Beka Cooper: Terrier

Note: I've already reviewed this book, but it was a crappy review so I deleted it and am reposting it in the proper form.
Summary: "I well knew the rules to follow with our training Dogs: Speak when you're spoken to. Keep out of the way. Obey all orders. Get killed on your own time." -Beka Cooper

Beka Cooper is one of the newest Trainees for the Provost's Dogs Guard in Tortall's capital city. A Puppy who's eager to prove herself and to be the Puppy who fastest made it to Dog. However, Beka is assigned to the Lower City, Corus's toughest district. She'll have to learn faster and fight harder than she ever bargained for. The Lower City is filled with the fastest pickpockets, nasty Rogues, murderers with hidden plans, and flirty-rusher friends. When Beka gets wind of a string of murders happening right under the Dogs' nose, she can't resist the scent and trails it. All the while she is also tracking the Shadow Snake, a child's nightmare become a child murderer. She'll have to use her own brand of magic and her friends if she ever hopes to survive her first year.

"This is the beginning of Beka's story, her legend, her legacy..."

Review: First off, you do not have to read any of Tamora Pierce's other Tortall series to understand this book. I didn't, I wasn't even aware of who Tamora Pierce was! Terrier is a great story and to me that's a much bigger compliment then just saying the book is good, it's told from Beka's point of view via her journal. It's a bit on the longer side (568 pages), so be prepared. Pierce does an amazing job with the journal format; making it feel extremely real. I guarentee by the fourth chapter you'll forget you're reading her journal. Ah let's see characters? Pierce creates such an array of cast of characters, you're bound to find someone you love. Whether the righteous and brave Beka herself, or her Dog partners Tunstall, or Goodwin. Or as I did, take a great loving for the Rusher Rosto The Piper, and his slight flirtations with Beka.

What I really love about this book? It's just action nonstop, this book is perfect for any girl who loves kick-ass heroines because I have never met a heroine who can hold her own like Beka can. It takes a very cool spin on fighting, and on the dangerous world of criminals. Tamora Pierce shows just how blurry the line can be between the law and the criminals. In short: You'll be rooting for Beka the entire way, it's impossible not to! Everything about this book just wrapped me in, and enough so that I could read it twice in one year. Go pick it up, seriously!

Rating: 5/5 It's one of the few books I can re-read with never getting tired of and that in itself is probably the biggest compliment. I can't give it anything below a 5/5.

Reviews from The Pros:
"Pierce tries out a new style of storytelling and succeeds admirably...With its rolllicking adventure, appealing characters, and inclusion of Tortall's history, Terrier, will be in strong demand by Pierce's fans. It will keep readers on the edge of their seats." --School Library Journal

"Pierce's leisurely, detailed introduction and exploration of characters result in a diverse and memorable cast." --The Bulletin

"Having followed her signature heroine into the next generation with her Trickster duet, Pierce now looks back into the history of Tortall and finds another fierce, lovable gal who won't take any guff...Pierce deftly handle the novel's journal structure, and her clear homage to the police-procedural genreapplies a welcome twist to the girl-legend-in-the-making story line." --Booklist

"The fun of this offering is in the dynamic characterization and action that takes readers to Beka's inveitable triumph. Beka--who narrates her story via diary--is appealing in her dedication to her fellow Lower City dwellers, and sketches of her compatriot Dogs adn the criminals they sometimes apprehend and sometimes befriend are equally deft. Indeed, perhaps the book's greatest strength is its raw portayal of the fine line between law and lawlessness in teh choices Dogs make as they do their jobs." --The Horn Book Magazine

Pick it up!
-She Who Reads A Lot

Pretties

Summary: Tall Young blood is officially pretty. It’s everything she imagined when she was ugly; the parties, the drinks, the most stunning people around. She’s even apart of the coolest clique the Crims. How can life get much better than that? One problem though no matter how hard she tries Tally can’t seem to be totally pretty-headed like Shay like the rest of her friends. This irks Tally to no end but she pushes it off as a bad hangover forgetting all her past ugly experiences. Until Croy and a few other smokies crash a pretty party with a simple message for Tally: ‘Valentino 217’. Tally and the leader of the crims Zane soon find Valentino 217 and find the cure along with a letter ugly Tally wrote to herself. Soon the idea of being ‘bubbly’ is all the rage and Tally, Zane, and the rest of the Crims are out to find the cure to be completely bubbly. This leads Tally back out to the wilderness to find a permanent cure and on the way discover more about their disturbing society. Even as a pretty Tally YoungBlood is still playing tricks.

