Amplified by Tara Kelly
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 stars

So I guess I might have a thing for books with music in them.
Might it be because I can actually hear it like a soundtrack, just like in a movie and it makes it more vivid? Maybe. Might it be because musician are always irrevocably hot? Yeah, that's probably more like it.
Come on, who wasn't mesmerized at some point in their life by the guy playing the guitar in front of a bonfire during a hot summer night? Only me? Ok, FINE. Moving on.

My expectations for Amplified were middle to low. The past two YA contemporary books I read were pretty disappointing and I was sort of expecting this one to follow the lead. So what a pleasant surprise it turned out to be, I'm so glad I was proven wrong.

The beginning, to be honest, wasn't really promising.
We meet Jasmine being kicked out of the house by her father with her car broken down in front of an auto shop. Her father is one of those quite oppressive types and Jasmine wants to defer her enrollment in Stanford. Because she wants to play the guitar. Of course he doesn't agree, hence the kicking out. She's left with no car, no job, no place to stay, very little money, two guitars and one kick-ass amplifier.
Anyway, at the beginning, she was coming out as a bit of a spoiled brat and I could smell clichés from a mile away.

When she gets the chance to become part of an industrial rock group which incidentally includes also the chance to rent a room in a shared house, she jumps at the occasion even if she has to fake it; they ask for someone with stage experience and she has none.
Between the hysterical/weird/grumpy guys populating the house, the job at a psychic shop, her father not talking to her, rehearsals and her first live performance looming, Jasmine's life becomes hectic to say the least. Will she be able to fake it until she makes it or disaster is just around the corner?

Oh, how I wish all my vanillas were along the lines of this one. I haven't quite understood yet what it is that makes me despise some contemporary YA books and love other ones... I mean, the formula is pretty much always the same, right? Girl with problems/estranged from her parents meets cute boy who is taken/oblivious, enter mean girl, coming of age, bla bla bla...
So what is it? Well-developed characters? Yes. Witty, clever dialogue? Duh. Hot guys and sexual tension? Preferably. A morale, a message? Yes!
But what else?
I guess I need to feel something, that's all. Sentiment. The X factor that makes me long to be in the story, be part of it, be friends with the characters. If it's people I'd like to be friends with, then I'll probably like the book.
Amplified made me feel connected to Jasmine in such a way. Not only it's an extremely fun book - snarky, witty, clever exactly up to right level - but I really felt for Jasmine in her endeavor to chase her dreams and do something she really wanted to do. I kept on thinking, you go girl!
It's really hard out there for young people at the moment, especially in my country. Today I was listening to the radio in the car while taking the kids to school and they were interviewing some kids in a program. This girl, 17 I think, who was asked: "what are your dreams for the future?" replied: "None for the moment".
I almost swerved. How can you not have ANY dreams at 17, for crying out loud? This shocks me and makes me extremely sad. If our kids have no dreams, what kind of hope do we have for the future?
I think we need more books with kids who strive to do something with their lives. But I digress.

The romance in the story was also very much to my taste. It develops slowly and it ends in a very believable and logic way, and kudos to Tara Kelly for managing it that way, I totally bought it.
The only reason why I took away half a star to this incredibly worthy book is Amy. While the other characters were really cool - especially Veta and Bryn - Amy is way too cliché, too mean girl. She might as well have grown some horns, got a pitchfork and the portrait would have been complete.

I also might add that some readers - me - might find the music parts a tad too technical. What the heck is a wah?!

Anyway, for all my friends who like "vanillas", I think you need to check this out because it's a keeper.

This is Shyness by Leanne Hall
My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Can this review be more of a warning? I'm not sure This Is Shyness is for everybody.
To be honest, I don't think I've read anything like This Is Shyness before and it's pretty difficult to give it a label. I'm going to play safe and tell you that, maybe, the only sure label is YA?


