2015 Reading Challenges

Hey guys, how you doing in this holiday season? Everything here is pretty good and I'm just enjoying this month to really read A LOT but anyway, today I'm here to announce that I'll be participating on some exciting reading challenges during 2015! I'm usually terrible at making TBR's and following them but I think this challenges will work out first, 'cause I'm not gonna try to achieve some crazy numbers and second 'cause I have good motivations to do them (aka amazing & exciting books to read).

The first challenge will be Flights of Fantasy hosted by Alexa & Rachel which is a very low key challenge to basically just read as much fantasy as you want through 2015, amazing right? You can join in and get to know more about the challenge on the sing-up post. I have always been a fantasy reader, since childhood my favorite books were Harry Potter and LOTR but since these last years I just found myself not as much immersed on this gender as I would like, so this challenge is perfect! I will attempt to read 30 fantasy books which is 10 more than I read this year but I specially hope to tackle some high/epic fantasy weapons monsters books that I already have on my shelves like third GoT, and some Brandon Sanderson. 

This challenge came from heaven! I love to re-read books but with so many books always on my TBR I find myself guilt for spend my time re-reading some books, but now I have a pretty good excuse to take my favorites from the shelves and curled up with them again. This challenge is hosted by Hannah & Kelly and you can join in & find out more about this challenge on the sing-up post. I'm aiming to re-read 12 books next year, at least one at each month to give the pleasure to break from schedule when I fell like it or am in a sort of slump, some of the books that I'm hoping to get to are: all of the Harry Potter - it's been years since I re-read them all, it's about time to re-visit my favorite series of all times! -, some Tolkien - this will count for both challenges! Also I read The Hobbit, and The fellowship of the Ring and The two towers but never got around to read The return of the King, so it's about damn time to re-read those to finish this series -, also on the note of re-reading to finish a series is Percy Jackson - I read all of them except for the last two of the Blood of Olympus series, so yeah re-read to read! 

That was it for now guys, but I hope you're all having an amazing end of year and that 2015 will bring even more exciting books & blogging things for our lives!

The Lynburn Legacy - Sarah Rees Brennan

Unspoken, Untold & Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan
Series: The Lynburn Legacy 
Published by Random House for Young Readers on September 11, 2012 | August 29, 2013 | September 23, 2014
Pages: 384 | 336 | 384
Genres: Fantasy, Paranormal, Romance
Format: eBook | eBook | eARC
Source: Purchased | Purchased | Netgalley 

Summary from Unspoken: 

Kami Glass loves someone she's never met... a boy she's talked to in her head ever since she was born. Having an imaginary friend has made fitting in hard - but that's never bothered Kami. She has her best friend, runs the school newspaper, and is only occasionally caught talking to herself. Her life is just the way she likes it.
But all that changes when the mysterious Lynburn family return to Kami's village, along with teenagers, Jared and Ash, one of whom is eerily familiar to Kami...
As life as she knows it begins to unravel, Kami is determined to get to the bottom of every mystery. Who is responsible for the bloody deeds in the depths of the woods? What is her own mother hiding? And now that her imaginary friend has become a real boy, does she still love him?
And can she trust him?

Book 1 -  5 stars: 
THIS BOOK WAS SO GOOD GUYS! I still think it was the best of this trilogy because it was banter-fluffy and snarky and funny all the way through and it was glorious. The characters in here are the kind of people I want to be friends in real life: Angela & Rusty  with their laziness and ferously loyalty to Kami, Holly with her bright positivity, Jared with his emo way of living, but especially Kami -- she was the star of this book, this girl doesn't wait around to things to fall over her lap which is such a relieve and chance from the usual heroines on the paranormal gender, she has a Nancy Drew/Veronica Mars spirit and goes find the answers for herself.

Book 2 - 4.5 stars:
This book was a tensy bit worse than the first one. The plot on this book thickens and things go to a much higher stake, the tension was palpable and it was so hard to put this book down BUT at the same time the characters infuriated me at times. Jared and Kami are so full of angst (which is something that I do not appreciate on my romances) with their I-can't-live-without-each-other but at the same time can't-touch-each-other and can't-accept-love, ugh just make out and have your HEA already I'm tired of waiting! On a more happy side we got a little bit of Holly's POV and I have to say that I loved her even more on this book and wish there was more of her POV's.

