Review: Scarlet (The Lunar Chronicles #2) by Marissa Meyer

Marissa Meyers. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2013. 454 pp.
Rating: Striking + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Note: I started writing this review as soon as I finished reading the book on December 7, 2013; however, I never finished writing it. Last month I decided to reread Scarlet, my favorite book of TLC, because I needed something familiar, something I liked, something that wouldn't take up more space than the already jumbled thoughts currently swirling in my mind. I needed a good friend. Not only did this rereading bring me peace, but it also prompted me to finish the review I started seven years earlier. Although many years have passed, I'm leaving the review as I started it. 

In Scarlet, the second installment of The Lunar Chronicles Series, Cinder's story surges forward. Readers sojourn from New Beijing to Rieux, a small province in the French countryside, and there are introduced to Scarlet Benoit, the fiery, red-haired granddaughter of a former European Union pilot. Scarlet is unconvinced that her grandmother's disappearance is intentional though the police and townspeople believe otherwise. While Scarlet grapples with her grandmother's disappearance, Cinder is attempting to break out of prison to elude extradition back to Luna and Queen Levana's malicious plans.

Review: Cinder (The Lunar Chronicles #1) by Marissa Meyer

Marissa Meyer. New York: Feiwel and Friends, 2012. 392 pp.
Rating: Worthy

Note: I started writing this review as soon as I finished reading the book on February 20, 2013. Although many years have passed, I'm leaving the review as I started it. I did complete the Lunar Chronicles Series, so that in itself is an indication of my relationship with this book.

Cinder is a science fiction rendering of Cinderella. Set in New Beijing after the fourth World War where gasoline cars are antiquated relics, hovercrafts are a means of transportation, money is exchanged through an ID chip embedded in one's wrist, and cyborgs are commonplace. The protagonist, Cinder, is a cyborg; a mix of human with a splash of machine. Ashamed of her mechanical parts, Cinder encases her arms in gloves at all times. Under the guise of gratitude for renewed life, cyborgs are being drafted as test subjects to discover a cure for Letumosis, the Blue Fever, which is ravaging New Beijing and other earthen colonies. Living under the constant threat of being condemned to plague research, Cinder works as a mechanic at the New Beijing weekly market suffering the enslavement and derision of her stepmother. 

Review: Rising From the Ashes: The Chronicles of Caymin (The Dragonmage Saga #1) by Caren J. Werlinger

Caren J. Werlinger. Corgyn Publishing, 2016. 295 pp.

Rating: Worthy + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Fantasy isn't my go to genre. Truthfully, it's never really been on my radar. Not because I despised it, but because I hadn't been introduced to it. Many times as I read blog posts or hear readers talk about beloved fantasy stories, I feel that I've missed out on many great books during my formative years. While others were discovering and feeding their love of fantasy in middle and junior high school, I was re-reading, for the umpteenth time, the books that adorned my bedroom bookshelf. It wasn't because I loved them so much, but because I simply didn't know what else to read.  Now with each fantasy novel I complete, the shovel drops another load filling in the hollow pit of my non-fantasy reading life. Soon though, this book hole shall be jam-packed!

Review: Glow (Sky Chasers #1) by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Amy Kathleen Ryan. New York: St. Martin's Griffin, 2011. 307 pp.
Rating: Striking

Trigger Warning: Non-Consent

**Note: I started writing this review a few days after reading the book in December 2014, so my review will retain all feelings and reactions written in my notes at the time I read the book. I'm on a serious mission to clear out my draft folder and complete the dozens of book reviews that I've started over the last few years. Also, this review contains slight spoilers.** 

What if you've never seen the sun, felt the wind blow across your face, been drenched in the rain, or stared at the immense blue sky? What if the only home you have even known is an egg-shaped vessel that has spent over forty years plowing through the depths of outer space destined for a new world? What if you were responsible for ensuring the continuation of the human race? What if future generations could trace their lineage back to you? What if your allies suddenly appeared without notice? What if, concealed by the cloak of friendship they steal from you what they most need? 

"They must want something from us,"..."or they wouldn't be here."  (4) 

Now, imagine being torn away from your family and placed with another under the guise of a rescue mission. 

