Book Review: The School for Good and Evil by Soman Chainani

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The School for Good and Evil
The School for Good and Evil #1

Author: Soman Chainani
Reading Level: Middle Grade
Genre: Fairy Tales
Released: May 14th 2013
Review Source: HarperCollins

The first kidnappings happened two hundred years before. Some years it was two boys taken, some years two girls, sometimes one of each. But if at first the choices seemed random, soon the pattern became clear. One was always beautiful and good, the child every parent wanted as their own. The other was homely and odd, an outcast from birth. An opposing pair, plucked from youth and spirited away.

This year, best friends Sophie and Agatha are about to discover where all the lost children go: the fabled School for Good & Evil, where ordinary boys and girls are trained to be fairy tale heroes and villains. As the most beautiful girl in Gavaldon, Sophie has dreamed of being kidnapped into an enchanted world her whole life. With her pink dresses, glass slippers, and devotion to good deeds, she knows she’ll earn top marks at the School for Good and graduate a storybook princess. Meanwhile Agatha, with her shapeless black frocks, wicked pet cat, and dislike of nearly everyone, seems a natural fit for the School for Evil.

But when the two girls are swept into the Endless Woods, they find their fortunes reversed—Sophie’s dumped in the School for Evil to take Uglification, Death Curses, and Henchmen Training, while Agatha finds herself in the School For Good, thrust amongst handsome princes and fair maidens for classes in Princess Etiquette and Animal Communication.. But what if the mistake is actually the first clue to discovering who Sophie and Agatha really are…?

This is a alternative take to the fairy tales and the whole idea about princesses and their villain nemesis’s. There have been two children disappearing over the course of history, and only seem to turn up in fairy tales. Sophia know’s whats up, and is ready to become the princess she has always felt she deserved to be, and has befriended Agatha. Who’s outcast demeanor casts her as the obvious choice to be the witch to Sophia’s princess.

The story itself is entertaining, watching the School for Good and Evil, following their classes and seeing how vastly different the schools are to each other. While it is marketed towards middle Grade readers, a good story is a good story, despite the offered reading level. I enjoyed reading the book, already bought books two and three.

It’s no real surprise that Sophia is dropped into the School for Evil, where as Agatha is placed into the School for Good. Although at first it’s highly entertaining, it makes sense with their deepest truest nature. Enjoy!

Book Review: Sabriel By Garth Nix

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Sabriel
Old Kingdom Series #1

Author: Garth Nix
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Action Fantasy
Released: Aug. 23rd, 1997
Review Source: Harper Collins

Game of Thrones fans will love the New York Times bestselling Abhorsen series.

Sent to a boarding school in Ancelstierre as a young child, Sabriel has had little experience with the random power of Free Magic or the Dead who refuse to stay dead in the Old Kingdom. But during her final semester, her father, the Abhorsen, goes missing, and Sabriel knows she must enter the Old Kingdom to find him.

I first read this book back in middle school, I was eleven. I fell in love with the writing style, the details and the epic story with a strong hero. I have loved this book for many years and I still re read it, as I do with the Potter series.

The book opens with Sabriel walking to school, we see the town through her eyes and understanding. The City of Waverly is turning modern, a few cars are seen but only the military has them, asides from the excessively wealthy, there is electricity but it is sparse yet still. We get a peek into the type of power that Sabriel and her father can wield. As the graduation grows closer, Sabriel is approached by a sending, an ominous message from her father. Now, she leaves school to search for him, across The Wall.

What awaits a fresh Abhorsen? Will she find her father or find her doom in the Old Kingdom that lies just across the wall. After all, times have been tough in the Old Kingdom, the monarchy has been destroyed for a long time. Winter is already falling around her as she searches for Terciel, her father. Not too long she notices that she is being followed, is it a friend or a foe?

