Emerald Green (Ruby Red Trilogy #3) by Kerstin Gier

I have to thank Henry Holt and Company for sending me an ARC of this, I believe through a link in the Shelf Awareness e-newsletter.  It also says on the back this is supposed to be part of the Fierce Reads campaign, which as you've seen earlier, is something I really love!  I don't think it is possible to say how much I love this series!  Even with all the time travel issues I mentioned in the first book's review, it worked in the end for me.  While many things didn't quite end up being explained, they were left in a way that sufficed for me.  And I loved that although I guessed who Lucy and Paul really were pretty quickly, and that once that huge revelation was out, it wasn't as if that was the end of the story.  There was still more to go.  And it was also not turned into a problem for Gideon and Gwyneth.
We were left at the end of the last book with Gideon's declaration of love to Gwyneth being questioned due to what both the Count said to her, as well as the way Gideon reacted to her questioning him about it.  And there are more clues left in this book, helping Gwyneth and her friend Lesley to figure out why Paul and Lucy took off with the chronograph.  And some of these clues will tell them just where the original chronograph is hidden.  There is help from Gwyneth's grandfather, as well as their house servant, Mr. Bernard.  Yet cousin Charlotte figures out something is going on, and leads the Guardians to supposedly discover what she says Gwyneth is hiding.  But when it isn't found, Charlotte looks like a fool, and begins to rebel.  We still have Raphael, Gideon's younger brother around, and he and Lesley seem to get along quite well, although she tries to be free of him, afraid he will break her heart like Gideon has done to Gwyneth.  At the beginning that is.  But now the Guardians know they must go back in time to try to help figure out who the traitor is.  And when they do find out, it is a dangerous situation.  Deadly, at least thought to be.  But once Gideon and Gwyneth come back, they find it is not quite so deadly, and that what may help the count now, is if Gwyneth would give up her life for love.  Kill herself to save Gideon.
I won't tell you much more, except to say that again I love the gargoyle ghost/demon, Xemerius, and the ending is a pretty happy one.  The family issues get resolved, and even the school problems.  Such a great story.  I will for sure be buying it for my school library with my next budget.  I will also be highly recommending it at the bookstore where I work, as well as with my friends.  If you haven't read this series, I recommend it for the great story, the great romance, the laughs, all of it.

Stacking the Shelves - November 9th, 2013

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected. This week I started getting some of those books I won finally, as well as I bought a couple that were for my Fierce Reads Birthday Contest Winners.  First let me begin with a recap of the Fierce Reads Event last Tuesday night.

Books Purchased:

The first one, Altered (Crewel #2) by Gennifer Albin was the book I chose to get with my paid ticket to the Fierce Reads Event.  The second one, Shadow and Bone by Leigh Bardugo, I bought for one of my Fierce Reads Giveaway winners.  The third one, Outpost (Razorland #2) by Ann Aguirre, I bought for myself to get autographed.  I haven't read any of this series, but I do have the first one as an e-book that I got for a great deal.  So I wanted to have all the authors give an autograph, so this was how I got hers.  The other books I got autographed that night were once I'd received as part of my Fierce Reads Events package.  

I also got a copy of a sneak peek to the sequel to Jessica Brody's book Unremembered, which will be called Unforgotten.

Here is a picture of the four Fierce Reads authors during the interview at the event.  From left to right, Gennifer Albin, Jessica Brody, Leigh Bardugo, and Ann Aguirre.

And it just seemed it would be easier to have my picture taken with all of the authors together than with each one, in the name of saving time, so I'm in the back, and the authors are in the same order as the picture above.

E-galleys from Edelweiss:

The first, Tease by Amanda Maciel, sounds like a really good story about bullying.  Really current with actual events that are taking place today.  The second, The Taking by Kimberly Derting, sounds like a fun alien story.  The third, Hungry by H.A. Swain, is a dystopian where people no longer eat, they take pills/vitamins for that.  I'm very intrigued by that, as a friend and I were just talking about how we would be ready for that, thinking it would sure help in trying to lose weight.  The fourth, Prisoner of Night and Fog by Anne Blankman, looks like a really good book about a girl whose family is friends with Hitler, and how she comes to be friends with a Jewish reporter and wonders about her whole life.

