City of Ashes (The Mortal Instruments #2) by Cassandra Clare Book Review

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Clary Fray just wishes that her life would go back to normal. But what's normal when you're a demon-slaying Shadowhunter, your mother is in a magically induced coma, and you can suddenly see Downworlders like werewolves, vampires, and faeries? If Clary left the world of the Shadowhunters behind, it would mean more time with her best friend, Simon, who's becoming more than a friend. But the Shadowhunting world isn't ready to let her go — especially her handsome, infuriating, newfound brother, Jace. And Clary's only chance to help her mother is to track down rogue Shadowhunter Valentine, who is probably insane, certainly evil — and also her father.

To complicate matters, someone in New York City is murdering Downworlder children. Is Valentine behind the killings — and if he is, what is he trying to do? When the second of the Mortal Instruments, the Soul-Sword, is stolen, the terrifying Inquisitor arrives to investigate and zooms right in on Jace. How can Clary stop Valentine if Jace is willing to betray everything he believes in to help their father?

*MAY INCLUDE SPOILERS FOR THE FIRST BOOK, CITY OF BONES



What I Liked: 

• It was SO much better than the first book. Clary and Simon were less annoying, in fact, I think Simon was quite hilarious. Imagining him as Robert Sheehan makes it even better. Simon in the first book was just always in the way of Clace. 
• I liked that more characters were introduced and it was interesting to learn more about downworlders.
• There was much more action which i did enjoy. 
• Malec. Enough said. 

What I Disliked:

• Even though Clary was less annoying, she was still annoying as hell. She makes some stupid decisions without thinking sometimes. I've heard this doesn't get better in the later books unfortunately.
• I love Jace but i found him quite whiny in this book to be honest. It just always seemed like he was throwing a temper tantrum.
• I'm not going to lie the incest aspect of the story did make me kind of uncomfortable. 

My Favorite quote:

“Jace slammed his hand down on the stele. “Clary-“
“She said she doesn’t want it,” said Simon. “Ha-ha.”
“Ha-ha?” Jace looked incredulous. “That’s your comeback?”

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Have you read City of Ashes? What did you think? - Tess x

In Time by Alexandra Bracken Book Review

Synopsis from Goodreads: 

Don''t miss this exciting short story that connects THE DARKEST MINDS to its much-anticipated sequel, NEVER FADE!
 Gabe''s life has been devastated in the wake of the economic crash. The only option left for someone like him to escape his tragic past is to leave his small town behind and to attempt to become a skiptracer. This already almost impossible task is made all the more difficult by his first score, a young girl who won''t speak, but who changes his life in ways he could never imagine.









What I liked:

• Even though in the beginning i wasn't too sure on this new character (thought he had a bit of an attitude problem), he really grew on me which made the ending much more devastating!
• On the same topic of Gabe, i found him so funny and he went through so much character development in such a short novella. It has to be one of the best, if not, the best novella I've ever read.
•  I loved seeing a certain familiar face from The Darkest Minds ;) 
• We get to learn much more about the skiptracer network which we didn't see much of in the first book. I suspect Never Fade will also explain a lot of this. 
• We also get to learn a lot more about the outside world and what other people i.e. everyone not a teen were doing. I'm glad because we really didn't get much of an idea in TDM and it's always interested me how the rest of the country were handling the situation. 

What I disliked:

• There was literally nothing i didn't enjoy about this novella, although, I wouldn't have minded if it was longer.

My Favorite Quotes:

“Sometimes the darkness lives inside you, and sometimes it wins.”

My Rating: 5/5 Stars

Have you guys read In Time? What did you think? - Tess x

Destroy Me by Tahereh Mafi Book Review

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Back at the base and recovering from his near-fatal wound, Warner must do everything in his power to keep his soldiers in check and suppress any mention of a rebellion in the sector. Still as obsessed with Juliette as ever, his first priority is to find her, bring her back, and dispose of Adam and Kenji, the two traitors who helped her escape. But when Warner’s father, The Supreme Commander of The Reestablishment, arrives to correct his son’s mistakes, it’s clear that he has much different plans for Juliette. Plans Warner simply cannot allow.

