The Way We Bared Our Souls Review

Title: The Way We Bared Our Souls
Author: Willa Strayhorn
Publisher: Razorbill
Release: January 22, 2015
Pages: 288
Review: 5 stars

Synopsis:

If you could trade your biggest burden for someone else’s, would you do it?

Five teenagers sit around a bonfire in the middle of the New Mexico desert. They don’t know it yet, but they are about to make the biggest sacrifice of their lives.

Lo has a family history of MS, and is starting to come down with all the symptoms.
Thomas, a former child soldier from Liberia, is plagued by traumatic memories of his war-torn past.
Kaya would do anything to feel physical pain, but a rare condition called CIP keeps her numb.
Ellen can’t remember who she was before she started doing drugs.
Kit lost his girlfriend in a car accident and now he just can’t shake his newfound fear of death.

When they trade totems as a symbol of shedding and adopting one another’s sorrows, they think it’s only an exercise.

But in the morning, they wake to find their burdens gone…and replaced with someone else’s.

As the reality of the ritual unfolds, this unlikely group of five embarks on a week of beautiful, terrifying experiences that all culminate in one perfect truth: In the end, your soul is stronger than your burdens.

First Impressions

I received this from Isabel- she hadn't read it and she thought I would like it. I took one look at it, read the back of the book, and went "yup, this is gonna kill me in the best way possible." I was so excited to read it, and I was ready to have ALL the feels.

Characters

Lo, the main character, is a kick butt girl, and I love her. She's terrified of her body, terrified that she has MS, and yet she still does her best to seem "normal" to her friends and to pretend she doesn't have MS. Her emotional growth through the book is beautiful- especially since we get to have her first person perspective the entire time. The other four characters are equally as amazing. Everything about them is so dense- so filled with emotion and real issues that you can feel the content overflowing from the book. You can see the characters vividly in your mind, you can actually feel their pain, and it makes the story that much more real.

Writing

The writing is beautiful. It's just honestly beautiful. It's elegantly scripted and it changes over the course of the book as Lo herself changes, which provides a stronger sense of authenticity. As the book goes on, the writing becomes more introspective, more thoughtful, and more complex. This is not to say that the writing isn't complex or talented in the beginning, for it is. Another thing I love about the writing is that it honestly feels like it's coming from a high school girl's mind. 

World- Building

It's set in "our" world- Strayhorn didn't build an entirely new world, but she did build a world focused on different cultures and beliefs. Jay is a man who wanders the woods with his coyote, Dakota. The ritual with the totems is based on Native American beliefs. I love that she brought diverse cultures and ideas into the light of contemporary novels. I honestly just love this book.

Tweet me your thoughts- did you love it as much as I did? @Tween2TeenKat

The Ruby Circle by Richelle Mead

Title: The Ruby Circle
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Release: February 10, 2015
Series: Bloodlines
Pages: 348
Review: 5 Stars

Synopsis:

The epic conclusion to Richelle Mead's New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series is finally here...

Sydney Sage is an Alchemist, one of a group of humans who dabble in magic and serve to bridge the worlds of humans and vampires. They protect vampire secrets—and human lives.


After their secret romance is exposed, Sydney and Adrian find themselves facing the wrath of both the Alchemists and the Moroi in this electrifying conclusion to Richelle Mead’s New York Times bestselling Bloodlines series. When the life of someone they both love is put on the line, Sydney risks everything to hunt down a deadly former nemesis. Meanwhile, Adrian becomes enmeshed in a puzzle that could hold the key to a shocking secret about spirit magic, a secret that could shake the entire Moroi world.

You Can Find it At:
Goodreads
Website
The Regulator
Barnes & Noble
Audible
Abebooks
Book Depository
Kobo
Indigo
Amazon

Review:

The book started out sorta meh for me, but right before halfway through, I hit something that turned the entire book around. It took me a couple days to really dig into the book, but as soon as I hit that point, I finished it in a couple hours. The series as a whole still isn't nearly as good as vampire academy, but I really did enjoy this book.

Characters

First off, I LOVED seeing more of Rose and Dimitri in this book. They're easily my favorite characters, and I love that they didn't get pushed to the side. Spoilers: I wanted to see when Sydney and Adrian told them they could have kids. Also, I want to see this super-child.

