Mark This Book Monday: Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan!!

Hello guys!!

Sorry for the silence yesterday and the lack of Showcase Sunday post, but I decided to take a day off the blog for my birthday! So far I haven't got many presents, but I've been told to get myself something I want, so now I'm debating to get a regular Kindle or a Paperwhite, so I don't read all the books on the tablet to protect my eyes for the future... any recommendations??

Monday is here once again and with it a new week and a new Mark This Book Monday entry! Today I'm entering my second and last entry for the September is for Sequels challenge, and once again it was not one of the original pile that I challenged myself to read, so I must announce I've failed massively at it! Oh well... I still hope to read those in October before I leave for my vacation!

Unmade by Sarah Rees Brennan

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


If there is something you know before hand when reading a Sarah Rees Brennan book is that it's quite likely to make you cry and destroy your heart bit by bit, and in case you don't, you know now and forewarned is forearmed, even if it really won't help you one bit, trust me.

Just one word of warning before you continue reading this review, since I'm gonna be discussing my feelings about the book I cannot guarantee that it'll be completely spoiler free, so read at your own risk.

Every previous book in the trilogy ended with an awfull cliffhanger and so when I started this one I felt I could pass pages fast enough to see what would became of Jared and like Kami, help hope tight and hoped for the best.

Kami has to be one of my favourite YA heroines, she tries so hard, loves so much, won't take no for an answer and goes on for those she loves no matter what. She's also super witty and hilarious and I have been rooting for her since book one! I love how she's grown little by little through all three books and how she finds herself that being scared and being brave is not incompatible, not only when facing evil sorcerers but also when facing her own feelings.

Kami's family has gained relevance to the main plot exponentially and in this one both her dad, that has her same hilarious sense of humour, but her mum's choices and her brothers are put in the very eye of the storm. I loved how real the strain in her parents relationship felt and how real the patching up of said relationship went.

Then we have Angela and Rusty and Holly... those three were Kami's not related by blood family and helped her and supported her through and through, even if I completely disagree with some of their choices and heroics and it broke my heart and my poor Angela!!

And then there are Jared and Ash... the Lynburn boys, maybe brothers, and their rather complex relationship and even more complex relationship with Kami, as sorcerers and source and linked and not linked and goodness the about of grief these three caused me on this book! I'll only say my ship became canon, I'm very happy and I really cried with the epilogue!

Lillian was quite a surprise in this book, I always felt like she was the lesser of two evils but in this book we see her progressing from that to something and someone more akin to good, and not just the "anything is better than Rob" option. I loved her choosing her side, learning to show some love to both boys and her facing Rob was quite epic!

Rob is clearly a mad evil force in this one, but one that is even more evil and mad than I or the characters even expected. I really hate his declarations of supreme love to Lillian and dismissing her feelings as if they didn't count... but glad that his superiority and arrogance, and the sacrifices of many, were what led to his doom.

I enjoyed the book and felt the pacing was quite good, fighting for their lives, plotting to try to stay alive, protect each other and free the town from the evil sorcerers but since we could be dead tomorrow, there are also loads of very emotionally charged scenes. Chapter 19 and the Epilogue really made me sob for very different reasons and I'm quite in love with the way the series has finished, even if I'm not happy about the deaths. Very well deserved 4 stars for this one!



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Friday Reads: Mini Reviews: Fracture Me by Tahereh Mafi and The Last Stand of the New York Institute by Cassandra Clare!

Hello there! For this week's Friday Reads I'm gonna have another two mini reviews! Novellas are so much fun to read, and sometimes they can change your whole vision of a series!


Fracture Me by Tahereh Mafi

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


As usual, Tahereh Mafi shows us how amazing her writing is. This novella is Adam's POV of the ending of Unravel Me and it's a complete change of style from the rest of the series, Adam's voice so different from Juliette's!

The power of different POV's and how they come across from other character's POV's is very well shown here. We met Adam in Shatter Me and he ended up being Juliette's ally & friend and way more than that. And I was Team Adam if I had to choose from that triangle (which curiously enough is one of those triangles that are relevant and not so annoying). But then came Destroy Me, and I started to warm up to Warner much to my surprise, and then Unravel Me with its many twists and revelations and I find myself a bit more on Team Warner. I was hoping to see if Fracture Me would do for Adam the same thing that Destroy Me did for Warner, and maybe it did, but for me the reaction was quite the opposite.

Adam annoyed from the first page itself with his treatment of James, his kid brother. Yes, there's a lot of tension and stress but you don't treat your only family like that! And even though he redeems himself a bit on that front, it's clear through the pages of this novella that he just doesn't understand Juliette and despite his hoping for a HEA, he's be beyond frustrated with Juliette and her issues. He clearly can't begin to understand what Juliette issues really are, and with his protectiveness there's no way he'd help Juliette control and develop her powers.

This novella has done a wonderful job at bringing us into Adam's head, it might not have been what I would have hoped for, but you can't say that Mafi didn't do a fantastic job of giving him his own voice.

Well deserved 4 stars for this novella, and now I can't wait for Ignite Me even more than before!



