Fallen

This story is one that most people call the "ultimate love story" "perfectly magical" and so much more. They are SOOOOOO right!! It starts off with this AWESOME prologue and then jumps to Luce Price who has been sent to Sword & Cross because of an "incident" at her last school where a fire started and accidently killed a boy she kissed named Trevor. This is a school for troubled teens. Almost immediately she meets bad boy-looking Daniel Grigori. Luce feels as though she has met him before, even though he won't even give her the time of day and is down right rude to her from the second the smile leaves his face. She also meets Cam, this strange sweet boy who is so sweet to her while also being tall, sexy, and charasmatic to boot. He, unlike Daniel, would love to get it on with Luce, except Luce isn't sure what to think or do, since Trevor died. There is also the girl who is becoming a good friend Arianne, and another Penn (short for Pennyweather) who is becoming her best friend. This is definitely more then just a tale of forbidden love, it is a tale of love that is unjustly ripped away almost every time the two lovers kiss. This is a story that I absolutely loved and cannot WAIT to read the sequel too. Overall grade...A+ since nothing else would do of course!!

Beastly

By the title alone you can tell that this is a story that is kind of like Beauty and the Beast. Actually, it's a LOT like that. The main difference is that the "Beast" Kyle Kingsbury, is a teenager, not a prince, and a much bigger snob then the original Beast was. Kyle Kingsbury invites a homely looking girl to the dance at his school even though he already has a date, just to make fun of her. His first date demands an orchid as her corsage, while the other girl wants a plain white rose. Kyle's maid Magda gets him a white rose and while at the dance his first date, Sloane doesn't accept the rose, he instead gives it to the girl sitting taking tickets as an act of kindness. Since two petals had fallen off the rose the homely looking girl who is actually quite beautiful, and a witch, she agrees to give him two years to fall in love with a girl and have her love him back and kiss him in order to break the spell and make him into himself again. The biggest difference that I noticed was that the girl in the story didn't really come in until nearly the end of the story. More then 150 pages pass before Kyle, now calling himself Adrian, has the girl come live with him. Other then that this story is pretty much just like the original Beauty and the Beast. Adrian/Kyle even has two people living with him, Will and Magda, who could represent characters from the original story. Will happens to be Kyle's blind Tutor and Magda does all the cooking and cleaning. He even has a magic mirror that allows him to see whoever he wants too. So with that, overall grade...B-

Ephemera

This is a book that contains both poems and short stories. There's really not much you can say about it besides most of the poems were very well put together and fit together well. The short stories were also pretty good, though I have to say my favorite was definitely The Lowliest of Humans which involved a man with a gunshot wound who feels it isn't serious and goes about his day all day long bleeding. This book may have been short but also kind of had an impact in a strange way. Though it was short it wasn't really a book that you could read all in one sitting, mostly because though the stories fit together, they kind of needed to be taken in at different times to really understand what the author was saying. Since short stories have to pack so much in such a short amount of space I have to say the ones in this book were definitely some of the better ones out there. Some of them I could even see becoming novella's, though most not novel's since they seemed just a bit to much too the point for that. So, the overall grade of this book would have to be B-

Bachelor Boys

This here is a book that I'm extremely glad that I didn't listen to most reviews. Most reviews said all it was about was sex, sex, sex. Well, they were wrong. It was about love, love, and well...love. Love for the mother you never had, love for the boy you always wanted, love for those around us. This particular story is about Cassie. Cassie is a women who's childhood was at first filled with absent parents and a nanny who could care less. This was before she met next-door neighbors Phoebe, her two sons Frederick and Ben, and Phoebe's husband Jimmy. Though Jimmy isn't as present in the story as Phoebe you still feel for all the characters when you learn how Jimmy had recently died of cancer and now, Phoebe was as well. Phoebe has been more of a mother to Cassie as a child and an adult then her mother ever had been. So, as Phoebe's dying wish to see her two sons married off before she passes Cassie reluctantly agrees. This story involves a few flashbacks to Cassie's childhood that really help solidify the reason's why she isn't close to her real mother. Besides the fun-loving, silly parts of this book that make up most of the parts with Frederick and Ben, parts of this book will honestly drive you to tears. As the story progresses and you see Phoebe weakening you can't help but wish she wasn't. You can't help but wish there was something more you could do then sit there and watch it happen. This is a book that you won't be able to put down from beginning to end. This is the type of book that most anyone would enjoy if they just stopped judging and listened to the words. That's exactly what I did and I was not dissapointed in any way. I thought the characters were developed in a great way and I loved how quirky some of them were. So, overall grade...A+

