Friday Reads: Mini Reviews of Night of Cake And Puppets and Brooke!

Hello everyone!
For this week's edition of Friday Reads I'm happy to say that I have successfully completed my challenge of November is for Novellas that Lisa Loves Literature set up!

I have read all the novellas I had planned to and one extra!

Brooke by Veronica Rossi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Sometimes novellas are more fun than anything else, and sometimes they add to the story and manage to make you appreciate a character that you weren't so keen on before.

Brooke, the novella, manages the later for me, and I was trying to find time at work this last night to finish it! We get to know her a little bit better, with a few flashbacks and also quite a bit of introspection and we get to understand her motivations better. Her POV is not as harsh or confrontational as she comes along when it's from Aria's, and we also get to see how kick arse she is. I'm all for kick arse main ladies, and the more the merrier! Brooke can hold her own with any of the guys from the Six.

She seems to be trying to sort out herself and her feelings for Perry and also, there's a threat to the Tides' new compound in the cave. Loads of action with some romance and a bit of flirting here and there rounds up this novella pretty well. A very nice addition to the TTEN world, and having the first three chapters of Into The Still Blue doesn't hurt either!

Well deserved 3.5 to 4 stars!




Night of Cake & Puppets by Laini Taylor

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


Night of Cake & Puppets was my introduction to the world of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke & Bones series, and it showed me that I have really been missing out! I was so tempted to just start the first book right after reading this one, but I've decided that I'll wait till the final book is out so I can binge read the whole series!

This is the story of Zuzana, the "rabid fairy", and Mik her "violin boy" and how their first night and first date played out. I went into this story knowing nothing about the world or the characters and I was enthralled, enchanted and in love by the first few pages! The writing is just fabulous, so evocative and so strong! Full of magic & quite creepy, fantastic really. And the characters have such fantastic and unique voices, I fell in love with them instantly.

If you, like me, hadn't read anything by Laini Taylor before do start with this one! Even if it's gonna be probably a bigger treat for those fans of the books, it was a perfect stand alone introduction to the world and an absolute treat to read!

Very well deserved 5 stars!



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Mark This Book Monday: Mini Reviews of No Place Like Oz and The Fall of the Hotel Dumort!

Hello everyone! This week's first Mark This Book Monday are No Place Like Oz by Danielle Paige & The Fall of the Hotel Dumort by Cassandra Clare and Maureen Johnson and are part of my November is for Novellas challenge!

These ones are my third & fourth novella read, so I only have one more to go to complete my challenge!


No Place Like Oz by Danielle  Paige

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


When I first heard about Dorothy Must Die I was quite excited, since I love alternative stories and I'm a huge fan of Wicked, so I thought that an alternative story where Dorothy returns to Oz and ends up being evil would be great, so I decided to dip my toe in the waters and read this novella first. At 196 pages is more than just a short story and it's the how our dear sweet Dorothy goes from wholesome to evil.

No Place Like Oz starts with Dorothy back in Kansas and not so happy to be back as she thought she'd be. She enjoyed the attention she got when she returned and now she finds settling back to her quite ordinary life in the Kansas' farm is near impossible. Everyone thinks all her stories are lies and she feels very much apart. But then on her 16th birthday she is taken back to Oz, with her aunt and uncle in tow this time!

The progression of the story was interesting but somehow the change was a little too subtle at first and then too clear. We meet with other well known characters and we're not entirely sure who the bad guys are or why a choice is better than others. I found some of the suggestions of what Oz does to those who come from outside quite intriguing and I'm still curious enough to read Dorothy Must Die, but I wasn't swept up by the story. I think it managed to show us how Dorothy might have turned bad, but I'm afraid it was done a bit too much in the fairy tale way and not with too much depth. Hopefully the Dorothy in the book will be a bit of a more formidable villain with depth!

An interesting enough read, but not gripping or mind blowing so it gets 3 stars.


The Fall of the Hotel Dumort by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


The Fall of the Hotel Dumort is the next instance in the Bane Chronicles, and this one takes us even closer to the present date, since it takes place in the 70's.

Magnus returns to the US after a pair of years away and finds New York changed, with the vampires acting very violent & randomly. The Downworlders are worried about a possible intervention of the Shadowhunters that wouldn't be just against the vampires, but would put the Accords in danger.

This episode does help us understand a bit better the relationship between Camille and Magnus in TMI, and they each react to meeting again. It also gives us the reason as to why the hotel it's called Dumort now. Seems that the closer to present time we get, the better the stories that Magnus is involved in are weaved in the known human history.

An entertaining read that deserves 3.5 stars.



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Mark This Book Monday: Mini reviews for Saving Raphael Santiago and The Moth In The Mirror!

Hello everyone! This edition of Mark This Book Monday is a bit late, but my schedule and life is still adjusting after vacation and even more since I've barely had a day off since I came back!

Today's reviews are for two novellas I've read to try and make sure that at least one of my challenges for the month will be a success!

Two down, three to go!


Saving Raphael Santiago by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


The Bane Chronicles are always a fun read and a quick one, but some are more memorable than others.

This one it's one of the more memorable ones, it might be cause we encounter another character that we know from the Mortal Instruments series, and that I always found quite intriguing, or it might also be cause we see the kinder side of Magnus. Here he's his usual charming and outrageous self, but we see the side of him that doesn't mind getting in trouble to help others.

We get the backstory or even more aptly name, the beginning of the story of Raphael Santiago, the same Raphael we met on TMI and we do learn about how he was turned and we get a bit of a look at what makes him tick and we see how he started the road to being where he is when we met him on TMI.

All in all a very good read, probably one of my faves of the series, with a very good balance between humour, seriousness and background info! Well deserved 4 stars.



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The Moth in the Mirror by A.G. Howard

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This novella was quite awaited since it features both Jeb and Morpheus and is a different POV for some of the scenes from Splintered. Also it'll help us with the wait till Unhinged!

The Moth in the Mirror has both Morpheus and Jeb's POV. Though all the scenes from Splintered are from Jeb's POV we also get a bit of a look into Morpheus' head, which is quite interesting! We get a bit more info on what was going on that we didn't know before and we understand a bit better Morpheus' motivations.

It also managed to make me even more excited for Unhinged that I already was so big kudos to Anita Howard for that! A very well deserved 4 stars to this one!



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November is for Novellas challenge!!

I know, I know... some of you might be wondering, but haven't you already signed up for another challenge for November already and you are not doing too well with it? Well yes, my NetGalley November challenge is not moving on as fast as I might have wanted since I've only read and reviewed 3 books so far, and I was hoping to read between 11-15... but at least my rate has already improved!

But this other challenge is going to help me with my motivation for that one too. Because November is for Novellas is a challenge to go ahead and read all of those novellas that are part of series we love, that are short, that give us some fun and interesting bits that add to the series! This challenge was created by Lisa from Lisa Loves Literature so she could read something while focusing more on writing for NaNoWriMo.

My goal is to read at least 5 novellas:

1. The Moth in the Mirror by A.G. Howard.
2. There's No Place Like Oz by  Danielle Page
3. Brooke by Veronica Rossi
4. Saving Raphael Santiago by Cassandra Clare & Sarah Rees Brenan
5. The Fall of  the Hotel Dumort by Cassandra Clare & Maureen Johnson

Let's see how well I do! I'll probably do mini reviews for these, so it'll be quick reads and quick reviews!

Wish me luck!