Feature and Follow Friday (#22)

Feature & Follow is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and AlisonCanRead. It's set up so bloggers to discover new blogs and gain new followers. Join in! Every week two different blogs are featured. This week's featured blogs are Kinx's Book Nook and Shelf Addiction. Here's this week's question:

Q: When you step out of your USUAL genre, what do you like to read? Best books in that genre?

When it comes to my usual genre, I definitely read YA Fantasy, Science Fiction, and dystopian books the most. I think my blog would agree with that.

Should I step out of my normal boundaries (beyond just stepping into the adult side), I tend to pick up historical fiction. Not romance novels with some kilts and old-timey language. Seriously epic historical fiction. My favorite is probably Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett. It is total 12th century drama with about 20 principal characters spanning decades and crammed into about 1,000 pages. It's not for the faint of heart! I still have yet to read his companion book, World Without End, mostly because I don't have the attention to devote to it. I'd have to actually do it justice!

If you are a new follower, please comment so that I may follow you back!

Feature and Follow Friday (#21)

Feature & Follow is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and AlisonCanRead. It's set up so bloggers to discover new blogs and gain new followers. Join in! Every week two different blogs are featured. This week's featured blogs are Reese's Reviews and Book Fever. Here's this week's question:

Q: What book do you think would make a great Halloween movie? Please explain in graphic detail of goriness…

I really don't read too many horror books. Maybe I should read more? There are only two books that stand out from my shelf. Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake and The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa. One is a seriously creepy book with plenty of gorey ghosts and mystery. The other is a book with evil vampires and a nasty case of a zombie vampire disease.

If you are a new follower, please leave a comment so that I may follow you back!

Review: Crewel by Gennifer Albin

Series: Crewel World #1
Genre: Dystopian, Fantasy
Format: e-galley provided by publisher
Published: October 16, 2012 (US), October 18, 2012 (UK)
Publisher: Faber & Faber
My Rating: 5/5 Stars

Incapable. Awkward. Artless.
That’s what the other girls whisper behind her back. But sixteen year-old Adelice Lewys has a secret: she wants to fail.
Gifted with the ability to weave time with matter, she’s exactly what the Guild is looking for, and in the world of Arras, being chosen as a Spinster is everything a girl could want. It means privilege, eternal beauty, and being something other than a secretary. It also means the power to embroider the very fabric of life. But if controlling what people eat, where they live and how many children they have is the price of having it all, Adelice isn’t interested.
Not that her feelings matter, because she slipped and wove a moment at testing, and they’re coming for her—tonight.
Now she has one hour to eat her mom’s overcooked pot roast. One hour to listen to her sister’s academy gossip and laugh at her Dad’s stupid jokes. One hour to pretend everything’s okay. And one hour to escape.
Because once you become a Spinster, there’s no turning back. - Summary from Goodreads

In a world run by Spinsters who maintain the very fabric of society, every girl dreams of being one. Every girl except Adelice. She knows that they are not what they seem. Her world falls apart when she realizes that she cannot escape her fate with them. This book will fly by you with a fiery heroine and a seriously jawdropping world. 

Right away, I knew that the plot and worldbuilding were the center of this book and the characters came second. However, as I read on, I was pleasantly surprised by the quiet complexity of the supporting characters. Adelice meets two guys, Jost, the quiet worker in the walls of the Spinsters, and Erik, the manipulative assistant of a powerful Spinster. Yes, you guessed it, there is a love triangle. I wasn’t in love with the romantic aspect of this book, but I was glad to discover there was something more to these two characters.

What did grip me in this book was the society itself and Adelice’s scheming to escape them. This society is downright appalling in a really good way. To keep the peace, they go to extreme measures rivaling the monstrosity of the society in The Giver. I was bowled over by Gennifer Albin’s worldbuilding. I wish I had thought of this world myself!

Based on the worldbuilding alone, this book is the best dystopian release of 2012. Not everyone will fall in love with it, but I think those who do will fall hard. I am so eagerly waiting the second book. The ending of Crewel took my breath away and I have to know what happens next! I recommend this book if you are obsessed with the worldbuilding in dystopian books and often find yourself underwhelmed with it. Go read this book!

Find Crewel: 

Goodreads | Amazon | The Book Depository

Find Gennifer Albin:

Website | Twitter | Blog

Waiting on Wednesday: The Archived by Victoria Schwab

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly meme hosted by Breaking the Spine. Every week I get to show you a title that I'm eagerly anticipating the release of! Please link up your posts or tell me which book you can't wait for!

The Archived 
by Victoria Schwab

To be published January 22, 2013 by Hyperion

Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.
Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.
Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.
Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous-it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da's death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.
In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.

I am in love with this premise! It looks like a mysterious and soulful book.

What are you waiting on?

Top Ten Tuesday: REWIND: Sequels I'm Dying to Read

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme hosted by The Broke and the Bookish. This week, we are holding down the rewind button! We got to pick a topic we either missed out on or wanted a second go at. I chose a topic I didn't get to do the first time around. 

I've picked out a selection of my top ten sequels I can't wait to read! None of these have been released yet and some don't even have confirmed titles! So, here they are:

1. The Shadow Fold (Grisha Trilogy #2) by Leigh Bardugo

I haven't reviewed this yet on my blog, but I am so desperate for more!

2. Shades of Earth (Across the Universe #3) by Beth Revis

The end was a pretty steep cliffhanger. I'm sort of bummed about the cover revamps, but once I get my hands on it I'll feel better.

3. City of Heavenly Fire (Mortal Instruments #6) by Cassandra Clare

This series has been a fantasitic staple on my shelf. I can't wait to read the final one. Maybe she'll announce another three?

4. Through the Ever Night (Under the Never Sky #2) by Veronica Rossi

I need to know what happens with Aria and Perry! What do you think of the UK cover?

