Letterbox Love Intro

So I’m sure by now most people know about the latest blogging scandal revolving around plagiarism and a very respected YA book blogger. I’m not going to go into all the details because frankly I don’t want to get involved or bring someone else’s drama to my blog. All I wanted to say on the matter is that from now on I won’t be taking part in that bloggers meme In My Mailbox, partly because of what’s been going on and wanting to keep my blog out of it, but mainly because an awesome new meme has been thought up by a few of my fellow UK book bloggers.

Letterbox Love was thought up over Twitter very recently by Kirsty, Laura, Carly, Lynsey, Emma and Leanne (if I’ve missed anyone involved out let me know and I’ll give credit where it’s due!) Basically Letterbox Love will be a new meme for UK based book bloggers to showcase the book’s that they’ve received each week. I love the name and the idea and figured it was about time we had something like this with other meme’s like In My Mailbox and Mailbox Monday sounding very American. As soon as I heard about it I knew it was a feature that I would love to take part in to help showcase UK books, publishers and British authors as well as books from the US. The linky and host and button for Letterbox Love is still under discussion as this is a really new idea, but I’m looking forward to the meme getting into full swing and wish the girls all the success in the world with it! I for one think it’s a brilliant idea and will be taking part when I can. Anyway now that all that need to be said stuff has been said let’s get on to what were all here for, the books!

 Review Books

Scarlet by A. C. Gaughen
Alice Brown's Lessons in the Curious Art of Dating by Eleanor Prescott
Deadly Hemlock by Kathleen Peacock
Poison Princess by Kresley Cole (ARC)
Dying to Know You by Aidan Chambers
Between the Lines by Samantha van Leer and Jodi Picoult (Proof Copy, recently read and enjoyed this one)
The Circle by Sara B. Elfgren and Mats Strandberg
Until I Die by Amy Plum
Insurgent by Veronica Roth (LOVED! Look out for my review coming 1st May on release day!)
Adorkable by Sarra Manning

 Bought

White Wedding by Milly Johnson
Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore (AAAHHHH! *dies*)

So that’s everything that I got through my letterbox over the past two weeks! It’s been a very very awesome past two weeks for books and I’ve been very lucky to receive some of my most anticipated books of the year like Insurgent, Between the Lines, Bitterblue and Until I Die all in one go! My biggest dilemma is which of these awesome books to read next!? Big thank you’s to all of the lovely publishing people who have sent me review books and to my poor postman for lugging them all to me *looks sheepish* if you’ve read or are looking forward to any of the books I got feel free to let me know what you thought about them or request reviews and such in the comments. And if you decided to do a Letterbox Love, Book Haul, IMM, Mailbox Monday or whatever else featuring the books you got this week leave me a link as I’d love to check out your books too! ^_^

 Happy reading for another week everyone!

Review for The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa

The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa
Publisher: Mira Ink
Release Date: 4th May 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Vampires, Dystopian, Horror, Paranormal Romance
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Source: Received from the publisher for review

Amazon Summary:
"My Vampire Creator Told Me This: Sometime in your life, Allison Sekemoto, you will kill a human being. The question is not if it will happen, but when. Do you understand? I didn't then, not really. I DO NOW. In a future world, vampires reign. Humans are blood cattle. And one girl will search for the key to save humanity. Allison Sekemoto survives in the Fringe, the outermost circle of a vampire city. By day, she and her crew scavenge for food. By night, any one of them could be eaten. Some days, all that drives Allie is her hatred of them. The vampires who killed her mother and keep humans as blood cattle. Until the night Allie herself is attacked - and given the ultimate choice. Die...or become one of the monsters. Faced with her own mortality, Allie becomes what she despises most. To survive, she must work with her vampire creator and learn the rules of being immortal. Including the most important: go long enough without human blood, and you will go mad. When Allison is separated from her creator, she flees into the unknown, the world outside her vampire city, beyond the wall. There she joins a ragged band of humans who don't know what she is, seeking a legend - a possible cure to the disease that killed off most of humankind and created the rabids, the mindless creatures who threaten humans and vampires alike."

