tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30226567836611373662024-02-08T05:50:28.908+00:00The Headless OwlThe Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06939675130992497376noreply@blogger.comBlogger39125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-65183163488472868282012-10-06T15:34:00.001+01:002012-10-06T15:34:57.573+01:00Stacking the Shelves (5)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from Tynga's Reviews</td></tr>
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<b>Stacking The Shelves</b> is a book haul meme hosted by <a href="http://tyngasreviews.com/">Tynga's Reviews</a> where we share the books we've acquired each week!<br />
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Since my last Stacking the Shelves, I've bought/received:<br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yes, I go to Waterstones way too often</td></tr>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13449693-the-raven-boys">The Raven Boys</a> by Maggie Stiefvater</div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13449693-the-raven-boys">The Casual Vacancy</a> by J.K. Rowling</div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13042154-rebel-heart">Rebel Heart (Dust Lands #2)</a> by Moira Young</div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7728889-the-diviners">The Diviners</a> by Libba Bray</div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10866624-unspoken">Unspoken</a> by Sarah Rees Brennan (ebook)</div>
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<b>RECEIVED:</b></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12367267-the-glimpse">The Glimpse</a> by Claire Merle, which I won in a giveaway back in July from <a href="http://daisychainbookreviews.blogspot.co.uk/">Daisy Chain Book Reviews</a>! Thank you!</div>
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I've read The Raven Boys, Unspoken and Rebel Heart so far (kind of reading The Casual Vacancy and The Diviners at the same time now) and they were all amazing! So many exciting books came out this month that I have yet to read (Stormdancer, What's Left of Me, etc.). Any suggestions on what to buy next? </div>
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What did you get this week? Link me because I'd love to see!</div>
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The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com30tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-67190350425919903122012-10-05T23:02:00.000+01:002012-10-05T23:02:00.142+01:00Review: Blood Red Road by Moira Young<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Rating:</b> 5/5 crow heads<br />
<b>Release date: </b>7 June 2011<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Margaret K. McElderry Books, 459 pgs<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9917938-blood-red-road">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Blood-Road-Dustlands-Moira-Young/dp/1407124269/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349474473&sr=8-1">Amazon UK</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Blood-Red-Road-Moira-Young/9781407124261">The Book Depository</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Saba has spent her whole life in Silverlake, a dried-up wasteland ravaged by constant sandstorms. The Wrecker civilization has long been destroyed, leaving only landfills for Saba and her family to scavenge from. That's fine by her, as long as her beloved twin brother Lugh is around. But when a monster sandstorm arrives, along with four cloaked horsemen, Saba's world is shattered. Lugh is captured, and Saba embarks on an epic quest to get him back.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Suddenly thrown into the lawless, ugly reality of the world outside of desolate Silverlake, Saba is lost without Lugh to guide her. So perhaps the most surprising thing of all is what Saba learns about herself: she's a fierce fighter, an unbeatable survivor, and a cunning opponent. And she has the power to take down a corrupt society from the inside. Teamed up with a handsome daredevil named Jack and a gang of girl revolutionaries called the Free Hawks, Saba stages a showdown that will change the course of her own civilization.</span></div>
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I don't know why it took me so long to read <i>Blood Red Road. </i>It's been sitting on my shelf for over a year, collecting dust. But now that I have, all I can say, really, is pick this one up now. <i>Blood Red Road</i> stands out amidst the spate of dystopians and post-apocalyptic novels that have come out in the wake of The Hunger Games, and is thoroughly deserving of the praise it's received.<br />
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Why? The writing, for one. The novel is narrated in a thick, heavily colloquial dialect that made me think of outlaws and deserts and rednecks - which is exactly the kind of world Saba lives in. The minimalist style is definitely a defining and divisive aspect of the book, and while I can understand how some may find it gimmicky or annoying, I couldn't imagine the book working so well without it. Saba's world, the characters she meets...they all live and breathe by the same slow, languid rhythm. Some people will find this harder to get used to than others. Is it worth the potential frustration? I think so!<br />
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And it's worth it because for me, how 'good' I find a book usually comes down to how enjoyable or entertaining I found the characters and/or story, and Saba's journey had me grinning throughout. This book is <i>fun</i>, plain and simple, and I seriously never wanted it to end. Her journey is epic, taking her across mountains and deserts and crooked, corrupt shanty towns. It's a classic coming-of-age adventure that gave me that rare feeling of reading a story that wasn't written or plotted or worked over, but exists somewhere in an alternate universe, fully formed.<br />
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Now, I've tried to keep this review spoiler-free, but if you take something away from this review, I hope it's that there's really something for everyone here. For those looking for a light, fun adventure, all the elements are there, and they're well done. For those seeking something that makes <i>Blood Red Road</i> stand out from your average YA novel, there are enough surprises - Saba's surprisingly dark and brutally honest thoughts toward her younger sister, for example- to make this one stand out. Read it now!</div>
The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-6446483452656391612012-09-12T20:47:00.000+01:002012-09-12T20:51:30.408+01:00Waiting on Wednesday (8)<br />
Waiting on Wednesday is a book meme hosted by Jill at <a href="http://breakingthespine.blogspot.com/">Breaking the Spine</a> where we showcase books we're highly anticipating.<br />
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Yes, this is a post!<br />
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So... you may or may not have noticed that I've been kind of absent from the blogging community for the past few weeks. Things have been crazy lately but they're finally starting to die down, so I'll try my best to catch up with all the stuff I've missed! I also have a lot of reviews to post, so keep an eye out. :)<br />
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This week I'm waiting on...<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12579262-canary">CANARY</a> by <a href="http://www.rachelealpine.com/">RACHELE ALPINE</a></span></div>
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<b>Release date:</b> 28 August 2013</div>
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<b>Coming from:</b> Medallion Press (363 pgs)</div>
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If she stays quiet, it will destroy her. If she speaks out, it will destroy everyone.</div>
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Kate Franklin’s life changes for the better when her dad lands a job at Beacon Prep, an elite private school with one of the best basketball teams in the state. She begins to date a player on the team and quickly gets caught up in a world of idolatry and entitlement, learning that there are perks to being an athlete. </div>
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But those perks also come with a price. Another player takes his power too far and Kate is assaulted at a party. She knows she should speak out, but her dad tries to silence her in order to protect the team. The world that Kate was once welcomed into is now her worst enemy, and she must decide whether to stay silent or expose the corruption, destroying her father’s career and bringing down a town’s heroes.</div>
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Similar to Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Elsewhere, Canary is told in a mix of prose and verse.</div>
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<span style="font-size: x-large;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13514612-all-our-yesterdays">ALL OUR YESTERDAYS</a> by <a href="http://cristinterrill.com/">CRISTIN TERRILL</a></span></div>
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<b>Release date:</b> 2013, from Disney Hyperion </div>
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Marina has everything. She’s got money, popularity, and a bright future. Plus, she’s best friends with the boy next door, who happens to be a gorgeous prodigy from one of America’s most famous families.</div>
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Em has nothing. Imprisoned in a small white cell in the heart of a secret military base, all she has is the voice of the boy in the cell next door and the list of instructions she finds taped inside the drain.</div>
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But Marina and Em have one big thing in common: they’re the same person.</div>
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Now Em must travel back four years in time in order to avert the terrible future from which she’s fled, and there’s only one way to do it. She must kill the person who invented the time machine in the first place: someone from her past. A person she loved.</div>
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But Marina won’t let them go without a fight.</div>
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Canary is one of those books that just seems like a classic before it's even been published, if that makes any sense. I thought some of the poetry in The Sky is Everywhere was beautiful, so I'm excited about the comparison! And that cover art is amazing.<br />
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Now, there's a lot going on in All Our Yesterdays' summary. I mean, it's presumably told from two different PoVs, set in different time periods? Okay. But wait - it's the same girl... and she's dealing with two different love interests from different time periods... while fighting herself?? Ahhhh. This is either going to be the most epic book EVER, or kind of a mess. I have high hopes, though, because it sounds amazing!<br />
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What are you waiting on this week? Link me because I'd love to see!<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-36663064550308580922012-08-28T04:53:00.002+01:002012-08-28T04:53:44.349+01:00Mini Review: Origin by Jessica Khoury<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1346121755l/13455112.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1346121755l/13455112.jpg" width="198" /></a></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Rating: </b>5/5 jaguar heads</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Release date:</b> 4 September 2012</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Publisher:</b> Razorbill (Penguin)</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13455112-origin">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Origin-Jessica-Khoury/dp/1595145958/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1346125120&sr=8-2">Amazon UK</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Origin-Jessica-Khoury/9781595145956">The Book Depository</a></span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; font-family: georgia, serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; border-collapse: separate; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Pia has grown up in a secret laboratory hidden deep in the Amazon rain forest. She was raised by a team of scientists who have created her to be the start of a new immortal race. But on the night of her seventeenth birthday, Pia discovers a hole in the electric fence that surrounds her sterile home—and sneaks outside the compound for the first time in her life.<br /><br />Free in the jungle, Pia meets Eio, a boy from a nearby village. Together, they embark on a race against time to discover the truth about Pia’s origin—a truth with deadly consequences that will change their lives forever.<br /><br /><em>Origin</em> is a beautifully told, shocking new way to look at an age-old desire: to live forever, no matter the cost. This is a supremely compelling debut novel that blends the awakening romance of <em>Matched</em> with the mystery and jungle conspiracy of <em>Lost</em>.</span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">The two books I read before this were thrilling YA romances - entertaining, but quickly forgotten - and I was sort of expecting more of the same. Origin completely exceeded my expectations, and I was surprised by the level of depth it achieved - at least for me.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">Origin deals with some pretty heavy themes, and because of this I think it'll be a love/hate kind of book. Some will find the approach heavy-handed or uncomfortable in its depiction of the 'natives' and scientists, but it worked for me (or I at least was able to forgive this) because I really connected with Pia on an emotional level. Some of the religious/spiritual issues explored are ones I've dealt with a lot growing up, and I've been wanting to read a book like this for a while. For me, at least, it was very thought-provoking and amazingly relevant to my life, and books like these are exactly why I love YA no matter how controversial: it's amazing to be able to read a book that captures, explores, and makes <i>entertaining </i>the challenges and angst of growing up.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px; border-collapse: collapse; color: #181818; line-height: 18px;">Was this book perfect? Of course not, and many other reviewers have already pointed out some of its flaws. But as Khoury addresses in Origin, both in the book's opening line and repeatedly throughout, perfect is in the eye of the beholder, and Origin, at this point in my life, was absolutely perfect for me. I loved it, and unlike some of the other YA books I've read recently, I found myself still thinking about it a day later.</span></span><br />
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Check out the Origin book trailer:<br />
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<b>Side note:</b> This is not the most informative review, but these were my thoughts immediately after reading Origin last month and I didn't feel the need to expand! Also, I'm aware that postings/general blog interactions have been scarce for the past few weeks, so apologies for that, but I should be back on track starting next week. Happy reading!<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-34488887455958242912012-08-18T14:32:00.000+01:002012-08-18T14:32:44.207+01:00Review: The Innocents by Lili Peloquin<br />