Broken Soup

Jenny Valentine is like a breathe a fresh air in the reading world. That is what I thought the entire time while reading Broken Soup. Not only is this book set in London, but it is written differently from almost all other books I have read, especially lately. In a time when writing quality has dropped significantly, Jenny Valentine shows that it is possible to be a great writer and pack a TON of content into a semingly small book. When I picked up Broken Soup I thought it would be just another easy read but I was very mistaken. Broken Soup took very real parts of life like grief, love, sturggle, and turned it into something incredible. Her story started with a negative of a photo that she didn't even know existed, and ended with and incredible journey that leaves you wondering just how well you really know those around you. This story follows Rowan from the time when a beautiful stranger, the mysterious Harper Greene, the New York wanderer, gives her a negative, to when she meets Bee, the girl who she thinks her dead brother Jack would love, had he lived long enought to meet her. This book starts off strong and follows through to the end. It starts of as though it will be a story of self-worth and ends as a story of self-loving and just so much more. This story makes you realize that you have it better, that you can be, do, are better then you may ever realize. So, overall grade...A.

Wild Things

So, surprisingly a lot of people I know have never seen this movie. Some haven't even HEARD of it. And I think that is just not right!! How can you play Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon without this movie?? It is CRITICAL!!! The reasoning behind it....Matt Dillon, Denise Richards, Bill Murray, and Neve Campbell!! So, any movie they starred in can now be used to connect someone ELSE to Kevin Bacon!! (I know this because we somehow connected Hannah Montana and Shirley Temple to Kevin Bacon, it was AWESOME!!) Anyways...this movie has it all, sex, drugs, violence, backstabbing, double-crossing, murder and soooo much more. This movie starts off with a millionaire's daughter, Kelly Van Ryan (Denise Richards) accusing her teacher (Matt Dillon) of raping her, probably because he wouldn't sleep with her. Then Kelly's trashy classmate Suzie Toller (Neve Campbell) accuses him as well. So, after loosing the respect of everyone he used to work with and his community Sam Lombardo (Dillon) hires freelance lawyer Ken Bowden (Bill Murray) to defend him in court. This is where Ray Duquette (Kevin Bacon) comes in. He's the one investigating the two girls claims, but the deeper he digs, the more sinister things seem to become. This movie was wild and crazy, and kept you guessing until the very end. And actually, even at the end, you kind of wanted to go back and see what you missed. I really enjoyed this movie, but some of the double-crossing got a bit confusing since it kept happening so much, so quickly, and sometimes it was hard to follow. With that said, overall grade.....B!!

Curse The Dawn

I realized that I had yet to review an actual ADULT book, only young adult, so I decided to review an adult fantasy book. That book just so happens to be one of my all time favorite books of all time. CURSE THE DAWN!!!!!!! This is the fourth book in the series which is partially why I love it so much since by this time it has gotten even better then I ever imagined it could. This series Cassie Palmer, the chief clairvoyant, along with her friend/maybe/might be lovers Pritkin, a war-mage-demon-hunter-half-incubus and a few other cool things. There is also Mircea, who is Dracula's oldest brother, and also Cassie's sort of lover, since they do love each other, but he's a vampire and centuries old, and she's twenty-four. This book starts off with a bang and just keeps getting better, from Pritkin and Cassie accidently switching bodies, so Cassie's brain in now in Pritkin's body and vice versa. There is also the god Apollo who is trying to get Cassie to join forces with him and let him rule the worls and make everyone pay and make her his servant. All in all this is definitely one of Karen Chances BEST books and I cannot WAIT until next June when her next book comes out!! Overall grade...A+!!!

