This is NOT one of the study books. It takes place in the same world, but 5 years after Fire Study and with a different main character. That being said, it is not necessary to have read the Study books before reading the glass books, however, I highly recommend it.

In this story we follow Opal (who's back story I will not divulge, as it contains great spoilers to the Study books), and her quest for magic, love, and adventure.

Stormdancers are dying, and there isn't enough power to power to run the factories of Sitia. They determine that there's a problem with the glass orbs the storms are being stored it. Opal is Sitia's glass expert, so she's sent to fix the problem. However, there are plenty of people standing in her way, not all of them enemies.

I enjoyed this book, not as much as the Study books, but I think it's just because I missed Yelena(she's hardly in this at all). I thought the story was gripping, and the world believable.

HOWEVER

This book had one of my biggest pet peeves, two love interests that you liked. Grr! I hate that! Because then no matter who she chooses, you're going to be disappointed. Plus, TOTAL cliffhanger at the end in regards to one of the love interests. I'm glad I have the sequel Sea Glass on hand.

Even though Snyder tread on that dangerous ground, I think she handled it as well as it could possibly be handled. So it didn't bother me too much. ;)

I definitely recommend you read this, but read the study books first. Oh, and in case you didn't catch that:

READ THE STUDY BOOKS BY MARIA V. SNYDER!! (but only if you're age 15+)

That's all folks!

~Enna Isilee

Here's the link to my review of the first book in this series.

This book is just as wild as the first. More sci-fi, though. I'm gonna keep it short and sweet: this series rocks. They're both about 600 pages long, but I'm enthralled throughout the entire books. This is good sci-fi stuff. But if you don't like sci-fi, you won't like this.

:) Happy days. I'm excited there are more of these books coming.

~Enna Isilee

Aprilynne Pike's WINGS is the first of four books about an ordinary girl named Laurel who discovers she is a faerie sent among humans to guard the gateway to Avalon. When Laurel is thrust into the midst of a centuries-old battle between faeries and trolls, she's torn between a human and a faerie love, as well as her loyalties to both worlds.

Good things about this book:

Light, easy story

Fun concept

New views

However, all of these things have a flipside:

Not-so-good things about this book:

The author tries to COMPLETELY re-write faerie lore. It would be okay if she tried to create a new species of faerie, but not completely recreate faeries.

The love interests were… confusing. You weren’t sure who you were rooting for, or who the main character was rooting for.

It’s a bit juvenile. So… don’t go looking for anything too deep.



I’ll keep an eye out for the sequels, but I probably won’t buy them.

~Enna Isilee

If you love the world of Bayern, then you’ll happily sink into this latest installment.

This book rings the Books of Bayern pure and true. There’s action, adventure, romance, growth. Everything you could want, there is. I realize this is a horribly pathetic review when compared to my review of The Actor and the Housewife, but this book is FULL of spoilers (honestly, there will probably times when you’re reading this that you will gasp aloud) and I don’t want to give anything away. I stayed up until nearly 1 in the morning reading this. Definitely a Squeaky Book

If there’s something you want to know that’s non-spoiler related, feel free to ask in the comments.

~Enna Isilee

Imagine living theatre. I don’t mean that you’re in plays a lot, I mean living theatre. Well, that’s the world of Beatrice Shakespeare Smith. She spends her days with Ophelia, the fairies from Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Ariel—the wild spirit from The Tempest. Her bedroom is the stage, and her kingdom is the magical theatre.

Isn’t that a wonderful concept? As a theatre person I found it absolutely enchanting. The concept get’s five squeaks. Hands down.

However, the execution was not as fantastic.

Many of my criticisms are things that could have easily been changed in writing the book, but can’t really be changed now, so I won’t spend too much time on them. In short: the plot was a little disjointed. Plot points were focused on, and then forgotten(I'll give a specific example at the end of this post, it describes the plot. I wouldn't call it a spoiler, but you may want to beware). Characters made decisions that didn’t really make much sense. And it took me about 100 pages to have ANY sort of clue as to what was going on, but it was still intriguing. Especially when the book would turn into script format. I found that very interesting. For all of that, the execution gets 3 squeaks.

And so, I average the scores and the book in total gets four squeaks. But, one plus is that it’s appropriate for just about all ages.

There isn’t much information about this book online, which was one of the reasons I was so excited to get it. I wanted to know what it was about. And I was glad that I got it. It was a good book. Not quite a Squeaky Book, though. That disjointed plot just threw me off.

HOWEVER, I definitely recommend you track this down when it comes out, especially if you like theatre.

~Enna Isilee

*Here's a specific example of where a plot point was brought up, and then abandoned. You may want to beware. This isn't really a spoiler, but it does give away some plot points.

Okay. End of plot points.

This review was very hard for me to write, and when things are hard for me to write/digest, I turn them into an analogy. So here I go, making an analogy off the top of my head.

