November wrap-up

I read a few books this month, it was a pretty good reading month! I finally finished The Mortal Instruments series *cries* and it will definitely be my favorite of all time. No, scratch that, second favorite right behind The Infernal Devices.

1. City of Lost Souls by Cassandra Clare

This is the fifth book in the Mortal Instruments series. In this book, Sebastian is back but also gone again and has taken Jace with him. Clary tries her best to search for both of them so she can get her boyfriend away from her evil brother and hopefully defeat him. This book wasn't as good as I'd hoped, I'd give it roughly 4/5 stars. I really enjoyed it since I love this world and these characters so much, but I would've liked more out of it.

2. City of Heavenly Fire by Cassandra Clare

The final book in the Mortal Instruments series, Sebastian now has an army of evil Shadowhunters known as Endarkened and he plans to war with Shadowhunters, and it turns out to be their biggest battle yet. (Spoiler alert: the good Shadowhunters win. Duh.) If I could give this book 10/5 stars, I would. I loved it so much. It was the perfect end to this series, it was just amazing.

3. Rule of Three by Lore Graham

*I received this as an eBook from Less Than Three Press* This was a pretty short book about a guy named Ian who's rival constantly antagonizes him, so he tries to prove he can do real dark magic and summons an incubus named Alistair. He has to go through the consequences of summoning the incubus, who explains that his rival might be irritating because he wants more than just to be his rival. It may have been a short book but it was funny, sexy, and I absolutely loved Alistair. He was so witty and cunning. 4/5 stars, I wish it would've been longer.

4. Alice Takes Back Wonderland by David D. Hammons

*I received this as an eBook from Curiosity Quills*

Alright, I'm gonna be serious and just say that I have a big obsession with Alice in Wonderland. I love the story so much. So when I saw this, I knew I really wanted the opportunity to read it and talk about it here. I was sooo not disappointed with this one. I loved this retelling! In this story, Alice stops believing in Wonderland after years of people telling her she's crazy for believing in such a place. When the White Rabbit shows up again and brings her back to Wonderland, she believes again and realizes her childhood fantasy couldn't be more real. The Ace of Spades has taken over and Alice has to find some way to defeat him. I loved the idea of a new villain called the Ace of Spades, that was great. Alice is also pretty great in this, as she always is. 5/5!

5. Everything, Everything by Nicola Yoon

*Read for book club* A girl who's allergic to literally everything, Madeline hasn't been outside in 17 years. Then a new boy moves in next door. She falls in love instantly, but she doesn't know how they can be together if she can't even go outside to see him. This book was just so cute and I loved it. I give it 4/5 stars, because I felt like towards the end it started getting a little rushed. I would've liked Maddy's relationship with her mom to be explored a little more, and to see what exactly was up with her mom after the *non-spoiler* big plot twist.

6. Inhuman by Kat Falls

*Read for book club* 18 years ago, a massive plague called Ferae wiped out most of the nation to the east. Therefore, a wall was built to keep people from going over there. Years later, Lane McEvoy gets a mission from a Biohaz director to go find her own father in the Feral Zone and have him do a fetch for her. If she can't complete the task, he will be executed. I honestly thought this book was really great. I know a lot of people don't like it and that's their own opinion, but it was actually really good. I liked the manimals and the Ferals, that was a really interesting concept. And now I've found out there's gonna be a book 2 in April! *excitement* 5/5 stars!

That's it for my wrap-up this month, thanks for reading! If you'd like to check out my other wrap-ups, you can go to my blog's homepage and look for wrap-ups.

The Copper Gauntlet review!

Hey guys, here's another review for you! Today I'm reviewing The Copper Gauntlet by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black, book two in the Magisterium series. I received this book for review from Scholastic and I was surprised yet again with this book! This series just keeps getting better and better.