Project Sweet Life

This was the type of book that I'd call a "feel-good novel." It just makes you feel pretty darn good at the end. This book was from the perspective of Dave, and it followed Dave and his two best friends Curtis and Victor. They are on a mission, a mission to save their last summer of freedom. They are fifteen and that's the last summer before they HAVE to get a job, they COULD, but they don't want too, so they set out to make enough money legally, and not doing any work!! I thought this concept was new and such a good idea!! You follow these three boys through ten weeks of the summer and the best part is how they just keep screwing up!! But, in the most comical ways!! One including getting held-up only to be saved by an old lady who claims all the reward for herself!! They need 7,000 dollars to fool their dad's into believing they truly have jobs but it may not be as easy as they once believed it to be. One of the best parts about this book however, was how well developed all the characters were, they all seemed to fit together and get along in the best way possible. I truly enjoyed this book and I think so many others would as well. Overall grade...B

Suicide Notes

The first thing I noticed about this book was that it was written very well. I loved the style that Michael Thomas Ford wrote this book. It spans over a time period of 45 days. Those 45 days are the time that fifteen-year-old Jeff spends in the Psychiatric Ward of the hospital. The reason he's there?? He tried to kill himself. The reason he tried to kill himself?? You have no idea. This story sounds like it would be super depressing and sad, but here's the thing, it's NOT!! Not at all!! Jeff is sarcastic, witty guy who thinks the four other patients are the crazy ones, not him. He makes up these silly names for the nurses and his shrink. One is Nurse Goody Two-Shoes, real name Nurse Good, Moonie who's name is Nurse Moon, and my all time favorite. Dr. Cat-Poop. Dr. Katzrupus. (Though I think Cat-Poop sounds a bit better!!) From the very beginning Jeff sucks you into his world. One of the best parts about this book however, was that it felt real. It really felt like this was a real person living through all the things he had to do. You follow Jeff from his first day in group therapy with Julie who is in love with Bone, Alice who's the nuttiest of all, and Sadie, the girl who tried to drown herself but was saved by a man named Sam that she now idolizes in a very strange way. As some of the patients end their 45 days or just go crazier then before, you meet a few new people. Some who have a more serious impact on Jeff, like Rankin, the creepy football player, and Martha who never talks except for one time to Jeff. Then there is Squirrel, who is just some weird guy. You do eventually figure out/find out why Jeff tried to kill himself, but before you do you discover so much about him, and about everyone else too. This book was just so good, and so my overall grade has to be an A+!! Anything less just wouldn't do for this particular book!!

Spell Hunter (Faery Rebels #1)

When I first saw the cove of this book I thought it was going to be a silly little children's book, like something that I would read in elementary school or something...boy was I wrong!! This was anything BUT a children's book!! It was DEFINITELY meant for teenagers. This book starts off with one of my favorite YA book themes...Faeries!!! From the very beginning it just got BETTER and better!! When I first started this book I thought that the back cover was wrong, since I didn't realize I was reading about Knife, I thought I was reading about another character. You learn a bit later that she changes her name to Knife, which makes sense with the story, obviously. Knife travels outside her home, Oakwyld, and discovers Paul, after almost being killed by a crow of course, and after she gets trapped inside his house, starts befriending him. This is of course directly disobeying the Faerie Queen, but Knife doesn't care, she's not afraid of anything, and actually, befriending Paul may just save them both. This is a gripping tale that will leave you wanting more, and thankfully there is a sequel!!! This is a one-of-a-kind story that I could not put down and truly loved. It was unlike any other story I had ever read, since in this one, the faeries had lost almost all their magic mysteriously years ago, instead of most others where all faeries may have too MUCH magic. I really enjoyed this story and so would most anyone else. Overall grade...A.