The Paper Magician

by Charlie N. Holmberg
224 pages
(The Paper Magician Trilogy, #1)
Published: September 1 2014

Blurb: 

Ceony Twill arrives at the cottage of Magician Emery Thane with a broken heart. Having graduated at the top of her class from the Tagis Praff School for the Magically Inclined, Ceony is assigned an apprenticeship in paper magic despite her dreams of bespelling metal. And once she’s bonded to paper, that will be her only magic… forever.

Yet the spells Ceony learns under the strange yet kind Thane turn out to be more marvelous than she could have ever imagined — animating paper creatures, bringing stories to life via ghostly images, even reading fortunes. But as she discovers these wonders, Ceony also learns of the extraordinary dangers of forbidden magic.

An Excisioner — a practitioner of dark, flesh magic — invades the cottage and rips Thane’s heart from his chest. To save her teacher’s life, Ceony must face the evil magician and embark on an unbelievable adventure that will take her into the chambers of Thane’s still-beating heart—and reveal the very soul of the man.

Rating:

Thoughts:

This book was such a refreshing change. I must admit, though, I hadn't heard about it before browsing through the kindle store. Magicians are not something I thought to read about before, mostly because there aren't too many popular books about them. Now I wish there were more.The cover of this book drew me in first, then the title. I just knew I had to download it (oh and the fact that it was free but never mind that). 

Many people did not enjoy this book. As much as I liked it, I have to say I can see why. They either thought the main character, Ceony, was annoying or that the story was all over the place. I understand it can come off that way, but I have to disagree. While the plot did have some slow and unnecessary patches, everything more or less contributed to the main goal. I liked how unique the story was and all the little details that really made me admire the author's creative thinking. It's quite a nice story, however it may need some patience to appreciate. 

The really enjoyed the writing and setting of this book. It was written in a way that some people might call "easy" or "fast", which suits the story. While the book didn't exactly have any surprises, since you could pretty much guess the outcome of everything, it was still entertaining. The setting, I can't say much about because it gives away a lot. But I will say that the setting was very well described, and I did find myself able to clearly imagine what was happening and where it was happening. 

Ceony, in my opinion, was a great character. She was very bright and determined to do whatever she set her mind to. At the end of the book, she did seem a bit...obsessive, but you have to cut the girl some slack. I mean, she goes through quite a lot. If you know what I mean ;) *Waits patiently for someone who's read the book to get the pun* Back to my point, the characters here were very interesting. Mg. Thane, Ceony's mentor, provided that hint of insanity that I think every book needs. He was such a fun character to read about. 

In the end, this book fits into that category of "simply entertaining" on my shelf. It may not be the best in terms of great literature, but it's definitely a good time. 

Tricolor

by Lisa Terry
191 pages
Published: July 16 2015

Blurb:

It’s the typical problem of can’t-stay-broken-up-with-your-boyfriend-when-his-parents-go-missing. Okay, so it might not be typical but O’Ryan’s lovelife is bumped to the bottom of the priority list when a madman shows up wielding a knife. O’Ryan has to meet his demands or everyone she cares about will be toast. 

The easy answer is to call the police, but it’s a bit much to ask them to protect everyone—the list of people he’s threatened is really long. When her boyfriend’s parents turn up dead, she realizes the man with the knife has to be beat at his own game because giving into his demands will make O’Ryan a criminal too.

Rating:

Thoughts:

I received a copy from the author in exchange for an honest review.
First off, I don't read much, if any, adult/thriller/suspense novels. It's not my typical read, and not something I'm usually in the mood for. You could even say I avoided these kind of novels, for whatever reason. But this fact made me more curious to read this book and finally see for myself what an adult suspense novel is like. 

This book surprised and slightly disappointed me. It surprised me because it was very entertaining and I found the plot to be very captivating. I was always interested to find out how things would unfold and it really doesn't take a long time to finish this book. It goes by very quickly, and its length was perfect for its story, since it would've been unnecessary to extend it beyond 200 pages. For my first suspense novel, I was pleasantly surprised by the plot. 

