Twisted Tales #2

Publisher: Disney Press

Publication Date: April 5th, 2016

Rating: 3 Stars

Source: eARC from Netgalley

Pages: 448

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Summary (from Goodreads):

What if the sleeping beauty never woke up? Once Upon a Dream marks the second book in a new YA line that reimagines classic Disney stories in surprising new ways.

It should be simple--a dragon defeated, a slumbering maiden, a prince poised to wake her. But when said prince falls asleep as soon as his lips meet the princess's, it is clear that this fairy tale is far from over.

With a desperate fairy's last curse infiltrating her mind, Princess Aurora will have to navigate a dangerous and magical landscape deep in the depths of her dreams. Soon she stumbles upon Phillip, a charming prince eager to join her quest. But with Maleficent's agents following her every move, Aurora struggles to discover who her true allies are, and moreover, who she truly is. Time is running out. Will the sleeping beauty be able to wake herself up?

I'm not 100% sure why I downloaded this one besides the fact that it was offered up to me without having to request and I love retellings. I haven't read the first one, but I didn't hear WONDERFUL things about it. I was just hoping that I would like it, I guess.

The book starts off as your classic Sleeping Beauty story, the prince slays the dragon and goes to kiss the princess and wake her up. But instead of her waking up when he kisses her, he falls asleep as well and wakes up inside her dream!

This book read really oddly for me. I found that there was a lot of emphasis in weird places. Like a lot of words italicized that placed emphasis on what felt to me like really random words in the sentence. Then there was a character that HALF OF HIS DIALOGUE WAS SHOUTING.

Some parts of this book seemed to read more like an actual fairytales and then some parts just read like a normal story.

The beginning of this book progressed really quickly. I can see why. There was a fair bit of information to lay down to kind of set the story. But after the foundation was laid out, it felt like it just reeeeally slowed down.

Princess Aurora, the main character, was basically just incredibly lazy. In the beginning of this story, when she's living her life in the palace, all she EVER wants to do is lay in her bed and think. It seems like she really doesn't do a whole lot besides that. Even when she sets out on her quest she's in need of being carried or constantly having to sit down and it was just wild.

Prince Phillip was a decent love interest and character. He was brave, chivalrous, kind, and patient. And if he was dealing with Aurora, it seemed like he needed all the patience in the world. She randomly during the quest would pick something stupid to stop and yell at him about instead of continuing on her quest. I also couldn't help but think that when he talked, he mostly sounded like kind of an idiot... Just his dialogue made him sound like a puppy who is desperate for attention or something?

Maleficent was really an underwhelming villain, I felt. She was obviously evil, but really, I mostly just felt like she kind of acted like a baby when she had to confront Aurora before the epic final battle. Really Maleficent was basically just a whiny baby because all of this drama was over the STUPIDEST thing.

The romance in this book was interesting. Real life Aurora and Phillip fell in love at first sight. Like, he met her for a total of like five seconds before he trotted off to the castle to tell his father that he wasn't gonna marry the princess because he fell in the love in the forest. But there's more to it than that because Aurora kind of rethinks the whole instalove thing in her dream.

There were a few things that I enjoyed about this book. One, I felt like the final battle was more fleshed out and worth reading than a lot of other books that I liked better. The final battle with the villain is almost always something that I find to be really lacking in a book. It always feels so anticlimactic. While I didn't find this battle to be AMAZING, it actually seemed to challenge the heroine and there was some actual struggle, which I appreciated.

Despite not caring for Aurora and her general attitude, I enjoyed reading about her quest. I liked her internal struggle about her feelings toward her parents. I liked seeing her and Phillip beat all of Maleficent's tricks and traps, no matter how dorky I thought they were. I was rooting for them to succeed.