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<b>Rating:</b> 3/5 pigeon heads<br />
<b>Release date: </b>16 October 2012<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Penguin (Razorbill), 288 pgs<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13513071-the-innocents">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Innocents-Lili-Peloquin/9781595145826">The Book Depository</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><b>Goodreads summary: </b></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Nothing ever came between sisters Alice and Charlie.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Friends didn't.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Boys couldn't.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Their family falling apart never would.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Until they got to Serenity Point.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">"The Innocents" is the first in a new series of young adult novels that weave a saga of nail-biting drama, breathless romance, and gothic mystery.</span></span><br />
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<b>My brief summary:</b> Alice and Charlie follow their mother and new step-father, Richard, to begin a new life in elite community Serenity Point, where the mystery behind Richard's daughter's recent death and its impact on their new friends begins to put a strain on their relationship.<br />
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I'm giving this 3 stars, which might be a little generous. At the very least it makes me acutely aware that I recently gave Sarah J. Maas' <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7896527-throne-of-glass">Throne of Glass</a> a 3.5 when <i>The Innocents</i> is far from being in the same league. But it's a 3 stars for what it is (and I think we all know what kind of book this is): a pure guilty pleasure.<br />
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What would have made it stand out? This may be controversial, and probably says more about me than it does anything else, but if I'm going to read a fun, trashy novel, I hope for drama of epic proportions. I tend to expect tears, bloodshed, pregnancies, cat fights...the works. And yes, I tend to be hypocritical and complain about the very same thing. It's a bit unfair, seeing as <i>The Innocents</i> never explicitly sells itself as such, but I honestly hoped it would be a bit more dramatic; that the characters would be nastier, the rich kids meaner, the mystery just a bit more sinister. At times it feels like Peloquin is trying to hold back and build emotional complexity within the story, and while these things aren't mutually exclusive and it pains me to say it, she probably would have been more successful had she focused on sheer entertainment factor alone.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span">I know that's an awful thing to encourage, but really, kudos to Lili Peloquin for trying to balance depth with drama, because she succeeds in some areas. I love books about sisters, and I actually felt that Alice and Charlie were well-developed. I had a clear sense of their characters and felt like I really understood them, though the unravelling of their bond and the tensions that Serenity Point places on their relationship could have been highlighted more. Unfortunately, I can't say the same about their love interests or their community, which was all one big </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">cliché</span></em></span><span class="Apple-style-span">. As for the mystery surrounding Richard, their new step-father, and Camilla, his recently deceased daughter, it was entertaining enough to keep me reading. There's a big twist at the end that's predictable, but overall I liked how Peloquin tied the ending back to the prologue.</span><br />
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I really don't consider a guilty pleasure a bad thing. I enjoy a trashy read every once in a while. This was maybe not trashy enough for me to justify the label, and if it had focused solely on the bond between the two sisters or the suspense and mystery behind Camilla's death, it might have avoided the label altogether. Instead, it kind of awkwardly treads a fine line between being a guilty pleasure and being, to be blunt, not very good. The writing is awkward at times, and the first few chapters were distractingly unedited, but I'm confident that with only two months till its release these errors have been fixed.<br />
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All in all, this was definitely a quick read - I think I read it in about two and a half hours - and I <i>was</i> entertained, just not as much as I hoped. If you're a fan of books in the vein of <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/162085.Pretty_Little_Liars">Pretty Little Liars</a> and/or <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/22188.Gossip_Girl">Gossip Girl</a>, you might enjoy this one. <i>The Innocents</i> combines the pervading sense of mystery of the former with the scandal and extravagance of the latter, resulting in a quick read that, while entertaining, never does quite reach the same level of addictiveness.<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-34423770231076345462012-08-15T02:35:00.001+01:002012-08-15T02:35:37.890+01:00Waiting on Wednesday (7)<div style="text-align: left;">
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Waiting on Wednesday is a book meme hosted by Jill at <a href="http://breakingthespine.blogspot.com/">Breaking the Spine</a> where we showcase books we're highly anticipating.</div>
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I missed Waiting on Wednesday last week, so I've chosen three books that I'm waiting on today! Titles go to Goodreads, names go to the author's website. </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13455511-jepp-who-defied-the-stars">JEPP, WHO DEFIED THE STARS</a> by <a href="http://www.katherinemarsh.com/">KATHERINE MARSH</a></span></div>
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<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1335195599l/13455511.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1335195599l/13455511.jpg" width="213" /></a></div>
<b>Release date:</b> 9 October 2012<br />
<b>Coming from:</b> Hyperion Book CH (384 pgs)<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 2px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 2px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><strong>FATE:</strong><br /><br />Is it written in the stars from the moment we are born?<br /><br />Or is it a bendable thing that we can shape with our own hands?<br /><br />Jepp of Astraveld needs to know.<br /><br />He left his countryside home on the empty promise of a stranger, only to become a captive in a strange and luxurious prison: Coudenberg Palace, the royal court of the Spanish Infanta. Nobody warned Jepp that as a court dwarf, daily injustices would become his seemingly unshakeable fate. If the humiliations were his alone, perhaps he could endure them, but it breaks Jepp’s heart to see his friend Lia suffer.<br /><br />After Jepp and Lia perform a daring escape from the palace, Jepp is imprisoned again, alone in a cage. Now, spirited across Europe by a kidnapper in a horse-drawn carriage, Jepp is unsure where his unfortunate stars may lead him.<br /><br />Before Jepp can become the master of his own destiny, he will need to prove himself to a brilliant and eccentric new master—a man devoted to uncovering the secrets of the stars—earn the love of a girl brave and true, and unearth the long-buried secrets of his parentage. And he will find that beneath the breathtaking cruelty of the world is something else: the persistence of human kindness.</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13265540-red">RED</a> by <a href="http://alisoncherrybooks.com/">ALISON CHERRY</a></span></div>
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<b>Release date: </b>2013, from Delacorte Press</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">RED is set in a small town where the redness of your hair is directly tied to your social standing, until the coolest and reddest girl in school is blackmailed on the eve of the Miss Scarlet pageant.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit; font-size: large;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13479780-landry-park">LANDRY PARK</a> by <a href="http://bethanyhagen.com/">BETHANY HAGEN</a></span></div>
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<b>Release date: </b>2013, from Dial </div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">... pitched as “Gone with the Nuclear Wind". It is supposed to be a cross between "Gone with the Wind" and "Mansfield Park", but set into the future 200 years from now. According to the author's blog the "crux of the plot centers around nuclear technology".</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">... is set in a world ruled by the lavish Gentry, who force a people called the Rootless to handle the nuclear material that powers their large estates. When a Gentry girl is attacked, sixteen-year-old Madeline Landry can't escape the rumors of revolution and retribution circulating through the ballrooms--and the city's new golden boy David is at the middle of them. Soon, she finds herself forced to choose between her duty and her desires, her ancestral destiny and her conscience.</span></span><br />
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<b>Jepp, Who Defied the Stars</b> sounds like it's going to be so fun and different! I've also never read a book from the perspective of a dwarf (I guess hobbits don't count?), and I really can't wait.<br />
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<b>Red</b> has me hooked from that sentence alone! I'm anxiously stalking this one! I have such high hopes for the cover, and I LOVE that the author's last name is Cherry. So much potential for awesomeness here!<br />
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While not the official summary (it was taken from Goodreads, as were the others), <b>Landry Park's </b>description has me really excited. It kind of reminds me of Diana Peterfreund's <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8306761-for-darkness-shows-the-stars">For Darkness Show the Stars</a>, which I loved, so I'll definitely be on the lookout for more information!<br />
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What are you waiting on this Wednesday? Link me because I'd love to see!</div>
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<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com29tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-61738481865015809742012-08-14T13:35:00.000+01:002012-08-15T04:12:33.557+01:00Review: Seraphina by Rachel Hartman<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1325528367l/12394100.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1325528367l/12394100.jpg" width="211" /></a></div>
<b>Rating:</b> 4/5 dragon heads<br />
<b>Release date: </b>10 July 2012<br />
<b>Publisher: </b>Random House, 467 pgs<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12394100-seraphina">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Seraphina-Rachel-Hartman/9780375866562">The Book Depository</a><br />
<a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Seraphina-Rachel-Hartman/dp/0857531565/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344947682&sr=8-1">Amazon UK</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Seraphina-Rachel-Hartman/dp/0375866566/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344947700&sr=8-1&keywords=seraphina">Amazon US</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Four decades of peace have done little to ease the mistrust between humans and dragons in the kingdom of Goredd. Folding themselves into human shape, dragons attend court as ambassadors, and lend their rational, mathematical minds to universities as scholars and teachers. As the treaty's anniversary draws near, however, tensions are high.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Seraphina Dombegh has reason to fear both sides. An unusually gifted musician, she joins the court just as a member of the royal family is murdered—in suspiciously draconian fashion. Seraphina is drawn into the investigation, partnering with the captain of the Queen's Guard, the dangerously perceptive Prince Lucian Kiggs. While they begin to uncover hints of a sinister plot to destroy the peace, Seraphina struggles to protect her own secret, the secret behind her musical gift, one so terrible that its discovery could mean her very life.</span></span><br />
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A quick preliminary scan of <i>Seraphina</i> revealed words like quigutl and pygegyria and houppelande, words <i>just </i>intimidating enough to make me want to put off my reading and seek something lighter. And I did put it off. It admittedly took me a few tries to really get into this book, but once I plowed through the first few chapters, Seraphina's story unfolded as naturally and effortlessly as a saar taking flight.<br />
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Of course, no book is without its imperfections. For me, <i>Seraphina</i> is a book of contradictions. Take the writing. It's beautiful and surprisingly introspective, and has an addictive quality to it that made me stop to re-read and savor the words. Yet this also made the plot feel a tad slow, and left scenes which were supposed to be suspenseful and action-packed feeling a bit flat.<br />
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I felt the same about the world-building. <i>So </i>much detail is given regarding Goredd and dragon (saar) culture, all of which I found fascinating and, quite frankly, impressive. Everything from saar history and politics to daily scale maintenance is touched upon. And it all made sense. The world Hartman has created is the perfect blend of reality and fantasy; drawing on so many cultures and time periods that I couldn't pin it on just one time or place. They meshed together to create a world totally unique and just the slightest bit off-kilter (in the best way).<br />
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Yet for all the amazing world-building, some of the important plotlines suffered from under-development. Seraphina's confusion and self-loathing as a half-breed is a huge part of the book. She connects mentally with others like her, all of whom exhibit supernatural gifts, through her mental 'garden'. Why half-breeds have these gifts, when there's no mention of dragons or humans possessing them, is barely touched upon, which was strange but easily forgiven given the sequel.<br />
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I realize I've focused on the negative in this review, but at this stage I'm really just nitpicking. <i>Seraphina </i>was a unique, refreshing, well-written read. If you're a fantasy lover, you owe it to yourself to experience the amazing world of dragons and humans and quigutl. I would add, though, that a part of me isn't sure whether I really <i>liked</i> this book in the sense that I was entertained or fell in love with the characters. A part of me feels that most of my good impression has more to do with being impressed or objectively appreciative of its artistic merit. I think a lack of true connection with the book prevents me from giving it a final star, but a re-reading might change that.<br />