I was, however, pretty disappointed by the writing. I felt that it was too choppy at times and very unclear in others. Sometimes, the narrator would try to inform the reader about an event that took place before the starting point of the book and she would only do that through dialogue. That leaves a lot for the reader to assume, since the character obviously won't flat-out tell another person who experienced the event exactly what happened. She'd sound a bit mad. I just would've liked to see a little more told to us through O'Ryan's thoughts. The uneven flow of the writing also made it hard to understand what was going on at certain action scenes, and I'd have to reread lines to figure out who hit who, etc. I could never feel anxious whenever something intense happened and I think it's because of that. Another thing about the writing is the use of punctuation. It just stood out to me that there were too many exclamation points at times when a simple period would've made the sentence much more effective/dramatic and less like a line out of a children's book. If you get what I mean.

Now my favorite aspect of a novel is always its characters. Always. I don't know why, but-actually I do know why. Imagine a novel without characters... Exactly. Now imagine a novel without a plot or a setting. It can manage with the characters just yapping on at each other. My point is, I wasn't blown away by the characters in this book. At the beginning, I really enjoyed O'Ryan's character because she was very witty. As the book went on, she started to grow irritating and prioritised all the wrong things. I sometimes felt bad for the people associated with her. Peter, however, the 9-year-old in the book, made up for all of that in my opinion. He was such a clever, mischievous little boy and impossible not to like. I would've liked seeing the book from his perspective, if I'm honest.

If you're looking for a short read with a unique plot, and can look past a few issues like these, I can't see why you wouldn't enjoy this novel :)  

Angelfall

by Susan Ee
288 pages
(Penryn & the End of Days, #1)
Published: August 28 2012

Blurb: 

It's been six weeks since angels of the apocalypse descended to demolish the modern world. Street gangs rule the day while fear and superstition rule the night. When warrior angels fly away with a helpless little girl, her seventeen-year-old sister Penryn will do anything to get her back.

Anything, including making a deal with an enemy angel.

Raffe is a warrior who lies broken and wingless on the street. After eons of fighting his own battles, he finds himself being rescued from a desperate situation by a half-starved teenage girl.

Traveling through a dark and twisted Northern California, they have only each other to rely on for survival. Together, they journey toward the angels' stronghold in San Francisco where she'll risk everything to rescue her sister and he'll put himself at the mercy of his greatest enemies for the chance to be made whole again.

Rating:

Thoughts:

Oh, how wonderful it is when a book truly keeps you on the very edge of your seat. With this one, I think I might've even fallen off. WOAH. That pretty much sums it up. I have heard lots about this series, but have never felt like venturing into the angel category of paranormal. Seeing as this was free on kindle, I had to check it out. Next thing I know, I'm writing this review. 

So, this is a very unique book. That was one of the things that stood out to me most about it. Sometimes, in the middle of reading, you'd really wonder how on earth Susan Ee thought up all the different aspects. Without going into details, this book had a taste of originality that really made me enjoy it even more. It is something you very rarely find these days in YA fiction.

Action-pactwise, this scored a solid A+. The way Susan writes the scenes makes it very easy to imagine, and perfect fly-through material. You find yourself really anxious at times because of the way this book toys with your interest and curiosity. At other times, this book can get really gruesome, because as I mentioned earlier the author really likes to get creative with her descriptions. While that would normally bother me, it really fit with the theme of this book and didn't try to disgust the reader. It simply had the perfect touch of creepy!

The romance in this book can easily come off as cheesy, but it somehow didn't for me. It was either the fact that I read it at a really good time, or maybe it was the book being my first angel one. Whatever it was, I loved the relationship between Penryn and Raffe. I wouldn't call it insta-lovey, because come on, the dude's a freaking angel. It would only make sense for him to be beautiful and loveable. And since sarcasm was a factor, this book also really made me laugh at times. Then there was the strong relationship between Penryn and her sister. I liked how Penryn was always really protective and didn't let anything district her from her tasks. I'm really looking forward to reading more about these characters.

