Review of Radiance by Alyson Noel

Riley has crossed the bridge into the afterlife - a place called Here, where time is always Now. She has picked up life where she left off when she was alive, living with her parents and dog in a nice house in a nice neighborhood. When she’s summoned before The Council, she learns that the afterlife isn’t just an eternity of leisure. She’s been assigned a job, Soul Catcher, and a teacher, Bodhi, a possibly cute, seemingly nerdy boy who’s definitely hiding something. They return to earth together for Riley’s first assignment, a Radiant Boy who’s been haunting a castle in England for centuries. Many Soul Catchers have tried to get him to cross the bridge and failed. But all of that was before he met Riley...

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This could have been good. Really good in fact, but I found myself asking most of the way through, 'Where's the details?' It's not exactly a thick book and some proper details would have got it four stars.
The reason why I would only give it four was because aside from the lack of detail the plot was just silly. I read a series of books like this when I was younger that you might have heard of, Angels Unlimited (aka Agent Angel). They were amazing, some of my favourites as a kid and I'd read them over and over. This however has a very week plot, a main character that I find impossible to like and many stereotypical characters.
Riley is your typical whiny brat, when she dies I believe she spends some time in the Summerland, although no more than a couple of sentences in mentioned about that. Her sister, Ever, goes back to Earth and I couldn't help but wish I was joining her instead of being stuck with her bratty sister.
Anyway, the Radiant kid. So, hundreds and hundreds of years and no ghosts are able to get him to cross over. To no-one's surprise, Riley is able to do this. When I read about this I couldn't see how so many ghosts had failed where she succeeded. Cant see myself reading any more of these books but the younger YA readers might enjoy them.

3/5

Review of Bitterroot Crossing by Tess Oliver

A love triangle that crosses centuries . . .
For Nick Crush, the only thing cool about his town, Bitterroot Crossing, is the gang of outlaw ghosts that rise occasionally from the town’s swamp. But when he finds himself competing with the most notorious spirit and his own ancestor, Zedekiah Crush, for the affections of Jessie Sterling, suddenly the whole ghost thing isn’t so cool.
Jessie Sterling inherited her great-great-grandma’s shorter left leg and incredible beauty, a beauty that a century and a half earlier sparked a love triangle that ended in tragedy. Now Jessie leaves the safety of her grandma’s farm to attend high school in town... and Bitterroot Crossing will never be the same.

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This is the weirdest love story I have ever read. It's also one of the most hilarious. Some of the scenes that occur are just plain silly, but in a good way. I was nearly on the floor after reading about Jessie falling over and Zedekiah and Nick arguing about who had caught her.

'Zedekiah squinted at Nick. 'Where'd you learn a move like that, boy?'
'Apparently it's a trait I inherited from my great-great grandpa, which would be you, you dolt.'
Jessie: 'Excuse me, but pudding is dripping onto my boot.''

Admittedly when I learnt that the whole town was being haunted by a gang of outlaw ghosts I was a bit like... okay then... would this work? But it does!  Nick and Jessie's relationship blossoms more due to the situations they are put into by the gang and that helps move the story along. Tess' writing is as awesome as before (when I read Camille) and I thoroughly enjoyed this story.
There was one of two mushy bits that were a bit blaa for me and I don't think the Author owns a cat - contrary to popular belief, never give a cat or kitten milk. They'll get diarrhoea. Also confused about the pricing - Camille is 70p, Safe Landing is 71p but this book is £2.14. Not complaining, still super cheap and I'd pay a lot more!

5/5

Review of The Poison Eaters by Holly Black

In her debut collection, New York Times best-selling author Holly Black returns to the world of Tithe in two darkly exquisite new tales. Then Black takes readers on a tour of a faerie market and introduces a girl poisonous to the touch and another who challenges the devil to a competitive eating match. Some of these stories have been published in anthologies such as 21 Proms, The Faery Reel, and The Restless Dead, and many have been reprinted in many "Best of " anthologies.

