Review: "Insurgent"

(Book Summary taken from Goodreads)

“One choice can transform you—or it can destroy you. But every choice has consequences, and as unrest surges in the factions all around her, Tris Prior must continue trying to save those she loves—and herself—while grappling with haunting questions of grief and forgiveness, identity and loyalty, politics and love.

Tris's initiation day should have been marked by celebration and victory with her chosen faction; instead, the day ended with unspeakable horrors. War now looms as conflict between the factions and their ideologies grows. And in times of war, sides must be chosen, secrets will emerge, and choices will become even more irrevocable—and even more powerful. Transformed by her own decisions but also by haunting grief and guilt, radical new discoveries, and shifting relationships, Tris must fully embrace her Divergence, even if she does not know what she may lose by doing so.

New York Times bestselling author Veronica Roth's much-anticipated second book of the dystopian Divergent series is another intoxicating thrill ride of a story, rich with hallmark twists, heartbreaks, romance, and powerful insights about human nature.” 

 

Filled with heart pounding action, "Insurgent" is a great follow up to Veronica Roth's "Divergent". Although it is quite lengthy, it is full of twists and turns, betrayal, and loss. You feel like you finally understand what is going on and then it is all ripped out from under you. I couldn’t believe some of the betrayals that Tris and Four were faced with along the way. Ms. Roth has delivered a breathtaking second installment that leaves you begging for more. “Insurgent” is filled with action and I loved the fact that I didn’t feel like there was a random ending. I hate it when a book ends too soon and comes out of nowhere.  I felt like this book had nice closure while still leaving you with a new plot line for the next book.

I was worried that this book wouldn’t live up to the hype it was getting. I mean, the first book was a lot to live up to! This book not only met my expectations, but it exceeded them! I was hooked from page 1 and I flew through all 525 pages in a matter of days. I believe that this book will leave fans of “Divergent” feeling complete and anxiously awaiting the release of the third book! If you have not jumped on this bandwagon yet, I suggest that you give it a try! You will not be disappointed!

"Insurgent" by Veronica Roth 

Publication: May 1 by HarperTeen

Make sure to buy yourself a copy!

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: • Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 "'Yes', Marcus says. 'I understand that you are concerned- that you all are concerned. You had never heard of the Divergent a week ago, and now all that you know is that they are immune to something to which you are susceptible, and that is a frightening thing. But I can assure you that there is nothing to be afraid of, as far as we are concerned'"    

  -"Insurgent" by Veronica Roth, page 219

I was lucky enough to receive an ARC of this book at TLA and I was blown away by it! I absolutely loved it and I will have a review up within the next 2 or 3 days!! Check back soon for my review and make sure to read 'Insurgent' when it is released May 1.

April New Release Giveaway Hop

Welcome to my stop on the April New Release Giveaway hop! This hop is hosted by Book Twirps and Refracted Light.

There will be a different book given away at each of the stops. At the bottom of this post are all the sites participating in the book hop. Make sure to visit (and follow) everyone and enter their giveaways! :-)

So, On to my part in the hop!


This month I am giving away two books so there will be two different winners!! The prizes are: an AUTOGRAPHED ARC of "The List" by Siobhan Vivian and an ARC of "The Book of Blood and Shadow" by Robin Wasserman.

Autographed Copy!!

Make sure to enter using the form below! Good luck and thanks for stopping by my blog! :)
~Stephanie
 

Dauntless Challenge 2

This week's assignment: This week's hashtag will be #FaceYourFears. 
     - Tweet, or blog, telling us about your fears or one that you have faced lately. 
     - It can be anything, big or small. Being Dauntless is just having the courage to face what you are afraid of. 

This week's Challenge: Post your answers to one of the following:

• Movie Night: List of movies that would be shown for a Dauntless movie night.
• List of actors you want to play in the Dauntless faction
• Dauntless required reading

Challenge: 
Dauntless Required Reading:

• The Hunger Games
• City of Bones
• The Maze Runner
• The Iron King
• Harry Potter
• Divergent (haha!)

If you  haven't read Divergent yet, you are really missing out!! Please help Dauntless become the best faction out there by clicking the links below :)
http://bit.ly/dauntlessfaction        http://bit.ly/choose_dauntless

Support Team Dauntless for #DivergentNation
or, check out the Tumblr page for the team! SIGN UP TO WIN A NOOK with the INSURGENT ebook!