Overall, I feel like the author did a really good job of making something special out of such an ordinary plot. at first, I gave this book a 4.5, but decided not to review it until later on. Now that I'm writing this, I can't remember any of my issues with it. For that reason, I just went ahead and changed my rating to a 5, because what the heck. It was a pretty darn good one! This book might not sound like your piece of cake, but I still highly encourage any fan of paranormal YA to try reading it. You might find it upon your new favourites! 

The Blogger Recognition Award

I was nominated by the lovely Sinead at Less Reality More Books  to do the Blogger Recognition award. Thanks so much for the nomination!! This is the first time I do something like this so I hope I don't get anything wrong! 


These are the rules:
Select 15 other blogs you want to give the award to. 
Do some digging if you must! Find those blogs. You cannot nominate yourself or the person who has nominated you.

Write a post to show off your award!
Give a brief story of how your blog got started, and give a piece or two of advice to new bloggers. Thank whoever nominated you, and provide a link to their blog. List who you’ve nominated in the post. Make sure to also attach the award itself! (You can do this by right-clicking, saving, and uploading the image above).

Comment on each blog and let them know you’ve nominated them. Provide a link to the award post you created.

Provide a link to the original post on Edge of Night. 
That way, anyone can find the original guidelines and post if needed, and we can keep it from mutating and becoming confusing! 

My Story: 
I like to think that I was always a reader. As a child, I did really enjoy those thin chapter books and was always proud of myself when I finished one that was either long or had no pictures. Reading was a hobby I took part in regularly. As I got older, I sort of lost interest because I wasn't aware of all the great books out there. YA was something I didn't really know existed. When the Hunger Games became popular, and everyone started reading it, I did too. It made me fall in love with reading all over again. 
When I found out about GoodReads a few years back, it helped me realise how many other books I could enjoy and how you could interact with people who like the same ones you do. I immediately had to join in on the fun! 
After a while, I found out that people not only reviewed books on GoodReads, but they had blogs as well to talk about books. I thought it was really hard to do, and that you had to be older and more experienced. I didn't think about starting my own until a good while later, when I viewed more and more blogs and the idea really appealed to me. Now I can only say I wish I'd done it sooner, because having a book blog is sort of like having your own little customised library, and people visit every once in a while to see what you added, loved, hated, recommended. It's something on a whole new level of awesome! 

My Advice:
The most important thing I have to say when it comes to advice is just to not take yourself too seriously. I know it's sometimes hard not to want everything to be perfect, but you need to just relax sometimes. You love books, and you think reading is fun. Blogging should be fun, too! Don't force yourself to do it a certain way or make your posts a certain amount long. Don't feel obligated to post if you're too busy or too tired. It's not an assignment, it's a hobby! Just make sure you're honest about your opinions. So to all you people just starting out, do it however you want to do it. If you like throwing in sarcastic lines in your reviews, do it! Everyone likes when your personality can shine through your words. If you want to post something completely random about a girl you saw in the bookstore the other day who asked you what Fifty Shades of Grey was about, do that too! Just make sure you're happy with your blog and that you find having one fun :) 

I nominate: 
Chioma at Blue Books and Butterflies
Krystianna at Downright Dystopian
Cristina at My Tiny Obsessions
Charnell at Reviews from a Bookworm
Caroline at Just Another Bookish Blog
Tika at fANGIRL Confessions
Rachel at A Perfection Called Books
Cari at My Addiction: Books
Majanka at I Heart Reading 
Cody at Literary-ly Obsessed
Cynthia at Bingeing On Books
Klara at Book Addict
Tori at In Tori Lex
Victoria at Addlepates and Book Nerds
Alyssa at The Eater of Books!

I hope you guys decide to do this tag! 