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Pick this one up! The gorgeous cover alone should tempt you.<br />
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All in Ard,<br />
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The Headless Owl<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com17tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-6213670408215499442012-08-11T06:23:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:37:31.647+01:00Stacking the Shelves (4)<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hyk9Z7WdVNA/T6P68ADmNrI/AAAAAAAAFKI/WfHmIKAeAGI/STSmall_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="181" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-hyk9Z7WdVNA/T6P68ADmNrI/AAAAAAAAFKI/WfHmIKAeAGI/STSmall_thumb%25255B2%25255D.png?imgmax=800" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://tyngasreviews.com/">Tynga's Reviews</a></td></tr>
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<b>Stacking The Shelves is a book haul meme hosted by <a href="http://tyngasreviews.com/">Tynga's Reviews</a> where we share the books we've acquired each week! </b><br />
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It's been a couple of weeks since my last STS, simply because I haven't been buying that many books lately and have way too many that I need to get to.<br />
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(Links go to Goodreads)<br />
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7514925-tiger-lily">Tiger Lily</a> by Jodi Lynn Anderson - <a href="http://theheadlessowl.blogspot.com/2012/07/review-tiger-lily-by-jodi-lynn-anderson.html">Reviewed</a><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12394100-seraphina">Seraphina</a> by Rachel Hartman<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7896527-throne-of-glass">Throne of Glass</a> by Sarah J. Maas (ebook) - <a href="http://theheadlessowl.blogspot.com/2012/08/review-throne-of-glass-by-sarah-j-maas.html">Reviewed</a><br />
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I did get a few great books though! I absolutely loved Tiger Lily and despite being disappointed by Throne of Glass still found it a quick and entertaining read. I hope this streak continues with Seraphina!<br />
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That's it for me! What did you get this week? Link me because I'd love to see.<br />
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The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com34tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-4060184422773361582012-08-10T16:29:00.001+01:002012-08-13T16:36:21.396+01:00Review: Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas<div style="text-align: left;">
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<b>Rating:</b> 3.5/5 very sad owl heads<br />
<b>Release date:</b> 2 Aug 2012 (UK), 8 Aug 2012 (US)<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Bloomsbury, 404 pgs<br />
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13519397-throne-of-glass">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/Throne-Glass-Sarah-J-Maas/dp/140883233X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344610648&sr=8-1">Amazon UK</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.co.uk/Throne-Glass-Sarah-Maas/9781408832332">The Book Depository</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">(Summary from Goodreads)</span></span><br />
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This is a hard review to write. Let me start off by saying that Throne of Glass was one of my highly anticipated reads of 2012. I was hooked on the novellas before I even started blogging, and I made sure to make it my first Waiting on Wednesday. As you can imagine, I was positive I would love this. The last thing I expected was to have to write that, honestly? I was a bit disappointed. It's possible that over-hyping ruined the experience for me, as it has countless times, because a lot of what I loved about the novellas was here in abundance.<br />
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Celaena is such a complicated, aggravating, entertaining character. She's astoundingly arrogant in a way that comes from knowing you're the best, and being told so day after day, yet she's sensitive and girly and selfish in a way that only teenage girls can be. The love interests in ToG are worthy of such a complex character. It would have undermined Celaena's character to have her turn lovesick and obsessed, especially in the middle of what is supposed to be a cutthroat competition, and Maas clearly knew where to draw the line. She writes a romance (if you can even call it that) that is subtle and sweet. Both Chaol and Dorian are well-developed - a bit predictably, maybe, but it's there. Equally important, they represent two very different futures and relationships, presenting Celaena with exactly the kind of dilemma that I hope for in a love triangle.<br />
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And Rifthold, with its crowded streets and garish glass castle, is easy to imagine. There's a perfect balance between magic and technology; a blurring of our world and some other-world that feels completely natural. Like the glass castle itself; an architectural marvel built on a foundation of rock and stone, with magic in its roots. Like the contrast between the clock tower that sits in the courtyard and the mythical gargoyles that surround it.<br />
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I loved all these things. What I found lacking was the plot itself. The epic-sounding competition to become King's Champion was pretty underwhelming; consisting of a series of tasks that were about as thrilling as the tasks faced by Harry Potter and crew at the end of the Philosopher's Stone - except these are <i>assassins</i>, not 12-year-olds, and I didn't feel the suspense that I expected to feel. I began to hope the action was going to be psychological; surrounding the gruesome murders of the competitors and solving the mystery behind the killer, but this, too, wasn't as engaging as I thought it would be. A lot is solved through dreams and vague mythology, the workings of which I don't think I ever got a feel for. Even juicy court scandals and politics would have been enough to satisfy me, given that the novel takes place almost entirely in the castle, but that, too, felt weak. There was a dash of everything I wanted, but none of it felt developed enough to really hold my attention.<br />
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Throne of Glass just didn't come together for me. As I mentioned, a part of this may be because of my own over-hyping, so keep in mind that this review is very circumstantial. Because I was totally engrossed in the novellas, I got a bit caught up in the comparisons game - even the love interests took me a few chapters to warm up to because I still felt loyal to Sam from the novellas. Having said all that, I don't consider a 3.5 a bad rating at all, and I would still absolutely recommend this. I've seen what Maas is capable of, I've loved her stories, and I've already fallen in love the world she's created, so I hope you do too. Will I be reading the sequel? Absolutely. Unfortunately, the excitement I've felt and enjoyed these past few months has dimmed.<br />
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<b>Side note: </b>UK or US cover (below)? I seem to be in the minority in that I prefer the US one, though the UK cover is definitely more badass.<br />
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The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com18tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-42143905979366423842012-08-08T12:03:00.000+01:002012-08-10T16:54:38.680+01:00Review: Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead + St. Vladimir's Summer School<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l602/jenryland/ST-VLADIMIR-vampire-academy-14330157-800-531-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="211" src="http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l602/jenryland/ST-VLADIMIR-vampire-academy-14330157-800-531-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://thefakesteph.com/">TheFakeSteph</a></td></tr>
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It's week 6 of St. Vladimir's Summer School! The assigned reading this week is Last Sacrifice, the final book in the Vampire Academy series. </div>
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<b>St. Vladimir's Summer School </b>is a Vampire Academy read-a-thon started by Steph @ <a href="http://www.thefakesteph.com/2012/08/st-vladimirs-summer-school-week-five.html">The Fake Steph</a>, Jen @ <a href="http://jenryland.blogspot.com/2012/08/st-vladimirs-summer-school-last.html">Jen Ryland/YA Romantics</a> and Jenn @ <a href="http://www.owl-read-it.blogspot.com/2012/08/st-vladimirs-summer-school-spirit-bound.html">Owl-Read-It</a>! Be sure to check out their posts. Thanks for letting me join in, and thanks to Grad Student at <a href="http://yafictionandwhiskeysours.blogspot.com/">YA Fiction & Whiskey Sours</a> for bringing this to my attention.</div>
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<b>***SPOILERS AHEAD***</b></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6527740-last-sacrifice">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Last-Sacrifice-Vampire-Academy-Book/dp/1595144404/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344410814&sr=8-1&keywords=last+sacrifice">Amazon</a></div>
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Last Sacrifice wastes no time picking up where Spirit Bound left off, throwing the reader into the prison cell where Rose has been impatiently waiting news of her trial. After a daring and explosive (pun intended) escape initiated by Lissa and the rest of the usual suspects, they are split into two groups, both working against the clock to get answers. While Lissa and the others at court struggle to find Queen Tatiana's murderer and clear Rose's name, Rose and Dimitri chase down a rumor - a rumor of an illegitimate Dragomir child whose existence has the potential to change court life as they know it. </div>
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Following these two plots is made easy by Rose's one-way bond with Lissa, which seemed to start off as a way to build their relationship but has become a pretty useful plot device that Mead has used throughout the series. While the suspense of finding the murderer and the Dragomir child was hampered a bit by the predictability of the plot (that the child would exist and that they would find her was obvious, though I hadn't guessed the identity), Last Sacrifice was just as engaging and easy to read as the previous novels, and I was thoroughly satisfied by its ending. </div>
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And when I refer to 'the ending', I'm pretty much referring to the way things ended between Rose and Adrian. As you may recall, I was a little frustrated by Rose's denial of her feelings in Spirit Bound, and so it should be of no surprise that even though I knew where Rose was coming from, I LOVED seeing Adrian finally let her have it. Adrian seemed to progress as a character in those last few chapters than he did in the entire series, and for the first time I felt like I truly understood him - I understood Rose's comments about him being a 'victim', I understood what she meant by them not balancing each other out, and I understood his anger at her attitude and at himself. It felt like a real conversation between two people, especially because it was free of the excessive snark and banter that makes Rose both entertaining and annoying. </div>
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I can confidently say that I'm glad to have jumped on the Vampire Academy bandwagon, even if I am several years late. It's been a thoroughly enjoyable ride that I feel ended at just the right time, unlike many Young Adult series that I know (Maximum Ride, I'm looking at you). I've grown to love these characters, and I'm SO glad that I've connected to Adrian just in time to start Bloodlines. :) Thanks to everyone who told me to give this a chance! </div>
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I usually do 'lessons learned' as part of Summer School, but because this is the last book in the Vampire Academy series and I was in detention last week, I thought I would do art class instead!<br />
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My summary of the first three books (since I haven't reviewed them), in pictures:<br />
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<b>Vampire Academy:</b></div>
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<b>Frostbite:</b></div>
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<b>Shadow Kiss:</b></div>
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Recognize any scenes? Let me know if you do! (I seriously don't blame you if you don't.)</div>
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Though I joined late, I had so much fun doing Summer School and meeting more bloggers! Thanks for letting me join in. Be sure to check out their Summer School posts as well! </div>
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On to Bloodlines! :)</div>
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<br /></div>The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-50467739984969643072012-08-05T07:00:00.001+01:002012-08-05T16:57:08.032+01:00Review: Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead + St. Vladimir's Summer School<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l602/jenryland/ST-VLADIMIR-vampire-academy-14330157-800-531-3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="212" src="http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l602/jenryland/ST-VLADIMIR-vampire-academy-14330157-800-531-3.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">From <a href="http://www.thefakesteph.com/">TheFakeSteph</a></td></tr>
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It's Week 5 of <b>St. Vladimir's Summer School</b>, a.k.a Spirit Bound week, and I am definitely in some serious detention because this post is very, very late! Sorry for the delay and general lack of posts; I've been traveling and internet access and reading time have been limited. I'm excited to get back on track and catch up with all the great posts and reviews I've missed!<br />
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<b>St. Vladimir's Summer School </b>is a Vampire Academy read-a-thon started by Steph @ <a href="http://www.thefakesteph.com/2012/08/st-vladimirs-summer-school-week-five.html">The Fake Steph</a>, Jen @ <a href="http://jenryland.blogspot.com/2012/08/st-vladimirs-summer-school-spirit-bound.html">Jen Ryland/YA Romantics</a> and Jenn @ <a href="http://www.owl-read-it.blogspot.com/2012/08/st-vladimirs-summer-school-spirit-bound.html">Owl-Read-It</a>! Be sure to check out their posts. Thanks for letting me join in, and thanks to Grad Student at <a href="http://yafictionandwhiskeysours.blogspot.com/">YA Fiction & Whiskey Sours</a> for bringing this to my attention.<br />