Anyways, you see a lot of character development in this book. Adrian really has to come to terms with spirit and what he's going to do with it. It's really cool comparing this Sydney to the Sydney of book one. She's changed a LOT and really for the better. One of my main problems with a couple of the books in the series was that it was just all sex, all the time, with not much else in between. Richelle really found a better balance in this one, and I liked it a lot more. There was more action without there being no romance. As far as side characters go, we don't see as many of them. Ms. Terwilliger is as sassy as ever, Eddie is still super heroic, and we don't see much Jill, and readers of the series know why.

Writing

There really isn't much to say on the writing. Richelle is definitely a talented writing, but there's nothing super extraordinary about it. That said, generally in books, I'll skim over the longer paragraphs, especially at action points, because they're not important, but Richelle made sure that I read every line so that I didn't miss a thing. Sometimes that meant rereading stuff, but that was okay.

World Building

There wasn't much world-building to do, as she'd eleven books to very thoroughly develop it. There were some things that would majorly change their world, but nothing that was like "oh yeah, and this happens all the time and I forgot to tell you." Richelle kept up with the world she developed, and managed to add to it. Quite effectively I might add. I really want another series in the world of Vampire Academy, and it would be even better if it was from Rose's POV once again. Or at least a short story similar to that of Homecoming.

Author Bio:


Richelle Mead is the author of the international #1 bestselling Vampire Academy series and its spinoff series, Bloodlines. A lifelong reader, Richelle has always had a particular fascination with mythology and folklore. When she can actually tear herself away from books (either reading or writing them), she enjoys bad reality TV, traveling, trying interesting cocktails, and shopping for dresses to wear on tour. She is a self-professed coffee addict, works in her pajamas, and has a passion for all things wacky and humorous. Originally from Michigan, Richelle now lives in Seattle, Washington, where she is hard at work on her next Bloodlines novel. Visit www.RichelleMead.com to find out more.

You Can Find Her At:
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The Fiery Heart by Richelle Mead

Title: The Fiery Heart
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: RazorBill
Release: November 19, 2013
Series: Bloodlines
Pages: 438
Review: Four Stars

Warning! This book contains adult content and this review has minor spoilers from previous books. Read with caution!

I was super excited for this book. Like, bouncing off the walls excited. Amazon took what felt like a million years to ship it, which meant severe annoyance to my parents. The author had said that the heat would be turned up in the book, and I was expecting some definite action. It did not quite live up to expectations. I got the book late on release day. There was a lot of bouncing off the walls. I immediately started the book. It started a little slow, but I knew good things were coming. My favorite parts of the book? All the parts with Rose Hathaway of course! The main character Sydney is nice, but Rose was the main character of VA and no one can live up to her!

Syden grows in leaps and bounds in this book, in some ways better than others. She developed in some really cool ways, and really accepted her magic. Seriously, the magic-using in this book was off the charts! Her younger sister Zoe showed up, and honestly, I wanted to smack her any time she was in the room. Somehow, I just don't connect with the characters as much in Bloodlines as I did in Vampire Academy. Yes, I like them, but VA was simply better. Adrian is the male protagonist, and I really wanted to smack him. Smoking and drinking are two problems that really bother me, and although he was getting better, I just didn't like him as much. The book was dual-POV, and while some of what Adrian thought was interesting, a lot of it was whining. He just doesn't do it for me, like, say, Dimitri... :)

The book can be divided into three parts. Part one, general boringness and buildup. Part two, loads of interesting stuff and fun characters (plus, lots of Rose!) Part three, sex scenes with a little bit of interesting stuff every other chapter. Seriously, when Richelle said that the heat was turned up, I was expecting tension, not, that. I love tension. It's fun, not for the characters but the reader, it makes characters say things they wouldn't normally, and it is a great plot-pusher. Endless sex, not so much. Honestly, it made the book boring. And of course, the ending. I've been expecting the ending for a while now. I knew it would happen, and while it was a plot twist, it wasn't a surprise. I'll probably have a new Unhinged Speculations post up soon with my conspiracy theories about the rest of the series, mainly book five, Silver Shadows, or at least an updated version of the same ones. The book was fun. It was good. And it was by Richelle Mead. It's hard for Richelle Mead to write a bad book. I think the main reason I was let down, was simply the amount of buildup around the book, not the book itself. So, publisher fail, but I give the book four stars.

