Airhead Series by Meg Cabot

I had never read a Meg Cabot book in my life. I knew she wrote The Princess Diaries but honestly I've only ever watched the film. As a little girl I read Goosebumps, Fear Street, Christopher Pike books, and Sweet Valley books. The whole Meg Cabot bus missed me. However, now as a 27 year old woman thinking about writing some YA books, I am curious about the whole genre. The when one of my friends brought up this series I thought it would be fun to start the summer season with something light and fun.


The books are about a girl by the name of Emerson Watts. She is the farthest girl away from being a fashion conscious prissy girl. She loves video games and spending time with her best friend Christopher, who just happens to be the boy she's crushing on and hoping that they can be more than friends.  Frida, Emerson's sister, is the one who loves anything that has to do with the teen model Nikki Howard, Nikki's wanna be pop singer best friend LuLu Collins, and British pop singer Gabriel Luna. Then one day Emerson is in a freak accident (or so it's thought to be) and Emerson is now Nikki Howard. How is this all possible? I guess you'll have to read the books to find out.


Overall I thought these books moved quickly. The writing was easy to follow as was the story. The characters were stereotypes of typical teenagers. It was like watching one of those teen movies. However, the character I loved and wished there was more of was Gabriel Luna. He seemed to be a bit deeper of a character but Cabot didn't develop him near enough. 


There are plenty of plot twists and turns which make this Meg Cabot book more interesting and which is why I kept reading it after I had finished the first book in the series. The characters develop nicely even there are whiney teenage moments that put me off a few times throughout the book, but again these novels really aren't written for me but for girls probably in their early to mid-teens. So if we look at it from that angle I think Cabot hit the nail on the head. Girls in that age group will eat up these books in no time. 

Question is what would I rate these books?


I will give all three books a solid 3 out of 5. I think on a good day I would give them a 3.5 out of 5. There was enough to keep me interested and entertained. These would be a beach read if there was nothing else on your shelf that was fun or if you are simply burned out from reading anything too serious. 

Fifty Shades of Grey

I always find myself browsing the bestsellers lists on Barnes and Noble and Amazon. I think it helps me figure out what books the readers' market is feeling at the moment. Never did I expect that a book like this would be on that list.

Fifty Shades of Grey by E L James started making waves on my Twitter feed and then after close inspection I saw that it had taken the nation by storm. This series of books has stirred up a great deal of controversy and also made women's libidos go up.

The book is about a literature student by the name of Anastasia Steele who has a chance meeting with a young entrepreneur named Christian Grey. Little does she know that meeting him will change her life. Mr. Grey has a unique erotic taste when it comes to his relationship with women. The question is will Ana be able to come to terms with it and accept it?

The "grey" area of this whole book and what brings out the controversy is the fact it is a BDSM novel. Yes, that's right there are sex toys, handcuffs (well a man's tie), and whips in this novel. And did I mention the SEX. I emphasis this because if you are a fluffy romance reader then this might not be the book for you. The erotic scenes will definitely make you want to keep reading but shock you at the same time. It's what makes this book so popular I think, because it makes you curious. I mean it's the whole reason I read it.

After saying that however I want to point out that it's not all about the sex. The book is also about a relationship. The relationship between Ana and Christian at times gets a little strained and strange for me but what I love about what James did with the novel is made us feel something for Christian Grey. She made us feel like Ana was feeling which was confused, giddy, and in times in love. The characters in this book, though people say are like Bella Swan and Edward Cullen and the whole Twilight family, are different. Yes there are similarities and I can see where people say that but at the end of the day I actually kind of like it BETTER than Twilight.

Am I madly in love with Christian Grey? No, but I do understand and see his character for who he is and I want to see him get better. I want to see him grow and understand what he is doing and how it makes Ana feel. And it was those ideas that made me pick up the second book and lead me to the third one.

The writing itself is not as strong as I would like it to be. The language is pretty simple and at times I do feel like it is juvenile. Yet the main characters, Ana and Christian in my eyes are what carry the book. It is what makes me want to read it.

