A Date With Darcy by Tiffany Schmidt Published by Abrams on May 1, 2018
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Romance, General, Girls & Women, Contemporary
Pages: 400
Format: eARC
Source: Netgalley
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Boys are so much better in books. At least according to Merrilee Campbell, fifteen, who thinks real-life chivalry is dead and there’d be nothing more romantic than having a guy woo her like the heroes in classic stories. Then she, her best friend, Eliza, and her younger sister, Rory, transfer to Reginald R. Hero Prep—where all the boys look like they've stepped off the pages of a romance novel. Merri can hardly walk across the quad without running into someone who reminds her of Romeo.
When the brooding and complicated Monroe Stratford scales Merri’s trellis in an effort to make her his, she thinks she might be Juliet incarnate. But as she works her way through her literature curriculum under the guidance of an enigmatic teacher, Merri’s tale begins to unfold in ways she couldn’t have imagined. Merri soon realizes that only she is in charge of her story. And it is a truth universally acknowledged that first impressions can be deceiving . . .
I received this book for free in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.
My Thoughts:
This was pretty much the perfect recipe for a fun, light, contemporary read for me. I love Pride and Prejudice and thought this was would be really cute. Unfortunately, this really missed the mark for me. It felt really over the top and it just read much younger than I expected it would be given the actual age of the characters. I am all about boy craziness and book boys – like I talk about swoony book boys a lot. But Merrilee was a bit much for me. I also think I could’ve done without the whole Romeo and Juliet bit which took up a big chunk of the first half. It was sort of distracting from the main romance storyline in my opinion and I was not a fan of that whole situation…
I was just really bummed because I feel like this had all the right pieces but I didn’t end up liking it. I also love Tiffany Schmidt so that made me doubly sad. However, this won’t prevent me from reading future books from her! On the flip side, I do have friends who really loved this one so while this wasn’t for me, it could still work for you!
This Mortal Coil by Emily Suvada Published by Simon and Schuster on November 7, 2017
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Science Fiction, General, Thrillers & Suspense, Action & Adventure, Survival Stories
Pages: 432
Format: Audiobook
Length: 13 hrs and 28 minutes
Source: Library
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“Redefines ‘unputdownable.’” —Amie Kaufman, New York Times bestselling author of Iluminae “I was thrilled. I was shocked.” —NPR “Stunning twists and turns.” —BCCB (starred review)
In this gripping debut novel, seventeen-year-old Cat must use her gene-hacking skills to decode her late father’s message concealing a vaccine to a horrifying plague.
Catarina Agatta is a hacker. She can cripple mainframes and crash through firewalls, but that’s not what makes her special. In Cat’s world, people are implanted with technology to recode their DNA, allowing them to change their bodies in any way they want. And Cat happens to be a gene-hacking genius.
That’s no surprise, since Cat’s father is Dr. Lachlan Agatta, a legendary geneticist who may be the last hope for defeating a plague that has brought humanity to the brink of extinction. But during the outbreak, Lachlan was kidnapped by a shadowy organization called Cartaxus, leaving Cat to survive the last two years on her own.
When a Cartaxus soldier, Cole, arrives with news that her father has been killed, Cat’s instincts tell her it’s just another Cartaxus lie. But Cole also brings a message: before Lachlan died, he managed to create a vaccine, and Cole needs Cat’s help to release it and save the human race.
Now Cat must decide who she can trust: The soldier with secrets of his own? The father who made her promise to hide from Cartaxus at all costs? In a world where nature itself can be rewritten, how much can she even trust herself?
My Thoughts:
How was this not on my radar before?? This was so good. It’s a fantastic mix of dystopia, with really cool biology/genome themes combined with coding, on top of a widespread world wide disease causing zombie-like symptoms. If you are not a zombie person, keep in mind this is really light on the zombie-esque themes.
