Month: July 2015

Fighting Silence – A Buddy Read!

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MMA new adult romance, are you trying to take MC romance’s place on my shit list? Why must you be so mediocre in the end? Is there an MMA romance out there for me to enjoy? Does my perfect MMA romance exist? These are the questions I am left with after finishing this book.

It makes my heart hurt to say this, but this ended up as just an okay read for me. If you followed my reading journey with this book, this may come as a surprise, because for the first 60% of the book, my heart was bursting with the cuteness, the love, the freaking adorableness of Till, Eliza and the Page boys. 

Starting off, this really gave me flashbacks to Better When He’s Bad because our characters were doing what they could with the little they had in life, but they were incredibly thankful for what meager things they managed to hold onto, in spite of all the shit life threw at them. The story of Till and Eliza falling in love was heart-burstingly cute. While I wasn’t a fan of the nickname “Doodle”, I thought it sounded weird most of the time, I really did appreciate Till’s love for Eliza. While he is a hard ass boxer, the softness he displays when he is with her, melted my heart. Its nice to have a hero with a softer side every now and again. 

“Truth be told, I’d have been happy to sit in an empty room for the rest of my life as long as he was sitting beside me.”


Surprisingly, the main draw card, and what should have set this story apart, Till losing his hearing, is what didn’t really work for me about this novel. I think, because it took so long for it to come to light, and then it seemed like it was used as purely a ploy to drum up drama, was what really bothered me. 

While we are talking about drama… What the hell is it with NA and having so much freaking drama? I’d be happy with one drama, maybe two. But this, it never ended. Just as I thought the book was winding down, we get MORE drama, purely to set up the next book. Urgh. 

There are also many unanswered questions in this book. What happened to their Dad? Where did their Mom go and will she be back to try to take the boys? What exactly happened to Flint?Why was it necessary to have everyone’s perspectives at the end of this novel? 

And another thing. Safe sex. I know I go on about this all the time, but STD’s are a real thing, so is unplanned pregnancy. It is reckless and stupid for people to have unprotected sex in real life, this NEEDS TO TRANSLATE TO LITERATURE TOO. There was so much unprotected sex in this, I nearly stopped reading. I don’t care how horny you are, how in love you are, or how the stars aligned so that you could be together right this bloody instant, get a fucking condom and protect yourself. 

I am constantly baffled by the NA genre, I really am. They start off being balls to the wall fantastic, and then the drama train comes into the station and shit just gets ridiculous/stupid/over dramatic. There is a reason I gave up reading NA last year, and if I continue to have such bad luck with this genre, I may have to give it up again. 

You know what? I thought this was going to get a better mark than REAL, I really did, but having reflected on my reading experience, I can’t rate it any higher. This was well written, and I thoroughly enjoyed the first 60% of this. But the final 40% killed it for me. Such a shame. 

3 climb-through-the-window Stars

“He couldn’t understand that leaving him would have killed me too. I couldn’t have done it even if the world suddenly caught fire. I would have died at his side before my legs would have carried me away.”


This was a buddy read with the lovely ladies over at Ab Loving Geishas ! 
Do you like abs? Do you like reading? Join our group 🙂

Indie August – Reading Challenge

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I’m doing a reading challenge for the month of August!

I’m calling it Indie August and I am trying to read as many indie/self published books as possible for the entire month!

I have a list of books I have had either sitting on my to-be-read pile, or sitting unread in my e-reader for a while and I am going to try to get through them all.

My list so far is as follows:

 





Want to join me? I love to buddy read, if you do too, hit me up on Goodreads here.

Have a recommendation for an AWESOME indie/self published book that I should read? Let me know, I’d love to hear about it!

Please note however, I do not guarantee I will get through all these, let alone any other recommendations, but I will do my best.

Happy Reading!

Shatter Me

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Well colour me surprised.
 
I checked this book out of the library on a whim and stared at it for a while, worrying that it was going to be the book that broke my good book streak. And while the first 60 pages were a struggle, somewhere around the time that we meet Adam and the story becomes more than just Juliette being alone in a cell for some unknown reason, something clicked and I could not put this bloody thing down.
 
Let me put this out there straight away. I can totally see why this has been optioned for tv. It’s almost as if it was written to be adapted into a TV show. There is so much happening, but not actually much plot. There is heaps of action. There is sexual tension. There is the possibility of our leading lady touching people and accidentally killing them. It is rivetting stuff.
 
And while this is a good thing, because it was compelling and kept me feverishly turning the pages, everything always seemed a little too… convenient. I don’t know, something about it just always seemed a little too easy. Like any obstacle that came up, would be conquered, purely because it was our characters who were facing it.
 
Honestly, I thought there would be more plot twists. I was expecting some giant double cross that never came and I have to say that I was a bit disappointed. Perhaps I am expecting too much from a YA novel? Have I been reading too many novels that play with my mind and make me second guess everything? I don’t know. I never thought I would be saying that I wanted more angst in a book, but there you go.
 
In addition to this, the writing may be an issue for some. Not everyone will enjoy this. After a while, the strikeout text didn’t bother me any more, but I can see that it could irritate people to no end. The repetitive adjectives and weird sentence structure at times may also put some people off, and while I do not feel that they were a necessary part of telling the story, it didn’t really hamper my reading experience.
 