So this is what I am going to say to you if you plan on picking up this book. You need to prepare yourself for some not so great writing, some juvenile moments, and a ton of sex scenes that might make you uncomfortable. However, I also want you to know that this book will pull on your heartstrings and make you think about how you would react to a similar situation.

This book for me gets a 3/5 stars.

Part One of the Stolen Co-writer Endeavor

This entry is the first of many (hopefully) that my best friend Emily and I will write together. She and I decided one day that we enjoy having our own version of a book club. We like reading a book and then being able to call each other up on the phone to discuss it. We also discovered that we have a desire to read some fo the same books, so why not read them together?


We thought to kick off this co-writing endeavor that we would read a novel that both of us were uncertain if we would like as readers of YA fiction. It was a book that I had purchased two summers ago but never sat down to actually read. One of my favorite YA authors spoke about this book and rated it five stars on her Goodreads account, which is why I wanted to give the book a chance.


The book is called, Stolen and it is by Lucy Christopher. It is about a sixteen-year-old girl by the name of Gemma who is abducted from an airport by her stalker Ty. She is then taken to a remote location in the Sandy Desert of Australia. It is there we find that there is more than meets the eye for both characters.


Normally I don't read about kidnappings but for whatever reason I took a leap of faith with this book and I was rewarded in a way that I did not expect.


Now I want to tell you that this review is going to be more like a discussion of sorts and we are going to be taking apart parts of the book so if you don't want to read spoilers please stop now. However, feel free after you read the book to come back and see if you agree or disagree with us. I will also tell you now that I gave this book a 4/5 so you don't have to skim to the bottom and risk seeing anything that would ruin the book for you.


I want to jump right into this entry because I'm excited to share with you the things I felt about this book because there is just so much to feel. This whole book was an emotional journey and pushed the limits of my beliefs. It also made me question everything that I thought I would do and what I would feel during this situation. But before I jump into all of that I wanted to talk about a few things: the setting and the language.


The Sandy Desert in my mind is not only a setting for this novel but a character in its own right. I say that because there is so much detail put into describing this place. Sure I knew a little about the desert from geography and science class when we had to learn about different ecosystems. I even learned about them from watching the Planet Earth dvds but nothing prepared me for this novel. The desert is not only a scary place but one of the most fascinating places. I learned about plant life, animals, sand, weather, how to find water, and basically survive in the desert. Now, I wouldn't go saying that I could survive if I was dropped down in a helicopter but I think there is enough there that I might be able to know how to identify plants that I could eat in order to survive. Also I think that by knowing the characters' environment so well that I was able to get a deeper meaning from the book and better understand where they were coming from when they reasoned with escape and survival. 


The language of the book is another thing I want to discuss and no I don't mean swear words and offensive things. What I mean really is how the words flowed together to make the story move easily for the reader. There are no chapters though there are scene breaks which help the reader know when a particular image is over. I think this makes it extremely easy to full yourself into reading fifty pages easily. Also, I think the language is almost lyrical. Christopher made it easy for us as the reader to understand but descriptive enough that we didn't have to ask ourselves questions. The emotions were clearly written and felt real. There were times I had to put the book down just so I could focus on something else for awhile. Reading this book reminded me a lot of watching a good movie. I could see everything so clearly as if I was watching it on the big screen.


Now let's talk about "the unreal" and what I mean by that is the things that when I was reading this book I was kind of like, 'What now?'


The first thing I want to talk about is the whole how in the heck did he build a house in the middle of the desert in just six years? I mean he was going back and forth between London and Australia building this place so that he could take Gemma there after he had abducted her. So my questions are: How did he get all that  money for flights and supplies? Also as one person who did you manage to build all of it? Now granted he did steal things for money for awhile before getting a job and he is a very thoroughly human being when it comes to what he needed to do. However, that being said he is just ONE person and I don't think in six years I could get a water source, build a house, get a little plumbing, and stock up on all the food and supplies I would need to stay there for as Ty put it 'a long time.' I just don't get it but I will say that I will ignore it because the book itself was good but it's just one of those after the fact questions I have in my mind.


