Mini Reviews ft. If I Stay, Dangerous Girls and Night of Cake and Puppets

I'm going to slowly phase out these introductions, because they seem unnecessary and awkward, but I wanted to mention that I know I said I wouldn't review Dangerous Girls but I need to.  For closure.  Also, if you have yet to read Daughter of Smoke and Bone (or any of these books), you don't have to worry about spoilers.

If I Stay by Gayle Forman Before I say anything more, let it be known that I did, in fact, enjoy this book.  Three stars means I liked it.  I just didn't like it as much as I was expecting to.  With all the raving reviews I'd seen for this, I thought I was going to fall in love with it.  So really, it's my fault for giving in to all the hype.  It also may have to do with the fact that my brother's name is Adam, and the love interest in the story is named that too.  Now that I think of it, this could be why Shatter Me was weird to me... Back on topic - It was difficult for me to connect to the characters.  I liked them all, but they seemed so strange as I've never met anyone remotely like them (except for Mia - the main character). This was an emotional read (which is weirdly a good thing), and every time the perspective shifted back to the present from a flashback, I'd get a little jolt of despair in my heart, realising how much things were going to change.  I didn't get to the point of tears, but I strongly suspect this is due to me finishing the novel on a public bus. So, overall, I was a little underwhelmed.

★★★☆☆ Sad Things

★★★★☆ Deeply Disturbing

Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas This book.  Where to begin?  The story follows a girl who is on trial for the murder of her best friend.  The narration jumps back and forth between the past and the present, and I thought that was done really well, with the events in each time period all linking in together.  I also liked how realistic this was to the kind of teens the friends in the book were - without holding anything back.  The word "lurid" was used a few times.  Yeah, this didn't affect my opinion of the book in any way, it's just something I noticed and I'm running out of things to say about this without ruining something.  I will say that it was entertaining and kept me interested but (highlight for spoilers): [I really wasn't surprised by the ending.  This is perhaps because I'd read a lot of reviews saying how mind-blowing the ending was, and the only option that could possibly be that mind-blowing was Anna being the murderer.  I also really don't understand how she was found innocent after the judge being convinced she was guilty for so long, and how someone so messed up could come across as so normal.  Also, this book is not the best thing to read only a month before going on an unsupervised holiday with your friends.  Lol.]  Other than those couple things, I did enjoy the suspense and I'm looking forward to reading Dangerous Boys at some stage.

Night of Cake and Puppets by Laini Taylor I'd been saving this Daughter of Smoke and Bone novella for a rainy day, and going back for my final (and most intense) term of high school definitely constitutes as a rainy day.  And it was everything I'd hoped it would be.  The story follows Zuzanna and Mik, a couple of characters from the trilogy, and how they first met.  The writing is spectacular and the story is adorable.  I couldn't wipe the grin from my face during some parts of it.  Not to mention the happy tears.  O, how strangely fiction affects me.  This is a must-read if you enjoyed the Daughter of Smoke and Bone books (this novella occurs at some time during the first book, I believe).  It was short and sweet, and it's a new go-to for when I'm feeling sad.

★★★★★ *unapologetic squealing*

Those are the mini reviews I have for today.  Have you read any of them?  I hope you are having a great day and I'll have another post up soon!

The Book Cake Tag

Many thanks to Lauren @ Always Me for tagging me to do this post!  This post includes a question for cake ingredients and you have to choose a corresponding book.  So without further ado...  My book cake!

Flour

a book that was a little slow to start with but really picked up as it went along

One that comes to mind is Girl of Nightmares by Kendare Blake.  I ❤︎ Anna Dressed in Blood, so I was surprised when this book started off a lot slower and wasn't as creepy/gory/scary.  But there was a turning point and everything I loved about the first book was suddenly back.

Margarine

a book that had a really rich and great plot

I love Daughter of Smoke and Bone and this book was no different, except I feel like things started to get a lot more intense and were a lot bigger than just Karou and Akiva.

Eggs

a book that you thought was going to be bad but actually turned out quite enjoyable

This book was such a surprise and I didn't even realise I was enjoying it until I couldn't put it down (or more truthfully, minimize it during class).  One of my favourite contemporaries for sure.

Sugar

a sugary sweet book

Angel Cake even has a sweet title, so it's perfect for this question.  Plus the romance is adorable.  If my memories are to be trusted.

Icing

a book that covered every single element that you enjoy in a book

(eg. funny moments, action moments, sad moments etc.)

I could have picked any of The Mortal Instruments books or The Infernal Devices books because for me, they have everything that I like in a book.  They're funny, have some great characters, sad moments and action moments.

Sprinkles

a book series that you can turn back to for a little pick me up when you're feeling down

This is definitely one of my guilty pleasure reads.  I only read it for enjoyment and the nostalgia because it reminds me of easier times, when I first read it.  And yeah, my first option was Harry Potter.

The Cherry On Top

your favourite book this year so far

It's a tie between Shadow and Bone and Daughter of Smoke and Bone.  The difference is that I am yet to read the sequels to Shadow and Bone and to be honest I'm kind of scared to because of the negative feelings I've been getting about the next books in the trilogy.  But the real reason I'm putting it off is because I want to reread Shadow and Bone because I loved it that much and I'm waiting to have sufficiently forgotten the details.

