The Last Little Blue Envelope (Little Blue Envelope #2):

" But it's not illegal to have a really clean Dumpster,
and if you want to fill it with water,
and if you want to get in it...
well, that's your prerogative."
-Maureen Johnson, Last Little Blue Envelope.
*Ginny thinks in regards to the time her Aunt Peg
took her to a pool in the middle of summer, in N.Y.

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.
The first in statement of this book left me spinning, floating on a brilliant-book high, so needless to say my hopes were lying with the man on the moon. I fell, and I fell hard. The book, still good, did no do justice to its brilliant-sequel high that I had been expecting.
Firstly I'd like to say that the book was by far not the worst book I've ever read, it really wasn't even bad. Two things contributed to my hype 1. the long two-week stint I had wait in order to receive the book, 2. the brilliance of the previous book. I do however, amend Maureen Johnson for - in my opinion - almost  nailing the third-person view, even if it were a barely scrap it's more than I have found to accomplish. Most of the times books written in the third-person are written in such a way because the author wants to focus less on the inner-workings of their main character and more so on the detailed whirlwind that is happening around them/it. Johnson has managed to nudge the two separate unyielding traits together slightly and for that, a star is in order.
The boyfriend cheats - excuse me 'technically cheats - on the girl, the girl is black mailed, and the new-found genuinely likable decides to make this black-mail into a road trip in the tiny car Ginny once found so blissfully comfortable. But that was back when things were not complicated, when Ginny was just a girl who road in the front seat of an incredibly tiny clown clown. But that was back when Ginny was just falling for a boy, when the boy kissed her in a graveyard, when her backpack was stolen and re-sold out of the truck of a car. This was now, and now was far less unpleasant as far as Ginny Blackthorn was concerned.
Ginny Blackthorn has applied to colleges, or she would have could she have answered that blasted question already. The question she has probably read more than her very own name and now looks at it with such a dreading distain that the question, for all she knew, could have morphed into Latin. Because how does one answer a question when the answer, the perfect answer was stolen away somewhere on the white sands of Greece. But fate is obviously on her side because just as Ginny gives up on her essay question when a dig announces a new E-mail. In it a man claims to have the last letter of Ginny's thirteen. A half scanned copy of the letter is all she needs to set her packing again.
With no rules to guide her, with the final answer just in the grasps of her finger-tips, Ginny once again boards a plane to London. Her journey weaves its way through the massive confusion of Paris, the animosity of a lovers-quarrel,  to Amsterdam where windows are open for display but forbidden to look into, and finally to the rolling green fields of Ireland where a tombstone is visited, a car is laid to rest, and a kiss-with the very person Ginny never thought she'd kiss takes place. A kiss that was sweetly passionate enough to dull out the twelve ringing bells of Dublin's New Year Eve's celebration.
Through her adventures Ginny realizes that the artist in her was far more vivid than she'd imagined, that a girls first love always isn't her last, and the second, well a girl's second love is far the more grander anyhow. 

Bad Girls Don't Die:

My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.
A horror house straight out of the movies, with mix-matched architectural eras folding in on themselves, floorboards that creak, a foyer with a grand arched dome, and a creepy basement that is the silent family rule to avoid at all cost. But what happens when the younger of two sister, three years of age separating the two, begins hiding away in the basement, playing with a ratty doll whose startling green eyes unleash a thriller that is a master of it's on genre of  repressed hate.
When things start happening around the house,  terrifying things that should not be acknowledged, that should not  be spoken of escalate to the point of no return Kasey's older sister, high school misfit photographer has no choice but to step in. Because what does one do when there sister is possessed and hell bent on kill a dozen or so people. Why, you in list the help of a cheerleader of course. In Alexis's case this option is not an option, not if she can help it.
Alexis, a Junior independent misfit with bright short pink hair and a secret longing to be a part of the 'in' crowd is determined to get to the button of her sisters random mood swings, while also juggling her wild attraction to the Preppy class president. But when everything starts to fall in place and when the idea that maybe, just maybe perhaps her little sister is possessed and did in fact break another girl's arm as archenemies Pepper and cut the break lines to her mother's car than, only than does she resolve to groveling to Megan for help. Because after Alexis's remark made in front of the entire student body, Megan is going to be as easy as getting KGB agent to commit treason.
The story was neither original, nor was is anything extremely spectacular. Did I tingle at places, rush through pages, bite my nails? Yeah, sure. But if your going to write a story like this it needs to bite, and it needs to bite for blood. I found that the story, was drug out a little, and maybe even slightly petty when it came to Alexis's high school life. I didn't like how the story had multiple writing styles, one lyrical, the other adolescence; in a sense. In my own opinion I would have liked to see the writing a little more mature. I felt like the author did not use the possession advantage to her advantage. By the end of the novel, I reeling, asking myself 'Is that it?' I wanted more detail on the possession, but then again I rationalized it was first person point-of-view Alexis was the possessed.
I liked the plot, even used as it was, the author made it her own which earned her the half star, it held my attention and at places made me sweat. Altogether, it was a good fast ride, one I probably wouldn't read again but one that was just enough of a good thing to make it enjoyable.

