Goodreads Monday! #1

Inspired by Lisa’s Book Gems and Tarot I’ve decided to take part in Goodreads Monday! This is hosted by Lauren’s Page Turners and all you need to do is show off a book from your TBR that you’re excited to read!

This is book 2 in the Dust Lands series! I read book 1 quite a long time ago now and I’ve just not had the chance to get around to the rest of the series! Because this is the second book, and I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, I’ll be putting the synopsis of the first book below:

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.

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…

I should probably bump this sequel up my tbr!!

Cruel Crown

This is a novella comprising of two short stories, Queen Song and Steal Scars, from the Red Queen world by Victoria Aveyard. Before I had read this book, it’d been a while since I had been in this world, having read Glass Sword in January 2018 and getting around to this book in January 2019. I had been worried about diving back into this world and becoming confused, and yes, at the very beginning I was a little confused as to who I was reading about and at what point in time within the story I was at, however, this was quickly resolved and I knew what was going on. I also feel like the stories work well even if you don’t fully comprehend how they link to Red Queen as you read them, Victoria Aveyard has done a really good job in making them accessible to readers at any stage within this series.

Now onto the stories themselves, the first story within this collection,  Queen Song, is set well before the events within Red Queen and follows Cal’s mother in her journey to the court and how the world ended up like it did before Mare came crashing in. It’s quite a sad story, as you may be expecting if you remember being told about Cal’s mum in the first book, however, as I didn’t remember it took me off guard and was quite emotional.

The second, and last, story in this collection is Steel Scars, this book focuses on Farley and her rise within the Scarlet Guard. These events are much closer to the time of Red Queen, with the very end of the story overlapping slightly. It was really interesting to me to read about how this organisation works more and to see it from the point of view of someone within this system rather than from Mare’s view, where she doesn’t understand how it works or why.

Both of these stories were really interesting and I feel that they added significant value to the world, they’ve also made me more excited to read book three and continue with the series! I gave it 4/5* as a novella and I really do recommend if you enjoy the main books within the Red Queen series.

My first foray into the Legend trilogy

This was my first Marie Lu book, despite me owning six of her books before starting this one! So there was a lot of weight on this little books shoulders, and it is a small book, Goodreads says that it’s around 300 pages long but I could’ve sworn it was smaller!

I will be honest, the first 100 or so pages of this book weren’t going great. This happens for me with most books of this length or longer but this one, in particular, I was just… not that invested in the world. Thankfully, however, I ended up really enjoying it! This dystopian-esque world is so incredibly interesting to learn about and the development of the characters on either side of the battle.

There was so much depth to this book that I didn’t expect from only 300 pages, and there’s so much more to come from how this book was ended. I’m really looking forward to getting around the rest at some point in time that’s relatively soon, which makes it super annoying that the rest of the trilogy is at my parents’ place!! Hopefully, I can get them back soonish!

Have you read this book or the series? Should I bump the rest up on my tbr?

The Teacher

I picked this thriller up from The Works, I had seen it out and about and when I saw it for such a low price I decided to grab it and give it a go. We follow DS Imogen Grey in a twisting tale of murder, corruption and horrific acts of violence. This isn’t a book for the faint of heart, as it may be a little much.

I found myself at times unconsciously raising my hand to my mouth in shock, which is not something I have ever done before, however, Abbey’s story disturbed me that it was involuntary and at one point I had to actually stop reading momentarily to regain myself before carrying on.

The details which were woven throughout the story are slowly released to the reader, eventually linking all of the seemingly unrelated characters together in the overarching storyline.

There are currently four books out in the DS Imogen Grey series and I definitely want to continue on with these books. I just hope the rest of them live up to this first one which I gave 5/5*!

 

Fractured by Teri Terry

This is the second book in the Slated trilogy by Teri Terry, (check out my review of book one here) which follows a girl named Kyla after she has been through the slating process and has lost her memories.

Yes, this is the middle book in the series, but it definitely doesn’t suffer from middle-book-syndrome! This book not only keeps up the fast pace set by book one but smashed through that and ups the ante yet again, keeping you on the edge of your seat and making the book incredibly difficult to put down.

