How is everyone else's ARC August going? :)

I have now crossed a total of 6 books off my list and am down to 3 left! Yay!

Stacking the Shelves (#10)

Stacking the shelves is a weekly meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews to highlight books received each week!

During the week of August 15th - 21st I got... 

I got the book I ordered from Bookitcon! I love when things like that offer the option to order the books signed if you can't attend! Because let's face it, who out there is ever gonna come to South Dakota so I can attend a signing? No one probably. But I am so excited to have been able to get this signed copy of The Orphan Queen! And it came with so many unexpected goodies!! So pumped about this!!

(I have no idea how to rotate this picture and it bugs me.)

That's all that I got this week! But it was PLENTY satisfying!

What goodies did you get this week?

Review: Cinder by Marissa Meyer

The Lunar Chronicles #1

Publisher: Feiwel and Friends

Publication Date: January 3, 2012

Rating:3.5-4 ish Stars

Source: eBook Purchase

Pages: 390

Add it on Goodreads!

Summary (from Goodreads):

Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl.

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

I have seen a lot in the past about this book being really popular, but I really hesitated to pick this up. I didn't think that the cyborg spin would be my thing, but I was very pleasantly surprised to find that I liked this book a lot more than I ever thought I would. But I don't believe I liked it as much as everyone else. I finally decided that I had to read it to join the #TLCreadalong hosted by Book Addict's Guide! I was super pumped to join in on something fun like that in the blogging/reading community!

Cinder is a nice fairytale retelling of Cinderella. That is my favorite thing about this book. I have recently decided that fairytale retellings are my all time favorite. The sci-fi spin to it was really interesting as well. It was really easy to see the similarities between this story and Cinderella. Maybe a bit too easy because I just found this whole book to be totally predictable, but I still really liked the story.

Cinder is a cyborg girl living in the incredibly overpopulated city of New Beijing. She was adopted by a man and his family from Europe and brought there. She can't remember the accident (or anything before it) that forced some scientist to put her back together with metal/computer parts, but because of it, she is treated like dirt. By society and especially by her evil stepmother who is forced to care for Cinder after her husband dies. Every market day, Cinder goes to work in her mechanics booth, fixing people's gadgets and androids to earn money for her awful stepmother so she doesn't have to work. When Prince Kai comes seeking her expertise to fix his android which contains sensitive information, things begin to change for Cinder.

I found the characters in this book to be generally likable. Except Cinder's awful stepmother and stepsister and the Lunar queen. I didn't feel terribly strongly for any of the characters and the deaths in this book didn't really affect me the way that I would normally like them to. I really can't think of anyway to describe what I thought about the characters just because none of them really stood out to me in any real way.

The romance in this book was kinda cute. It didn't really feel like real romance to me, it felt more like a mutual crush. There wasn't really any lovey-dovey-ness going on. It seemed more like they just conveniently kept crossing paths before they really started seeking each other out for this or that. I think that any sign of affection shown by Cinder were mainly to try and save Kai from the Lunar queen's tricks. She definitely didn't feel worthy of the attention of the prince after having it drilled into her head for as long as she could remember that she was just a disgusting cyborg.

The main thing that I didn't like about this book was how predictable I found it to be. I would have liked to have been more surprised about things throughout the book. Also I wish that I would have felt anything at all about any of these characters. But really, I think that was just me because August sucks and puts me in a funk.

Overall, I did enjoy this book! I will definitely be continuing on with the #TLCreadalong next month and reading Scarlet! I’m not sure how many stars I feel like I want to give this book. I don’t think it’s 4 stars, but I also don’t think it’s NOT 4 stars. If that makes the tiniest bit of sense at all… I would recommend this book those who enjoy fairytale retellings and Cinderella! 

Review: Court of Fives by Kate Elliott

Court of Fives #1

Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers

Publication Date: August 18, 2015

Rating: 3 Stars

Source: ARC received in a trade

Pages: 448

Add it on Goodreads!

Summary (from the back of the book):

On the Fives court, everyone is equal. And everyone is dangerous.

Jessamy’s life has always been a balance between acting like an upperclass Patron and dreaming of the freedom of the Commoners. But at night she can be whomever she wants when she sneaks out to train for the Fives, an intricate, multilevel athletic competition that offers a chance for glory to the kingdom’s best athletes. Adversaries are masked, so Jes can compete in secret, but victors must reveal their identities. If she wins, she could destroy her family’s precarious social standing.

Then Jes meets Kalliarkos, and an unlikely friendship between a girl of mixed race and a Patron boy turns heads. When a scheming lord tears Jes’s family apart, she’ll have to test Kal’s loyalty and risk the vengeance of a powerful clan to save her mother and sisters from certain death.

In this imaginative escape into an enthralling new universe, World Fantasy Award finalist Kate Elliott’s first young adult novel weaves and epic story of a girl struggling to do what she loves in a society suffocated by rules of class and privilege. 