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6479259-spirit-bound">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Spirit-Bound-Vampire-Academy-Book/dp/B0078XOF4Y/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344146254&sr=8-1&keywords=spirit+bound">Amazon</a><br />
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I've been vacillating between 3 and 4 stars for Spirit Bound. Strictly speaking, I enjoyed this as much as I enjoyed the others - this series is totally the book equivalent of an episode of Buffy: fast-paced, entertaining and featuring a tough, snarky heroine. </div>
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Yet something about Spirit Bound just rubbed me the wrong way. Book 5 begins just as we expect it to - Rose is continuing her quest to free Dimitri and return him to his dhampir form - but it's her newfound relationship with Adrian that I found a bit frustrating. </div>
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Her obsession with saving Dimitri, while understandable, is pretty awkward given the fact that she's agreed to be with Adrian, and this isn't really addressed until the final chapters of the book. While I didn't mind the dilemma itself, the way Rose handled it - or rather, <i>didn't </i>handle it - got a little annoying. The few times she stops to consider Adrian's feelings, she manages to convince herself that she'll somehow be able to keep their relationship alive if Dimitri were to return, when really - who is she kidding? Adrian didn't stand a chance. This wasn't a huge deal for me, and I can see how it fits with Rose's reckless, teenage side, but it did come across as the easy way out to have her be so na<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #222222; line-height: 16px;"><em style="color: black; font-style: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">ïve, and it made her just a tad annoying. </span></em></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Having said that, Spirit Bound was just as entertaining as the first four books in the series, and I love that Mead brings back a lot of the secondary characters from the previous books and continues to flesh them out. Rose and the gang have all graduated, and I could definitely feel Mead upping the intensity. The battles are more dangerous and wide-spread, and the petty high school pranks and rivalries of the first few books have given way to political court drama. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">We get a lot of insight into Moroi court life and its conventions, and get to see the sensitive political dynamics between the royal families. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">Overall, the Vampire Academy series is one of the few I've read that has been consistently entertaining while developing the world and characters, and I can't believe there's only one more book! </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">I'm already halfway through Last Sacrifice because the Spirit Bound cliffhanger was awful, so here's hoping it's a great ending to the series! </span></div>
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And because this is Summer School, I'm <a href="http://www.thefakesteph.com/2012/08/st-vladimirs-summer-school-week-five.html">following Steph's lead</a> and imparting some of the lessons I've learned (all in good fun, because I do love VA):<br />
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<b>What I learned:</b> Never think that a tiny face mask is enough to hide you at a masked ball, because it NEVER IS.<br />
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<b>What I also learned:</b> Stabbing through a cushion is about the same as stabbing through a vampire's chest.<br />
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That's it from me this week! Let me know if you have any ideas for detention, because I am unforgivably late! Will try to do something special next week to make up for it, especially since it's the last book.<br />
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What have you learned from Vampire Academy? Would love to hear!<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-188845590391241422012-08-01T00:00:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:40:28.397+01:00Waiting on Wednesday (6)<link href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Dosis:500" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"></link><br />
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Waiting on Wednesday is a book meme hosted by Jill at <a href="http://breakingthespine.blogspot.com/">Breaking the Spine</a> where we showcase some of our hotly anticipated releases!</div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: 30px;">WHAT HAPPENS NEXT by COLLEEN CLAYTON</span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;"><b style="background-color: white;">Release date: </b></b><span style="background-color: white;"><span style="background-color: white;">9 October 2012</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Poppy (Little Brown Books for Young Readers), 320 pgs</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12819342-what-happens-next" style="background-color: white;">Goodreads</a><br />
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<tr><td bgcolor="#ffff99"><a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1332769744l/12819342.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="" border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1332769744l/12819342.jpg" title="Stung Bethany Wiggins" width="214" /></a><span style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: #181818; font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;"><em>How can you talk about something you can’t remember?</em><br /><br />Before the ski trip, sixteen-year-old Cassidy “Sid” Murphy was a cheerleader (at the bottom of the pyramid, but still...), a straight-A student, and a member of a solid trio of best friends. When she ends up on a ski lift next to handsome local college boy, Dax Windsor, she’s thrilled; but Dax takes everything from Sid—including a lock of her perfect red curls—and she can’t remember any of it.<br /><br />Back home and unable to relate to her old friends, Sid drops her college prep classes and takes up residence in the A/V room with only Corey “The Living Stoner” Livingston for company. But as she gets to know Corey (slacker, baker, total dreamboat), Sid finds someone who truly makes her happy. Now, if she can just shake the nightmares and those few extra pounds, everything will be perfect... or so she thinks.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: 35px;">MAID OF SECRETS by JENNIFER MCGOWAN</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Release date:</b> 16 April 2013</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, 288 pgs</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13260426-maid-of-secrets">Goodreads</a></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;">Seventeen-year-old Meg Fellowes is a wry, resourceful thief forced to join an elite group of female spies in Queen Elizabeth’s Court. There she must solve a murder, save the Crown, and resist the one thing that will become her greatest freedom–and her deadliest peril. </span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />For Meg and her fellow spies are not alone in their pursuit of the murderer who stalks Windsor Castle.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="-webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><br />A young, mysterious Spanish courtier, Count Rafe de Martine, appears at every turn in the dark and scandal-filled corridors of the Queen’s summer palace. And though secrets and danger are Meg’s stock-in-trade, she’s never bargained on falling in love…</span></span></div>
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I'm so excited for these two! Despite the cheesy title MAID OF SECRETS sounds like a really fun read and I love books set in court (any court, any place)! I can't wait to see the cover.<br />
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What are you waiting on this week? Link me because I'd love to see!<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-53473628658957026192012-07-29T04:09:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:41:04.230+01:00Review: Tiger Lily by Jodi Lynn Anderson<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Rating: </b>5/5 barn owl heads<br />
<b>Release date:</b> 3 July 2012<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Harper Collins Children's Books<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7514925-tiger-lily">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tiger-Lily-Jodi-Lynn-Anderson/dp/0062003259/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343531391&sr=8-1&keywords=tiger+lily+jodi+lynn+anderson">Amazon</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Tiger-Lily-Jodi-Lynn-Anderson/9780062003256">The Book Depository</a><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Before Peter Pan belonged to Wendy, he belonged to the girl with the crow feather in her hair. . . .</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Fifteen-year-old Tiger Lily doesn't believe in love stories or happy endings. Then she meets the alluring teenage Peter Pan in the forbidden woods of Neverland and immediately falls under his spell.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">Peter is unlike anyone she's ever known. Impetuous and brave, he both scares and enthralls her. As the leader of the Lost Boys, the most fearsome of Neverland's inhabitants, Peter is an unthinkable match for Tiger Lily. Soon, she is risking everything—her family, her future—to be with him. When she is faced with marriage to a terrible man in her own tribe, she must choose between the life she's always known and running away to an uncertain future with Peter.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">With enemies threatening to tear them apart, the lovers seem doomed. But it's the arrival of Wendy Darling, an English girl who's everything Tiger Lily is not, that leads Tiger Lily to discover that the most dangerous enemies can live inside even the most loyal and loving heart.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #181818; line-height: 19px;">From the New York Times bestselling author of Peaches comes a magical and bewitching story of the romance between a fearless heroine and the boy who wouldn't grow up.</span></span><br />
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Honestly, I was never a big 'Peter Pan' fan. I've never read the J. M. Barrie original, so note that I'm referring to the Disney animated movie when I say this. While I loved Neverland and its crazy characters, I didn't like the Darling children at all even as a kid, and found them pretty annoying. So when I heard of a new YA novel set in this world that focused on Tiger Lily, I was determined to read it. And the moment I read the excerpt on the back, I was hooked. It completely surpassed my expectations.<br />
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The Neverland that Anderson has re-imagined is dark and lush and detailed. I don't know how much sprang from her own imagination and how much was adopted from the original, but it's impossible to get enough of the world, written as it is in her gorgeous prose.<br />
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This is a book about loneliness: As the wild daughter of the eccentric village Shaman, Tiger Lily is both feared and respected, and she immediately connects with Peter, perhaps the loneliest of them all, who is charismatic and wild and serious and naive all at once and everything I could have hoped for in a Peter Pan. There is the heavy feeling of inevitability everywhere; you know, from the very first line and your own preconceptions of Peter, that <i>something</i> is going to happen, and it laced the book with a melancholy quality that had my heart pounding.<br />
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This is also a book about fear. Fear that can come from outside: sometimes obviously, in the form of shipwrecked Philip, an 'Englander' who disrupts the balance of Tiger Lily's village. Sometimes internally, in the form of Wendy Darling, who scares Tiger Lily in a way the jungle does not. There is the fear of vulnerability; of the tentative awkwardness of first love between two people who have lived a long time but are children at heart, at once impossibly brave and scared senseless.<br />
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I could go on forever. This is a book about everything I could wish for in a Young Adult novel. It's a book about being human. All the favorites are here, written with layers upon layers of complexity. Captain Hook and his right-hand man Smee are at times no worse than Peter himself. Wendy is foolish and naive and frustrating but more pure of heart and intent than Tiger Lily and Peter can ever hope to be. At one point Tinkerbell, who narrates the book, muses that fairies only have one love; that their hearts don't have the room for the emotion that human ones do. But I disagree. She is so fiercely loyal and passionate, so understanding of the hearts of others in a way that is only possible by watching it from above, that I despaired for her just as strongly as I did for Tiger Lily, and I don't think the book would have worked so well narrated by anyone else.<br />
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This was my first Jodi Lynn Anderson book, and it definitely won't be my last. It emotionally stunned me, and I don't think any review of mine could do it justice. In other words: Read this. It's quite introspective and maybe not for everyone, but give it a chance and you probably won't regret it. Tiger Lily is one of my favorite reads of 2012 so far, and it lingers like a bruise on your heart. And if you're wondering if it changed my perception of the Darling children, I would have to say no, it made it worse in the sense that I don't think I can ever look at Wendy again without thinking of Anderson's fierce, wild, vulnerable Tiger Lily. :)<br />
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The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com12tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-51739326496865885092012-07-27T13:24:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:41:47.638+01:00The Ultimate Reviewers' Challenge!<div>
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<a href="http://www.fwiwreviews.net/" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img alt="Addicted 2 Novels" border="0" src="http://i851.photobucket.com/albums/ab77/Lena1xoxo/URCArugustbutton.png" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">I'm excited to announce that I've joined the <b>Ultimate Reviewers' Challenge</b>! </span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br />Starting from August, </span><b style="background-color: white;">Lena</b><span style="background-color: white;"> from </span><a href="http://www.addicted2novels.com/2012/07/ultimate-reviewers-challenge-sign-ups.html" style="background-color: white;">Addicted 2 Novels</a><span style="background-color: white;">, </span><b style="background-color: white;">Tiger</b><span style="background-color: white;"> from </span><a href="http://tigersallconsumingbooks.blogspot.sg/2012/07/ultimate-reviewers-challenge.html" style="background-color: white;">Tiger's All Consuming Media</a><span style="background-color: white;"> and </span><b style="background-color: white;">Karen</b><span style="background-color: white;"> from </span><a href="http://www.fwiwreviews.net/2012/07/ultimate-reviewers-challenge-sign-ups.html" style="background-color: white;">For What It's Worth</a><span style="background-color: white;"> are challenging bloggers to "post and link up as many reviews as possible"!</span></div>