This is always a great book to curl up with on a rainy day or long road trip! To clear any confusion up, Sabriels family are necromancers, but they bear the title Abhorsen, they lay the dead down where others raise the dead for nefarious deeds. Only her families bloodline can walk in death, without succumbing to the call to rest as all others who wade into the waters do. There is quite a bit of action through the book. The choice of weapons for an Abhorsen is a set of bells and sword, its quite the creative take for the book and I loved it. I recommend this book for any and all fantasy readers!

Book Review: The Marked Girl by Lindsey Klingele

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The Marked Girl
Marked Girl #1
Author: Lindsey Klingele
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Fantasy
Released: June 21st 2016
Review Source: Harper Collins

Once upon a time, in a land far, far away (Los Angeles)…

When Cedric, crowned prince of Caelum, and his fellow royal friends (including his betrothed, Kat) find themselves stranded in modern-day L.A. via a magical portal and an evil traitor named Malquin, all they want to do is get home to Caelum—soon. Then they meet Liv, a filmmaker foster girl who just wants to get out of the system and on with her life. As she and Cedric bond, they’ll discover that she’s more connected to his world than they ever could’ve imagined…and that finding home is no easy task…

What a fantastic take for a book, and I would be interested in knowing how it might end.

The books pegged under time travel, and I don't know if that's quite correct. After all, from what I just read, it's not so much time travel as it is two different worlds, possibly dimensions. One of our modern day earth, where Liv and the rest of humanity have been carrying on, doing what they do, survive.
The other world, Caelum, is where magic has escaped too, as well as wrath's. Cedric and Kat have been raised to continue the fight againts wrath's, together. The book starts where Liv and her best friend Shannon, are wrapping up a shoot one night when an earthquake hits. In the aftermath, they comes across Cedric, Kat and Merek, who aren't exactly from around LA. They escaped Caelum though a portal, but can't go home without another portal, and for that they need to find ancient scrolls. All the while dodging pursuing wrath's. The book follows them through their kidnappings and escapes from the evil Malquin who's got his own plans for Liv.

The book while in my opinion, has an original idea, but was slightly predictable. The impossible love spark that happens, was slightly frustrating as I felt it couldn't really go anywhere, without either of the two truly giving up something crucial, and then their's the betrothal to complicate the issue. However despite these small short comings, I am interested to know where the book will go, and I'd be thrilled if this was a duology instead of a long drawn out series.

Only on other thing irked me, and its an issue that probably only bothers me and means truly nothing... but considering only 2% of the worlds population has green eyes, how is it that Liv, Daisy, and Emme all have green eyes?

Through it all, I did enjoy the story and I am interested in reading the next installment.

Happy #BacktotheFuture Day!

Happy Back to the Future Day to everyone! 

Today is the day that the Doc plugged in to the Dolorian the date: Oct 21 2015, that showed us back in 1985 what the future would be like in 2015. Let's just say I think they got a few things wrong.

Back to the Future continues to be a movie you can watch over and over again. I introduced my boys to the movies a few months back and they loved them. You can't help but laugh no matter how outdated the films are. If you have kids or if you are one of the very few people left that haven't watched Back to the Future, you must watch it. 

Now as far as the future back in 1985, they really had a vivid imagination. Still waiting on those flying cars and hoverboards and don't forget the Nike's that laces themselves (this would be any mother's dream).

"Roads? Where we're going we don't need... roads!"

Such an Iconic moment!!! (as an 8 year old child at least it was to me at the time, lol)

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And in case you missed it yesterday, Harper Design released this:

Great Scott! Go Back to the Future with Doc Brown and Marty McFly in this visually stunning look at the creation of one of the most beloved movie trilogies of all time.

Few films have made an impact on popular culture like the Back to the Future trilogy. This deluxe, officially licensed book goes behind the scenes to tell the complete story of the making of these hugely popular movies and how the adventures of Marty McFly and Doc Brown became an international phenomenon.

Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History is a stunning journey into the creation of this beloved time-traveling saga and features hundreds of never-before-seen images from all three movies, along with rare concept art, storyboards, and other visual treasures.