Day 02 – A Book That You’ve Read More Than 3 Times:

Three time read: extremely difficult.

Surprisingly I have not read a book more than three times, my mother has: Charlotte's Web and Jonathan Seagull, wondrous read the pair. However, as she told me when I asked her about it on our morning walk with my freight-train of a Golden Retriever, that there was one book I loved.

"Oh, brother.
She was alway's trying to make friends with animals.
But this was going too far." - Mary Pops Osborne,
Jack says of Annie,
when she holds her hand out to the Pteranodon.

PteranodonAnd that my darlings was Dinosaurs after Dark. 
Because at the time when I read these - first grade - I lived in my childhood home still, this homes was glorious for two sole reasons 1. I lived exactly fifty large steps away from my Grandparent and 2. we'll get to late. The house was not large, or even an overly medium home, with one story, one bath and three tiny bedrooms; I never realized how small everything was until I went back yours later and investigated.
Regardless of this the backyard was child huge. 
The sort of huge that makes you believe you live on a farm in the middle of no where when actually you live the residential suburbs five minutes away from four separate parks, ten minutes by car to the beach and fall asleep to the sound of cars. 
To make things all the thing that much more glamours, we had a treehouse!! A treehouse that seemed to me was barely just by a hair smaller than our entire house. This  tree held a two story- hand built by my father and brother - treehouse with a hidden underneath flip up door, just like in this book. My father, and my uncle's are carpenters, their uncle's were carpenters. We come from a long line of carpenters, and I have to give credit where credit is due, unbiasedly and truthfully my father has a gift from God in his hands. His architectural drawers are a work that could reveal master craftsmen, he built, hand sanded, stained, shellacked, and put together a dark wood swing for me within a matter of three days.
"Help a monster!"- Mary Pope Osborne, Character Annie to Jack.
Jack has no other option but to chase after his seven-year-old sister, into the woods and away from reality and into the imaginary world Annie loves to create. Then Jack stumbles across a treehouse and suddenly the trip is not so bad. So naturally Jack starts to climb the rope ladder that leads to the door and Annie protests with the argument that the rope is not safe. Soon enough, though Jake reaches the top and as he peeks his head through the hole he sees it. Books. Tons of tons of various books; ranging on various subjects, and displaying their age proudly across their spines.
And of course the sister has to remind her brother of her presence, soon Annie has come along, up the ladder and into the treehouse carrying a scruffy dog named Henry in her arms. When Annie, ever the helpful optimist, picks up a book on dinosaurs a real one appears. The wind ruffles hairs as loud as thunder, and then even more deliciously horrifyingly obtuse the treehouse itself starts to move, than spin like a rapid twirling spintop. Still, the world is still when the tree house finally decides to stop spinning the only thing Jack thinks to say when he finds himself in prehistoric times is "None of this can be real." Annie, always the helpful optimist says "He's very real." pointing her child small fingers towards the Pteranodon. 
Armed with the book that could have brought them there a notebook and pencil to track the information they gather Jack and Annie set out to discover prehistoric times. However, not all of the creates who inhabit the Cretaceous period are friendly. While searching prehistoric wilderness Jack finds something startling: a golden medallion which means only one thing. Someone has come here before them.
Of course when you go to the Prehistoric period - willing participant or not - you run the risk of well, you know getting eaten by a dinosaur. And that is just what almost happens when Jack spots a Trannysaurus rex heading straight for them. There was nothing left they could do in prehistoric times, not with a Trannysaurus rex on their tail so they did the only thing they could: they ran. Back to the tree house that had brought them here, back to the future, to their green porch, to Henry the scruffy neighbors dog, if only they can make it. 
Hiding behind a tree, desperate to get home, to pretend again is just when the Trannysaurus rex find the siblings and just as, with their hearts to their throats, the pair of them thought they were done for, Annie's friend swoops in to save the day. The Pteranodon delivers Jack and Annie safely back to the magic tree house where it spins, stills and brings them back to rural Pennsylvania. Walking back to their white wooden house and green front porch they made a pact, a pact that included two things: 1. they would tell no one of what happened, 2. they would go back into the woods tomorrow, up the ladder and into the magical tree house littered with old magical books.
Day 01 – The best book you read last year
Day 03 – Your favorite series