5. The Eternity Cure (The Blood of Eden #2) by Julie Kagawa

LOVED this gritty vampire book more than I expected and I gotta get more of it!

6. Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

We all know how much we were left hanging at the end of Pandemonium! The UK cover isn't out yet, so feast your eyes on the US version! 

7. Throne of Glass #2 by Sarah J Maas

Guys. This book = love. I haven't reviewed it yet on this blog, but with no title and no sign of a cover, I'm ready to wait in line for it!

8. Boundless (Unearthly #3) by Cynthia Hand

What a fantastic trilogy. The last book was heartbreaking and I'll be sad to read the next one. I'm eager to see what the UK cover looks like, but here's the US version.

9. Divergent #3 by Veronica Roth

Not a whiff of the title, but I can't wait to pre-order this baby because of that ending.

10. Reached (Matched #3) by Ally Condie

I wasn't totally thrilled with Crossed, but something makes me think I've been promised one heck of a conclusion to this series. Fingers crossed!

Link me to your TOP TEN! I can't wait to see what topic you chose!

Review: The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead

Series: Bloodlines #2
Genre: Paranormal
Format: Paperback, published June 12, 2012
Publisher: Razorbill
My Rating: 3/5 Stars

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.
Sydney would love to go to college, but instead, she’s been sent into hiding at a posh boarding school in Palm Springs, California–tasked with protecting Moroi princess Jill Dragomir from assassins who want to throw the Moroi court into civil war. Formerly in disgrace, Sydney is now praised for her loyalty and obedience, and held up as the model of an exemplary Alchemist.
But the closer she grows to Jill, Eddie, and especially Adrian, the more she finds herself questioning her age–old Alchemist beliefs, her idea of family, and the sense of what it means to truly belong. Her world becomes even more complicated when magical experiments show Sydney may hold the key to prevent becoming Strigoi—the fiercest vampires, the ones who don’t die. But it’s her fear of being just that—special, magical, powerful—that scares her more than anything. Equally daunting is her new romance with Brayden, a cute, brainy guy who seems to be her match in every way. Yet, as perfect as he seems, Sydney finds herself being drawn to someone else—someone forbidden to her.
When a shocking secret threatens to tear the vampire world apart, Sydney’s loyalties are suddenly tested more than ever before. She wonders how she's supposed to strike a balance between the principles and dogmas she's been taught, and what her instincts are now telling her.
Should she trust the Alchemists—or her heart? - Summary from Goodreads

My Review:

Once again, I expected to love this second addition to The Vampire Academy spinoff series, Bloodlines, despite being disappointed by the first. Sadly, I was once again disappointed. My feelings for this book are all over the map and this is one of the most difficult and perhaps incoherent reviews I've ever written. I realize that I'm certainly a minority in the YA blogging community for not going gaga for this series. I guess I can't get past the premise of this series to enjoy the heart of this story.

Putting vampires into a Californian high school and expecting a teenage human girl to run the entire operation of babysitting some princess is kind of an asinine premise. I'm sorry. Had to say it. The first half of The Golden Lily was about Sydney babysitting an annoying Jill, watching an annoying love square unfold, and then going on a few dates with this weird guy who is like Sydney but with a whats-it. The plot was laid out early with extremely obvious foreshadowing, but nothing was done with it until the last bit of the book. I had to force myself to finish and for some crazy reason I was glad to have done so (for Adrian).

That was my reaction to the book, scribbled down along with a few potty words, until I read reviews after having finished. I was too blinded by my annoyance to really see the point of this book. It does what nearly every second book in a series does, have little plot and function as a bridge between the first and third. But this bridge, this fantastically subtle bridge, is the relationship of Sydney and Adrian. There is really something great going on there. Something mature and unlike YA insta-love. And it makes me want to read more. (I never thought I'd say that about this series again.)

Yeah, I wasn't crazy about it, but now after having finished, I appreciate its subplot immensely. I recommend The Golden Lily if you are one of those screaming teary-eyed girls who want to ravish Adrian whole. But, you've probably already read it if you are one of them. So, if you haven't picked up this series then I say 'meh' to you. Do it with caution, but only if you enjoyed The Vampire Academy series.

Find The Golden Lily:

Goodreads | Amazon UK | The Book Depository

Find Richelle Mead:

Website | Bio | Blog | Twitter

Stacking the Shelves (#19)

This is a weekly meme (originally hosted by Tynga's Reviews) where I showcase the books I've acquired throughout the last week. These can be purchased, borrowed, or for review!

This week I picked up two books. One for myself and one for my man. While The Casual Vacancy is technically on my TBR list, I'm not sure if it's my kind of book, but I think my love will enjoy it.

What's Left of Me by Kat Zhang

e-book

The Casual Vacancy by J.K. Rowling

hardbound

What books did you add to your shelves this week?

Feature and Follow Friday (#20)

 Feature & Follow is a weekly blog hop hosted by Parajunkee and AlisonCanRead. It's set up so bloggers to discover new blogs and gain new followers. Join in! Every week two different blogs are featured. This week's featured blogs are Angela's Anxious Life and Book Liaison. Here's this week's question:

Q: What do you hope to accomplish with your blog? Is it to one day become an author yourself, just for fun, maybe get some online attention, or maybe something very different?

A: When I started this blog earlier this year, I was in between jobs and just out of school. I missed having the responsibility of studying and I wanted to add structure to my life. I've always wanted to start a blog and I started a book blog for myself. At the end of the day, I want an outlet of fun and something productive for me to do! I don't take it too seriously, but it's always an honest reflection of myself.

What do you do with your blog? Leave me a link to your post in the comments!

If you are a new follower, please leave a comment so that I may follow you back!