*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD… BEWARE*

The story starts out with something that I personally hate the most, cheating on your partner. So right off the bat, I was already on the side of the Dr. Jeremy Balint. No matter what he did, he had my sympathy and therefore my support. The direction he chooses to take after finding out about his wife's affair is something you don't necessarily see all the time. Most people would choose to confront it immediately and get a divorce. But my man over here decided to eliminate the competition and keep his marriage intact. And by eliminate, I mean kill.

The writing was captivating. I initially didn't want to read the book, mainly because of the cover. I have a thing about covers. But after reading a few chapters, I was completely hooked. I personally love the stuff behind the scenes. I loved seeing Balint's thought process about the murders he was going to commit. The lengths he went to, to make sure he wouldn't be charged for the crime. And I loved the irony in this book. On one hand, he is going around killing people. But on the other hand, he's got promotions and awards at his job as a doctor. And on top of that, he's having an affair of his own. Something that irked me, but I came this far so might as well finish the damn thing.

The ending was a bit unexpected. But when I look at the book in its entirety, I think it was probably the best way to go about things. What's the point of two people staying together if there is no love? And show more lastly...Who knows?

*I would like to thank the authors and LibraryThing for giving me a free copy of this book. * show less

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD… BEWARE*

I went into this book without knowing anything about it. By the name alone, I predicted it might be something similar to Edge of Tomorrow (the movie based on the manga and light novel All You Need is Kill) which was about aliens and time travel. But it turned out to be an anthology about loss in real life and how that affects the people around you, mainly your families and friends.

My go to genre for novels and manga (and pretty much anything) is fantasy. Magic and demi-humans give me an escape from my reality (which is dull). However, this book dives headfirst into real issues, something which I try to avoid in the books I read. I was a bit reluctant at first, but I warmed up to it pretty quickly.

Now onto the reviewing part…

I usually avoid anthologies because I prefer one bigger story rather than many small ones. It’s harder to rate anthologies because of that fact. In the same anthology, some stories are good while others might be okay or bad which might bring the overall score down. But overall it was good. A solid 3 out of 5 stars.

“Love in Death” – 3.5 stars
- This was a great story. It showed a family dealing with the death of the dad which affected the daughter the most due to her closeness with the deceased. Through a series of events and letters she learns to cope with the loss. This was the first time I read something like this. There was character growth, especially at the end. We see her move on and find happiness. show more

“A Sister’s Love” – 1.5 stars
- This one was not as good as the previous one. It felt incomplete. There were characters that were mentioned, but were not really explained such as Billy. And that left me confused.

“Tender is the Deception” – 3.5 stars
- Short & Emotional

“And then I Blinked” – 3.5 stars
- This story was very real. It portrayed a realistic situation of the struggles an individual and their family faces with epilepsy. The mother and her relationship with her daughter was very emotional and that was amazing.

“Trial” – 5 stars
- POWERFUL

“So it Ends Here” – 2.5 stars
- The love between the main two characters was something that happens once in a lifetime kind of deal. But that was a bit too unrealistic for me.

“Twelve Months” – 2.5 stars
- Some of the months were unnecessary here, but I understand why they were included. The main guy just attracts misfortune; I truly feel bad for him. However, there was big cliché: “the girl goes on date saying nothing will happen afterwards (BF/GF) but ends up happening.” That one is overused in so many things that at this point I hate it.

“Puppets” 1.5 stars
- I was confused throughout the entirety of this story. Is the kid younger than her? If that answer is yes, do different grades get mixed together for classes? I don’t know, haven’t been to middle school or elementary school (or whatever) for a while now so I’m no expert.

“The Paternal Order of Dominic” – 3.5 stars
- This was a good story. Shows moving on from the loss like the first one. And the growth of the characters through music. This reminded me of one of my favorite Animes Your Lie in April.

*I would like to thank the authors and LibraryThing for giving me a free copy of this book. * show less

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD… BEWARE*

Superheroes Suck is an okay book. I couldn’t put it down once I started reading, so I guess that’s a plus. With that said, it had its share of problems.

Biggest problem: “Welcome to Gemini City, where super battles disrupt rush hour. Claim Adjusters are like rock stars, and villains stash the souls of murdered superheroes inside little children.” That part should have not been included on the cover or quick summary.

