Stories Are Perfect: June 2015

, by Unknown

Re-Review- City of Bones by Cassandra Clare #tmireadathon

City of Bones...

When I read City of Bones for the first time, I remember it being a struggle. It took a long time for me to finish it for two reasons, this was the first time I'd actually started to like reading, and I saw the movie first.... Woah. Woah. Woah. Wait a minute, I saw the movie first??? Yep that's right, imagine this:

Me sitting on the couch, channel surfing and looking for a movie to watch when bam! I see the movie The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones. Hmm, I remember thinking that I'd seen the trailer on TV a couple of times a while ago and decided to watch it. Though I should say that I started it like twenty minutes in or so and was confused for a while, but I wanted to know more... So I started to google it and the rest is history. I found out about the book while getting spoiled mildly and then picked up the book from the library. The main reason that I struggled to get through this book is I am a slow reader and get distracted a lot, and since I knew a bunch about City of Bones from the movie (or so I'd thought. What a horrible adaptation!) I thought it was a waste to read what I already knew, BUT I made myself read it and not skip it so that's the only thing that matters!

Since the Shadowhunters TV show has become so very popular, a tag has gone viral throughout instagram, etc. This tag is called #tmireadathon and was started by the instagram: nephilimevents The goal of this tag is to read every Shadowhunter Chronicle book in the months leading up to the TV shows premier.

Since I've read and loved them all I jumped at the idea of re-reading my favorite series! So here's the thing, since this is a re-review I am going to separate this into two sections. Section one is a short spoiler free review and stars. Section two is the actual re-review with spoilers and talking about re-reading the book.

Review:

City of Bones a book about young Clary Fray, her mother has been kidnapped, she's witnessed the unthinkable, and she might actually be going crazy?

City of Bones is the first in the Shadowhunter Chronicle books, while it's not the best of the series it welcomes you to the world of Shadowhunters! (And believe me you will never read a fantasy book like it!) Since this is the first book we have to learn a lot about the Shadowhunter world and that's a lot of information to process and because of this the book may seem boring or too long (at first).
This may be biased considering I've already read them all, I don't have anything really bad to say about it.

"The characters were introduced well, the plot was nice and strong, and the world of The Mortal Instruments just keeps you wanting more!"-Makayla

✮✮✮✮☆ 4/5

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, by Unknown

book events

YALLFEST 2015 AUTHORS??

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, by Tyler Felmet

Me and Earl and The Dying Girl

REVIEW- Me and Earl and The Dying Girl by Jesse Andrews

https://instagram.com/p/37NDtdLeHh/?taken-by=ourstoriesareperfect

(***Non-Spoiler***) TBR Jar challenge: Read a Debut Novel
Me and Earl and The Dying Girl, a book I walked by time after time in Barnes and Noble. Not because I'd heard anything negative about it, but because I'd had heard nothing about it at all in general. I knew nothing of the film and hadn't even seen any of the trailers!(And have yet to see them after reading it) So to be completely honest I only picked up this book for two reasons; 1. It said 'Now a Major Motion Picture' 2. The cover is a really bright and pretty yellow/green.

So for the actual review...

Me and Earl and The Dying Girl, a book that by the title screams 'JUST LIKE THE FAULT IN OUR STARS!' Ha Ha. No. There is absolutely nothing remotely similar to it to say that this book is like 'The Fault in Our Stars'.
To get this over with I wouldn't say this was the best book ever or that it was the worst but that it was competent.
Here's why; There was no real plot to this book, if anything it was a short story of the past two-four months of the main character Greg's life. It wasn't completely boring but it wasn't the most exciting book. Another thing was this book is not the most completely organized, meaning in random places we get a paragraph of random information or we learn facts too late in the story.
There was no emotional attachment to the characters, and I had no pull on the hearts strings.
Greg was a really frustrating person to deal with. The whole time he was in denial but not really, he knew Rachel was sick and dying but he wasn't emotional towards her and I don't mean in a 'I love you' kind of way, I mean just as a friend.
Though I have all these reasons to not like the book I also have reasons to like it as well.
Though most of the jokes in this book weren't funny there were some funny parts in the book and incidents that I found hilarious.
Also I liked how he wrote it in present tense where it was like he was talking to us. Example 'Meanwhile, I guess I probably have to describe the films to you. You're being less awesome than Rachel, you stupid reader.'
So I'll just say that I 'liked' this book. It wasn't the best (3 out of 5).

If books with good plots were lines, normal (5 stars) are just a large curve, and Me and Earl and The Dying Girl is a straight line.

Makayla's Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/38154204-makayla

Don't forget to follow this blog and comment to share your opinions on this review! If you'd like go check out our links, which are on our pages right there at the top!

-Makayla IG|stories_are_forever_

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, by Unknown

Black City

REVIEW- Black City by Elizabeth Richards

A dark and tender post-apocalyptic love story set in the aftermath of a bloody war.

In a city where humans and Darklings are now separated by a high wall and tensions between the two races still simmer after a terrible war, sixteen-year-old Ash Fisher, a half-blood Darkling, and Natalie Buchanan, a human and the daughter of the Emissary, meet and do the unthinkable—they fall in love. Bonded by a mysterious connection that causes Ash’s long-dormant heart to beat, Ash and Natalie first deny and then struggle to fight their forbidden feelings for each other, knowing if they’re caught, they’ll be executed—but their feelings are too strong.

