The Hunger Games Trilogy By Suzanne Collins Book blurbs: The stunning Hunger Games trilogy is complete!The extraordinary, ground breaking New York Times bestsellers The Hunger Games andCatching Fire, along with the third book in The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins, Mockingjay, are available for the first time ever in a beautiful boxset edition. Stunning, gripping, and powerful. The trilogy is now complete!
Set in a dark vision of near future a terrifying reality TV show is taking place. Twelve boys and twelve girls are forced to appear in a live event called The Hunger Games. There is only one rule: kill or be killed. When sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdee steps forward to take her younger sister's place in the games, she sees it as a death sentence.
I am pretty sure that The Hunger Games trilogy was my first time reading dystopia books. It was a nice change to have a little time away from romance. I could not be satisfied with soley reading dystopian books though. I do like to switch it up every now and then and toss in a different genre to read. However if it is normal for dystopian books to end like Mockingjay did, I am most certainly going to pass. I find myself angry right now. Lets start from the beginning. My teenage son has been after me for over a year to read this series. I finally did. I loved The Hungers Games and devoured Catching Fire. I burned through Mockingjay and then at the end of the book I wanted to throw it across the room. I was so angry. Mad. Disappointed. I wanted to lash out and yell at the author. I feel it was a waste of time reading the series that consumed my life this past week. I even watched The Hunger Games movie and then went to the last show at the theater to watch Catching Fire. I was so pumped going into Mockingjay. I feel...betrayed. Some may feel I am being overly dramatic but I was buried in these books and had forgotten to eat meals and go to the bathroom while reading them. To reveal the reasons for my frustration and anger would call for me to share a lot spoilers. Lets just say that reading this series has made me gravitate back towards romance because I need my happily ever after. I learned that about myself. I need that happy ending. I guess that is why I love romance books so much. I am going to still rate the series as a 5 but if I was to do them separately, 5 stars for The Hunger Games and Catching Fire but a lowly 2 for Mockingjay. Not just because the lousy ending but because it was disappointment after disappointment as I was ploughing through chapter after chapter. I talked about Mockingjay with my son and he says that he figured I'd be mad about the ending but it was still a good read. Right?
Kyrian of Thrace and Amanda Deveraux's book Night Pleasures (Dark-Hunter book 2) By Sherrilyn Kenyon
Book Blurb:He is solitude. He is darkness. He is the ruler of the night. Yet Kyrian of Thrace has just woken up handcuffed to his worst nightmare: An accountant. Worse, she's being hunted by one of the most lethal vampires out there. And if Amanda Devereaux goes down, then he does too. But it's not just their lives that are hanging in the balance. Kyrian and Amanda are all that stands between humanity and oblivion. Let's hope they win.
What the heck am I missing? I am not enjoying this Dark-Hunter series at all. It took me almost an entire week to get through this second book when I usually devour a book every two days. I just didn't want to give up because I am confused on why this series is so beloved by so many readers/bloggers. Just like the first book, Fantasy Lover, the characters are over the top with their emotions and actions. Everything is to the extreme. If Amanda is startled, she screams! Kyrian is thousands of years old yet in all his life he has never experienced the feelings he has for Amanda. Why? What is so great about Amanda? It is never explained. Kyrian changes mood faster than a hormonal teenager. (No offense to teens but I do have 3 of my own) One moment he can't live without her and in the next moment, he is asking her to leave. Kyrian is a total drama queen and I could not stand to read about him. As I said, I am having a serious disconnect with the characters. Amanda drives me nuts too. I cannot stand when an author makes their female character do the dumbest choices. She knows she is being hunted by the villain in the story yet when her creepy ex-finance calls her looking for sympathy, she leaves to go to his house. So frustrating!
The villain of the story is vicious and I was actually thankful for an interesting character. He is completely despicable and as much as I disliked him, I was grateful for the story-line. So I have every single book in the series. I think it is time to sell them. Unless anyone can convince me that they get really better as I read on, I think I am going to pass. Teasers: handcuff beginning, horrific Roman torture, introduction to more Dark-Hunters, SUPER rich Kyrian
Dr. Grace Alexandar & Julian of Macedon Fantasy Lover (Dark Hunter book 1) By Sherrilyn Kenyon Book Blurb: Dear Reader,
Being trapped in a bedroom with a woman is a grand thing. Being trapped in hundreds of bedrooms over two thousand years isn't. And being cursed into a book as a love-slave for eternity can ruin even a Spartan warrior's day.