However I spin this, it was an enjoyable read and I absolutely ate the book up, flowery writing, strike out text, convenient plot twists and all. I am intrigued to see where the series goes, as there are plenty of unanswered questions in this, but I am worried that it will go the way of Divergent and go downhill, fast, so I think I will hold off for a little while.
 
If X-Men and Divergent had a love child, that is what I imagine Shatter Me to be. And while I still wanted more out of the story, I enjoyed this reading experience, Adam is a sweetheart, Juliette is just starting to come into her own and I look forward to continuing this series at some point in the future.
 
3.5 touch-me Stars
 
 
“God, Juliette, I’d follow you anywhere. You’re the only good thing left in this world.”

Ruin & Rule Advanced Review Copy

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What would you do if you woke up and didn’t know your name? What you look like? Where you are and how you got there? What if a strange man you don’t ever remember meeting before stirs things inside you that you don’t know how to react to? Do you know this man, does he knows you? Does he have the answers to all your questions? Will he tell you, even if he does….?



This book is a masterpiece in mind-fuckery. There is simply no better way to put it. Do we trust Killian? Do we trust Wallstreet? Do we trust our self? How can we trust in our self when our mind is rebelling against us and refuses to let us remember anything from our life? Do we even want answers to the questions in our life? Perhaps our mind is protecting us.


This is just some of what you will experience while reading this book. There is a love story in here, but it is buried under so much filth, grime, betrayal and anger that it’s easy to forget it is there, much like our leading lady has forgotten every experience she has ever had, due to her amnesia.


This was a very interesting reading experience. I think I was more confused reading the first 100 pages of this book, than I have ever been while reading anything. And this is because I felt like I was our leading lady. I felt like I had to learn everything again along with her, and was floundering in the water of learning, just as she was. But don’t let that put you off, it is engaging and written in such a way that you won’t want to put it down. 


This gave me so many mixed emotions, it was a roller coaster, that’s for sure. Arthur ‘Kill‘ Killian is a very broken man. He is hot, he is cold, he is brutal and he is mean. He is what I call a “grade A asshole.” And while he has some redeeming qualities, I can’t get over some of the things he did in this book. There is violence against women in this book. There is people trafficking. There is death. And he is at the center of it all. Honestly this is dark and depressing as shit. But it is bloody fascinating at the same time. Like a train wreck, it’s hard to look away. 


The flashbacks, when our leading lady gets trickles of her memories coming through, those were some of the sweetest parts of this book. They were always timed and placed in a way that shone a little bit of light in the dark corners of this story, there to remind us that there is always hope.


Ever since I fell in love with Sons Of Anarchy, I have been on the look out for an MC romance that would interest and excite me as much as the show did. And I think I found it in this book. 


Look, there are flaws here, that’s for bloody sure. Our leading lady was a pushover at times, loyal to a fault, and Killian is an utter douchebag for a lot of the time. There is also a lot of sex in this that I wouldn’t consider safe (just because you have an IUD doesn’t mean you won’t get an STD, my dear) and there was a lot of typical NA “I’m keeping this secret from you to protect you” crap going on in the second half… And overall I feel like I am left with more questions than answers, but I just want to keep reading. It’s very rare that I want to keep reading in spite of all these things… But I do. I just want to know! I need answers.


This was interesting. It was different. It was not what I was expecting at all. This is not a redemption story, it is a story of loyalty, betrayal and revenge. 



And one thing is for certain, I can’t wait for the next installment to be released.


4 as-you-wish Stars!


I received an ARC of this book from the publisher via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.



Review originally posted here: Little Purple Crayon

Radiance

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This book has been on my radar for a while, and when it was picked as a possible buddy read for Machalo Group, I jumped on board the Radiance wagon and campaigned my little heart out (this involved me mainly just posting RADIANCE! and YAS! on anyone who mentioned it’s status and replies).

I am glad I did, this was an enjoyable read.

What would you do if you had to marry someone who wasn’t even the same species as you, in order to solidify a treaty between your two nations? A “man” who, to your eyes, is hideous? And what if the “man” you were to marry, thought exactly the same of you, that you were, and I quote, “a hag of a woman.”

While this political manouvering and intrigue is the backdrop for this story, the real winner here is the friendship that develops between our two main characters, Brishen and Ildiko. Their banter often had me chuckling out loud and the way their relationship progressed from mere acquaintences, to friends, to lovers, was just lovely.
 
“You make a very handsome dead eel, my husband.”
“For a boiled mollusk, you wear black quite well, my wife.”

The writing was a little flowery at times, and I still have no idea how you are meant to say the word “herceges“, but overall, for a fantasy novel this was incredibly easy to read and digest.
 
“I will conquer kingdoms for you if you but ask it of me Ildiko.”

I’m just going to put it out there that the ending for me seemed… unfulfilling. Honestly, without the epilogue at the end, it seemed like a standalone novel, not the start of a series. But having said that, I found the whole thing to be so enjoyable that I would happily read the next installment. 
 
3.5 eat-your-potato-Brishen Stars
 
“I love you, my blood-thirsty hag.”