Got a case of the Monday Blues? Need a quick pick me up? Well check this post every Monday for a few images that'll quickly brighten up your mood for the day.
Monday, January 7, 2013
Friday, January 4, 2013
Review: Cinder By Marissa Meyer
Title: Cinder
Author: Marissa Meyer
Series: Lunar Chronicles #1
Publisher: Feiwel & Freinds
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Pages: 387 pages
Age: YA
Website Amazon Goodreads
My Thoughts:
Cinder was amazing! Not your typical fairy tale retell. I like that Meyer took the basics of the story we know and completely gave them a fresh new take. Cinder is still a stepchild with two stepsisters & a dead stepfather and her only friend is not a human (or cyborg in her case). I also like the fact that this was a science fiction book. Having Cinder be a cyborg made it more interesting. It was fun to imagine the situations where she should have been blushing but couldn't, or should have been crying but couldn't. It made you feel for her more. Besides Cinder, my favorite character was Iko. Her personality was amazing even though she was just an android. She made me want an android of my own just like her. The setting of this book was very cool. Instead of being in some small, overcrowded town in the middle of nowhere, the story takes place in New Beijing. It's easy to picture what that place looks like in the story.
I loved reading about Cinder's journey of self discovery. She always knew that she was a cyborg, a mix of human & machine. But it was interesting to watch her find out about where she actually came from and who her family is. Especially since half her adopted family wants nothing to do with her. She learns of her importance and how she can help with the plague that is killing off tons of humans on the Earth while struggling with her feelings for the prince, who has come to have feelings for her as well.
I'm very glad that Meyer kept to the original story and only had one love interest. Nowadays every ya book has a love triangle & it's getting to be a tad annoying. It's refreshing to read a book where two people are focused on just each other.
I can't wait for the second book in the series, Scarlet. This one will be a somewhat retelling of little red riding hood that also continues the story of Cinder. I know it's going to be just as amazing!
Recommend:
I highly recommend this book to anybody. It was a fun read and kept my interest the whole time. You could really connect to Cinder's character.
Author: Marissa Meyer
Publisher: Feiwel & Freinds
Release Date: January 3, 2012
Pages: 387 pages
Age: YA
Website Amazon Goodreads
Synopsis:
Humans & 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 & 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, & a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty & freedom, loyalty & betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world's future.
My Thoughts:
Cinder was amazing! Not your typical fairy tale retell. I like that Meyer took the basics of the story we know and completely gave them a fresh new take. Cinder is still a stepchild with two stepsisters & a dead stepfather and her only friend is not a human (or cyborg in her case). I also like the fact that this was a science fiction book. Having Cinder be a cyborg made it more interesting. It was fun to imagine the situations where she should have been blushing but couldn't, or should have been crying but couldn't. It made you feel for her more. Besides Cinder, my favorite character was Iko. Her personality was amazing even though she was just an android. She made me want an android of my own just like her. The setting of this book was very cool. Instead of being in some small, overcrowded town in the middle of nowhere, the story takes place in New Beijing. It's easy to picture what that place looks like in the story.
I loved reading about Cinder's journey of self discovery. She always knew that she was a cyborg, a mix of human & machine. But it was interesting to watch her find out about where she actually came from and who her family is. Especially since half her adopted family wants nothing to do with her. She learns of her importance and how she can help with the plague that is killing off tons of humans on the Earth while struggling with her feelings for the prince, who has come to have feelings for her as well.
I'm very glad that Meyer kept to the original story and only had one love interest. Nowadays every ya book has a love triangle & it's getting to be a tad annoying. It's refreshing to read a book where two people are focused on just each other.
I can't wait for the second book in the series, Scarlet. This one will be a somewhat retelling of little red riding hood that also continues the story of Cinder. I know it's going to be just as amazing!
Recommend:
I highly recommend this book to anybody. It was a fun read and kept my interest the whole time. You could really connect to Cinder's character.
January TBR
January TBR List
Title: The Girl In The Steel Corset
Author: Kady Cross
Publisher: Harlequin Teen
Release Date: May 24, 2011
Pages: 473 pages
In 1897 England, 16 year old Finley Jayne has no one... except the "thing" inside her. When a young lord tries to take advantage of Finley, she fights back. And wins. But no "normal" Victorian girl has a darker side that makes her capable of knocking out a full-grown man with one punch...
Only Griffen King sees the magical darkness inside her that says she's special, says she's one of "them". Griffin's investigating a criminal called The Machinist, the mastermind behind several recent crimes by automatons. Finley thinks she can help.
But The Machinist wants to tear Griff's little company of strays apart, and it isn't long before trust is tested on all sides. At least Finley knows whose side she's on-- even if it seems no one believes her.
Title: Dust & Decay
Author: Jonathon Maberry
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Release Date: August 30, 2011
Pages: 519 pages
Six months have passed since the terrifying battle with Charlie Pink-eye and the Motor City Hammer in the zombie-infested mountains of the Rot & Ruin. It's also six months since Benny Imura and Nix Riley saw something in the air that changed their lives. Now, after months of rigorous training with Benny's zombie-hunter brother Tom, Benny and Nix are ready to leave their home forever and search for a better future. Lilah the Lost Girl and Benny's best friend Lou Chong are going with them. Sounds easy. Except that everything that can go wrong does. Before they can even leave there is a shocking zombie attack in town. But as soon as they step into the Rot & Ruin they are pursued by the living dead, wild animals, insane murderers & and the horrors of Gameland- where teenagers are forced to fight for their lives in the zombie pits. Worst of all... could Charlie Pink-eye still be alive?
Title: Divergent
Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Release Date: Feb 28, 2012
Pages: 487 pages
In Beatrice Prior's Chicago world, society is divided into five fractions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful) & Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all 16 year olds must select the fraction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is-- she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone,including herself.
During thr highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological stimulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are-- and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, she also learns that her secret might help her save those she loves... or it might destroy her.
Title: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Publisher: Little, Brown & Company
Release Date: September 27, 2011
Pages: 417 pages
Around the world, black hand prints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.
In a dark & dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages-- not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.
When one of the strangers- beautiful, haunted Akiva-fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
In a dark & dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grows dangerously low.
And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherworldly war.
Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages-- not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.
When one of the strangers- beautiful, haunted Akiva-fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?
Wednesday, January 2, 2013
Wordy Wednesday #9
This is a meme I'm doing where I literally open the dictionary to random pages and post words. I figure every reader has had a few times where we come across a word in a book that we have no idea what it means. So every week I'll be posting new words, until I complete the whole dictionary. If you do your own Wordy Wednesday post, please link back to mine since I created this.
Ligate - vb - : to tie with a ligature
Spar - n -: a rounded wood or metal piece for supporting sail rigging
Semolina - n -: the purified hard grains produced from the milling of wheat and used esp. for pasta
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