So that was the Book Cake tag!  Thanks again to Lauren for tagging me!  As per usual, I am unsure of who to tag, so I am tagging anyone who wants to do this - make sure you link me to your post in the comments!  I would love to hear your responses.

Soundtrack Saturday - Seraphina

Soundtrack Saturday oops today is Sunday is an awesome feature created by Erin @The Hardcover Lover, where you make a soundtrack for any chosen book.  This week I'm picking Seraphina by Rachel Hartman.  Unfortunately this week the songs I've picked are pretty spoiler-y, so if you haven't read Seraphina yet, you really should, and also don't read this post.  If you have read the book, here are the four songs that I picked!

September Wrap Up and October TBR

I finished 7 books in September, and one on the 1st of October.  That's quite a lot of books for me, considering I read on average 3 or 4 books a month, so I'm excited to do a wrap up post!  Here are the books:

1.  The Winner's Curse by Marie Rutkoski (review)

2.  We Were Liars by E. Lockhart (review and discussion)

3.  Opposition by Jennifer L. Armentrout (mini review)

4.  Gathering Blue by Lois Lowry (mini review)

5.  Fang Girl by Helen Keeble (review)

6.  Tiger's Curse by Colleen Houck (5 stars)

7.  Dangerous Girls by Abigail Haas (4 stars)

8.  If I Stay by Gayle Forman (3 stars)

Tiger's Curse was a reread for me, so as you can tell, I am in the half of people that fell in love with this book.  Dangerous Girls messed me up, and I'm not going to do a review because I feel like reading reviews for it before ruined it a bit for me.  I was a little underwhelmed with If I Stay because of all the hype surrounding it.  I will have a mini review of it up soon.

I'm not sure how much time I'm going to have for reading this month - being that my final exams start in 27 days and I have some serious studying to do.  I find that in these kinds of situations, I either find myself reading a lot or not at all.  So, to keep up with last month, I'm going to pick 8 books and see how I go with those.

1.  Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas (reread)

2.  Crown of Midnight by Sarah J. Maas

3.  Heir of Fire by Sarah J. Maas

4.  Messenger by Lois Lowry

5.  The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer (reread)

6.  The Evolution of Mara Dyer (reread)

7.  Son by Lois Lowry

8.  Incarnate by Jodi Meadows (reread) 

Finally I want to say a massive thanks to everyone reading this and anyone who has ever commented on one of my posts.  This is the longest I've ever stuck with a blog (4 months now) and it is undoubtedly because I have been made to feel so welcome.  I'm so happy to be part of this community and it's really made a difference in my life.  So thank you!

How was your month?

Books That Were Difficult For Me To Read - Top Ten Tuesday

Top Ten Tuesday is hosted by The Broke and the Bookish, as I'm sure you all know, and this weeks topic is Books That Were Difficult to Read - for any reason.
This list was a little difficult to come up with, but I did it!
This was meant to go up yesterday, but the power went out for about 6 hours, so you can see why that was a problem.

1.  The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Like a few of these other books I'm going to mention, I've discussed this before.  I think this was one of the first disturbing books (to me) that I read, where I was really freaked out.  Something just didn't feel right.  I think it was the suspense of waiting for Todd to find out the 'big secret'.  I also didn't really like Todd.  Sorry.

2.  The DUFF by Kody Keplinger
This was difficult for me to read because I didn't like it.  I also didn't finish it.  Bianca got on my nerves because what she did didn't make any sense to me.

3.  Girl Parts by John M. Cusick
I don't know what I was expecting, with a title like that, but I guess I was mislead by the pink cover.  Again, I didn't finish this book, and it makes me really angry so I will talk about it no longer.

4.  Allegiant by Veronica Roth
This book was difficult for slightly different reasons.  Firstly, it was tough because I wasn't quite ready in my heart for the Divergent trilogy to be over (still not, *sob*) and secondly, because I was expecting it to be a lot more fast-paced.

5.  Half Blood by Jennifer L. Armentrout
The problem here was my constant comparisons to Vampire Academy (which I didn't like too much anyway) and Obsidian.  I much preferred Obsidian to Half Blood and I honestly didn't connect with the main character at all.

6.  Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
I guess this is cheating, because I didn't have trouble reading this the first time around.  It's just now that I know what's going to happen, I get to a certain point and can't continue.  I will even stop a reread of the series when I get near this spot.  Highlight for spoiler: [Sirius was one of my favourite characters of all time and it was all the more depressing because of Harry's attachment to him and how they were going to live together and oh my gosh it was just awful.]

7.  Lord of the Flies by William Golding
This book was so dark and gruesome and I just did not enjoy it.  I couldn't relate to any of the characters, and sure, I felt bad for them, but they (mostly) weren't very nice.  I think the narration was what put me off the most.  I also didn't finish this book.

8.  Cloudstreet by Tim Winton
Did not like this book.  It was very boring, and I didn't like a single one of the (very many) characters.  It droned on about nothing for more than 400 pages.  But I had to read it for school this year.

9.  Wake by Amanda Hocking
I just didn't like this book as much as I was expecting to and ending up skimming the second half of the book.

10.  The Assassin's Blade by Sarah J. Maas
This was only difficult because I knew what was going to happen in the end and if you've read Throne of Glass you will understand.


So that was my top ten this week :)