REVIEW: Heart of the Storm (Undertow #3) by Michael Buckley

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is February 7, 2017.

After seven months as a captive of Minerva, the insane Alpha queen, Lyric Walker has escaped to the surface. Her only goal is to warn the world about the Great Abyss. When she finally arrives back in Coney Island, she discovers a world she never expected, one where humans and Alpha are finally working hand in hand to rebuild the country. But she soon discovers that an old enemy allied with an old friend may kill them all before the monsters get their turn. Where will Lyric’s loyalties, and her heart, lead her? With nail-biting action and romance, Michael Buckley’s epic trilogy draws to a stunning conclusion.

After a kind of lackluster second book in the series, I was kind of wary about this one. I wanted to read the final one to see what happened, but I was worried that this one would be a bit slow and uninteresting. I am very happy to say this was NOT TRUE.

Yes, the book took a bit of a weird turn at the end of the last one when Lyric was taken captive by Minerva and taken underwater. The book goes back and forth between her time as hostage and the time after when she escaped. There is a lot of adventure and action in this book and there are also new monsters. Humans and Alpha must learn to work together to fight these new creatures. But they have to get past their own prejudices first. This book had a lot of political and racial undertones and I thought it was quite relevant considering everything going on in the world today. 

I liked that the romance part was a subplot instead of the main thing with this one. The focus was all about saving the world (kind of annoying that Lyric was apparently the only one who could do that, but whatever). There was a little bit of a love triangle, but not much. Lyric is still obviously pining for Fathom, but she still makes some adult decisions about their relationship. She starts to realize that maybe things weren't love at first sight for them, which was a refreshing change.

There are parts of the ending that I enjoyed and one thing happened that annoyed me (no spoilers), but all in all, I was pretty satisfied with the conclusion. I loved seeing more of the Alpha and Lyric's family and all her friends. Good ending to the series.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one.

January Wrap-Up

I am linking up to both the Sunday Post @ Caffeinated Book Reviewer and the Sunday Post @ Feed Your Fiction Addiction.

How is it February ALREADY???

Seriously . . . does anyone else feel incredibly exhausted and so over this year already?

I don't know if it's the election aftermath or what, but I just feel like this year has gotten off to such a rocky start and every single day, something happens that makes me sad or angry and it's overwhelming. I have to try to realize that there are only so many things I can control. I need to go about my life and just do the best I can.

Anyway, at the beginning of the month, I made a last minute trip to the States to see my family. My grandmother was really sick and we weren't really sure what was going to happen. Luckily, she is much better for now but I decided to spend a month here to spend some quality time with my family. Usually, when I come back home, I only spend about a week or so here so it has been great to really relax and see everyone I want to see. The only downside has been that I really, really, REALLY miss my husband and my dog. I think a month away from them is a little too long. I have a week left here in the States and as much fun as I have had with my family, I am really looking forward to seeing my husband again.

I have also been severely jet lagged and that has affected my blog and my reading. I had some posts scheduled, but I haven't been responding to comments and I haven't posted this week because I am behind in my reading and my reviews. You know what? I am okay with that. Sleep and family time have been coming first and I have also tried to catch up on my reading when I can. I will be catching up with the blog soon, but for right now, I am cutting myself some slack.

Look at me. I'm growing.

I managed to read 21 books this month. During the last few weeks, my reading has slowed down and I haven't been loving the books I have read. Either that or I just haven't been in the mood for it. But I got a lot of reading done regardless, so that makes me happy.

Here were a couple of my favorite reads:

Most disappointing read of the month: 

How was your January? What was your favorite book of the month? Do you feel like you have aged ten years in the last month or is that just me?

BOOK REVIEW: Nowhere Near You (Because You'll Never Meet Me #2) by Leah Thomas

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is February 9, 2017.

Ollie and Moritz might never meet, but their friendship knows no bounds. Their letters carry on as Ollie embarks on his first road trip away from the woods--no easy feat for a boy allergic to electricity--and Moritz decides which new school would best suit an eyeless boy who prefers to be alone. Along the way they meet other teens like them, other products of strange science who lead seemingly normal lives in ways Ollie and Moritz never imagined possible: A boy who jokes about his atypical skeleton; an aspiring actress who hides a strange deformity; a track star whose abnormal heart propels her to victory. Suddenly the future feels wide open for two former hermits. But even as Ollie and Moritz dare to enjoy life, they can't escape their past, which threatens to destroy any progress they've made. Can these boys ever find their place in a world that might never understand them? 