I did enjoy the idea of the twist on this story, but that wasn't enough to make me enjoy the story in general. One thing about it though, something about this story just really gave me dream vibes. I'm not really sure how to explain exactly what I mean. The way I felt reading this book is the same way I felt watching something like Alice in Wonderland. How everything just generally gives off weird vibes?? I don't know if that explanation helped at all, but it's the best I can do. 

Overall, if Sleeping Beauty was your favorite Disney movie, you might want to give this a read. I think that maybe younger readers would get more out of this book than older ones. I probably wouldn't read anymore books in this series just because of what I've heard about the first one and my general feelings about this one. If one of the tales retold was Beauty and the Beast, I miiiiight be swayed to read it, but otherwise, probably not.

Review: Assassin's Heart by Sarah Ahiers

Assassin's Heart #1

Publisher: HarperTeen

Publication Date: February 2nd, 2016

Rating: 4 Stars

Source: ARC Trade

Pages: 420

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Summary (from Goodreads):

In the kingdom of Lovero, nine rival Families of assassins lawfully kill people for a price. As a highly skilled member of one of these powerful clans, seventeen-year-old Lea Saldana has always trusted in the strength of her Family. Until she awakens to find them murdered and her home in flames. The Da Vias, the Saldanas’ biggest enemy, must be responsible—and Lea should have seen it coming. But her secret relationship with the Da Vias’ son, Val, has clouded her otherwise killer instinct—and given the Da Vias more reason than ever to take her Family down.

Racked with guilt and shattered over Val’s probable betrayal, Lea sets out to even the score, with her heart set on retaliation and only one thought clear in her mind: make the Da Vias pay.

With shades of The Godfather and Romeo and Juliet, this richly imagined fantasy from debut author Sarah Ahiers is a story of love, lies, and the ultimate vengeance.

I have seen some really mixed reviews for this book. I wasn't sure how much I would like this one because of it, but I was pleasantly surprised! I enjoyed this book more than I thought I was going to!

Lea Saldana is a clipper. Basically she's an assassin that kills in the name of Safraella, the goddess of death. She is also a member of the first Family of clippers. The most powerful and influential of the nine Families. That is until she wakes up in the middle of the night to find her home in flames and her family murdered at the hands of the Da Vias. 

Lea is heartbroken over the untimely demise of her family, but also at the betrayal she feels over her secret suitor, Val Da Via, being involved with the slaughter. She figures it's all her fault and vows to seek revenge. She will kill the Da Vias or she will die trying. So she heads to the city of Yvain in Rennes to find the one person who she believes will be able to help her on her quest.

I liked Lea, being inside her head was refreshing. I thought her feelings seemed really real. Mostly in the way that she KNEW that Val was responsible for killing her family and she was trying to move on from him. It hurt her deeply because she thought she might love him and she trusted him, but he betrayed her and he doesn't deserve a minute more of her time. 

I liked the romance in this book. Despite what I said above, I thought that she was going to be hung up on Val. And then when Lea meets a new ally in Yvain, things eventually heat up between them. It was a cute relationship they had. He's so genuinely nice and helpful. I enjoyed the romance! I really thought I'd be stuck on Val for some reason. Like maybe he'd have some kind of actually half-decent excuse for what happened to Lea's family, but no.

Val's character in general is kind of just pathetic. He's a member of the wealthiest of the Families and he's kind of vain. He doesn't take criticism well. When he finds Lea again after everything goes down, he acts like they can just pick up where they left off. Like she needs to understand that he was in a bad situation and he couldn't choose her over his Family and that is somehow supposed to make her warm up to him. And then he basically acts awful to her and tries to ask her for help later on and just no. Bye Val. I think that he could have been written better. He seemed a little...... unstable??

I liked the world in this book, but something that seemed off to me was how they claim that clippers murder for 'holy' reasons. That just seems a little far-fetched to me. So there's some angry person out there who was wronged by someone so they go put out a hit on them, you take on that hit and somehow that is holy work? That's a bit, just off to me.