But let me give you a brief synopsis to give you an idea.
In an alternate or future - I'm not sure - world similar to ours, a strange dark area has descended on the city (or neighborhood, still not sure) of Panwood. It's called Shyness and, there, the sun never rises. Just in that area.
It's a place that's been abandoned by regular people and is now populated by weird individuals, renegades, people of the night.

Meet Wildgirl during a night out in a bar in Shyness, called "The Diabetic". She's there with some friends from work to have a few drinks, but it's just an excuse. In reality, she's looking for trouble, or a distraction. Something bad has happened to her at school and she's trying to either forget it ever happened or find a way to run away from everything and never come back. That's where she meets Wolfboy, a guy with "thick air on his arms". The guy actually howls. Their meeting is a sort of epiphany - for both of them - and they decide to leave the bar together, to go bar-hopping in Shyness, to explore.
What happens next, I can assure you, is a trip into a grotesque world. There's a lost/stolen credit card involved, a ukulele, some gang kids who get high on sugar (literally) and a suicide mission to rescue a lighter, for crying out loud. All peppered with a budding romance between Wildgirl and Wolfboy.

If you're looking for something completely OUT OF THE NORM this is your book.
Incredibly, I was slightly bored at the beginning. Not only was I baffled by the odd encounters W/W were making but the pacing was kinda slow. I got dumped into this world without a compass and I felt a bit overwhelmed by the lack of information.
What is Shyness, really? What is Wildgirl's big secret, the one she's running from? (and let me tell you, when I found out, if that is the reason, I had a major eye-rolling moment) What is Wolfboy's secret?
The writing is undeniably awesome and I am awed by the author's imagination and ability to pull together a weird, abnormal, incredible story. The characters are alive and real - as well as complete weirdos.
BUT, it was a tad too much for me. I really wanted to read something different but maybe... not THIS different.

Fortunately, the second part of the book caught my attention much more.
Again, like with Wildgirl's reasons for running away, I found the purpose of the rescue mission in Orphanville, the place where the gang kids lived, really futile. Wildgirl wasn't making much sense in her stubborness, I really couldn't get why she was so adamant about putting herself into trouble.

Nevertheless, now that I finished the book, I am left with a thousand questions that still need to be answered.
I need to see more of Wildgirl and Wolfboy together. Their story was well developed and absolutely believable (maybe the only believable thing?).
Unfortunately, who knows when I will be able to get my hands on a copy of Queen of the Night?
Pick this up if you're bored out of your mind with paranormal YA today.

Night Sky by Jolene B. Perry
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

3.5 stars


Night Sky in a nutshell? A sweet, coming-of-age story about love which manages to be decently deep because of some serious thematics... ummm, cliché much?
Well don't worry, it's actually better than it sounds.

The unthinkable has happened: Sara got a boyfriend. Jameson has liked her for three years, they're best friends but has never found the courage to tell her. And now it's too late. Until Sky shows up. She's older, stunning, honest and might be just what Jay needs to forget Sara.
But as things gets more and more complicated in Jameson's life, it turns out that Sky has some secrets of her own and that while she preaches honesty, maybe she's not giving it herself...

Night Sky will forever be impressed in my mind thanks to Jameson. In fact, the aspect I liked most about this, what made the story really stand out for me, is his character development. Not only was he completely believable - there came a point when I stopped reading, irritated, and complaining: can't he get his mind out if the gutter for like, half a chapter? But then I realized that duh, guys that age probably think about how to get laid 95% of their time - but I liked his process of maturation and how he realizes he is growing up while some other people... don't. He's an incredibly likable character and I liked how he manages to be a teen with a grain of salt in his head.

What - or rather, who - left me perplexed is Sky. I couldn't quite grasp her, she left me with the impression that there was something I was missing about her... I could not reconcile her "forward" behavior at the beginning of the book with what we learn of her later on in the story; it just didn't make sense. That's why I found her less believable, a tad too good to be true and what didn't let me rate this book higher.

