***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

The Accident Season is a book I cannot completely make my mind about. I liked some things but other things didn’t work for me. There were also some things I liked in theory but ended up not loving.

One of the biggest issues I had was that even though I liked the characters, I didn’t feel like I could relate to them. There were so many things written between the lines about what was up with these characters and I am not sure if that worked for me. It’s not that reading between the lines was hard but because I spend so much time doing that, it was hard to really form a meaningful connection to these readers. I felt for them, I REALLY did but I felt for them the way a stranger might sympathize with a bad situation.

I DID love the way the relationships were done in this book though. There are great friendships, great relationships between parents and children and parents that aren’t portrayed as the bad guys. Relationships are so important in books and I like that there were so many positive ones in this book. It doesn’t mean that everything was happy but then again, no relationship is perfect.

I also loved the way the author brought diversity into the book. It’s done in a way that doesn’t really put much emphasis on it but rather normalizes diversity. It’s just there and readers can do whatever they want with it.

I expected a creepy element to this book and there really wasn’t one. I mean there was Elsie but she wasn’t creepy, she was just odd. This book had a certain dream like quality to it that was definitely charming and drew me in but I also just wanted to know more.

I don’t like the way things were wrapped up and was left wanting more. There seemed to be something missing. I hate that so many things were kept from readers (although it really isn’t hard to connect the dots… it’s just annoying that everything seems vague.) I like vagueness but I don’t like it when it’s done to such a degree that important issues that come up cannot even be discussed.

Overall, I don’t really regret reading The Accident Season but I sure would have liked it if some of the issues were discussed and not everything was shrouded under a layer of mystery.

Note that I received an advanced copy of the book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review

Tangled Webs (Book 1) - Lee Bross

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

I haz mixed feelings about this book and that makes me very sad. I really wanted to love it and love it I did not.

Before getting into the nitty gritty, I just wanted to give a shout out to whoever was in charge of all the artwork on the pages and whoever was in charge of the cover because holy guacamole, can I get a GORGEOUSSSSS?

On to more serious stuff though. Lady A was not exactly what I expected. She is not nearly as badass as I had imagined her to be. I wanted to be blown away by her badassery. I wanted to cheer her on as she dealt with the nobility and watched them shrink in fear but sadly that’s not what happened because Arista, aka Lady A, does not enjoy blackmailing the nobility. Alas her soul is not as dark as mine and she hates the life she lives. She would do anything to get out of it (and rightfully so because her ‘master’ is a complete waste of oxygen.)

I just really have a thing for books involving crime okay? I love seeing people be manipulated and not even know it's happening. I LOVE all the cleverness usually involved in books where the main character is part of the crime life but that’s not what I got in this book which would explain my reaction. Now please understand that a lot of this is just personal taste and not really reflective of the book because in spite of my expectations, I actually found myself warming up to Lady A. Sometimes she was a little too loyal in my opinion (given the way she had grown up I kind of expected her to be hardened instead of being soft in terms of the people she has emotional connections with) but in the long run, she was just a young girl trying to make the best of her resources to figure the best way out of a life she wants nothing to do with. I even enjoyed seeing her come across barriers she should have been able to account for but couldn’t because no one can think of everything.

I loved that she was faced with challenges that might have seemed obvious to the reader (and weren’t even major twists or anything) but the actual truth is that no one can be all knowing and more likely than not, things aren’t going to turn out the way you want them to.

My biggest issue with this book was the romance. I didn’t like it. At the beginning of the novel Arista clearly has a crush on Nic but then suddenly she meets Grae and her feelings just disappear. I am appreciative of the fact that there was no love triangle but seriously. Feelings don’t just vazoom (aka disappear)! I also just didn’t like Grae. It’s not that he was bad by any means. He was a sweetheart and treated Arista with the respect she deserved and blah blah blah. My problem was that I didn’t understand his fascination with Arista and I didn’t like how he was casted as Arista’s savior.That girl has brains and is clever, she can save herself. She is a young independent woman who don’t need no man! (although romantic interests can be fun) I think Grae contrasted her character so much it almost made Arista seem helpless when she isn’t.

My favorite character was obviously Nic. Nic is great. He is such a complex character and I LOVED IT. I only wish we could have seen more of him.

The book was very well paced and even though there were some cheesy bits, it was a fun read. I actually really did enjoy all the complicated tangledness (trying to make a pun here guys, just roll with it.) I just wish we actually got more into the secret bartering bit and got to learn what exactly was happening and what kind of secrets the nobility traded to get things accomplished. I did enjoy the set up though and I also liked the world that Bross had created.

