From Z to A: Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Dear Aly,

Ah summer. I finally have time to relax and get caught up on my TBR list!

I really really told myself that I wasn’t going to read Fairest by Marissa Meyer, just because I couldn’t stand Queen Levana, the villain of the Lunar Chronicles series, and I didn’t want to read a backstory that would make me feel sympathy for her at all. But of course, during a trip to the library, I saw it sitting on the new arrivals shelf and though why not? So here I am, haha!

Fairest gives us the story of Queen Levana’s youth. How she grew up as a princess, and when her parents died while she was still young, her older sister Channery took over the throne. Levana falls in love with a palace guard who is already married and expecting a child. She becomes obsessed with getting with him, and will basically do whatever it takes. Her sister bears a child, but soon after passes away from a lung disease that is fairly uncommon in royals. Levana is left to take care of her sister’s child and the palace guard’s child as well, as she forces him to marry her after his wife dies of complications during the birth of her child. Levana becomes queen regent until her sister’s child becomes old enough to take the throne. It is then that she starts planning how to become queen for the rest of her life.

While Levana’s story was interesting and did give a lot of useful information for the series, I really don’t think it was necessary. If you’re like me and are worried that it would make you sympathize with Levana too much, never fear. She’s actually insane. Like, so crazy! I guess maybe I do feel a little bad for her, but her actions really just drive me to love to hate her more. It was a good refresher of the series though, since I read Cress last year, and Winter is coming out soon (hopefully?).

If you’re curious about Levana and want a short book to bring with you on your summer vacation, then check out Fairest. But otherwise, I really don’t think you need to read it in order to understand the Lunar Chronicles series.

Happy reading,

Zoe

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From Z to A: A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Dear readers,

It’s been too long! But we’re going to offer the standard excuse: we were busy! Junior year in college turned out to be a bit more tiresome and difficult than we anticipated. But we’re back now that school has let out, and you know what that means: all the reviews!

I will admit, it’s been a while since I even tried to pick up a book purely for pleasure. The books we were absorbed in this past semester were political, philosophical, and of no subject you guys would have wanted to hear about, and of course, there was no magic! L

But I did it, I picked up A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas to make my glorious return to From A to Z. And boy, was it a wild ride. We start off with our heroine, Feyre, who lives in a world where theoretically humans and Faeries live peacefully side-by-side. Of course, that isn’t the case. After a brutal war hundreds of years ago, the Faeries have conceded to let the humans live in parts of the world while they themselves live in a separate part, divided by a magical wall. And again theoretically, this is supposed to keep the two races separate. But as of recent, malevolent Faeries have been slipping past the wall and creating chaos in the human lands. Feyre’s family lives meagerly; her father was once wealthy but his empire was built on lies his father and his grandfather told, and eventually it all came crashing down. They live in a tiny cottage in a small town, and Feyre had to learn to hunt. One day while hunting, she kills what she thinks is an ordinary wolf, but turns out to be a Faerie. When his friend comes looking for his killer, enraged that a human would dare to kill a Faerie, he presents Fayre with two options: immediate death, or to come live with him in his world for the rest of her life. She of course chooses the latter option, and is whisked away to the Spring Court by who she learns later is Tamlin, Lord of the Spring Court. As she sulks away in his home, she learns that there is unrest in the Faerie lands, and she also begins to passionately fall for Tamlin.

Sarah J. Maas is a master of world building. I’ve said it before about Throne of Glass but here it shines even more. She shows us a world with such complexity and such detail that I felt like I really could see everything she was describing. The Faeries were terrifying and beautiful. Feyre’s terror when coming across each one felt real with how they were described.

I really loved the relationship aspects of the story as well. Feyre is 19. She’s not as young as some YA heroines, and so she has a bit more life experience. This book is steamy at times, but its handled in a way that’s mature and I really liked that it didn’t seem like the biggest deal in the world to Feyre when she and Tamlin finally did get together (minor spoiler alert??).

If you’re a SJ Maas fan and you loved Throne of Glass or if you loved Holly Black’s The Darkest Part of the Forest like I did and are craving more cool Faerie stories, check out A Court of Thorns and Roses!!

Happy Reading,

Zoe

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From A to Z: Deception by C.J. Redwine

Dear Z,

It has been quite a busy start of my year and as such it took me much too long to finish this book! Deception is the second book of the Defiance trilogy by C.J. Redwine and I must say it gets the award for best middle of trilogy book I have ever read! I find that in most trilogies the second book leaves me frustrated with everything. The characters are being emotionally constipated as well as facing more and more impossible odds. And then at the end of the book there is zero feeling of resolution. Just because its in the middle of two books does not mean it does not need its own arc and plot! Okay no more ranting.