Nevertheless, I am sure teens - and not only - will like Night Sky a lot. It manages to be a decently-written, light, entertaining, exciting read while also tackling a series of issues which might be interesting for kids that age (violence, family issues, betrayal) AND setting a good example.

I'd say give it a go!

Shooting Stars by Allison Rushby
My rating: 2 of 5 stars



MEEEEEEHHHHH....

Was this bad luck? I think so. My vanillas have gone rancid. I can stop writing this review and copy/paste the one I wrote for The Summer My Life Began.

In this one, we have Josephine, a.k.a. Jo Zo, a 16-year-old paparazz(a). Daughter of a famous paparazzo, student by day, celebrity stalker by night. She's young, tiny and can sneak in where no other photographer can go. When she gets an assignment to stalk the latest teen heartthrob, Ned Hartnett, while he's on retreat/rehab for "mysterious" issues, she just cannot refuse, even if it feels far from ethical. She needs the money to get out of her life as a pap and enroll in a proper photography school.
Unfortunately, the plan to get in, shoot and get out backfires big time. The more she gets to know the sweet Ned, the more she realizes:
- there's something weird about him she just can't put her finger on
- she's loosing her cool and feels definitely attracted to the guy.
When the truth comes up, will Jo Zo be able to renounce her dream and do "the right thing"?

I wish I could tell you this book is terrible, but it's not. I didn't hate it. Worse. I felt very indifferent to it.
It's not boring, it's not awfully written. It's just there's really very little to it. No substance, no depth, no - or very little - character development. I might repeat myself for the 100th time when I say this, but while I like light, fluffy stories, there has to be something in there. Something has to touch me, or amuse me or make me cry or whatever. Nothing is not good at all.

This is the kind of book that if you ask me in 6 months what it was about or the name of the MC, I won't even be able to tell you. So NOT memorable. There are so many more nice vanillas out there you want to read. Skip this one.

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

In the Scorpio sea, somewhere in the Atlantic, lies the island of Thisby. It's a small island mainly inhabited by fishermen but it's popular for its capaill uisce and its Scorpio Races. Capaill uisce are fearsome water horses. They feed on meat and blood and they are predators, killers.
The Scorpio Races are held each year in November and they're a tradition in Thisby. They're also dangerous, brutal and the cause of several casualties each year; because of course riders, in these races, compete riding capaill uisce. This year, Kate "Puck" Connolly, has decided to ride too. She wants to delay her brother's departure for the mainland and to save the house they lived in ever since their parents were killed from the capaill uisce. Winning the race would solve all her problems and so she enrolls. But she's a woman and no woman has ever ridden in the races before.
Sean Kendrick is the most experienced and talented horse trainer that the island of Thisby has ever seen. He's lost his father in the races and has won four times with his capall uisce, Corr, He is also the only one who can help and protect Puck in her desperate mission.

No words can be more eloquent than the author's own to describe the intrinsic weakness and strengths of this book.

"Other writers might have different priorities, but for me, the chief goal of my novels is not plot or premise or pacing, but to evoke a certain feeling. I will sacrifice most anything in order to change someone's mood in a certain way. I can't do that without careful navigation of metaphor and character development."
Taken from Maggie Stievater's blog, on "Dissecting Pages for Mood".

Perhaps, the biggest strength (and therein lies the talent) of Stiefvater's writing is that it is nothing but atmospheric. She is able to catapult the reader on the island of Thisby in November. You can feel the wind chafe, the water sprays freezing you to the bone, the smell of fish. She manages to dominate all your senses in such a complete way that you're there, smelling, touching, tasting (the November cakes, yum).
It's the kind of writing that I got enamored of in Shiver. Lyrical, exquisite, it touches you deeply and leaves and indelible sign.