I would suggest not to get lured in by the promise of crime because this book doesn’t focus so much on the fascinating crime life than it does on Arista. It’s her story to a better life, not about how she engages in crime. The bits involving crime were great but also, like I said, it’s Arista’s story to a better life.

This was a fun book to read and while I didn’t love it, I’d still say it's something to read if you're in the mood for a light and entertaining book.

Post Script: I also just found out there will be a sequel and I am DEFINITELY curious to see where things will go! This could get verreh interesting.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

Silver in the Blood was sadly not all I wanted it to be. It’s not a bad book by any means, it’s very creative and fun but it is also a little slow and needed a little work in the character department.

It takes almost a third of the book for us to finally see all the fun action and I don’t think there was enough of all the good stuff happening to make up for the initial slowness. To be fair, I didn’t mind the slow bits too much. I was never bored and I did like reading those details since they helped built up the suspense, but I feel like there was too much time spent building that suspense and not enough time spent actually making the wait worth it.

I would like to start off by saying that this book isn’t as dark as it sounds. It’s actually quite light hearted (and not in a bad way), it’s cute and fun to read and I enjoyed reading from the POVs of both the main characters.

Dacia and Lou are spoilt young ladies traveling to Romania to meet their mothers’ side of the family. When I say spoilt, I don’t mean it in a bad way. They are from wealthy, influential families but they aren’t horrible, mean girls. I always found both characters to be likeable (even when Dacia made some questionable decisions.)

Dacia is the more outspoken of the two and while she did make some questionable decisions she was also not a bad person. She wasn’t stupid and really, what’s wrong with someone who enjoys receiving attention (not in an obnoxious way.) She can stand up for herself and won’t let people get away with shit.

Lou is in some ways the exact opposite of Dacia. Where Dacia is outspoken and sometimes impulsive, Lou is shy and likes to think things through. In that way, Dacia and Lou complement each other. I definitely found Lou to be more likeable (since I could relate to her better) but what I also liked was that both the girls were likeable. You didn’t have to hate one to like the other.

Both girls develop over the course of the book and I loved watching them both turn into the mature, confident women they were by the end of the novel.

One of the drawbacks of this book is the secondary characters. The love interests have no real depth to them (which was a pity.) Lou and Dacia’s family were talked about in such vague terms that I never found myself feeling anything towards them. Their villainous grandmother was cartoonishly evil to the point where her motives made no sense. I also didn’t like how we never saw enough of Lou’s mother. She is made out to be a bad guy but we never really see her do anything bad (besides siding with the Grandma). I never understood the sudden change in Lou's mom. I felt the same way about Aunt Kate. Although in her case, I never saw her being good so when she is talked about in such nice terms, I was like huh? What do you mean?  Isn’t she a douche? There was also the question of Lou’s father who I would have liked to see more of. Basically I felt like the adults and the love interests needed to be round instead of flat.

This book isn’t very romance heavy but the problem is that I never really saw the romantic relationships develop. There is the tension, yes but I wanted to see that flourish instead of the automatic transition into ‘we are in love.’ How long have you known each other for again??? BUT ALSO I just wanted to see the couples, I wanted to see the banter, I wanted to see them work together as a team but none of that really happened on a large enough scale for me to enjoy the dynamic.

The world building in the novel was nice. I liked the Claw, Wing and Smoke aspects (although I might have enjoyed seeing some more of that.) I also liked the Romanian setting. It definitely added a certain darkness to the atmosphere (although keep in mind what I said earlier about this not being a dark novel.)

The first book in this series may not have won me over completely but I still enjoyed it and will definitely be watching out for the sequel. I’d recommend this to anyone looking for a fun fantasy novel to read.

What makes this book so tricky is my grown up mind (at least in comparison to the intended audience). It’s absolutely adorable but I also felt like it was trying to be more mature than it was because it was dealing with so many important issues. There were some pretty intense plot twists but I found myself giggling instead of being shocked because the book is too cute for me to gasp at yet if I were younger, I would definitely be gasping and thinking about how frickin awesome the book was.

There are a lot of stereotypical aspects to this book. We have terms like “the mean girl”, and “the mean girl’s accessories” being used, we have a main character who is introduced to us as the stereotypical “beautiful but doesn’t know it” and that worried me. I was worried that this book would turn out to be one big cliché but after these initial cliché-like introductions, the characters were fleshed out (including one of the mean girls to a certain degree).

