Stacking the Shelves #22

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by TYNGA'S REVIEWS that features the books we bought, borrowed, were gifted, and were given for review.

Top Shelf

Sisters Red by Jackson Pierce

Sweetly by Jackson Pierce

(I picked up Sisters Red at a thrift store along with the books on the bottom shelf. I read it last year and wasn't too thrilled by it but I thought it was good. My library doesn't have Sweetly so I thought I wasn't going to get to finish the series but then I saw it in Big Lots for $3 just 2 days after finding Sisters Red. $3 is a pretty good price for a brand new hardcover book, even if it is one of those books that most people wouldn't bother with. I have a sister that would love this series to death, though.)

Bottom Shelf

Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson

Sammy Keyes and the Hollywood Mummy by Wendelin Van Draanen

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

Master and Commander by Patrick O'Brian

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I ordered some books from bookoutlet a few days ago so look forward to that haul! It was my first time ever buying books on the internet. I can see it becoming a 'thing' because the closest bookstore to me is over an hour's drive away. So disappointing but thankfully I'm blessed with thrift stores! 

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Have you read any of these books?
What did you add to your shelves this week? 

Friday Finds #20

Friday Finds is a blog meme hosted over at Should Be Reading that highlights the books you found and added to your To Be Read list, whether you found them online or in a bookstore and etc. They are not necessarily books that you purchased!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I'm not a big fan or supporter of the day and I'd much rather my fiancé buy me a plant (with roots!) than flowers that are going to die in less than a week. I'm really hoping for a book this year, though, to be honest.

Here are some romantic (or erotic) novels that I have added to my to-read list recently.
Disclaimer: I really don't read many romance books unless it's historical and I'm in the mood for something a little more emotional than adventurous, which is rare. I am so very fond of adventure stories.

The Secret of Ella and Micha by Jessica Sorensen

The Coincidence of Callie and Cayden by Jessica Sorensen

The Redemption of Callie and Cayden by Jessica Sorensen

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Have you read any of these? Would you recommend them to someone who doesn't read romance or erotica very often? Is there another 'love story' that you would recommend? I'd love to know. I plan on reading out of my comfort zone more this year. 

Book Review: The Spindlers by Lauren Oliver

Title: The Spindlers

Author: Lauren Oliver

Publisher: Harper Collins

Publication Date: September 13, 2012

Genre: Middle Grade, Fantasy

Length: 246 pages

Format: Hardcover

Source: Borrowed

Goodreads | Amazon 

SYNOPSIS:

Evocative of Alice in Wonderland, this novel from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Oliver is a bewitching story about the reaches of loyalty and the enduring power of hope.

Looking across the breakfast table one morning, twelve-year-old Liza feels dread wash over her. Although her younger brother, Patrick, appears the same, Liza knows that he is actually quite different. She is certain that the spindlers—evil, spiderlike beings—came during the night and stole his soul. And Liza is also certain that she is the only one who can rescue him.

Armed with little more than her wits and a huge talking rat for a guide, Liza descends into the dark and ominous underground to save Patrick's soul. Her quest is far from easy: she must brave tree-snakes, the Court of Stones, and shape-shifting scawgs before facing her greatest challenge in the spindlers' lair, where more than just Patrick's soul is at stake.

MY THOUGHTS:

At first, I thought this was going to be another story with fairies, brownies, and more importantly, changelings, but I was wrong. The main character, Liza, is positive her brother's soul has been stolen by the Spindlers because he just isn't acting the same. This very much made me think he was a 'changeling' at first so when Liza 'falls' into the world 'Below', I thought it was definitely going to be some fairy world with the sidhe and whatnot. Instead, we are introduced to a whole slew of interesting new characters and creatures ranging from talking animals to talking dreams.

Liza goes off on this unfortunate adventure to 'Below' to save her brother's soul from the Spindlers, which are described as spiders with human hands at the end of all 8 spindly legs. She is shown the way and helped by a talking rat called Mirabella, whom she detests at first but by the end of the story, they are very good friends. I thought the moral to the story would fall more along the lines of family but all I got out of it was that you shouldn't judge a book by it's cover. I'm sure a lot of you book lovers would agree with me when I say that that is a great moral to include in any book.

Overall, I thought it was very adventurous, something I look for and love in any book. I would recommend to any child that can handle the idea of giant spiders that steal children's souls and any adult looking for a fun light read. 

My Rating:

3.5 stars

What I'm Reading Wednesday #1

Currently Reading

Rotters by Daniel Kraus

SYNOPSIS:

Grave-robbing. What kind of monster would do such a thing? It's true that Leonardo da Vinci did it, Shakespeare wrote about it, and the resurrection men of nineteenth-century Scotland practically made it an art. But none of this matters to Joey Crouch, a sixteen-year-old straight-A student living in Chicago with his single mom. For the most part, Joey's life is about playing the trumpet and avoiding the daily humiliations of high school.    
Everything changes when Joey's mother dies in a tragic accident and he is sent to rural Iowa to live with the father he has never known, a strange, solitary man with unimaginable secrets. At first, Joey's father wants nothing to do with him, but once father and son come to terms with each other, Joey's life takes a turn both macabre and exhilarating.
Daniel Kraus's masterful plotting and unforgettable characters makeRotters a moving, terrifying, and unconventional epic about fathers and sons, complex family ties, taboos, and the ever-present specter of mortality.

What I'm Reading Next

The Companions by R.A. Salvatore

SYNOPSIS:

This latest installment in New York Times best-selling author R.A. Salvatore's beloved fantasy saga, The Companions moves Salvatore's signature hero Drizzt into a new era of the Forgotten Realms. As Drizzt's fate hangs in the balance, he reflects on the lives of the trusted allies who stood by his side throughout his early life--the friends now known as the Companions of the Hall. Meanwhile, the first stirrings of the Sundering begin.