I don't wanna go too much into the plot so I don't reveal any spoilers for those who haven't yet started this series yet, so I'll just give a brief summary (spoiler-free, I promise!) Basically, Callum Hunt is on summer break from the magic school Magisterium, and his dad believes he is secretly evil (you learn in the first book that his dad pretty much thought the Magisterium was evil so it only makes sense to think his own son is evil after going there.) He ends up back at the Magisterium after finding out some of his dad's secrets in his basement, only to find that a copper gauntlet (hence the title), that has the power to take away magic from magicians, has been stolen. Callum and his friends go on a quest to discover who took the gauntlet and it's pretty epic.

I did a review for the first book, The Iron Trial, on my blog as well if you'd like to check that out. (http://themortaljessica.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-iron-trial-book-review.html?m=1)

I loved this book so much, it was super awesome! This series just keeps getting better and better with each book, even though this is only book #2, but I believe the third book will also be even better. The series is filled with exciting twists and turns and I love the characters. Callum is an awesome character and I find him easy to relate to in some ways. Overall 4.5 stars. Keep up the good work, Cassie and Holly! I love this series :)

HUGE October book haul + wrap-up!

Hey people of book Earth! So sorry this is a few days late, I've been a little busy lately. Today I have a book haul and my wrap-up for October! I didn't read that many books in October so I'm including my wrap-up with my book haul. I have a ton of books to haul so let's get started! (I'm going in the order of when & where I bought them)

1. Local bookstore: Thirsty by M.T. Anderson and Dreams of Gods and Monsters by Laini Taylor

I bought these at my local bookstore toward the beginning of October. Thirsty is about a guy who gets bitten and is turned into a vampire, so he must figure out how to live his life this way. I haven't read it yet. I also haven't read the Daughter of Smoke and Bone books yet, so I can't really tell you anything about Dreams of Gods and Monsters without potentially spoiling it for the people who also haven't read it yet.

2. BookOutlet (beginning of October): The Bane Chronicles by Cassandra Clare, Winger by Andrew Smith, Foretold by various authors, The Dead-Tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places by Carrie Ryan

I really don't know much about any of these books, so I won't be able to tell you much.

The Bane Chronicles: a bunch of short stories about an amazing (and possibly my favorite) character from The Mortal Instruments series, Magnus Bane. It includes stories like The Midnight Thief and What Really Happened in Peru.

Winger: a book about a 14-year-old junior named Ryan Dean West who is on the rugby team at his school and has to deal with his day-to-day life of being picked on as "Winger".

Foretold: a bunch of short stories by different authors about prophecy and magic that was edited by Carrie Ryan and includes stories by Kami Garcia, Meg Cabot, Carrie Ryan herself, and more.

The Dead-Tossed Waves and The Dark and Hollow Places: the last 2 books in the Forest of Hands and Teeth series.

3. Amazon: Stand-Off by Andrew Smith, Game and Blood of My Blood by Barry Lyga

Stand-Off: the sequel to Winger!

Game and Blood of My Blood: the second and third books in the Jasper Dent trilogy, about a boy named Jazz who is the son of the nation's most notorious serial killer. In this series, he hunts other killers like his dad to prove to himself and others that he won't become a killer like his dad.

4. BookOutlet (end of October): The Search for WondLa by Tony DiterLizzi, The Shadowhunter's Codex by Cassandra Clare, Between the Lines by Samantha van Leer and Jodi Picoult, Bruiser by Neal Shusterman

The Search for WondLa: I have no idea what this is about, but I watched a video by Regan from PeruseProject on youtube where she recommended this book so I figured I'd give it a shot. I'll link her video below.

http://youtu.be/GDGU-pM9ijY

The Shadowhunter's Codex: for those of you who've read The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices, you probably know what this is. This is basically a book giving the basics to Shadowhunter life; the Accords, demons, Downworlders, what to do when you meet a Downworlder, weapons, that kinda thing. I was so excited to get this so I can learn the ways of the Shadowhunters and get to know their lives better.

Between the Lines: this is about a girl who re-reads a fairy tale that she's loved for years, and then one day she realizes that the "prince charming" in the book can see her and talk to her. He falls in love with her and she with him. It sounds so strange, but it's also every book fangirl's dream pretty much. I am so excited to read this soon, I wanna know how this works out!