Review 
When I heard the synopsis for The Immortal Rules I mentally took my hat off and tipped it to Julie Kagawa. It is SUCH a genius idea to write a book about a vampire apocalypse bringing together two of the most popular genre’s around at the minute and meshing them together into something new and unique. The fact that Kagawa has managed to bring something exciting and fresh to two already overflowing genre’s was brilliant and I was excited to read a book focusing on my two favourite genre’s without it being just another copycat.

The premise of this book is fantastic and I found a world mixed with vampires, rabids (hybrid zombie-like creatures) and humans to be an interesting one. Right from the beginning the book goes into the rules of this future world and how it came to be this way and I thought the history behind how this society came about was very plausible and believable. I loved that the vampires were bad, and the rabids were terrifying, and that humans are desperate and afraid. At this books heart is the story of what it means to be human in a world where being human is the hardest thing to be.

The Immortal Rules is a true horror story for teens. There’s bloodshed, death, and tragedy and I loved that Julie Kagawa wasn’t afraid to take this book where other YA authors are afraid to. She doesn’t water down the horrors that her characters face and constantly puts them in difficult situations really challenging and developing them as they have to choose between right and wrong and question their beliefs. Julie’s not afraid to be brutal and hard on her characters if the story requires it and so I was constantly at the edge of my seat so afraid for my favourite characters hoping that they’d make it to the end of the book in one piece.

As for our heroine Allie I thought that she was a complex and interesting character to read about. My only complaint is that I would have liked a bit more of this book to have been from Allie’s point of view as a human simply because I found the idea of a human living in a vampire ruling city so different to read about and the beginning of the story was one of my favourite parts of the book because of this.

Despite all the blood and gore and all of that awesome stuff there is also a dash of romance for good measure but unlike a lot of vampire stories it doesn’t dominate the entire book. This is not a love story although it does have an interesting and at time complicated budding relationship between Allie and Zeke which will satisfy paranormal romance fans.

Overall The Immortal Rules is a near perfect vampire story with lots of blood and biting like they used to make in the good old days! If like me you thought that you were so over the vampire genre The Immortal Rules will make you think again.

Review for Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne

Heart-Shaped Bruise by Tanya Byrne
Publisher: Headline
Release Date: 10th May 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Thriller, Contemporary, Mental Health, Fiction, Debut
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Source: Received from the publisher for review

Amazon Summary:
"They say I'm evil. The police. The newspapers. The girls from school who sigh on the six o'clock news and say they always knew there was something not quite right about me. And everyone believes it. Including you. But you don't know. You don't know who I used to be. Who I could have been. Sometimes I wonder if I'll ever shake off my mistakes or if I'll just carry them around with me forever like a bunch of red balloons Awaiting trial at Archway Young Offenders Institution, Emily Koll is going to tell her side of the story for the first time. Heart-Shaped Bruise is a compulsive and moving novel about infamy, identity and how far a person might go to seek revenge."

Review
I adore teen thrillers particularly those that deal with mental health, a subject that is close to my heart, so I was really eager to read Heart-Shaped Bruise and had high expectations from the beginning. I was only a few pages in when I actually said out loud to myself “THIS is going to be a good book.” And I’m pleased to say that my early judgement was spot on.

Tanya Byrne, wow, I cannot believe that this is her debut novel. This is one of the most well written books that I’ve read this year. From the first page I was totally swept into this story because DAMN can this lady write! Serious born writer here folks! This book is chock full of such gorgeous lyrical prose. Tanya’s writing, from a troubled young girl’s perspective, was so truthful and raw that my heart would skip a beat at the beauty of a sentence or my gut would clench at the brutal honesty of a phrase. I love when an author connects with me in such a powerful way with their writing and I found myself jotting down meaningful quotes and reading moving sections aloud to my family I was that touched by Emily Koll’s voice and from this debut alone I already know that I will continue to read anything that Tanya Byrne writes in the future without hesitation, I loved her writing that much.

Despite all of the terrible things that Emily did that slowly get revealed throughout the book I couldn’t not like her. Although I didn’t agree with her actions I understood them, I understood how she came to be the way that she was and I was surprised that I came to feel that way about someone who could have easily been unlikeable. I also felt so many things towards the antagonist in this book, at least through Emily’s eyes, Juliet. From an outsiders perspective I felt sympathy for Juliet but when I was reading through Emily’s point of view I felt Em’s anger and hatred towards her too. Heart-Shaped Bruise is ultimately a role reversal story where the bad guy is our heroine and the victim is our villain. This book fills in all those shades of grey in what makes a person like Emily the way they are and do the things that she does, and makes you understand what leads a normal person to make bad choices.

