I read a lot, but I don’t always have the opportunity to post my reviews here on my site. Sometimes I just get too busy and sometimes I can’t formulate a review if my life depended on it. What I can do though is post my random thoughts on what I’m reading so I thought I would create this little space to let you know what I’m currently reading. Please feel free to post in the comments what you’re currently reading too – but please no spoilers without them being clearly marked.
April 13, 2013
Last night I stayed up until 2 am finishing The Light Between Oceans. This book started a bit slow for me, but I devoured the entire last half in one sitting (hence the 2am bedtime). It made me do the ugly cry with tears streaming down my face at the end. This book was written beautifully and told a story that was so complex and heart wrenching that by the end you had no opinions on how you wanted it to turn out, you just had to watch the story naturally unfold. Earlier this week I downloaded Hopeless by Colleen Hoover. I previously had read her book series Slammed and Point of Return and I needed something on my Kobo to read at the gym so I started Hopeless. I loved this book. I couldn’t put it down and finished it in 2 sittings. I love a book that grabs me from the beginning and doesn’t let me go and this book did that. If you like YA with a strong adult component you will love this book. Reviews of both will be coming this week.
April 3, 2013
Whoa, I haven’t updated this in a long time! Sorry about that. OK so quick post today. After reading The Firebird, which I absolutely loved, I started reading The Mortal Instruments series by Cassandra Clare. Honestly I know I gush about this series a lot, but I fell in love with it! There are 5 books so far with the 6th due out in 2014 and a movie based on the first book – City of Bones – due in August. I devoured these books. If you like YA paranormal style books this series is definitely a must read. After reading the series I then read a book called Golden Boy by Abigail Tarttelin that was sent to me by Simon and Schuster. It’s about a teenager named Max Walker who has a big secret – he’s intersex (a hermaphrodite). Max’s secret has never really bothered him until something so traumatic happens that it throws Max’s entire life into turmoil. This was also a really great book and I recommend it. After that I read a new YA book called ‘Dualed’ by Elsie Chapman which is kind of reminscent of The Hunger Games. It’s a dystopian YA book where twins are required to fight each other to the death in an odd ‘survival of the fittest’ sort of situation. It was a good, quick, easy read too. I am now reading Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman and I’ve just started it but have heard great things. So, that’s what I’m reading right now. As usual please feel free to send any reco’s or comments to me in the comment section.
February 19, 2012
OK, so I finished The Firebird and I absolutely loved it! I couldn’t get enough and I highly suggest picking it up in April when it becomes available. It’s really that good. I will be posting a full review of it soon. While I was reading The Firebird I had also started The Mortal Instruments series, with City of Bones being the first book. Well, I’m now on the 4th book and I am completely freaking obsessed with this series. It’s so good!!! I honestly can’t put these books down. It’s true, that while I might be 40 in real people years I still feel like I’m in high school most of the time, and maybe that’s why I’m always so drawn to these books, but I absolutely cannot put it down. It’s about a young girl named Clary who discovers that her life isn’t what she thought it was, and she isn’t who she thought she was. Clary is thrust into a world filled with demons, vampires, werewolves, faeries, warlocks and Shadowhunters. Of course there’s an unbelievably cute boy and of course there’s a whole ‘end of the world’ sort of scenario that happens, but I guarantee you if you tend to like the same kind of books as I do, you will love this series! There’s also a movie based on the first book that’s due out the end of August, so make sure you read it before then!
I also finished reading S.E.C.R.E.T – I know a lot of you loved it, but I didn’t. I found it formulaic and not nearly ‘erotic’ enough. Honestly – if you can’t even write dirty words I don’t know how you can call it erotica. I had a conversation with my friend about it after and said that if you write a book that’s supposed to be erotica and there’s not one ‘c*ck’ in the entire book, it’s not that erotic. That’s not to say that I didn’t like it because I did, I just think that the author missed the boat on really exploring the genre.
