Sophie Reads YA: September 2017

September Summary

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What I've read this month:

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
Series: None
Author: Lauren James
Published September 7th 2017 by Walker Books (ARC)
Read: September 1 2017
My Rating: 3 Stars

Signs Point to Yes
Series: None
Author: Sandy Hall
Published: October 20th 2015 by Swoon Reads
Read: September 2 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 RockMyTBR, 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge

Internet Famous
Series: None
Author: Danika Stone
Published June 6th 2017 by Swoon Reads
Read: September 3-4 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge, 2017 RockMyTBR

The Start of Me and You
Series: None
Author: Emery Lord
Published: June 29th 2017 by Bloomsbury Children's Books
Read: September 6-7 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 RockMyTBR, 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge

Just One of the Boys
Series: None
Author: Leah and Kate Rooper
Published October 2nd 2017 by Entangled Teen (eARC)
Read: September 9 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge

Approximately Yours
Series: North Pole, Minnesota #3
Author: Julie Hammerle
Published: October 2nd 2017 by Entangled: Crush (eARC)
Read: September 10 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge

A Shiver of Snow and Sky
Series: Untitled #1
Author: Lisa Lueddecke
Published October 5th 2017 by Scholastic Children's Books (ARC)
Read: September 7-14 2017
My Rating: 3 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Debut Author Challenge

Saint Anything
Series: None
Author: Sarah Dessen
Published: May 5th 2015 by Penguin
Read: September 15 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge

Hunting Prince Dracula
Series: Stalking Jack the Ripper #2
Author: Kerri Maniscalco
Published September 19th 2017 by Little, Brown & Company
Read: September 18-19 2017
My Rating: 5 Stars
Challenge: 2017 RockMyTBR

All the Feels
Series: None
Author: Danika Stone
Published: June 7th 2016 by Swoon Reads
Read: September 16-20 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge, 2017 RockMyTBR

Lock and Key
Series: None
Author: Sarah Dessen
Published: June 1st 2012 by Speak
Read: September 22-24 2017
My Rating: 3 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge

Open Road Summer
Series: None
Author: Emery Lord
Published: April 15th 2014 by Walker Childrens
Read: September 14-25 2017
My Rating: 4 Stars
Challenge: 2017 Contemporary Romance Challenge, 2017 RockMyTBR

Ruined
Series: Ruined #1
Author: Amy Tintera
Published May 3rd 2016 by HarperTeen
Read: September 27-29 2017
My Rating: 5 Stars
Challenge: 2017 RockMyTBR, 2017 Flights of Fantasy

Challenges Update:

2017 Contemporary Romance: 7 (45 total)
2017 Flights of Fantasy: 1 (15 total)
2017 RockMyTBR: 7 (41 total)
2017 Debut Author Challenge: 1 (9 total)

Summary:

I've done really well this month, and am starting to get back into my fantasy books, considering I've been basically reading only contemporaries for months now. Let's keep this up!

How have you done this month? Let me know below.

September

Stacking the Shelves: September 30th 2017

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Into the Bright Unknown

Waiting On Wednesday: Into the Bright Unknown (The Gold Seer Trilogy #3) by Rae Carson

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2017 Flights of Fantasy Challenge

ARC Review: King's Cage (Red Queen #3) by Victoria Aveyard

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King's Cage
Series: Red Queen #3
Author: Victoria Aveyard
Published February 9th 2017 by Orion Publishing

Goodreads Synopsis
In this breathless third installment to Victoria Aveyard's bestselling Red Queen series, allegiances are tested on every side. And when the Lightning Girl's spark is gone, who will light the way for the rebellion?

Mare Barrow is a prisoner, powerless without her lightning, tormented by her lethal mistakes. She lives at the mercy of a boy she once loved, a boy made of lies and betrayal. Now a king, Maven Calore continues weaving his dead mother's web in an attempt to maintain control over his country—and his prisoner.

As Mare bears the weight of Silent Stone in the palace, her once-ragtag band of newbloods and Reds continue organizing, training, and expanding. They prepare for war, no longer able to linger in the shadows. And Cal, the exiled prince with his own claim on Mare's heart, will stop at nothing to bring her back.