Aside from the beautiful writing, the concept of the story is also very interesting. My experience of water horses was limited to the kelpies from other fairy books and I knew they were dangerous animals that would drown you before you realized it.
The capaill uisce though are dreadful monsters, brutal, fearsome. I was fascinated by the relationship between Corr and Sean, by the total unconditional love of a boy for a being that might kill you in the blink of an eye. In fact, I'd say the main love story in the Scorpio Races is not of the "human kind" but it's about a love based on friendship, trust, sacrifice between a man and a monster.

Much as I liked these aspects of the story and found the second part of the book unputdownable - no, scratch that, I HAD to put it down. The last chapters of the book, especially the ones describing the races got me so agitated I had to shut to the book and take a break from time to time, lest I give myself a stroke.
Unfortunately, the first part was Mountain Everest for me. I barely made it to the top, right before giving up.
It seems like Stiefvater really holds true to her words in the quote up there when she says that the main chief of her novels is not plot or premise of pacing because the pacing is really an issue for about the first 200 pages of the book. And that's A LOT in my opinion.
I deem this to be a big problem because really, I can't even imagine a teen getting over those first two hundred pages and still be interested in the story. If a book is abandoned because it's too slow at the beginning, what is the careful navigation and character development good for, if the reader never makes it to that point?

Nevertheless, I am so glad I did get over that first, looooong, uneventful part and finally got sucked in the story (also, I was fearing for my life, ahem) when I could finally appreciate Stiefvater's writing maturation, if compared to her previous novels, such as Shiver.
I will definitely be looking forward to her future works.

Cold Kiss by Amy Garvey
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

What would happen if you lost the person you loved most in the world and then.... managed to bring him back?

That's what happens in this stunning novel by Amy Garvey.
Wren was - is - in love with Danny. They were everything to each other, breathing each other's air. When Danny dies in a stupid car crash, Wren's world comes to a halt. The only way she knows to give remedy to the sense of loss and desperation she feels is by trying to use her... abilities. Wren has them. Her mom, aunt and sister have them too. They seem to be able to manipulate energy to their will: make things move, flowers bloom out of season, change the color of their hair at will.
In a desperate attempt to bring back what she's lost - but without thinking about the consequences - Wren concocts a spell that manages to raise Danny from the dead. But is really Danny or is it something else?

The type of zombie - there's just one - that Garvey creates in this book is not of your usual garden variety. Danny is more of a reanimated body brought back by a sort of necromancer (namely, Wren) and controlled by her. There are no blood-dripping teeth or deambulation with stiff limbs à la Thriller involved. Danny is sort of lucid, remembers fragments of his past life and is attached to Wren in a morbid way without really understanding why. He is the real and only victim under all aspects in this book and I felt so full of compassion and pity for him, it made me simultaneously mad, repulsed and terribly sorry for the situation.

Wren is a character I'd basically would want to slap, under normal circumnstances. She messes up big time by bringing Danny back and I didn't like the fact that she realized she has to do something about it (read: get rid of him) once Gabriel steps into the equation.
BUT. Garvey found a way to make me empathize with her on such a deep level that I just couldn't hate her. I could feel her desperation, her denial, her incapability to let go of Danny. But how did Garvey manage that?
Well, with her amazing writing skills, of course.
Garvey writes in such an effortless, polished way, there's not a word out of place. Her writing style is just lovely, in my opinion. She conjures up images and emotions with her words that really touched me deeply and made me tear up and feel all the grief and sorrow and helplessness Wren was experiencing. Her writing is what sets this book apart from others, really.

The only element that didn't let me give this book 5 stars is Gabriel. I have a lot of questions about him - which I am sure Garvey will give an answer to in her next book Glass Heart... right?! - but his relationship with Wren and his interest in her didn't feel completely justified. He follows her everywhere, he's almost obsessed, so much so that she has to tell him to back off. I hope I will find a feasible justification in Glass Heart that will also give light to many of the mysteries surrounding him.

