Joining the 2016 TBR Pile Reading Challenge

I have had a lot of books sitting on my TBR shelf for a while, and physically on my bookshelf that I haven't read yet. I recently discovered the 2016 TBR Pile Reading Challenge at Bookish Lifestyle.  This will be a great way to not only make sure I work on my TBR shelf, but also to make new blogger friends!  I may have a lofty goal, but even if I'm able to knock a few of these off the list I'll be happy.

Having a challenge though, and perhaps bringing more traffic to my blog, will be good motivation to get this done.  I hope some of you will join me in this challenge and link up to it as well!


Here are my goals:

1) Aiming for the "Firm Handshake" level of reading 1-10 books from my TBR shelf.

2) Current list of books I want to read from my TBR Shelf:
  - Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West
  - The Scorpio Races
  - Seraphina
  - Shadow and Bone
  - The Maze Runner
  - Grave Mercy
  - The Raven King (Raven Cycle #4)
  - Dangerous Lies
  - The Trap (The Hunt #3)

Book Review: These Broken Stars

These Broken Stars
by  Amie Kaufman, Meagan Spooner
Date Read:  2/5/16
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★  ★ 

“For a moment the image before us is frozen: our world, our lives, reduced to a handful of broken stars half lost in uncharted space”.

I find that sci-fi novels are generally not my cup of tea.  However, These Broken Stars blew me away!  This is a young adult sci-fi adventure, focusing on survival. The cover initially drew me in, the summary blurb sounded interesting, and once I read my friends reviews on goodreads, I knew I needed to try it out. 

I was hooked within two pages. I fell in love with Tarver at the very beginning and I couldn’t wait to see how his story played out. Lilac took a little more time to warm up to. Once they were on the planet and she started letting go of her past and expectations, I really started getting attached to her.

The book moved really quickly. I was surprised how early the crash actually happened. The description of the two watching the Icarus fall out of the sky was beautiful and horrifying.  This is more of a survival tale with sci-fi woven in.  I have discovered that I really enjoy survival stories – seeing the skills, ingenuity and strength people go through to survive is amazing.

Tarver and Lilac have a rough time getting along at first.  They both have preconceptions and stereotypes they are dealing with. They are also both going through a little PTSD after having crashed landed on a planet, and being the only survivors. Lilac has lost her cousin and her friends, and that is very hard on her.

While they are stranded together for most of the novel, it never got boring and you watched as their relationship transformed from dislike, to friendship, to love. It did not feel rushed and I found myself begging for their first kiss as much as they were.

I was happy to figure out the mystery of the planet along with the characters. It never felt like the characters knew more than I did. Everything was revealed in a decent pace and I was aching to know the whole truth.  As they unravel the horrifying truth surrounding the planet and what caused the Icarus to crash, I felt the same emotions as them.

Most of the loose ends were tied up, though pretty close to the end of the novel. While the ending was satisfying, I wish there was a little more wrap up to the story. I was blown away by the last scene in the book, though I probably should have expected it. I am looking forward to reading more books in this series. It is an interesting concept to have the same bad guy but with different characters. I’m interested to see if they can pull off another stunning story with wonderful new characters.

Book Review: The Sword of Summer

The Sword of Summer
by  Rick Riordan
Date Read:  1/26/16
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Overall I enjoyed this book. It was pretty slow at the beginning and I really didn’t like Magnus at first.  In the beginning I thought he was going to be a carbon copy of Percy…but a few pages in you realize that Magnus is a jaded jerk.  It took quite a while for me to warm up to him, but it does happen – you just have to push through the parts where he’s a jerk.

The story took a LOT of time to build up the world and give you history on the Gods and Norse history. But once they finally got on their quest, the story finally started moving.  The Hotel Valhalla was a lot of fun – I think Riordan does a good job with modernizing his stories. There will be a lot of things in his books that will one day date his books.  My kid’s kids probably won’t understand the Taylor Swift references, and such.

I’m still a bit weirded out about the whole sword thing [SPOILER: It’s really strange to me that it flies and talks. I liked that it was pulled toward it’s destiny so that was something that Magnus had to fight in the end. END SPOILER]

I thought the small battle scene was decent. I liked the way that Magnus handled both situations.  It was satisfying and well done.

