This is one of those books where I don't actually know whether I loved it or hated it. I loved the scenery and the setting. Arcadia Wells is possibly one of the stupidest main characters I have come across lately. I figured out who the bad guy was immediately. 

This book tells the story of an overworked 18 year old, desperate for adventure and freedom from her many responsibilities. Arcadia lives in a small town in Florida, her mother passed away a few years ago and she has taken it on herself to take care of her dad who's not coping well at all, and seems to be also raising her younger brother. She looks after the house, does the cooking and it seems she gets very little help from her father. Who doesn't seem like a bad guy, he wasn't mean or a drunk or anything, just doesn't seem to know how to cope. 

Cadie has been dumped by her boyfriend and is still bitter about it, though trying to pretend not to be. She started off seeming quite likable. She has an attitude about her and there was something in her tone of voice that I really liked. She was a bit of a smart ass, but still seemed kinda cool. 

Then she goes to a campfire party and meets two strangers, Noah and Matt. Its a case of insta-lust with both of them. She gets cosy with Noah pretty quickly, he's attractive, has an air of something new and mystery about him and they have a great rapport. She gets along really well with his cousin Matt too. Things go rapidly down hill from there.

She winds up going on spur of the moment road trip with Matt and Noah. Complete strangers. She knows nothing about them. But its okay because a former best friend she gets taking to again has hooked up with Matt and comes along.  YOU. JUST. MET. THESE. GUYS. The grown up in me is screaming at this girl, how fucking stupid can you get? Though given Cadie's circumstances, I can sort of understand the yearning for doing something reckless and spur of the moment.

For the most part, in spite of the main character's stupidity and seemingly lack of common sense, the dialogue was great, and the scenery was amazing. For the most part the connection between Noah and Cadie is fairy intense and compelling. Then the other girl who comes along disappears, supposedly having gone home for a family thing she forgot about. They had been planning the next stage of their impromptu road trip and the girl, Lindsay, was really up for it and exited, and it doesn't seem weird to anyone that all of a sudden she has to go home?

No, apparently not. So the trip continues. There's a rather amusing scene where Cadie goes to see a psychic and is told several things that seem way too coincidental. Its uncomfortable and a little freaky, but its of course pushed aside as nonsense. Then things take a rather dramatic turn. 

It had a few good twisty moments towards the end. And to be fair, when things get bad, Cadie is at least smart about it. She knows she's up a certain creek without a paddle and thinks logically to save her life even though she's completely freaked. Where in some parts of the book, she's a complete moron, she does sort of redeem herself a little towards the end. 

The villain of the piece was obvious to me. I guessed right away from the first incident. How they finally get rid of the bad guy is eye roll inducing. I'm sure I've seen that ending done before. While it was silly, it was certainly entertaining and quite enjoyable. I would really love to see this book turned into a movie. 

Crossing off Travel square for Summer Bookish Bingo 2015. 

This was a bit of cover lust for me. The cover is simply gorgeous. 

The story...not so much. It was slow, with irritating characters, very confusing, a annoying misogynistic tones. Its a time travel novel, so the overbearing misogynistic tones were true to the period, but it was still annoying.

The main character, Gwen, comes from a family with a tie to a secret society of time travels. The next female in line to supposedly receive the gene  and go on secret wonderful time travel adventures is her cousin Charlotte, who has therefore been training her whole life. Gwen's mum keeps her family away from this until unfortunate circumstances make them move to London to life with Charlotte and her family.

Gwen is a pretty normal 16 year old. She loves films, and gossips with her BFF Lesley. Gwen sounds more like 12 than 16 and came across to be as immature and annoying. She had a few amusing snarky moments, but I didn't feel anything particularly likable about about this character. As it turns out, Mum lied and Gwen is really the time traveler. So Gwen has a few trips back in time. She's freaked. Naturally.

Then she finally comes clean and everyone in the family is in an uproar. She's taken to the secret time travel head quarters where everything gets very confusing. Gwen has a habit of comparing things to movies....if this was a film this would happen. Which got annoying. (Though to be fair, if I found myself in the same situation, my immediate thoughts would be, well it wasn't like this on Dr Who)

I didn't have a clue what was going on in this novel. It took so long to get anywhere, by the time things started happening,  I just stopped caring. It felt like it was all over the place. Gwen can't understand why Charlotte, the cousin, is being mean and bitchy. If you'd been preparing for something your whole life and its your cousin who gets the prize, not you, then its completely understandable that Charlotte would be beyond furious. 

We're also introduced to Gideon, a very good looking but arrogant boy who is also a time traveler and has been helping with Charlotte's training. He's rude to Gwen and bossy when they go on their time travel excursions. The whole thing seems to revolve around some sort of prophecy featuring different people in time who are named after gemstones and the current society needs their blood to get some special device to reveal a great secret. The previous two time travelers got lost in time and took the device with them but a second one was found. Gwen and Gideon need to get the remaining blood to get the secret from the second device. 