I hate to say this about this book, but it was somewhat disappointing. I absolutely loved the letters and the friendship between Ollie and Moritz in the first book. I still loved their friendship, but I felt like the storyline was a bit lacking. The end of Because you'll never meet me kind of switched modes from Contemporary to Science Fiction. It kind of threw me, but not enough to detract from my enjoyment of the story. This story picks up on that Science Fiction story and I have to say that it's just weird.

Ollie is still grieving the loss of his mother and he is on a journey with his doctor to find more kids like him and Moritz. Ollie is still allergic to electricity and it's interesting to see the different ways they try to cover Ollie and protect him so he doesn't seize up and so he doesn't cause every electric device to fail. Part of the charm of this book was Ollie seeing the world for the first time. He was so amazed by everything, even little things like the smell of a big city. He has been living in the woods his entire life so he is innocent in so many ways. But a part of my issue with the book was that Ollie was so pushy at times. I know that being isolated for so long affected his social skills, but he still annoyed me. When meeting a few of the kids, he demanded to know their stories and got annoyed when they wouldn't. And when his doctor was upset about something, he tried to demand that he tell Ollie the truth about everything. I just wanted to shake him sometimes to make him realize that no one owed him their story, especially when it was as painful as some of the kids they encountered.

I was a little disappointed by the slowness of the storyline. Ollie and his doctor only met a couple of the other kids. Most of the time was spent dealing with too many things: there was Ollie's allergy to electricity, his first journey outside the woods, the stories of the two kids they met and the secret that the doctor was keeping. On Moritz's side, there was just one issue: the issue of a new school with a boyfriend and his unrequited love for Ollie. When it came to Ollie, I just felt like there were so many issues that I wasn't satisfied with the resolution of any of them. Moritz's story was very slow moving and I had a hard time being invested in his story.

I still think the letter format worked really well and I absolutely loved the friendship between Moritz and Ollie. They had such a lovely banter and way of drawing each other out. I just had an issue with pacing and some of the plot. I still love Leah Thomas's writing. I just wish this story were a little less disappointing. I would love to see another book involving these two, mainly because there was a bit of a twist and I loved the ending. 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Borrow this one. It's not as great as the first one, but it's still worth reading for the friendship alone.

BOOK REVIEW: The Sky Between You And Me by Catherine Alene

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is February 7, 2017.

Raesha will to do whatever it takes to win Nationals. For her, competing isn't just about the speed of her horse or the thrill of the win. It's about honoring her mother's memory and holding onto a dream they once shared. For an athlete, every second counts. Raesha knows minus five on the scale will let her sit deeper in her saddle, make her horse lighter on his feet. And lighter, leaner, faster gives her the edge she needs over the new girl on the team, a girl who keeps flirting with Raesha's boyfriend and making plans with her best friend. So she focuses on minus five. But if she isn't careful, she's going to lose more than just the people she loves, she's going to lose herself to lighter, leaner, faster...

I wish I had known when I requested this one that it was written in verse. I am kind of picky when it comes to those because there have only been a few that I have really enjoyed. I was really interested in the premise of a girl (Rae) who becomes anorexic because she wants to be lighter for her horseback championship. In some ways, this book was well done. I thought the portrayal of her eating disorder was very realistic. Rae starts out like any other girl. She is concerned about her weight yes, but she doesn't start out thinking that she needs to lose so much weight and she is going to stop eating to do it. It's just about losing five more pounds. But then she decides to lose just five more . . . and so on and so on. She constantly obsesses about food and she feels less hungry the longer she goes without food. Rae constantly compares herself herself to the new girl in town, Kierra. It's annoying, but I get it. I loved the family stuff. Rae's mom was a horseback rider and she died years ago, but she is very close to her father.