Deception follows immediately after the end of Defiance. If you have not read Defiance yet some vital story parts may be spoiled in the rest of my review, you have been warned. Deception follows Logan and Rachel as they try to lead the survivors of the Cursed One’s attacks on Baalboden. Rachel and Logan are still my favorite YA couple ever. This book is riddled with more cute couple moments as well as action heart stopping ones. There are Cursed One attacks and the Commander, not to mention the Wasteland.

Deception brings in several more characters as well. In Defiance we met Quill and Willow but now we get to know them. We also get to hang with Frankie, Thom, Ian, Sylph, and several others. This book will not let you put it down. The characters are constantly facing new threats on top of simply trying to survive. Rachel does have her emotional constipation moments but she eventually overcomes them in a completely normal and realistic way. I left the book very excited for the resolution to be seen in the final book Deliverance.

C. J. Redwine has won my heart again with this second book. She pushes so much that is abnormal in the YA dystopian or fantasy field. Strong females who literally do not need a man. Men who are vulnerable and own up to it. And people treating each other as equals. There were also some awesome twists in this book. I didn’t even see them coming! I highly recommend this book series to any and all who have loved books such as The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins or Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson. Well I’m off to finish the series!

Until the Next Read,

A

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From Z to A: Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Dear Aly,

Ok, I’ll admit, half of the appeal of Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard was that it was released on my birthday. The hype surrounding this book in immense! HarperCollins is pushing it, bloggers and vloggers are pushing it, and sometimes I feel like with this level of excitement for a book, oftentimes the actual thing falls short of expectations. But not in this case!

Red Queen is about a girl named Mare Barrow. She lives in a world dictated by the color of her blood. Red-blooded people are normal: they work hard and they serve the Silver bloods. The Silvers are special: they have incredible powers and make up the middle and upper classes and even the royalty. The courts are filled with silvers; reds are merely servants because they have no powers. To avoid conscription into the army where she will surely die, Mare embarks on a dangerous adventure into the summer home of the silver royals, only to come face to face with disaster as a rebel group of reds, called the Scarlet Guard, bombs a town. She is whisked into the castle to watch a group of girls demonstrate their powers in hopes to impress the prince and become betrothed to him. But a disastrous error causes Mare to discover powers of her own. As she’s taken into the castle under the false pretense of a lost princess, she comes face to face with the reality of rebellion, and it’s brewing right under everyone’s noses.

Red Queen sort of defies categorization. It’s like a dystopia with a monarchical caste system. It’s very reminiscent of The Selection series by Kiera Cass andThe Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins, although Mare is less reluctant to join the rebellion than Katniss was. And she’s stubborn, which I loved.

The princes deserve a shout-out too! Prince Maven and Prince Cal are very mysterious characters throughout the whole book, but we do learn about them as we go. They’re dynamic and always shifting, and they’re adorable.

AND A PLOT TWIST!!! Like a huge plot twist I totally didn’t see coming. And I didn’t feel like it was cheap, it felt refreshing and well-done. But wow, like, Kiss of Deception-status confusion was going on, for sure!!

If you enjoyed The Selection but felt frustrated at the main character, try Red Queen!!

Happy reading,

Zoe

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From Z to A: Poison Princess by Kresley Cole

Dear Aly,

It’s been a while since I’ve posted a review, but I’m back! I’ve been doing a re-read of Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle series, but I decided to take a break from that to pick up a book that’s been calling to me, Poison Princess by Kresley Cole.

Poison Princess is basically about the apocalypse. There’s so much more than that though! Evangeline Greene is popular, beautiful, and crazy. She’s been hearing voices, seeing visions of violent apocalypses and gruesome deaths. She’s just come back from being thrown in an institution by her mother and she’s trying to get her life back to normal. But of course, there’s a boy. Some kids from the bayou begin attending her school, including the arrogant and distant Jackson Deveaux. When Evie’s visions begin to come true and the world begins to collapse, she has to figure out who or what she is.

The premise of this book sounded so good I couldn’t resist!! Many characters are based on the Major Arcana cards from a tarot deck. We see many of them interspersed throughout the book, and learn about them as Evie does. For most of the book, there are two different timelines happening: One which goes forward from the time Evie gets out of the mental center and one that seems to be long after that, moving forward at a slower pace. The latter is creepy: Evie is telling this man Arthur her story and he thinks she’s crazy, but he’s not really one to talk. He’s lured her there with the intention of locking her up in his basement and experimenting on her… and like three other girls. Ew. The timelines eventually converge and when they do, major action occurs.