As a love-slave, I know everything about women. How to touch them, how to savor them, and most of all, how to pleasure them. But when I was summoned to fulfill Grace Alexander's sexual fantasies, I found the first woman in history who saw me as a man with a tormented past. She alone bothered to take me out of the bedroom and onto the world. She taught me to love again.
But I was not born to love. I was cursed to walk eternity alone. As a general, I had long ago accepted my sentence. Yet now I have found Grace--the one thing my wounded heart cannot survive without. Sure, love can heal all wounds, but can it break a two-thousand-year-old curse?
Julian of Macedon
I know I'm about a decade late to the Dark Hunter party but better late than never right? Out the gate I wouldn't say I am wow'd as I had expected to be with this first book, Fantasy Lover. In fact it was a big fat "meh" for me. I found the character's emotions to be over the top and highly descriptive. It seemed like Grace's eyes were always stinging with tears or she somehow managed a scream. Grace was too dramatic of a character for me to take. Her parents die and she shrines them for years. She gets her heart broken in college when she loses her virginity so she has banned men from her life forever. Now I found this adverse action an entire contradiction because as it turns out Grace is a sex therapist. If anyone needed a therapist I would say it was Grace. I felt the villain in the story was a last minute decision and he seemed out of place. Rushed. Oddly inserted into the story. Maybe the first draft didn't have enough drama so the author decided to create that silly story-line of a crazy client. There was no depth to the his part of the plot and he was in and out of the story quickly. Julian's character was creative and I really did like the actual story of how he came to be and I enjoyed all the Greek Mythos back-story. To me that was the saving grace of this novel and promptly put my book rating from a 2 up to a 3. I think I am going to regret that I have slowly purchased this entire series over the past year. Yep. I have every book. I was sure I was going to fall in love with this series since it is so highly rated. I am going to try book 2 right away because I am totally in the mood for an awesome paranormal fantasy story. That is why I decided to start reading this series now. I really hope that the books get better than this lack luster beginning. Teasers: love slave, sexy deadline, chick magnet, showers
Tom and Cali's book Light Weaver By Carol Anne Strange
Book Blurb:Light Weaver is a contemporary story with a fantastical twist set in the English Lake District. It's a tale about love, transience, and the nature of reality. What if your world was no longer what it seemed? Strange and inexplicable things are happening in the Lakeland fells ... light orbs dance over mossy crags, symbols miraculously appear in grassy lowlands, and Cali Silverthorn keeps disappearing into other worlds.
Mobile librarian, Tom Philips, is captivated by free-spirited Cali but is struggling to make sense of her remarkable abilities and the escalating strangeness impacting ordinary rural life. As beliefs are challenged, Tom and Cali's love becomes the only constant in a questionable reality as they face the heart-breaking realisation that Cali may soon disappear for good.
Light Weaver is so far removed from my everyday reading that I am having a difficult time rating it or even how to review it. I am always open to new types of novels and genres so I really wanted to give Light Weaver a try. I was especially swayed to reading it after listening to the book trailer. I was mesmerized by the swoon worthy voice of Allan Scott-Douglas and his narrative of "Tom" from the story.
I was really in the mood for something different. I had a craving to read a contemporary story where the setting was somewhere in the U.K. Light Weaver is for sure contemporary but it has a heavy reality-questioning theme. As I indicated, it is different. I think if you are a fan of Sarah Addison Allen's whimsical stories, you may really like Light Weaver. I think Carol Anne Strange's story is a bit more "out there" than her's though. I admit to struggling with fantasy type of stories. I am far too logical of a person to believe in crystal healing and light orbs. I think I connected with Light Weaver though because Carol Anne Strange made her character, Tom's view, very close to my own. Here's a perfect quote and why I bought into the story. "...a lover of swooning words and rare thoughts, I wasn't really prone to flying away on a fantasy cloud of high romance." Cali is the Light Weaver. As explained in the story, a Light Weaver is someone who has the ability to control the light energy in a miraculous way. Tom is a non-believer at first but as he begins to witness Cali's work and disappearances before his own eyes he changes his views. There is a lovely romantic element to Light Weaver as Tom and Cali fall in love. Everything is so fantastical and magical. I adored the secondary characters and I found myself being absorbed in Carol Anne Strange's poetic writing. Light Weaver read and flowed so easily with captivating descriptions. I loved reading about crop circles and standing stones. The story left me wondering if it is at all possible. A highly enjoyable read. Teasers: Lake District in England, mobile library, healer, Mother Earth