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<u>Here are the instructions (taken from For What It's Worth):</u><br />
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<span style="text-align: left;">"For the month of August you can link your reviews on each of our blogs (our Ultimate Reviewer's Challenge posts will be up with a linky on August 1st) For every review you link you will be entered to win one of two prize packs. Each blog will have two different prize packs. At the end of the event, we'll each pick two winners for a total of 6 Ultimate Reviewer’s Challenge winners."</span></span></td></tr>
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Check out the blogs to see the prize packs and sign up! I'm excited to take part because it's a great way to motivate yourself to read more, review and promote more books and clear your to-be-read shelf! Hope you all sign up, and feel free to give me a virtual nudge if you see me slacking. :)
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<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-89529537469851575552012-07-25T17:56:00.003+01:002012-07-25T18:33:56.009+01:00Review: Blood Promise by Richelle Mead + St Vladimir's Summer School<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.thefakesteph.com/2012/07/st-vladimirs-summer-school-week-four.html" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="St Vladimir's Summer School" border="0" height="212" src="http://i1126.photobucket.com/albums/l602/jenryland/ST-VLADIMIR-vampire-academy-14330157-800-531-3.jpg" title="St Vladimir's Summer School" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
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I've decided to participate in <b>St. Vladimir's Summer School</b>, a Vampire Academy read-a-long started by Steph @ <a href="http://www.thefakesteph.com/">The Fake Steph</a> and Jen @ <a href="http://jenryland.blogspot.sg/">Jen Ryland/YA Romantics</a>! Jen @ <a href="http://owl-read-it.blogspot.com/">Owl-Read-It</a> is also participating. This is actually week 4; I finally got around to reading Vampire Academy last week and decided to catch up and join in! Thanks to Grad Student at <a href="http://yafictionandwhiskeysours.blogspot.com/">YA Fiction & Whiskey Sours</a> for bringing this to my attention and Steph and Jen for letting me join in.<br />
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I read books 2 and 3 so quickly and in such rapid succession that I haven't written up reviews yet! Am skipping straight to Blood Promise (book #4) for the sake of the read-a-long but will post reviews for books 2 and 3 separately soon. Here's what I thought:<br />
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<b>***SPOILERS AHEAD***</b></div>
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<b>Rating: </b>4/5 owl heads<br />
<b>Release date: </b>25 August 2009<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Razorbill, 503 pages<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5996153-blood-promise">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Blood-Promise-Vampire-Academy-Book/dp/1595143106/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343234627&sr=8-1&keywords=blood+promise">Amazon</a><br />
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Despite the paranormal overload, this series didn't really feel that dark to me until Shadow Kiss (book #3), where I was pleasantly surprised by Mead's willingness to kill and injure loved characters. The attack on St. Vladimir's Academy is devastating. Dozens of Moroi and dhampir are dead and Dimitri has been turned into a Strigoi - a cold, vicious, bloodthirsty vampire who has lost touch with his soul. Rose drops out and heads off to Russia to track him down, intending to free him by putting a stake through his heart. She leaves behind a hurt and betrayed Lissa and an almost too understanding Adrian, who provides her with money on the promise that she will give him a chance when - if - she gets back. A more than generous trade, if you ask me.<br />
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Blood Promise feels much darker than the first three books, and I'm glad that Mead doesn't take the easy way out by ignoring minor problems. The pressure Rose feels is palpable. It would be enough that the love of her life was turned into a soulless monster and that she's in SIBERIA with no friends and too many enemies. It would be enough that she still struggles with the darkness that surrounds her and seeps into her from Lissa and that it takes tremendous mental effort to hold the ghosts at bay. It would be enough that she still struggles with her vampire bite addiction.<br />
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But it would not be realistic. And even with all that, the high school angst of St. Vlad's still manages to trickle through to her through her bond with Lissa. She <span style="background-color: white;">is anxious about Lissa who's anxious about Rose and fighting with Christian who's jealous of Adrian who's interested in new bad girl Avery who's corrupting Lissa and making Rose, underneath her heavy burdens, feel replaced. There is teenage angst on an epic level really befitting YA, and I loved every second of it.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />The ending was heartbreaking and chilling, even if it wasn't that shocking. For some reason, throughout Rose's haze-induced stay with newly-Strigoi Dimitri, I simply couldn't believe that Mead would turn him without a loophole. That there wouldn't be a way to change him back as hinted at the end, or that he would somehow turn out to still have his humanity despite turning. I think I watch too much Vampire Diaries (and yes, I know the tv show came out after). But even though the plot twist was fairly predictable, it still left me grinning, and I can't WAIT to see where Mead takes this! </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br />As far as Teams go, I'm actually on the fence right now. Since I'm already on book 4, I should probably make a decision soon. Probably a little more Team Dimitri at the moment, but that's because there hasn't really been that much meaningful interaction between Rose and Adrian. I'm sure things change, though! Are you Team Dimitri or Team Adrian? </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">And because this is Summer School, I'm </span><a href="http://www.thefakesteph.com/2012/07/st-vladimirs-summer-school-week-four.html" style="background-color: white;">following Steph's lead</a><span style="background-color: white;"> and imparting some words of wisdom:</span><br />
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<b>What I learned:</b> When you're in a foreign country, never assume no one understands you because you will end up being lectured by an old Russian gypsy woman as you try to discreetly leave the house she has opened to you. It will be slightly awkward because you plan on driving a stake through her grandson's heart.<br />
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<b>What I also learned: </b>There is no greater love than between a boy and his cowboy books. It transcends living/undead barriers that romantic love will not.<br />
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<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-46149206163491807402012-07-24T05:44:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:42:48.682+01:00List Review: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<b style="background-color: white;">Released: </b><span style="background-color: white;">16 August 2007</span><b><br />Publisher:</b><span style="background-color: white;"> Razorbill </span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/345627.Vampire_Academy">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Vampire-Academy-Signature-Edition-Novel/dp/1595143580/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343100326&sr=8-1&keywords=vampire+academy">Amazon</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Vampire-Academy-Richelle-Meade/9786071104564">The Book Depository</a></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br />Summary (Goodreads):</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br />St. Vladimir’s Academy isn’t just any boarding school—it’s a hidden place where vampires are educated in the ways of magic and half-human teens train to protect them. Rose Hathaway is a Dhampir, a bodyguard for her best friend Lissa, a Moroi Vampire Princess. They’ve been on the run, but now they’re being dragged back to St. Vladimir’s—the very place where they’re most in danger...</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br />Rose and Lissa become enmeshed in forbidden romance, the Academy’s ruthless social scene, and unspeakable nighttime rituals. But they must be careful lest the Strigoi—the world’s fiercest and most dangerous vampires—make Lissa one of them forever.</span></div>
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Richelle Mead's VAMPIRE ACADEMY is a great reminder to never judge books by their cover...or their genre. I would pass by these books in the bookstore and was always put off by the cheesy title, even as the series rapidly gained in popularity. I'm so glad to say that I was dead wrong. VAMPIRE ACADEMY is a fast-paced read that is fun and creepy in equal measure, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Here are a few reasons why.<br />
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<b>VAMPIRE LORE:</b> I don't know how much of Mead's vampire lore is based on real folklore and how much she has created herself, but it certainly felt fresh and was a welcome change. There are Moroi, blood-drinkers who cannot go into the sun and who live under the shadow of twelve royal Moroi families. There are dhampirs, including the protagonist Rose herself, who are the offspring of vampires and humans, giving them supernatural strength and senses while being otherwise quite ordinary.<br />
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The dhampirs and Moroi have a peaceful, mutually beneficial relationship: dhampirs become guardians of the Moroi because they need Moroi to continue their species. On the fringes of society are the Strigoi, Moroi vampires who have 'turned' or been turned and must feed on Moroi blood to survive. Mead does a great job of making the reader understand the tension between the three species and how this has trickled into the high school politics of St. Vladimir's academy, where Moroi and dhampirs are trained.<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><br /><b>A DASH OF MYSTERY: </b></span><span style="background-color: white;">I love a good mystery, and this novel had several. Rose and Lissa (her best friend and Moroi royal), are on the run before they're caught and dragged back to St. Vladimir's. Why did they run from the safety of St. Vladimir's when Strigoi are on the loose and Lissa is the last of her line? Why is Lissa being terrorized now that they're back? Mead wraps up these mysteries neatly and in a way that contributes rather than regresses the characters' development.</span><br />
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<b>A SPUNKY, MULTI-LAYERED PROTAGONIST: </b>Rose is flippant, cocky, and aggressive. She is a heroine I think would easily be labelled as 'strong' - a good fighter who is confident in her skills and her looks. But I too often find that authors make the mistake of equating 'strong' protagonists with physical strength. All the skill in the world won't make for a protagonist that lacks in complexity and humanity, and Mead really delivers. For all of Rose's recklessness, she is utterly serious about her role as Lissa's guardian and shows unwavering loyalty to her friends. <br />
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<b>A TRULY FORBIDDEN ROMANCE: </b>I'm a sucker for forbidden anything. And not just "you're vampire and I'm human and it can never be", because that's not good enough for me. There's an awkward age gap between Rose and her crush, Dmitri, but what works so well is the fact that they are both guardians. I won't expand any further because of spoilers, but when there is real, painful choice to be made between characters; when choosing romance conflicts with something else they want desperately or know must be done, <i>that's</i> when I yearn for them to be together and feel that ache. The odds must feel insurmountable, and in VAMPIRE ACADEMY, they really do.<br />
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I loved VAMPIRE ACADEMY and will definitely be continuing the series. If I were to criticize something it would be the writing, which I found awkward and unpolished at times, but it definitely didn't detract from my enjoyment of the story, and here's hoping it gets better as the series continues. If you're like me and have been holding out, give this a chance! This is the perfect summer beach read.<br />
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<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-80220036796849433642012-07-22T16:51:00.003+01:002012-07-24T06:07:25.154+01:00Liebster Blog Award!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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Okay, I feel awful because I was actually awarded the <b>Liebster Blog Award </b>when I first started my blog by the wonderful <b>Sydney</b> from <a href="http://writingwordsaboutwords.blogspot.com/">Words About Words</a>, but somehow got caught up in work and completely forgot to share! Luckily, I was just tagged again by the awesome <b>Grad Student </b>from <a href="http://yafictionandwhiskeysours.blogspot.sg/2012/07/liebster-love.html">Young Adult Fiction & Whiskey Sours</a> and it reminded me. Thank you both! This award is for new bloggers with less than 200 followers.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">"<span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">Award winners share 11 facts about themselves, answer the 11 questions asked by the blogger who tagged them, come up with 11 of their own questions and tag 11 more bloggers with the award." (Description from YA Fiction & Whiskey Sours)</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">I tried finding the originator of the <b>Liebster Blog Award</b> to link back but it's a total dead end. I have no idea where it came from, which is actually sort of cool, so if anyone knows do let me know.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px;">My questions, my facts and my nominees after the break!</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>1. Do you ever skip to the end of a book? </b></span></div>
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Never! I'm strongly against skipping (though I definitely tend to skim a few pages ahead) because I don't like spoilers! Especially when it comes to big events like a character's death. It totally ruins the emotional impact for me. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>2. What is the book you are most proud of having read?</b></span></div>
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All of the Lord of the Rings books, because they're so long. I read every single ballad and battle.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>3. What is the book you are most embarrassed of having read?</b></span></div>