Jackson Jackson Jackson Jackson Jackson. That’s all I can even muster to say about him. He’s amazing; the bad boy type with a lot of secrets. And he has a motorcycle. And a Cajun accent. And speaks French. His and Evie’s relationship is… rocky at best. She struggles to trust him, he struggles to understand her. There are a ton of infuriating moments where they’re on the cusp of being on the same page for like a minute and then one of them will say something and bam! They’re fighting. I just want them to be together!!!

If you’re looking for a little something different, Poison Princess might just be for you! If you’re interested in Tarot, cute Cajun boys, and tons of action, you’ll love it!! It’s one of those plots I’m still marveling over. Kresley Cole is a master!

Happy reading,

Zoe

 

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From Z to A: The Program by Suzanne Young

Dear Aly,

My name is Zoe and I’m a binge-reader.

I finished The Program by Suzanne Young in one sitting. It went pretty quick, even though it’s not the lightest of summer reads. It’s a dystopian novel based on the idea that suicide is an epidemic sweeping teens everywhere. The world has created The Program to combat this illness, and it involves erasing any suicidal, depressive, or triggering memories in the affected kids. Sloane and James are two teens who’ve seen a lot of death. Sloane’s brother committed suicide years before and her family is worried she may follow in his footsteps and so they keep a watchful eye on her. James has promised to keep her safe and out of The Program. Things kind of fall apart though when their best friend Miller commits suicide and James is thrown in The Program for treatment. Sloane finds it increasingly difficult to stay positive without the people that matter most, and she too is taken in by The Program.

I found the first third of this book not to my liking. I didn’t like James at all, I felt like he was too possessive and their relationship felt like one of convenience instead of one that both really wanted to be in. They both needed each other to stay strong, but it felt a little too clingy and awkward for me. The part about The Program was great though. For me, the plot got more interesting as they explained what The Program did. I’m a sucker for a good, original dystopian idea, and this one caught my attention. For me, I love any idea that solves a problem by blowing the solution way out of proportion. Things like “oh, your arm is sore today, let’s just cut it off” are great foundations for dystopias, so naturally, I found the idea of “you’re depressed, let’s literally get rid of all your memories of the past” really interesting. There were some interesting characters that made the reading fun. And if we’re being totally honest, I enjoyed James in the second half of the book better than the first half.

I wasn’t particularly excited about reading the sequel just because the ending wasn’t too much of a cliffhanger. However, the epilogue was cute.

What are you most excited to read this summer?

Happy reading,

Zoe

From Z to A: Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor

Dear Aly,

I think I was in a reading slump! I’m finished with a lot of books, but every time I try to pick up a new one, I get so disinterested and end up putting it down and watching Netflix. Blegh.

Anyway, Daughter of Smoke and Bone by Laini Taylor took me foreeeeever to read, like 90% longer than it should have, simply because I just wasn’t feeling read-y at all!

The book is about Karou, a seemingly ordinary girl; except that she has blue hair. And can draw and paint really well. And has a super-active imagination. Or so we think. She’s constantly drawing these Chimera-things and whenever she has a new set of drawings, there’s always a story to them. Well, they’re real. She lives with three Chimera in a magical shop that deals in teeth (? Right!). She’s often sent on crazy weird errands to pick up or go to auctions for rare animal teeth, but she has no idea why. One day, angels start burning random doors across the world, and then, the portal Karou uses to get to the shop also gets burned and she stuck in the human world. She’s got to figure a way back to her “family” and deal with an angel who keeps popping up everywhere.

This book is such a cliffhanger!!!! The pacing was kind of slow, in my opinion. There was a lot that happened, but I felt like all the scenes were really stretched out, even if they were minor plot points. This made it kind of difficult to get through at times. But but but since this is the beginning of a series, I feel like the next books are going to pick up speed (I hope).

The angels in the story aren’t the angels we think of. They’re called Seraphim but they’re not heavenly, God-related angels. They’re basically soldiers with wings; a separate and fantastical race. The Chimera are so cool, they’re your basic Chimera, comprised of different animals: so some have like the head of a bear, a human torso, and deer legs, or something to that effect. They’re all different but they get along as if they all looked the same, which is really cool!

The story focuses on Karou for the first half, but as her story unfolds and we meet the angel, Akiva, the focus shifts to Akiva, his upbringing and relationships, especially with his brothers and sisters and his love, Madrigal. Towards the end, Madrigal’s story takes center stage.

I didn’t think the story was spectacular but I did have a lot of fun reading it and getting into the fantastical world Laini Taylor created. I wasn’t sure, when I was about halfway through the book, whether I wanted to read the next ones in the series, but since it ends in such a cliffhanger, I feel like I neeeeeeed the next one in order to be satisfied!

Happy reading,

Zoe