Review: Note: Sorry that summary just about sucked. I’m so tired my brain isn’t functioning so this whole review may suck. Anyways, I finally finished Pretties! Gosh, it took me a month (^^;; I’m slow). I really liked it though, not as much as the first one. Zane was a admirable character edition and I liked him. Tally got a little tiring, but Westerfeld is able to keep attention with his plot. We find out more about this disturbing society, especially when Tally meets a ‘savage’ called Andrew. In Uglies you are sort of eased into the plot and Tally’s world, this is not the case in Pretties. Westerfeld throws you in at chapter one and doesn’t let up. Constantly Tally is making new discoveries and more and more people are finding out about the operation and helping the New Smoke grow. Westerfeld spends this book building up the suspense and leaving a lot of questions unanswered, building to what I hope is a climatic finish in Specials. All in all I liked it a lot and it was a decent follow up to Uglies.


Rating: 4.5/5 not as good as the first, still a great book.

Reviews from the Pros: TBA (When I get the energy to look them up)


Happy reading!
-She Who Reads A Lot

Sloppy Firsts

Summary: Jessica Darling’s life just about ends when her best friend in the entire world, Hope Weaver, moves away across the country. Hope is leaving her to fend by herself with the annoying and skanky clueless crew, flirtatious Scotty, her bitchy sister Bethany’s wedding, and her parents who never understand her. On top of all this her period is officially MIA, and the mysterious Marcus Flutie has taken an interest in her life. Jessica Darling has an awful lot on her plate for just a sixteen year old.

Review: Okay, I am extremely iffy about my opinion on this book. I have friends who absolutely adored it and begged me to read it, so I did. I’m not sure I love it as much as they do. There is no doubt in my mind that Megan McCafferty is an amazing writer, and that this book is very well-written and believable. However, I had a big problem with Jessica. I couldn’t relate to her at all, literally the one part in the book that had me like ‘hey that’s me!’ was this part: “But I can’t think of anything (track, student council, Key Club, and so on) that gets me as psyched as that. Or as giddy as the Clueless Crew gets from organizing a pep rally or decorating the Jocks’ lockers before a big game. I wish I were artistic, like Hope. That’s passion. That’s something to get excited about. I do everything I do because it will look good on my college applications. Depressing isn’t it?”(pg 39).

Then from there on in the book, I didn’t relate to her or any of her friends. I found her very whiny and, excuse my language, bitchy. I found myself reading the book (fairly quickly I might add, it was an easy book to get through) waiting for something to happen and it never did. It was high school. Plain and simple it really was, and McCafferty does a splendid job making it realistic. I felt like the only real character development was at the end when she made the decision to tell Hope everything, besides that she remained mostly the same. It was a great book, I just did not enjoy it as much as other probably did.

My bottom line here is: It was a fabulously written realistic book, not my cup of tea.

Rating: 4/5 I’ve got to give such a well crafted book its props, even if I wasn’t the hugest fan.

Review from the Pros:
“Sloppy Firsts captures, in spare, truthful prose, the exquisite pain and ecstasy of being besotted by your best friend. The reader may flinch, but Megan McCafferty never does.” –Emma Forest, Author of Namedropper

“Sloppy Firsts is a spirited, down-the-rabbit-hole adventure in the madcap subculture of high school. With remarkable insight, tenderness, and with, Megan McCafferty offers us a compassionate, clear-eyed tale of how a sassy young woman survives teenage-hood.” –Laurie Fox, Author of My Sister From The Black Lagoon

“Sloppy Firsts perfectly captures the turbulent roller-coaster ride that is being a teenager. This is an intimate, (at times) painfully honest peek at a girl’s coming of age. Getting to know Jessica is like meeting a new best friend. I miss her already.” –Atoosa Rubenstein, editor in chief of Cosmogirl!

“Such a sharp, funny, poignant heroine, with an inner world we can all relate to.” -Sophie Kinsella, Author of Confessions of a Shopaholic

About My Blog!

So, I decided to give a little background info on my blog. I’m sure not many of you care, but this is to just clear any questions up. So here we go! ^^

Background story: Boredom and Wanting to try something new. That’s why I started this blog, I read a lot [compared to most normal teenagers anyways, I have friends who read more than I do] and I love to write and ramble. Not going to lie there, I’m good at rambling I talk a lot. Whenever I get the chance to, I’m broadcasting my opinion and I figure this had to get annoying to my friends, I can be obnoxious I think. So I thought, ‘Hey why not start a book blog?’ I could rant about my books without annoying people and could practice my writing skills! Double whammy! Turns out it’s also a nice stress reliever [here’s an interesting fact for you: I am a very stressed person. Like literally, whenever I went to physical therapy my physical therapist would complain ‘Will you loosen up!? Your muscles are way tight for a 16 year old!’]. Anywho! [I told you I like to ramble!] I had read a few books blogs before I read Word For Teens religiously, and Nicole is my major inspiration, even though she doesn’t know I exist. So my book blog is mainly a way for me to share opinions and get some ranting in.