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Probably The Clique by Lisi Harrison. But to be honest, I'm never that embarrassed of having read something because I always try to give books a chance, especially if they're considered stupid/embarrassing! I won't make fun of something if I haven't tried it.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>4. Where is your favorite spot to relax?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">My bed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>5. What is your favorite movie?</b></span></div>
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I don't have a favorite, but I love The Lord of the Rings, Stand By Me, Pride and Prejudice (Keira Knightley version), Cube, The Breakfast Club, The Phantom of the Opera, West Side Story, 3:10 to Yuma, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Mean Girls, Bourne movies, Remember the Titans, Memento, LOL (french one), My Girl, The Usual Suspects, Atonement, Amadeus and most Disney/Pixar movies. Oh, and The Swan Princess. :) </div>
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I'm not very picky. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>6. Team Edward or Team Jacob?</b></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Team Edward. I know Jacob is a lot more down-to-earth and behaves in more socially acceptable ways (relatively. don't know if trespassing/stalking beats imprinting on toddlers), but I was never a big fan.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>7. If you could name a pet after a character in a book, who would it be?</b></span></div>
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Pantalaimon from the His Dark Materials trilogy. </div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>8. What was the last book that kept you up way too late reading?</b></span></div>
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Finnikin of the Rock by Melina Marchetta, a few nights ago! Still can't get over how good it was.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>9. Do you have any books signed by the author?</b></span></div>
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Yes I do! Both by authors who came to my school. I have <b>The Book Thief</b> signed by Markus Zusak, who is actually hilarious and writes the longest autographs! He even drew a stick figure! I also have <b>Stormbreaker</b> signed by Anthony Horowitz, who was pretty eccentric but a really nice guy. </div>
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I also have a copy of <b>Mortal Engines</b> by Philip Reeve that I bought at a second-hand bookstore in Camden Market in London that turned out to be signed! Who knows if it's real though, because it was written in pencil, haha. </div>
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I can't wait to go to more book signings in London! They always seem to conflict with my schedule though.</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>10. How did you decide on what to call your blog?</b></span></div>
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(Regurgitated from my About Me) I'd love to say that I was a huge fan of owls (or heads), but I'm really not. I have a weird sense of humor and I thought 'The Headless Owl' was just dark enough for my tastes while still being sort of cute. If you can't tell, the owl in my header <i>is</i> in fact headless and holding his own head. </div>
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Owls are also commonly associated with books/learning, so I thought it worked out!</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>11. Do you follow any blogs religiously that AREN'T about books?</b></span></div>
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My sis <b>Kylie</b> from <a href="http://acloudhouse.blogspot.com/">A Cloud House</a> is a photographer who takes amazing photos and writes wonderful, lyrical entries! She also takes amazing levitation photos. Aside from her blog, I occasionally frequent Mormon Mommy blogs! They're so addictive, even though at 19 I can't really relate. <a href="http://taza-and-husband.blogspot.sg/">Rockstar Diaries</a> is a great example.</div>
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<b><u>11 Facts about Me:</u></b></div>
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<li>My favorite food is eggs.</li>
<li>I don't like it when people wear socks in my bed or shoes in the house.</li>
<li>I've lived in 4 countries and 6 cities.</li>
<li>I'm a fast typer! I can type more than 100 wpm.</li>
<li>I'm also a pretty fast reader. </li>
<li>When I was about 3 I would watch The Jungle Book on repeat for hours. Now I can't stand it.</li>
<li>I am notorious for annoying people when I lend them books. You know in movies when the kids are in the backseat and won't stop asking the parents when they'll get there? That's me, except with books, checking to see if you've finished yet.</li>
<li>When I was 12 I read <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9844.Prep">Prep</a> by Curtis Sittenfeld and was so scandalized by some of the content that I ripped out the offending pages and threw them away in a public trash can so that my parents wouldn't see. </li>
<li>My least favorite book is <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/337058.Jacob_Have_I_Loved">Jacob Have I Loved</a> by Katherine Paterson.</li>
<li>I have a bad habit of swinging my arm too much when I walk.</li>
<li>A big part of the reason why I started blogging has to do with my experience at The Hunger Games European premiere in March. Might do a post on it one day.</li>
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<b><u>My questions to my nominees:</u></b></div>
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<li>If you could meet any <b>living</b> author, who would you choose and why?</li>
<li>Why Young Adult?</li>
<li>What is your favorite bookstore or library and why?</li>
<li>Rank the last 5 books you read from most enjoyed to least enjoyed.</li>
<li>What books made you love reading?</li>
<li>Why and when did you start blogging?</li>
<li>If you could go anywhere in the world right now, where would you go and what book would you take?</li>
<li>Describe your dream book.</li>
<li>What's your favorite book cover(s)?</li>
<li>What is your favorite food?</li>
<li>Are you a city person or a country person?</li>
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<b><u>Passing the award on to:</u></b></div>
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<ol>
<li>Jen @ <a href="http://dreamreads.blogspot.com/">Dream Reads</a></li>
<li>Aa'Ishah @ <a href="http://readingunderthestars.blogspot.com/">Reading Under the Stars</a></li>
<li>Kim @ <a href="http://adutchieonbooks.blogspot.com/">A Dutchie on Books</a></li>
<li>Zoe @ <a href="http://weavingthetales.blogspot.com/">Weaving the Tales</a></li>
<li>Lexie @ <a href="http://lexiereads.blogspot.com/">LexieReads</a></li>
<li>Nisha @ <a href="http://midnight-reader28.blogspot.com/">Midnight Reader</a></li>
<li>Teresa @ <a href="http://readerslive1000lives.blogspot.com/">Readers Live a Thousand Lives</a></li>
<li>Christine @ <a href="http://heartisinthewriteplace.blogspot.com/">Heart is in the Write Place</a></li>
<li>Lauren @ <a href="http://losetimereading.blogspot.com/">Lose Time Reading</a></li>
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Thanks for the tag, Sydney and Grad Student! This past month has been amazing! I've loved getting to know other bloggers, including the ones mentioned above. I think I may have missed some other eligible blogs I follow so let me know if there's anyone else you think should be nominated! Have a great week everyone!</div>
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<br /></div>The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-68994828828844745782012-07-21T09:54:00.000+01:002012-07-24T06:08:34.193+01:00Stacking the Shelves (3)<link href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Dosis:500" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"></link>
<b>Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by <a href="http://tyngasreviews.com/">Tynga's Reviews</a> where we share the books we've bought, borrowed, received or downloaded each week!</b><br />
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(Links go to Goodreads)<br />
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<span style="color: #bf9000; font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Bought:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY96uVqX5oee8x7EIQ44SCv-EgwplhHFKN-n6RcGN8YTcHNT83M1vLODzq9fwNeABvg2tIaOedowY_78Hb9uX70C93l2S5rHdD1eYuaw81eSytq2OESeiY45a8iPJW02HZIgDI3dUX8nE/s1600/IMG_2806.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhY96uVqX5oee8x7EIQ44SCv-EgwplhHFKN-n6RcGN8YTcHNT83M1vLODzq9fwNeABvg2tIaOedowY_78Hb9uX70C93l2S5rHdD1eYuaw81eSytq2OESeiY45a8iPJW02HZIgDI3dUX8nE/s320/IMG_2806.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9307674-the-last-guardian">Artemis Fowl and The Last Guardian</a> - Eoin Colfer (My <a href="http://theheadlessowl.blogspot.sg/2012/07/review-last-guardian-by-eoin-colfer.html">review</a>)</span><br />
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<span style="color: #bf9000; font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;">Borrowed:</span><br />
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Went to the library again and got these lovely books:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiff5nSKigHg-B_gS6xIHSKs8C1TN1lRA860tUCOJGJcx0hbR_KN4zu2m45_TahrQ6WsWTwskPQM41_XLtlagMX2h6XHoYwrCVLumUPFm0BVl6xKcGIH4NAP1_PreH1kvurHh-xM9kASM/s1600/sts+3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjiff5nSKigHg-B_gS6xIHSKs8C1TN1lRA860tUCOJGJcx0hbR_KN4zu2m45_TahrQ6WsWTwskPQM41_XLtlagMX2h6XHoYwrCVLumUPFm0BVl6xKcGIH4NAP1_PreH1kvurHh-xM9kASM/s400/sts+3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #bf9000; font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13458013-a-confusion-of-princes">A Confusion of Princes</a> - Garth Nix</span><br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/7417780-the-piper-s-son">The Piper's Son</a> - Melina Marchetta<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/345627.Vampire_Academy">Vampire Academy</a> - Richelle Mead<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11737266-amelia-anne-is-dead-and-gone">Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone</a> - Kat Rosenfield<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8105542-invincible-summer">Invincible Summer</a> - Hannah Moskowitz<br />
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Have been wanting to read all of these! Haven't decided what I'll read first out of my library books but I have yet to read the Vampire Academy series and tons of people have recommended it to me, so I might start with that! Any suggestions?<br />
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Link me to your STS because I'd love to see what you got!<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com38tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-3175875251503876062012-07-20T13:18:00.002+01:002012-08-13T16:44:48.496+01:00Review: The Assassin and the Empire (novella #4) by Sarah J. Maas<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Rating: </b>5/5 owl heads, if that's worth anything to you<br />
<b>Release date:</b> 20 July 2012<br />
<b>Publisher:</b> Bloomsbury USA Children's<br />
<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13565676-the-assassin-and-the-empire">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Assassin-Empire-ebook/dp/B008HRMAPG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1343544503&sr=8-1&keywords=the+assassin+and+the+empire">Amazon</a><br />
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Summary<b> </b>(taken from Goodreads):<br />
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Celaena Sardothien is the assassin with everything: a place to call her own, the love of handsome Sam, and, best of all, freedom. Yet, she won’t be truly free until she is far away from her old master, Arobynn Hamel; Celaena must take one last daring assignment that will liberate her forever. But having it all, means you have a lot to lose . . .<br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">Oh gosh. I really loved this, as I did the previous three novellas, but in an angry, bitter sort of way. That ending! I sort of felt like I'd been sucker punched. What's worse is that somewhere between </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13415554-the-assassin-and-the-pirate-lord" style="background-color: white;">The Assassin and the Pirate Lord</a><span style="background-color: white;"> and </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13419891-the-assassin-and-the-desert" style="background-color: white;">The Assassin and the Desert</a><span style="background-color: white;"> I REALIZED with horror that this was going to happen but tried to push it out of my mind.</span><br />
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Let me explain:
The Assassin and the Empire is the fourth and last novella released in anticipation of Sarah J Maas' upcoming YA fantasy debut, Throne of Glass. The novellas cover the events leading up to the start of the novel. If you've read anything about it, you probably know that the main character, Celaena Sardothien, has been serving out a prison sentence in the salt mines of Endovier when the book starts .<br />
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Because we already have some information about where the characters end up, it becomes quite obvious that certain things need to happen in the novellas to get the characters to that place. If you've read the novellas and the ToG summary, it's pretty easy to connect the dots. However, though I predicted some of the events in this novella, I didn't know how everything would go down and was desperately hoping that somehow some of them wouldn't.<br />
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They did. Quite horrifically. I'm being pretty vague and uninformative to avoid spoiling anything, but let's just say I'll have a hard time switching loyalties when Throne of Glass releases. This whole mini-series has been like watching a train-wreck in slow motion. I didn't know it was coming till book 2 or 3, but once I did, I had to continue.<br />
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Despite my frustration with what happened, I understand it. If I step back and look at the big picture - at character development, and the quality of the story - it's clear how much it helps. I can see Celaena's development over the course of the novellas and understand how she could transfrom from the girl in Pirate Lord - arrogant, reckless and full of possibility - into the cold and hardened prisoner she's described as in TOG. I find myself warily anticipating what Celaena will do in the novel now that I have seen some of what she has been through. She's endeared herself to me, and the book hasn't even come out yet. I believe this was Maas' intention, and in this sense she's done an amazing job.<br />
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There's a big, twisty unresolved thread in the novella. I don't know whether the novel will expand on it, but here's hoping it's addressed. Another entertaining, fast-paced novella that left me angry but more excited than ever for Throne of Glass' release. Why, Sarah?!