The book also features exclusive interviews with key cast and crew members—including Michael J. Fox, Christopher Lloyd, Lea Thompson, Robert Zemeckis, Bob Gale, Steven Spielberg, Frank Marshall, Kathleen Kennedy, and more—and tells the complete story of the production of the movies, from the initial concept to the staging of iconic scenes such as the “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance and the hoverboard sequence. The book also delves into the wider Back to the Future universe, exploring the animated television show and Back to the Future: The Ride.

Written by Michael Klastorin—the production publicist on the second and third movies—with Back to the Future expert Randal Atamaniuk, this book delivers a range of surprises from the Universal Pictures archives and also includes a wealth of special removable items.

Comprehensive, compelling, and definitive, Back to the Future: The Ultimate Visual History is the book that fans have been waiting for.

• Removable items include:
• Hill Valley High School Tardy Slip
• Back to the Future The Ride security pass
• Save the Clocktower leaflet
• Sepia photograph of Marty and Doc from Part III
• Marty’s note to Doc from the first film with the envelope
• George McFly’s book
• Jaws 19 movie poster
• George and Lorraine’s prom photo
• Doc’s flux capacitor sketch from the first film
• Doc’s note to Marty from 1885
• Biff one dollar bill from Part II
• Blast from the Past receipt from Part II
• Lenticular version of the iconic McFly family photo from the first film

Molly McAdams' Shares An Excerpt from To The Stars!

  

We are so excited to bring you the Excerpt Reveal for Molly McAdams' TO THE STARS! TO THE STARS is a contemporary romance novel being published on February 9th by HarperCollins’ William Morrow Impulse imprint and is the second novel in Molly’s Thatch Series! Pre-order this awesome book today!

 

Pre-Order Your Copy Today!

Amazon ** Barnes & Noble ** iTunes ** Kobo ** GooglePlay 

About TO THE STARS: In the second book in New York Times and USA Today bestselling author Molly McAdams’ Thatch series, Knox Alexander must convince his long-time love Harlow Evans that they’re meant to be together. He promised to wait for her. She told him he was wasting his time. Not waiting for him ended up being the biggest mistake of her life. When they were younger, Knox Alexander swore to Harlow Evans that he would wait for her to turn eighteen so they could be together. But that was two and a half years away, and Harlow couldn’t ask him to give up all the fun and thrills of going away to college for her. As the years passed, Knox remained a constant in her life—whether she liked it or not—but when her eighteenth birthday came around, Harlow’s heart belonged to someone else. Every day for the last four years, Harlow has been haunted by that fateful choice. And though he may appear unaffected by what happened in their past, Knox has always tried to fill the void Harlow left. But when he comes stumbling back into her life and refuses to leave, will Harlow finally let him into her heart…?

And don’t miss the first book in the Thatch Series…

LETTING GO

Amazon ** Barnes and Noble ** iTunes ** Kobo ** GooglePlay ** Audio

   Excerpt:

Excerpt Reveal: To The Stars by Molly McAdams

https://www.scribd.com/doc/284191992/Excerpt-Reveal-To-The-Stars-by-Molly-McAdams

 

About Molly McAdams: Molly grew up in California but now lives in the oh-so-amazing state of Texas with her husband, daughter, and fur babies. When she's not diving into the world of her characters, some of her hobbies include hiking, snowboarding, traveling, and long walks on the beach … which roughly translates to being a homebody with her hubby and dishing out movie quotes. She has a weakness for crude-humored movies and fried pickles, and loves curling up in a fluffy comforter during a thunderstorm ... or under one in a bathtub if there are tornadoes. That way she can pretend they aren't really happening.      

Website ** Tumblr ** Facebook ** Twitter ** Google+

TO THE STARS Goodreads ** Molly McAdams Goodreads

 

Book Review: The Selection by Kiera Cass

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The Selection
The Selection #1
Author: Kiera Cass
Reading Level: Young Adult
Genre: Dystopia
Release Date: April 24th 2012
Review Source: HarperCollins Children UK | Netgalley

For thirty-five girls, the Selection is the chance of a lifetime. The opportunity to escape the life laid out for them since birth. To be swept up in a world of glittering gowns and priceless jewels. To live in a palace and compete for the heart of gorgeous Prince Maxon.