Bruiser: I love Neal Shusterman and I haven't heard that many people talking about this book, but I saw it on BookOutlet so of course I had to pick it up. It's about a girl who starts dating the weird kid Brewster "Bruiser", and realizes he's not as strange as people think; he's stranger. It's got some supernatural stuff in it so I think this will be a regular old Neal Shusterman book for me!

5. Local bookstore: Zombies vs. Unicorns by Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier, The Sword of Summer by Rick Riordan, Life and Death by Stephenie Meyer, This Book Loves you by Pewdiepie, and Atlantia by Ally Condie

Zombies vs. Unicorns: an anthology of short stories written by various authors about zombies and unicorns, but each author is on a different side. Holly Black and Justine Larbalestier (Scott Westerfeld's wife) edited this book, Holly editing team unicorn and Justine editing team zombie. It sounds like so much fun! What side are you on?

The Sword of Summer: the first book in a new series by Rick Riordan, set in the same universe as Percy Jackson. It deals with Norse mythology and is about Annabeth's cousin, I believe, whose name is Magnus Chase. I've heard that Annabeth makes an appearance and I'm super stoked for this series!

Life and Death: this is the 10th anniversary edition of Twilight. Half the book is the original Twilight, but once it ends, it stops in the middle and you have to flip it over to read Life and Death, which is a reimagining of Twilight with swapped genders. Weird, right?

This Book Loves You: I bought this solely because it was written by Pewdiepie. Seriously, who doesn't love Pewdiepie? This book is filled with stupid, hilarious quotes made by Pewdiepie, like, "The only reason your dog likes you is because you give it food." I love it!

Atlantia: a book about mermaids, basically.

Wrap-Up time!

1. Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare: the last book in The Infernal Devices trilogy. Not giving a summary because spoilers! 5/5 stars, this book was so fantastic! The fighting was epic and so was the ending. I cried reading the epilogue. I couldn't handle that kind of pain. Definitely recommend this series!

2. Edgewood by Karen McQuestion: I got this one sent to me by the author and have a review for it posted on my blog so go check it out. 4/5 stars.

3. City of Fallen Angels by Cassandra Clare: I suggest you read the first 3 books in The Mortal Instruments before reading this review. Basically, Clary and Jace are finally able to call themselves an actual couple! But someone's murdering Shadowhunters and with Simon bearing the worst curse he could ever want to bear, many are after him as well. I really enjoyed this book and being able to continue the story of Clary, Jace, and the other Shadowhunters made me so happy. 4/5 stars. :)

Well guys, thanks for hanging in there for this super long blog post!

Falling For Alice book review!

About a month ago, I received this book from one of the authors, Kitty Keswick, in exchange for my honest review. This book was sooo fabulous and different. It's an anthology of 5 short stories about Alice, the girl from wonderland, in honor of the 150th anniversary of Lewis Carroll's "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", one of my favorite fairy tales of all time. Each story depicts something completely different, kinda like American Horror Story.

1. Drunk - Dawn Dalton

Alice is a teenage girl who, every time someone touches her, she feeds off of their emotions and drains the person touching her, causing her to get "drunk". After one of her more difficult experiences, she finds herself in an alley by a restaurant where she meets a guy that works there and her hunger to drain seems to subside when she's with him. This story is probably the darkest out of the bunch, but it was really intriguing. I loved how the emphasis on how she felt "drunk" was shown with all-caps words. "Her stomach clenches as familiar GUILT tiptoes across her chest.

2. Alice at Woodstock - Shari Green

In this story, Alice is in a band and longs to be a great musician. Once she gets kicked out of her own band, her dreams are crushed and she no longer wants anything to do with being a musician. That is, until she's transported back in time to Woodstock. "Let no one steal your song."

3. White Rabbit Rx - Denise Jaden

Alice is a plus-sized, self-concious girl who wants nothing more than to be like the girls who are thin and look like twigs. She goes to the Hatter High dealer and gets a concoction called white rabbit, which after drinking it, causes her to get the slim figure she's dreamed of. Eventually, she realizes this is not who she is and she finds out who she's really meant to be.