The basic story is that Shay, the main protagonist, is a super genius. And she has a second soul that of the dead superhero Jenna trapped inside her body. Her older sister works as someone who cleans up the messes that superheroes make and she is also dating one of the supervillains. Shay’s life is completely and unexpectedly intertwined with powered people. When Shay meets Max, Jenna’s ex, it leads to a series of events that leads to Shay becoming more involved in the superheroes lives.

It was hard for me to relate to Shay. It’s not like I haven’t read any books about female protagonists. But I just couldn’t relate to her. She is wicked smart and can create gadgets out of the blue that they need to fulfill any problem (kind of reminds me of Cisco from The CW’s The Flash). She creates a soul detector to find out if she really has two souls. She also programs nanobots to remove Jenna’s soul towards the end of the book. I guess what I’m trying to say is that there is no tension because she can basically show more build whatever.

The powered people were a constant struggle for me. I honestly couldn’t care about them. There is barely any background information about them. Max was probably the one with the most information. But I still didn’t like him; he’s only there to fall in love with Shay, he brings nothing to the story. Alexie is there to possibly trick the villains, but it genuinely seemed like she would be okay either way. Simon is there; he does nothing. Lucius is overpowered with unexplained powers, yet he still loses for some reason. Cyrus again seems like he’s there for no reason, perhaps to show that he had good in him, but he followed his brother no matter what (not sure). And lastly the Mimic. That came out of the blue. I had shape shifting characters. Once that character was introduced, I couldn’t trust anyone and that totally ruined everything for me. And what weird luck that the first person Lucius puts into the “get powers” machine turns out to be a shape shifter.

The story of how everyone got their powers and their integration into earth society would have made a better story. I’m a sucker for origin stories.

Last comment: I hated the judge so much. Extremely unprofessional. He failed to do his job!

Overall the concept was great, the execution was flawed.

*I would like to thank Jamie Zakian and LibraryThing for giving me a free copy of Superheroes Suck.* show less

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD… BEWARE*
*3.5 Stars*

Alterni by Sunshine Somerville is perfect for those readers who enjoy YA novels with a strong female protagonist.

Esme has just been chosen as the Alterni. She and many other Esme’s from other worlds are summoned and Esme stands out the most with her strong personality and her protectiveness of the others when a monster shows up.

We are introduced to a world of magic and monsters. The usual monsters such as vampires, werewolves, trolls, etc. are seen as the good guys. They were summoned years ago and now they have become part of society and they try to protect it.

When I first started this novel, I was very frustrated. New words that I had not been introduced to yet were tossed around willy-nilly. But after reading it more things started to make sense, as they do most of the time. The different classifications of demons were also a bit rushed. I had to bookmark the page and I kept coming back to it because I had no idea what the different demons were.

A personal complaint that I have, which in no way makes this book any less awesome, is the fact that the protagonist has a photogenic memory. I’ve been starting to notice many authors making their main protagonist have that trait, it’s getting annoying. And what is up with the protagonist always landing the insanely hot dude. I feel like I’m reading the same concept over and over again.

To quote Mugatu: “I FEEL LIKE I’M TAKING CRAZY PILLS!”

Besides that the book is show more great. I usually don’t pick up books with covers such as this, but I’m glad that I have done this time.

*I would like to thank Sunshine Somerville and LibraryThing for giving me a free copy of Alterni.* show less

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD… BEWARE*

If you have a little time to kill and are looking for a fun book to read or if you just want to read something about aliens and Trump, well then my friend your search ends here. Take Us to Your Trump is a hilarious political satire. I personally have not followed the escapades of our current President, but I have heard about some of his more popularized shenanigans. And many of those are written about in this novel.

As the story progresses, you get to encounter some colorful characters.

For the aliens we have: First Envoy Vaux the Unnecessarily Ceremonial and Vice-Envoy Zilurt the Contrition-Bearer. Vaux and Zilurt are Fornaxians, an alien species that has strict rules about politeness. They come from a destroyed planet looking for some supplies on earth. They’ve landed in the United States to make a deal with the current President.

For the humans we have: Michael Wallenson, Barry Kidd, Gerald Mann, and of course President Trump. Among the three, Michael and Barry shine the most. Gerald does nothing for the story, except to say something can’t be confirmed or denied. Michael has endless achievements, almost as long as a CVS receipt. And Barry is an IDIOT! The characters of the President and Barry Kidd seemed genuinely crazy to me. I can’t imagine how people can be that dense and stupid, but then again we live in a troublesome time. There are people who are actually like that, maybe not to the extent of Barry.