I was not a fan of the people in Rae's life. Everyone notices Rae's eating disorder, but no one seems to want to do anything about it. Her best friend, Asia, seemed more annoyed about Rae not eating than concerned. She would call out Rae for not eating in front of everyone and she would just dismiss Rae when she wouldn't eat like Asia wanted her to. And Rae's boyfriend was no better. Cody seemed supportive enough at the beginning, but he continues spending time with Kierra, knowing that it bugs Rae. And when Rae loses all that weight, does he seem concerned? Not really. He makes a comment about how no one likes to hug a skeleton. Really? Crazy. Part of the problem I had with this book was the boy drama. I wanted more about the eating disorder and also more about the horseback rising championships. The horseback riding was kind of a subplot and there wasn't as much written about the competition aspect as I would have liked. And I hated that Rae spent so much of the book mad at Kierra for nothing and worried about whether she was stealing her best friend and her boyfriend. It kind of overshadowed the eating disorder part.

My other problem was with the writing. Honestly, the narrative was just not that good. It didn't even seem like verse so much as a regular narrative that was formatted differently. Maybe the unique formatting was an attempt to add more depth to the story, but I thought it fell flat. I just couldn't connect emotionally to the characters. It was an okay story, but the combination of the boy drama and the narrative just disappointed me.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Skip this one.

DISCUSSION: Goodreads Challenge

Does anyone else obsessively look at their Goodreads challenge every time they finish a book? Or is that just me?

I told myself that I would set a number and then try to forget about it.

Umm, yeah. Sure. 

I should have known better, right?

I am so incredibly competitive. The worst part is that I am in competition with the most competitive person I know: myself. It's not enough for me to be on schedule. No, I feel like I have to be ahead. And I feel like I have to beat my own number. I set my goal for 200 books, but you just know that I will do everything I can to go above that. I don't even know why I bother setting goals.

The other day, there was a Goodreads error. One day, my challenge said I was six books ahead of schedule. The very next day, the challenge said I was one book behind.

To say that I was panicked is an understatement. I thought that I had a LOT of reading to do to get back ahead of schedule. Luckily, it was just a Goodreads error and my numbers were corrected within the day.

I would like to say that I realized my panicking was an overreaction and that I deleted my Goodreads challenge and that I decided not to worry about it. 

Yeah, there's laughter in my head now.

I guess I will just embrace the competitive part of myself and read, read, read to get even more ahead of schedule. I don't know if that will happen, but there is something satisfying to seeing my challenge at the end of the year and seeing just how well I did with it.

So let's discuss: do you participate in the Goodreads challenge? Do you have a hard time forgetting about the number when you do?

BOOK REVIEW: Loving Vs. Virginia: A Documentary Novel of the Landmark Civil Rights Case by Patricia Hruby Powell

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review. The scheduled publication date for this book is January 31, 2017.

From acclaimed author Patricia Hruby Powell comes the story of a landmark civil rights case, told in spare and gorgeous verse. In 1955, in Caroline County, Virginia, amidst segregation and prejudice, injustice and cruelty, two teenagers fell in love. Their life together broke the law, but their determination would change it. Richard and Mildred Loving were at the heart of a Supreme Court case that legalized marriage between races, and a story of the devoted couple who faced discrimination, fought it, and won. 

This book was a little different from what I thought. For one thing, I wasn't really sure whether it was historical fiction or nonfiction. The narrative is in verse and it's telling the story from the POVs of Richard and Mildred Loving. It also has quotes from George Wallace (an awful Governor of Alabama who was a BIG opponent of school integration)and newspaper clippings and quotes from Supreme Court justices sprinkled throughout the book.

On one hand, I think the story of the Lovings was so sweet and so important to this country. These people just wanted to live their lives. They had children together and they were so young. They didn't marry until after their second child, but they got married because they loved each other and because they wanted to make a family for their kids. There was so much about this book that made me angry. I hated the sheriff that was out to get them and looked for excuses to get them in trouble. I hated that Mildred and Richard couldn't just be together. I hated that Mildred had to deal with lower class movie theatre sections and hand me down books in her school. I absolutely loved Richard and the fact that he never saw her as anything but an incredible woman. He didn't care about the color of her skin. There was one scene where the lawyer asked him if he wanted to tell the court anything for him. His response was pure Richard. It was simple and sweet: "Tell them I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can't live with her in Virginia." They didn't even want the attention or the court case. They didn't want to set some great big example or set precedent for other couples: they just wanted to be together.

I guess the main thing I didn't like about the book was that it was told in verse. I am picky about those kinds of books. It doesn't always work. Even though I admired this couple and rooted for them, there were times when I felt a bit disconnected from their emotions and everything that was happening because of the way it was presented. It is still a worthwhile read though. 