Book 3 - 4 stars:
This is hard to put on words but I had the same problems that in book 2. In this book there was even more angst and Jared was still full on emo and Kami still didn't get him and ugh, it just frustrated me because I really thought we had got over this on book 2 and them it felt like it was backtracked again just so that the couple would suffer 'till the very ending just not okay. Also there was a scene when Ash did something that I was just like WTF IS HAPPENING? Because I thought we had gotten over that too. But the plot really saves this since there was a lot of heartbreak and oh-my-gosh and holly-crap-how-are-they-going-to-survive-this, the stakes are so high and Brennan really doesn't care to torture our hearts, so yeah painfully worth the read.

Summing up:
If you like the paranormal gender I think you're gonna love this series! (despite the fact that it's actually fantasy it reads A LOT like paranormal books, except better than most that is out there). It's full of funny moments and the characters have such a banter together that is just gold, despite some frustrating moments this quickly became one of my ultimate favorite series of all times and I'm sure that in a few years I will have the need to revisit Sorry-in-the-Vale and Kami and her group.

For Real - Alison Cherry

For Real by Alison Cherry 
Published by Delacorte Press on December 9, 2014 
Pages: 304
Genres: Contemporary, Reality show, Romance
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley

Amazon • The Book Depository • Goodreads 

From Alison Cherry, author of 

Red, a novel PW declares “sparkles with wit,” comes a terrific new book about two sisters and one big question: how do you know who’s for real?

No parents. No limits. No clue what they’re in for.

Shy, cautious Claire has always been in her confident older sister’s shadow. While Miranda’s life is jam-packed with exciting people and whirlwind adventures, Claire gets her thrills vicariously by watching people live large on reality television.

When Miranda discovers her boyfriend, Samir, cheating on her just after her college graduation, it’s Claire who comes up with the perfect plan. They’ll outshine Miranda’s fame-obsessed ex while having an amazing summer by competing on Around the World, a race around the globe for a million bucks. Revenge + sisterly bonding = awesome. 

But the show has a twist, and Claire is stunned to find herself in the middle of a reality-show romance that may be just for the cameras. This summer could end up being the highlight of her life . . . or an epic fail forever captured on film. In a world where drama is currency and manipulation is standard, how can you tell what’s for real?

Despite the enormous quantity of reality tv that are throw on us daily I find interesting that "For Real" is the first book that I read about this theme - and like what it's show on tv, this book delivers a quickly, mindless read that will make you entertained for hours without noticing it!

Claire our main character stars the book pretty naive and at some points she made just blank stare at the pages of my e-reader because of some things she was thinking/doing, through the entire book she is trying to pass as a mature person but the way she acts (keeping her feelings from her sister & not having an honest conversation with her) is really childish. Honestly the entire relationship between Claire and Miranda is very childish, I get the older sister wanting to protect the younger one but oh boy did Miranda pissed me off so many times, they both should have just sat down and talked through their problems. We sorta of do have an happy ending for their relationship but I wasn't sold on that - they had major problems and never worked on them. 

Other relationship that leaved me unsatisfied was Claire and Will's. Like I said above Claire is pretty naive from the start until almost the end of the book but there are times that I just rolled my eyes so much because of the level of immaturity from her character, it was like she needed to pass through the same things over and over with her sister and her crush to finally get the memo  - let's just say I was never on board for this ship and am glad for that. 

Overall this book was quickly, at some points even laugh out loud funny but the impressions will not last long enough, just like last season of whatever reality show you watch. 

Recommended to: fans of reality tv, fans of contemporary books with trips on it (there are lots of trips on this one, did I mentioned it?), fans of coming of age stories. 

Why I'm in Love with Audiobooks

Hey guys, so today I was just thinking in sharing with you my love for the audiobooks which is something really recent for me - I only just started listening to them on October but since them I can't get enough of them! So these are the reasons why I love them so much (and my way to make you want to try one):

5. Time going to and from college now is spend reading: I have to tell you all, when I started college I struggled with having to slow down the pace of my reading 'cause so many things to study! I had tried to carry a physical book with me but it was not as comfortable and I kept getting distracted while reading on the bus so when I tried an audiobook and successfully listened without getting lost on the book through my way to college and home I had a winner.

4. It's so good to listen to someone tell you a story: Guys, guys, you have to hear me on this one. Remember those days where you get home from school/college/work and your brain is just so tired that you can't even think on doing any more tasks that require brain function like reading? Well, with audiobooks I just found out that I can still read while brain dead if someone is reading it to me! Now is like, I can study anatomy for hours and them when I want to relax I just put my headphones on and get some chill time with my book. (this sounded so much like a commercial what even)

3. I can multitask while listening: Okay, so basically my multitask is playing The Sims 4 (since  I can't do much more than play The Sims while listening 'cause I need to pay some attention to what I'm reading ya know) but who cares, it's so easy when I don't have to decide if I want to read or play The Sims all night 'CAUSE I CAN DO BOTH! 