Set after Shatter Me and before its forthcoming sequel, Unravel Me,Destroy Me is a novella told from the perspective of Warner, the ruthless leader of Sector 45.

What I liked:

• I was really nice to be in Warner's head and get a view of what his thoughts were and why he was the way he was. 
• I'm starting to really like Warner. He is such a complex character and this novella helped me to understood what he's really like and to be honest, he's not as bad as he seemed to be in Shatter Me.
• I found many similarities with him and Juliette and in a way he could help her. 
• I still find Warner better and much more interesting than Adam.

What I disliked:

• Even though we do see things from his POV I still felt as though we didn't learn enough about his life so really understand him. I still have so many questions concerning him.
• I wish it was longer ,being in his head was just sooo interesting. 
• Going back to what I said about liking him better than Adam, I'm still not Team Warner. 

My Favorite Quotes:

“I've come to believe that the most dangerous man in the world is the one who feels no remorse. The one who never apologizes and therefore seeks no forgiveness. Because in the end it is our emotions that make us week, not our actions.” 

My Rating: 4/5 stars

Tess x

Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi Book Review

Synopsis from Goodreads:

Juliette hasn’t touched anyone in exactly 264 days.

The last time she did, it was an accident, but The Reestablishment locked her up for murder. No one knows why Juliette’s touch is fatal. As long as she doesn’t hurt anyone else, no one really cares. The world is too busy crumbling to pieces to pay attention to a 17-year-old girl. Diseases are destroying the population, food is hard to find, birds don’t fly anymore, and the clouds are the wrong color.

The Reestablishment said their way was the only way to fix things, so they threw Juliette in a cell. Now so many people are dead that the survivors are whispering war – and The Reestablishment has changed its mind. Maybe Juliette is more than a tortured soul stuffed into a poisonous body. Maybe she’s exactly what they need right now.

Juliette has to make a choice: Be a weapon. Or be a warrior.

 What I liked:

• The writing style was so unique and poetic. I was a bit thrown off at first and i can see why some people wouldn't like it but i really enjoyed the crossouts. It really helped us get a better idea of Juliette's mental health.
• The book was so fact-paced, I practically flew through it in one day. 
• I loved Kenji. He was by far the best character in my opinion. I loved his ,sometimes, crude humour.
• It was an interesting first book and it layed the foundation for the next books to be even better.
• The ending was surprising and we still have a lot of unanswered questions which will probably be answered in the rest of the trilogy. 

What I disliked: 

• Before going into this book i had heard on multiple occasions that the main protagonist was annoying and she was. Juliette was just either extremely whiny or extremely melodramatic but i guess a girl in her situation would be so i'll let that go.
• This whole Team Adam ,Team Warner thing really confused me. I didn't really like either of them. Warner was evil and extremely hot evil and quite mean to Juliette most of the time and Adam just felt too good to be true. I hope i'll change my mind about them in Unravel me ,the next book. 
• Sometimes Juliette will go off on a tangent about random things for a whole paragraph which was quite frustrating. 

My Favorite Quotes:

“I spent my life folded between the pages of books.
In the absence of human relationships I formed bonds with paper characters. I lived love and loss through stories threaded in history; I experienced adolescence by association. My world is one interwoven web of words, stringing limb to limb, bone to sinew, thoughts and images all together. I am a being comprised of letters, a character created by sentences, a figment of imagination formed through fiction.” 

“I'm oxygen and he's dying to breathe.”

My Rating: 4/5 Stars

Tess x

Movie Review: Divergent

Hey guys! Last week Divergent was released in the UK and me and my friend went to see it. Oh my, it was amazing! It is definitely one of the best book to movie adaptations out there. It wasn't perfect but still one of the best so far.