I didn’t like part of the ending where we just got an info dump. “He explained this…” “He explained that” “And he explained this”.  UGH.  Did Riordan's editor say he needed to cut pages at the end so that’s what he chose to do??  I also didn’t like the explanation at the end regarding the prophecy.  If it’s not easily understandable by the end of the story, then I don’t think he did a good job explaining it in the story.

The parts with Annabeth are my favorite and I know every single Percy fan is going to be squealing like a school girl at the end where it states Magnus will need Annabeth's help before all is said and done!

There was a lot of loose ends left open but a decent enough wrap up to close the first book.  Obviously we know there is going to be a sequel and I look forward to reading it.

Book Review: Avatar the Last Airbender: Smoke and Shadow Part 2

Smoke and Shadow Part 2
by  Gene Luen Yang (author), Gurihiru (illustrator)
Date Read:  1/4/16
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ 

Wow. That ending. I probably should have been expecting it and yet they still caught me off-guard!

I have actually really enjoyed this series because the story is pretty good.  I like that Aang and Zuko work together. We’re missing most of the other characters, but I’ve always enjoyed the stories that revolve around Zuko. He’s very interesting – especially now that he’s Fire Lord.

This book continues the anti-Zuko movement and the children being stolen.  There is a major revelation in this book. While I saw it coming a mile away, it was still really good. The illustrations and shots are all really good as usual. I felt like Zuko, Aang, and Mai all felt exactly the same as from the TV show. The whole “sweetie” thing still throws me every time he says it, but other than that, the characters felt real and just out of the show.

The big twist at the very end was CRAZY. I can’t believe I have to wait a few months until the final installment in this series is released. UGH.

I hope these graphic novels tell us in the end who ended up with who – Zuko, Mai, Suki, Sokka…

Book Review: Winter

Winter
by  Marissa Meyer
Date Read:  12/23/15
Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★  ★ 

Thank goodness that the string of horrible YA series finales have ended. Thank you, Marissa Meyer. Thank you.  For this reason, even though I will explain one thing about the book I didn’t like, I’m still giving it 5 stars. In all reality, it would be 4.5 stars – but since I can’t give half stars, I definitely have to lean to the 5 star side.

This was an incredibly long book. 824 pages to be exact.  Most of that was because the characters were almost always separated. In order to tell the full story, Meyer had to tell what was going on for each of the characters – which means several chapters were all about the same time period.  I wish that it was a little shorter (so I wouldn’t have had to pay a $0.20 late fee to the library to finish it) but there really weren’t any points looking back that I felt like could have been completely removed.  However, their plans never worked out. While I don’t like stories where their master plans work 100%, I felt that some of it should have gone a little more to plan than it did.

This leads me in to what I didn’t like about this book: everyone was captured or kidnapped at some point in the book.  It was ridiculous. Toward the end, it was actually getting hard to remember who was captured, who was still following the plan, and who was with who.

The only other thing that gave me a bit of a twinge was Cress and Winter’s constant “does he love me?” / “he doesn’t love me” scenes.  Since we as the reader knew their actual feelings, it just got a little overdone I think. In the scenarios that they were facing, I felt like they had more important things to worry about than whether the guy they like likes them back.

Cress is my least favorite character I think…which is disappointing because Rapunzel is one of my favorite princesses.  I just felt she was very annoying with her low self-esteem – while it seems reasonable in her life, I just wish she had gained more self-esteem by the end of the series. I’m glad she did get a little braver though. I loved her techy mind though – I just wish she had a little more a kick-butt attitude like Felicity Smoak (Green Arrow comic and tv show).

Cinder and Scarlet were by far my favorite characters throughout the series and that maintained through to the end.  Cinder had a good transformation in this series. It is actually hard to think back to the very first book where she felt degraded and was trying to save her step-sister’s life.  Scarlet was just a fun character who had such a fun attitude. I also liked their boyfriends. 

Winter was a little hard for me to attach to. While she was sweet, her crazy episodes would get confusing sometimes – but maybe that was the point. She became an interesting character about 25% of the way in to this story, when the Snow White story really took hold.

I thought Marissa Meyer did a great job with this story.  While I enjoyed Scarlet and Cress (Red Riding Hood and Rapuznel), I thought she had done the best job with Cinder (Cinderella).  But now I think it’s a toss up with her Snow White story. The main plot points matched up with the Snow White story so well, but never felt forced. The “huntsman” letting her go was done very well.  And the whole “poison apple” part was just evil. I thought it was genius. 

