Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver

So the first time I ever used my school library, I read this book, Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver. I’d consider my first trip to the library a success…

            Samantha Kingston is on top of the world; she’s one of the most popular girls in school, she has the hottest boyfriend in the world, and she has three of the best friends anyone could ask for. Until she dies on February 12th. Just when she thinks her life is over, she wakes up in her bed and finds out that it is the exact same day: February 12^th. Day after day, this day repeats, each time her morals crumbling a little more and her life becoming even more of a mess. On her final day, she swears to do everything right so that she can finally move on, wake up on February 13^th, and live out the rest of her life happily. But will the events of that day allow her to move on to February 13^th or will they end her days forever?

            The main character, Sam, was slightly infuriating. She drank and had no worries and she was a total sheep, at first. I did not like her character at all at the beginning of the story, but I think that was the whole point. Each day she relived, I liked her even less; watching the days go on was like watching someone’s slow descent into madness. She went crazy a little bit more everyday until she vowed to change herself. There was a definite change in Sam when one compares her original self with the person she is at the end. Let’s just say I like her a whole lot more at the end.

            I also want to mention Kent, because he was so awesome and cool and he was my favorite character by far. And Sam’s friends, no matter how messed up they were (each had their own serious problem) and no matter how much I disagreed with their decisions, they were still really good friends to her and I appreciated them that way, but like I said before, they had problems. Big ones.

            There was a lot of drinking and drugs in this book, almost to the point of un-believability, but then I realized that I just don’t live in that world. There are probably people at my school that do the same thing as the people in this book do, so I think if I was a part of that group (thank God I’m not) then I would understand it a lot more. But in the end, I did believe it and the whole thing seemed so real. Lauren Oliver is a GENIUS when it comes to her writing. This story was beautifully told and I loved every second of it. Even when nothing was happening at all, I still loved it. She has a way about her writing that is beautiful and I love every single book I read by her.

            I would call Before I Fall a tragedy and at the end, I felt like my heart was ripped out of my chest, beaten with a club, and thrown in a blender. I was so devastated that I couldn’t even cry- I just sat there in a shocked silence for a few minutes. I’m pretty sure the thoughts were knocked straight out of my head for the remainder of the day.

            Before I Fall was hauntingly beautiful and lovely in every way. It was a story of love, sacrifice, and second chances. It had a huge impact on me and I say to READ IT READ IT READ IT!!!

I urge you all to read this book! 5 Smileys!

Dearly, Beloved (Gone with the Respiration #2) by Lia Habel

I absolutely loved the first book by Lia Habel Dearly, Departed and I really liked her second book in the Gone with the Respiration series, Dearly, Beloved as well! This series (and book) is extremely complicated, so I will try my best on this synopsis…

            Nora and Bram know that everything is stacked against them: one is living, one is dead, the entire city hates the dead, and hates those who sympathize with them even more, plus there’s a group of zombies called the Changed that is producing a whole bunch of chaos for our favorite characters. Now a new bird-mask-wearing group, they call themselves the Murder, is out for blood, both zombie and human. When Nora, Bram, Pamela, and her family are attacked by this mysterious Murder, they can no longer ignore it. Nor can Michael Allister, considering he’s in it. He wants more than anything to kill Bram, who took Nora, whom Michael thought was rightfully his. He wanted to teach Nora a lesson and ultimately win her over. Only one other person knows: Vespertine Mink. She doesn’t like Nora, but their squabble was solely verbal, nothing as fatal as guns and knives. She needs to decide whether to help Michael and destroy Nora once and for all or to save Nora’s life, as well as that of countless others. Oh, and there’s a new strain of the Lazarus that can’t be prevented from the vaccine.

            There’s SO MUCH MORE to this story, it’s not even funny. I just glossed over some of the huge concepts, but this book is over 520 pages and none of them are filler pages, so if you really want to know what happens, you have to read the book!

            Now, for our female heroine: Nora. I loved Nora in the last book and she stays true in this one. She is filled with fire and she never plays the damsel in distress; she’s more like the knight in shining armor. She’s really smart; she’s actually the one that comes up with all of the plans and all the other people just follow her lead. Even when she is forced to hide from the world, she still finds useful things to do; she doesn’t just sit there and mope. She always puts herself in harm’s way to protect the ones she loves, but I don’t think she’s appreciated enough for it. Nora is one of my favorite heroines of all time and it actually makes sense that two guys are in love with her; she actually has a personality to fall in love with and she’s just awesome overall.