There is so much character development within this book, as well as introducing new characters and developing them well also. Kyla’s memories are becoming more clear, although still blurry, and she has a great desire to question why she was slated. Who she had been. This is done very well, and feels very realistic and it also feels that it is how a teenage girl would react to this bizarre situation.

I am incredibly invested in the relationships that have been developed throughout these two books, both those that are romantic and platonic, friendly and unfriendly. There is so much thought and attention to detail put into this book and book three can only get bigger and better! I just hope it doesn’t break my heart in the process!

Have you picked up Slated yet? Or any other books by Teri Terry? I’ve only read this series by her but I definitely need to read more from her!

 

Midnight by Derek Landy

I have been reading this series for years now. I first read them by borrowing them from my middle school library, and then my mum got me the first 3 paperbacks (all that was out at the time) for Christmas. Since then I have gotten every single book within a week of its release date and I’ll be honest I’m completely biased and love all of these books. This urban fantasy world has been built so well and I’ve enjoyed the way that Landy has managed to keep the books relevant to his older readers since the series first started and also relevant to the children finding the books today.

In the eleventh book in the series, Val is back and her little sister Alice is in danger. She’s been kidnapped in order to lure Valkyrie into a fight, and she’s running straight for it. We have Omen back in this book again, and I enjoyed his contribution. We don’t need everyone to be a badass! Sometimes it’s great to see how someone like us would react (because let’s be real, no matter how much I wish I was Val, I’m definitely an Omen) in this world of madness and magic.

Some people aren’t enjoying this revived series, which to be honest I hadn’t seen until I was writing up this review. I have never actually checked the internet that deeply for skulduggery related content, and I was kind of surprised to see the negativity from fans. But I also understand it, the series definitely has a different feel in this “new” series, and it did also feel like it had been rushed to completion. But I still really enjoyed being back in this world and devoured this book in one sitting, so if you like the world Landy has built I do definitely recommend still picking this one up.

If you’ve never read a Skulduggery Pleasant book then what are you waiting for? It’s a book about magic, a skeleton detective and a young girl in Ireland. It’s awesome!

The Tattooed Heart by Michael Grant, a review

This series is one of my absolute favourites, and I only got them because of their covers! Check out my review of book one, The Messenger of Fear, here.

I loved book two as much as I adored the first book, there is really great character development of our two main characters, Mara and the Messenger, as we learn a bit more about them and their backgrounds before the situation that they’re currently in. There is also a much larger cast of victims (or should I say perpetrators?) in this book compared to the first. If you’re unaware of the concept of this book, the Messenger is in a different plain (sort of) to living people, and when people have done wrong but avoid any consequences he gives them consequences. That’s the most basic way I can think of explaining this concept without spoiling too much within the books. Book one focused more on Mara and her personal story, so this book was more about following different perpetrators and seeing how they react and change due to the consequences from their behaviour which damaged their victims.

There is a novella, and apparently, a third book is going to come out at some point. I 100% need to read the novella and I really hope that book #3 is released soon as I sped through these two books with no break, reading the whole book in one sitting, and I just need more of this world and Grants writing!

Had you heard of these? Have you read them? Let me know in the comments!

The Fever Code, life before the Maze

Book #0.6 in The Maze Runner series, you might think that this number of books is unnecessary for this storyline but in my opinion, you’d be wrong. This book covers our main characters from book #1 and shows us their story before entering the maze. I loved spending time with these characters again and see some of their character development before their memories were wiped. There were a lot of sad points about their “childhood” (if we can even call it that), which emphasised that WICKED really did choose their name well. The way the children were manipulated and lied to throughout their stay, and how they were collected by WICKED to end up at the facility in the first place. Teresa seems to be surprisingly more and more in the wrong as the book carries on (James Dashner really doesn’t like her, I guess he knows best!) and makes some surprising decisions. It’s actually reasonably difficult to talk about this book without spoiling it as the main prospect is that it follows the names we know so well from Group A in the Maze in their time before insertion. If you’ve liked the books so far I’d recommend reading the sixth book released in the series to add more depth to your knowledge and enjoy being in this world a little while longer.