When Ash and Natalie then find themselves at the center of a deadly conspiracy that threatens to pull the humans and Darklings back into war, they must make hard choices that could result in both their deaths.
- http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12568505-black-city

Non-Spoiler: I gave Black City a 3.5 out of 5 stars because it wasn't a terrible book by any means, but it certainly had its problems. The beginning of the book is really intriguing, and it lays the ground work for a lot of mysteries and secrets that are revealed throughout the novel. Although the first 70 pages or so are very promising, the book starts to become cheesier and more predictable. Characters lose their wit and sense, and are just completely eye-roll worthy. Around the last fourth of the book, things start to really happen! You realize why you liked the characters in the first place, and you really begin to see all the puzzle pieces come together. Shocking information is revealed, and the events that occur left me at a loss for words. I hope that Elizabeth Richards carries this momentum into the next two books, so that my experience with them can be just as fantastic as the last 100 pages of Black City. I would recommend this book to fans of dystopian novels because I think that this world is really different from a lot of other books out there. It may just be me, but I haven't read a book set up like this before!

SPOILERS(GO AHEAD AND LEAVE POST NOW TO AVOID THEM PLEASE):

Ash was definitely a favorite of mine for the first 50 pages, but has soon as he accepted that he had the slightest feelings for Natalie, he became a love-struck idiot, which is not something that suited him very well. I had a completely different opinion of Natalie. She was just a 'Sentry brat' as Beetle and Ash would say. Through out the book, she gained some more common sense and even attempted to sacrifice her life to save Ash at the end of the book(definitely a mark in the plus column). Even though I was totally supportive of the relationship between Ash and Natalie, this book had a serious case of insta-love. This whole book took place over the course of about three or four weeks. That is not a realistic time span for a romantic relationship or even a friendship, like Day and Natalie. That was another relationship that I didn't initially have a problem with, but I did start to seem some flaws in towards the middle of the book. When Day and Beetle caught Ash and Natalie kissing, I thought the fight between Day and Natalie was extremely dramatic. My opinion was only strengthened when Natalie mentioned that she had only met Ash under the bridge a few weeks prior, which means she had known Day for an even shorter amount of time! Beetle and Ash's friendship however, seemed to be very well developed and provided some pretty witty banter at times. The two definitely had some reoccurring arguments that I thought would eventually have larger consequences, but by the end of Black City, the longest they had gone without speaking to each other seemed to only be a couple of days. In this first book, we also learned a lot about the politics of Black City and the other 8 towns. Especially they're leader, Purian Rose. Purian Rose is essentially a dictator. He easily controls the nine Emissaries, and now he even has his own religion. He reminds me a lot of President Snow from the Hunger Games actually, even if it's only cause his last name is Rose. Natalie's sister, Polly, is another character with a very interesting back story. She was tortured by Purian Rose because her father had chosen to help the Darklings after he learned where Purian Rose was sending them. Natalie's mother had chosen to let Rose torture Polly instead of Natalie because she hoped to blackmail Rose by revealing that Polly was actually his daughter, which I thought was a very risky, yet very political, move of her to make. Natalie's mother's relationship with Rose opens a whole new door to more twisted secrets that we, hopefully, get to explore in Phoenix, the next book. Moving on from characters and into the actual plot.
It's impossible to deny that the idea of Ash and Natalie being Blood Mates is exceptionally cheesy. It definitely had a few plot holes as well. For one thing, Natalie was a human. That alone made the whole thing very unbelievable. Although Ash did think that it was surprising that she was human and his Blood Mate, he didn't think anything else about it. Also, the way that Ash explained the whole myth behind Blood Mates to Natalie seemed very sudden and random. He didn't seem to have any thought process behind it. Natalie's acceptance of the whole thing was also a little weird to me. If some half-demon boy told me that we were Blood Mates, I would be quite startled. Later on in the story, we do of course learn that the heart that Natalie received for her heart transplant came from another twin-blood named Evangeline. When we were first introduced to Evangeline I thought she was very cool, and I actually preferred her and Ash as a couple versus Ash and Natalie, but as soon as it is revealed that she is Ash's TRUE Blood Mate, Evangeline's character turns out to be more of a villain than we thought. She tells Natalie that she was the one who killed Malcolm and Truffles. Evangeline also threatens to kill Polly, but Natalie persuades her not to. It was also a huge coincidence that Ash's mom acted as a mother figure for Evangeline, and Evangeline was actually there when his mom was originally infected by the Wrath.
Since this section of my review was more of a discussion, I would like to wrap it up by sharing some of my theories for the next books with you guys. Of course, they are already released, so I would prefer it if nobody left spoilers in the comments of this post.

I personally think that Purian Rose is going to kill Natalie's mom. I know that they said that she was just being sent to a 'rehabilitation center' for a 'special punishment', but it just seems unlikely that a leader like Rose would let her live. I also think that Ash's father will die. It just seems like one of those twisted things that authors like to do. Again, it'll most likely be at the hands of Rose. Hopefully, by the end of Wings, the segregation wall comes down, but it'll definitely be towards the end. I look forward to picking up the next books in the series whenever I get a chance!

*Disclaimer* This book was purchased using my own money, it was not sent to me by any publisher. *