When blood turns on blood, and ability on ability, there may be no one left to put out the fire—leaving Norta as Mare knows it to burn all the way down.
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher. This in no way impacted on my view.

This series, though not my favourite to begin with, has quickly become one that I enjoy reading. With each instalment, the action grows and a grows, and I don't know how we'll cope with the finale, if it keeps going this way. Mare has suffered and struggled, and now she's more at risk that ever. Following the explosive ending to Glass Sword, Mare is a prisoner of king Maven's, and he is doing whatever he can to use her to discredit the Red cause, and also to keep a shattering hold on his own power and control. Mare's ragtag group of Newbloods, along with Cal and the rest of the Red's are not letting her loss get them down. Obviously, they're planning on how to get her back, but they're also looking at the end goal, and that's the most important thing.

This book was simply fantastic. All of the main characters had excellent plot lines, and Mare's character development was unbelievable. She is treated worse than something you'd step in, and has her powers, her autonomy, her control, ripped from her, and still she's there, plotting her escape, and contingency after contingency, and doing anything she can to undermine Maven, and not let him get inside her head. Obviously, she's not strong all the time - she is human after all - but that lets us see the vulnerability, and make her more likeable, especially with how realistic the PTSD is shown to be.

Maven is an awful, nonredeemable character, and he deserves everything he gets. Unlike other 'evil' characters in other series, there's nothing about him that really gives you an element of pity. Everything his mother did to make and mould him in what he now is, has destroyed any 'human' part of his soul. His obsession of Mare - it's an obsession, there's no love there at all - causes even more hatred, because he feels like he's caring and protecting Mare in a way, when really, he's doing the exact opposite. Aveyard makes it clear that we're not getting any kind of Stockholm Syndrome here - he's evil, and that's that.

Like I said, the action is fantastic! There's so much realism in it, that the battle scenes somewhat turn into a little movie in your head, and there's no glossing over the sheer carnage and destruction which is caused by the war. There's death, there's blood, there's suffering, and it's done in a way not to reduce the importance of it, but to show that it's not something to be glorified, and the impact it can have on everyone involved.

I am dying to get my hands on book 4, and would recommend this series to anyone! I'm actually getting my mam to read them soon, after I met the author and she got interested in them :)

Dates Read:

February 11-16, 2017

Rating
4 Stars

September

Stacking the Shelves: September 23rd 2017

10:00

#RockMyTBR 2017 Challenge

Review: Hunted by Meagan Spooner

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Hunted
Series: None
Author: Meagan Spooner
Published March 14th 2017 by HarperTeen

Goodreads Synopsis
Beauty knows the Beast’s forest in her bones—and in her blood. Though she grew up with the city’s highest aristocrats, far from her father’s old lodge, she knows that the forest holds secrets and that her father is the only hunter who’s ever come close to discovering them.

So when her father loses his fortune and moves Yeva and her sisters back to the outskirts of town, Yeva is secretly relieved. Out in the wilderness, there’s no pressure to make idle chatter with vapid baronessas…or to submit to marrying a wealthy gentleman. But Yeva’s father’s misfortune may have cost him his mind, and when he goes missing in the woods, Yeva sets her sights on one prey: the creature he’d been obsessively tracking just before his disappearance.

Deaf to her sisters’ protests, Yeva hunts this strange Beast back into his own territory—a cursed valley, a ruined castle, and a world of creatures that Yeva’s only heard about in fairy tales. A world that can bring her ruin or salvation. Who will survive: the Beauty, or the Beast?
Goodreads

Review
Retellings have become a favourite of mine to read, and when I first heard about this one, I knew it would be one for me. Beauty and the Beast is one of my favourite Disney films, and I love seeing how others have interpreted the original tale, compared to Disney.

In Hunted, Yeva and her family have always lived in relative comfort. Her father has favoured her from her sisters, and has taught her how to hunt. However, when he loses his fortune, the whole family has to move into a hunting cabin, and survive on whatever they can find in the woods. Though her sisters struggle with the change, Yeva finds it a blessing in disguise, where she doesn't have to pretend to be a lady, interested in sewing, clothes, and finding a wealthy husband. Soon, though, their father disappears, and it's down to Yeva to find out where he went, by searching for the creature he had been tracking. The problem is, she ends up being captured by the Beast herself, though doesn't discover the truth for sometime.