Imagine having a favorite brand of candy bar. Say… Mars. And you know that just about every other person in the world likes Mars, too. But then, a package arrives in your mail. AH! It’s from Mars! They want you to review their new chocolate (Yeah, I know. Great analogy). You’re so excited! You get to be one of the first to taste your FAVORITE candy distributor’s chocolate. Then you pull it out. It has nuts. Uh-oh. You’ve had a hard time with nuts. Crunchy chocolate kind of weirds you out, but you trust Mars. They’ve never let you down before. Certainly they know how to put chocolate and nuts together well.

You take a bite.

Hey. That’s pretty good. A little nutty (heh), nothing truly special, but good.

You continue to eat. And then something amazing happens:

You reach the nougat center.

WOAH! Nougat?! Where did that come from?

Flavor bursts into your mouth. Tears spring to your eyes, and you can’t stop them from falling. This is something Mars has never done before! How dare they change their recipe? And yet, at the same time, it’s the most wonderful thing you’ve ever tasted. You finish the candy bar wishing with all your heart that you could go back in time and try it again, because now, even if you have another of those candy bars, you’ll know what’s coming. It will still be beautiful, but it won’t be as beautiful.

You sit down to write your review back to Mars, but then you just start to cry again. So you decide to wait.

A week passes. You try to write the review, but instead you end up writing some mess that you hate and throw away.

Then, you decide to write an analogy. The analogy goes something like this:

Imagine having a favorite author. Say… Shannon Hale. And you know that just about every other person in the world likes Shannon Hale too. But then, a package arrives in your mail. AH! It’s from Bloombury! They want you to review Shannon’s new book….

You know what else I love about analogies? They allow you to be vague about the true meaning behind them, while actually making the meaning perfectly clear. They allow the reader to make their own interpretations.

Have fun digesting this one!

~Enna Isilee

The Warrior Heir is your typical fantasy book. A young man finds out he's special. I don't want to make it sound like it was lame, it wasn't. I would give it... 3.5 stars. Maybe I should have a rating system. Do you think I should have a rating system? Discuss.

This book had romance, good conquers evil, and adventure. It didn't "hold me on the edge of my seat" but it didn't put me to sleep either.

Bah. This feels like another one of those reviews where I just kind of dance around what I mean to say. But... I don't actually know what I mean to say, so I'm just gonna dance.

3.5 stars, or... squeaks? Hm... If I do have a rating system, what do I use? Discuss.

~Enna Isilee

I don't usually include a plot summary in my reivews, but I felt this one needed it. I'm naming this a semi-squeaky book, for, while it wasn't the most original idea, I really enjoyed it. I'm reaching a point in my life where I'm liking this type of sci-fi more and more.

This book was good, standard, sci-fi. The only part I didn't like about it was how badly the children were treated. I don't think there is any way an entire country would let children be treated like that, even at the cost of eternal life.

Brought forth a lot of very interesting ideas. This book really makes you think.

Oh, and I cried at the end.

~Enna Isilee

I thought Friday, February 13th would be the perfect time to review this book since it is both unlucky, and very close to the most love-filled (or lonely) day of the year.

*sigh* What can be said of this series that I haven't said before. Envy was just as much of a rollercoaster as Rumors or The Luxe, but I still love them. Oh wow do I love them. I bugged the librarian for over a week asking: "Is it in yet? Do you have it? PLEASE! PLEASE! PLEASE! I HAVE TO HAVE IT!"

For those of you who have never heard of The Luxe I strongly suggest looking into the series. But that suggestion comes with a warning:

These books are lusty, scandalous, there's very few happy moments, and for some odd reason I still love them, even though they frustrate me like no other books! I call them my guiltly pleasure books, and I can't think of a more accuarate way to describe them.

*happy (and yet, slightly befuddled) sigh*

~Enna Isilee

However, I am naming it only a "semi-squeaky book" for two reasons:

1. I felt that the story was a little lost. I recognize that the characters themselves felt lost throughout the book, but it just didn't feel as strong as it could be.

2. The main character, Katsa, doesn't like the idea of marriage. I really hoped that she'd come around to the idea... but she didn't. I'm not sure what I think of that. It wasn't bad, just... not what I expected. I know that some people really think that, and that's fine. I fully respect everyone's opinion to have an opinion. My opinion, however, did not fit Katsa's.

That's it. Other than that it was a wonderful book. I loved the idea of the graces. Fascinating. Completely.

~Enna Isilee

Yelena's adventures continue. After she's gone through some pretty crazy stuff (Including being a poison tester for the Commander of Ixia) she's now on her way to her foreign homeland to learn magic and find out who she was, and is. But, she'll soon discover that she's not completely welcome... dun dun dun!

I really like this series. It has romance, intrigue, betrayal, magic, all the things that make up a fabulous tale. Yelena's character pulls me in by my heartstrings. There were some times I wanted to kick the characters, and other times I wanted to kiss them.

An absolutely delightful series. However, due to some of the mature themes and slight language, I would not recommend this book to anyone under the age of 15, maybe a mature 13 or 14 year-old. Maybe. I wouldn't let my hypothetical 13-year-old read it, and I love it.

~Enna Isilee