January 29, 2013
Well clearly I suck at updating this page! OK, so I finished Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and I want to tell you I loved it because it was such an interesting premise and all the reviews I’ve read so far are so wonderful, but I didn’t love it. I liked it, and there was one moment where I found it unputdown-able – but by the end I just wanted it done. Life After Life is one of those books that sometimes makes me feel like I’m just not smart enough to read it. It took place during the 2nd World War in London and because it focuses on the main character living her life over and over until she could get it right, it jumped around a lot. I had a hard time following it in some instances because of that. But I also found it to be a bit bleak. I did like it and I’m happy I read it, but it wasn’t as amazing as I thought it would be.
Simon and Schuster Canada recently sent me Susanna Kearsley’s new book The Firebird that will be available in April, and so far I am loving it! This book has captivated me from the beginning. It’s about a young museum curator named Nicola who meets a woman who is looking to have an old family heirloom, a carving of a Firebird, appraised. With no way of telling the history of the carving the woman is sent home disappointed. But, Nicola really wants to help the woman so she decides to use her psychic powers that she otherwise has tried to suppress, to help. Nicola then enlists the help of former flame and fellow psychic Rob to help her discover the origin of the Firebird. Nicola and Rob basically travel back in time (not literally – they’re just able to see the past) so we not only are treated to Rob and Nicola’s story but we also get to follow the story of Anna, the young girl who eventually becomes the owner of The Firebird. So far I haven’t been able to put this book down. I take it to the gym so I can read it while I’m sweating on the stairmaster and I think I have to credit it with actually getting me to the gym!
I’m also reading The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones right now. The Firebird is my daytime read and City of Bones is my nighttime read! Again, pretty sure the YA fantasy/paranormal/dystopian era genre is my fave thing to read so I’m quite enjoying it. As I’ve posted before the movie version of this book will be coming out in August so I was eager to read the book before the movie came out. So far I’m liking the book – it’s a typical YA book but right up my alley.
December 28, 2012
I’m giving up! I hate doing this, I really do, but I have been reading Safe Haven for over a month now and I just can’t seem to care enough to pick it up at night. There are books that I love so much that I will stay awake until 3 in the morning reading because I can’t bring myself to put them down, but this one is just so predictable I can’t be bothered. So I’m putting it down and moving on. Random House Canada just recently sent me 2 books that I can’t wait to read so I am shelving the boring Nicholas Sparks love story and picking up some erotica! One of the books that Random House sent me is called S.E.C.R.E.T by L. Marie Adeline and claims to be a smartly written erotic novel. I just started last night and so far so good, so I will keep you posted. The second book I have is called Life After Life by Kate Atkinson and it sounds amazing! I can’t wait to start it and I will definitely keep you posted once I do! So for now I have to say good bye to Safe Haven ( I promise I’ll try to pick it up again). Do you ever abandon books? I hate to do it but this time I have to!
November 23, 2012
I started reading Safe Haven by Nicholas Sparks after I finished Point of Retreat. It’s ok so far, but since I’ve already seen the trailer for the movie starring Josh Duhamel and Julianne Hough I can’t get their faces out of my mind when I read the book, and sadly they aren’t really what I would picture. Well, at least she isn’t. Josh Duhamel can star in my head anytime he wants to. I’ve only read one other Nicholas Sparks book and that was The Lucky One, and it was ok for me but nothing fantastic. Basically I’m reading this until I can figure out what I really want to read next, so if you have any fabulous suggestions please let me know!