But for America Singer, being Selected is a nightmare. It means turning her back on her secret love with Aspen, who is a caste below her. Leaving her home to enter a fierce competition for a crown she doesn't want. Living in a palace that is constantly threatened by violent rebel attacks.

Then America meets Prince Maxon. Gradually, she starts to question all the plans she's made for herself--and realizes that the life she's always dreamed of may not compare to a future she never imagined.

The funny thing is, this book cover has been catching my eyes for years but I never considered picking it up and reading it. Why? I was convinced that it wasn't my type of book. Prince and princess', all those girls fighting over one man and I was convinced there would be a love triangle--which aren't my favourite things, by the way. But I'm not above putting my hands up and admiting I was wrong--because I was really wrong-- because after 3 years of avoiding this book, it's now one of my favourite books from one of my favourite series.

The Selection was a surprisingly addicting book. Like, one minute I was entering book one and the next I was closing the pages to book four. I couldn't believe how much I enjoyed it. It was unlike anything I've ever read and opened my eyes to a different kind of book. Suddenly I have a craving for book covers with pretty dresses and royalty is more appealing. And the addictivness of this book made it hard to write this review, lol. I literally can't remember where book one ended and book three started. I read the series so fast that the series blurred into one epic tale.

The Selection built a world I wasn't expecting. The castes being the most shocking of them all. Each person is a number, there being eight in total, and the higher number you are the worse off your life is--the less money you make and the more likely you are to work yourself into such an exhaustion it literally kills you. America is a 5. Her life isn't as bad as an eights, but she's known what it's like to go without food or warmth. When a once in a lifetime chance to better her life pops up, she plays the game, even if it's not what she wants to do. Because there's a massive catch. The once in a lifetime chance opportunity is to become the prince's bride. Suddenly it's America and thirty-four other girls as competition-- competition for something she doesn't actually want--and things get a whole lot of interesting. It's surprising what some people will do in the heat of a competition, and America finds friendships in the most unlikely places. It's a swirl of misplaced emotions, flashing cameras, and learning to live like royalty.

America was an admirable character. When all the other girls were slapping on the extra make-up, showing a bit of extra skin and doing and saying all the right things to convince the prince to fall for them, America sticks to her guns. She stays true to herself and what she believes. Sometimes it's an honorable and admirable trait as a potential queen to be, but it also made me question her sanity sometimes. She's a free spirit who did crazy things before thinking (only occasionally, though).

If you're like me and doubted the story, just go ahead and give it a chance. It will surprise you.

Trailer Thursday: Magonia by Maria Dehvana Headly + Jem and the Holograms

Magonia

Author: Maria Dehvana Headly

Published: April 28, 2015

Publisher: Harper Collins

Neil Gaiman’s Stardust meets John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars in this fantasy about a girl caught between two worlds... two races…and two destinies.

Aza Ray is drowning in thin air.
Since she was a baby, Aza has suffered from a mysterious lung disease that makes it ever harder for her to breathe, to speak—to live.

So when Aza catches a glimpse of a ship in the sky, her family chalks it up to a cruel side effect of her medication. But Aza doesn't think this is a hallucination. She can hear someone on the ship calling her name.

Only her best friend, Jason, listens. Jason, who’s always been there. Jason, for whom she might have more-than-friendly feelings. But before Aza can consider that thrilling idea, something goes terribly wrong. Aza is lost to our world—and found, by another. Magonia.

Above the clouds, in a land of trading ships, Aza is not the weak and dying thing she was. In Magonia, she can breathe for the first time. Better, she has immense power—and as she navigates her new life, she discovers that war is coming. Magonia and Earth are on the cusp of a reckoning. And in Aza’s hands lies the fate of the whole of humanity—including the boy who loves her. Where do her loyalties lie?

