Hello readers,

I am still here! I apologise for the lack of reviews this week, I’ve hit a reading slump it would seem! I have changed the upcoming books I am going to read, and even though I tried, I just couldn’t get into “Slice of Cherry” by Dia Reeves. I really wanted to love it, but I just couldn’t get into it. :( Which then resulted in me re-reading the same paragraph 6 times over on a number of occasions and just generally left me feeling unenthused (not all the books fault I must admit).

There’s lots of things going on in my personal life and I am trying to find the time to be on my own and read, so I am going to commit to that now and churn out the reviews. Thanks for sticking by me, I will have an update tomorrow with the regular W..W..W.. Wednesday feature that I do and I do have an exciting IMM coming this week also. I will aim to have at least one review this week, so stay tuned!

Thanks everyone! xox

Well almost. 199 as I write this!

I don’t do this often, but I feel right now this is something I do want to take the time out to say.

I just really want to thank everyone who frequents my site, whether they drop in casually every now and then, or even if you’re a regular. If this is your first time to my site then I also want to say hello to you too!

I appreciate all my readers and hope if anything to expand this site and make it bigger. If there is ANYTHING at all you want to see more of on my site, please let me know. Is there books you really want to see me review on here? Is there a site feature you think you want to see here? Let me know… I do listen to contstructive feedback and I do love new ideas so you’re more than welcome to approach me.

Again, thanks for dropping by. I am super excited to have (almost) reached the big 200 visitors in the 4 and a bit months I have been around.

xoxoxox

Good morning readers! I hope you’re having a beautiful Sunday no matter where in the world you are this morning. :)

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme bought to you by the lovely Kristi at The Story Siren.

Synopsis: People pity me, but mostly they feel envy. I have all the luxury and freedom a girl my age could want.

Something is happening to Charlotte Emerson. Like the fires that are ravaging the hills of Los Angeles, it consumes her from the inside out. But whether it is her eternal loneliness, the memory of her brother, the return of her first love, or the brooding, magnetic Jared—she cannot say. What if it’s something more . . .

Something to do with the sudden tear in her perfect nails. The heat she feels when she’s with Jared. The blood rushing once again to her cheeks and throughout her veins.

For Charlotte is a vampire, witness to almost a century’s worth of death and destruction. But not since she was a human girl has mortality touched her.

In what way will you be transformed?

Until now.

Review: I loved the concept of this book, but not really the excecution of it if I am honest.

Not that it was written badly, because it really wasn’t. It just felt like it didn’t have a lot of passion put behind it, which as a reader you can tell straight away.

I felt with more depth and detail the book actually has a lot of potenial. I really love the idea of having a female vampire who falls in love with a human guy. And I truly adored the idea of love bringing someone back from the dead - or the undead.

Perhaps to summarise my rating I’ll put the pros and cons:

Pros:

• The cover is magnificent.. it’s beautiful
• The characters themselves were actually really very interesting
• The story line itself was very clever

Cons:

• The book was not long enough, and so being a short read didn’t allow me as the reader to really care about the characters, which is a shame because I wanted to love them
• The book has a lot of romance in it, but you don’t feel the tenderness behind it because the book doesn’t feel like it was written from a place of emotion, but rather fact.

I wanted so badly to love this book, and I was so excited to read it. I just felt let down by it when I did read it. I should give it a 2 out fo 5, BUT in the interest of being fair, I did like aspects of it, and so I am bumping it to a 2.5 out of 5.

I’d be interested to see if any of my readers have also read this book just to compare reviews or thoughts to! Feel free to let me know what you think in the comments below.

Rating: 2.5 out of 5

How awesome is this chair?! It doubles as a bookshelf so you can actually put all your books in it as well? The geek in me just completely freaked out…

All I can say…. is… WANT! ;)

I am a little backwards you see…. when I was a young adult, I was really into true crime books, and adult fiction. And now, as an adult I am really into YA fiction! I didn’t discover YA fiction until I was probably 25 and so from there I’ve been hooked.

Prior to that my favourite authors were Lynda La Plante, Patricia Cornwell (from like year 7 onwards), Stephen King and Jeffrey Deaver.

And then I found Twilight… like the rest of the universe. lol And from that time onwards, I am hooked on this genre we call YA!