November 20, 2012
Last night I finished Point of Retreat by Colleen Hoover. Point of Retreat is the sequel to Slammed, which if you read this page often you will know that I absolutely loved. I think it’s fair to say that I loved Point of Retreat just as much. This story begins a few months after Slammed leaves off and tells the story from Will’s point of view, where Slammed was told from Lake’s point of view. I won’t lie, I found this a bit confusing in the beginning as my natural tendency was to assume that it was Lake who was narrating, but I got over that pretty quickly. I loved this book up until the end where I kind of felt cheated. Without giving anything away I will say that it ended in a way I didn’t really love, but I’m sure most readers will. I think there could have been a satisfying ending with room for another book that will continue to tell the story of these characters without having the book end the way it did. I just felt that it was all too soon. I did love the book and the characters and hope that Colleen Hoover writes more.
November 4, 2012
Yay for quiet weekends! By that I mean that I was able to finish Wild Girls this morning and I have to admit, I was oddly surprised by how much I liked this book. I would describe it as a Young Adult paranormal-ish style book, which, if you know me, is right up my alley. What I like the most about it though was the author’s ability to really craft her character development. Thinking back to the last book that was a young adult paranormal-ish book that I just finished – Swoon – I found I knew – and cared – so much more about the main character in Wild Girls than I ever did about the main character in Swoon. I’ll be posting my full review this week but I did enjoy the book a lot.
I’ve read a lot of YA books lately, and I really love YA books, but I’m kinda happy that my next book is a departure from that. I’m not gonna lie, I do enjoy some erotica now and then! Penguin Canada just sent me Reflected in You by Sylvia Day, which is the sequel to Bared to You. I really enjoyed Bared to You so I’m looking forward to reading, but I did read another of Day’s books this summer and I was really disappointed and I can’t quite get that out of my head. I have a feeling it won’t take me long to get through Reflected so hopefully I’ll have 2 book reviews up for you this week.
November 2, 21012
Simon and Schuster Canada sent me this book, Wild Girls – a debut novel by Mary Stewart Atwell last week and I have been a bad reviewer. I have been really tired this week so I haven’t been able to read as much as I have wanted because I can’t keep my eyes open at night, but from the little I have read so far I really like the book. I will give you the Goodreads synopsis again;
Kate Riordan fears two things as she grows up in the small Appalachian town of Swan River: that she’ll be a frustrated townie forever or that she’ll turn into one of the mysterious and terrifying wild girls, killers who start fires and menace the community. Struggling to better her chances of escaping, Kate attends the posh Swan River Academy and finds herself divided between her hometown—and its dark history—and the realm of privilege and achievement at the Academy. Explosive friendships with Mason, a boy from the wrong side of town, and Willow, a wealthy and popular queen bee from school, are slowly pulling her apart. Kate must decide who she is and where she belongs before she wakes up with cinders at her fingertips.
This book does sound right up my alley and hopefully this weekend I will be able to put a good dent in it and let you know more my thoughts. I’ll try to update over the weekend to let you know what I think because Wild Girls just came out in print. I still have Reflected in You and Point of Retreat sitting on my bedside table waiting for me to read so I have a feeling I will have my head in a book most of the weekend!
November 2, 2012
One day I was perusing the shelves at the bookstore and came found myself at the under $15 table. Swoon by Nina Malkin caught my eye and decided to pick it up because it was only $5.99 and I needed a book to read. Swoon is described by Goodreads as;
Sin is coming… Prepare to Swoon.Torn from her native New York City and dumped in the land of cookie-cutter preps, Candice is resigned to accept her posh, dull fate. Nothing ever happens in Swoon, Connecticut…until Dice’s perfect, privileged cousin Penelope nearly dies in a fall from an old tree, and her spirit intertwines with that of a ghost. His name? Sinclair Youngblood Powers. His mission? Revenge. And while Pen is oblivious to the possession, Dice is all too aware of Sin. She’s intensely drawn to him—but not at all crazy about the havoc he’s wreaking. Determined to exorcise the demon, Dice accidentally sets Sin loose, gives him flesh, makes him formidable. Now she must destroy an even more potent—and irresistible—adversary, before the whole town succumbs to Sin’s will. Only trouble is, she’s in love with him.