Throne of Glass

by Sarah J. Maas
404 pages
(Throne of Glass, #1)
Published: August 7 2012

Blurb:

After serving out a year of hard labor in the salt mines of Endovier for her crimes, 18-year-old assassin Celaena Sardothien is dragged before the Crown Prince. Prince Dorian offers her her freedom on one condition: she must act as his champion in a competition to find a new royal assassin.

Her opponents are men-thieves and assassins and warriors from across the empire, each sponsored by a member of the king's council. If she beats her opponents in a series of eliminations, she'll serve the kingdom for three years and then be granted her freedom. Celaena finds her training sessions with the captain of the guard, Westfall, challenging and exhilirating. But she's bored stiff by court life. Things get a little moreINTERESTING when the prince starts to show interest in her... but it's the gruff Captain Westfall who seems to understand her best.

Then one of the other contestants turns up dead... quickly followed by another. Can Celaena figure out who the killer is before she becomes a victim? As the young assassin investigates, her search leads her toDISCOVER a greater destiny than she could possibly have imagined.

Rating:

Thoughts:

First and foremost, I am very aware that half the people who even see this review have probably already read this book. For reasons mostly involving boredom, reading slumps and the possibility of me not finishing another book for a while, I will review this book anyway. This disclaimer is merely for repetitive thoughts that will undoubtedly occur throughout the review. I hope you enjoy it regardless of them :)

Alright, so the the thing that stuck out to me the most about this book was the characters, which is my first very repetitive thought. I don't have much to say other than I am actually torn, for the first time, on who's side of the love triangle I'm on. I can't begin to describe the characters since that would be a spoiler, and also because I'm not sure I can do them justice with my own words. Celaena was a strange mix of girly, book-nerdy, smart and brave that I found refreshingly unique. I felt myself relating a lot to her, and loving that she was as vulnerable at times as she was great in others. You sometimes read a lot of characters that are either too pathetic or too perfect, so this was a nice, realistic mix of the two. Sarah J. Maas is the new queen of clever, badass, sarcastic, swaggery (don't think that's a word) characters. The love-hate relationships between them were funny, the love-love relationships were heart warming, and most importantly, there were villains well-worthy of beheading, eye gouging, or whatever appeases the dark, sadistic part we all undeniably have in our hearts. That was a very happy sentence. 

Moving on to the actual world Maas set up for this series, I couldn't get enough of it. I loved the royal, castle-type setting, with all gowns, parties and fancy rooms. This book was descriptive enough to make you feel like you were witnessing the scenes clearly, but not so much as to bore you with knowledge of every crack in the wall. Again, it was a nice balance between the two. We didn't get to see much of Calaena's life as a slave in the mines, just reocurring thoughts of all the terrible things she went through and how she actually managed to survive. I didn't mind that too much since I enjoyed the setting of Rifthold so much. The only thing that bothered me slightly was that the premise of magic in this book wasn't explained as well as I'd hoped. There wasn't much history to be told, but I suppose that's all we could get since Celaena only knew so much. Info-dumpy chapters are never fun to read. I feel like this book was an excellent start to what i hope will be a magnificent series, if what I've heard is true about the other two books currently out. The world-building was very good. 

The plot, however, was very interesting. I didn't expect there to be so many deaths, which only increased my growing curiosity as to who the killer was. This is in the blurb, so I'm not spoiling anything. This book turned out to have a mysterious conflict, which I did not expect. There was also a lot of suspense, which I happily devoured. But again, my only problem was how predictable the resolution was. This is probably another common thing you hear about this book. i expected there to be some kind of major plot twist that would send me rocketing back in my seat in shock, but I saw it coming from the start. This made me contemplate giving the book a lower rating, but no matter how unsurprising it was, I still thought it was written fantastically, and enjoyed it nonetheless. For that I think the book deserves a solid 4.5. 

Definitely recommend this for anyone who likes books with mystery, supernatural creatures, snarky characters, or just plain awesome action! 

Double Copy (A tragic tale based on a true story)

(A few years ago)

Me walking in the mall with my friend: La da dee da dee, Doopdee doodle do... This is a very nice-

*Angelic music plays*

Me: .....