Nevertheless, Cold Kiss is an amazing novel I really recommend reading, especially if you like your zombies with a twist.

The Summer My Life Began by Shannon Greenland
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

You might have noticed that I shelved this in my 3-neurons-involved shelf (and please note, it is not a shelf with a derogatory purpose, it's just dedicated to vanilla, fluffy, light reads I seem to enjoy so much when I feel overcome by... well, life). Most books that end up in that shelf are books I actually liked. That being said, you barely need 2 neurons for this book. Actually, make that 1.
And I'm quite disappointed to be honest, because the idea wasn't bad at all.

Margaret Elizabeth belongs to a well-off, pseudo-aristocratic family (imagine Gilmore girls), one of those who strive for elitism, the life paths of their children set in stone, with no choice whatsoever. She is meant to go to Harvard in the fall, become a lawyer and work in the family's firm.
When she receives and invitation from a mysterious aunt asking her to spend some time on the Outer Banks where she runs a B&B, she decides to take advantage of the good opportunity for her to relax and recharge her batteries before college.
Life on the island is nothing like the life she's used to: from her sweet aunt Tilly to her cute cousin Frederick, from the eccentric cook Domino to the magnetic and brooding Cade. As she gets settled and adjusts to the island's rhythm, she starts discovering clues as to the reasons why her aunt has never been mentioned before by her family... which might be more life-changing than what she bargained for.

So... a tropical getaway island? Soft sand and sunny days? A hot surfer guy with some secrets? Sign me up, please, I'm all ears. Then why did it go so wrong?
This book has no depth whatsoever, unfortunately. There's no depth in the characters, who ended up being pretty two-dimensional, and never got developed enough up to the point that some of them come out being cardboard caricatures (the grandmother? the mother? the sister?).
But most of all, and this is the biggest problem of this book, there's no depth in the writing.
There's a lot of telling, and very little showing.
A whirlwind of actions, places and scenes one after the other, they sounded almost like theatre stage directions in some points. It was all too fast, leaving me no time to appreciate the characters, the emotions, even the scenery.
Furthermore, the big ending revelation(s) that we discover at 94%, I guessed them around the 20% mark. A tad predictable? Everything is just too perfect, works out too well, at the right moment.I know this is fiction but it's gotta be believable.

The general impression is that this book could have been as good as Wanderlove, if only the writing and the characterization had been taken to a more... "experienced" level. I think this author has still a lot to learn.

Wander Dust by Michelle Warren
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Forewarning: I know not many days have passed since Maja reviewed this same book here, but I couldn't help it. This is why you want to read it:


Wander Dust is, in a nutshell, the love child of Jumper and Harry Potter.

This alone should make you dump everything you're reading and make you trigger-happy with your Amazon account. Well, aside from making you swoon just by thinking about Hayden Christensen... but I digress.

This is what I needed to lift me out of my reading slump!
I am in awe of Warren's fertile imagination, her plotting skills and her vivid descriptions. This is an author you definitely want to keep an eye on and I promise her book is certainly worth reading. And it's self-published! This must be the year of the Self-Pubbed Revolution!

The story starts with Seraphina celebrating her 16th birthday, in a restaurant, with her dad and his girlfriend. That's also when strange things start happening to her: candles igniting by themselves even underwater and a dark, dangerous looking lady trying to fry her brain just by looking at her.
When she receives the picture of a handsome guy in the mail and she discovers him stalking her at school, she just knows something's off.
After the umpteenth grounding by her father and a near-breakdown due to what she thinks are hallucinations, her father decides to send her to live with her aunt in Chicago and that's when she begins discovering the truth. Sera can time travel. When she starts attending the prestigious Academy, she learns she is a Wanderer, one-third of a team of time travelers, together with a Protector and a Seer. But when she realizes that her time traveling abilities might just lead her to her dead mother and help her change the past, trouble is sure to come her way.

