Hi readers!!

It’s time for my very first Australia & New Zealand only giveaway! I’ve really been wanting to do this for a while, seeing as I find so many giveaways are limited to the US & Canada, so thank you to the lovely people at Harlequin Teen I have a giveaway for my local readers!

I am giving away not one, but TWO copies of Touch Of Power by the amazing Maria V Snyder! This is a new series written by Maria and was only very recently released. It’s been receiving absolutely amazing reviews on Goodreads and I am very excited to be able to read a copy of this myself!

So the rules are simple. If you live in Australia or New Zealand you are eligible. You don’t need to follow me, although you will get extra entries for tweeting the competition! The folks at Harlequin Teen will post the books to the two winners picked from Rafflecopter.

The competition starts now and will end on February 29th. I’ll email the two winners for postage information and we will go from there. That’s it! Get to it, enter below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Synopsis: Diagnosed with Stage IV thyroid cancer at 12, Hazel was prepared to die until, at 14, a medical miracle shrunk the tumours in her lungs… for now.

Two years post-miracle, sixteen-year-old Hazel is post-everything else, too; post-high school, post-friends and post-normalcy. And even though she could live for a long time (whatever that means), Hazel lives tethered to an oxygen tank, the tumours tenuously kept at bay with a constant chemical assault.

Enter Augustus Waters. A match made at cancer kid support group, Augustus is gorgeous, in remission, and shockingly to her, interested in Hazel. Being with Augustus is both an unexpected destination and a long-needed journey, pushing Hazel to re-examine how sickness and health, life and death, will define her and the legacy that everyone leaves behind.

Review: The Fault In Our Stars was easily the best realistic contemporary book I think I have read in years. It’s also the first John green book I’ve ever read, so now I am dying to read some of his back catelogue.

TFIOS is about a girl named Hazel who has thyroid cancer that spread to her lungs. Through modern drugs however, for the last 3 years her cancer has shrunk and stayed that way. Although she’s still terminal, she is okay for now. Hazel attends a cancer support group, where she meets Augustus Waters. He’s a cancer survivor - once suffering from osteosarcoma. He’s in remission after having had one of his legs amputated.

This is Hazel and Gus’s love story really. But it’s also about a bunch of other things. It’s about how other people see cancer patients and treat them differently (aka “cancer perks”). It tells you how to “Live Your Best Live Today!” and also it talks quite seriously about life and death, and those that both survived and didn’t survive cancer. It also talks a lot about meeting your heroes also since Gus and Hazel share a passion for reading books and poetry.

Augustus Waters has ruined me for men! No man will ever be able to live up to Gus. Ever. He absolutely had me in tears (which I tried to stiffle as I was in the food court of the shopping centre (mall) trying to eat lunch at the time) because of just how amazing he was. There is this amazing level of depth and wholeness to these characters. They are like real people to me just because they are written with so much love and care that you cannot help but to feel REAL things for these characters. It’s an amazing experience that honestly doesn’t happen very often in a book. And when it does, it’s to be savoured.

The banter between Gus, Hazel and Isaac was so realistic on many levels, with the sillyness and jokes and quick wit, but also at times they each had a really mature aspect of them. I guess when you’re living with cancer you’re faced to grow up rather quickly and in many ways a lot of their teenage or childhood years were robbed from them where they weren’t able to enjoy life like everyone else because they didn’t even know if they were going to survive. That edge of maturity shines through amongst the playful banter. It’s a beautiful mixture of funny conversations mixed in with some serious discussions around what they think will happen when they die. I found it incredibly thought provoking.

I don’t want to say much about the end of the book because of spoilers and such. But I will say I was thrown off and certainly had to hold myself together so I wouldn’t just bawl my eyes out. An incredible read - I know this book is hyped so much right now, but it really was just fantastic. Definitely buy yourself a copy of TFIOS!

Rating: 5 out of 5

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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?

I am just about to start Article 5 by Kristen Simmons!

What did you recently finish reading?

Tonight I finished reading The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. It was both beautiful and heartbreaking. I adored it.. the review will be up tomorrow I hope. I also finished Pretty Crooked by Elisa Ludwig earlier in the week and the review of this ARC will be up before the release date.

What do you think you’ll read next?

After Article 5 I think maybe Harbinger and I’d also like to get one of my dusty TBR books read and off my shelf. I’ll pick whatever I am in the mood for at the time usually!

What is everyone out there reading at the moment? :)

Good morning readers!! How is everyone today? I am preparing myself to go to the gym as soon as I have finished this. It’s going to be another hot day here, and so I’d prefer to get it over and done with as soon as possible if I can! haha

On to IMM this week! As always In My Mailbox is a weekly meme bought to you by the lovely Kristi at The Story Siren.

Article 5 - Kristen Simmons

This is a 2012 debut and it looks fantastic! It’s a dystopian novel set in the United States. New York, LA and Washington DC have been abandoned. Police are replaced with soldiers and the Bill of Rights is now the Moral Statues. I am personally excited because in 3 short months I will be visiting all three places! I definitely plan on reading this book very shortly, it’s received amazing reviews - and as I am participating in the Debut Books of 2012 challenge, this will be another tick on my list!

Cloaked - Alex Flinn

I have not read Beastly (although I do own it), but Amazon had this available on Kindle with some bonus material yesterday for something rediculous like $1.05 and so I bought a copy to check out! The thing I do like about this though is that it’s not a sequel to Beastly - it’s a stand alone fairytale retelling. It apparently incorporates quite a lot of fairy tales? I am always skeptical with fairytale retellings, however I am definitely keen to see for myself what I think!