4. Wormhole to Wonderland- Kitty Keswick

Alice is on the spaceship Jabberwocky. 12 males and 12 females (including Alice) go to another world and each are programmed to serve a certain function. Alice has the function of learning about and creating literature, but Alice has her own creative ideas, which leads her to trouble with the Originators, who are pretty much the big wigs of the ship. A man named Hacker tries to help her escape so she can be who she truly is.

5. Wonder in the Stars - Cady Vance

Lastly, this story is also a sci-fi short. It follows Alice who applies to NASA's teen mission aboard the spaceship Wonder. Her father died during a space mission. Once her boyfriend is convinced he doesn't need her anymore, she's forced to go through the mission alone, where she realizes she also loves space as much as her father did, and becomes the "girl who saved Wonder."

"I think it's the other way around, actually. Wonder saved me."

I give this anthology 5/5 stars. It was incredibly different and so much fun to read. I devoured it in one sitting. It was completely and utterly unique. I highly recommend this book!

Edgewood book review!

About a month ago, I received Edgewood by Karen McQuestion, and it was sent to me as a gift from her from Amazon. I want to apologize in advance of this review for taking so long to read it, but with school and other books to review, I was trying to get all of them finished at once. Again, sorry Karen!

Anyway, let's get started.

So Edgewood is about a 15-year-old guy named Russ Becker who has had sleeping problems for a while and takes walks at night to make him tired so he'll go to sleep. During one of his late-night walks, he walks around the abandoned train station in his neighborhood and witnesses lights falling from the sky. A day or 2 later, a girl named Mallory asks him to join her group of kids that have also seen this astronomical event. The group consists of Russ, Mallory, Jameson, and Nadia. He finds out once joining the group that everyone who's seen the lights have developed different abilities, like mind control and telekenisis. He also finds out that there are people hunting kids like them, known as the Associates, and they will stop at nothing until they've recruited these supernatural kids to join them.

Reading this book, I actually thought it was pretty good. At first, I didn't really like it. The writing style wasn't good, it was just sloppy like a teen writing a book for the most part. But after I actually got into it a bit more, I found it to be really cool and wanted to read more. Edgewood is a wild ride, not gonna lie. I don't even read science fiction that much, but I think this book has changed that for me. Overall 4/5 stars. I can't wait to read the rest of the trilogy and other books by Karen McQuestion!

Infernal Devices feels

So I just finished the last book in the Infernal Devices trilogy, Clockwork Princess, last night. I stayed up until 1 a.m. very determined to finish it. I've decided to talk about my feelings on this series. 

First things first. Will Herondale. Hmm, Jessica Herondale... That has an interesting ring to it, don't you think? Will was such an adorable character, okay. I know he's like everyone's favorite character but really, it's so hard not to like him. I'll admit, he pissed me off a lot in the first two books. Remember what he told Tessa on the roof toward the end of Clockwork Angel? I wanted to punch him everywhere for what he said. It was awful. So throughout the first two books, I knew he loved Tessa, but at the same time you didn't exactly know his problem or why he was constantly so rude so I just assumed it was in his nature. But he managed to make me sooo mad all the time. After we find out what his real problem is, you start to feel for him and understand why he acts that way so you hate him a little less, even though he still pisses you off sometimes. After he found out the curse wasn't real, he becomes a better person and his rudeness and basically all the things you don't like about him fade away, and the wall he's built up over the years is finally crumbling down. I just love Will so much. His sarcasm was pretty funny and he's such a lovable character. 

And then there's Jem. He's also very adorable, and where Will has an air of ignorance, Jem is always so kind and is never rude to anyone whatsoever. He does have sarcasm, but he's a lot nicer with it, and even then it's still hilarious. I loved seeing the relationship he had with Will and learning what it meant to be someone's parabatai. It was interesting to learn about their childhood together and you always feel for Jem because of his drug addiction. He has to take more and more of it or else he will die, and I almost cried when they were saying he'd died in Clockwork Princess. I felt better knowing that he had become a Silent Brother, so that he could live and still be there for everyone, though not all the time. When I found out he was Brother Zachariah, I kinda squealed, because I remembered him from the Mortal Instruments and how he was one of the Silent Brothers that helped the characters throughout the books.