Wander Dust is an ambitious book. It deals with time travel, a fact which, in itself, can potentially lead to disaster (as well as turning my brain to a mushy goo by trying to figure out the underlying theory).
If that weren't enough, its world-building is extremely sophisticated: different settings, real life places in which unreal, logic-defying action scenes take place; incredible, steampunk-ish magical inventions and relics which make time traveling possible. I loved it.
Fortunately, Warner delivers on both counts. She keeps her time traveling theory pretty simple, linear and very clear. I didn't have time to ask myself questions "but what if...?" because she'd already given an answer before they could take form in my mind.

Did I already say her world-building is amazing? I felt like a kid in a candy store just by following Seraphina inside the Academy. It occurred to me that I hadn't encountered such a good, imaginative, magic-ridden setting since the time of Harry Potter. The scenes in Venice (a city which I know very well) were accurate, realistic - an brownie points for not throwing at me misspelled, cheesy sentences in Italian. You could see she'd done her research there.

If even THAT weren't enough to convince you to pick up Wander Dust, rest assured this book will leave you breathless. It is so fast-paced, action-packed and full of great adventures you won't even have time to realize you're at the last chapter.
It's got good characters, a swoon-worthy guy and... ALERT! In my opinion, this book wins the Award for Best Kiss of the year, hands down!

I don't mean to be overly gushy and make you think this book is perfect, because it isn't. Like almost every other self-published book out there, it has a few editing issues BUT it's nothing major that a good professional editor could not quickly remedy and anyway, the story is just so good they didn't bother me at all.
It also has its fair share of clichés, in good old tradition of YA tropes. Nevertheless, it manages to be way, way better than a good part of the books I have read this year. This series has much potential I was really blown away.

I really can't wait for the second book to come out!

Wanderlove by Kirsten Hubbard
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

4.5 stars

If right now, at age 35, I had to choose my nostalgia book of all times, I'd choose Wanderlove.
It was almost physically painful to read.
A forewarning though: if you are not the adventurous type, are not and never were interested in traveling with a backpack, but on the contrary think it's highly dangerous and unhygienic and are not interested in the nuances of this bohemian life, this might not be the book for you.

Bria Sandoval has just turned 18. It's the summer between her graduation and her college entry.
Only, there is no college. She has applied at the renowned Art School in California but, for some reason she is not going. Because you see, Bria is an artist who's lost the passion to draw. To make things even worse, she's just been dumped by her (artist) boyfriend, Toby.
In an attempt to snap out of this impasse, Bria decides to travel to Guatemala with a tourist group called Global Vagabonds. But once there, she meets Starling and her enigmatic brother Rowan, who convince her to ditch her group and her suitcase and travel with them as a backpacker for the remaining days of her holidays.
On the road from Guatemala to Belize, jumping from a chicken bus to a water taxi, lost in a market or simply lost in translation, Bria is forced to put to the test her confidence, her trust, her talent but most of all she will need face all her issues, free herself of her constrictions and of her past and just live in the moment.

The reason why I loved this book is pretty obvious: it took me back in time. The places were not the same but the narration has such an unmistakable taste of reality that I really connected. Clearly, the author is speaking from personal experience, or she wouldn't know about wrapping backpacks with garbage bags, chicken bus rides (my worst one was from Maracaibo, Venezuela to Barranquilla, Colombia) or describing a central/south American bus station so accurately. As a consequence of that, I connected well also with the characters, the "traveled" backpackers Starling and Rowan, for whom is valid the saying that "the smaller the backpack, the bigger the ego".
As for the MC, Bria, she is not very likable at the beginning. She comes out as a bit of a whiny, spoiled brat - though she kind of won me over with her "gutter water" Windbreaker - but she grows, she matures in the course of the story and, even though I wanted to kick her and her backpack straight into the Caribbean sea at one point, the dock scene with Rowan? What the heck was that about? Are you mad, girl? I took away half a star star only for that passage she eventually comes to her senses by the end of the book, making her a decent MC and a believable character.