Yeva's character was amazing. She was strong and had a plan for whatever situation she found herself in. Even when she became a captive, she formulated plan after plan to escape, though she had one issue in her plans - she thought the person bringing her her food and supplies was also a captive, not her captor. By doing this, Spooner made the whole attraction to the Beast much more acceptable, as they had only previously communicated through the door. Their relationship in this sense, was really enjoyable to read, because you could see the vulnerability in them both, even though the reader knew the truth of the situation. Once Yeva discovers the truth about the Beast, she tries to kill him on more than one occasion, though the Beast is kind to her, but still not an angel.

There's so much magic interwoven in the story, along with parts from Russian folk tales, which bring an element to the original tale that I didn't know was missing until I read this book. I thought the Disney version was wonderful, the obviously bad Stockholm Syndrome aside, but I definitely preferred this version. The storytelling and world building was amazing, and I loved how although the book was from Yeva's POV, we did get an insight into the Beast's every few chapters or so.

I haven't read any of Spooner's other books, but I think I might in the future. This is definitely a book for lovers of fantasy and retellings.

Dates Read:

March 23-28, 2017

Rating
5 Stars

Rick Riordan

Waiting On Wednesday: The Ship of the Dead (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3) by Rick Riordan

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3 Stars

ARC Review: The Loneliest Girl in the Universe by Lauren James

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The Loneliest Girl in the Universe
Series: None
Author: Lauren James
Published September 7th 2017 by Walker Books

Goodreads Synopsis
Can you fall in love with someone you’ve never met, never even spoken to – someone who is light years away?

Romy Silvers is the only surviving crew-member of a spaceship travelling to a new planet, on a mission to establish a second home for humanity amongst the stars. Alone in space, she is the loneliest girl in the universe until she hears about a new ship which has launched from Earth – with a single passenger on board. A boy called J.

Their only communication with each other is via email – and due to the distance between them, their messages take months to transmit across space. And yet Romy finds herself falling in love.

But what does Romy really know about J? And what do the mysterious messages which have started arriving from Earth really mean?

Sometimes, there’s something worse than being alone . . .
Goodreads

Review
I received an Advance Reader Copy from the publisher. This in no way impacted on my view.

Pretty much since YALC, I heard this book spoken about on twitter, all the time. So when I was offered the chance to review the book, I jumped at it, because everything I'd heard was great - nothing negative at all. The day it arrived, I immediately started it, and didn't stop reading until I was finished. Now, that may make it seem like I loved the book, but, unfortunately, I did not, but we'll get to that later.

The Loneliest Girl in the Universe is Romy's story. She was born about a spaceship headed to a new planet, and has never been on Earth. Her parents were part of the mission to find, and land on the planet, and discover whether it was habitable or not. They were never supposed to fall in love, so it's safe to say that Romy was not a contingency that NASA had planned for. However, her time aboard the Infinity has been quite enjoyable, especially when she's binge her favourite TV shows, or written fanfiction about them. The issue is, that when she was 11, her parents died, and she was left alone, in charge of a flying metal can, with a vacuum on the other side; understandably, she has good and bad days. When a brand new craft is launched, and it's so much faster than the one she is in, she can't wait to meet the new astronauts, and finally, not be alone. Through emails, and later calls, with the commander, J, she finds in him a kindred spirit, and is slowly falling for someone she's never met.

I have to say that I loved Romy, who was everything and more that I could have wanted. Considering she had been completely alone for over five years, and saw no way that would be changing for quite some time, she was in a much better head space than I would've accepted. Being born on the ship, her parents, in particularly her father, had raised her with the practical skills she'd need aboard the ship, and NASA kept sending school work for her to do. This meant that she was able to deal with any problems that arose on the ship, and also had something to do to fill the void. When J first appeared, and she lost all contact with Earth, she uses him as a sounding board, and can't seem to do anything without asking him first. This is something that I also understand her doing, but still, it's dangerous.