Bad Girls Don't Die: Review Teaser!

“That's the pathetic thing about high school. Everyone tries so hard to be something they aren't. It's gotten so I don't know who I am, so how can I even try to be who I am, much less who I'm not? 
My problem is that I don't even fit in with the misfits. 
I don't fit anywhere.” 
― Katie Alender, Bad Girls Don't Die.

Day I - The Best Book You Read Last Year.

Th very best of the best: hard.

I read a lot of really, truly good books last year like The Grimm Legacy, Crank,and I finally finished The Kiss which was by for one of the absolute best books I've ever read. I began the Riders of the Apocalypse series, which was just the way I wanted it to: frankly intriguing, either you take the scales or you die, either you control the sword or you die.

The best book I read last year was a memoir titled, The Kiss by Kathryn Harrison.

Never in my life have I fully and completely been stunned into hours long silence, horrified, and riddled so badly with aghast-y knowledge of betrayal and a father's seduction of his un-known teenage daughter, that each chapter of this book felt like bullet holes shot through me. A possessive pastor, regarding his daughter as the ever young and youthful incarnate of his ex-wife whose family snubbed his shabby lower-class upbringing screamed in my veins for this story to be falsified. 

But why?

Why write, such a symphonic lyrical verse of a eloquent novel and have it be stamped Dramatic Adult Fiction. It's not possible, the facts, the details, the letters, the background information, the lusty encounters, the incriminations of each hug and phone call could not be made up. A father completely and utterly destroyed his daughter.

I don't think anyone makes up stories like that. Those stories, the real heart-breaking stories that are put out into the world and make people gasp in appallment, those stories haunt a reader. They are not false, they are memories, a woman or man's livelihood placed on a porcelain pedestal and displayed for the entire world to see. 

Those stories stick; Forever.

Day 02 – A book that you’ve read more than 3 times

Once A Witch (Witch #1)

My rating: 4 out of 5 stars.

Tasmin Greene was born to the dawn of the night of Samhain and the first words spoke were prophesying her to be the most talented Greene to live. Is it true?

Tasmin Greene is your average teenager with a dysfunctional family who regards her as the black sheep. Only her family is the herd of black sheep wandering around a neighboring village near New York City. Tasmin's mother has speed that could reveal a leopards, he father creates thunder at his whim, her tidy, always kept soon to be head of the family sister has the ability to bend another person to her will just by the sound of her voice.

What does Tasmin have?

Nothing. She is the only Greene in a large over-extended family of witches ever to not have a talent and so naturally Tasmin leaves her home. Where her grandmother, and mother sell love and sleeping potion to the villagers at midnight whom otherwise in the daylight ignore their presence altogether.