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<b>Side note: </b>Throne of Glass was <a href="http://theheadlessowl.blogspot.sg/2012/06/waiting-on-wednesday.html">my first Waiting on Wednesday</a>, almost exactly a month ago! So weird to think that it's been a month.<br />
<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-79814626827722935412012-07-18T02:04:00.001+01:002012-08-13T16:49:10.558+01:00Waiting on Wednesday (5)<link href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Dosis:500" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"></link><br />
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Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at <a href="http://breakingthespine.blogspot.com/">Breaking the Spine</a> where we showcase some of our hotly anticipated releases!<br />
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<img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjBVHNXGobHJKWxOR3cL-xEQ5SlE6sYuSXwyL6G9sJfEMYEv8T7VfeTFkGy3lzHh8njSy_bVlYl6YKrNeHZC5s2jmMoFUGkzm8py5BAC2QC8pN3lmFwdPkAl31m0Y9Wp48bjZqO7GoCWQU/s1600/New+WoW.JPG" /></div>
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I have two WoWs this week! (Summaries and covers taken from Goodreads)<br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Dosis, sans-serif;"><br /><span style="font-size: 35px;">MAGISTERIUM by JEFF HIRSCH</span></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Release date: </b><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">1 October 2012</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Publisher: </b>Scholastic Press</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13492517-magisterium">Goodreads</a></span><br />
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<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333720205l/13492517.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: left;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1333720205l/13492517.jpg" width="208" /></a>On one side of the Rift is a technological paradise without famine or want. On the other side is a mystery.<br />
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Sixteen-year-old Glenn Morgan has lived next to the Rift her entire life and has no idea of what might be on the other side of it. Glenn's only friend, Kevin, insists the fence holds back a world of monsters and witchcraft, but magic isn't for Glenn. She has enough problems with reality: Glenn's mother disappeared when she was six, and soon after, she lost her scientist father to his all-consuming work on the mysterious Project.<br />
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Glenn buries herself in her studies and dreams about the day she can escape. But when her father's work leads to his arrest, he gives Glenn a simple metal bracelet that will send Glenn and Kevin on the run---with only one place to go.</div>
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LOVE this cover + promises of monsters/witchcraft + hopefully some cool technology vs. magic contrasts. Can't wait to read this!<br />
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<span style="font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: 35px;">EDEN by HELEN DOUGLAS</span><br />
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<b>Release date:</b> 2013</div>
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<b>Publisher:</b> Bloomsbury</div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12275873-eden">Goodreads</a></div>
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<tr><td bgcolor="#eeeeee"><span style="text-align: left;"><b>2012</b> – A star-gazing teenager discovers the planet Eden, only visible from Earth every 700 years. </span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><b>2053</b> – The first colonists inhabit this second world. </span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><b>2085 </b>– Life on Earth is decimated by an alien parasite brought from Eden.</span><br />
<span style="text-align: left;"><b>2012.</b> Cornwall. Eden Anfield loves puzzles, so when mysterious new boy Ryan Westland shows up at her school, she’s hooked. On the face of it, he’s a typical American teenager. So why doesn’t he recognize pizza? And how come he hasn't heard of Hitler? What puzzles Eden the most, however, is the interest he’s taking in her.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: left;">As Eden falls in love with Ryan, she begins to uncover his secrets. Her breakthrough comes one rainy afternoon when she stumbles across a book in Ryan’s library – a biography of Connor Penrose, her oldest friend, written over 50 years in the future. </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: left;">Confronting Ryan, she discovers that he is a boy from the future whose mission is to prevent Connor from discovering a planet he names Eden, in honour of the girl he loves. A planet with a deadly virus that is destined to destroy the earth in a hundred
years time.</span><br />
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<span style="text-align: left;">Is it really possible to change the future?</span></td></tr>
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Absolutely freaked when I saw this on Goodreads! Planet colonies + time travel + race against time + potential for tragic romance = pretty darn close to my dream novel. Helen Douglas also graduated from my university! A definite MUST READ for me. </div>
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The ominous '2013' - no month, no date - is depressing, but fingers crossed this will be released sooner rather than later. Can't wait to see the cover! </div>
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That's it for me this week! What are you waiting on? Link me because I'd love to see.<br />
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<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com24tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-67069843030055606412012-07-16T14:40:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:51:09.524+01:00Review: The Last Guardian by Eoin Colfer<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1342050450l/15747348.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="background-color: white; clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"></span></a><br />
<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1342050450l/15747348.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1342050450l/15747348.jpg" width="200" /></a><span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Rating:</b> 3/5</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Release date: </b>10 July 2012</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Publisher: </b>Puffin</span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/15747348-the-last-guardian">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Artemis-Fowl-The-Last-Guardian/dp/1423161610/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342444538&sr=8-1&keywords=the+last+guardian">Amazon</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Artemis-Fowl-Last-Guardian-Eoin-Colfer/9780141344331">The Book Depository</a></span><br />
<b><span style="font-family: inherit;">Summary (taken from Goodreads):</span></b><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Seemingly nothing in this world daunts the young criminal mastermind Artemis Fowl. In the fairy world, however, there is a small thing that has gotten under his skin on more than one occasion: Opal Koboi. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">In The Last Guardian, the evil pixie is wreaking havoc yet again. This time his arch rival has somehow reanimated dead fairy warriors who were buried in the grounds of Fowl Manor. Their spirits have possessed Artemis’s little brothers, making his siblings even more annoying than usual. The warriors don’t seem to realize that the battle they were fighting when they died—a battle against Artemis—is long over. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">Artemis has until sunrise to get the spirits to vacate his brothers and go back into the earth where they belong. Can he count on a certain LEPrecon fairy to join him in what could well be his last stand?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">New York Times best-selling author and comic genius Eoin Colfer will leave Artemis Fowl fans gasping up to the very end of this thrilling finale to the blockbuster series.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">While I am a big Artemis Fowl fan, the last Artemis book I truly loved was <a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/114954.The_Opal_Deception">The Opal Deception</a> (#4), as they seem to be getting progressively worse. Of course, after almost a decade of following Artemis and the gang on their adventures, there was no way I was going to stop now.</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">I found the first half rather boring and hard to get into. The emergency - and it's the biggest, most disastrous one yet - didn't alarm me at all. It somehow just lacked the spark of Colfer's earlier novels, and I was pretty disappointed. To be fair, the second half was much more gripping, and I was surprised to find myself getting quite emotional at the end, but that was due to my affection for the series as a whole, not The Last Guardian itself.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">This just fell flat for me, like books 5-7 did. I think that after so many books, the formula is getting a little old: Mulch's flatulence saving the day, jabs at Artemis' physical weakness, Foaly's paranoia, etc. While I love these characters, nothing new is really brought to the table here aside from pretty concrete proof of Artemis' soft side, which was already clearly established in the previous novels. Opal Koboi is once again the villain, and while she was a lot of fun the first two or three times around, I'm beginning to tire of her as well. Basically, the plot felt pretty stale. The plot twists, and Artemis' ingenious plans to deal with them, were also probably the least interesting/brilliant yet, with the exception of the one at the very end.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">Because this is book 8, at this point there is probably little my review can do to influence your book-reading decision. Either you've followed the series till now and will most likely feel obliged/excited to read the final installment as I did, or you haven't read them (or stopped earlier on) and won't get to this for a while. If the former, I still advise you to read it - you may like it more than I did, and as the final book it definitely deserves to be read. If the latter, I really suggest you read the first four! Though at that point you will in all likelihood want to read the rest out of sheer curiosity, and will find yourself in my exact position. All in all, the magic of the first few books is still worth it.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;">All in all, this was a bittersweet end to a wonderful series that probably should have ended a few books ago. Will always love Artemis Fowl and Eoin Colfer, and I'm really looking forward to reading his next series. </span>The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-25386918710912229872012-07-14T15:38:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:52:16.381+01:00Review: Wonder by R.J. Palacio<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<a href="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309285027l/11387515.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1309285027l/11387515.jpg" width="209" /></a><b>Rating: </b>5/5<br />
<b>Released:</b> 14 February 2012<br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><b>Publisher:</b> Random House Children's Books</span><span style="background-color: white;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11387515-wonder">Goodreads</a> | <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-R-J-Palacio/dp/0375869026/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1342101378&sr=8-1&keywords=wonder+r+j+palacio">Amazon</a> | <a href="http://www.bookdepository.com/Wonder-Palacio/9780370332291">The Book Depository</a></span><span style="background-color: white;"><b><br />Summary (Taken from Goodreads):</b></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br /><i>I won't describe what I look like. Whatever you're thinking, it's probably worse.</i></span><i><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br />August (Auggie) Pullman was born with a facial deformity that prevented him from going to a mainstream school—until now. He's about to start 5th grade at Beecher Prep, and if you've ever been the new kid then you know how hard that can be. The thing is Auggie's just an ordinary kid, with an extraordinary face. But can he convince his new classmates that he's just like them, despite appearances?</span><span style="background-color: white;"><br /><br />R. J. Palacio has written a spare, warm, uplifting story that will have readers laughing one minute and wiping away tears the next. With wonderfully realistic family interactions (flawed, but loving), lively school scenes, and short chapters, Wonder is accessible to readers of all levels.</span></i></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Curiously enough, when I did a quick survey on my relatives who fall within WONDER's targeted audience</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"> (this is technically a Middle Grade novel), none were interested in reading this. At all. Based on a glimpse of the cover and my enthusiastic pitch. I was pretty surprised, and after some awkward probing received a lot of mumbled responses: "It sounds too serious" "I'm not in the mood for that kind of thing" "I don't like 'inspirational' books"...</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><br /><br />Air quotes were used. Gazes were averted. But after a bit of pondering, I kind of understood what they were getting at; the reason behind this reluctance: people generally don't like being preached at, no matter how true or important the message. Kids, who are preached at all the time, </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">would</i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"> be naturally reluctant when approached with a book about a boy with physical deformities, especially when my main selling point is, "But it has such a great message!" </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><br /><br />Thinking back, this was a reservation I had as well. In the back of my mind I was wary of being emotionally manipulated, and I am delighted to say that Palacio does none of this. In fact, the clarity required from a children's book ensures that whatever issues are put forward are dealt with in a refreshingly blunt manner, free of exhausting metaphors or tear-jerking monologues.</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><br /><br />I loved every page. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">I was surprised by how much of a page-turner this turned out to be. WONDER is as absorbing and hard to put down as the most fast-paced thriller - one that makes you cry and laugh in equal measure. Because I loved it so much, I am also kind of at a loss for what to say in this review. There's not much to be said apart from READ IT. A couple of questions, though, if you really want more from me:</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><br /><br />Are you... a fan of flawed, hilarious, realistic characters? </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Auggie is often wise beyond his years, seeing right through the politically correct intentions of those around him. At other times he is as young and carefree as his classmates; messing around and laughing good-naturedly at his own appearance. But he is always, always human, as are all the characters - like Via, his sister, whose point of view surprised and shamed me a little, because I had barely considered the sacrifices she makes on a daily basis to support her little brother. Like Jack, one of Auggie's new friends, who is struggling to withstand tremendous peer pressure and, like most kids his age, does not always have the courage to do so. </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><br /><br />Are you... a fan of good writing? If you aren't, then don't ever read this, because Palacio's writing is emotional and hilarious without being condescending, and this book has so many insightful feel-good quotes and bits of dialogue that she could start her own line of greeting cards and I would buy them.</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"><br /><br />Are you... a fan of multiple points of view, done well?? With the exception of perhaps one minor character (Justin), each point of view added so much insight into... what, exactly? </span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">After a bit of contemplation, it is clear that Wonder is a look not just at Auggie, but at his family, friends, neighbors, teachers: everyone he has touched. It is also clear that while his is an extreme condition, Palacio has written a stunning book about </span><i style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">difference </i><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">of all kinds</span><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">, and how people deal (or perhaps don't deal) with it.</span><br />