What do you do when the boy of your dreams is too bad to be true?
This book sounded like something I would love but I didn’t love it. I liked this book – but I didn’t love. I liked the beginning and I liked the middle but I was terribly disappointed with the end. The characters seemed a bit underdeveloped as did the plot. I gave Swoon 3 out of 5 stars on Goodreads because I did find that I wanted to keep reading the book, I just wish that the characters and the plot were a little more developed, and I wish that the ending was more thought out.
October 18, 2012
OK so after I finished Rapture I was in need of a new book to read and didn’t know where to look. Fortunately I was walking through my local grocery store which is now basically like a department store and decided to check out their book section. I saw the book SLAMMED by Colleen Hoover and thought it rang a bell. I checked my twitter account ‘favourites’ tab and saw that Simon and Schuster Canada had recommended that book to me a few months ago when we were talking about how much I liked Beautiful Disaster, so I picked it up. And no offense to e-readers (I don’t have one) but when I can pick up a hard copy of a book I will. Every time. Last night I was up until 1am reading and I had to force myself to put it down. The book is about an 18 year old girl named Layken who moves to a new city after the death of her father. She meets neighbour Will and discovers his love of Slam poetry. The two immediately hit it off and Will makes moving to a new city bearable for Layken. The two share an intense first date before they discover a shocking revelation that forces them apart. So far I am loving the story and the characters and I can’t wait to see how they book will end. Hoping to finish it tonight so will have a review coming for you shortly!
October 18, 2012
OK so I’ve just realized that I missed a book, so I will do a quick recap of the book I just finished and then go on to the book I’m currently reading. I finished reading Rapture by J.R. Ward. If you know me in real life you will know that Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood books are one of my all time fave series, and her Fallen Angels series is pretty good too ( not as good as BDB but not bad). Rapture is the 4th novel in the Fallen Angels series and I geeked out so much over it I pre-ordered myself a signed copy:) Which for the record came beautifully wrapped with a sticker of authentication that it was inspected by one of the book’s main characters, which shows how much Ward values her readers. It’s the little things really. Anyway I loved Rapture and I love how Ward is able to intertwine the characters from the BDB series and the FA series. Pay attention and you’ll read some quick references to Lassiter and the Band of Bastards. If you’re a Ward fan you will love Rapture – if you’re not – why not?
October 8th, 2012
So this morning I finished reading Providence by Jamie McGuire. While I was on the flight to Jamaica for my birthday trip I realized that I had only brought one book with me that I finished within the first half hour. My sister loaned me her Kobo (this was my first time using an e-reader too) and I flipped through trying to find a book I wanted to read. Since I really liked Jamie McGuire’s Beautiful Disaster I thought I would give Providence a try. I didn’t realize that the book was a paranormal romance so when I realized that there were archangels and demons involved I was a little confused, but McGuire has a way of creating characters that while I may not completely like them I can’t stop reading about them. I’ve been home from Jamaica for a week and had forgotten about the fact that I had to give my sister back her Kobo before I finished the book, so last night I downloaded the Kobo app and the book so I could finish it, which I did this morning. Reading it on my phone. This is a big deal for me since I really like to read physical books.
All in all Providence was a good read that I had a hard time putting down, and I was happy when it was over to learn that it’s part of a trilogy. The second installment, Requiem was released last year and the third and final book, Eden, was released in May. Needless to say I will be picking up Requiem as soon as I finish reading JR Ward’s Rapture (which I pre-ordered signed by the author because I’m such a JR Ward fan girl).
I will be posting my review of Mindy Kaling’s biography ‘Is Everyone Hanging Out Without Me?’ later today too.