Another thing that really got to me was when Gemma escaped in the car and found herself stranded in the desert. She wandered around for hours and sipped a little water from a water bottle but essentially she was blistering and cooking in the sun. Not to mention she hadn't been eating very well or keeping hydrated. So how was she able to survive? Honestly I feel like she would have been dead by the time Ty finally got to her. 


And finally what is the deal with the camel chase? Did they really need the camel? Ty rationalized that they needed the camel for transportation and milk and if they grew desperate they could eat it but really did you need the camel?? It seemed to me a little more dangerous catching the camel than the actual camel was worth. Someone could have been injured or killed. They could have saved the gas in the car for something else but instead they wasted it on a camel. Now don't get me wrong I understand why the author wrote the camel in as a character in a way because she wanted to show the likeness between Gemma and a camel when it came to Ty who had captured both. It was effective but again I probably wouldn't have missed the scene had it not been in there.


Now that we've gotten all the 'what the heck' moments out of the way I want talk about what I loved. What I loved about this book was the character development. This whole book was about two people a kidnapper and a victim, Ty and Gemma. Ast the reader we get to see how their lives change and hear their stories before the abduction as they live together during it. We see how Gemma copes with her situation. I think at first we fear for her. She wakes up after being drugged feeling herself to make sure that she wasn't raped. We want her to escape from this stalker who watched her since she was a little girl. I mean he was a CREEP. 


But then...


We learn about Ty. He tells us his story and what he went through and slowly something happens. It is something I didn't expect as a reader and I doubt any reader would, but you being the empathize with him. You feel sorry and you start to understand him. Then in that moment you realize something; Gemma is also feeling it too. They curl up together underneath a beautiful night sky in the desert and you feel what she must feel. You forget that he took her from an airport and instead what you see is young love. Believe me I was stunned. 


And that my friends is when you realize that you are suffering from Stockholm Syndrome. 


What is Stockholm Syndrome? It is when a hostage expresses empathy and positive feelings toward their captor, sometimes to the point of defending them. 


It was when I was discussing this book with Emily that I discovered that this was indeed what happened. I was defending Ty even though I knew he was mentally unstable and that what he did was wrong. Yet here I was saying that he had a bad childhood and that he just needed someone to love him and show him the right things to do. What was WRONG with me? 


I think this was the whole goal of Ms. Christopher. She wanted us to see that there is not always a black and white rationalization but in fact there can be a grey area. I felt like somehow I had betrayed myself but then I realized this book showed me the type of person I am. I'm sensitive and I read into peoples' emotions. I want to help them and even if I went through a horrible trauma like being abducted, that something inside of me would switch on to survive. I would get Stockholm Syndrome.


What I also loved about what Christopher did with Gemma and Ty's relationship is that at the end we see that it wasn't just Gemma who was falling victim to emotions but Ty was as well. Of course we knew that he loved her or so he said but we never saw him fully commit himself until the end. It was when he could either leave her at the hospital with her snake bite and to go back to her family or stay with her that we see that he probably did love her. He chose to go with her. He didn't run. He stayed and in staying he knew what he was going to go back to and that would be a prison sentence and being confined. The one thing he feared and hated was going to become real and yet he went for her. 


What I question is, do I find this romantic or did he do it because a part of him was giving up his dream? Did he feel like he failed in protecting her and keeping her in that house and wanted to punish himself for letting her get bitten by the snake? The world may never know.


The end of this book left me with mixed feelings of course. Yes we see Gemma try to tell herself that she doesn't have Stockholm Syndrome and she treasures the ring he gave her because she cared for him for a time. The letter she is writing about her experience with Ty is coming to a close and she starts talking about the upcoming court date. So instead of actually seeing what the courtroom was like that first day, and letting the reader see how Gemma reacted to seeing Ty for the first time since her return to civilization; Gemma gives us two scenarios. One scenario is her making up a lie about how she and Ty planned everything together and they ran off together. The second was telling the truth and saying how she hated him for taking her and how she suffered. I loved this part in the end because it really is how someone would think after going through the ideal. The only problem I had was, WHAT REALLY HAPPENED?