Now, on to what I didn't like. For the past 4 months or so, I've struggled to read anything that isn't escapism, and I need it to be light, and fluffy, and not too real, if you know what I mean. So when certain things happened in this book, that I wasn't expecting at all, it kind of ruined my reading experience, and my enjoyment. After all that, I found myself not enjoying the book, and more flew through it because I wanted to know how it ended, and, really, just wanted to be done with it. I don't know, if I was out of my funk that I've been in, or knew more about the book, going in, I might have loved it as much as everyone else seems to have. All I really knew was that a girl was on a spaceship, all alone, and then starts communicating with a guy, and wasn't alone any more. Maybe some more research would have let me go into the book, and not be blindsided as much.

That's not to say that it wasn't a good book, because, really, it was; it just wasn't the book for me. If you like twists and turns in books, and enjoy them being set in space, give this a go!

Dates Read:

September 1, 2017

Rating
3 Stars

September

Stacking the Shelves: September 16th 2017

10:00

#RockMyTBR 2016 Challenge

Review: An Ember in the Ashes (An Ember in the Ashes #1) by Sabaa Tahir

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An Ember in the Ashes
Series: An Ember in the Ashes #1
Author: Sabaa Tahir
Published June 4th 2015 by Harper Voyager

Goodreads Synopsis
Set in a terrifyingly brutal Rome-like world, An Ember in the Ashes is an epic fantasy debut about an orphan fighting for her family and a soldier fighting for his freedom. It’s a story that’s literally burning to be told.
What if you were the spark that could ignite a revolution?
For years Laia has lived in fear. Fear of the Empire, fear of the Martials, fear of truly living at all. Born as a Scholar, she’s never had much of a choice.
For Elias it’s the opposite. He has seen too much on his path to becoming a Mask, one of the Empire’s elite soldiers. With the Masks’ help the Empire has conquered a continent and enslaved thousands, all in the name of power.
When Laia’s brother is taken she must force herself to help the Resistance, the only people who have a chance of saving him. She must spy on the Commandant, ruthless overseer of Blackcliff Academy. Blackcliff is the training ground for Masks and the very place that Elias is planning to escape. If he succeeds, he will be named deserter. If found, the punishment will be death.
But once Laia and Elias meet, they will find that their destinies are intertwined and that their choices will change the fate of the Empire itself.
In the ashes of a broken world one person can make a difference. One voice in the dark can be heard. The price of freedom is always high and this time that price might demand everything, even life itself.
Goodreads

Review
I had this book on my tbr for ages, and after loads of people telling me I needed to read the book, I finally gave in.

Laia's family and people are enslaved by the Martials, and live in horrible conditions. When her brother is arrested for treason, for working with the Resistance to undermine the Empire, Laia finds herself becoming a spy. Placed inside the Blackcliff academy, she has to find a way to protect herself, and also gather vital information to save her brother.

Elias is different. Born into a leading Martial family, he is one of the best students at Blackcliff. However, all he wants is to escape, and has absolutely no goal to become a Mask. The only way to become free is to take part in the Trials, but even he may not be good enough to succeed and win.

This book reminded me so much of Ancient Rome, with the Blackcliff Academy being just like a mix of gladiators, and legionaries. From the get go, it was brutal, and every page has another key point happening on the page. The action just ramps up, more and more, and by the end of each part, you feel like you've actually gone through the same as them - the story just gets into your soul.

The book is written in dual POV, and I found myself enjoying both as much as the other. As Laia and Elias are from completely different backgrounds, they shouldn't really have anything yo do with each other, but whenever they meet, the chemistry flies off the page. I loved how Laia grew into her role as a spy, and strengthened herself against the Martials in order to protect herself. She was at risk in pretty much every single scene in the book, and she managed to overcome her original weaknesses to become a strong willed fighter.

The problem I have, is that I'm writing this review over a year after I read the book, and, honestly, I've forgotten the vast majority of what happened. I can remember I liked Laia and Elias intrigued me, as did Helene. I remember the trial was something to do with the new Emperor, and that Elias' mask hadn't melded with his face yet, because he kept taking it off. Other than that, I'm a bit blank on the rest of the plot. I know so many people adore and rave about this series, but even though I enjoyed it when I read it, it didn't become a favourite of mine, at all. I mean, it took me two weeks to finish it, when I would've normally flown through it otherwise.

I might try and re-read it in the future, and give the other books ago, but I'm not too sure if I'm ready for how brutal the book was, and the series has probably become. Let me know if you think otherwise.

Dates Read:

July 24-August 9, 2016

Rating
4 Stars