Format: My format of the blog is rather simple actually.

Image: Obviously an image of the book. I find that the cover is what attracts me an awful lot to a book, so if you’re one of those people who just glances at a cover and is like ‘hey that looks cool!’ This part is for you.

Summary: Obviously. My summary of the book, it will most likely contain plot secrets. I am terrible at keeping them, I’ll try to keep them out…but you have been warned.

Review: Uh…duh. My Review/opinion/ranting of the book.

Rating: I rate out of five, which makes it difficult for me to rate a book because I do enjoy a great many books and out of five does not give me much leeway. Many times I will also give an explanation for the rating and why it didn’t get 5/5.
Reviews from the Pros: Okay, this category is a little lame. It’s just when I read a book I often flip to the praise of the book before hand. So basically I’m not doing anything intricate with this section, its just the little snippets you’ll read in the front or back of the book. I do often spend time looking at reviews on the internet before this section but mostly I’m cheap and just take from the front of back of the book.

And that is it! I know this is nothing exciting, but I figured maybe some people would want to know. Well I am off to finish Sloppy Firsts! That review should be up fairly soon FYI. Enjoy my random blog till then!
-She Who Reads A Lot

City of Bones

Summary: [Gosh how do you sum this book up!? It’s 485 pages long!] As far as Clary Fray knows she’s a completely ordinary girl. She’s got a guy best friend, a over-protective artist mom, she’s nothing special as far as she knows. Until one night when in a club in New York she witnesses a murder by a bunch of strange looking teenagers. It’s all downhill from there in the next 24 hours her mother is kidnapped and her apartment is overrun with demons, and Clary almost gets killed by a demon herself. From here on out she is thrust into a world of magic, demons, and shadowhunters. With the help of the handsome shadowhunter Jace Wayland and his friends, Alec and Isabelle Lightwood, Clary races to figure out where her mother is and how to save her. All along the way figuring out secret doors to her past she never knew existed.

Review: Okay, so I just spent the last half hour looking up reviews on Amazon and it would seem to me that this book is very love it or hate it. Me? I am completely and totally in love with this book. I should start by saying that Cassandra Clare is an amazing writer and more importantly story-teller. She let’s the plot flow, and the dialogue and humor never seemed force. Everything flowed the right way and just the way she writes puts you in the situation. There were characters that I wasn’t particularly fond of and yet when they were in a dangerous situation I was freaking out and praying they would not die. I did put it down (darn school pressuring me!), but I never wished to. I loved all the characters; I found the array of cast to be somewhat original and refreshing. You, at least, did not see the same kind of character twice in the book. Putting the mostly original and captivating plot aside, Clare just has a way with writing that makes this book so utterly compelling. My only problem was the length, I would feel like I made a good dent in the book and I would close the book and see that I’d only made it a quarter of the way through!

Sorry for the rambling guys! I did love the book though. Basically pick it up and at least give it a chance. If you don’t like it okay, if you do good! As for the plot twist at the end: have faith in the author guys! I was honestly so into the book that the ending twist didn’t disturb me as much as I’m sure it did others. Probably because I have extreme faith in an author’s power to tie things together in the end. So let’s hope that’s what we find in City of Ashes and City of Glass!

Rating: 5/5

Reviews from the pros:

“Funny, dark, and sexy one of my favorite books,” –Holly Black

"Fans of...Buffy the Vampire Slayer will instantly fall for this series."-Publishers Weekly

"Reminiscent of the Harry Potter series--and that's hight praise!"-teensreadtoo.com, five star rating and Gold Star Award Review

New York Time Best Seller

Dingo

Summary: In the small town of Point, literally nothing goes on inbetween the time the turistas are there. Miguel lives his ordinary life in this town all year around, he hangs out with friends, he goes to school, he helps at his Dad’s shop. All ordinary. Until the day Lainey and her strange “dog” walks into the store doors and he feels immediately attracted to her. Turns out Lainey feels the same connection. Too bad things can’t just go normal for them. Lainey can turn into a dingo and her “dog” is a dingo who is really her twin sister who can also turn human when she wishes. The girls are hiding from their father and Dingo, the first dingo who is trapped in a tree. Now Miguel must help save Lainey and her sister Em with the help of an unexpected ally in Johnny Ward. Together the two boys will try to save the girls they love.