The Indigo Spell by Richelle Mead

Title: The Indigo Spell
Author: Richelle Mead
Publisher: Razorbill
Release: February 12, 2013
Series: Bloodlines
Pages: 416
Review: Five Stars

Oh, dang, this book was good. I read it when it came out in February, but forgot to review it. The book is so amazing, I can't even begin to describe it. The Indigo Spell is the third out of six books in the Bloodlines series, which is a spin-off of the Vampire Academy series, which I reviewed here. I reviewed the previous book in the series, The Golden Lily here. The author warned that the temperature would be turned up in this book, and oh boy was she right! The plot is action-packed, the characters are amazing, and the romance is off the charts. The story doesn't start slow and warm up, no it starts with a bang. It's funny and cute and well thought-out. Not one detail is missing. It develops beautifully and doesn't stop just because the page has.

The main character is Sydney Sage. I have to say, this girl BLEW ME AWAY! She's very smart (genius more like) and is shy for the first couple books. In this book, she throws out her good-girl attitude and grows into a more powerful, amazing, likable character. She realizes that she has issues and begins to mend them. Her relationships with characters grow tremendously. Her life is thrown upside-down in book one, and now she's making the most of it. Sydney makes the most of what she has and does things she swore she'd never do. By the end, she's touching the flames, and it's only a matter of time before she gets burned. Sydney grows into who she is and accepts that she's not who she always thought she was. She gets help, and helps, the most unlikely of sources. All the while the subplots with other characters are thickening. Amidst all of her own drama, Sydney has to deal with four other people's drama as well, and she handles it remarkably. Problems are solved. Tension explodes. Issues emerge from the ashes. And a sense of foreboding descends on the readers.

How great this book is does not stop amazing me. I still like the Vampire Academy series better, but dang it, the characters in Bloodlines are really growing on me. Whenever a character from both series was in there, I squealed with joy. There was a lot of squealing to say the least. I cannot get enough of these books. I can honestly say, I cannot wait for The Fiery Heart, which comes out this November. The Indigo Spell is fun and flirty, with the perfect amount of serious mixed in. The action is intense. The plot is thick. And the romance is sparking. The Fiery Heart cannot come soon enough! I give this book five stars.

Series Sunday: Across the Universe by Beth Revis

I liked these books. I've read better, I've read much worse. Maybe sci-fi just isn't my style. When I say these books are sci-fi, they are REALLY sci-fi. There's genetic alteration, communication chips imbedded in the characters ears, clones, a few aliens, oh, and did I mention the gigantic spaceship? Everyone lives aboard the giant spaceship Godspeed. There are the folks that take care of the ship, and then the lesser known...others. People from earth-specifically with science, medical, or military expertise-were frozen in cryo chambers and left there to be woken up when they reach their destination, Centauri-Earth. The idea behind this story is amazing and is well told. It could have been a bit better paced, but I was satisfied in the end.

The story is duel-POV. One of the characters is Amy. She is from earth and her parents were going to be frozen, so she decided to go with them. It's addressed that, while frozen, Amy can still think and dream. That wasn't supposed to happen and she wonders about it in the first book. It isn't brought up again and the question of what happened was never really answered. Amy starts off as a scared teenager, but matures and grows courage as the series progresses. She feels fear for her parents and newfound friends. She also learns what it feels like to be a scapegoat, as many of the people on the ship dislike her, including it's leader. Amy meets the second main character, Elder, right after she wakes up. Elder is going to be the leader of Godspeed someday, AKA Eldest. I don't like his character as much as Amy's. Maybe it's because he has never seen earth, therefore is less relatable. Maybe it's the way he speaks, the members of Godspeed have added many new words to the english language. Or it could simply be him as a whole. He was raised very different than many are. For example, he has been taught that the three causes of discord are A) Lack of leadership, B) Differences, and C) Individual thought. Readers, of course, think this is totally bogus and, eventually, so does he. His character does develop though. He learns who, and what, he is willing to do anything for, even die. Amy is one of those people. It becomes obvious fairly quickly that they like each-other and their relationship is built and tested throughout the series. There are many other characters, but none of them really stand out in my mind. I don't really like them or they simply are not complex enough.

Let me say this, the last book in the series was a real doozie. The author warned that she liked to kill characters off and that many would be in book three, but whoa! There were characters dying left and right. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure at least one person dies every chapter save the last three or so. The series wraps up better than I had hoped. While it's not a fairy tale ending, everyone more less gets something they want. It's a tad abrupt. There is enough of a wrap-up for it to be a conclusion, but another chapter or two would have been well-loved. Book two, A Million Suns, was by far my favorite book in the series. If you're a geek (like me!) and love things such as Star Wars and Star Trek, this is for you! Overall, I give it a four star rating.