Besides the aliens, show more Michael was the only sane person in this entire novel… and some other minor characters. He represented a normal person with common sense (even though he is nothing but normal, that dude has an amazing resume). The part where Bourque lists his achievements along with Barry’s achievements was awesome.

I hated Barry so much. I really wanted to go into the book and strangle him. He almost ruins everything. I can’t believe he didn’t die from eating so much glue. Barry asking if the aliens were Muslims is just great!

Overall, this book is a pretty great. I’d recommend it to anyone who isn’t too serious, and wants a quick read and a good time.

*I would like to thank Andrew Stanek and LibraryThing for giving me a free copy of Take Us to Your Trump. * show less

*POSSIBLE SPOILERS AHEAD… BEWARE*

Before the review, I just want to say that the cover is PHENOMENAL!!

Clara Voyant was an exceptional novel. It’s one of those novels where once you get hooked; it’s hard to put down. You really get drawn into the story, especially with the main character Clara and her best friend Maeve. There is a joke about how introverts make friends: an extrovert found them, liked them, and adopted them. That joke applies quite well in this case. Their friendship is an important part of the story.

A key aspect of a mystery novel is to help or maybe hint to the reader about who the guilty party is. And that happens in this story. Unlike some mystery TV shows where they throw you a curve ball and say some random guy is the culprit, you do get hints about who had actually done the deed. The hints were quite obvious if you’re paying attention. What I found interesting was that all suspects were explored and we saw the process behind it. Clara’s “powers” at the end is a bit of a mcguffin though. I’m not too mad about it because it’s not entirely far-fetched. The book’s title Clara Voyant is quite on the nose.

Also something I liked was the horoscopes. Whenever something happened involving a character, I would go back to the horoscopes to see if it matched with what she predicted. That was a fun little side quest. However, one thing that I did have a problem with was the status of the characters. The story is about middle schoolers; show more however, they don’t sound or act like middle schoolers. I haven’t interacted with middle schoolers in a while so I’m not an expert on them. But for 10 – 12 year olds, these kids are way too smart (?). I really don’t know how to say it.

*I would like to thank Rachelle Delaney, Penguin Canada, and LibraryThing for giving me the opportunity to read an early copy of Clara Voyant.* show less

3 1/2 stars

Nice stories, found them to be more interesting than the The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales.

To me most of the stories had pretty much the same story; it felt like I was forcing myself to finish this book, rather than reading it because it was interesting.

To be honest, the writing style isn't something that I found myself getting used to. The main character, Hekat, was so annoying that I wanted to abandon the book all together. However, the book did start to get a little interesting at the end.

Interesting if you are into the Harry Potter series and want to learn more about the universe it's in.

I got a signed copy of Time Zero by Carolyn Cohagan in a giveaway.

When I read the summary of this book, my first thought was "another YA dystopia, with a female lead," but as I started to read the book I realized that it was more than just than. This book deals a lot with misogynistic ideals. And in my opinion that is one of the biggest issues of our time. Many of the misogynistic ideals that Mina has to deal with I have personally seen. These cultures treat women as subhuman. It was scary how accurate the portrayal of the protagonist was. It was really hard to put this book down, once I started to read, I had to finish it.

SPOILERS AHEAD

When the Laurel Society was introduced, I felt it was a smaller version of the bigger society that Mina lived in; however in here the hatred was towards men instead of women. And I understand that if you’ve been oppressed by men all your life, you’d grow to hate men. It was a great part of the book, but I was hoping for something more in the lines of “a society where everyone is equal: men and women.”

Another part of the book that I didn’t particularly like was the addition of Mina’s brother, Dekker, to the group of people who escaped the society. Dekker was shown as someone who has conflicting ideas. He was genuinely sorry when Mina was burned, and that was good. But he was also shown as someone who hates women, who doesn’t respect women, and who was growing up to be someone who will oppress women in the future. I can see show more that he has the potential to be someone who can learn to respect women, but overall his character deserves to be left behind.

The leaf was a nice surprise. I wasn’t expecting it.

And lastly, I need to know if there will be a second book? And if there will be one, when will the book come out? This book was highly engaging and captivating. I would love to read the second edition to this great series. show less

Great overall book, but that cliffhanger... I REALLY NEED TO KNOW WHAT HAPPENS!

Couldn't put it down, it was that good!