            Bram, the hero, is also amazing. He’s really sweet and I feel like he understands his life well and without illusion; he knows that he doesn’t have long to live, so he’s living like every day is his last. That’s not to say that he does stupid things or acts impulsively, but he never lets an opportunity slip out of his fingers. He also doesn’t push Nora away even though he knows he won’t last forever. Traditionally, in YA, that would be seen as selfish, but that’s just stupid. It’s not selfish if the other person agrees and understands it too, okay YA? You hear me?? Anyway, I said before that Nora was more like a knight in shining armor, but I did not mean to infer that Bram was the princess (that’s Pam’s job, I think); they are both like knights in shining armor and they protect each other, which is the way it should be.

            Now a sentence or two on each of the other narrators:

1.     Michael: I couldn’t decide if he was sweet in a twisted way or just a creepy stalker. I opted for the second.

2.     Pamela: She was kind of wimpy and annoying and I didn’t really like her that much; she was pretty drab. She was also stiff and not very likable (hence why I didn’t like her…).

3.     Vespertine: She was just kind of there. She didn’t really play that big of a role in this story and I am indifferent about her. I don’t really understand why she was even a narrator…

4.     Laura: A new narrator is introduced! I could see that her point of view was important, but she was really wimpy until the end, at which point I actually liked her.

Finally, the plot! I loved this book from beginning to end, except there was a bit of a lull in the middle of the book, but I got over that quite quickly. As I said before, this book is SO COMPLICATED. It’s really easy to keep everything straight while you’re reading it, but it’s really hard to tell someone what it’s about. There are so many facets to the story; it would be impossible to explain it all, or if you did, it would take until next Tuesday and no one wants to listen to someone ramble on for that long. Trust me. It is awesome in its complexity, though. It makes the story so interesting and I loved it! The only thing I didn’t love was the number of points of views and some of the narrators (*cough* PAM *cough*). There were six different points of views; that seems a little excessive, don’t you think? And it was a tad confusing at times, but mostly it was okay. I loved Bram and Nora’s points of views the best because they were awesome, but the other people were just okay.

THAT ENDING! I LOVED the ending of this book. It was the most adorable and sweetest thing I have ever seen/read (how should I word that?) and it was a slight cliffhanger, but it still left me satisfied… for now. But I still really want the next one to come out soon. It has not yet been announced that there will even be a next book, but with the ending, I think there will be. At least I hope so.

I loved so many things about this book! 4 Smileys!

Rockoholic by C.J. Skuse

I went into Rockoholic by C.J. Skuse thinking that it would be a light, fluffy read. I was kind of right.

            You know that one celebrity that you would give anything just to meet? To talk to him for one minute, receive one smile? Well, for Jody, that one guy would be Jackson Gatlin, lead singer of The Regulators, the new popular American rock band. When Jody scores a ticket to his concert, she’s right in the front row, and after a series of events, he ends up… in her garage? Recovering from withdrawal and the brightness of fame, Jackson is not who Jody thought he was, much to her dismay. It becomes apparent that Jackson doesn’t want to go back to his celebrity, but how can someone as famous as Jackson hide for so long? As Jody and her best friend, Mac, try to cope with this raging rock star, the media is searching for the elusive celeb. Will Jody get Jackson to safety before the media finds him, or will he be thrust back into the spotlight?

            There is only one that that I didn’t absolutely love about this book, and that was Jody. She was incredibly stupid; she made horrible decisions at every turn, but I have to admit that she did have guts. I mean, I wouldn’t be brave enough to actually try to steal a rock star from his own concert. But at the same time, I liked Jody, despite her stupidity. She was quite endearing. Mac was my favorite character because he was such a good friend, plus he was into theater (as am I). He was reliable and really funny and his little sister, Cree, was adorable. Jackson, at first, was horrible, but by the end, I came to love him. He was kind of sweet by the end.

            This book was incredibly funny. I actually had to stifle laughs while I was reading it into the wee hours of the morning. I could barely put it down and it captivated me right away. I understood how Jody felt about Jackson (maybe not to that extreme level, but a much more mild one) and that helped me connect to her thought process on why it was okay to abduct a superstar. It was kind of a fluffy read, but I didn’t expect to cry at the end. But I did cry. And on my birthday, of all days! Gah. But anyway, it wasn’t quite as fluffy as I first thought it would be. It also made me a lot more interested about books that are not about supernatural things; It made me branch out more, and for that, C.J. Skuse, I thank you! I also thank you for entertaining me endlessly with this book of yours!

I absolutely LOVED thins book! 5 Smileys!

Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch

I was super excited when I received Magisterium by Jeff Hirsch from Netgalley. It had a really interesting premise and it sounded like something I would like.