Review: Wow that’s one of the quickest summaries I’ve ever written. Probably because this book is very simple. Now I enjoy absolutely any Charles De Lint book, he is a great writer (one of the best fantasy writers of his time). Dingo was very very straightforward and very predictable, which I really hated. However, it was so fast-paced I couldn’t put it down. That’s the thing I did like about this book, it was very clear and to the point. The plot didn’t twist and turn at every edge but it still managed to weave in an entirely different world right in the midst of our normal society. De Lint wrote fast-paced and straight forward book that I did enjoy. The main character, Miguel, annoyed me a bit. He was a bit too perfect; however, he was sweet and a hero at heart (even though he denies it). Johnny Ward was much more appealing he was such a complex character, I am still left wondering about him. Basically, although the book was predictable it was enjoyable. I think it was just an okay book, nothing completely astonishing but another enjoyable read by Charles De Lint.

Rating: 4/5

Reviews from the Pros:
Winner of the World Fantasy Award

“De Lint is a romantic; he believes in great things, faith, hope, and charity (especially if love is included in that last) but he also believes in the power of magic—or at least the magic of fiction—to open our eyes to a larger world.” –Edmonton Journal

“A master storyteller, he blends Celtic, Native American and other cultures into a seamless mythology that resonates with magic and truth.” –Library Journal

“There is no better writer than Charles De Lint at bringing out the magic in contemporary fiction.”-Orson Scott Card, author of Ender’s Game

The Uglies

Summary: Tally Youngblood cannot wait to turn sixteen, not to drive but to get the operation. She will get the operation that will turn her from a pathetic Ugly to the amazing Pretty. She’ll get to join Peris and the rest of her friends in New Pretty Town. Things don’t go as well as she planned when she befriends the rebellious ugly Shay. Shay thinks the operation is truly wrong and tries to convince Tally of the same thing. Shay tells Tally of a place where no one is pretty and no one is ugly, The Smoke. When Tally quickly dismisses Shay’s legend of the Smoke, Shay runs away leaving directions to the Smoke just in case for Tally. Well, come operation day Tally finds out something horrible: She can’t get the operation. Not till she helps the Specials find and destroy the Smoke. Tally agrees and as she ventures forth to the Smoke she finds a whole new side of the pretty world—one that is actually pretty ugly. The Specials gave her her choice, now Tally has to choose: Betray her friend or stay Ugly forever.

Everybody gets to be supermodel gorgeous. What could be wrong with that?

Review: I have decided that once you pick up a Scott Westerfeld novel you will not put it down. The first line wraps you in: “The early summer sky was the color of cat vomit.” How do you not want to keep reading after that? Anywho! The Uglies. What a ride with this one! I haven’t read a book that captivated me like this in quite a while, I enjoyed Nobody’s Princess, but The Uglies made me ponder and wonder while I enjoyed the book. Unfortunately, I did not get to read this book often as I was swamped with much more pressing summer AP English homework. However, I’m sure if I did not have to do homework I would’ve gotten through this book much quicker. Anyways, back to the book. Tally was a very easily relatable character; I liked how she always seemed to use her head. I felt for her for the entire book, even when she might’ve been a bit stupid. I felt like this book was very…real. Its one of those very rare young adults books that even though set in the future or a different world, you feel as if it’s really happening. You can relate to all the characters, you love or hate them all, and it just appeals to your deep nature; especially as a teenager. How many times have we, as teenagers, felt that we were ‘ugly’ and longed to be that certain age, to grow up and become beautiful? Only this book takes a turn on exposing all the issues with our society. It was a bit predictable, but it was most certainly a page-turner something that is very hard to put down. I deeply enjoyed it even if it was a bit predicable. This book is a hard one to review, because I feel like a lot of it is very hard to put into words. Basically this is a phenomenal book that is a must-read for any YA lover.

Rating: 5/5 I would certainly re-read it.

Reviews from the Pros:

"With a beginning and ending that pack hefty punches, this introduction to a dystopic future promises an exciting series...the awesome ending thrills with potential." -Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Fortunately, the cliff-hanger ending promises a sequel." -School Library Journal, starred review

"Teens will sink their teeth into the provocative questions about invasive technology, image-obsessed society, and the ethical quandries of a mole-turned-ally...Ingenious." -Booklist, starred review

"Teens will appreciate the gadgetry--including bungee jackets and hoverboards that work by magnetic levitation...Westerfeld introduces thought-provoking issues." -Publishers Weekly

"Uglies is not only timely food for thought, but is a breathless,can't-put-it-down read, leaving readers impatient to get their hands on the second book in Scott Westerfeld's trilogy--Pretties immediately." -Teenreads.com