Raine is an interesting main character, she has the ability to extract memories from sparkles. Before you laugh, sparkles are just the things that appear on certain objects that only Raine can see and thus only Raine (and her grandmother could) can read.  I thought this was an interesting paranormal addition to the story although it made me wonder about the sparkles. Why sparkles? Why not just plain ole touching of objects?  

Raine also happens to be surprisingly mature. There are things she has gone through that make her more mature than her peers but at the same time, she also acts her age, she will throw a fit and she will say something stupid or do something stupid. What I also liked about her that even though she started making new friends right away, she never forgot about Shirlee, who wasn’t as cool or popular.

This book deals with bullying and that worried me too! I was scared that maybe the book wouldn’t manage to pull it off or would portray it in some offensive way or even go down the lane of some really cruel revenge. Bullying is such a touchy topic in general but also specifically for me and while I won’t give the book an A+ with the way it dealt with it, I will say that it does manage to tackle bullying in a very healthy and not uncomfortable way.

There is also a slight romance in the book which I thought was absolutely adorable. I wish I could quote my favorite line (in terms of the romance) but alas it would kind of be a spoiler. You should know though that the romance isn't about falling in love but about having a crush!

I loved the plot in this book. This may be a book for kids but I become just as invested. None of the twists caught me off guard but I know, I KNOW that kid me would have adored this book and would have genuinely been taken in by those twists. The problem is that the predictability made it harder for me to take what was happening as seriously as I should have been taking it. 

This book ended up being pretty intense for a middle grade novel and I had a lot of fun reading it. It may not be perfect but it is enjoyable and one I would say that you should give a shot if you’re looking for a light, adventurous, surprising, middle grade read.

***This review has also been posted on The Social Potato

After really enjoying book 1 , books 2 and 3 never quite hit the same mark and I dived into this new installation hoping that it would be the one to remind me why I continued to read on, and I was right! The Diamond Conspiracy is definitely a worthy addition to the series and kept me on my toes(even when I trying not to dose off because it was 4 in the morning).

This is such a fun and quirky series and while I continued to stick with it when books 2 and 3 didn’t impress me, I am glad that The Diamond Conspiracy brought about a much needed sense of urgency and A LOT MORE ANSWERS.

I love me some answers and this book definitely provided us with some. It didn’t answer everything and even more questions were brought into the equation but I was very happy to have some of my big questions finally answered.

In this book, we finally (FINALLY) got to see Eliza and Welly work as a couple! I cannot tell you how happy this made me because I was getting tired of seeing all the jealousy and the two continuously going back and forth. I just wanted them to be happy and then they finally worked all that out in the previous book and we got to see them work as a couple! And they make a cute couple! I love how toned down Books’ jealousy was in this one and I loved that they were so supportive of one another as a couple. They still have adorable banter but it just gets even cuter because now they are a couple.

They shined in this book. I loved seeing Eliza become even stronger with Books by her side and the same goes for Books. It’s so wonderful seeing how far the two have ventured out of their comfort zone and how much they have grown. Eliza has transformed from a brash character to someone who takes more time to think things through without just jumping right in with her firearms (although that was funny). Likewise, Books has become someone who is starting to deal with the ghosts of the past as he becomes more sure of himself.

I loved that a certain Bruce Campbell was brought back but I hated how his previous actions were kind of overlooked now that he was kind of a good guy. I hope we get to come back to him and make sure he atones for all the horrible things he did in the past.

The plot in this one was fabulous and I loved seeing so many aspects of previous books come into play. It seems as though one arc of this book has come to a close and I hope it stays that way! I am looking forward to seeing many other aspects of this world being explored. Especially since so many interesting things were brought to our attention in this installment (LIKE TIME TRAVEL. ZOMG).

The ending especially, while not necessarily an emotional cliffhanger was just surprising but also amazing and I just want to know so much more about what is happening and what it means and all of those exciting/annoying questions that come about when authors dump important info on you right at the end of a book.

All those wonderful things about the book said, I would like to say that there were times where this book was wordy/tell-y and when the pacing didn't work with me. There seems to have been a huge improvement since the previous instalments so I will give the book that but I still had trouble paying attention to what was going on at times and I think I just missed important things as a result, re-reading can help but you know, it can be annoying when you space out and have to re-read things because you didn't quite catch them the first time (kind of like when you read textbooks :P)

Having said that, this book was fantastic and so much fun and if it’s any indication of future books to come (LET THERE BE MORE), then I know I better keep in touch with this series!

If you’re reading this review and haven’t read any of the books in this series, I’d definitely say you have some reading to do!