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WONDER is definitely a must-read for anyone with a beating heart, and in case you were wondering, I eventually managed to force some of my younger relatives to read this. Despite their initial reservations, they loved it too. :)</div>
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The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com8tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-57972285111265636792012-07-11T07:38:00.000+01:002012-07-12T14:49:50.071+01:00Beginner Blog Experiments: Headers + Icons<link href="http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Dosis:500" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"></link>
<span style="background-color: white;"><b>Have you ever wondered how to make clickable headers or your own social networking icons?<br /></b></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I am quickly approaching my one month blogoversary and have really enjoyed exploring the blogging community and messing with blog design, and as you may have noticed, I just changed my blog header!<br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">I am not a web designer, graphic designer, professional writer, or anything that would lend my blog professional credibility, but I know how to google, and I know how to read. :) In other words:<br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;"><b>This is not a tutorial. </b>This is a list of resources containing other bloggers' tutorials that I followed and merged! </span><span style="background-color: white;">While brushing up on my pathetic HTML/CSS skills, I found it difficult to find straightforward tutorials that taught you how to make clickable headers, so I've decided to share the ones I found that worked.<br /></span><br />
<span style="background-color: white;">If you're a new blogger like me with nonexistent web skills looking for an easy way to make basic changes to your blog, these ones work great:<br /></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: left;">Social Networking Icons:</span><br />
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If you want clickable social media icons in your header, make the icons first. If you're linking already-made images or to other websites, skip to 'Clickable Headers'.<br />
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I followed <b>Something Swanky's</b> tutorial, <a href="http://www.somethingswanky.com/2012/05/how-to-create-your-own-social-media.html">"How to Create Your Own Social Media Icons using Picmonkey"</a>. Thank you!<br /><br /><span style="background-color: white;">While she links you to a great set of vector images to use for your icons, she isn't a book blogger and the set does not include a Goodreads icon. </span><b style="background-color: white;">Alex Peattie,</b><span style="background-color: white;"> a web designer,</span><span style="background-color: white;"> </span><a href="http://www.alexpeattie.com/projects/justvector_icons/" style="background-color: white;">has a set that does</a><span style="background-color: white;"> (scroll to the bottom). Follow her instructions using his icons instead.<br /></span><span style="background-color: white;"><br />Once you've created your icons with </span><a href="http://www.picmonkey.com/" style="background-color: white;">Picmonkey</a><span style="background-color: white;">, add them to your header image in Photoshop! I don't have Photoshop, so I used Microsoft Paint, which is pretty crude but worked just fine. I literally just dragged the icons into place.<br /><br />Adjust the header size to the desired width in Paint using the Resize button. </span><b style="background-color: white;">How do you know what width to make it? </b><span style="background-color: white;">Go to </span><b style="background-color: white;">Templates</b><span style="background-color: white;"> > </span><b style="background-color: white;">Customize</b><span style="background-color: white;"> > </span><b style="background-color: white;">Advanced</b><span style="background-color: white;"> > </span><b style="background-color: white;">Adjust widths</b><span style="background-color: white;"> in Blogger to check the width of your blog and adjust accordingly. Mine is around 900 x 350 px. You'll be left with a single, unclickable image:</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjIyH9Dc32YtxhsmohRIQUMG2XKs0DKM38RZ7NlzmpED_ivAyr6GSRDPEahxTay0CnTOTRmpmJ2fyrxYiaYJDG_56TrFK4UadLNl_DOc5WuDU1-0-f4-Cc3EpGibnTrOlImtrSqNwu7Y/s1600/HEADER+9.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWjIyH9Dc32YtxhsmohRIQUMG2XKs0DKM38RZ7NlzmpED_ivAyr6GSRDPEahxTay0CnTOTRmpmJ2fyrxYiaYJDG_56TrFK4UadLNl_DOc5WuDU1-0-f4-Cc3EpGibnTrOlImtrSqNwu7Y/s320/HEADER+9.png" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: Dosis, sans-serif; font-size: x-large; text-align: -webkit-auto;">Clickable Headers: </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;">Once you've made your header on Photoshop or other similar programs, host your header on an image-hosting site like <a href="http://photobucket.com/">Photobucket</a>.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">A quick google search led me to </span><a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/ABCORP11" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Arnold Byun</a><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">, a youtuber/student entrepreneur who does a pretty straightforward video tutorial:</span></div>
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<center><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/cp_8_Wr6lcg" width="560"></iframe></center><center><br /></center><center style="text-align: left;">Follow his instructions and map your image using <a href="http://www.image-maps.com/">Image-Maps</a>! Make sure you upload your image using the Photobucket link or similar photo-hosting site, because Image-Maps doesn't host photos and the photo will eventually disappear. This site will allow you to link different parts of your header to different sites or applications like Facebook, Twitter, Goodreads, etc.<br /><span style="background-color: white;"><br />Once you've watched how he does it and clicked 'Get Code' at the end, do the following to add the new header to your blog:</span></center><center style="text-align: left;"><ol>
<li><b>Backup your blog.</b></li>
<li>Go to <b>Blogger</b> > <b>Layout</b></li>
<li>Click '<b>Add Gadget</b>'</li>
<li>Add an <b>HTML/Javascript </b>gadget. </li>
<li><b>Paste the code</b> you got from Image-Maps. </li>
<li><b>Drag the HTML/Javascript gadget box</b> to where you want your header to be (presumably at the top of the page). </li>
<li><b>Remove </b>your old header. </li>
<li><b>Check</b> your blog and links to make sure they work.<br /></li>
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<span style="background-color: white;">And there you have it! This is the method that worked for me, so I hope this help!</span><br />
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</center>The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com21tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-79217960667065722852012-07-07T09:44:00.000+01:002012-07-10T08:39:02.696+01:00Stacking the Shelves (2)<b>Stacking The Shelves is a meme hosted by <a href="http://www.tyngasreviews.com/">Tynga's Reviews</a> where we share the books we've acquired or borrowed to our shelves each week!</b><br />
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First, I've been posting less than usual because I'm out of town on a family vacation and a bit behind on my reviews, but will get on that as soon as possible! Second, I'm not a weekly Stacking the Shelves participant because I tend to get books in bulk and not on a weekly basis, but I got an awesome haul this week!<br />
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<span style="color: #bf9000; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-large;">Received:</span></div>
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Penguin's Fall 2012 Breathless Reads slipcase, which I got from one of Jessica Khoury's giveaways. Thank you! Inside:</div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/9999795-venom">Venom</a> by Fiona Paul</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12954620-falling-kingdoms">Falling Kingdoms</a> by Morgan Rhodes</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12568505-black-city">Black City</a> by Elizabeth Richards</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13513071-the-innocents">The Innocents</a> by Lili Peloquin</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13455112-origin">Origin</a> by Jessica Khoury</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><br />So far I've read Origin, Venom and Black City, and I loved them all in different ways! Origin in particular completely surprised me (in a good way), and was probably the most serious of the three. But they each definitely bring something different to the table. I'm excited to see how Falling Kingdoms and The Innocents stack up!</span></div>
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Brought my little cousin to the library today and picked these three up! </div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4932435-finnikin-of-the-rock">Finnikin of the Rock</a> by Melina Marchetta</div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/11387515-wonder">Wonder</a> by R.J. Palacio</div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8159643-fury">Fury</a> by Shirley Marr</div>
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I am a huge Melina Marchetta fan (who isn't??) and started Finnikin of the Rock a while back and then got caught up with work and never finished, so I'm excited to finally read it! I've heard amazing things about both Wonder and Fury as well! </div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b>What books did you get this week? Link me because I'd love to see! </b></span></div>
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<br />The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com32tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3022656783661137366.post-60252376228471874372012-07-03T15:40:00.000+01:002012-08-13T16:59:55.974+01:00Waiting on Wednesday (4)<br />
Waiting on Wednesday is a meme hosted by Jill at <a href="http://breakingthespine.blogspot.com/">Breaking the Spine</a>, where we showcase some of our hotly anticipated releases!<br />
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I have three WoWs this week that look amazing: (All information taken from Goodreads)<br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>STUNG by BETHANY WIGGINS</b></span><br />
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<b style="background-color: white;"><b style="background-color: white;">Release date:</b><span style="background-color: white;"> 2 April 2013</span></b></div>
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<b style="background-color: white;">Publisher:</b><span style="background-color: white;"> Walker Childrens</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13517444-stung" style="background-color: white;">Goodreads</a></div>
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<tr><td bgcolor="#ffff99"><span style="text-align: left;">Government attempts to save endangered bees by genetic modification causes their sting to induce deadly, flu-like symptoms in humans. A vaccine created in response changes children into ferocious, killer beasts. The uninfected have built a wall to keep the beasts out, & a girl has awakened on the wrong side.</span></td></tr>
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While the premise doesn't sound too different from the many deadly plague<span style="background-color: white;"> novels out there, what gets me excited are the bugs! Everyone hates bugs! They're somehow scarier and seem more likely to evolve into monsters than, say, vampires. This + no mention of a love interest thus far + mystery as to how/why the girl has awakened so suddenly has me interested!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>17 AND GONE by NOVA REN SUMA</b></span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Release date: </b><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">21 March 2013</span></div>
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<b style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Publisher:</b><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"> Dutton Juvenile</span></div>
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<a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13132403-17-gone" style="background-color: white;">Goodreads</a></div>
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<tr><td bgcolor="#ffff99"><span style="text-align: left;">Seventeen-year-old Lauren is having visions of girls who have gone missing. And all these girls have just one thing in common -they are 17 and gone without a trace. As Lauren struggles to shake these waking nightmares, impossible questions demand urgent answers: Why are the girls speaking to Lauren? How can she help them? And . . . is she next? As Lauren searches for clues, everything begins to unravel, and when a brush with death lands her in the hospital, a shocking truth emerges, changing everything.</span></td></tr>
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<span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">I haven't read </span><a href="http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/8603765-imaginary-girls" style="background-color: white; text-align: left;">Imaginary Girls</a><span style="background-color: white; text-align: left;"> yet but I've heard amazing things, and this has such an eerie cover and blurb that I'm really excited for it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: x-large;"><b>ALL THE RAGE by COURTNEY SUMMERS</b></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><b style="font-family: inherit;">Release date:</b></span><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"> 2013</span></div>
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<tr><td bgcolor="#ffff99"><span style="text-align: left;">A 17-year-old girl’s attempt to blackmail her rich classmates results in her waking up on a dirt road with no money, no memory of how she got there and a semi-erased message she left for herself the only clue as to why. When she tries to piece together the evening before and all the events leading up to it, a dark and sinister game is revealed. Likened to Brick and Veronica Mars.</span></td></tr>
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Courtney Summers! Still coming off a <a href="http://theheadlessowl.blogspot.sg/2012/06/review-this-is-not-test-by-courtney.html">This is Not a Test</a> high, I was delighted to see this on Goodreads! Love that all her books seem so different in genre/plot, and this sounds so wonderfully dark and scandalous. I LOVED <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0393109/">Brick</a> (starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0412253/">Veronica Mars</a> is a favorite of mine, so I'll definitely be buying this one when it comes out.</div>
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In other (just released) news, the cover of J.K. Rowling's upcoming book has finally been revealed!! (Image via <a href="http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/industry-news/publisher-news/article/52861-j-k-rowling-s-the-casual-vacancy-cover-reveal.html">Publishers Weekly</a>) Thoughts?? I don't love it - while the cover wouldn't really catch my eye in a store, the 'J.K. Rowling' at the top certainly would, so perhaps simple is best in this case! Excited to see what the tick/cross means.<br />
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There you have it! What are you waiting on this Wednesday? I'd love to see, so please link me!</div>
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The Headless Owlhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04650359534385266880noreply@blogger.com9