We don't know and maybe Christopher wanted us to put in our own ending but regardless I still would have wanted more closure. I would have loved to see Ty's face and I would have loved to know what was said and the verdict. 


Questions, so many questions.


Regardless of questions that I had in the end I loved this book. It is one that I will recommend to friends and one that I am going to give to my friend this weekend to read. I think it needs to be shared because it makes us question ourselves and gives us a new perspective on something we see in the news all the time. It is one of those books that proves to us whether or not we would do what we say we would do.


This book deserves in my eyes a 4/5.

The Book Seer

I have a bit of an addiction to Tumblr and if you don't know what Tumblr is then please go check it out. It is a lot of fun and I won't lie if you want to procrastinate or just waste a few hours that would be the site to do it; because you never know what you will find.

The other day I stumbled upon http://bookseer.com/ which is a pretty cool tool when you have the dilemma of, what am I going to read next?


Basically you type in the title of the book you just finished and the author and it pops up with a list of books that you might like based on the book you read. I actually might start using it when I hit a book drought. Although, I don't think that will happen any time soon.

However, for those of you who need a recommendation. Enjoy!

- Gina

The Scorpio Races (Reviewed by Gina)

I make it no mystery that I am a huge fan of Maggie Stiefvater. There is something magical about the books that she writes. The Shiver series will always remain one of my favorites. 

The Scorpio Races was a book I couldn't wait to read. Maggie had said that it was her favorite book out of all of the ones she had written. So you can imagine how excited I was to read this book.

Now as a general rule a book about horses and horse races are not my favorite genre to read. The first half of this book was a struggle but I will say that the characters Puck, Sean, and Mr. Holly stuck out. I find that Maggie has a way of making the characters feel real and you find yourself relating to them, not realizing that they are just characters.

Who was my favorite character? Sean. This should be no surprise but he was a strong character. He was strong in what he believed, what he thought, and what he did. There was never a time when I didn't feel him or understand his character.

The plot was well thought out and structured. The explanation of what the races were was clear and exciting. I will say that the whole story about water horses made me curious and I had to do a little research of my own. Because honestly, who doesn't want to know about mythical creatures and vicious horse races that could end up in blood or end up in glory?

This all being said, this book was probably not my favorite by Maggie but I will say that it was probably one of my favorite books of the year. There was a lot of action, a little romance, and an emotional pull to the characters that made this story completely relatable. This is the type of book I would want my kids to read and probably will have them read one day.

And you want to know something else that makes this book amazing? It is going to be made into a film. Yes, that's right a film. So that's something to look forward to in the near future.

So what do I rate this book: 4.25/5

Cold Awakening Series by Robin Wasserman (Gina)

This year I attended my first teen author's festival in NYC. The whole reason I was going was to see one of my favorite authors in the genre speak in one of the forums. The forum was about writing emotional darkness into your novels and how it is conveyed and seen in different ways. Of course the author I wanted to see was there but also several others that I wasn't familiar with, one of which was Robin Wasserman.

Before the forum started, each author read from one of their novels and Wasserman read from her latest from the Cold Awakening Series. Normally I steer clear of sci-fi novels. It isn't my taste but the reading Wasserman did was enough to get me curious. So I went home and bought the trilogy off Amazon (yay Amazon Prime) and got reading.

The books are about a teenage girl of the future named Lia Kahn who was very much the golden child in her family. That is until she is in a horrible car accident which destroys her body and ultimately kills her. However, in the future your brain can be scanned and downloaded into a new body. Lia then becomes a "skinner," a freak of human nature and everyone who used to know Lia sees her differently. The download has changed her life forever. The trilogy goes through Lia's life changes and shows us a world where "skinners" and humans exist. I like to think that this is the book Feed by M.T. Anderson on steroids. 