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Jem and the Holograms

Release Date: October 23rd 2015

Director: Jon M. Chu

Writer: Ryan Landels

Main Cast: Juliette Lewis, Ryan Guzman, Molly Ringwald, Aubrey Peeples, Stefanie Scott, Aurora Perrineau, Hayley Kiyoko

As a small-town girl catapults from underground video sensation to global superstar, she and her three sisters begin a one-in-a-million journey of discovering that some talents are too special to keep hidden. In Universal Pictures’ Jem and the Holograms, four aspiring musicians will take the world by storm when they see that the key to creating your own destiny lies in finding your own voice.

Directed by Jon M. Chu (Step Up series, G.I. Joe: Retaliation), the musical adventure stars Aubrey Peeples, Stefanie Scott, Aurora Perrineau, Hayley Kiyoko, Ryan Guzman, Molly Ringwald and Juliette Lewis. Jem and the Holograms, based on the iconic Hasbro animated TV series, is written by Ryan Landels and produced by Chu, Jason Blum for Blumhouse Productions, Scooter Braun for SB Projects, Bennett Schneir, and Brian Goldner and Stephen Davis of Hasbro Studios.

Release Week Blitz: All Played Out by | Excerpt | Giveaway

We are absolutely thrilled to bring you the Release Week Blitz for Cora Carmack's ALL PLAYED OUT! ALL PLAYED OUT is a New Adult Contemporary Romance and is the 3rd book in the Rusk University Series, published by William Morrow, an imprint of HarperCollins.

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First person in her family to go to college? CHECK.
Straight A’s? CHECK.
On track to graduate early? CHECK.
Social life? …..yeah, about that….

With just a few weeks until she graduates, Antonella DeLuca’s beginning to worry that maybe she hasn’t had the full college experience. (Okay... Scratch that. She knows she hasn't had the full college experience).

So Nell does what a smart, dedicated girl like herself does best. She makes a "to do" list of normal college activities.

Item #1? Hook up with a jock.

Rusk University wide receiver Mateo Torres practically wrote the playbook for normal college living. When he’s not on the field, he excels at partying, girls, and more partying. As long as he keeps things light and easy, it's impossible to get hurt... again. But something about the quiet, shy, sexy-as-hell Nell gets under his skin, and when he learns about her list, he makes it his mission to help her complete it.

Torres is the definition of confident (And sexy. And wild), and he opens up a side of Nell that she's never known. But as they begin to check off each crazy, exciting, normal item, Nell finds that her frivolous list leads to something more serious than she bargained for. And while Torres is used to taking risks on the field, he has to decide if he's willing to take the chance when it's more than just a game.

Together they will have to decide if what they have is just part of the experiment or a chance at something real.