This book was a little different from what I thought. For one thing, I wasn't really sure whether it was historical fiction or nonfiction. The narrative is in verse and it's telling the story from the POVs of Richard and Mildred Loving. It also has quotes from George Wallace (an awful Governor of Alabama who was a BIG opponent of school integration)and newspaper clippings and quotes from Supreme Court justices sprinkled throughout the book.

On one hand, I think the story of the Lovings was so sweet and so important to this country. These people just wanted to live their lives. They had children together and they were so young. They didn't marry until after their second child, but they got married because they loved each other and because they wanted to make a family for their kids. There was so much about this book that made me angry. I hated the sheriff that was out to get them and looked for excuses to get them in trouble. I hated that Mildred and Richard couldn't just be together. I hated that Mildred had to deal with lower class movie theatre sections and hand me down books in her school. I absolutely loved Richard and the fact that he never saw her as anything but an incredible woman. He didn't care about the color of her skin. There was one scene where the lawyer asked him if he wanted to tell the court anything for him. His response was pure Richard. It was simple and sweet: "Tell them I love my wife, and it is just unfair that I can't live with her in Virginia." They didn't even want the attention or the court case. They didn't want to set some great big example or set precedent for other couples: they just wanted to be together.

I guess the main thing I didn't like about the book was that it was told in verse. I am picky about those kinds of books. It doesn't always work. Even though I admired this couple and rooted for them, there were times when I felt a bit disconnected from their emotions and everything that was happening because of the way it was presented. It is still a worthwhile read though. Highly recommended.

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Borrow this one.

BOOK REVIEW: For The Most Beautiful by Emily Hauser

I received this ARC from NetGalley in exchange for my honest review.

Three thousand years ago a war took place that gave birth to legends - to Achilles, the greatest of the Greeks, and Hector, prince of Troy. It was a war that shook the very foundations of the world. But what if there was more to this epic conflict? What if there was another, hidden tale of the Trojan War? Now is the time for the women of Troy to tell their story. The story of Krisayis, daughter of the Trojans' High Priest, and of Briseis, princess of Pedasus, who fight to determine the fate of a city and its people in this ancient time of mischievous gods and mythic heroes. 

I'll admit it: I am totally obsessed with Greek mythology and all of the Greek gods. Maybe it's the ruthlessness or all the death or all the obsession with sex or I don't even know, but I love stories that feature them. I actually thought this book was more about Helen of Troy because that's basically how the Trojan War started. But this story was really about the women behind some of the men fighting in the war. This story was inspired by Homer's Iliad and the author wrote about a few of the female minor characters in that poem and how their actions affected the war. And I had no idea until Started reading that the gods would play such a prominent role in the story. That was a pleasant surprise.

There were two POVs and it did take me a bit to figure out which woman was which. There is Krisayis, who is daughter of Trojans' High Priest. She is in love with once of the princes, but since she is just a priest's daughter, she doesn't stand a very high chance of getting approval to marry him. Also, her father is insistent that she become a priestess when she turns sixteen. Then there is Briseis, the wife of Mynes. Because of a prophecy by the gods at her birth, it took her a long time to find a man willing to marry her and then she falls in love with the prince. I loved both of these women. They were so feisty, especially for the time period, and they both were so determined to fight for their city. Sexism played a huge role in this story, as you would expect, and I loved that neither of these women were content to just sit around and wait for stuff to happen. They fought for their city and their friends and the men that they loved. Of course, the men underestimated them and I loved it when they fought back.

In addition to the two women, there were chapters that talked about what the gods were up to and what they were planning. The gods knew who exactly was going to win the war (destiny and all that), but it didn't stop some of the gods from helping their favorites and interfering when they could. They knew who was going to live and who was going to die. I found it so amusing that the gods basically treated the humans like their little playthings. Because this involved Greek gods and the Trojan war, we kind of know how some things will turn out and we definitely know that people will die and there will be tragedy all over the place. And this author did not shy away from the death, so that makes me love her. I know, I know: I love it when people in books die. I'm evil.

This book was so exciting and well written. The characters and the plot were so on point. The best thing is that the author is coming out with another book based on more Greek mythology and I CANNOT WAIT!! I need more from this author! 

Buy/Borrow/Skip: Buy this one!