“Let’s talk crazy book titles! Highlight one or two (or as many as you like!) titles in your personal collection that have the most interesting titles! If you can’t find any, feel free to find one on the internet!”

Married With Zombies is probably the first one that comes to mind! I love it, it instantly made me want to buy the book!

The version I own ^

Synopsis: As if it’s not bad enough that after a long summer with the horrid Dursleys he is thwarted in his attempts to hop the train to the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his second year. But when his only transportation option is a magical flying car, it is just his luck to crash into a valuable (but clearly vexed) Whomping Willow. Still, all this seems like a day in the park compared to what happens that fall within the haunted halls of Hogwarts.

Chilling, malevolent voices whisper from the walls only to Harry, and it seems certain that his classmate Draco Malfoy is out to get him. Soon it’s not just Harry who is worried about survival, as dreadful things begin to happen at Hogwarts. The mysteriously gleaming, foot-high words on the wall proclaim, “The Chamber of Secrets Has Been Opened. Enemies of the Heir, Beware.” But what exactly does it mean? Harry, Hermione, and Ron do everything that is wizardly possible-including risking their own lives-to solve this 50-year-old, seemingly deadly mystery. This deliciously suspenseful novel is every bit as gripping, imaginative, and creepy as the first; familiar student concerns-fierce rivalry, blush-inducing crushes, pedantic professors-seamlessly intertwine with the bizarre, horrific, fantastical, or just plain funny. Once again, Rowling writes with a combination of wit, whimsy, and a touch of the macabre that will leave readers young and old desperate for the next installment.

Review: Chamber of Secrets picks right back up where we left off in Philosopher’s Stone (aka Sorcerer’s Stone). We start back at Privet Drive where Harry has spent his summer holidays back with the terrible Dursley’s being miserable.

We greet the same characters as we did in the first book, Harry, Ron, Hermoine, Hagrid, Draco, Crabbe & Goyle, the Weasley brothers.. but this book also spends a bit more time shedding some light on each of those characters and we start to hear more about Ginny. We also meet Professor Lockheart this year, the new Dark Arts teacher who has some serious narcassism going on!

A little bit darker than Philosopher’s Stone.. students at Hogwarts are getting “petrified” everywhere and no one knows who is behind the attacks. Harry, Ron and Hermoine do everything they can to try and unveil the attacker.

Such a solid story line.. it’s clear that J.K Rowling had this story line set out from start to finish - everything happens for a reason in her books, which I absolutely love. Never once have I read something and had to question why she’s put it in the book, it all explains itself. Brilliant!

It’s really not hard to see why this series is loved all around the world. I am really looking forward to reading Prisoner of Azkaban next!

Rating: 5 out of 5

It’s Wednesday! Which means it’s time to tell you what I have been up to for the last week! W..W..W.. Wednesdays is a weekly meme bought to you by MizB from Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

Allllmost finished Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets and also currently reading Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves & Glow by Amy Katherine Ryan. I know, I am a an awfully slow reader for a book reviewer! I hear ya.

What did you recently finish reading?

Harry Potter & The Philosophers Stone

What do you think you’ll read next?

I’ll continue with the Harry Potter series, as well as the Uglies series. Pretties will be next by Scott Westerfeld.

I absolutely love looking at book covers.. I know we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover, but let’s face it… we’re all much more likely to read a book if it’s got a pretty cover right? ;)

So this will be a feature I will share every now and then when it comes up - covers… who did it better? Books may have different covers from country to country, and being an Australian resident I’ve noticed many variations of covers here to the US and the UK.

Now you be the judge!

Here Lies Bridget - Paige Harbison

US Version Intnl Version

I think the US cover is really fun and inticing and would definitely make me want to read the book. The international version is VERY different. Would you all agree that it gives the book a different vibe altogether? I think the international version is beautiful but it still made me curious enough to buy it without knowing anything about it too!

Thoughts?

Sunday morning… I just finished my cerial and now I am reading some Harry Potter. Best morning! I bought a few books this week, so without further ado..

In My Mailbox is a weekly meme bought to you by the lovely Kristi at The Story Siren.

“What is the one ARC you would love to get your hands on right now?”

Hrmmm would have loved to have gotten an ARC of Sweetly by Jackson Pearce. It’s the companion novel to Sisters Red. Sisters Red was kinda an adaptation based on Little Red Riding Hood and Sweetly is similar, but based on Hansel & Gretel. She is SO good!

