Top Ten Tuesday: Sequels I can't wait to get my hands on

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme held by The Broke and the Bookish

This weeks topic is:

Top Ten Sequels I Can't Wait to Get My Hands On!

I feel like there's more than 10, since I have a ridiculous amount of series on the go. But here are my most anticipated. 

1. Untitled(Throne of Glass #3) by Sarah J Maas- Crown of Midnight is easily one of my favourites this year. And after that ending I NEED book three NOW! *intense grabby-hands*
2. Ruin and Rising(The Grisha #3) by Leigh Bardugo- I absolutely love these books. An epic fantasy for sure. I'm now impatiently waiting to see how this trilogy will play out.
                                                           
3. Cress(The Lunar Chronicles #3) by Marissa Meyer- This will be on a lot of bloggers lists for sure. I'm really excited to see how Cress is woven into the story.
                                                           
4. Taste of Darkness(Healer #3) by Maria V Snyder- Another trilogy ender. The last book ended on a cliff-hanger. Mean author! :p
                                                          
5. Secret(Elemental #4) by Brigid Kemmerer- Of course I need more of the Merrick brothers. But also after reading the novella, Breathless, I knew shit was going to get real for Nick. And couldn't wait to get a full book from his POV.
                                                          
6. Split Second(Pivot Point #2) by Kasie West- Pivot Point was a huge surprise and easily left me needing the follow-up. I need to see how this one plays out.
                                                         
7. Evertrue(Everneath #3) by Brodi Ashton- Again, another trilogy ender. It's a re-telling of the Persephone myth.  Obviously I think it's really well done and can't wait to see how Nikki's story is wrapped up.
8. The Blood of Olympus(The Heroes of Olympus #5) by Rick Riordan- Somebodies going to die, aren't they? I know it. Don't do that to me Riordan! Please! This is going to be a long year of waiting...
                                                          
9. Enders(Starters #2) by Lissa Price- Finally this one has a solid release date. After being pushed back a few times I thought it would never come. But now it's here, early in the new year! I need to re-read Starters first. It's been a long time.
10. Untitled(The Iron Fey:Call of the Forgotten #3) by Julie Kagawa- THAT ENDING! Why?! Come now Fall 2014!

What books are your grabby-hands reaching for? I feel like there will be some of the same ones on a lot of bloggers lists.

Happy reading!

Brittany

Showcase Sunday #8

Showcase Sunday is a weekly meme held by Books, Biscuits and Tea. It allows fellow bloggers to show off any books or bookish things they've compiled over the week. 

This week was a shorter work week for me. I took Friday off because I went to the Bon Jovi concert both Friday and last night! Needless to say, I have no voice. And have been in Bon Jovi heaven this weekend. For anybody that knows me, knows Brittany and Bon Jovi go hand in hand. They are my life. :) I usually go with my mom, but she couldn't go to the second show, so I brought a friend who's never been to one of their concerts. She had a blast and is now a fan.

Mom and me at the Friday show.                                  Heather and me at the Saturday show.

Purchased

Bang(Visions #2) by Lisa McMann

More Than This by Patrick Ness

Netgalley

Sea of Shadows(Age of Legends #1) by Kelley Armstrong
Stargazing from Nowhere by Isabel and Marilyn Thomas
Falling Into Forever by Tammy Turner


How about you guys? Get anything good this week?

Happy reading!

Brittany

Review: The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black

Publication Date: September 3rd, 2013
Publisher: Little Brown
Pages: 419
Source: Purchased/library audio book
Rating: 2/5
Add to Goodreads

Tana lives in a world where walled cities called Coldtowns exist. In them, quarantined monsters and humans mingle in a decadently bloody mix of predator and prey. The only problem is, once you pass through Coldtown's gates, you can never leave.

One morning, after a perfectly ordinary party, Tana wakes up surrounded by corpses. The only other survivors of this massacre are her exasperatingly endearing ex-boyfriend, infected and on the edge, and a mysterious boy burdened with a terrible secret. Shaken and determined, Tana enters a race against the clock to save the three of them the only way she knows how: by going straight to the wicked, opulent heart of Coldtown itself. 

I was actually looking forward to this one. I'm relatively new to the Holly Black universe, having only read one other book by her before. And this one promised a creepy vampire book. Plus it's a stand alone. So I was intrigued. And here is the point where you start to lower your expectations. Unfortunately the only thing Coldest Girl did a good job of was putting me to sleep.

I did buy this book, but after getting about 130 pages in I just couldn't continue. I wanted to in the hopes that it would get better, but there are too many other books sitting on my shelves that I would have rather been reading. Than I saw my library had the audio book available, so I went that route. Good news is I listened to the whole recording. Bad news is that was probably not the smartest idea. My ADD definitely kicked in a lot while listening. I missed huge chunks dialogue. I would suddenly go "Oh shit. Right that's still going." Having missed a page or two and than be like "What's going now?" "Whatever. I don't care."