The entire country of Lovero and especially the clippers serve the goddess Safraella, but there are apparently plenty of other gods and goddesses out there. I feel like it would have felt more real if there were mentions of more of them.

I feel like there was a lot of repetitiveness to this book. Throughout the whole thing she is basically repeating to herself what has happened to her and what she needs to do about it. I didn't think it was a big deal, but a lot of the time, I find things like this really obnoxious.

The middle of this book is reeeeaaaallllyyyyy slow. The beginning has plenty of action, but things really slow down after Lea leaves Ravenna. When she has to search Yvain for the person she needs to find and get information and it just is slow. This weirdly didn't bother me too much while I was reading it either.

Something that I did appreciate about the writing was how when Lea got hurt, it wasn't like she sprained her ankle and would be doing cartwheels five minutes later as if it never happened. I don't know, it seems like if something happens to a character in a book, it conveniently just stops being a problem as soon as trouble arises, but that's not the case in this book and I liked that. I didn't like the Lea kept getting hurt, but I liked the it realistically kept being a problem for her when it did happen.

Overall, I was pleased with this book. I'm excited for the companion/sequel to this book! I'm curious to see what it could be about because I can't think of anything in this book that I wasn't satisfied with at the end! If you like fantasy, possibly Italian inspired culture, and assassin's, this might be the book for you.

Stacking the Shelves (#37)

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

During the week of March 26th to April 1st, I got...

TRADE:

Thanks @camilalaureanoo for the trade!

This weekend I came home to visit my family and I know I have two packages at my house that I guess will have to go on next week's post! I'm sad. I don't even want to read them yet, I just really want to open them.

What kinds of goodies did you get this week?

March 2016 Wrap Up

Books Read:

Review to come.

Review

Review to come.

Total Read: 3

17/75 for the year.

***

Posts of Interest:

I participated in Beauty and the Bookshelf's Get Up Offa That Slump Blogging Extravaganza! I talked about my blogging ways and my dream Easter basket, talked about the positives of blogging, planned a fictional trip, pitched a book, created some book spine poetry, made a mad lib, bashed a book, did a book tag, talked about my top three inspirational women in fiction, and interviewed myself!

I participated in a tour blitz for a suspenseful sounding book!

I signed up for ARC April (which is a big reason why I read so few books this month, all the books I want to read I gotta save so I can hit Diamond Reader Level).

I helped reveal the cover of A Mirror Among Shattered Glass by Romarin Demetri.

I reviewed The Girl From Everywhere, The Siren, and Sword and Verse!

I discussed some questions I had about blog tours!

And I talked about the April book releases I'm dying to read!

I signed up for the Books 'n' Bloggers Swap hosted by CG Swaps!

***

Books Received:

Bought: 5

Sword and Verse

Lady Midnight

The Winner's Crime

The Winner's Kiss

Cruel Beauty

Otherwise Acquired: 7

The Star-Touched Queen

Girl in the Blue Coat

Speak

And I Darken

Asunder

Defiance

Deception

***

Life Updates:

As you can see, I didn't do a whole lot of reading this past month! Part of it was because I finally got around to watching season three of Game of Thrones!! *my heart*

Also I have been waiting for my boyfriend to be ready to watch season four with me so I can return it. But calving started and life has gotten a bit busier for him and it's only gonna get worse from here!

There was one night this month that he came to get me at 4:30 am because there was a cow that was having trouble pushing out her calf and it might have needed to be pulled. By the time he got my grumbling butt out of bed, the calf had started to come by itself. It was a pain in the butt. But they're so cute, how can you even be mad?

I signed up for my own vision care insurance through my work! I feel like such an adult! I was talking to this one lady that I work with about how my tax return didn't go far enough for me and I wasn't gonna be able to get new glasses like I wanted to at my next appointment and she told me how awesome our vision care is!

I never thought to look into it because I'm still on my dad's insurance policy. But it's only a little over $7 a month and you get $10 appointment fee, $25 prescription glasses fee that covers lenses and a new set of frames every two years up to $120 and you get 20% off whatever the leftover cost is!