This book kept me fairly entertained while I read it, but I didn't love it. Jessamy is the daughter of a Commoner woman and a Patron man. Her father is really consumed by his reputation and honor and so generally, his four daughters don't seem to get out much. Jes sneaks out to train for the Fives and finally gets the chance to run in a real trial. Shortly after that, the man that sponsors her father in the army dies and a new jerk of a lord comes in and swoops him up and tears their family apart. Jes is taken to train for the Fives at the lord's stable and despite being away from her family, it's everything she has ever wanted. She finds a way to make this work for her until she figures out what this new lord has done with the rest of her family.

I don't know that that's a very good summary of the book, but I feel like everything that I wanted to say would be too spoilery. So anyway, yeah, I liked this book alright, but I definitely didn't love it. I thought the concept of the Fives was interesting, I don't really see what's so special about it, but at the same time, I don't really see what's so special about football or any other sport in general. I think that the first line of the summary on the back of the book is really misleading when it says that everyone is dangerous. Nobody that we meet in this book that is participating in the Fives seemed dangerous at all. Anytime Jes had any interaction with anyone while she was running just seemed like friendly competition to me. Nobody was trying to sabotage anyone in the games. So that mislead me a little bit going into this book.

I never really felt strongly about any of the characters. I liked them just fine, but none of them really touched me. Jessamy really only ever seemed to be thinking about herself. She cared deeply for family and probably Kal, but she seemed to be so wrapped up in her own business. I think that she gets that from her father. It's said in the book that she is the most like him. He struck me as only really thinking about himself and his honor. I don't doubt that he did, in his own way, truly care for his family, but I think that he cared more about his honor and keeping up his appearance than going out of his way to keep the woman that he supposedly loved for twenty years and his four daughters. 

I liked Kal. But I felt like it was just way to easy for him to get along with everyone. I don't think that he butted heads with anyone this whole book. He's like a puppy. He's constantly trying to make Jessamy happy and it was like that was his whole purpose.

As for the rest of Jes's family, they were alright. Her mother just seemed to be too pleasant about everything. Even though pretty much nothing in this book is pleasant at all. I did not like Amaya. She acts like such a princess and gets all uppity anytime she sees Jes getting attention from Kal which was annoying. Get over yourself. In the short time that Bettany was mentioned, she just seemed to be unpleasant and Maraya was basically just there to take care of everyone.

I wasn't really feeling the romance either. It felt kinda fake. I really just felt like Jessamy was using Kal the whole time. They don't even really have a relationship and she is asking him for all these HUGE favors that only benefit her. And she badgers him into doing it. He just wants to know how to master Rings! I honestly don't really even understand why he liked her besides because she could help him with Rings and he just wants to run the Fives and forget all his other lordly duties.

Despite not really caring for many of the characters or the romance, I liked the story. It kept me fairly interested. I feel like some parts were a little bit slow, but it wasn't too bad. The only thing I can think of that I didn't care for about the story was how things just seemed to happen. It was like Jes got one of her brilliant ideas, badgered Kal into helping her, and then just BOOM they're doing the plan. Like there's no transition or preparation or journey to the plan, they just come up with it and immediately jump into it. No explanation as to how they're really going to accomplish it or how to deal with any people who might be around, it all just happens. I hope that makes at least a little bit of sense.

The only parts of this book that really confused me was all the talk of the history of Saro and Efea. And all the kings and queens that all have the same names. I couldn't find it in me to care about all that. It never felt important to me. At this point, I also don't really see the importance of the wars that keep getting mentioned.

Despite this rather blah sounding review, I did overall enjoy this book. The plot was kinda interesting. I would definitely read any sequels that this book will have. 

Waiting on Wednesday (#10)

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event, hosted by Breaking the Spine, that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.

This week I'm waiting on...

The Great Hunt by Wendy Higgins

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: March 8, 2016

Pages: 416

Add it on Goodreads!

Summary (from Goodreads):

Kill the beast. Win the girl.

A strange beast stirs fear in the kingdom of Lochlanach, terrorizing towns with its brutality and hunger. In an act of desperation, a proclamation is sent to all of Eurona—kill the creature and win the ultimate prize: the daughter of King Lochson’s hand in marriage.

Princess Aerity understands her duty to the kingdom though it pains her to imagine marrying a stranger. It would be foolish to set her sights on any particular man in the great hunt, but when a brooding local hunter, Paxton Seabolt, catches her attention, there’s no denying the unspoken lure between them…or his mysterious resentment.

Paxton is not keen on marriage. Nor does he care much for spoiled royals and their arcane laws. He’s determined to keep his focus on the task at hand—ridding the kingdom of the beast and protecting his family—yet Princess Aerity continues to challenge his notions with her unpredictability and charm. But as past secrets collide with present desires, dire choices threaten everything Paxton holds dear.

Inspired by the Grimm Brothers’ tale, “The Singing Bone,” New York Times bestselling author Wendy Higgins delivers a dark fantasy filled with rugged hunters, romantic tension, outlawed magic, and a princess willing to risk all to save her people.

This book sounds so good and I can't wait to read it! I haven't read any of Wendy Higgins's books yet! What are you waiting for this week?