Excerpt

Dallas and Dylan toss the disk back and forth a few times, and I groan when Carson and Silas make no effort to intercept or knock down the pass. I’m pretty sure it’s a distraction, so I stick tight to Brookes, and I notice Ryan edging closer to me, too. He must have the same idea.
Next thing I know, Dallas has sent the disk soaring over our heads, and when I look, Nell is standing alone, completely unguarded in the end zone.
She’s holding her hands out and staring at the disk like it’s a missile instead of a piece of plastic. I take off toward her in case she misses it. I want to grab the disk and get it back into play as soon as I can.
As I sprint, the disk slips right through her grasping fingers and nails her in the chest. She gasps; no doubt the air was knocked out of her. The disk ricochets, and if I dive I might can manage to catch it, but I can’t quite drag my eyes away from her chest. Her tits are practically spilling out of the top of the tiny tank she’s wearing. I’d had a front-row seat earlier with my arm around her. Now she’s clutching at herself in pain, but all I can see are her smooth, delicate arms pressed against the curve of her breasts, pushing them even higher.
I should look away before something very unfortunate occurs in my baggy gym shorts, but now I’m picturing that shy girl loosening up beneath me. It’s too easy to take those wide eyes she gave me when I draped my arm around her and imagine them in the low light of my room, her head on my pillow and her legs spread wide.
She makes a soft whimpering noise, and now the rest of my senses join the fantasy, and I think of how she would feel, taste, sound. I wonder just how low I could get her inhibitions. Enough to say my name? To scream it?
“Damn,” I groan, and try to clear my head. “You all right?”
She looks up at me, still clutching at her chest, and pink spreads over her cheeks. She doesn’t say anything.
“Okay,” I say. “There is honestly no way to ask this without sounding like a pig, so I’m not even gonna try. And really, in these situations, I find you might as well go balls to the wall and throw it all out there. So … at the risk of getting slapped, how are your tits?” I think about offering to check them out for her, but I figure that’s probably taking it a step too far.
Her mouth presses into a firm straight line. “It wasn’t my ...” She trails off.
“Tits,” I finish for her. “You have them. You can say the word.”
“It hit me in the collarbone, not the breasts.”
Breasts. I raise an eyebrow, and she rolls her eyes.
I take a step forward and say, “Let me see.”
“Absolutely not.”
I take another step, until my shadow falls over her, and take hold of one wrist. “As you pointed out, you weren’t hit in the breasts. Just let me have a look. With the right strength and good wind, a disk can go as fast as twenty miles per hour. I’ve seen them break fingers and noses.”
“Dude, Torres!” Silas shouts behind me. “What are you waiting for? Grab the disk and let’s go!”
Hesitating, I ask, “You wanna take a break? Catch your breath and let me see it?”
She shakes her head stubbornly. “I don’t want the game to stop because of me.”
I turn around and shout back to Silas, “Nell and I are taking a break. You guys keep playing with eight.”
Taking her elbow, I pull her off the field toward the picnic tables. She protests, but only mildly, and she still has one hand pressed just above her cleavage. And looking down at her, I can see moisture clinging to long lashes at the corner of her eye.
I sit her down so that her back is to the field, and go down on one knee in front of her. She’s so small that it puts us eye level, and I say softly, “Move your hand.”
“It’s fine,” she says. “Just give me a couple seconds, and I’ll be fine.”
You don’t grow up with five sisters without learning that sometimes with women, words are pointless. I reach out and move her hand myself, pulling it away from her chest. The skin just below her collarbone is an angry red, and the disk scraped through a couple layers of skin. Not enough to bleed, but I bet it hurts. “Tell me how it feels. Still a sharp pain? Or more of an ache?”
Her eyebrows slant over her pretty brown eyes. “The pain was sharp and steady for approximately thirty seconds, but now it kind of stings.”
“Like a slap,” I say.
She gives a short laugh, her shoulders bouncing once before she stills in what I’m guessing is pain. “I can’t say I know what that feels like. Though I’m not surprised it’s a sensation you’re familiar with.”
I shrug. “I don’t believe in censoring my thoughts. Some people just aren’t as fond of freedom of speech as I am.”
She shakes her head, and I think she’s trying not to smile.
I reach up my left hand and as lightly as possible run my thumb over the red mark. She sucks in a breath and I ask, “Hurts to the touch?”
“Um.” She swallows and blinks a few times.
“Does it hurt a lot?”
I brush my thumb over her skin again, even lighter this time, wondering if the Frisbee could have hit hard enough to crack something. There’s already a purpling around the center that tells me it’s going to bruise pretty good.
She swallows, and my eyes are drawn to the graceful slope of her neck, up to a small chin and full lips. And it hits me then … why this girl caught my eye from the moment she walked toward our group, why I can’t drag my eyes or my hand away from her now.
She reminds me of Lina.
And the memory of the only girl I’ve ever loved packs a punch so hard that it’s my turn to raise a hand to my chest to soothe an all-too-familiar ache.

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Cora Carmack is a twenty-something writer who likes to write about twenty-something characters. She's done a multitude of things in her life-- boring jobs (like working retail), Fun jobs (like working in a theatre), stressful jobs (like teaching), and dream jobs (like writing). She enjoys placing her characters in the most awkward situations possible, and then trying to help them get a boyfriend out of it. Awkward people need love, too. Her first book, LOSING IT, is a New York Times and USA Today bestseller.

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