Won in Giveaways:

I won The Fury by Alexander Gordon Smith from Ina at Ina's Bookish Corner.  I believe it was part of the Authors are Rockstars tour in August.  The 2nd picture is not only a book that I won, but a bunch of great swag!  It was Insomnia by J.R. Johansson, and I won it from Alexandra at the Sleeps on Tables blog.  I got a copy of the book, a little backpack, some bookmarks, and a bottle of "pills" to help keep me awake!  (The pills were yummy Skittles,  my favorite candy!)  I was really excited when I won this contest because it was a book I'd requested as an e-galley, but it expired before I could read it.

So what did you get this week?  And if you're going to be reading any Novellas this month, go join my November is for Novellas Challenge.  

November is for Novellas Challenge #3 and #4: Dress Your Marines in White (Monument 14 #0.5) and Jake and the Other Girl (Monument 14 #1.5) by Emmy Laybourne

These are two e-books I've had on my e-reader since I first found them available.  I've read both books that are out in the Monument 14 series, and so these fit perfectly in.  And like the last two, these also were pretty good.  The first one more than the second, but both were useful stories to the series.  Or not useful, because they weren't necessarily "needed."  But, they weren't a waste of time to read.  They filled in information that we didn't have, didn't "need", but it definitely added to the story.  While I didn't list them on my original November is for Novellas Challenge post, it was definitely a good time to read them.  Plus, I ended up choosing them because I finished my book I reviewed yesterday, The Living, as I was waiting for the Fierce Reads Event, and the Monument 14 series is a Fierce Reads series.  Again, like the last two e-novellas I reviewed, these were both short, and they go together, so I'm reviewing them together.

This is a good "review" of what led to the development of the disease that breaks out in the first Monument 14 book.  Disease, or should I say the gas that causes the problems.  It's a look at the military scientists who developed it for a weapon, and how they demonstrated it for their superiors.  And honestly, since I already knew how the gas affected each of the blood types, this was still a really detailed look at the reactions in a controlled environment.  Even knowing that there was a way they could "stop" the effects, something of course had to go wrong, and it ended up as even more horrifying than it was supposed to be in this "controlled" demonstration.  Quick read, if you like the series, read this.

Now Jake is a character you don't like much in the first book, at least I didn't.  And so he left to try to find help basically.  Well, in this short story he returns to his previous personality in that he gets so freaked out by what he sees and thinking of the responsibility he'll have when he gets back that he takes off.  He drops the video camera and takes off.  While he has been out, he's been thinking back to life before that fateful day.  He was known as basically the horniest guy at school.  In fact there was a girl that he used to go visit for lunch all the time just to have sex with her.  And he brought her chocolate every time.  So he takes a Snickers bar and goes to her house to see if she is still there and if she is still alive.  She is, but her father is still there, and his blood type is O, the kind that turns into a dangerous monster.  A pretty short story, again, I'll let you read it yourself to find out more about what happens.

In conclusion, these stories did add to the original series, unlike the ones I read earlier this week.  Definitely worth the read this time, no doubt about it.  Now we just have to wait for the next book.

Waiting on Wednesday - Four: A Divergent Story Collection (Divergent 0.1-0.4) by Veronica Roth

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting. This week I've chosen a book, that is a collection of novellas that are either not available yet, or only available as an e-novella.  They are kind of what you'd call prequels I guess.  Prequels to a series that many of the fans were unhappy about its ending, the Divergent series.  If you haven't yet, and aren't concerned about spoilers, you can read my review of Allegiant HERE.  Here is the blurb about the collection from Goodreads:

More Four! Fans of the Divergent series by No. 1 New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth will be thrilled this collection of short stories told from Four's perspective. Each brief story in this collection explores the world of the Divergent series through the eyes of the mysterious but charismatic Tobias Eaton, revealing previously unknown facets of his personality, backstory and relationships.

Features the following stories: The Transfer, The Initiate, The Son, The Traitor, and Free Four.

Before you leave, don't forget to stop by my Fierce Reads Giveaway, you only have one more day to enter!

Allegiant (Divergent #3) by Veronica Roth

Like many of the reviews I've seen on Goodreads, I must say that I'm unsure exactly what to say, or how to even review this.  Also like at least one other review, I loved Divergent, Insurgent kind of was the usual middle book, not really great, but okay to get through to the next book.  And this one, good, just not how I would have liked it to have ended.  Big alert now, there is NO WAY, I can do this review without SPOILERS, so stop reading now if you don't want to know anything until you read it for yourself.  In fact, from here on out, I can't promise when a spoiler might show up, so before that, let me remind you to go enter my Fierce Reads Giveaway, and then you won't have to read any further!

SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!SPOILERS!