 

Review: Scarlet

I kind of have mixed feelings about this book. I had heard such great things about it but I just wasn’t “sucked in” from the beginning. In fact, I wasn’t able to get into it until the second half of the book. Don’t get me wrong, the last half of the book was awesome! There was action, and it kept me racing to finish the book! (I finished it in less than 6 hours)  Scarlet has a past that she is trying to hide from and is trying to help her fellow townsfolk stay alive. She is a thief and runs around with the famous Robin Hood. She is very independent and guarded when it comes to her feelings and she doesn’t let herself become attached to anyone.

I felt like the first half of this book just dragged by. I was annoyed at times with Scarlet because she would push people away and refused to let anyone treat her like a girl. She was “Will Scarlet” and if any of her friends tried to treat her as if she was a girl she would freak out. Although, I did love how brave she was when faced with life and death decisions. She is very smart and is able to notice things around her that normal people wouldn’t usually notice. She is a great thief and it is because of that and her independent nature that make people fall in love with her.

I think that overall this was a good book and I loved the interesting twist on the Robin Hood story, I just wish the beginning had been more interesting to me. 

-"Scarlet" by A.C. Gaughen

Published February 14, 2012 

Buy it on: INDIEBOUND, B&N, AMAZON

Discuss it on: FACEBOOK  GOODREADS

Review: The Selection

In a world where their past decides their position in life, 35 girls fight for the right to marry the prince, become a princess, and move up in society.

America Singer is a caste 5- she is a musician whose family is struggling to put food on the table and her mother is obsessed with marrying her into a higher caste. The only problem with this is she is madly in love with Aspen, who is a level below her. Because the law says they can’t be together they are forced to meet in secret. The day the letters come informing all girls between the ages of 16 and 20 of the chance of a lifetime: enter their names into a drawing to be one of 35 lucky girls to compete for Prince Maxon’s heart, America’s life changed forever.

America is bombarded with pleas to enter the selection from her family and is firmly against it until the last person she expects tells her to enter. Aspen, the boy she would do anything for, tells her to enter the lottery for the prince’s heart so that he would never feel that he was holding her back. America never dreamed that she would be picked from all the thousands of names, so she agrees.

After being selected as one of the 35 girls, she is whisked off to the palace where she is alone, sad, and confused. All she wants is to heal her broken heart and to take care of her family. She never expected to have feelings for the prince…

I honestly loved this book! It has a great plot and is different from everything I have read recently! I picked it up initially because of the beautiful cover and the interesting description. I read the 300 page book in less than a day. I had to run a lot of errands and I found myself carrying the book with me everywhere I went and sneaking in some reading time while I was waiting in lines and in the car. I couldn’t put it down! I loved the world that Kiera Cass set up and the idea of the girls being able to move up in society and out of their caste. My favorite part of the book was America. She wasn’t afraid to be herself and to tell people how she really felt. She was in the middle of a competition where the one winner becomes instant royalty and she didn’t stoop to the cattiness that some of the girls were engaging in. It reminded me a lot of the show, “The Bachelor” in the way that the selection was conducted. I have never been a huge fan of that show, but it really worked in the book. You got to know Prince Maxon and realize that he is an amazing, thoughtful guy who really just wants to find his soul mate and do right by his country at the same time. This is a great book for teens and adults alike. I really enjoyed it and I think you will too. I cannot wait to read the next chapter in America’s life and to see the tough decisions that she will have to make soon.

Kiera Cass has come up with an amazingly, unique story that will keep you entranced until the very last page. 

 -"The Selection"- Kiera Cass

Expected publication: April 24, 2012 by Harper Teen

There is a TV movie being made and the characters have already been cast!It is supposed to premiere sometime in 2012.

Dauntless Street Team Challenge 1

Dauntless Tumblr Page
HarperTeen's Insurgent page
Hey everybody! I have recently signed up to be a member of the Dauntless Street Team to help promote Insurgent by Veronica Roth! Every day there will be different giveaways for people to enter :) Also, the street team members will be participating in different challenges every week. This weeks challenge is as follows, "The challenge is to make a vlog of you or your friends talking about being DAUNTLESS. Think of the question "What does it mean to be Dauntless?" 