Over summer vacation away from her New York Prep School, Tasmin is forced to be at home again with her sister, her cousins who use to play tricks with her and now play magical tricks on her, her sisters thin faced- handsomely talented Beau, and the ever-present reminder that she is not in any way shape of form Rowena. So when a mysterious man seeking Rowena Greene enters Tasmin's grandmother's bookshop, Tasmin is taken off guard because there is something she cannot place about him. The man asks Tasmin to retrieve a long-lost clock thinking her Rowena, because naturally this is was Tasmin claimed to be. This clock is a clock Tasmin Greene, should never have found.

Old friends, dark secrets, hidden lies laying open in plain sight, a kidnapping, a love romance, and that mysterious man, all jumble together and form a delicious read that was enticing as it was envious; envious of Tasmin's Talent of course!

Now I do love anything with a witch in it, only this story she begins as the family outcast. It was terribly sad, how she threw herself into that ghastly situation with the clock just to prove her self-worth to her family. I really enjoyed this book though, not as romance as I had originally expected and would have liked but perhaps the next installment will dig deeper into their love affair...Anyhow the overall book held my interest and even kept me on my seat seeing as how I finished it in two days I would say it was a success. The ending shocked me and left me wanting to read the next book right away.

Cut

"What happened next was...perfect,
straight line of blood bloomed
from under the blade...
Satisfied, finally. Then exhausted."
Patricia McCormick, Cut.

My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.
I wanted to like this book. I felt it my duty to intensely fall head-over-heads in love with this book. When I first found it on goodreads I thought, this is a book I will buy and read, and re-read, and re-read until the pages are warped with waterlogged wrinkles, until the words are unlined in black ink, until I know everything about this book, it will be ruined by the time I am satisfied with placing it carefully on the holy-grail of book columns/sections in my room. This didn't happen and to say I was disappointed would be sugar-coating the truth so astronomically that it is a bland lie.

When Callie goes to the school nurse one day, her entire world shifts abruptly, so swift that she lapses into silence. Callie likes to cut, to take a blade, run it along her arms, wrists, forearm, etc. and press down just hard enough to see the blood, to leave the scar, to feel the silent scream burst. But when the nurse sees the scars, when Callie does nothing to stop her, she is sent away, away to a Rehabilitation center to work through her 'problem'. Only she doesn't speak, not once since the day. Her craving for attention grows tiresome trough the book, and her silence wanes.

The writing style itself did not draw me in, I related to Callie just fine, but I was an outsider looking through the window pane as black and white silent move uncurled around itself. When things get too difficult, too hard to handle she flees, drama and tears, blood and a relapse later Callie finally speaks. The writing style I felt also should have been more frank, if you are going to write on a subject like this do so without mercy, without shame, lay out the truth on coals and tell people. This is real, this is what happens, this is what it feels like.

This is a cutter.

The attention to detail paid by the author was thorough enough but not warranted five stars, the supporting characters could have been more built up and even Callie herself wasn't as solid as I like my main characters to be. McCormick centered the entire focus on Callie's 'problem' and how it started, progressed, climaxed into an uncontrollable addiction and finally ended.

Meridian (Fenestra, #1)

My rating: 3 out of 5 stars.

when I first picked up Meridian I avoided it, in fact I returned it twice before I actually took a second look at the thing. I am no fan of death, its cruel, neccessary I suppose but cruel for the loved ones left behind. It causes pain, and destruction of innocents, so however neccessary death may be in the grand design I have trouble accepting it.

Meridian was at some places was rather dull, it starts out with a normal teenager attending a private school only when a bus full of he fellow peers smacks into a speeding car right in front of meridian she callasposes in sheer agony. She is dropped off by her dad and given to a cab driver who drops her off at a bus stop, she is told to get off at revelation colorado and wait for a green land rover unfortunately the car is not there and does not so up. Meridian is forced to trek during a blizzard to make it to her aunties house were she meets the closed off Tens who seems to know her enough to make him hate her.
As meridian finds out she is an angel for lack of better words she has to learn how to shuttle souls into their own heaven.