That epilogue, though... I was bawling my eyes out when I was reading it. Cassandra Clare wrote Tessa's thoughts on Will's death, how he died and what had gone on over the years since then so well. It was such a beautiful ending, but thinking about Will's death and the fact that Tessa couldn't grow old with him because of her immortality was so sad. I wouldn't want that to happen to anyone. I mean, who wouldn't cry over Will's death? It was one of the saddest things. But the ending where she finally gets back with Jem again was so cute and beautiful. I was happy that the story ended that way, even though I wished that Will could've lived longer and stayed with her forever. They were like the perfect couple.

Also, Magnus Bane. There's no words to describe how much I love his character in the Infernal Devices and in the Mortal Instruments. He's so much fun to read about.

Anyway, that's all I wanted to talk about. I definitely have a lot more feels to discuss but I don't want to make this a super long blog post. Feel free to leave a  comment about your feelings and we can have a discussion about how you felt about this trilogy, or just the shadowhunter world in general!

September Wrap-up!

This month was a pretty exciting month for books. I read 6 this month, and they were all sooo amazing. Let's get started!

1. I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

This book was definitely one of the best books I read this month. It's about a 17-year-old named Jasper Dent who is the son of Billy Dent, the nation's most infamous serial killer. When another serial killer known as The Impressionist, who tries to be just like Billy and mimick his killings almost exactly, shows up to town, Jazz wants to prove to not only himself but the people around him that he won't become his dad by trying to solve the case. The suspense in this book kept me going and it was so fast-paced, I flew through it. I give this 6/5 stars because I can. It was that great.

2. Clockwork Prince by Cassandra Clare

I read the first book in the Infernal Devices trilogy last month and it was amaaaazing. I can't tell you about the plot of this book without spoiling anything, so go look at my August wrap-up for the plot of the series. I give this book 4/5 stars mostly because even though it was perfect in every way, the beginning was kinda slow compared to the first book, but overall it was still great.

3. The Dead House by Dawn Kurtagich

This book was sooo interesting. It's about a girl named Carly Johnson who is in an asylum, and is getting ready for her next year at school. She has split-personality disorder with her "other side" being Kaitlyn. When Kaitlyn comes out, she does a lot of bad things to cause trouble and even harm to people. I feel like I'm making the plot sound kinda childish but I'm not entirely sure how to explain it. Just read it, it was awesome. You won't be disappointed. (Unless you're not into creepy books.) 5/5 stars.

4. The Scorpion Rules by Erin Bow

Okay, here's the thing. I recieved this as a digital ARC from the publisher and sadly, I didn't finish it. (Sorry!) I ended up having to read a book for my book club so I didn't have time to finish it. What I read though was a really good start!

5. Dark Rising (I forgot the author's name, sorry) *received as an ARC from NetGalley*

I had some problems with this book. It was good, but it's actually a sequel which I didn't originally know, so I haven't read the first book. I can't tell the plot without giving away spoilers. So anyway, I actually thought this book was really good, but it was confusing and hard to get through without having read the first book, sadly. 3/5 stars, I'd probably give it more if I'd read the first book.

6. Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard

Whew! This one was definitely a wild ride. Red Queen is about a girl named Mare Barrow who lives in a world divided by blood, the Reds with red blood and the Silvers with silver blood. Silvers are the elite and have special abilities, while Reds are poor and serve the Silvers. Mare is a Red and is about to be conscripted, but she meets Cal, and gets a job working as a servant at the king's palace. There, she realizes she's different, that she's a Red with abilities, and the king and queen turn her into a Silver princess to hide the fact that she's actually a Red from other Silvers and Reds. This book was a teensy bit slow at the beginning, but then stuff started going down and it was so exciting and fun to read. I loved the world-building and the action sequences, although I sorta feel like some characters might be a little underdeveloped. Other than that, it was super-duper awesome. I can't wait for Glass Swords. 4/5 stars. Brb while I go read the prequel novellas.