So from what I did hear, this pretty much modern day world is teeming with vampires. Every country deals with their vampire population differently. In America, there's these Coldtowns set up where the vamps live or are sent if caught. Black does do a good job of painting the more shifty side of vampires. These are definitely no tame, ridiculous Twilight vamps.  They like their blood, they like their glamorous, partying lifestyles and they know how to get what they want. Black also doesn't hold back on the gory side. There were some gruesome scenes. Which is what I want from a vamp book. They're dead, blood sucking creatures.
What I also found unique is that Black included all different types of relationships from gay to transgender. You sure don't get a lot of that in YA literature. So I applaud her from not shying away from those somewhat more taboo topics.

 I did not like any of the characters. Tana especially was super awful. She just did stupid thing after stupid thing. And any time something went her way, it wasn't because she is some strong heroine, it was because of luck and smarter people around her that come to save her ass in the nick of time. I can't think of anything redeeming to say about her. Soooo....
Then we have Gavriel (who I constantly wanted to call Gabriel) an older vampire who was left chained up at the party. Tana helps him escape, so she can take him to the Coldtown and get a bounty for him. Anyhow, Gavriel was somewhat readable. He's obviously got a lot of shit going on, considering he just broke out from being locked up in some cell in Paris for the last ten years. And he wasn't totally as awful as most of the vamps you come across in the book. He has quite a bit of his humanity remaining. He also takes a liking to Tana for some unknown reason I can't fathom. So there's this kind of romance there, but it's not really played up till more at the ending of the book. Which was stupid (that seems to be my word for this book; stupid). By that point I was just like really, we just have to throw in this relationship. Why couldn't you be an atypical YA book that doesn't end in a romance. It was so unnecessary! Guh!

There's a lot of backstory as well. Some on Tana, but a lot more on Gavriel and Lucien (Gavriel's frenemy, who is the main badass of Coldtown). This is where my main zoning out problems caught up to me. I actually did enjoy some of the backstory I caught on Gavriel. But I missed a lot of it. So when they were talking about this Spider character (who I induced is one of the original vamps and everyone is scared of? I could be very wrong) and were setting up plans to betray it (I don't even know if it was a him or her) I had no idea why or what or how or whatever. Because even as lost as I was I just didn't care to go and find out what I was missing. Sadness, I know.

And that ending. Besides the unnecessary romance. It was so ridiculously stupid (my favourite word again!). Needless to say I didn't like it. I don't want to spoil it, but WTF?!

I did think about reading this book again sometime in the future. Maybe if I actually pick up more of the backstory I'd like it more. But probably not. I'm just pretty disappointed. I'll definitely still be picking up more Holly Black titles (I do own White Cat). Just this one obviously didn't work for me.

Happy reading!

Brittany

Netgalley November: Goals

Netgalley November is being hosted by A Daydreamer's Thoughts, K-Books and Bookish Treasures. It's pretty much a challenge to help get through our ever growing pile of review books received from Netgalley.

I saw this today and knew I needed to be involved. My Netgalley TBR is growing. And I've been really bad over the last month with not reading from it. Not to mention that my review % on there is terrible at the moment. So here's a list of e-galleys I have right now. I'm going to try and get through as many of them as possible this month.

Too Fast by Alexia Haynes
Facing The Music and Living to Talk About It by Nick Carter
Unhinged(Splintered #2) by A.G Howard
The Temptation of Lila and Ethan(The Secret #3) by Jessica Sorensen
The Strange and Beautiful Sorrows of Ava Lavender by Leslye Walton
The Fairest of Them All by Carolyn Turgeon
The Summer I found You by Jolene Perry
Skin and Bones by Sherry Shahan
Crashing Into You by B.D Rowe
The Waking Dreamer(The Waking Dreamer #1) by J.E Alexander
Endless by Amanda Gray
Sea of Shadows(Age of Legends #1) by Kelley Armstrong
Falling Into Forever by Tammy Turner
Stargazing From Nowhere by Isabel and Marilyn Thomas
The Shadow Prince(Into the Dark #1) by Bree Despain
White Space(Dark Passages #1) by Ilsa J. Bick

Are you taking part in Netgalley November? Do you think you should? At least I'm not the only one falling behind.
Wish me luck!

Happy reading!