September 4th, 2012
OK so I finished Seven Years to Sin last week and it wasn’t very good. I hate to say that because books are so subjective and what I like might not be what you like but I found it to be very boring and poorly written. The characters were very one dimensional and the story felt rushed. I didn’t even enjoy the erotica parts of this book. It also claims to be the book that inspired Bared to You. I’m not saying that’s not true, I’m just saying I saw absolutely zero common ground between the two books and that maybe that was just a cover for the fact that Bared to You was eerily similar to Fifty Shades of Grey. That’s just my two cents. I’m glad I picked it up for $10 at Costco. Let me know if you’ve read it and if you liked it or not.
August 28th, 2012
I finally finished Shadow of Night by Deborah Harkness, which was book 2 in the All Souls Trilogy. I read A Discovery of Witches earlier this summer, and now unfortunately I have to wait for the third book to be released. I thought the first book was good, but the second book was simply amazing. Without giving too much away Harkness has a knack for creating characters that are so complex yet at the core the story is very simply about two people fighting for the right to be together. I was completely and totally enthralled with Diana and Matthew’s characters that I was so sad when the book ended. I can’t wait to see what happens next. The only negative to the book was that I did find that there were a lot of characters in Shadow of Night that were hard to keep track of, but only once did I have to backtrack to refamiliarize myself with a key component of the book. If you’re looking for a great story and like reading about witches and vampires and daemons, but not the Twilight-y kind, you will love these books.
Since I finished Shadow of Night I started reading Seven Years to Sin by Sylvia Day last night. I’m 4 chapters in and not really taken with it yet, but hoping that it’s leading somewhere good. You know I’ll keep you posted!
August 21, 2012
OK so yesterday I finished off the 3rd Fallen Angel book – Envy by J.R. Ward because she’s my guilty pleasure and whenever I don’t know what to read next I know I’ll love what she has to offer. So I finished that during the day yesterday leaving me needing something new to start last night. I decided to pick of ‘Shadow of Night’ by Deborah Harkness, which is the sequel to ‘A Discovery of Witches’ which I absolutely loved! Unfortunately, like ‘Discover’, ‘Shadow’ isn’t one of those books I can read when I’m tired, because Harkness uses really big words a lot of the time so if I read it when I’m tired I don’t grasp what I’m reading. Last night I was tired so I only read 1 chapter but it was definitely the right choice to pick this book up because I love the main characters so much. I can’t wait to see where this book takes them. ’A Discovery of Witches’ is definitely a great book to read, and if you’re trying and having a hard time stick with it. It took me almost half way in to really get into the story – so make sure you stick it out. I promise you won’t be disapppointed.
August 17, 2012
So I finished The Age of Miracles last night. I like it. A lot. It’s been a while since I read a book that wasn’t about relationship angst or erotica. It was beautifully written and really made me think. I think I would have like more of a conclusion or explanation, but I respect the author’s right to weave the story how they choose. I’m thinking tonight I’ll start on ‘Shadow of Night’ the sequel to ‘A Discovery of Witches’ or ‘Above All Things’. I’ll keep you posted.
August 14, 2012
Two nights ago I picked up The Age of Miracles by Karen Thompson Walker not having any clue what it was about but it was sent to me by Random House Canada so I thought I would give it a try. I was immediately hooked. I’m only about 4 chapters in but it’s slightly reminiscent of Stephen King’s ‘Under the Dome’ and I can’t wait to be able to pick the book up again tonight. Will keep you posted on my thoughts.
In the past few weeks with summer vacation in full swing my reading time has been a bit limited, but I did finish A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness. I loved this book! It took me a bit to get into it and sometimes it was a bit hard to grasp but I absolutely loved the story and can’t wait to start reading the sequel Shadow of Night. Definitely a must read for me.
I also finished up the last book available in J.R. Ward’s Black Dagger Brotherhood series ‘Lover Reborn’. I love these books so much, but this one was just ok for me. I liked it but sometimes I felt like it wasn’t the story I wanted to hear. I am anxiously awaiting the next book, due out in March of 2013 with baited breath though. I can’t wait to read Blay and Qhuinn’s story!
Recent Comments