So, here goes my first attempt at a vlog and I hope you all enjoy! :)

The following text is copied directly from the Dauntless Faction website, 

So throughout all these giveaways and tweets and everything else in between we only ask that you support #TeamDauntless by clicking on the link provided as many times as your heart desires to help us. We know you support the best faction- Who doesn’t want to be Brave?? 

“I AM #TEAMDAUNTLESS! Be fearless and join me #DivergentNation http://bit.ly/choose_dauntless”

Please go to these other sites and check out what they have posted today and everyday.

Members of #TeamDauntless:

• Divergent Fans - Team Leader
• Once Upon a Twilight 
• Addicted 2 Novels
• Anna Reads
• Confessions of a Bookaholic
• Divergent Nation
• Good Books & Good Wine
• Lindsay Cummings YA Author
• Page Turners
• Tales of the Ravenous Reader  

Make sure to check out all of the amazing giveaways and promote Team Dauntless! I'd love to hear about what you think "Being Dauntless" means. :)


Also, enter to win a Nook loaded with "Insurgent". Enter every day from now until April 30.

Houston Blogger Meet Up

Calling all bloggers in the Houston area! Or anyone attending Teen Book Con for that matter...
Friday, the night before this awesome book event takes place, a bunch of bloggers from the Houston area are getting together for a night of talking and eating! What more could you want? Everyone is welcome to attend!! Just make sure to hope over to Cari's blog and sign up saying you are attending. This way she can make sure we have a table big enough to hold everyone :) I hope you come and I can't wait to see and meet everybody there!

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following: • Grab your current read • Open to a random page • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!) • Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

 "I frowned, utterly confused. What kind of vampire killed four people, had a cryptic conversation with a street rat, thanked the street rat for talking with him, and then walked off?" 

- The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa


Check out my review of The Immortal Rules  !

Review: The Immortal Rules

Move over "Twilight", there's a new vampire book in town! Julie Kagawa has done what I thought to be impossible, she has managed to create a new book about vampires with a storyline that has yet to be presented before. I was sure there was no other way to incorporate vampires into another book without repeating the millions of other stories out there. In "The Immortal Rules", vampires run the world. They use the humans as blood banks and nothing more. Allison Sekemoto is an Unregistered human who despises vampires and the world that they have created. As an Unregistered, she has to sneak around and steal food just to stay alive. She is living together with three other Unregistered humans and they do all they can to try and get food for themselves and to stay alive. One night, after Allie finds a treasure trove of food outside the city walls, they attempt to go and gather the food to bring back with them.This is where tragedy strikes. They are surrounded by Rabids (vampires gone wrong....) and are destroyed. Allie is stuck between life and death when a vampire by the name of Kanin gives her a choice: die or become like him. Even though Allie hates vampires with all of her being, she hates the thought of dying even more so she chooses to become the one thing she hates above all else, a vampire. This story follows Allison as she finds a band of misfit strangers who are trying to find the only place in the world where vampires have not taken over, Eden. She struggles to look human and to keep from taking a bit out of the delicious smelling humans that surround her night and day. She prepared herself for the eventuality of giving in to her desires, but she was not prepared for the blond hair, blue eyed Zeke who makes her question every decision she has ever made. 


When reading this at first I was just like, "great... another vampire book..." The more I read the more I realized there was a great story line present in this book. I loved being able to read all of the horrible things that Allie was put through and to see her be able to work through each obstacle she was presented with and turn out stronger because of the situation. She is fiercely loyal and she says she doesn't trust anyone, but you can see her start to trust these humans as she gets to know them. There was a lot that happened in this book and it was filled with action. Allie grows a lot and you are able to gain a lot of respect for her character as this happens throughout the book. I personally cannot wait to see how the story plays out in the next novel and see how that last curve ball that was thrown in plays out.
-The Immortal Rules (Blood of Eden #1) by Julie Kagawa
Expected Publication: April 24, 2012
485 pages
You can read an excerpt of this book here
Pre-order a copy today!
Bonus! If you buy a copy of "The Immortal Rules" after May 2012, you will be able to read an exclusive excerpt from "The Lost Prince", which is the next book in the Iron Fey series! (Coming out November 2012)

Are you new to the world of the Iron Fey? If so, you have got to check these titles out!!
~The Iron King
~The Iron Daughter
~The Iron Queen
~The Iron Knight
and the short novellas: 
~Winter's Passage
~Summer's Crossing