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You know what I love the most about Stephen King? His short stories! So I was pretty excited to learn that Holly Black has done some, not enough Authors do them these days. The Poison Eaters is a compilation of short stories (most of which have appeared in other Anthologies), all in the fantasy genre. In here you can expect a whole host of fantasy creatures - werewolves, unicorns, elves, Vampires, the Devil and Wolverine. Yes, really, even has a cigar. The stories are quite varied too - The Poison Eaters, the last in the book, is more of a Fairy Story, a touch of romance is added in The Coat of Stars and some Fae try and get pregnant in 'Going Ironside'. The end up with a drug addiction.
I'm actually tied for what my favourite stories is. I loved the concept Paper Cuts Scissors, where you meet Wolverine and various other storybook characters, but The Poison Eaters was pretty damn good and a breathtaking ending that left me wanting more.
Of course, one major pull to buy this for a lot of Holly fans is The Land of Hearts Desire, where you get to meet the characters from Tithe again. I didn't enjoy the story as much as the others, I felt that it dragged a little. One thing I did love in this however is that there's a couple of gay relationships. Not many YA authors seem to be willing to explore this idea, sticking to what's safe but I find the ones that do are some of the best Authors.
If you read a few other Holly Black novels, throughout this you'll find a feeling of familiarity - many elements in this can be linked to books such as Tithe and Spiderwick. I hope that she'll write another short story compilation sometime, this one was amazing.

5/5

Received free from Simon and Schuster Galley Grab in exchange for an honest review.

Review of Entangled by Cat Clarke

The same questions whirl round and round in my head:
What does he want from me?
How could I have let this happen?
AM I GOING TO DIE?
17-year-old Grace wakes up in a white room, with a table, pens and paper - and no clue how she got here.
As Grace pours her tangled life onto the page, she is forced to remember everything she's tried to forget. There's falling hopelessly in love with the gorgeous Nat, and the unravelling of her relationship with her best friend Sal. But there's something missing. As hard as she's trying to remember, is there something she just can't see?
Grace must face the most important question of all. Why is she here?
A story of dark secrets, intense friendship and electrifying attraction.

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Although the ending of this wasn't quite what I wanted it to be, I thoroughly enjoyed this book and look forward to reading more of Cat Clarke's books. Although it's quite a simple story once you've read it all, it seems quite confusing and complicated when you start reading it - just like how Grace feels. With her pen in hand, she slowly unravels her story and more and more secrets and lies are unfolded. I loved the Grace spoke, the witty sarcasm a constant. Ethan is a character I would love to learn more about but he serves his purpose and does it marvellously.
For a debut novel, this is one of the best I have read. Cat Clarke presents a world with is mixed up, confusing, full of sex and bad language but beautifully written, very vivid and moving too.

5/5

Review of Pearl by Jo Knowles

Bean (née Pearl) and Henry, misfits and best friends, have the strangest mothers in town. Henry’s mom Sally never leaves the house. Bean’s mom Lexie, if she is home, is likely nursing a hangover or venting to her friend Claire about Bean’s beloved grandfather Gus, the third member of their sunny household.
Gus’s death unleashes a host of family secrets that brings them all together. And they threaten to change everything—including Bean’s relationship with Henry, her first friend, and who also might turn out to be her first love.

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I'm not sure how to review Pearl. On one side, I really like this book, as a coming-of-age novel it's wonderfully well written and flows really well. On the other side, I hate it. I find it dull and the plot predictable and the characters stereotypical. So, I will write what I enjoyed about it, as I rated it four stars, which means I did like it a lot.
Pearl is an an engaging character, she's never really had any relationship with her mother and her Grandfather's death really gives her that chance to get closer to her. Pearl is just growing up and her feelings for Henry are no longer that of a playmate, so it's nice reading about her exploring that. Henry's character, for me, however, doesn't really have me interested. He's there, but if he disappeared I don't think I'd actually notice. He's quite a background character.
In a lot of ways this book is really about growing up. As I mentioned, Pearl is growing up and after Gus dies, so is her Mother. Just not in the right way. Her Mother, finally feeling free lets her friend pretty much move in and they do all the stuff that you would expect teenagers to do - pyjama parties, hair dying, you get the idea.
Henry's and Pearl's relationship isn't what you'd expect from seeing the cover. Their relationship is closer to that of a brother and sister, so I'd like to see in a sequel if their relationship can work.
One extra thing I should mention for YA fans - do you look at the cover and think, I know that cover! You should check out Matched by Ally Condie, you might be surprised. Needless to say, Pearl is nothing like Matched.

4/5

Received free from a blog tour site in exchange for an honest review.

