Book Review: As I Descended

As I Descended by Robin Talley

Released: September 6, 2016

Read: August 2016

Publisher: Harper Teen

Format: ARC, 384 pages

Series: Stand-alone

Description on Goodreads:

    Maria Lyon and Lily Boiten are their school’s ultimate power couple—even if no one knows it but them.

    Only one thing stands between them and their perfect future: campus superstar Delilah Dufrey.

    Golden child Delilah is a legend at the exclusive Acheron Academy, and the presumptive winner of the distinguished Cawdor Kingsley Prize. She runs the school, and if she chose, she could blow up Maria and Lily’s whole world with a pointed look, or a carefully placed word.

    But what Delilah doesn’t know is that Lily and Maria are willing to do anything—absolutely anything—to make their dreams come true. And the first step is unseating Delilah for the Kingsley Prize. The full scholarship, awarded to Maria, will lock in her attendance at Stanford―and four more years in a shared dorm room with Lily.

    Maria and Lily will stop at nothing to ensure their victory—including harnessing the dark power long rumored to be present on the former plantation that houses their school.

    But when feuds turn to fatalities, and madness begins to blur the distinction between what’s real and what is imagined, the girls must decide where they draw the line.

    From acclaimed author Robin Talley comes a Shakespeare-inspired story of revenge and redemption, where fair is foul, and foul is fair.

Review:

    As I Descended was darker and more twisted than I thought it would be. The cover gives off the illusion that the novel would be a frilly yet somewhat unsettling contemporary; I was caught completely off guard. Instead, I read about controlling, frightening spirits, competitions that can drive people over the edge, and old legendary ghost stories that might not be just stories.
    Overall I would recommend As I Descended to anyone that can handle the horror and is willing to get a glimpse of what truly lies after death.

Favourite Quotes:

• " It was over. She'd done it. There was no going back from here."
• " Blood will have blood."

Rating: 7/10 

Recommended if you like: ghost stories, thrillers, horror novels, spirits, high school competitions, reading about characters who hide what they truly feel about everything

Keep flipping pages,

Lauren

Book Review: Lair of Dreams

Lair of Dreams by Libba Bray

Released: August 25th 2015
Read: May 2016
Publisher: Little Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover, 613 pages
Series: The Diviners #2, here's my review of the first book.

Description from Goodreads:
After a supernatural showdown with a serial killer, Evie O’Neill has outed herself as a Diviner. With her uncanny ability to read people’s secrets, she’s become a media darling, earning the title “America’s Sweetheart Seer.” Everyone’s in love with the city’s newest It Girl…everyone except the other Diviners.
Piano-playing Henry DuBois and Chinatown resident Ling Chan are two Diviners struggling to keep their powers a secret—for they can walk in dreams. And while Evie is living the high life, victims of a mysterious sleeping sickness are turning up across New York City.
As Henry searches for a lost love and Ling strives to succeed in a world that shuns her, a malevolent force infects their dreams. And at the edges of it all lurks a man in a stovepipe hat who has plans that extend farther than anyone can guess…As the sickness spreads, can the Diviners descend into the dreamworld to save the city?


Review:
Holy cow! I thought that like most sequels, this one would fail to capture the magic that the first one did. I was happily proven wrong. This book (while not QUITE so scary) managed to keep the suspense from the reader until the very end. While I thought that it would be hard to follow the plot from the first book, she managed to create a mystery with the same excitement as the last one. In this novel, the old characters were developed upon, and new ones introduced. In many series, it sometimes feels like the existing characters are almost forgotten, or set aside. Not in this one. Although we got to know the new people, the old were still very much there. Goodness... this is actually such a good sequel! I couldn't stop gushing about it while I was reading, because there were many twists and turns that came from nowhere. The only thing that could've been improved was the "horror" element. It could've been scarier, like the first one was. But still an AMAZING read! And luckily there are still two more books to go!

Favorite Quote:
“We are made by what we are asked to bear, Ling Chan,” 

― Libba Bray, Lair of Dreams

Rating: 8/10

Recommended for people who love: mystery, horror, romance, suspense, supernatural, strong female leads, historical fiction

Happy reading!
Mari

What about Wednesday: Best Mysteries

Hey, y'all!
    Today we felt like we needed a little diversity from the other What about Wednesdays we've done, and we wanted to reach out to the readers out there who live for the thrill of all that is mysteries. Without further ado, here are each of our top three recommendations for Best Mysteries!




Ola's Picks:
1. Ten by Gretchen McNeil
2. The Compound by S A Bodeen
3. This Dark Endeavour by Kenneth Oppel



Mari's Picks:
1.The Diviners by Libba Bray
2.A Spy in the House by Y.S.Lee
3.Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs



Lauren's Picks:
1. The Creeping by Alexandra Sirowy
2. Don't Look Back by Jennifer L. Armentrout
3. The Third Twin by C.J. Omololu




We hope you take our recommendations into consideration when you pick out your next whodunit!

-The trusty, always there, blog that lives life page by exhilarating page

Book review: The House

The House, by Christina Lauren

Release date: October 27, 2015

Read: November 11, 2015
Publisher: Simon and Schuster Books
Format: ARC, 400 pages.

Description from Good Reads:

Gavin tells Delilah he's hers-completely-but whatever lives inside that house with him disagrees, After seven years tucked away at an East coast boarding school. Delilah Blue returns to her small Kansas hometown to find that not much has changed, Her parents are still uptight and disinterested, her bedroom is exactly the way she left it, and the outcast Gavin Timothy still looks like he's crawled out of one of her dark, twisted drawings. Delilah is instantly smitten. Gavin has always lived in the strange house: an odd building isolated in a stand of trees where the town gives in to mild wilderness. The house is an irresistible lure for Delilah, but the tall fence surrounding it exists for good reason, and Gavin urges Delilah to be careful. Whatever lives with him there isn't human, and isn't afraid of hurting her to keep her away.

