Saturday Pages: ARC Review of Collide by Melissa West!

Hiya there guys!

Having the weekend off is quite cool for once! But since it's V-day I'm gonna do my best to avoid the tv ads, specials and all the overload of it to see if I can avoid my brain being an arse to me. My plans are reading, reading and more reading! And watching some Outlander because Jamie!

For this week's Saturday Pages I have an eARC that I was approved through NetGalley (thank you Entangled Teen!!) and that made me finally get back to the series and read the middle book that had been in my TBR pile for months!

As an ARC it's counting towards my reviews category for my 105 Challenge!

Collide by Melissa  West

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I got approved for Collide on NetGalley (thank you Entangled Teen!) so it was the push I needed to finally read Hover and I was quite glad to do so because the ending of Hover was a cliffhanger of the evil category!

Collide starts back on Earth, shortly after the ending of Hover, with Ari betrayed, injured and completely confused and out of the loop, worried sick about Jackson. This Ari is back to the act before you think that she was in Hover, but I could understand that given the shock of finding herself in hostile territory instead of returning home as she hoped.

It was clear that there was something going on that no one knew about, some plot that Ari and the rest failed to see because they were so focused on preparing to fight Zeus. It wasn't exactly unexpected for me, but I also failed to understand the motivation behind the conspiration, since it was never really explained better than your typical bid for power and control.

My favourite part of the book has to be Ari & Jackson's relationship, once Ari finally stopped throwing herself at everything and anything head first! Her character growth in this one was very much welcome, because she started realizing her strenghts, starting allowing others to help her and she finally allowed Jackson to support her and herself to be weak at times. They made a simply amazing team!

The final part of the book was a bit crazy with all the betrayals, mental manipulations, deaths and loss. The pacing was insanely fast but I was rather taken aback with one last minute introduction/twist that was resolved too easily so I'm not sure what the point of that was...

We get a very nice epilogue at the end that closes everything rather nicely and allows us to see a hopeful future and gives us closure in a better way than the ending per se did. Once again 3 stars for this final book.





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Mark This Book Monday: Hover by Melissa West!

Hello everyone!

I hope your week is starting right! Mine is starting rather nicely, having Monday off after working the weekend.

For this week's Mark This Book Monday I'm having one of those books that have been in my TBR pile for quite a while and I've finally read and reviewed! As such I'm counting it towards my 105 Challenge in the physical books in my TBR pile category!

Hover by Melissa  West

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


I read Gravity quite a while back, so I was a bit iffy on the details although I remembered the general overview, and anyways the author managed to include a bit of a reminder/recap in the first chapter and done quite well I must say.

This was an interesting sequel and I wouldn't say it suffers from sequel syndrome, the action has moved from Earth to Loge after the events of the first book, so things are rather complicated for Ari. She's not fully human any more, but she's not really welcome between the Ancients, at least not as far as Zeus goes.

I'm not sure if Ari was this out of control and easily baited in the first book, but being groomed as an operative and a commander in the making, she was reckless and too much of the "jump/hit now and think later" variety for me in this book... Her lack of control and rash actions really got in her way many times and made me shake my head every time, she got a lil better by the end of the book, but she one of her biggest faults in this book was not realizing that she cannot choose for others, if they want to fight for what they think it's right and take risks, you cannot tell them not to! You are not the only one that feels like the cause is worth fighting, dammit!

If Ari annoyed me in this book, Jackson on the other hand did have a lot of character growth and development. We get to see more than just the arrogant boy in book 1, we see him as a leader in Loge, as a friend, as someone that will do anything to save his family, who doesn't shy away from responsability and that will remain at Ari's side as a friend and ally. It was very interesting to see both his strong as his broken and vulnerable side.

What I liked was that the way to challenge and strenght the relationship was done in a very realistic way. Ari doesn't know if she can trust Jackson after he lied to her, he feels like he doesn't know him and she feels completely out of her depth. Jackson remains her friends and ally, even when she refuses to see it and keeps pushing him away, but once they start talking to each other and really getting to know each other, with the good and the bad, their relationship becomes my favourite part of the book.

We meet new characters in this book, all Ancients and we learn a few more things about Loge and their need to find another planet to live in. I was hoping we'll get a bit more about Zeus but he seems to be too mentally damaged and gone insane to be able to understand him. He's just evil and creepy and scary and a bit of an overwhelming villain.

I was quite glad that I had the sequel on hand when I reached the ending, because if even I wasn't as involved as I would have liked, the ending is one of those EVIL cliffhangers that leaves you in shock! 3 stars for this one.



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