Hearts at Stake (Drake Chronicles #1)

My rating: 3 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Sixteen pages in and I am utterly delighted by every single one of em'.
Hehe, Solange is brilliant, witty, and stunning all at the same time. Lucy is determined, stubborn and the complete yin to Solange's yang. They're perfect just bloody perfect. I am seeing a true love quartet blooming in the making and that is not something you see everyday kitties. This story has me giddy to get back to Lucy and into the mud.
I found Solange tiresome at points and Lucy in contrast just enthralling, but then I absolutely love a vampire/human love affair. I loved that Nicholas was the evil brother turned sultrily sexy. They are a complete match for each other, Nicholas and Lucy, I can't wait to read the next installment. It got annoying a little the switching of point of view from Solange and Lucy, I would have loved to see it just from Lucy's point of view, but then again it would have struck to close to Twilight's radius wouldn't it have. I am hoping that Lucy eventually takes the plunge into vampirism because as it is I am also a sucker for a human-turned vampire/vampire love affair as well.

Solange the first woman born vampire in the Drake line and in vampire history, is tired of being treated as a piece of porcelain, her only outside worldly human contact being her quirky vampire loving' sidekick-ish best friend Lucy whose got the mouth of a redneck and a stubborn streak that could reveal my father. Lucy falls for Nicholas, Solange one of many older brothers, and just as things between them heat up, the house heats up. Quite literally. Solange, being the very single woman born-vampire is wanted by just about every clan of vampires and has to be protected at all times, but what happens when she isn't? What happens, when an assassin for an elite vampire killing squad comes inches away from staking Lucy? And what is Nicholas going to say!

When Solange and this agent, hellbent on revenge for his father's death, Kieran Black get stuck in the woods together, hidden away in cave they start to realize that maybe they aren't in fact all that different. Solange and Kieran start falling for each other and by the time the moon rises and they set out in the woods again they have fallen back in love.

The Vespertine (The Vespertine, #1)

My rating: 5 out of 5 stars.

was that a beginning or what!

My goodness gracious it was altogether darkly delicious and down right seductive. I hardly ever use such words when describing books but this one just turned me inside out, jumbled me with giddiness to get further into the story and I am just 3 pages in! The only downfall is I am a sucker for a good happy ending because all stories must end lovely for the good guys right? I sure hope so because I am treading carefully onto thin sheets of ice having already glimpsed what is likely to be the ending.

perhaps it is because I have been reading non stop these last few days but the Vespertine has this swift, alert, wretchedly heartbroken, and underlying desperation that nags and chips away at the reader. I feel I must confuse that the Vespertine is simply one of those books that claws-rather painfully I suppose- at you until you succumb to it's bidding.

Amelia van den Broek is not by any standards a city girl. Not a single drop of the Victorian era lines in her, but her brother is determined to nip that in the bud and so in an effort to marry his little sister off to a nice, wealthy suitor he sends Amelia to her cousin Zora's Baltimore, Maryland lavish town house where tea is served on lace dollies with women wrapped tightly in fine silks, and dinner parties are hosted with a strict amount of fourteen guests.

When Amelia meets the fourteenth guest at her very first dinner party she flirts away her wits, unable to help herself when she felts the electricity fly between the two of them, ignoring Zora's placid reminders that Nathaniel is an artist and therefore a penniless, ineligible bachelor. But what society does not know is that Nathaniel harbors a darkly seductive talent, a talent to jump through air, to in a drug store one moment and at Zora's residence in the next. Amelia is harboring a great secret as well, through the correct picking of calling cards, the lavish innovations to balls, the yards of lace, linens, silk, and sateens to be mended into the very height of London fashion, Amelia disregards her cousins warnings, her own guards against giving into the rapid attraction to Nathaniel and falls in love with him.

Just in the midst of all of this Mitchell weaves another story, Zora and Thomas Rea, the handsomely blond and suitable in all the Victorian courting ways. Soon the two will be married, Amelia has seen it! Yes thats right, Amelia holds the power to see the future and with it comes the fame of her cousins society.