So, here goes.  I really enjoyed getting out of the "Factionless" group where Four's mother was in charge.  For some reason, that was just never something I enjoyed in the 2nd book, so of course it makes sense it wouldn't be my favorite in this book.  But once they got out of their city, and headed to the place they were supposed to go, I really began to enjoy it.  But it turns out this experiment they were part of, well, the outside may not have been quite as bad off as the video they watched led them to believe.  While I enjoyed learning about this outside society.  I also feel, like I saw another review on Goodreads again, that maybe we got into one of those back story information overloads that happen sometimes in books.  While this book was basically the same number of pages as the 2nd book, I almost felt like it was shorter in a way.  I think it could totally have been longer, but, that being said, a lot happened in the book.  We had a lot of characters that we lost, or that got injured, and not always just disposable characters.  In fact, the ending of the book, was a HUGE death.  One that changes the whole world.  Someone we began with, we don't get to finish with.  But it's okay.  It was a realistic ending.  The person that saved everyone with their sacrifice, it only made sense that they did that.  But it was so sad.  When it happened, I immediately knew what all the angry reviews I'd seen but hadn't read were about.  I wasn't angry though, just really sad.  I was at a point when I had to stop to go do something else, this was about page 500, and I was glad.  I wasn't sure how I was going to get through the rest of the book.  Whether the ending worked or not, it wasn't a happy one.  I did like how the reason the whole experiments had begun was because of genetically "damaged" people and it turns out the "Divergent" people were what they had been looking for to come out of this experiment.  And it wasn't just Chicago, it was many other cities.  The first city set up didn't even start with a faction setting, and that experiment basically was a horrible failure.  I enjoyed the genetics talk that there was.  And the dystopian society, that Tris and Four and all of the people we knew not only left, but found outside their city.  I also want to comment on the dual point of view, both Tris and Four.  I enjoyed getting the story from Four's point of view.  In fact, it really kind of helped.  Because there were times that if we'd only  had Tris's point of view, you'd probably not have been able to forgive Four for not listening to what Tris thought they should do.  

Really, a good story overall.  A good ending, or realistic ending, not the kind I'd probably read again.  I know a lot of people hated the last book of the Twilight series, and said they wouldn't have ended it that way, but I always argued with them, and said it was the author's story, it ended the way she saw it.  And I actually liked that last book, and I can read it again and again.  This book, while I will argue again with people that it ended the way the author wanted it to, unfortunately it is not a feel good, read over and over story.  But I am excited to see the movies, especially Divergent, so I'll be revisiting the end again at some point, at the theater at least.

Now, if you made it all this way, and you haven't gone and entered my Fierce Reads Giveaway yet, go do it NOW!!

Stacking the Shelves - October 27, 2013

Stacking the Shelves is hosted by Tynga's Reviews.  It is a way for us to share the new books we have collected.  I haven't done this since the beginning of the month, but truly, until this past week, I hadn't really gotten many new books.  Which was kind of surprising, because there are several giveaways I won back in September that I seem to still be waiting on.  But I'll give till the end of October before I email and ask about them.  It was my birthday this past Tuesday (go enter my Fierce Reads giveaway from that if you haven't yet), and I got a gift card for Barnes and Noble from one of my sisters, which means I got a bunch of e-novellas for the challenge I'm going to hold in November.  Here is my haul:

Won in the Debut Authors 2013 Giveaways:

I won an ARC of this from Stormy at Book.Blog.Bake and the author Lauren Miller.  Very excited to read it!  And it was a choice between 2 ARCs and a hardcover, and call me crazy, but I'm always more excited with an ARC!  :-)

E-galleys from Netgalley:

The first one I featured earlier this week as my WOW, and then I got approved on Netgalley for it!  Cool!  The 2nd one just has such a great cover, and I don't feel we've had that much to read about Voodoo, so it sounds new and different.

Physical Book Purchased:

And of course I had to buy this the day it came out, since it was my birthday.  I'm almost done with it today, struggling through the last pages, as you'll understand why if  you've read it.

Purchased With My Birthday Gift Card for my Nook:

I got a ton of novellas!!  Now, to be honest, I think two of them I did end up buying with my own money.  I'm going to host a November is for Novellas challenge I think.  Check back later this week for a sign up post.  So tell me, what did you add to your shelves this week?

The Friday 56 #4

Because I don't really have time once again to do the activity of Feature and Follow Friday, I'm going to participate once again in Friday 56, sponsored by Freda's Voice.  Here are the rules:

Rules:

 *Grab a book, any book.
*Turn to page 56 or 56% in your eReader
 *Find any sentence, (or few, just don't spoil it) that grabs you.
*Post it.
*Add your (url) post below in Linky. Add the post url, not your blog url. It's that simple.