Heart-Shaped Bruise is the kind of book that will have you up to the early hours racing to the end. I read this book in two sittings and was constantly thinking about it in between and after reading it. If you’re a fan of teen thrillers, gritty and hard-hitting storylines, or simply just well written thought provoking books then Heart-Shaped Bruise is a must read.

Review for All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin

All These Things I’ve Done by Gabrielle Zevin
Publisher: Macmillan Children's Books
Release Date: 29th March 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Mystery, Thriller, Romance
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Source: Bought

Amazon Summary:
"Sixteen year-old Anya's parents have been murdered because her father was the head of a notorious underworld gang. Now she is determined to keep herself and her siblings away from that world. But her father’s relatives aren't so keen to let them go. When Anya’s violent ex-boyfriend is poisoned with contaminated chocolate - chocolate that is produced illegally by Anya’s criminal family - she is arrested for attempted murder. Disconcertingly, it is the new D.A. in town who releases her from jail, but her freedom comes with conditions. The D.A. is the father of Win, a boy at school to whom Anya feels irresistibly drawn. Win’s father won’t risk having his political ambitions jeopardised by his son seeing a member of a crime family. She is to stay away with him. Anya knows she risks her freedom and the safety of her brother and sister by seeing Win again. Neither the D.A. nor the underworld will allow it. But the feeling between them is so strong that she may be unable to resist him..."

Review
What first drew me to All These Things I’ve Done is that unlike a lot of dystopian reads this book is set in the near future, 2083 to be exact, a time that a lot of teen readers could very well live to and so it brought the issues in this book that much closer to home.

The future in All These Things I’ve Done isn’t an apocalyptic one as such in that the word isn’t coming to an end or that it’s a drastically different place to the one we know. It’s more of a world on the cusp of devastation with shortages in water and therefore certain foods and materials. There are some obvious changes from the world we know for instance coffee, chocolate and heck anything with caffeine in it is illegal. There are no swimming pools or lakes or rivers, water is rationed out in timed meters for showers at home, nobody smokes because cigarettes are hard to come by what with not having enough water to grow the tabaco, and alcohol doesn’t have an age permit mainly because nobody sees it as a big deal it’s dehydrating and in a world where water supplies are low nobody wants that. So whilst the world isn’t strictly in chaos it’s a world that’s struggling and very soon could be.

This book reads like part dystopian/mystery/thriller/contemporary. It felt like a more realistic dystopian and read like a contemporary book about your average girl trying to make ends meet. Anya isn’t a heroine who sparks rebellion and stands in the centre of an uprising. Instead she is a normal girl living in a world that whilst is very different to our own is just the norm for her. Anya’s world is one infested with crime, daughter of the city’s most infamous crime boss, Anya’s day to day life is highly dangerous and not far into the story a lot of strange things start occurring the most prominent being poison in a chocolate supply that her family manufacture which leads us into the mystery/thriller aspect of the book as we see what it’s like to come from a high stakes mafia family. All These Things I’ve Done has a lot of different sides to it and so is consistently interesting to read.

There were so many warm and likeable characters in this book. I quickly fell in love with Anya’s eccentric but wonderful family particularly Leo, Anya’s older brother, and their wise and lovely Nana, not to mention the adorable Natty, Anya’s younger sister. This book had a big theme about the importance of family and looking after your own and I loved the closeness that the Balanchine family shared. Then there’s also Scarlet and Win and Mr Kipling… I could talk about each of these characters and what I loved about them all day but I guess all you really need to know is that this book is chock full of amazing characters and their personalities and relationships with one another where what I loved most about this book.

Despite loving all of the character I feel like Anya deserves a paragraph all to herself. I seriously LOVED Anya as our heroine she’s honestly the best protagonist I’ve come across in a long time. She’s smart and funny and bad ass and is the sort of person who has a hard shell and a soft centre. She was strong and tough when she needed to be but we also saw her softer side when it came to her friends and family. Anya is unflinchingly loyal and the way she cared for her siblings and nana were really admirable and I loved her personality.

