"Waiting on" Wednesday

"Waiting on" Wednesday is hosted at Breaking the Spine and spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating. Even though it's a weekly event, I post my entries biweekly.

This week we have:

1. "Throne of Glass" by Sarah J. Maas
2. "Onyx" by Jennifer L. Armentrout

Teaser Tuesday

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

To participate you:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) * Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 My teasers:

“Samantha Reed.” I settle my hand into his, automatically polite, despite the bizarre circumstances.
“A very princess-y name,” he answers approvingly, turning his head to smile at me

~ p.30 "My Life Next Door" by Huntley Fitzpatrick

It's All Relative

Original Title: It's All Relative 
Author: S. C. Stephens 
Release Date: November 13th 2010 
Add it: Goodreads
Download it: Feedbooks

The club was packed, the music was loud, and the alcohol was flowing. Jessie couldn’t keep her eyes off of the exotic man drinking by himself across the room. Kai couldn’t keep his gaze from the buxom brunette laughing with her friends at the bar. Fate pulled them together, giving them a night that neither one would soon forget. But then, you know what they say about fate. While their one night of bliss was perfect, neither Jessie nor Kai could have imagined what would be in store for them the next time they met, when fate again crossed their paths. As they both soon discovered, sometimes life places obstacles in the way that are insurmountable...even for soul mates.

I like S. C. Stephens' Thoughtless series and I thought I should give some of her other books a try. I did. I liked it. Well.. I sort of liked it at first, it was sweet and intriguing, but towards the ending I got really tired of this whole theme. I mean.. Kai was great, Jessie was a bit overwhelming at times, April was funny etc, but I guess it wasn't the characters I didn't enjoy. Or maybe they were. I don't know. Kai's and Jessie's true situation was known to the readers, so we know what's going on while they're clueless and it's hard to read it while you want them to know the truth so badly. I wanted them to know so this torture could end and they could go on with their lives, but I guess that wouldn't make much of a book, would it?

Yeah, my biggest issue was that they didn't know the truth and all those forbidden things did not seem so forbidden to me. Also, I thought it was odd that they were drunk as hell, but afterwards they both described it as the best night of their lives. Well, at least in this specific department. I thought they weren't that aware of the things happening that night in Kai's apartment and I found it hilarious that the whole one-night stand grew into this amazing once-in-a-lifetime-love kind of thing.

Anyway, I think I would have given it 3 stars, because the beginning was great, but I didn't due to the second half which was just blah. Finished it only to be finished with it. Thoughtless and Effortless were much better reads.

What's great is that for now S. C. Stephens has provided this book as a free download on feedbooks. It's a light read and definitely suitable for hopless romantics. I liked it, I just didn't think it was as amazing as some of her other books.

Rating: 2/5.

Beautiful Creatures

Original Title: Beautiful Creatures (Caster Chronicles #1)
Author: Margareth Stohl, Kami Garcia
Release Date: December 1st 2009
Publisher: Brown Books for Young Readers
Add it: Goodreads
Buy it: Amazon | Book Depository

There were no suprises in Gatlin County.

We were pretty much the epicenter of the middle of nowhere.

At least, that's what I thought.

Turns out, I couldn't have been more wrong. There was a curse.

There was a girl.

And in the end, there was a grave.

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she's struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgwown gardens, murky swamps and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town's oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no suprises, one secret could change everything.

I’ve heard about this series before and seen the cover about a thousand times, but never dared to pick it up. I just looked some webpages of Estonian publications to see what books are translated to my native language. I discovered that “Fallen“ has now been translated and to my suprise the first and the second book of the Caster Chronicles series have been translated into Estonian, too. So I borrowed them from a library and decided to give this series a try.

I thought that “Beautiful Creatures“ was translated pretty well. I even found new words I had to look up from an Estonian dictionary because I had never heard of them before. I liked the overall concept, however, I do believe that this book should have ended earlier because it got tiresome at the end.

The other thing that bothered me was that Ethan, the main character, was a bit naive and he got into trouble because he didn’t really take advice from Amma, his mother figure, or Macon, Lena’s (Ethans girlfriends’) uncle. It felt like Amma and Macon were keeping a secret, but you could easily see that they were doing this in order to keep their families safe. Ethan was just too reckles in my opinion. He put everone at risk and acted without thinking.

I think there wasn’t anything else I wasn’t that sattisfied with. I liked Link. A lot. He was hilarious and fun! I liked Amma and Macon. I think I even liked Riley – she caused a big havoc everytime she was in the picture. Heh, I got to say “I told you so! “ to myself (and to this book): I figured out what’s going on like 150 pages before Ethan. I did not predict the whole thing, but I predicted the outcome and the main idea. I found the ending very sad.

Do I recommend this book? Yes, I think you should read it if you’re into male POV, mystery (well, it’s definitely not anything like Hercule Poirot, Sherlock Holmes or Mikael Blomkvist from the Millenium series, but it’s still mysterious.. At least some of it is..), fantasy, young adult literature and a bit of humour (there isn’t much of it, but it made me laugh a few times, yes). If you don’t like any of those things or you do not wish to read about a reckless teenage boy with paranormal romance problems or about a small town with narrow-minded people, it’s definitely not for you.

Rating: 3/5.

Excerpts:

“You're so full of crap, you could pass for a toilet.”

 “The right thing and the easy thing are never the same.”
 “Three can keep a secret if two of them are dead”
 “So you are a vampire."

"I most certainly am not." He looked annoyed. "That's such a common phrase, such a cliche, and so unflattering. I suppose you believe in werewolves and aliens too. I blame television.”
 “Teenagers. Everything is so apocalyptic.”

Reading order:

1. "Beautiful Creatures"
2. "Beautiful Darkness"
3. "Dream Dark" (a novella)
4. "Beautiful Chaos"
5. "Beautiful Redemption"

Teaser Tuesday

This is a weekly bookish meme hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading.

To participate you:

• Grab your current read
• Open to a random page
• Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
• BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS!
• (Make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) * Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 My teasers:

Since one died and the other one left, Amma kept cooking and baking and stacking, as if she could cook her sadness away. We both knew she couldn't.

~ p.22. "Beautiful Darknesss" by Kami Garcia & Margaret Stohl.