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The Replacement by Brenna Yovanoff
Lament by Maggie Stiefvater
XVI by Julia Karr
Slice of Cherry by Dia Reeves
Unearthly by Cynthia Hand
SO excited about all of these! If you’ve read any of the books I got this week and want to leave me a comment letting me know what you thought please do and make sure you leave me a link to what you got in your mailbox. Here’s to another week of fantastic reading ahead :-)
Me and Rachel are both loving the US turned UK designs this week. Usually I tend to prefer US covers for books. But in the case of The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove I think we’ve outdone ourselves! The US cover was dying for a makeover with the Fallen series by far outshining Lauren’s debut novel and our UK publishers Random House gave it just that. I love how this cover fits in nicely with the Fallen series without it looking as if it’s the third book. I’m also a big purple cover fan girl so they couldn’t have picked a better colour for me! The waterfall in the background and the colour purple actually play a key part in the story and I love how they’ve tied that in with the cover! I recently read and loved this book so I can confirm that the story behind the cover is just as gorgeous! To find out more about The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove make sure you stop by my review here.
So that’s my cover for this week. Feel free to leave me comments letting me know what you think of this feature and if you ever get insane lust over a book cover, does a lovely cover influence you buying the book? Let me know and don’t forget to stop by Rachel’s blog to find out what cover she’d like to Lick this week!
"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?"
So as you can gather from the synopsis, when you open Entangled you really have no idea what’s going on and what this story’s going to be about and that’s totally the way it should be. Cat Clarke is an author who keeps her hand of cards close to her chest only giving you hints and clues as to what’s going to be dealt out making this book completely enthralling.
At the beginning of Entangled you have no idea what’s going on. You don’t know Grace’s story or where she is or how she came to be there. This book starts at the end and works its way backward, Grace unravelling her story to you a little bit at a time. It wasn’t until I was half way through Entangled that I started to get an inkling of what might be happening and even then there were so many possibilities to what’s happened to Grace that you want to keep reading to find out the result. This book has so many twists and turns that although the actual outcome was one of my theories it wasn’t exactly what I expected it to be which I loved! This book keeps you on your toes. It’s unpredictable and it surprises you which is one of the many things I loved about it. As a reader I would recommend going into this book knowing as little as possible which is why I’m not going to go into the plot any more than that.
Cat Clarke is a fantastic debut author that we Brits can really be proud to call our own. The characters of Grace, Nat and Sal feel so incredibly real. Whilst their not perfect I never found myself disliking any of them because although I may not necessarily have agreed with all of their actions I could understand why they did the things they did. They’re not perfect by any means but their real, humane and hugely relatable.
This is a book about forgiveness for others and yourself. It’s about hope and accepting that you and others have faults. It’s about learning to live and be happy in spite of that. It’s about how easy it is for us all to get tangled in lies and guilt and hurt. I can’t begin to tell you how much I loved this book. I gobbled it up in a day because I just could not get enough. It was the perfect book to start the New Year with and I will now be measuring all books I read this year up to the incredibly high standard Entangled has set. This is a must read for everyone.
My Rating 5/5 stars *****
Thanks go to Quercus for sending me this book to review. Entangled is available in all good bookshops across the UK or available online on 6th January.
Synopsis taken from goodreads
And now it’s on to the book awards of 2010, this is a post in which I’m going to share with you my highs reading wise of the year and my favourite books for different categories depending on what you’re looking for. First of all though I’m going to start off by announcing the overall book of the year which means that it was my very favourite read and one that I would absolutely recommend to everybody so without further delay…
2010’s book of the year is… Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly!
This is my favourite book of the year by far. I just absolutely adored everything about it and would recommend it to absolutely anyone and everyone. To find out more about Revolution stop by my review for it here.
Here’s my list of each book of the month in order of awesomeness!
1.) Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly (October)
2.) Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead (November)
3.) The Shadow of The Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon (January)
4.) Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins (August)
5.) Spirit Bound by Richelle Mead (May)
6.) Angel by L.A. Weatherly (September)
7.) Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (March)
8.) Ballads of Suburbia by Stephanie Kuehnert (February)
9.) Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins (December)
10.) Two-way Street by Lauren Barnholdt (July)
11.) Sea by Heidi R. Kling (June)
12.) The Dead-Tossed Waves by Carrie Ryan (April)
Best Plot: Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead
Best Writing: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
Best Cover: Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
Best Characters: Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead
Best Ending: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
Best Romance: Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead
Most un-put-down-able: Last Sacrifice by Richelle Mead
Most Memorable: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
Best Moral: Revolution by Jennifer Donnelly
Top 3 Most Recommended Books: Revolution, Last Sacrifice (VA series) and Angel.
So there you have it my very favourite books of 2010! I plan on doing an international giveaway soon where one lucky person will win their book of choice out of this list of 2010 favourites. So if you’re interested in that make sure you keep a look out! I hope you’ll all check these titles out and I hope 2011 brings if not the same then even better reading than last year!
All links take you to reviews on my blog. If a book is unlinked it is because I haven’t reviewed it most likely because I didn’t have a blog at the time I read it.
Natalie Hargrove has spent years plotting for her and her boyfriend Mike to take the throne as Palmetto high’s Prince and Princess. Nat knows better than anyone how to get what she wants having come from the wrong part of town, with a dad in prison and a mother who’s notorious for her string of marriages to climb up the social ladder. Natalie’s put sweat and blood into becoming one of the most popular girls in school and to be crowned Palmetto Princess is to be accepted. It means that she’s made it. So when blast from the past Justin threatens to ruin everything Natalie can’t help but pull what should be a harmless prank on him- just enough to insure that his reputation is damaged- but when a prank turns into murder Natalie’s plunged into a world of secrecy, deceit and guilt. Natalie soon realises that there are some forces that are not to be reckoned with and that fate and karma always has a way of catching up with you in the end…
When I read reviews comparing this book to Macbeth and one of my all-time favourite films Cruel Intentions I had a feeling that I was going to enjoy this book and boy was I right! Every so often I love to read a dark, twisted, delicious tale and The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove fit the bill perfectly. Reading this book is a bit like reading a gothic version of Gossip Girl. Natalie’s a heroine you’ll love to hate and the deadly secrets and betrayals will have you glued to this books pages. The Betrayal of Natalie Hargrove is such a hard book to review because it’s such a topsy turvey read. I’d like to say that I loved the characters but I didn’t they were shallow and selfish. I’d like to say that this is a fun enjoyable read but it isn’t instead its dark, quirky and packs a punch. Yet all of these things are what makes this book so damn good. It’s not your typical young adult read. It’s different and scandalous and shows that Lauren Kate isn’t afraid to write outside the norm.
I don’t think that this is necessarily a book for everyone, but it was just the grim, deadly sort of book that I love to read. It’s a story about fate and karma. It’s about your past catching up with you and atoning for your mistakes. It’s a book where not everything is quiet what it seems. It’s kind of like bitter black coffee or dark chocolate your either going to love it or hate it, but if you like your books edgy and grim or are looking for something a little different to anything else out there at the moment I would most definitely recommend this book.
My Rating 4/5 stars ****
Thanks go to Random House for sending me this book to review