Review of Crow Girl by Kate Cann

Lily is an outsider. Girls bully her, boys don’t know she’s alive. She begins to hide from her troubles at the nearby Wakeless Woods. But she is not alone. The crows are there. Watching. When she finds the crows, she finds herself –and a burning need to show everyone at school the new Lily. Will this Halloween be a night to remember?

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This book is a Barrington Stoke book - they specialise in books for struggling and dyslexic readers and their stories are varied and engaging. You could call it a 'quick read' book - at only 70 pages I picked it up and didn't put it down until I'd finished it, about 30 minutes later. Lily is a character that a lot of readers can identify with - she's the outsider, forced to be something she's not to avoid teasing and bullying from her fellow classmates. The story is simple yet engaging - I'd recommend it to any fans of YA books. You get to see Lily grow up and become who she wants to be, which kept me reading. She forms a relationships with a gang (well I suppose I could put murder) of crows and unwittingly, the crows really help her become popular at school. A must-read, I'm looking forward to reading the sequel.

5/5 

Review of Wither by Lauren Destefano

What if you knew exactly when you would die?
Thanks to modern science, every human being has become a ticking genetic time bomb—males only live to age twenty-five, and females only live to age twenty. In this bleak landscape, young girls are kidnapped and forced into polygamous marriages to keep the population from dying out.
When sixteen-year-old Rhine Ellery is taken by the Gatherers to become a bride, she enters a world of wealth and privilege. Despite her husband Linden's genuine love for her, and a tenuous trust among her sister wives, Rhine has one purpose: to escape—to find her twin brother and go home.
But Rhine has more to contend with than losing her freedom. Linden's eccentric father is bent on finding an antidote to the genetic virus that is getting closer to taking his son, even if it means collecting corpses in order to test his experiments. With the help of Gabriel, a servant Rhine is growing dangerously attracted to, Rhine attempts to break free, in the limited time she has left.

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I started reading the first couple of pages of this before realising I had no idea what the story was about. So onto GoodReads I went and was rather surprised by the sheer amount of low stars. You see, as little as I read, the writing is powerful and makes you want to read more. The general tone in reviews seems to be 'oh dear, another Dystopian novel', one reviewer commenting, 'making up some new horrible way people are treated in a future society '. I love Dystopia, there's so much you can do with it and I doubt that having a happy futuristic novel where everyone's eating cake would really sell. With Dystopia, teens like the dark side of what could happen. Not many people seem to share my passion however...

Now, upon finishing the book, I really enjoyed it. I will give it it's well deserved full five stars because the plot was intriguing, the characters kept my attention and weren't stereotypical and the darker scenes in the book were very well written, as was the rest of the book. The idea that you could die at just 20 (or 25, for the male readers) would be quite terrifying for most readers of this book which will probably be between 15 and 20. Myself, I'm 19 so the prospect of only having a few months left is quite a grim one.

Hopefully in the upcoming books we can learn about Rowan's side of the story and how he coped knowing his twin had been taken from him.  

5/5

Received free from Simon and Schuster Galley Grab in exchange for an honest review

Review of Ghost of a Chance by Rhiannon Lassiter

They said it was suicide, but Eva knows she was murdered. Now she inhabits a skewed ghost world along with the tortured and malevolent spirits of her family home. Solving the crime could end her existence — but if the killer isn’t found how many more will die?

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I liked this book - I didn't love it. Instead of Eva getting off her butt and actually trying to find out why she died, she just kinda wanders around the house and occasionally writes her name on things. The description of Kyra by Eva and Kyra's twin brother, Kyle, doesn't actually seem to fit. She's described as one of those vain girls who wears miniskirts and screams at everything - in reality, she's a strong minded girl who does well in her classes and wants to gain a better life for herself.
There are a lot of characters in this book, easily over twenty. It's difficult not to remember them all though as this book drags. Really drags. If you manage to drag yourself to page 200 (yes, really), then that's where the action really kicks off and doesn't stop for another 80 pages, dulls for another 50 then drags you through it all over again. The action was definitely worth it though.
Plot wise, can't say too much without ruining the story, all I will say is that I found it a tad predictable. When the murderer was finally revealed I was unsurprised. Also the great big plot twist you'd be expecting as soon as you pick up the book was good, but again, predictable.
One nice thing I learnt from the acknowledgements is the Rhiannon is actually Mary Hoffman's daughter.

4/5

Won in a Goodreads competition in exchange for an honest review