Letterbox Love (4)

Hi guys! Just wanted to leave a quick update on this post for those of you who’ve been wondering where I’ve got to this week. I’ve had the worst summer cold, just as the weather’s started to get really nice here in England as well! This is why I haven’t posted over the last few days. I’m starting to recover now though and although my brain still feels a bit too headachy and icky to write a coherent book review, I do feel well enough to post something so decided I’d share with you the wonderful books I’ve received this week! They certainly cheered me up and put a smile on my face when I was feeling miserable and the rest of the UK was so cheery and enjoying the sunshine, summer colds really are the worst aren’t they?

Letterbox Love is a new meme hosted by Lynsey @ Narratively Speaking for UK based book bloggers to showcase the book’s that they’ve received each week.

 Review Books

Masque of the Red Death by Bethany Griffin (Proof Copy) I've heard nothing but great things about this book from US bloggers, this is defintely a book that is creating quite a stir in the book world already and it sounds right up my street, I have a feeling that I'm going to love this one so I'll defintely be reading this sometime over the summer!

The Reckoning by Alma Katsu I really enjoyed the first book in this series The Taker so I'm excited to get to this one soon!

Soul Fire by Kate Harrison (Proof Copy) This is the sequel to Soul Beach a book that I absolutely loved when I read it last summer, very excited to read this next instalment it will make for a thrilling beach read that's for sure!

The Vampire of Highgate by Asa Bailey This is a vampire story based on true events and is set in the UK! I do love books set in my own country so I'm looking forward to checking this one out.

Summer Nights by Allie Spencer You guys know that I love a bit of chick-lit to break up some of my YA reading especially beachy, fun, romantic, summer reads! This one looks like it's going to tick all of those boxes so I look forward to reading this over a sunny weekend in my garden.


So those were all of the wonderful books I was lucky enough to be sent for review this week. As always HUGE thank you's to the lovely publishing people who have sent me these brilliant new titles. 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! ^_^ Hopefully things will be back to normal next week and I can bring you some reviews for some excellent books that I've been reading lately but until then happy reading till next time folks!

Review for Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore

WARNING
This is the third book in the Seven Kingdoms trilogy. Although this review will contain no spoilers from Bitterblue by talking about the plot there may be unintentional spoilers from the first two books (Graceling and Fire) in the series.

Bitterblue by Kristin Cashore
Publisher: Gollancz
Release Date: 1st May 2012
Genre: Fantasy, Crossover, Fiction
Rating: 4/5 stars
Source: Bought

Amazon Summary:
"Eight years have passed since the young Princess Bitterblue, and her country, were saved from the vicious King Leck. Now Bitterblue is the queen of Monsea, and her land is at peace. But the influence of her father, a violent psychopath with mind-altering abilities, lives on. Her advisers, who have run the country on her behalf since Leck's death, believe in a forward-thinking plan: to pardon all of those who committed terrible acts during Leck's reign; and to forget every dark event that ever happened. Monsea's past has become shrouded in mystery, and it's only when Bitterblue begins sneaking out of her castle - curious, disguised and alone - to walk the streets of her own city, that she begins to realise the truth. Her kingdom has been under the thirty-five-year long spell of a madman, and now their only chance to move forward is to revisit the past. Whatever that past holds. Two thieves, who have sworn only to steal what has already been stolen, change her life forever. They hold a key to the truth of Leck's reign. And one of them, who possesses an unidentified Grace, may also hold a key to her heart..."

Review 
Fans of Kristin Cashore’s bestsellers Graceling and Fire have been waiting for this much anticipated companion novel for years. Bitterblue has been one of my most anticipated reads for the longest time and after such a long torturous wait I had only the highest expectations, so did it meet those expectations? Eh, not as much as I hoped, but expectations aside it was still a good read.