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I have one other library book to finish and then I will be reading solely from my own shelves for a while since I have so many unread books. I'm going to spend March reading a lot of classics and children's books that I own but I won't be able to avoid the library for long because I have a few books to read before their movie adaptations come out such as The Maze Runner.
I wanted to avoid starting new series this year but I guess that isn't going to happen! :)

Stacking the Shelves #21

Stacking the Shelves is a weekly meme hosted by TYNGA'S REVIEWS that features the books we bought, borrowed, were gifted, and were given for review.

Top Shelf

(left to right)

Midnight Whipsers by V.C. Andrews
Twilight's Child by V.C. Andrews

Dawn V.C. Andrews
(These aren't in order and one of the books in this series wasn't there, but I loved the Dollanger and Casteel Family series when I was a teen. It's about time I read something else by her soon.)

Obsidian Ridge by Jess Lebow
(This is a Forgotten Realms fantasy novel and so far, I've only been interested in R.A. Salvatore's books but this one has a pretty neat cover and I thought it wouldn't hurt to pick up until I got home and realized it's the second book in the series. I really need a phone with a Goodreads app to take with me on my thrift store trips.)

The Sign of the Beaver by Elizabeth George Speare
(from the author of 'The Witch of Blackbird Pond'. This book is about a boy surviving in a Maine wilderness that is rescued by an Indian chief. I've always been very interested in Native American culture.)

The Yearling by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings(I've read this book before and loved it. It's about a boy who raises a baby deer (a yearling). It's set in my home state of Florida. I haven't been to the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings State Park yet, but I plan to in the future.)

Annie, Between the States by L.M. Elliott(This is a historical fiction set during the Civil War.)

Bottom Shelf

(top to bottom)

Father Bear Comes Home by Else Holmelund Minarik(Illustrated by Maurice Sendak. This is a story of Little Bear of whom I loved to read about and watch on tv when I was a little girl. I picked this one up for my neice.)

Diary by Chuck Palahniuk(I'm slowly building up a collection of his books!)

Shiloh Season by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor

Summer Sisters by Judy Blume

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Have you read any of these books?
What did you add to your shelves this week? 

Friday Finds #19

Friday Finds is a blog meme hosted over at Should Be Reading that highlights the books you found and added to your To Be Read list, whether you found them online or in a bookstore and etc. They are not necessarily books that you purchased!

Here are the books I'm showcasing for this week!

Cruel Beauty by Rosamund Hodge

(Becca over at Be Awesome, Be A Book Nut raved about this book a couple of weeks ago. It's a retelling of Beauty and the Beast)

Moonrise Kingdom by Wes Anderson

(I'm not sure if this was a book before the movie or if it's a book made for the movie, but either way, I will try to read it before I watch the film)

Roverandom by J.R.R. Tolkien

(This is one of those books that I am amazed to not have heard of before. I came across it on one of Sanne's (BooksandQuills) videos on youtube and now I can't rest until I own it!)

Book Review: Hollow City by Ransom Riggs

Title: Hollow City

Author: Ransom Riggs

Series: Miss Peregrine's #2
Publisher: Quirk Books

Publication Date: January 14, 2014

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Paranormal

Length: 396 pages

Format: hardcover

Source: Borrowed

Goodreads | Amazon | B&N

SYNOPSIS:

The extraordinary journey that began in Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children continues as Jacob Portman and his newfound friends journey to London the peculiar capital of the world. But in this war-torn city, hideous surprises lurk around every corner. Like its predecessor, this second novel in the Peculiar Children series blends thrilling fantasy with never-before-published vintage photography to create a one-of-a-kind reacting experience.

MY THOUGHTS:
Sometimes I feel as if it is easier to write a review about a book that I don't particularly love than it is to write one about a book that I never wanted to put down. I sometimes need to stew over my thoughts for a while with books that I love. Perhaps it is different for other readers but I feel as if I wrote my review right away I would gush over it and probably include a lot more spoilers.  Hollow City was a book that I loved. Perhaps not as much as the first book and then again, a little more than the first book.  How can I love it more and less than the first? I will attempt to explain. I sometimes find that the first book in a trilogy or series is always the best, for it is our first encounter with the story and it sticks with us more than the sequels.  The first book, Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children, really drew me in with Jacob's encounter with 'hollows', his excursion to a remote island off the coast of Wales to find his grandfather's childhood orphanage, and his trip through Miss Peregrine's 'time loop'. We were introduced to all the peculiar children which was very exciting and seeing photos of those characters really helped build my visualization of them. I just really loved the semi-creepy, macabre feeling that the black and white photos gave to the overall story.

Hollow City was not a sequel to disappoint. I did not find it lacking or dull and instead found it to be more adventurous with much more plot than the first. I came to know the peculiar children much more than I did in the first book and was introduced to quite a few new peculiar characters. Instead of one time loop, we are introduced to several new ones and we learn more about this hidden world that the peculiars live in all while going on a treacherous trip across Great Britain to save Miss Peregrine. The photos did seem a little more forced (and possibly photo-manipulated) this time around but I'm glad they were included (especially the 'emu-raffe' because otherwise I would never have been able to picture it). At times it seemed as if the author had shaped the story around the photos and I wondered how things would have happened if he had not found a particular photo for the story. Would it have been the same?
Overall, I thought it was a great continuation of the first book and I can't wait to read the 3rd book. I just hope we don't have to wait as long for it! 


My Rating:
5 STARS