"I didn't get into the party.  One, I wasn't in the mood, and two, dancing with the Winter fey didn't seem like such a good idea.  Especially after I saw a group of drunk, glamour-high redcaps swarm a boggart and tear it limb from limb.  It was like a mosh pit from hell."

    And just like last time I did this, I have a giveaway going on, be sure to stop by my Fierce Reads Giveaway and enter to be one of 5 winners who will get a book from the list!

Waiting on Wednesday - Anyone But You: A Modern-Day Spin on Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet (Twisted Lit #3) by Kim Askew and Amy Helmes

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event hosted by Jill at Breaking the Spine where we spotlight upcoming releases that we're eagerly awaiting.  This week I've chosen a book in a series that is a modern re-do of Romeo and Juliet.  While there seem to have been a few of these lately, I like how this series would be a good choice for teachers to use in their classroom alongside teaching the "real" Shakespeare stories.  As a teacher/librarian, I can think of all sorts of ideas that could be done with these in a classroom.  Without further ado, here is the blurb from Barnesandnoble.com:

Power, passion...and pizza

The Montes love Italian food. And they hate the Caputos, That's how it is. It's been that way for sixty years. Every time the Caputos start to get a reputation for great pizza (and who knows? It could be better than the Montes!) there's "an accident" and Cap's is knocked back on its knees. What nobody knows is that the family teenagers are sick of their parents acting like schoolyard bullies, when nobody even remembers why the fight started! Gigi Caputo and Roman Monte, the son and daughter, are secretly in love. Determined to put a stop to their parents' vicious feud, they risk their parents' livelihood and their own lives. In this nod to Romeo and Juliet, will love win? Or vendetta?

Sounds fun, huh?  I've only read the 2nd one in the series, Exposure, which was supposed to be a retelling of Macbeth, and you can read my review of that HERE.

And while you're here, don't forget to enter my awesome Fierce Reads giveaway, where there will be 5 winners, so there are 5 books you could win!!!

It's My Birthday and I'll Give Away Fierce Reads Books if I Want To!!

So today is my birthday!  Yay!  I won't really be celebrating with any of my family, already did my mom's side on Sunday, and will celebrate with my dad's side this coming Saturday.  So, I thought what could be more fun than giving YOU, my readers, the gifts?!  In fact, I got a Fierce Reads box in the mail this summer, and it doesn't seem like I'll be doing anything with it at my school library, so I will use it as a giveaway on my blog!  To go along with the box itself, I am going to get to meet some of the Fierce Reads authors on November 5th.  Unfortunately, not all of the ones that I got the books for this summer, but some!  So, I am going to have 4 winners, and depending which book you choose, I will get it autographed if that author will be at the event.  Here are your choices:

You can choose the first or second book in this series, and I will get it autographed for you because Gennifer Albin is supposed to be at the Fierce Reads Event.

For this author, you may choose either the 1st or 2nd book in the series, Shadow and Bone, or Siege and Storm.   Leigh Bardugo is also supposed to be at the Fierce Reads Event in my town, so you will also get to have this autographed if you choose it.

The 3rd author who will be attending this event is Jessica Brody, so if you choose her book, Unremembered, you will be able to get it autographed also!!

Unfortunately Anna Banks will not be at the Fierce Reads Event in my town, so if you choose this book, and I'm only making this 2nd one in the series available, it will not be autographed.

And the only author I had read before I first got the Fierce Reads Box is unfortunately another author that will not be making it to my town.  I will be giving away only book 2 from this series as well, also un-autographed.

I also have 2 Fierce Reads bags to give away, and those I will try to get autographed by all 4 authors.

I will have 5 winners, which I came up with that number by adding the numbers in my age this year.  The giveaway will end one week before the event so that I can find out which books each winner wants, and find out who to get some of them autographed.  And to be clear, I am only offering one of each title.  For example, if someone picks the 2nd book in one of the first two series, the other 4 winners have to pick a different book.  Sorry if that sounds weird, but I don't want to have to buy more than one hardcover since I will be shipping 5 books.  And also, sorry to my international followers, with Christmas coming up, I have to be frugal with my shipping costs, since again I'm shipping 5 books from my home instead of The Book Depository.  But don't despair, I believe I'll have a giveaway later in November that will be International.  Just fill in the Rafflecopter below!  The only requirement is that your birthday gift to me is that you are a follower of my blog!

   

a Rafflecopter giveaway