Release Date: August 15th, 2013 and August 14th, 2014 from the Penguin Group

Summaries from Goodreads: 

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Between the Spark and the Burn

So I decided to put the two books together since I read them back-to-back. In all honesty, I did not like this duology as I hoped I would. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea was the first debut novel from Tucholke, and I wasn't surprised to see mistakes within the writing and the overall layout of the plot line. I decided to give the author another chance and read Between the Spark and Burn, and sadly I was disappointed. The sequel did not do justice. 

Whenever I write a review that has a poor rating, I always like to start it off with the things that I liked versus starting with the dislikes. With the Between duology though, I wasn't able to find anything that I liked at all. What I disliked the most was the writing style and diction used. It was unappealing to say the least. The imagery was skewed and the language and diction of each character was overall annoying to the point where I wanted to stop reading to duology all together.

As for the love in this story...there was instalove. That is one of my biggest pet peeves. I can understand that there was actually something deeper in the plot that caused the instalove to occur, but that doesn't excuse it at all. There was even instalove in the sequel that was totally out-of-the-blue-and-in-your-face. Just....ugh.

The ending for Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea seemed almost random. I feel like I have either seen or read that ending somewhere before and it all just didn't feel original to me at all, and that was very disappointing. For Between the Spark and the Burn, I will admit that the ending was better than the first. Even though the story was just as predictable, there were more seemingly random events popping up wherever they could possible go to make the story feel more "put together". That aspect really brought the sequel down to the rating of the first. 

Overall, the Duology earns only 1.5/5 stars based on the principle that it was poorly written and executed. I had high hopes for these books, especially the sequel, and unfortunately I was let down. If you find the story interesting then read it, but you may or may not be disappointed at the end of it all. 

Well, happily, I can check another book off of my mountainous TBR that I missed and had to go back to. Since I first laid eyes upon this book, with its eerie cover and gothic sounding synopsis, I've wanted to read it. Sadly, I can't say that I enjoyed it as much as I hoped to. There was just too much about it that I couldn't quite bring myself to overlook.

Let's start with the good. The writing falls into this category. With only a few small exceptions, the writing does elicit a gothic feel and does a stellar job of bringing the setting to life. I could smell the ocean air and see the ramshackle manor house that our characters inhabited. While the prose may have been a little airy at times, it definitely evoked that sense of otherness that I love about books like this. A house filled with secrets, a mysterious past, the quest for knowledge, all of it spoke to me. I could feel the tension, and it was wonderful. If you'd asked me to rate this book after the first two chapters, it would have been five stars all the way.

However the more I read the less I found to love. Violet, our main character, never caught my attention. Completely skipping over the fact that she falls in insta-love with River (which I despise, but at least was slightly explained away), her overall personality drove me insane. She was always trying to make sense of things, and yet it just made things more confusing for the reader. One moment Sunshine wasn't Violet's friend, but simply a neighbor. The next, Violet was upset that Sunshine was never on her side. Why would she be? She isn't your friend, is she? Her feelings flip flopped like that through the whole book, regarding all of the other characters. By the time the prospect of a love triangle was introduced, I wanted to scream in anger.

Add in the fact that her character never really grew at all, and I was a very frustrated reader. None of the characters really grew, to be honest. In fact, I felt like most of them could have been left out and nothing would have been different. If it were only just Violet and River, we'd probably have a very similar story. Truth be told, I felt like the only reason Sunshine was even in this story in the first place to was to be a foil to our young Violet. One girl pure, the other not so much. One girl decisive, to the point of recklessness at times, the other always over thinking things. Sunshine made Violet look like an angel and, while that is likely what was intended, it made me dislike her all the more for her poor decisions.

What can I say? It's tough for me to love a book when the characters and I clash. Weak-willed Violet, frustratingly evil but randomly attractive River, and even masochistic Logan, all made me want to quit early on. I finished more from a curiosity at how this would end than anything else. Pity, really. It's such a gorgeous cover.

This is the first installment in my twelve part series where I count down my monthly favorites of 2014! All leading up to my top 14 of 2014!

In January, I read four books.  I wanted to start out strong on my reading goal, and read the amount of books listed on my schedule.

The four books I read were:

Prodigy- Marie Lu

Divergent- Veronica Roth

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea- April Genevieve Tucholke

The 5th Wave- Rick Yancey

This was an extremely good reading month for me in the sense that I think I gave every book that month five stars... Or at least four and a half stars.

I would have to say though, that my favorite book of that month was Prodigy by Marie Lu. Prodigy is the second book in the Legend trilogy, which follows two main characters, Day and June.  They live in a futuristic American where the land has been divided into two different countries.  The Republic and the Colonies.  June is a Republic prodigy, and Day is a wanted Republic criminal.  Both from two different worlds, Day and June are thrown together in a strange turn of events.

It was a great continuation to the series.  Not at all slow and unnecessary like many second books are.  I wasn't completely invested in the characters at the end of Legend, but by the middle of Prodigy, I was in love!  Legend has gone on to be one of my favorite series of all times.