Overall All These Things I’ve Done was an amazing book. With themes of doing what you want with your life VS what is expected of you and staying true to your beliefs and who you are as a person, I think it has a fantastic message for teens and is something that is really relatable. I loved pretty much everything about this book and found it to be a near perfect read.

Review for Fever by Lauren DeStefano

WARNING
This is the second book in The Chemical Garden Trilogy. Although this review will contain NO spoilers from Fever by talking about the plot there may be unintentional spoilers from the first book in the series.

Fever by Lauren DeStefano
Publisher: Harper Voyager
Release Date: 16th February 2012
Genre: Young Adult, Dystopian, Sci-Fi, Romance
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
Source: Received from the publisher for review

Amazon Summary:
"For 17-year-old Rhine Ellery, a daring escape from a suffocating polygamous marriage is only the beginning…

Running away brings Rhine and Gabriel right into a trap, in the form of a twisted carnival whose ringmistress keeps watch over a menagerie of girls. Just as Rhine uncovers what plans await her, her fortune turns again. With Gabriel at her side, Rhine travels through an environment as grim as the one she left a year ago – surroundings that mirror her own feelings of fear and hopelessness.

The two are determined to get to Manhattan, to relative safety with Rhine’s twin brother, Rowan. But the road there is long and perilous – and in a world where young women only live to age twenty and young men die at twenty-five, time is precious. Worse still, they can’t seem to elude Rhine’s father-in-law, Vaughn, who is determined to bring Rhine back to the mansion…by any means necessary."

Review
Last year I absolutely fell in love with DeStefano’s debut Wither and have been pining for Fever ever since. The covers to this series are absolutely stunning and I like that they give a little hint as to what you can expect to happen in the book. In Fever’s case we have a wooden horse, a tarot card and a spaced out looking Rhine in a golden dress which ties in perfectly with what you can expect at the beginning of this book.

Fever begins directly where Wither left off. Rhine and Gabriel have escaped Vaughn’s sadistic mansion of corpses and experiments but before long they are thrown into another dangerous situation when they find themselves trespassing on to a twisted carnival full of prostitutes and drugs. The ringmistress, also known as Madame, takes an instant liking to Rhine because of her unique beauty and resemblance to her late daughter and so makes Rhine and Gabriel her star attraction known as “The Lovebirds”. Rhine soon learns that the world of the carnival is just as dangerous and disturbing as the life she left behind but with guards with guns patrolling the tents and Vaughn, Madame, and The Gatherers desperate to own Rhine will she and Gabriel be able to get out alive in their pursuit to reach Manhattan?

I thought that Fever had a much faster pace than Wither. There is never a dull moment as Rhine flits from one danger to the next in her quest to reach her home in Manhattan and reunite with her twin brother Rowan. I was on the edge of my seat the entire time and wasn’t sure what was worse living a lie as Linden’s wife? Or acting as Madams puppet in her Carnival? Both lifestyles are equally as shocking and horrendous and I love that about Lauren DeStefano’s books, how she doesn’t shy away from tough topics. Whereas in book one we got to look at life as a bride this book takes a look into life as a prostitute which was as equally harrowing yet fascinating to read about. Although controversial topics, I think they add an extra layer of horror to the books and because of that make this future in particular one of the bleakest and cruellest I’ve read in dystopian fiction.

As with Wither DeStefano’s writing was completely absorbing. She has a way of describing what’s going on and how Rhine’s feeling that makes the world seem so vivid like your actually there. Rhine was also as strong and brilliant as ever and I loved the introduction of some new characters especially Maddie a brave and eccentric little girl who ends up accompanying Rhine and Gabriel on their journey.

The only thing that lets this series down for me is the romance. Even after two books I feel like I don’t really know Gabriel. His personality reads a bit flat and undeveloped to me and for this reason I can’t fully support him and Rhine as a couple, I can’t help but feel that a heroine as wonderful and bright as Rhine deserves a better hero.

Fever has a seriously great ending. In the last few chapters epic, crazy, scary thing happens after epic, crazy, scary thing and I absolutely raced to get to the end. There’s an interesting cliff hanger to this book which makes me excited to see what Lauren DeStefano pulls out of the bag in the final book to this trilogy. If you loved Wither I don’t think that Fever will disappoint you. I loved this book just as much as the first and am pleased to say that it didn’t suffer from middle book syndrome at all.