February Wrap Up / Mini Reviews

It's back!  The dreaded slump!

For some reason, it's taking me a lot longer to get through books than I would like and I'm finding nothing to my taste.  The problem is, I don't know if it's me or the slump that doesn't feel connected to anything I pick up *sigh*

Anyway, I read three books this month and I'm going to mini-review them otherwise this post will be super short!

The Young Elites by Marie Lu

This is the first novel in a new fantasy series by the author of the Legend trilogy - a trilogy which I absolutely loved.  The Young Elites didn't wow me as much as Legend, but I did enjoy it.  It follows the story of Adelina, a girl who survived a disease as a child and as a result now has some strange powers.  Unfortunately, survivors of the disease carry markings of it, and they are shunned by their society due to it.  So, as you can imagine, Adelina had quite a rough childhood.  Seeing how her past shaped and even warped her was intriguing.  Her transformation over the novel was awesome, if a little scary!
Though it wasn't boring, I did find that there were some predictable moments, and there was a large plot point that I really didn't like, but understood all the same.  Highlight for spoilers about said plot point: [I hate, in any book, when a character has a secret that probably wouldn't be a problem if they shared it, but becomes a problem when another character finds out they were keeping it from them.  To explain this a bit better: I hated that Adelina couldn't/wouldn't tell the Young Elites about Teren blackmailing her, and that it was so obvious she was going to be caught out - and she was.  I understand that it was likely the Young Elites wouldn't want to save her sister, considering at that point they didn't know she had powers, but it still got on my nerves and affected my reading experience.  It was so very frustrating!]
Another thing that affected my enjoyment of this book was that I didn't seem to really connect with any of the main characters.  My favourites were Raffaele (though I'm a little wary of him) and Gemma (mostly because of the animal power).  I don't know who to trust - which I'm sure was the point!
The novel felt a little more like a prequel to me, but it has set the series up for an extremely interesting sequel, which I can't wait to get to!

Splintered by A. G. Howard

(I posted a variation of this review on my Goodreads a while ago, so you may have already read this if you're my friend on there.  And if you're not, you should go ahead and add me!)

I was a little let down by this one. After hearing some spectacular things, and loving the sound of the synopsis, I think I was just expecting a bit more.
I liked the first part of the novel, but as it went on Alyssa started to annoy me along with the other characters, and to be honest, and I didn't feel anything for any of them except Alison. I felt that some bits of the book dragged on a little too much, and I didn't feel excited until the last 60 or so pages (the point which I felt the entire novel had been building up to). However, that brought about a new problem which was that there was so much going on in such a short space of time and some things didn't make sense to me (especially Morpheus and his way of going about things).  I just wish that ending had been drawn out a little longer like the other parts of the book!
I did enjoy the world and how bizarre everything was. I liked the creative spin the author put on the characters and I liked the creepy vibe.
Finally, I'm going to go ahead and say I'm against everyone because I think Jeb is right for Alyssa rather than Morpheus at this stage. [I've heard a lot of complaints about the way Jeb treats her, but that is NOTHING compared to what Morpheus has done!  He made me so angry!  What a liar!]
Oh, I also liked that this could be read as a stand alone - the ending was pretty sufficient!

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn

 This book was a little bit of an experiment for me.  I say this because I wanted to see if I would enjoy this book after being spoiled for one of the major plot twists.  I have to admit that I didn't like it quite as much as I think I would have, but it was still great all the same.
The best way to describe this novel is messed up - the characters,  especially.  I also didn't hate the characters quite as much as I was preparing for.
I was a little disappointed at the ending I think.  I was expecting something more explosive.
The pacing bothered me at some points too.  I really wanted parts to go a lot quicker.
Really, that's all I can say about this, because I don't want to spoil anyone who hasn't read it!

So that was my reading in February.  I hope you had a great month and that March is good too!