2. I can get to those backlist books that I've been meaning to read for ages and complete series that I'm not all that head over heels: most of the audiobooks that I've been listening aren't books that I'm like super excited about or aren't at the top of my priority list, like I was always curious about Simone Elkeles books but wasn't in any soon plan for me to read but when I got an adiobook for it I listened to it right away. Or like, The selection series, which I had already read the first two books and needed to read the third one to finish it (until a forth one was announced, argh) but wasn't exactly looking forward for the experience, so I found the use of a audiobook perfect for pass me through it. 

1. It makes so much easier to achieve my readings goals/TBR's: I have to tell ya' it's way easier to keep me on my TBR if some of the books are audiobooks, I usually can ignore my mood and just go with the narration. It also makes my reading in general being... Bigger, like last month I read 10 books, and 4 of these were audiobooks which I would probable not get around to read if wasn't for the practical way of these form of reading. 

So yeah, just to make myself clear I FREAKING AM IN LOVE WITH AUDIOBOOKS, they're so practical and make me feel so efficient with my reading schedule - this month I'm trying some bigger audios and let's see how it will go. Stay tuned to some audiobook reviews and I hope you soon give yourself the pleasure of trying one & feel good about your decision as I do. 

DNF Round #1

Hey guys, so over the course of my readings I always end up with some DNF books and some of them are from publishers and I never know what to do with it, so I though in doing a post about these books. So from time to time I'll gatter the last books that I DNFed and will talk a little about them, it may help you to pick them up or decide to not pick up.

Me Since You by Laura Wiess
Published by MTV Books on February 18, 2014
Received from Publisher 
Read until 51 percent

This book was probably the hardest to put down because I started really liking it, since the start the relationship between Rowan and her father was touching and I really liked the friendship-possible-romance between her and Eli but this book hit a point where it was so depressing that it became painful to read it and I could only read in small doses - until I couldn't take anymore.

I think readers who like books about grief and depression will love this one since is extremely touching but be aware that is very realistic and doesn't take short cuts when showing the pain of Rowan situation.

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson 
Published by Dial Books on September 16, 2014
Received from Publisher
Read until Chapter 2 

I have always heard amazing things from Jandy Nelson's first book "The Sky is Everywhere" and when I got a chance to read this early I couldn't say no, but unfortunately this didn't worked out for me. The only reason for me to put this down was the writing, I'm usually all aboard for purple prose but I just couldn't, it was way too much for my tastes and it kind of ruined the narrative and made me not get into the book.

Probably readers who already liked Nelson's debut novel will enjoy this one too, also people who like artistic/lyrical writing and purple prose.

Winterspell by Claire Legrand
Published by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers on September 30, 2014
Received from Publisher
Read until 30 percent

I WAS SO EXCITED FOR THIS BOOK! The pretty cover! The retelling element! A fantasy book with kick ass heroine! But yeah it didn't worked for me. At first it was really slow, but I though sometimes fantasy books are like that you know? Them we have some action scene where the villain of sorts is so freaking weird and the things that are happening I was just like "WTF". Them we have a statue that came to live and it's hinted that will be a love story between THE CENTURIES OLD STATUE AND SEVENTEEN YEAR OLD CLARA (who was already in love with the statue before the statue came to life, just...) but I put it down when there was happening some chasing, that was supposed to be life or death kind of scene, and I was just bored the hell out of me and waiting for it to be over.

I don't really know to who recommend this one because I really disliked its beginning, so I'll leave you to some positive reviews so you can decide for yourself: x, x & x.

A Thousand Pieces of You - Claudia Gray

A Thousand Pieces of You by Claudia Gray
Series: Firebird #1
Published by HarperTeen on November 4, 2014
Pages: 368
Genres: Science Fiction, Parallel Universes, Romance
Format: eARC
Source: Edelweiss

Amazon • The Book Depository • Goodreads 

Every Day meets Cloud Atlas in this heart-racing, space- and time-bending, epic new trilogy from New York Times bestselling author Claudia Gray.

Marguerite Caine’s physicist parents are known for their radical scientific achievements. Their most astonishing invention: the Firebird, which allows users to jump into parallel universes, some vastly altered from our own. But when Marguerite’s father is murdered, the killer—her parent’s handsome and enigmatic assistant Paul—escapes into another dimension before the law can touch him.