Shailene Woodley portrayed Tris so well, i can't imagine anyone better suited for the role. I'm still not sold on Theo James as Four. In my opinion, he just looks way too old BUT he did quite a good job of portraying Four.
I loved the actors chosen for Will and Christina, they looked very close to how i pictured them in my head. My problem was that we didn't get enough scenes with them to really care about what happens to them.
Also, Al and Will looked a bit too similar that it did confuse me a couple of times.

I pictured Eric quite different whilst reading the book but i didn't really mind the movie Eric (those crazy tattoos though).
However, i didn't like Miles Teller as Peter. I remember absolutely hating Peter in the movie because he was just so evil. Movie Peter seemed more of like a bully who occasionally makes snarky comments.

Oh I loved Kate Winslet though.

The cinematography was brilliant. The world, the effects and the fear landscapes were done so well. It was all weirdly close to how i pictured it. My favourite scenes would have to be the zipline scene and all the fear landscape scenes!

Even though i was disappointed Uriah wasn't in the film and wasn't a huge fan of the Ellie Goulding soundtrack, the movie stayed very true to the book. It had great acting and everything was explained relatively well. I can't wait to see Insurgent! Apparently, Allegiant is being split into 2 parts - not sure about how i feel about that though.

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Have you seen Divergent yet? What did you think? - Tess x

The Raven Boys Dream Cast

I loved The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. The characters were so unique and interesting in their own way. I know i NEED to start reading The Dream Thieves ,which is the second book in the Raven Cycle series. I thought i'd do a dream cast (is that what it's called?)...

Blue Sargent

Willa Holland - When i imagine Blue, i think of someone with soft features and has that 'cute' look. It was quite difficult to find someone for Blue but Willa Holland ,who you may recognize from Arrow or The O.C., did come pretty close my version of Blue, except I imagined Blue with Black hair and to be quite short (she's described this way in the book). I think Willa would be able to pull that off though. 

Richard Gansey 

Francisco Lachowski - If you don't know who this is, let me enlighten you. Francisco Lachowski is a model (not a huge surprise). Is it bad that i imagined all of the Raven boys to be REALLY hot? ah well. Gansey is described with messy brown hair, hazel eyes and occasionally wears glasses. Francisco can very much tick those three boxes easily. 

Adam Parrish

Brenton Thwaites- Star of The Giver and Blue Lagoon: The Awakening Brenton Thwaites is literally how i pictured Adam. He has that dusty brownish hair that Adam is described to have too. 

Ronan Lynch

Colton Haynes -I guess he's most people's pick for Ronan and i can see why. First of all, he fits the description perfectly with his brown hair shaved short and those blue eyes and secondly, from his TV show roles as Jackson in Teen Wolf & Roy in Arrow we can see that he can play angry/moody really well. 

Noah Czerny

Nico Mirallegro - There were many people i considered for Noah. I haven't watched My Mad Fat Diary yet so i don't know if he'll be able to play Noah well but he can definitely pull off Noah judging from looks. 

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So ,if you've read The Raven Boys, what do you think? Good choices?

 And if you haven't read The Raven Boys, do give it a try. 

Thanks for reading! Be sure to comment if you like -Tess x

The Never-ending Book Slump & Update

It feels like so long since I've written a post on this blog! I have been SO busy with school, exams, creating my other blog (the-essence-of-fire.blogspot.co.uk) etc. Also, it seemed that no matter how hard i tried i couldn't get into any book until about a month ago.

My friend encouraged me to pick up Bared to you by Sylvia Day and it really helped me get out of my book slump. Since then i have read Bared to you & started the second book (Reflected in you), The Lord of the Flies (for school), Shatter me and Destroy me both by Tahereh Mafi. I actually loved them all.

Next on my TBR is:
- Unravel Me by Tahereh Mafi
- In Time by Alexandra Bracken
- The Evolution of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin
- Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins

I'm glad to be back and hopefully i'll be posting much more. :)

One of my fave Quotes

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Thanks for reading! Be sure to comment if you like -Tess x