Review: The first impression I had of Delilah, was that she was a stalker. Really, what kind of girl, whether boy-crazed or not, follows a guy to his house? And it doesn't end there, she also had to have a peek inside through his front window. But it was a nice change to read a book with a courageous female lead (however impulsive) and an anti-social boy, instead of the other way around, which most books are. And the house! The moment this odd looking house came into play, I knew something paranormal was going on there. My guess was that there was some sort of soul-sucking demon living inside who was keeping Gavin captive, not that something was wrong with the actual house. Kudos to Christina Lauren for pulling that one off, and not writing what was expected.

Favourite Quotes: 
" What a pair they must make standing beside each other. Her fire so huge it spilled out of her and onto the pavement. His entire world so small she couldn't even see it with him looming over her." -Christina Lauren

Rating: 8/10

Recommended if you like: Monster House (the movie), Thrillers, any books/movies that just creep you out in general.

A recipe for disaster,


Lauren

Book Review: The Diviners

             The Diviners by Libba Bray

Release date: September 8, 2012
Read: February 2015
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Format: Hardcover, 529 pages

Description from Goodreads:
   Evie O’Neill has been exiled from her boring old hometown and shipped off to the bustling streets of New York City—and she is pos-i-tute-ly ecstatic. It’s 1926, and New York is filled with speakeasies, Ziegfeld girls, and rakish pickpockets. The only catch is that she has to live with her uncle Will and his unhealthy obsession with the occult.
   Evie worries he’ll discover her darkest secret: a supernatural power that has only brought her trouble so far. But when the police find a murdered girl branded with a cryptic symbol and Will is called to the scene, Evie realizes her gift could help catch a serial killer.
   As Evie jumps headlong into a dance with a murderer, other stories unfold in the city that never sleeps. A young man named Memphis is caught between two worlds. A chorus girl named Theta is running from her past. A student named Jericho hides a shocking secret. And unknown to all, something dark and evil has awakened.

Review: Normally, I don't go for the really creepy, and paranormal books. Add the fact that it's set in the 1920's, and you are in for a really scary ride.

Now I don't want to scare you away from the book, however it's not for the faint of heart. I think I first realized this during the introduction. It begins at a party with a Ouija board. A OUIJA BOARD! I think any normal person would see that it's only going to go downhill from there.

Like I said before, I'm not the creepy book type of gal. But this book kept me hooked. I literally couldn't stop reading. It took a while to hit the action, as Bray did a lot of character building on Evie (the main character). Once it hit, it was awesome. Every twisty turn was refreshingly original, and I never felt bored.

Although, I wish that we could have seen a little more of New York City in the 20's. The whole story stayed in one area, so I think had we traveled a little further, the story would have had even more depth to it. All in all, it was a great book, and I can't wait to read the next one!


Favorite Quote: “Naughty John, Naughty John, does his work with his apron on. Cuts your throat and takes your bones, sells 'em off for a coupla stones.” ― Libba Bray, The Diviners


(Not gonna lie, this was one of the creepiest parts of the book)

Rating: 4/5 Stars

Recommended to people who like: horror, paranormal, supernatural, YA, romance, exciting, thriller, mystery




Happy Reading,


Mari

Book Review: Mortal Danger

    Mortal Danger by Ann Aguire

Release date: August 5th, 2014

Read: August 2015
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Format: Hardcover, 372 pages

Description from Goodreads:   Edie Kramer has a score to settle with the beautiful people at Blackbriar Academy. Their cruelty drove her to the brink of despair, and four months ago, she couldn't imagine being strong enough to face her senior year. But thanks to a Faustian compact with the enigmatic Kian, she has the power to make the bullies pay. She's not supposed to think about Kian once the deal is done, but devastating pain burns behind his unearthly beauty, and he's impossible to forget.

In one short summer, her entire life changes and she sweeps through Blackbriar, prepped to take the beautiful people down from the inside. A whisper here, a look there, and suddenly . . . bad things are happening. It's a head rush, seeing her tormentors get what they deserve, but things that seem too good to be true usually are, and soon, the pranks and payback turns from delicious to deadly. Edie is alone in a world teeming with secrets and fiends lurking in the shadows. In this murky morass of devil's bargains, she isn't sure who--or what--she can trust. Not even her own mind.


Review: Wow, this book was... not at all what I expected, or wanted for that matter. All of the assumptions I had melted away once I started reading. Edie was not as vengeful as I had hoped, instead I got pretentious, confused, and lots of lip-biting. Kian was gooey and "heroic", so there were only a few scenes with him that I actually liked. There is also one predominant thing spread throughout most of the novel, being beautiful can get you whatever you want. I mean, come on. This is the 21st century, stop this mindset! Needless to say, I won't be reading the next book.

      There is one good surprise. This book was scary. I thought it was going to be about as scary as an episode of Bones, but to me, it was more like a Stephen King novel (bear in mind, I get scared very easily). So it goes that I couldn't sleep, and was constantly looking at my window for tiny handprints.


Quotable Quotes:  

"Hateful words had a way of worming beneath the skin, until they became the unbearable echo in your head. I wasn't listening anymore." - Edith (Page 90)

"I remember seeing her face and thinking, what can I do to break her?" - Edith (Page 126)

Rating: 2/5 Stars
Read if you like: horror, romance, And Then There Were None, teenage drama, Ann Aguirre

Optimistically yours, Ola <3