Review: Mary: The Summoning (Bloody Mary #1) by Hillary Monahan

Hillary Monahan. Los Angles: Hyperion, 2014. pp.248 
Rating: Decent + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Goodreads Summary: There is a right way and a wrong way to summon her. 

Jess had done the research. Success requires precision: a dark room, a mirror, a candle, salt, and four teenage girls. Each of them--Jess, Shauna, Kitty, and Anna--must link hands, follow the rules...and never let go. 

A thrilling fear spins around the room the first time Jess calls her name: "Bloody Mary. Bloody Mary. BLOODY MARY." A ripple of terror follows when a shadowy silhouette emerges through the fog, a specter trapped behind the mirror.

Mini Review: Etiquette & Espionage (Finishing School #1) by Gail Carriger

Gail Carriger. New York: Little Brown and Company, 2013. Ebook. 
Rating: Decent

Goodreads Summary: Fourteen-year-old Sophronia is the bane of her mother's existence. Sophronia is more interested in dismantling clocks and climbing trees than proper etiquette at tea--and god forbid anyone see her atrocious curtsy. Mrs. Temminnick is desperate for her daughter to become a proper lady. She enrolls Sophronia in Mademoiselle Geraldine's Finishing Academy for Young Ladies of Quality.

But little do Sophronia or her mother know that this is a school where ingenious young girls learn to finish, all right--but it's a different kind of finishing. Mademoiselle Geraldine's certainly trains young ladies in the finer arts of dance, dress, and etiquette, but also in the other kinds of finishing: the fine arts of death, diversion, deceit, espionage, and the modern weaponries. Sophronia and her friends are going to have a rousing first year at school.

Review: Rush (The Game #1) by Eve Silver

Eve Silver. New York: Katherine Tegen Books/HarperCollins, 2013. Ebook.
Rating: Worthy + 🌙🌙🌙🌙🌙

Gaming: Is it innocent fun or possible death?

Miki is one of many teenagers snatched unwillingly and drafted unknowingly into a war against the Drau. In a burst of light, these monstrous metallic-eyed beasts attack. With one look into their eyes, the extraterritorial beings kill...draining all life out of the body. Lacking a reset, revive, or multi-lives button, the outcome is detrimental to survival. For the actions in the game aren't sequestered in that realm alone,but transcends to the parallel dimension as well. Receiving a skimpy instruction crash course, Miki must play, ready or not.   

Review: Stolen Nights (Vampire Queen #2) by Rebecca Maizel

Rebecca Maizel. New York: St, Martin's Griffin, 2013. 304 pp.

Rating: Decent 

**Spoiler Alert: This review contains mild spoilers.**

After surviving the ritual she performed to restore Vicken's humanity, Lenah returns to Wickham's campus. Upon her return, Lenah witnesses a horrendous, yet familiar act. However, before processing the latest scene, Lenah encounters the legendary Aeris. Their visit is most unexpected, but it doesn't compare to the live, very mortal figure of Rhode Lewin. Lost in the moment, Lenah forgets Justin's presence at her side, though she quickly discovers Rhode's reappearance comes at a price. Amid the turmoil, a formidable opponent reveals itself. A foe more powerful than her coven, the aspiring vampire queen Odette.

Review: Infinite Days (Vampire Queen #1) by Rebecca Maizel

Rebecca Maizel. New York: St Martin's Griffin, 2010. 325 pp.
Rating: Striking 

"You have said that humanity is what all vampires crave. The freedom to feel more than constant pain and suffering." (13)

Lenah Beaudonte, a 592 year-old vampire, yearns for the life she lost. Constantly inundated with images of vivacious humanity, plus taunted by memories of her previous life, Lenah's mind begins to gradually unravel. Desperate to flee the endless pain, Lenah seeks a ritual so old, so sacred, so dangerous, its contents must remain a mystery. For this ancient ritual can return a vampire to human form. Surviving the uncertain effects of the mystical ceremony, Lenah, born in the 1400s, awakens as a sixteen year-old girl in the 21st century. Confident that she would never know a love as she shared with Rhode, her centuries-long companion, Lenah's attraction to Justin Enos comes as a surprise. Acclimating to her new life, Lenah soon feels like a normal teenager. However, ties binding her to the past arise coming back to haunt her.