I thought this book was really enjoyable, light but with a bit of depth - even social - and with a touch of exotic that makes it the perfect read for people who are looking for a bit of adventure, love, folklore and a well written story.
Oh, and I loved the illustrations by the author in the book, an added bonus that make this story even more dreamy.

My favorite quote, which is actually a quote within the quote:

" A painting doesn't have to have a profound meaning. It doesn't have to "say" something. We fall in love for simpler reasons."
Harley Brown

Grave Mercy by R.L. LaFevers
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I guess even assassin nuns can be boring after all.

Also called "daughters of Mortain", the god of death, often rescued from terrible living conditions - like our Ismae - this particular kind of nuns are trained and educated in a convent in honor of the god, and they dedicate their lives to the fulfillment of Mortains' will by killing people who carry the "marque" and who are guilty primarily of treason against their country.
Ismae has just been sold to her future husband - a brute man - by her father when she is rescued by the town's herbwitch and is sent to Mortain's convent. She bears a mark upon herself that makes her a daughter of Mortain and is, miraculously, immune to all poisons.
Fast forward three years of training in martial arts and whatnot, she is sent on a mission to unmask a plot to overthrow the coronation of Anne, the future duchess of Brittany, by following one of the suspects, her half brother Duval.

I admit being in a bit of a reading slump lately and I get easily distracted by life getting in the way but it truly took me forever to read this book. The first few chapters were tedious, uninteresting and awkwardly written. I am sure some of my fellow Goodreaders (I have a few in mind) would abandon it right there. But since I am nothing if not stubborn, I read it until the end.
I am quite glad I did, to be honest because it does get better, eventually. The pacing is still somewhat slow and the book is long (or so it seemed to me) but the plot became gradually engrossing and the heroine grew on me, as well as the other characters. That's why I'm giving it three stars; I actually enjoyed reading it, after all.

In my humble opinion as an amateur reviewer, this book needs some more work. It needs more editing, to tighten some long and useless scenes and conversations as well as various incoherencies in some scenes (like cloaks on when there's no mention of the actual putting on of the cloaks... you know, that kind of small mistakes).

Furthermore, I don't understand how can it can be categorized as young adult lit. It's not that it has blatantly adult content, like hot sex scenes or inappropriate language, but it certainly does not follow the usual young adult tropes.
Is it just because the heroines is 13 when the book starts? (and by the way my eyes bulged when I realized that). Her voice sounds a tad too mature for her to be 13.
I was thinking all this political intrigues and plots would probably not have interested me much in my teen years, I suppose. If you want more of a comparison, I'd say this is as much YA as Poison Study by Maria V. Snyder.

I was somehow irked in more than one occasion by Ismae's cluelessness. She gets to logical conclusions some lightyears too late, so much so that I felt banging my head on the way in more than one occasion. She also makes a very poor assassin considering her three years of training, by being clumsy and "green" (as Duval describes her); her very first mission was rather disastrous, I'd say.

Aside from these problems, the story was enjoyable. I liked the way the romance developed gradually, the idea of the story itself and how, though part of a series, it is a standalone in itself (by the little snippet at the end of the book, I understand the next book will focus on Sybella).

For lover of political intrigues in costume and of clueless heroines, this is your cup of tea.

This Is Not a Test by Courtney Summers
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Bittersweet by Sarah Ockler

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


THE BITTER:

The Survival Kit by Donna Freitas

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

4.5 stars

Close to perfect, really close. Why hasn't everybody read Donna Freitas already? That's right, because this book is not out on e-format yet, that's why. Publishing house(s), whatcha waiting for?

Ok, let me start by saying that I was choking up on page SIX.

Let me introduce myself: my middle name is cynical. I don't choke up. I just don't. This book had me swallowing tears at least 5 times. Geeze.