I felt that this book didn't cover a lot of ground. I wanted more excitement, more big reveals! What I got was a lot of exposition.

If I was rating the book on story alone, I probably would have given it 4.5 stars. I'm sure that the next books in the series will cover all the things I felt lacked in this book. Unfortunately, I will not be reading the rest of the series.

Even taking the demon's out of the equation, The Demon Trapper's Daughter was a very harsh read. I was worried about this before reading so I asked some people how severe the profanity was, and was told by numerous people that it wasn't very bad. This is always a dangerous question, because I know profanity doesn't bother most people like it bugs me. There was a lot of profanity in this book. Just about every curse-word you can think of (frequent uses of the f* word). However, I continued to read it because the MC herself actually had a fairy clean vocabulary. Unfortunately, only about 70% of the book is told from her point of view. And nearly all people she interacts with are very crass. This is what brought my rating down to 2.5 flowers.

And so, the awesome story and main character was enough to make me finish this book, but the profanity was just too intense for me to read the rest of the series. I hope someone I know will read them, though, so that I can ask them what happens.

If profanity/demons don't bug you, then you should read this. It's a purty good story.

Apologies for two negative reviews in a row. tomorrow I'll be posting an UBER-positive review! So look forward to it!



*I am an amazon affiliate. If you purchase this book using my link, I will get a tiny fraction of the purchase, which goes toward contests.