It was while a brisk walk in the park with the men and their cigars and a bow an arrow lesson for the women that it happened. A horrid vision of blood and feathers came true, days before Amelia had and relayed a vision of Zora's cousin and an accident with the bow she was to have and now here it was happening. The bow drew and quivered like a re-viewing of a bad Opera and then the arrow exploded, only there was no blood. Amelia convinced herself this was the vision she had seen and she had been there to stop it, her popularity soared.

weeks later a card was delivered, weeps and whispers would be had, two cousins would be caught ease-dropping at the top of the old stairs and be told the news. Zora's cousin had a terrible bow an arrow accident, her face was terribly scarred. Everybody would not speak, but it was clear, they would blame Amelia. For as it was, she was the outsider from the country who saw terrible, horrible visions of blood and feathers. It wasn't until the second tragedy stroke did it shake the city of Baltimore to it's core. The once stunning cousin of Zora committed suicide and the blame was falling onto Thomas, a gun rung out, a tear slide down a cheek, a name was called out and a young lady was purchased a ticket. She was told to leave and escorted to a boat. Nathaniel was never told...perhaps?

Never have I enjoyed a novel more than I enjoyed this, never has a novel been so stunning. Every word dragged you further into Amelia's turmoil, every tear made your heart ache, the bittersweet ending reminded me of the poetry of Anne Bronte and my heart seized at the recollection. I found that I checked the book out again, sat down and in one day read the book for the second time. The portrayal of London society is one to me reviled with and has been drawn upon for inspiration.

Abandon (Abandon Trilogy #1)

My rating: 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.

Pierce Oliviera died.

She fell in a pool chasing after a helpless animal and drowned. Her father, dutifully as ever, typing, texting, e-mailing, and yelling away in a conference call never noticed a thing. Never fear though! The helpless animal was saved, a life was spared and all is well. And so it appeared, as Pierce went onto the gateway to the afterlife, where the dearly departed loved ones are looked up, directed to different lines, and shuttled onto giant ferryboats. Yes, the underworld is modern! How wickedly wondrous of Meg to include ones I-Pad - after all it really is part of the family, or should be what with the price you shell out for one those ghastly things. Any-who, Pierce always the curious, do good-er blue jay saver, never the jealous home wrecker, disobeys a direct order! Gasp! The results, well disastrous of course.

pierce finds her way out of her line and makes he way to the only familiar face she sees, of course Pierce has yet to realize she is in fact dead and so taps the Ruler of the Underworld on the shoulder then proceeds to buries him on his workmanship, and ask him is the nasty bruise on his face is alright. So what does the man do, well he kidnaps her - and who says history never repeats itself - takes her to his white linen and stone castle where he gives her a stone that is mystically cursed and so naturally changes color when evil is around and is about the size of a same peach. Naturally! Meg you Devil. John basically proposes marriage to the former Prep School daughter of a Wall Street Broker and Pierce cannot possibly deal with both dying and holy matrimony in the same day, so Pierce does the only logical thing she can think of.

She throws hot tea in his face and runs away.

When Pierce wakes in a hospital bed she decides that the 'experience' was an allusion created by the stress of, well you know...dying and so she goes on about her life. That is until her mother comes in her room and presents the mysterious stone, this stone as it turns out proves everything that Pierce had, had confirm by the best doctors the Untied States had to offer was an allusion was actually true. Worse still, Pierce is no longer the same, Ivy-Leaguer debate team captain girl she use to be, her straight A's drop, an incident with a child molesting teacher at her prestigious New York Prep school sends her mother and her back to Huesos, Florida and into the D-Wing where all the screw-ups go to get 'back on track'. Or so says the consulars.

But how does one get over dying and running away from Hades incarnate. Especially seeing as how he keeps showing up everywhere, to his defense, no one sane goes to a cemetery after hours to visit no one during a hurricane warning, then again no one really ever goes to the cemetery at all. After a large catastrophic fight with John that results in the destruction of rather large wrought iron gate, Pierce is left oddly stricken when he tosses her stone across the cemetery grounds and pronounces it 'lost forever'. Then the cemetery curator has it in hands the next ay at school and after a meeting with him answers to long un-answered questions come to light. Pierce is finally ahead of the game, until her consular is murdered by Furies and her ex-con of an Uncle is blamed, her grandmother turns out to be the murderer of Pierce and Jane and oh yeah. The most disturbing: Pierce is kidnapped again, by John.