           

Glenn Morgan wants to get away. She wants to get on the next flight to Planet 813 and live out the rest of her days as a top scientist, studying the environment and life there. She would have to leave her genius father (from whom she inherited her own genius) behind, but that’s exactly what she wants; for years he has been totally engrossed in his mysterious “Project,” which he claims is the key to rescuing her mother from the Magisterium, the land beyond the border that most say is a wasteland, but some believe is full of magic beings. When Glenn goes to the authorities about her father’s project, they want to steal it; they know what is actually beyond the border and they want to destroy it. As they try to escape, her father is arrested and she is left stranded in the Magisterium with her sort-of-friend Kevin and the giant half-human-half-cat man Aamon. Will she find her mother and restore her to her former self? Or will the government destroy the Magisterium and all that Glenn holds dear?

            Glenn, our main character, was slightly boring. She was smart and sensible, but she lacked fire in the beginning of the book. Once she was in the Magisterium for a while, she began to get a little spark, but she wasn’t exactly a raging fire. However, she was portrayed accurately in that she was greatly shaped by her mother’s “death.” Hirsch definitely rendered her well in that aspect. I liked her well enough, I just wasn’t totally enthralled by her. Considering this book was written by a man, he portrayed this girl really well, so he gets definite props for that. Kevin was much more fun. He had a good sense of humor and he took everything lightly, which I could appreciate. Overall, he had an awesome personality and a Mohawk. All of the other characters were well put together, as well, but Kevin was by far my favorite.

            The story line was intriguing. The whole idea that there is a whole other world in which magic can operate, but electronics cannot, is really creative. I thought it was really cool that Aamon turned into a cat when he was in the Colloquium (Glenn’s “side” of the world), but he was slightly human on the Magisterium side. He was like a were-cat or something. This story captivated me and drew me in almost right away and it kept my attention the whole time. The ending of this book was extremely powerful. I was tremendously sad at the end and I felt like I was punched in the stomach. Overall, a pretty good read.

This book was extremely captivating, but the main character lacked some spark. I still really liked it, though! 4 Smileys!

The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater

When I first heard about The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater, I was so excited. It sounded amazing and I couldn't wait to read it! I am SO GLAD I got this book because it was SPECTACULAR!

          Blue Sargent was always told by her psychic family that, if she kissed her true love, he would die. When Blue sees a spirit of one who will die within the next year, she is quite surprised; normally she, the only non-psychic member of her family, could not see any of the spirits. Her aunt tells her that she can see him because he is either her true love or she is destined to kill him. When she discovers that this boy is Gansey, a rich, overprivileged boy that attends Aglionby, the local all-boys private school, Blue can't imagine falling in love with him. She's much more attracted to his quiet, scholarship friend, Adam. Even his strange friend, Noah, would be better! But it's Ronan, Gansey's other friend, that she absolutely can't stand. Gansey may seem superficial and petty on the outside, but he's looking for something that could change the world and forever change the life of the one that finds it. As Blue grows ever more attached to their quest, their lives intertwine more and more. Will Blue kill Gansey? Or will it be just the opposite?


      Blue, who I consider to be one of the best main characters, is awesome. She cracks me up! There was one particular scene involving Blue, Gansey, and the subject of prostitution that I found completely hilarious. She was also very sensible and she led by her mind, not her heart or hormones, which was refreshing to see in a YA book. Gansey was largely misunderstood and could insult anyone without even trying, which got him into some very bad situations, but also some very funny situations. It was nice that he wasn't perfect (at all) and he seemed really real. Actually all of the characters were really convincing and real. Anyway, Adam was adorable, like a puppy. I wanted to take him home with me; I felt so bad for him (for reasons that you will see when, not if, you read this)! Noah, though he had a kind of small part in this book, was cool, too, especially around Blue. Even Ronan, as harsh and sometimes just-plain-mean as he could be, rubbed off on me by the end. Overall, all of the characters were AMAZING!

     At first, The Raven Boys was really confusing. I didn't really know what was going on, but I just kept going; not knowing the details didn't really bother me too much, but eventually, it made a lot more sense and it was really good. The reactions between Blue and the boys were priceless; the story was AMAZING and HILARIOUS when they were all together. I'm really looking forward to the next book because they will be friends for the entire book and the WHOLE THING will be FREAKING AWESOME. I seriously loved this book. I COULDN'T STOP READING IT EVER. I wanted it to go on and on forever (I am extremely sad that it didn't)! It was full of suspense and the plot was really interesting. I found the whole idea for the book (looking for a lost king that may or may not come back to life when they find him and grant the finder a wish) incredibly intriguing. 

      Overall, this book had awesome characters, an awesome plot, and awesome writing. But my favorite part was definitely the characters! I fell in love with every single one of them by the end!

If you choose one book to read this fall, read this one! It was AWESOMETASTIC! 5 Smileys!