That was my understanding of it. There's a rush of action right at the end which leaves a lot of untied threads. And it just sort of...ends. Very very frustrating. Its the first of a trilogy, so I'm guessing answers come in the next books. But I'm not interested enough to find out. Disappointing. 

As much as I love my YA, I think I might be too old for this one. 

Time Travel Square crossed off for Summer 2015 Bookish Bingo

Primary Color Cover Square crossed off for Story Sprites Round 1

This delightful short reminds me why I wound up loving the Selection (after the immense disappointment of The Heir).

This delivers exactly what it promises, an insight into how Amberly became a beloved Queen and snagged the heart of Prince Clarkson. Amberly is a lovely sweet but sickly girl (though so sweet she could rot your teeth) Clarkson is a jackass. Even then. I don't get it. But Amberly has been in love with the Prince for as long as she can remember. 

She has some serious health issues, something that's touched on, and could possibly make her an unsuitable match. Clarkson does redeem himself a little when he basically tells the doctor who warns about this to go shove it. He has some horrific parents. You don't see much of the King at the time, but the Queen has a big role. And she's a right horrible bitch.

So sweet, calming Amberly comes in to soothe everyone. She's a lower caste but still manages to make everyone like her. Even for a 65 page short story some of it is gag worthy in the way everyone gushes over Clarkson and Amberly herself has more than a few eye rolling moments. But like with the original Selection novels, its silly, but its romantic and very enjoyable. 

Short story square crossed off for Summer 2015 Bookish Bingo challenge. 

This is a really hard review to write. Heir of Fire was my most anticipated book of last year. After 'Crown of Midnight' which is one of the best books I have ever read I was DYING to get my hands on this book. When I finally got it, it took me a month or more to get through. I figured I would savor it because if I rushed to finish I would be whinging because the next one wouldn't be out for a year.

Initially, I gave it a five star rating but didn't review it. Manon Blackbeak's storyline alone was worth five stars. Some of it was very moving. This is my favorite fantasy series. I've reread the other books more than twice. I started reading them all again this month. On a re-read of Heir of Fire, I have come to the conclusion, it is just not as good as the other books. Its very long winded.

Second time I read it I read it in just under a week. Its certainly better reading it all together and quickly. But it was just...boring. For the most part hardly anything seems to happen.  Celaena is one my favorite fantasy heroines and its her snarky arrogance that I love the most about her. In this installment she drove me up the wall. Yes, she has been through some truly terrible things. Its certainly shaping who she is as a person. But for christ's sake woman, stop bloody whinging! I just wanted to slap her for most of this book.

She's been sent across the sea to Wendlyn where the Fae live. She's going to obviously learn about how to control her powers and come to deal with yet more of her tragic past. Though the more terrible things keep happening to her, the less sympathy I'm feeling for her. The other thing I don't get is the fangirling over Rowan, the Fae warrior who's sent to train her. All they do is bitch at each other. Though it was fairly entertaining to see Celaena get knocked off her high horse more than a few times. 

Back in Adarlan, Dorian's still struggling with his magic and gets involved with some random healer and has an affair with her. It seemed to be a need to get him over mooning about how he could never make it work with Calaena. The King is still brutal prat. Chaol is dealing with having to go back to Anielle and the fact he sent Calaena away which turns out might have been the stupidest thing he's ever done. He gets involved with the rebellion to return Aelin Galathynius (I don't think I've spelt that correctly) to the throne. But Chaol of course knows who Aelin really is and where she is. 

Meanwhile there's a side story about the Iron Teeth witches training beasts called Wyverns. Something to do with the King of Adarlan wanting riders for the Wyverns. Introducing the delightfully wicked Manon Blackbeak. The witches are all just...evil. Brutal. This was the most interesting storyline. Great tension building. And none of the witches were likable in the slightest. They are bad through and through. And I kind of can't wait to see what happens when they come into contact with Calaena and her possy. 

Despite the fact that I found Celaena's training story to be very dull, it did pick up towards the end as her relationship with Rowan develops. Its thankfully not a romance, more of a friendship and trust thing, which does become very moving. There was some wonderful emotional build up as Celaena finally gets her head out her ass and stops wallowing in self pity and steps up to the plate. There are some truly horrific things that happen thanks to evil Adarlan King prat, which kick her into gear. 

Then a rush of action towards the end which makes me remember why I love Celaena so much. Some of it was bleak, but so well written the emotion moved me to tears. 

This was not a particularly brilliant installment, I can see why the things that happened in this novel happened the way they did, even if it was very slow for the most part.  It feels like a filler. Even so, I am still highly anticipating the next book in the series. 

Fire on Cover or in Title square for Summer Bookish Bingo 2015 challenge

Silver Lettering for Story Sprites Round 1 Challenge