Also, Fever by Lauren de Stefano which is the sequel to Wither and the second book in the Chemical Garden trilogy. I am so looking forward to its release!

This might sound corny, but the Twilight saga is my answer. I didn’t know YA fiction even existed really until I read it, and although I dabbled in adult fiction prior to reading it, it’s that series that helped me discover the genre and turned me into an avid reader!

How about you?

It’s Wednesday! Which means it’s time to tell you what I have been up to for the last week! W..W..W.. Wednesdays is a weekly meme bought to you by MizB from Should Be Reading.

What are you currently reading?

Just started both Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves, Harry Potter & The Chamber of Secrets and Glow by Amy Katherine Ryan.

What did you recently finish reading?

Harry Potter & The Philosophers Stone & Thinandbeautiful.com

What do you think you’ll read next?

I’ll continue with the Harry Potter series, as well as the Uglies series. Pretties will be next by Scott Westerfeld.

The version I own ^

Synopsis: Harry Potter thinks he is an ordinary boy. He lives with his Uncle Vernon, Aunt Petunia and cousin Dudley, who make him sleep in a cupboard under the stairs. Then Harry starts receiving mysterious letters and his life is changed for ever. He is whisked away by a beetle-eyed giant of a man and enrolled in Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The reason: Harry Potter is a wizard!

Review: The one that started them all.

What a book, it’s not hard to understand why it’s a worldwide phenomenon. The book might be about wizards and witches, but the story itself is absolutely magical (mind the pun).

J.K Rowling has a brilliant mind, and an amazing abilty to tell a story and bring it to life. It’s the very reason they all became movies, because the story telling in them is so amazing that it was able to be turned into a script that easily.

So it’s year one at Hogwarts and Harry finds out that he is a wizard. A famous wizard. He goes to Hogwarts where he meets Ron and Hermoine and really, this is the start of a beautiful friendship between the three of them.

The book is fast paced and expects the reader to keep up with the action, which it throws plenty of at you! I think the reason this book was such a hit was because where so many books focus on the action and not enough on the character development, Harry Potter has it all. We get to know and understand the characters and emotionally invest and love them. AND we get the action that goes along with it. We get dragged into all the capers that Harry, Ron and Hermoine get involved in and we love it.

Rating: 5 out of 5

Synopsis: Seventeen-year-old Maddie has always felt a hole in her life, but she has finally found a way to fill it with her quest to mold her body into her ideal, thinnest shape. When she comes across the world of Pro Ana websites, where young people encourage each other in their mission to lose ever more weight, she realizes she is no longer alone. Finally, she has found a place where she is understood. Maddie quickly becomes addicted to the support and camaraderie she finds on thinandbeautiful.com. Now in a rehab facility where they are trying to “fix” a problem she doesn’t think she has, Maddie is forced to keep a diary tracing how she arrived at this point. Angry that she is barred from accessing her online friends, Maddie resists therapy. Only when a tragedy befalls one of her comrades in arms is she shocked into admitting that she does need help.

Review: I loved the concept of this book very much. Simply because having been there as a teenager, I completely understand the expectations and pressures of being a teenage girl and wanting to feel slim as well. Whilst I never had an eating disorder (in actual fact I was an overweight teen), I related to the feelings of wanting to be thin.

The start of this book was a little bit too slow and didn’t really have an air of authenticity to it. The protagonist is Maddie who is a 17 year old girl who suffers from an eating disorder. I didn’t really understand the underlying reasons (if any) for her developing this illness asides from wanting to be skinny.

The first half of the book talked a lot about what Maddie said and did but didn’t delve nearly as much into how she felt. I felt the story line was really important, I just didn’t connect to it so much.

It really came into it’s own in the second half of the book that being said. The time Maddie spent in the clinic helped redeem the book in my eyes and I actually quite enjoyed the story from that point onwards. We start to feel her anger, her denial about even having an eating disorder, her feelings for her online friends… I actually felt something, which made the story that much better for me.

Definitely an important story for teenage girls out there who feel those pressures that society places on us. It shows the unglamourous truth about eating disorders as well as this “pro-ana” websites out there promoting this illness and actually motivating girls out there to get sicker. Books like this highlight just how serious a condition this is.

Rating: 3 out of 5