Friend: No.

Me: But-

Friend: NO!

Me: I don't care! *runs inside*

Friend: *Calls salon* Hey, yeah. Sorry, can you move that 4:00 appointment to 6? We're gonna take a while..

(Inside)

Me: Hey, should I get this? *Holds up book*

Friend: Sure whatever.

Me: Look, the deathly hallows! That's the only one I don't have yet!

Friend: Then get it.

Me: Okay!

----

(Back at home)

Me: Okay, time to set you, dear beloved, on my shelf.

*Looks at shelves*

Me: Wait. Whaaa?
Shelves: That's right.
Me: No!
Shelves: When are you going to start remembering what books you already freaking have, Janna?
Me:...
Shelves: Well?
Me: Never?
Shelves: Shame on you!
Me: *Looks down in shame*


Yup, confession: I have two copies of the deathly hallows on my shelves. Did this suck? If so, I'm sorry. Thought I'd change it up from all reviews :3

Snow Like Ashes

by Sara Raasch
416 pages
(Snow Like Ashes, #1)
Published: October 14th 2014

( Disclaimer: Totally changing up the way I do my reviews )

Blurb:
A heartbroken girl. A fierce warrior. A hero in the making.

Sixteen years ago the Kingdom of Winter was conquered and its citizens enslaved, leaving them without magic or a monarch. Now, the Winterians’ only hope for freedom is the eight survivors who managed to escape, and who have been waiting for the opportunity to steal back Winter’s magic and rebuild the kingdom ever since.

Orphaned as an infant during Winter’s defeat, Meira has lived her whole life as a refugee, raised by the Winterians’ general, Sir. Training to be a warrior—and desperately in love with her best friend, and future king, Mather — she would do anything to help her kingdom rise to power again.

So when scouts discover the location of the ancient locket that can restore Winter’s magic, Meira decides to go after it herself. Finally, she’s scaling towers, fighting enemy soldiers, and serving her kingdom just as she’s always dreamed she would. But the mission doesn’t go as planned, and Meira soon finds herself thrust into a world of evil magic and dangerous politics – and ultimately comes to realize that her destiny is not, never has been, her own.

Rating:

Thoughts:

First of all, I'd like to say that the blurb doesn't mislead in this case, and stays true to the book 100%. Although, it doesn't necessarily grab your attention like it should. This book is everything I look for in an amazing fantasy novel, and I'm glad I decided to give it a chance to experience the glory that is Sara Raasch's writing. 

This book starts off slow and steady, with a lot of information laid out for you to digest. Although many people see this as a bad thing, and I did too at first, I came to realise it was completely necessary for the plot. There were constant plot twists throughout this book, and the reader would've only been able to fully enjoy the action if they completely understood the premise of the story and all the little details that make this new world a fantastic one. I wanted to lower my rating because of the slow start, but I couldn't bring myself to do it with the rest of the book being as phenomenal as it was. 

Now for my actual thoughts about the story. I loved the idea of Season kingdoms, and I guess that all started with Game of Thrones. No, I have not read it. No, I have not watched the tv show. Do I still like the idea of it? Hell yeah. This is one of the few books I've read that are more within the higher fantasy range, and for everyone intimidated by it, don't be. I would say this book has the same gripping action as Divergent, with love interests that are, for once, not annoying. The world building in this book is so good and descriptive, I could genuinely see myself by the main character's side, witnessing the whole thing as if it were a vivid dream. Speaking of dreams, I found the incorporation of them throughout the book as a great addition, intensifying the suspense as Meira discovers all the truths about her situation. That being said, I think Meira is by far the most badass female protagonist I've read so far, with the right amount of vulnerability to make her seem more realistic. I loved the relationship between her and Sir, and I find him by far one of my favorite fictional fatherly figures. Reading this book, I was at the verge of tears many times. From both happiness and saddness. It was such an insane novel. In a really good way. 

This is a must-read for fans of Sarah J. Maas or even J.K Rowling. Oh, and team Theron all the way!