Series Sunday: Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead

These books are not for young readers. There is bad language and some adult content in these books. I can't express how much I love the Vampire Academy series in one review. It's amazing, spectacular, superb, and simply made of awesomesauce. Every word, page, paragraph, chapter, and book in the series is amazing. Richelle had me swooning, screaming, melting, falling over laughing, and everything in between. It's a vampire series yes, which might cause some of you to have some doubts. Whatever those doubts be, throw them out the window. It is infinitely better than any other vampire series out there. It has a superb plot, amazingly developed characters that are totally relatable, the most hilarious one-liners, and the hottest, sexiest, most romantic, swoon-worthy scenes EVER! I fell in love over and over again. If any of you people out there say you don't fall for

fictional guys, think again. You will be head over heels by the end of the first book. Every character is either über hot or totally bada**, or both!

The main character is Rose Hathaway. She is a Dhampir, half vampire and half human, and mortal. When she turns eighteen, she will become a guardian for a Moroi (mortal vampire). Two years prior to the book, she runs away from St. Vladimir's Academy with her best friend and Moroi princess, Lissa Dragomir so as to keep her safe. It begins by the girls being caught and dragged back to the Academy by sexy Dhampir Dimitri. Rose is then tutored by Dimitri for the next few books so as to get back in shape and be a better fighter after loosing what lessons she had when she ran away. Thus begins her and Dimitri's romance. Besides the fact that he is seven years older than her, they are both going to be Lissa's guardian someday, meaning they can't be together. Tragic events happen and Rose gets her first strigoi (immortal vampire) kills. The Strigoi are the main antagonists of the story. Various other characters include Adrian, Eddie, Mason, Mia, and Sydney.

Again, the plot of these books are amazing. There doesn't seem to be one huge overall plot, but each book has it's own plot, and there are plots that transcend multiple books (e.g. books three through five, and books five through six). There are large bits of foreshadowing, but everything has so many ways it could turn out, that nothing is clear until the moment it takes place. Every bone Richelle Mead throws at you is like a gift from the fae, something you thought you really wanted, but with a string attached that-sometimes-makes you wish you never wanted it in the first place. And yet somehow I'm still asking for more. The series ended a couple years ago at six books, but Richelle has been hard at work on a spinoff series, Bloodlines. There are a total of two books out at the moment and the third out of six comes out in February. If you look around, you'll also see that the first book in the Vampire Academy series, Vampire Academy, is in the works of being made into a movie. Check out Richelle Meads website and Facebook page, along with Bloodlines Facebook page and the movie Facebook page. That said, this series gets a full FIVE stars.

The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead

The Golden Lily is the second book in Richelle Mead's series Bloodlines. Bloodlines is a spin-off series of the Vampire Academy books. This is a book and a book series that I recommend for all readers. I've read it, my mom's read it, my mom's friends have read it, my friends have read it. It's something that is a really fun read.

The main character is Sydney Sage. She's an alchemist. Meaning, she hides the human world from vampires. She's been charged with the mission of hiding vampire princess Jill Dragomir. Sydney is the kind of person that likes all her ducks in a row. She's very organized and doesn't like magic. In fact, she doesn't like anything that doesn't fit into logic. She's a very well built character and I like her a lot. Along with Sydney, several Dhampirs (half-vampires) and Moroi (mortal, magic using vampires) help to protect Jill. Sydney has always followed the rules and tried to please, so with new information and feelings, I'm wondering which side she'll choose. The repressive Alchemists, or her new vampire friends.

The plot of the book is well done. I never know what's going to happen next. It twists and turns and flips upside-down. Every character has their secrets. And no stone is left unturned. Be prepared for one of the best novels out there. I give it five stars.

Immortal City by Scott Speer

Immortal City was a fun book to read. The plot was a little predictable, and the characters weren’t as well defined as I would like, but it was fun. It kept me interested from start to finish. It’s a bit of an easy read. I finished it in less than twenty-four hours.

I like Maddy. She’s nice and can stick up for herself. Though she ignored her friends when she started to like Jackson. Jackson gets on my nerves a bit and I found myself wanting to throw the book at the wall multiple times. Both of them tend to act stubborn and so romance is a little hard to come by. The author made me hate one character, then acted like he was a good guy. Most of the other characters are not very deep, and don’t come in as much as I would like in the story.

I don’t like books with a whole lot of detail, but Immortal City didn’t have enough. I don’t need to know every little thing that goes on in their lives, but I would like to have enough detail so that I can see in my mind what’s going on.

From start to finish, the book was an interesting read. The characters and plot could be better, but the idea was very good. I give the book three stars.