The plot of all three books was always good but the common trend was that it took me about halfway through them to finally feel connected to them. Lia was a hard character to like or feel anything for while the supporting characters seemed more human than robot. I think Wasserman wanted us to see growth in Lia so taking Lia through emotional extremes seemed necessary. However, I think they took Lia farther away from the reader.  The second book was the strongest or at least that's what I think. There was a lot more emotion in that one and I felt like for the first time we were really getting to see who Lia was as a person. There was something deeper.

There was plenty of drama, some romance, and lots of puzzles which I am a huge fan of in my fiction. Yet sadly the characters in this trilogy seemed a little..."eh."

Also, the ending of the trilogy seemed like it was rushed. I hate when authors do this because I feel like either they were just tired of writing the book and wanted it to be over so they could start something else or because they didn't know how to end it so they just wrote something. The ending left me feeling a little numb. I know that she was trying to get us to see a bigger picture and to understand human nature and everything in the end but I don't know. It fell flat for me. You'll see what I mean.

I am give this trilogy a 3.5/5. 

Karen Marie Moning

Since my little entry about romance novels I thought that perhaps I would share one of my favorite authors in the genre. Currently she is one of the bestsellers and one of her best known series is going to be made into a motion picture. I didn't know about her until I happened to stumble upon a review of one of her books on Goodreads. Little did I know that I would be sucked in immediately.

Karen Marie Moning has two series. The first is the Highlander Series. It consists of eight books. They deal with a little bit of time travel, druid magic, fae, and of course Scotland with some sexy highlanders thrown in the mix.

Now if you know me I love everything Scottish and I won't lie I always smile while reading a little Scottish romance.

Now in her Highlander series each book is different with some connections between characters. Two of the books deal with twin brothers, two with best friends, but it is books 3-7 which tie into her cross over to her Fever series. It will be books 4-7 that you want to pay close attention to however because these characters you WILL see again in the Fever Series.

HIGHLANDER SERIES:

1. Beyond the Highland Mist

2. To Tame a Highland Warrior

3. The Highlander's Touch

4. Kiss of the Highlander - Remember Drustan

5. The Dark Highlander - Remember Dageus

6. The Immortal Highlander - Remember Adam Black who is also in The Highlander's Touch

7. Spell of the Highlander -Remember Cian

8. Into the Dreaming


The main thing about the Highlander Series is that if you don't love the MacKeltars then then there is something wrong. Personally I like books 4-6 the best. I think the stories and leading male characters are really interesting. I love that you get to see the fae world through the eyes of Adam Black and that it sets you up for only a LITTLE of what you are going to experience when you read the Fever Series which is going to be the series that will be made into the films.

Now the Fever Series consists of at this point five books but Moning has just announced that there will be at least another three focused on three other characters from the series, one of which is Christian MacKeltar who I ADORE.

FEVER SERIES:

1. Darkfever

2. Bloodfever

3. Faefever

4. Dreamfever

5. Shadowfever

These books as I said crossover where the MacKeltar story leaves off. We are no longer in Scotland but in Dublin. It is here that the fae relem wants to take over the human world. There are portals opening up and creating a deadzone in the city of Dublin. Mackayla aka Mac is dealing with the death of her sister and goes to Ireland to investigate. Little does she know what she is and what she is capable of doing.

Magic! Fae! More Magic! And a leading man named Barrons who is VERY intersting. Believe me you will not want to stop reading this HOWEVER there were some scenes that I was not particular fond of and I want to warn readers before they dive right in. There are rape scenes in the third book. I'm telling you this because I had a hard time stomaching it. I'm not entirely sure if a scene like this was necessary. I would have been ok if she would have inferred it and then let it go black. Details are hard to read especially when you are like me and are sensitive to such things. However, if you are able to get passed it I promise that the plot will carry you into something else entirely. I can definitely see why they want to make it into a movie.

Karen Marie Moning is a talented writer. She has been able to capture the attention of women everywhere with not only her sexy men but with her way of telling a story. If you are looking for a place to start in the romance world, this might be a good starting point.