Marguerite can’t let the man who destroyed her family go free, and she races after Paul through different universes, where their lives entangle in increasingly familiar ways. With each encounter she begins to question Paul’s guilt—and her own heart. Soon she discovers the truth behind her father’s death is more sinister than she ever could have imagined.
A Thousand Pieces of You explores a reality where we witness the countless other lives we might lead in an amazingly intricate multiverse, and ask whether, amid infinite possibilities, one love can endure.

I really wanted to like A Thousand Pieces of You with a furious passion mostly because it would give a good reason to purchase it on a pretty hardcover edition and them I would stare at it all day (at least on weekends!) but, despite having a lot to go for, the overall feeling of this book is just... Flat. And forgettable.

We start the story with on a futuristic London and the plot is already happening, Marguerite is already hunting down her father's killer, Paul, with the help of Theo and this helped me keep reading because I really wanted to know what the hell was happening but at soon we start to have some flashbacks, which is how we learn what really happened to Marguerite's father and her connection with both boys but, as usually, this made me not really care about the characters? It's just a more personal thing, but I really am not a flashback kind of person (my least favorites episodes of The Originals are the ones with viking's flashbacks), they just take some of the feelings for me. It wouldn't have been a big thing overall if I didn't had other problems with it, but I had.

When we get to the second parallel universe, which is basically a Russia that stopped on the 20th century and it just seemed like the plot was totally forgotten there! In my view Marguerite was supposed to be hunting down her father's killer/discovering his motives/finding out the truth basically but them (conveniently) she stays stuck in this dimension where there is zero technology and we are supposed to be having some major ship feels with her and one of the boys but I just didn't care for either of these characters so it was really hard for me to care about their across-universes/bound-to-be romance. Also I think we have a love triangle, but it's so weak like seriously, I think Jacob had more chances over Edward than this love triangle (but by the end I think we kind of have a different love triangle between different dimensions kind of thing, right?).

Anyway, to top my lack of feels for all the characters there is also the lack of actually sci-fi on this book, we need to have a lot of suspension of disbelief to actually believe on this whole firebird thing. In resume I'm not sure what was really the plot of this book (the romance? the father thing?), the characters felt one dimensional and there wasn't actually much sci-fi for a parallel universe kind of book.

Recommended to: people who like romance with parallel universes, people who want romance and love the kind of star crossed lovers that are meant to be, people who want their sci-fi heavily focus on romance.

October Wrap Up

Hey guys! October is already over and Halloween already passed and all the candies are missing (oops), can you believe it? 'Cause I don't, each month passes quicker than the other, next month promises to be crazier than ever with finals and them BOM when I see it will be my bday and them xmas and them 2015. Okay, but we are here for wrap up, sorry got distracted.

This month I read 10 books (!) which is an improvement from September when I only read 5 books, actually it was the best reading month since I started college so I'm happy! A great thing that helped me to achieve this number was the "discovery" of audiobooks (I put discovery between quotation marks because of course I knew they existed just never had tried) - and later this week, or month, I will talk all about my new obsession and love for them.

About this TBR that I made at the beginning of the month, well I didn't read two of the books there BUT I did read the other four, which for me is super win on TBR's (seriously I had never followed a TBR so much!). SOOOOOOO next month I'll try again, since I'm trying to finish my review books until my vacation starts these books are all related to that: These Broken Stars & This Shattered World by Amie Kaufman & Meagan Spooner, The Bone Season & The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon, also The Rosie Project by Graeme Simsion - now this is very daring since I read only 3 ebooks last month and all of these are ebooks but I'm gonna try and the ones that I don't get to I'll read on November.

The books that I read (with links to reviews or Goodreads page):
1. Under the Never Sky, by Veronica Rossi
2. Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi I, by Tom Veitch
3. Wild Cards, by Simone Elkeles
4. Stitching Snow, by R.C.Lewis
5. The Spectacular Now, by Tim Tharp
6. If I Stay, by Gayle Forman
7. The One, by Kiera Cass (I'm thinking on doing a series review on this one)
8. Blue Lily, Lily Blue, by Maggie Stiefvater (and on this one too)
9. Wonder, by R.J. Palacio
10. For Real, by Alison Cherry (review up on release date)

Sorry for this wrap up be so practical and lame, I'm working on how to make this blog more me and college and life isn't helping. So, how was your reading this last month? Read any similar books?