I think that's a fab deal. Especially considering the fact that I added up my last appointment cost, the cost of my prescription sunglasses, my regular glasses, and the fee I paid to get a new pair under warranty when I broke mine, just that cost me nearly $1000!!! 

Imagine all the books I could have bought!!! :(

I signed up for ARC April. That's another reason I didn't read that much this past month! I have quite a little stack of ARCs to read and I want to hit the highest level so I'm saved them all to start this month. Let the reading begin!!

I ruined my own Easter plans this year because I thought that Easter was THIS weekend, but it was last weekend! I had made plans to go home this weekend and have Easter dinner at my grandma's house on Sunday, but that's kinda hard to do when it's not Easter anymore. I didn't even find out til the Thursday before that I didn't even know what I was talking about. Sad day.

Oh yeah! ANOTHER reason why I didn't read a lot this month is because I was too busy being the blogging queen! I have a LOT of posts done for April already because I'm awesome!

How did the month of March go for you?

Tour Blitz: The Queen's Poisoner by Jeff Wheeler

Publisher: 47North

Publication Date: April 1st, 2016

Pages: 336

Add it on Goodreads!!

Summary: 

As usurper of the throne, the rule of King Severn Argentine’s is already highly contested. To keep his power, King Argentine rules with an iron fist and destroys any opposition. In a failed coup attempt the Duke of Kiskaddon loses his son as a permanent prisoner to the king to ensure his loyalty.

THE QUEEN’S POISONER follows the Duke’s young son Owen on his journey for redemption and revenge as he figures out how to survive the court of Kingfountain. In order to keep his head and gain the merciless king’s favor, Owen must delve deeper into the world of mystery and secrecy that surrounds him. Readers will be clamoring for the next installment of The Kingfountain Series.

BUY LINKS:

Amazon | B&N

EXCERPT:

The wild frenzied feeling of plummeting reminded him partway down that he should be terrified, but then the shock of cold water met his face and he plunged into its depths. His feet touched the bottom of the cistern. His hand still gripped hers. 

Owen opened his eyes and found himself surrounded by a pile of treasure. He felt a huge burst of excitement in his ribs as he stared at the sword hilts, the jewels and necklaces. The Mortimer girl was tugging at his hand and trying to swim up, but he pulled back, not wanting to lose sight of the treasure. There was so much! But then he noticed something awry. There was a gap in the treasure, as if someone had dragged a rake through it. No, that wasn’t it. One of the chests appeared to have been dragged back towards the stairs. The dragging motion had cleared a path through the bounty and knocked other bits over. 

His companion was yanking hard on his hand now, and when he looked up, he saw bubbles were coming out of her mouth, obscuring her face.

Owen wanted to stay down and figure out what had happened to the treasure, but they both needed to breathe. He pushed with his legs and they started towards the surface. As they moved through the water, a loud grinding noise filled his water-soaked ears. 

When Owen’s face broke the surface, he gulped in a chest full of air to stop his lungs from burning. The Mortimer girl was spluttering and paddling on the waters. 

“Owen! Did you hear that noise?”

Owen looked and saw they were farther away from stairs. In fact, they were gliding away from it at a fast pace. 

“What’s wrong?” Owen asked, kicking around. The water was tugging them deeper into the dark cistern. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Jeff Wheeler took an early retirement from his career at Intel in 2014 to become a full-time author. He is, most importantly, a husband and father, and a devout member of his church. He is occasionally spotted roaming among the oak trees and granite boulders in the hills of California or in any number of the state’s majestic redwood groves. He is the author of The Covenant of Muirwood Trilogy, The Legends of Muirwood Trilogy, the Whispers from Mirrowen Trilogy, and the Landmoor Series.

To learn more about Jeff Wheeler visit his website:

www.jeff-wheeler.com 

You can follow him @muirwoodwheeler 

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