The best part is the ending.  Once the battle got going, it moved really fast.   I felt the ending was very satisfying. We got a pretty decent amount of wrap up too, which I really appreciated.  But it’s a bit bittersweet, because now the series is over. I’ve fallen in love with Meyer’s characters and world, and now it’s just over. While I will miss those characters, I’m looking forward to what Meyer will write next – and you can be sure I will read it.  This is a must read series, and I will be owning all the books – I haven’t bought a book series in many years – I think since I started the Mortal Instruments Series (and I’ve bought all subsequent books) – so that’s been several years.

Thank you Marissa Meyer.

Movie Review: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens

STAR WARS!!!!  Can you believe there is a new Star Wars movie out? And one that didn’t suck?!  Actually, when Episodes 1-3 were released a long time ago, I actually sort of enjoyed them just because they were updated and episodes released in my lifetime. Though, when I look back at it now that I’m 30, I realize that they are not good. They’re pretty bad actually. JarJar, while funny at the time, is super obnoxious to me now.

But have no fear Star Wars fans!  This movie is amazing!  While the story seemed to follow the same sort of path as episodes 4-6, it was still compelling. I’m hoping it changes in episodes 8 and 9, and that this was more a nostalgic story but takes it’s own turn.

I really liked the acting in it. The girl, Rey (played by actress Daisy Ridley), was amazing. There were times where I thought she looked just like Kiera Knightly. I’ve heard she hates it, but I’d just go with it…at least they’re comparing her to someone who is beautiful!  Her story was good and she held her own.  Going in to this, I’d heard that “mothers need to take their daughters to see this movie”…so I was worried it was going to have some statement about Girl Empowerment.  But if that statement was there, it wasn’t obvious in your face. She was just another person fighting the bad guys and holding her own. I thought it was really well done.

I loved all the other characters too.  I found myself very attached to BB-8, the little droid. It always amazes me how someone can create such a compelling character when it never talks – think WALLE.

Of course there are scenes where our old friends from episodes 4-6 appear!  They’ve all aged, but I think Harrison Ford has probably aged the best out of all of them.   Though their delivery isn’t as good as it once was, the nostalgia forgives that.

There was humor in this – and not the stupid Comic Relief humor of Jar Jar Binks. This was more like XMen and Pirates of the Caribbean – a tense plot where the characters just say funny things or funny situations arise. It was really well done.

There were a couple shock moments. I actually liked that you find out who the bad guy is pretty early on in the movie.  That is a big difference from the original trilogy where you don’t find out until much later.  It gives more to the plot and it makes you go back and forth on whether you feel sympathy for him. I think it was done really well.

The ending left a lot open. Obviously we know it’s going to be a trilogy, but I still wanted more at the end. It still felt a little TOO undone for me.  The end scene connects with something stated earlier in the movie and might lend to what may happen later in the series.

I’m really excited about this and that my daughter will get to grow up seeing Star Wars movies also.  She’ll definitely be old enough to see the finale in the theater which will be really cool for us, and for my brother, her Uncle, who is a die hard Star Wars fan.

Ebates Referral for Cyber Monday

If you haven't heard about Ebates yet, today is your lucky day!  I am a huge proponent of Ebates - you get a percentage of your purchase in cash back just for starting from the Ebates website!  What could be easier?

With Black Friday last week and Cyber Monday today, you can get double cash back at over 500+ stores. Right now, Kohls is offering 10% cash back, Groupon is 10%, Walmart is 5%, JCPenny is 15%, Ebay is 5%, etc. There is always cash back throughout the year at these stores too, so use it for all your online purchases.  The best news? You get ebates even if you buy online and pick up in store!

All you have to do is create your account. There is app if you want to do your shopping from your phone or other mobile device (I got extra cash back at Kohls on Mobile Monday this way). Or you can just go to Ebates and click on the store you want to shop at to activate your cash back. They even have a button you can install to your browser now so you can go directly to Best Buy and it will notify you of the cash back back and all you have to do is click it to activate the cash back - no extra website steps now!  It will also notify you and check against your order for other coupons available from the store. How easy!  I've accumulated $50 cash back just on my Christmas Shopping so far!

So what are you waiting for? Use this referral link to get signed up and start getting cash back on your purchases!  http://www.ebates.com/rf.do?referrerid=yT7KjF8PJ4dT9RUjByPMWg%3D%3D&eeid=28187