The Last Stand of the New York Institute by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


I think the closer we get to the events of TMI the more I like these novellas, and this one I will have an even bigger amount of love because we get to spend some more time with Tessa, and I really love Tessa Gray!

We get to see the start of the Circle and Magnus facing some of Valentine's allies and Valentine himself. We also are introduced to the doubts in Lucian and how the seed of his doubt in Valentine's great purpose might have been planted. We meet quite a few Shadowhunters that we will hear about later on. And we also get to meet Clary and her mum, and not only that we discover the origin of the last name that Jocelyn and Clary are using when they live as mundanes.

Magnus has some really conflicting feeling about this new generation of Shadowhunters and even more for some of the families that he once knew, but despite everything he seems to be quite prone to niceness the older he gets and less likely to hold a grudge. I guess when you live centuries it might seem quite pointless.

A very short but entertaining read, quite enlightening adding some more perspective to the Circle and the Uprising. A 4 star read.



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Mark This Book Monday: Mini Reviews for Bitter Sweet Love and What to Buy The Shadowhunter Who Has Everything!

Hey guys! I'm starting the week with another edition of Mark This Book Monday's mini reviews for a pair of novellas.


What to Buy the Shadowhunter Who Has Everything by Cassandra Clare

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


This installment in the Bane Chronicles has to be my favourite so far. Not only it is contemporary with TMI, but also gives us a glimpse of what's happening outside of Clary & Jace's perspective. Not only that, it also gets into the more personal side of Magnus, the one that show us his human part more than his flamboyant warlock side.

Magnus is hired to summon a demon on Alec's birthday, and while he waits for the client to return, he analizes his relationship with Alec, relives a few memories, makes a pair of calls for help and manages to find the perfect gift for Alec.

Getting to see their relationship from a first person POV made me care even more for these two's relationship, and I'm so hoping they'll survive the last TMI book! To use the proper phrase for this... I so ship these two!



Bitter Sweet Love by Jennifer L. Armentrout

My rating: 4 of 5 stars


Bitter Sweet Love is our introduction to the new series by Jennifer L Armentrout about gargoyles, which made me quite excited since the books about gargoyles aren't really all that common!

This novella is our first introduction to the world of the Wardens, gargoyles that have a very patriarchal structure (that bothered me a bit) and their purpose is to fight demons to keep humanity safe.

All of that we find out through the story of Jasmine and Dez, two childhood inseparable friends that were going to be "mated" (get officially together according to Wardens' law) before Dez suddenly left and stayed away for 3 years. Then he returns and tries to win Jasmine back. We also get a peek at the main characters for White Hot Kiss, the first book proper on The Dark Elements series. I'm also hoping we'll get to see Jasmine and Dez again as the series progresses.

Bitter Sweet Love was a very much entertaining and sexy read, with the trademark swoons and humour I've come to expect from JLA, so I think this new series will be another I'll be following. A 3.5 to 4 stars read.



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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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Mark This Book Monday: Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan!

Mark This Book Monday returns once again with the new week and the first entry is an awaited sequel that is included in my goal for the September is for Sequels challenge!

Untold by Sarah Rees Brennan

My rating: 3 of 5 stars


Untold was the very awaited sequel after the quite heartbreaking cliffhanger and ending of Unspoken. As usual with sequels I will try my best to avoid spoilers for this book but I can't really discuss the events in this book without spoiling the twists in the first.

Untold starts mostly where Unspoken left us, with Sorry-in-the-Vale shaken after the confrontation between the different Lynburn factions and with the fact that sorcerers are behind the history of the town and that any of your neighbours could be one...

Kami and Jared are both heartbroken, their link broken and a lot of angst and confusion. Kami continues to be strong and decisive to fight for what is right, despite her lack of magical powers and despite all the crap that our dear Sarah Rees Brennan keeps on throwing at her.

Kami and Jared relationship is even more complicated in this book, and there's such a lack of proper communication and Jared is so infuriating at times, even if it's sort of justifiable by how completely despondant her feels... There's quite a bit of emotional turmoil, a few occasions that could hint to love triangles that never really happen but despite it all, Kami continues to be strong and trudge on towards the goal of defending the town from Rob, even if Lillian doesn't think she's worth her breath (snooty sorcerers!).

Kami is my favourite part of the whole series, she's so strong, quirky and adorable! She keeps on trying to be her own person while still trying to figure out Jared and what they do/might have and never losing sight of what she must do to protect her family and the little town she lives in from subjugation and murder. Then I love the relationship she has with Angela and Rusty and I love how both of them finally show that they do care more outwardly in this book and how when it counts, Kami has her friends around her.

As the book progresses and some things get fixed and we get quite some swooning moments, you keep on feeling that disaster is looming and keep on wondering when it will befall and how bad will it be, but that's just Sarah Rees Brennan for you! Prepare for heartbreak cause it will surely come. I found both Kami and Jared's choices extremely irritating but they were quite in character and now we're left with another horrible & heartbreaking cliffhanger till the next book, Unbroken, comes out. And we're also left wondering... what new way of ripping our heart out and stomping on it will Sarah Rees Brennan develop for it?

A very entertaining read, well deserving of 3 and a half stars.



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