My main beef with Bitterblue is that I was expecting more of a plot. With King Leck being dead for a good eight years now as much as I love to hate Leck and his twisted little mind I was really looking for Bitterblue to move away from that storyline but instead Leck’s ghost and terrifying grip he had over Monsea reins on and whilst that’s understandable after the horrors he put his people through it didn’t really do anything for me plot wise as it felt very much like we were covering old ground without the story moving forward. Bitterblue is a huge book coming in at five hundred and thirty nine pages and because the book is very character driven there where sections that although were great for character development didn’t really move the plot along and so I’d find myself getting bored at times. Some sections certainly could have been edited down and I found the book to be overly long and lagging in places. The revelations at the end regarding Leck’s secrets didn’t offer much in way of plot development and I felt didn’t add anything new to the story from what we already knew at the beginning. The revelations of Leck’s past seemed to be for Bitterblue’s own personal growth to become the queen she needs to be and nothing more.

That being said I could never not like this book. I fell in love with this world and these characters long ago and nothing was ever going to change that. What I loved most about this book was that it felt like I was catching up with old friends. Characters that we got to know and love in both Graceling and Fire have a part to play in this book and although Bitterblue is a companion novel and not a direct sequel to either book I would recommend reading Graceling and Fire first for the ultimate experience and a better understanding of the world and the events of the past. Along with all of our old favourites there are new characters to get to know and love too particularly Teddy, Death and Hava my personal favourites. Whilst all of our much loved characters return the most interaction we had (Bitterblue aside) was with Prince Po who is very much a main character in this book. Po has always been my favourite character in the series and I grew to love him even more in Bitterblue. In a way we get to know Bitterblue all over again too this time as a queen and young woman rather than the little girl we met in Graceling. As always the characters are warm, vibrant and fully visualised her characters are one of Kristin Cashore’s strongest attributes as a writer and I loved being able to catch up with them.

My only other complaint about the book is Bitterblue’s love interest Sapphire whilst nice enough he didn’t really stand out to me as this great love interest and was by far overshadowed by Po, a worthy book hero, and even Giddon whose relationship with Bitterblue although not romantic I much preferred over hers and Sapphire’s. Don’t get me wrong Sapphire was nice just a little ordinary and personally I felt that Bitterblue could do better.

That being said I enjoyed everything else about this book it was brilliantly written and full of characters that you fall in love with and although the plot was slower than what I was expecting and felt a little bit undeveloped for my tastes especially compared to my favourite of the series Graceling it was an interesting read never the less with ciphers, old journals and family secrets to boot. Although Bitterblue wasn’t quite the amazing book I was expecting it is still a worthy read for fans of the series.

Letterbox Love (3)

Letterbox Love is a new meme hosted by Lynsey @ Narratively Speaking for UK based book bloggers to showcase the book’s that they’ve received each week.

 Proof Copies

The Blessed by Tonya Hurley (Out 2nd August 2012, I don't know much about this one but have heard some great things!)
Blackwood by Gwenda Bond (Out 6th September 2012, Yay for the first Strange Chemistry proofs a new YA publisher! 114 people mysteriously disappear on Roanoke Island two teens may be the key to bringing them back )
Shift by Kim Curran (Out 6th September 2012, ditto on the Strange Chemistry! This one's about a boy who can undo any decision he's ever made but there are consequences sounds very The Butterfly Effecty a film that I love so excited to get round to this!)

 Finished Copies

Emma Hearts LA by Keris Stainton (I read a proof of this last weekend and absolutely loved it, was only talking about the pretty foiled finished copy with Keris and some blogger buddies when one arrived in the mail, so pretty!)
The Selection by Kiera Cass (Two of my favourite colours, a pretty dress, and a dystopian style The Bachelor? This has my name written all over it!)
Second Chance Summer by Morgan Matson (Was SO excited when this dropped through my letterbox I LOVED Amy and Roger and our UK cover is so fun and funky and eye catching! I'm on the blog tour for this which you can find more info on in the sidebar :-) Can't wait to get to this one!)
Unravelling by Elizabeth Norris (I've heard some amazing things for this book from US bloggers so excited that were publishing in the UK! Am excited to get to this one soon y'all know how I love me my dystopians!)