Firstly, I loved Catarina and her empathy, determination and strength. She is super smart, a brilliant coder and has a lot of spunk that makes her a riveting main character. I loved all the different moving pieces – we are in a dystopian setting and there is a military company working hard to find a cure for the plague but are their motivations pure? What about the rebellious hackers also working toward the same end? Where does Catarina fall in all this? It’s non stop action with a lot of interesting twists that I didn’t see coming. I loved the concept of coding and manipulating your genome with code. It was really fascinating and may be because I was a biology major who also took computer science classes. It makes it all have a veil of ooh-what-if. It’s super interesting and I really enjoyed this world along with the characters. The romance wasn’t a pivotal point of the story to me but was also well done and enjoyable. I absolutely cannot wait to see what’s going to happen in the sequel!
I highly recommend this for fans of action, dystopia or science fiction. This was just a great fantastically executed book and I think it’s underrated and more people need to check it out!
Furyborn by Claire Legrand on May 22, 2018
Genres: Young Adult Fiction, Fantasy, Dark Fantasy, Epic, Girls & Women, General, Romance
Pages: 512
Format: Hardcover
Source: Bought
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An Instant New York Times Bestseller!
"One of the biggest new YA Fantasies." —Entertainment Weekly "Empowering." —BuzzFeed
The stunningly original, must-read fantasy of 2018 follows two fiercely independent young women, centuries apart, who hold the power to save their world...or doom it.
When assassins ambush her best friend, Rielle Dardenne risks everything to save him, exposing herself as one of a pair of prophesied queens: a queen of light, and a queen of blood. To prove she is the Sun Queen, Rielle must endure seven elemental magic trials. If she fails, she will be executed...unless the trials kill her first.
One thousand years later, the legend of Queen Rielle is a fairy tale to Eliana Ferracora. A bounty hunter for the Undying Empire, Eliana believes herself untouchable—until her mother vanishes. To find her, Eliana joins a rebel captain and discovers that the evil at the empire's heart is more terrible than she ever imagined.
As Rielle and Eliana fight in a cosmic war that spans millennia, their stories intersect, and the shocking connections between them ultimately determine the fate of their world—and of each other.
Additional Praise for Furyborn:
A BuzzFeed Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018 A Goodreads Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018A Bustle Most Anticipated Title of Spring 2018
"A must-read." —Refinery29 "A series to watch." —Paste Magazine "Visionary." —Bustle
My Thoughts:
This was SUCH a hyped book this year. I saw it everywhere and the rave reviews were flowing in and not stopping. I was so excited for it because fantasy is my THING and this sounded amazing! I totally knew I was going to love it. Well…
It really fell short. I honestly think the sequel WILL be much better but this first book felt like 500 pgs of set up for the actual story that’s going to unfold in the sequel. And I may have felt differently if it weren’t for one thing: the prologue in Furyborn. The prologue grabbed my interest right away and I was so excited! However, as I kept reading, I realized the prologue essentially spelled out the entire book and I already knew everything. It made the events of hundreds of pages feel boring. I just feel like if the prologue wasn’t there, I would have been more invested and interested.
The other main thing that I didn’t like was the fact that the alternating POVs felt very jarring. I usually have no problem with multiple POVs or alternating, dual timeline POVs. In fact, I usually love them! It didn’t feel like it was done well here though. Every time we switched, I felt yanked out of the story. I also didn’t like Eliana much for most of the book which didn’t help every time I had to go back to her POV.
It wasn’t until over halfway through (around 300 pgs in) that things actually started happening. That’s a really long time. I wanted to DNF but I was buddy reading it with a friend so I pressed on! Overall, there were just a lot of things that didn’t work for me. However, I will be reading the sequel because I do think the next will be more interesting now that the set up is done. But man, was this a chore to get through! It’s not a small book!
I recommend this for fantasy fans and would just like to say that I am a very small minority in my feelings for this book! Everyone else seems to have loved it a lot.
I liked A Date with Darcy a bit more than you. I liked the characters, and thought the romance was cute, but the book did feel a little long to me, and it took quite a bit of time to get to the best parts. A good trim on the beginning of the book would have improved it for me.
Yes, the beginning seemed too long — I think it was about 50% with that Romeo bit and maybe I would’ve been less annoyed with less Romeo!