Harbinger - Sara Wilson Etienne

I like the cover, but the cover itself was what was originally stopping me from wanting to read this book. It just didn’t look like anything I would read. But then I saw the trailer for this book on youtube and then read the synopsis of the book on Goodreads, and I did a complete 180 and now I am actually really looking forward to reading this. It calls itself a psychological thriller, and also “Girl, Interrupted” meets “Beautiful Creatures”. I am extremely intruigued.

Jessica’s Guide To Dating On The Dark Side - Beth Fantaskey

The second book in this series Jessica Rules The Dark Side was released recently and I thought I would start with the original book before I launch myself into the next one! Both books have received really solid reviews and they both look a lot different to what I originally through they were about based on the covers. It looks a lot more serious than the title suggests! I hope to read this one shortly, and then I’ll definitely get into JRTDS also.

So that is all from me this week, what’s in your mailbox? Let me know - leave your links in the comments section below!

Synopsis: Humans and androids crowd the raucous streets of New Beijing. A deadly plague ravages the population. From space, a ruthless lunar people watch, waiting to make their move. No one knows that Earth’s fate hinges on one girl. . . .

Cinder, a gifted mechanic, is a cyborg. She’s a second-class citizen with a mysterious past, reviled by her stepmother and blamed for her stepsister’s illness. But when her life becomes intertwined with the handsome Prince Kai’s, she suddenly finds herself at the center of an intergalactic struggle, and a forbidden attraction. Caught between duty and freedom, loyalty and betrayal, she must uncover secrets about her past in order to protect her world’s future.

Review: What a fantastic story. As a young girl I absolutely loved Cinderella - I loved the fairy tale itself and I can’t even begin to count how many times I watched the Disney version on VCR also. Cinder is what the sci-fi/dystopian version of Cinderella would be. Only it’s way more awesome than what you’re probably imagining. It has androids, cyborgs, Lunars (moon people), emporers and evil stepmothers… which really no matter which way you look at it wins in any argument, hands down.

Cinder is a young girl, a mechanic in New Beijing. She is mostly human… due to an accident when she was younger she is 33% Cyborg. She has computorised and metal components to her, which ultimately saved her life, but she is embarassed about. When she’s not at the markets trying to make money, she has to endure being spoken down to by her stepmother Adri and her stepsister Pearl. She does however get along quite well with her other stepsister Peony, and she also has a friend in an android named Iko who is ever loyal.

Cinder’s life changes for the better the day she meets Prince Kai. He appears incognito at the market that Cinder holds a stall at asking Cinder if she would please repair his beloved android. Cinder agrees, and this chance meeting sparks a number of subsequent meetings where the Prince becomes quite smitten with Cinder.

When Peony develops the plague that has been killing so many others, Cinder dreads the worst. Out of spite, her cruel stepmother orders Cinder to surrender her own life in order to help the doctors try to find a cure for the plague. She alows them to try and use Cinder as a pincushion in vein that it may save Peony. However, much to the doctors surprise, Cinder is immune and released.

In the time being, the moon colony, known as the Lunars - who are ruled by an evil destructive leader: Queen Levana. Queen Levana has decided that she is going to make Prince Kai marry her by any means necessary. With Cinder continually in the picture this certainly adds a spanner to the works.

Fairy tale retelling
I am a lot of the time quite skeptical when I first hear about fairy tales being re-told because I think for many of us, they hold such a special meaning to us. I know I grew up on them, and so anything that would change that gets me quite nervous. But fear not. Whilst this story is very losely based on Cinderella, it is truly not comparable. If anything the way Marissa Meyer has written this story is genius, because we know the story already, however the twists and turns that are in this book are fantastic. And whilst I guessed the main twist in this story quite early on, I still felt completely satisfied when I was correct with my guess. So much happened in this book though that you could not predict or guess though and truly it’s for this reason you should read this book.

New Beijing you say?
I know right? Cinder is set in China. Which is completely amazing may I add. I really wasn’t sold on the idea before I read the story, but after having read it, it just works on so many levels. It’s also completely unique, because let’s face it. How many other YA books can you say are set in a post-apocolyptic, dytopian-esque, plague torn China? I believe none.. except Cinder. It really takes this fairy tale and changes it completely into something new all over again.

Oh… Prince Kai
I think it’s fair to say I may have had a bit of a crush on the Prince! I love a persistent male character, and Prince Kai is that. He makes it known to Cinder he wants her to be his guest at the ball, and doesn’t stop when she says no. In real life, this might be considered creepy, but for some reason in YA books, it always works for me. Everytime. I loved Prince Kai’s sincerity and innocence.

This is a beautiful first book in what appears to be a series of at least four books. The fantastic thing about Cinder is that there are ultimately a number of sub plots happening throughout the book, so it really leaves us wanting more answers to a number of things. I am really excited for the rest of this series. Most definitely deserving of 5 stars, a wonderfully entertaining story that will stay with you long after you read it.

Rating: 5 out of 5

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Q: Define what characteristics your favorite books share. Do they all have a kick ass heroine or is the hot love interest the Alpha Male?

I would have to say both are pretty well mandatory right?! lol I absolutely love a strong kickass female character. I am definitely not a fan of naive young girls who shy away from a challenge. The whole point of reading is escapism to me, so I love larger than life characters who do exactly the types of things your mother warned you not to do!

I am most definitely a sucker for a hot bad boy in a book too. Whilst I also sometimes love it when the nice guys win, there are times where you love the bad boy and want to see some steamy romance happening there too!

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?

I am over halfway through Cinder by Marissa Meyer… it’s REALLY engaging. I love it.

What did you recently finish reading?

I finished reading Welcome, Caller, This Is Chloe by Shelley Coriell. The review of this book will be posted closer to the release date, but it was pretty good!

What do you think you’ll read next?

Oh so much… I have a number of ARC’s to read within the next 3 weeks! So they will come first. But then after that maybe The Fault In Our Stars by John Green?