I wasn't planning on doing a Letterbox Love this week as I only do them every other week but I got so many good books that I just couldn't wait till next week to share with you guys! As always HUGE thank you's to the lovely publishing people who have sent me these books this week, once again I got so, so lucky and I'm really grateful. 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 Adorkable by Sarra Manning

Adorkable by Sarra Manning 
Publisher: Atom
Release Date: 24th May 2012
Genre: YA, Contemporary, Romance
Rating: 5/5 stars
Source: Received from the publisher for review

Amazon Summary:
"Jeane Smith's a blogger, a dreamer, a dare-to-dreamer, jumble sale queen, CEO of her own lifestyle brand and has half a million followers on Twitter. Michael Lee's a star of school, stage and playing field. A golden boy in a Jack Wills hoodie. They have nothing in common but a pair of cheating exes. So why can't they stop snogging?"

Review 
I’ve been a fan of Sarra Manning’s books since I was a teen myself but I think that Adorkable has to be my favourite of her books yet. This book was always going to be a winner for me, I consider myself to be a dork and nerds are my very favourite kind of people, plus the fact that Jeane runs her own blog where she talks about dorky things and considers the people she meets online to be real friends. As a book blogger, self-proclaimed dork and long term fan of Sarra Manning this book might as well of had my name written all over it, throw in a hot mixed race boy and I was putty in Sarra Manning’s hands from the start.

I can’t begin to tell you how refreshing it was to have a heroine like Jeane Smith. Jeane may consider herself a dork but to me she’s the epiphany of cool. I know people like Jeane, my friends are like Jeane, heck I even have a bit of Jeaneness in me too and I found her so relatable. At last comes a heroine who is neither perfect nor as limp as a lettuce leaf. Whilst Jeane is obviously awesome for running a hugely successful dork blog, having her own style, living off Haribo and not being afraid of who she is she’s also vulnerable, in your face, opinionated, and wrong about so many things namely being that unless you’re a dork and wear your dorkyness like a badge of honour then your boring and predictable and not worth knowing. Enter Michael the perfect popular golden boy who Jeane can’t stand and believes she has nothing in common with who softens her hard exterior and teachers her not to put a label on people, that people can surprise you, that everyone has a little dork in them somewhere.

Michael and Jeane have to be my new favourite book couple. They’re just so unlikely and so oddly matched and yet it totally works. They have a real love/hate relationship and the heat from their arguments, make up sessions and chemistry between them practically sizzles off the pages. I loved watching them go from being friends with benefits to so much more. “Wait a minute, back up, did you say friends with benefits!?!?” I hear you cry, why yes, yes I did my friends because Sarra Manning is not afraid to bring the sexytimes! And get this, they *le gasp!* aren’t even boyfriend and girlfriend, I know. I can’t tell you how liberating it is to read a YA book where the author doesn’t build up sex to be this great big deal. Her characters are young and legal and so they have safe sex which is totally okay. It’s so refreshing to read a YA book where the characters actually hook up like the majority of teens would in their situation and I loved that Sarra Manning doesn’t brief over the sexytimes either but gives us all the juicy details without being overly graphic. I love when authors are cool enough to respect that their readers are mature enough to read about this stuff and Sarra Manning handles the sex scenes tastefully, honestly and appropriately something I had the utmost respect for.

Adorkable really ticked all the right boxes for me it was funny, sexy, smart and charming with a plot that is current and relatable to a YA audience and a hot and hugely swoonworthy book boy and a heroine that whilst is awesome is by no means perfect. I loved the moral to this story about being comfortable in your own skin, not judging a book by its cover, and learning that people come in all kinds of shades of awesome not just dork kind. I loved, loved, loved this book and can’t sing its praises enough.

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