Brittany

October Wrap Up & November TBR

 Well that's that. October is over. Scary. Less than two months till Christmas. Ah! But onto books. October was a great reading month. I finished twenty-one books! I so thought that when I was finished with Allegiant I would be left with an everlasting hangover that the rest of the month would be lost. But apparently that was not a problem. Well it was. I'm still emotionally crippled. But I kind of just wanted to not think about what happened, so I kept myself occupied with other books. 
As far as ratings on the books. It was quite a mixed month there. There were a few five stars but also a lot of disappointments. Unfortunately that's just how it goes. So here's what I read this month(it seems I've yet to be home to take an actual picture of the books I read for the month end):


The Dream Thieves(The Raven Cycle #2) by Maggie Stiefvater
The Crown of Embers(Fire and Thorns #2) by Rae Carson
Ultraviolet(Ultraviolet #1) by R.J Anderson
The Bitter Kingdom(Fire and Thorns #3) by Rae Carson
The House of Hades(Heroes of Olympus #4) by Rick Riordan
Substitute Creature(Tales from Lovecraft Middle School #4) by Charles Gilman
Earth(The Book): A Visitor's Guide to the Human Race by Jon Stewart
Escaping Reality(The Secret Life of Amy Bensen #1) by Lisa Renee Jones
Frozen(Heart of Dread #1) by Melissa de la Cruz
Of Poseidon(The Syrena Legacy #1) by Anna Banks
Divergent(Divergent #1) by Veronica Roth
Insurgent(Divergent #2) by Veronica Roth
Free Four(Divergent #1.5) by Veronica Roth
Allegiant(Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth
Allegiant(Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth
The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate
The Coldest Girl in Coldtown by Holly Black
The Iron Traitor(The Iron Fey:Call of the Forgotten #2) by Julie Kagawa
Bang(Visions #2) by Lisa McMann
Just Listen by Sarah Dessen
The Radleys by Matt Haig

Like I mentioned, there was a few a five stars this month. House of Hades, Iron Traitor, The One and Only Ivan (I'm not counting Divergent, Insurgent and Just listen because they are all re-reads). But there's no contest about my favourite of the month; Allegiant. I loved that book. Satisfying ending to one of my favourite trilogies. Non-spoiler review here.

I'm not really going to have to much of a November TBR. There's a few books for review I need to get to. Plus a few new releases I'm excited for. I also put off reading Never Fade by Alexandra Bracken because I didn't think I could handle it and Allegiant in the same month. So I'll definitely be getting around to it this month. But otherwise, I'll choose depending on my mood. TBR's are hard to stick to. At least for me.

How about you guys? I'm sure there's a lot of Allegiant readers out there. Any other favourites from the month?

Happy reading!

Brittany

Top Ten Tuesday: Books to read during Halloween

Top Ten Tuesday is a weekly meme held by The Broke and the Bookish.

This weeks topic is:

Top Ten Halloween/Creepy Reads!

Well I'm a complete wuss. And I can scare myself easily enough. So why get someone else to help me out?  Which means I don't read a lot of creepy books. But here's what I could come up with.

 

I Hunt Killers- Who doesn't like a good thriller this time of year? Especially one told from a serial killers son.
Anna Dressed in Blood- I LOVE this book. A ghost hunter who falls in love with one of the nastiest ghosts. Plus it takes place in Ontario.
Unwind- Totally surprised by how much I liked this one. Parents can choose to have their teenage kids Unwound. Pretty much abortion. Creepy...
The Forest of Hands and Teeth- Zombies in a dystopian society.

172 Hours on the Moon- Kids get the chance to go to the moon. But something is waiting up there for them. And it's not a nice something.
Splintered- A kind of re-telling of Alice in Wonderland. The original is creepy, but this one steps it up. A lot.
Graveminder- A paranormal ghost type mystery. It creeped me out.
Dracula- The original vampire story. How couldn't it make this list?

A Monster Calls- A very dark story about a monster showing up every night in a boys dreams. Of course there's deeper meaning in the end.
Goosebumps- C'mon. Obviously. It's my childhood.


How about you guys? Favourite reads this time of year?

Happy reading!

Brittany 

Showcase Sunday #7

Showcase Sunday is a weekly meme held by Books, Biscuits and Tea. It allows fellow bloggers to show off any books or bookish things they've compiled over the week.

This week there was only one thing on my mind. Allegiant. And since it left me emotionally crippled I wasn't really thinking about any other books. Or anything else for that matter. Until I decided I should arise from my bed into the world. And lo' and behold my local bookstore had one my most anticipated books of the year out 4 days early! I am three quarters of the way through and loving it. It's also a welcome distraction from all my brooding over Allegiant. Will I ever get over it? At this point it doesn't seem likely. :/

Purchased

Allegiant (Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth
The Iron Traitor (The Iron Fey: Call of the Forgotten #2) by Julie Kagawa


How about you guys? I'm guessing there was a lot of Allegiant purchases this week? I think we should start a support group. I feel like it's much needed.

Be brave.

Brittany