Hideous Love by Stephanie Hemphill

Hideous Love by Stephanie Hemphill

Publisher: Balzer + Bray     
Publication date: October 1st 2013
My rating: 1 star

An all-consuming love affair.
A family torn apart by scandal.
A young author on the brink of greatness.
Hideous Love is the fascinating story of Gothic novelist Mary Shelley, who as a teen girl fled her restrictive home only to find herself in the shadow of a brilliant but moody boyfriend, famed poet Percy Shelley. It is the story of the mastermind behind one of the most iconic figures in all of literature: a monster constructed out of dead bodies and brought to life by the tragic Dr. Frankenstein.
Mary wrote Frankenstein at the age of nineteen, but inspiration for the monster came from her life-the atmospheric European settings she visited, the dramas swirling around her, and the stimulating philosophical discussions with the greatest minds of the period, like her close friend, Lord Byron.
This luminous verse novel from award-winning author Stephanie Hemphill reveals how Mary Shelley became one of the most celebrated authors in history.

It's hard for me to write a negative review when I request a title from the publisher and especially when other reviews aren't doing it any favors.

I'm a huge fan of retellings of other books and also retellings about the author's life. There's something special about seeing another side or someone's take on the said story which always makes me come back for more.

Hideous Love is a story about Mary Shelley, the mastermind responsible for Frankenstein. To be completely honest this is my first Frankenstein retelling novel I've ever seen. Most people write about Austen's or Bronte sisters' work. So you can guess I was really interested to see what Hemphill has to say about Mary Shelley.

Mary Shelley lives with her large family when one night Mr. Shelley comes to dinner and her world changes completely. They fall in love and decide to run away to be together even though he has a wife. Their relationship isn't perfect. Mary has an abortion and her sister is in love with Shelley.

Books which feature cheating can go two ways with me.

• author does a great job and I like them and accept the fact they are going behind another person's back
• author fails and I can't help to judge and despise the characters for the decisions they made

Hideous Love sadly goes into the second category. I didn't feel the connection with the characters. The prose didn't help either. It was distracting and frankly, I had a feeling author was kind of winging the whole prose. Like she thought it was ok to write a couple of words in each row and they will magically become a verse.

I really wanted to give this book the benefit of the doubt and not trust the reviews but it just wasn't the type of book for me. 

A Wounded Name by Dot Hutchison

A Wounded Name by Dot Hutchison

Publisher: Carolrhoda Lab    
Publication date: September 1st 2013
My rating: 5 stars

There's a girl who could throw herself head first into life and forge an unbreakable name, an identity that stands on its own without fathers or brothers or lovers who devour and shatter.
Sixteen-year-old Ophelia Castellan will never be just another girl at Elsinore Academy. Seeing ghosts is not a skill prized in future society wives. Even when she takes her pills, the bean sidhe beckon, reminding her of a promise to her dead mother.
Now, in the wake of the Headmaster's sudden death, the whole academy is in turmoil, and Ophelia can no longer ignore the fae. Especially once she starts seeing the Headmaster's ghosts- two of them- on the school grounds.
At the center of her crumbling world is Dane, the Headmaster's grieving son. He, too, understands the power of a promise to a parent- even a dead one. To him, Ophelia is the only person not tainted by deceit and hypocrisy, a mirror of his own broken soul. And to Ophelia, Dane quickly becomes everything. Yet even as she gives more of herself to him, Dane slips away. Consumed by suspicion, rage, and madness, he spirals towards his tragic fate- dragging Ophelia, and the rest of Elsinore, with him.
Yet even in the face of certain death, Ophelia has a choice to make- and a promise to keep. She is not the girl others want her to be. But in Dot Hutchison's dark and sensuous debut novel, the name "Ophelia" is as deeply, painfully, tragically real as "Hamlet".

I'VE NEVER BEEN THAT GIRL.

YOU KNOW HOW THIS STORY ENDS.

Hamlet's my favorite Shakespeare tragedy. His other work combined together can't top this masterpiece. So when I first saw someone was publishing a retelling I just had to have it. Not everyone has the talent and the guts to try out to integrate Shakespeare into their work. Dot Hutchison did an outstanding job. 

Ophelia is one of those characters in Hamlet I didn't care for. She was spineless and pretty much everything I don't like in a woman. My heroines need to be strong and independent but A Wounded Name's Ophelia made this well-known story interesting and made me like her even though she was still weak. She tries so hard to please her father, to be a good, obedient daughter and great wife one day to some yet unknown gentleman. She takes pills which are trying to get rid of the apparitions she keeps seeing all around. Her life flips upside down when Dane's father, Hamlet senior dies. 

After Hamlet's death, his brother marries Dane's mother and gets the title of the super intendant which only makes Dane angrier so he starts doing all sort of crazy things around the campus. His two best friends, Horatio and Ophelia are there by his side and are trying to comfort him. Dane's rage and bitterness leaves Ophelia bruised after his every episode. On the positive side, he doesn't remember anything but it doesn't stop Ophelia from allowing him to abuse her after their every secret meeting. OK, I'm gonna stop here and not discuss the plot any longer because most of you know what happens in the end. 

Even though I didn't like Dane/Hamlet in A Wounded Name he did redeem himself in the end. He acted like a spoiled, proud, revengeful, ambitious, mad brat most of the time and he didn't treat his friends well even though they were always there for him. Was he always like this or did I miss something when I first read Hamlet all those years ago? 

I just have to mention the incredible work Dot did with the setting. The lake, the graveyard... You people can't miss this book! You'll regret not getting to know the paranormal aspect of this story. Bean nighe, scary looking washer ladies which dance and sing around the lake whenever it's time for someone to die. I had to look up the term bean nighe and I wished I didn't because those pictures will haunt me tonight, when I go to sleep. 

A Wounded Name is a book full of unfulfilled promises, revenge, death and madness with a beautiful, lyrical writing which will captivate everyone. I can't wait to see what will Dot Hurchison come up next. Truly an unforgettable book. 

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Everneath by Brodi Ashton

Publisher: Balzer + Bray    
Publication date: January 24th 2012
My rating: 4 stars

Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath. Now she's returned--to her old life, her family, her boyfriend--before she's banished back to the underworld . . . this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her, six months for good-byes she can't find the words for, six months to find redemption, if it exists.
Nikki longs to spend these precious months forgetting the Everneath and trying to reconnect with her boyfriend, Jack, the person most devastated by her disappearance--and the one person she loves more than anything. But there's just one problem: Cole, the smoldering immortal who enticed her to the Everneath in the first place, has followed Nikki home. Cole wants to take over the throne in the underworld and is convinced Nikki is the key to making it happen. And he'll do whatever it takes to bring her back, this time as his queen.
As Nikki's time on the Surface draws to a close and her relationships begin slipping from her grasp, she is forced to make the hardest decision of her life: find a way to cheat fate and remain on the Surface with Jack or return to the Everneath and become Cole's queen.

Don't know what it is but I feel like I give higher ratings to books I own in print. I'm actually positive. It must be because of that wonderful book smell and page flipping. 

So. How to start this thing? You know those love triangle books have two different guys fighting over a girl? And you always pick a side. You either go for the bad boy or the boy next door. Well, this time I can't make up my mind. On one hand there's Jack. Nikki's boyfriend who's always been there for her and treater her right. Basically, he's a really nice guy. I should be on Team Jack but I'm still not sure. Then there's Cole. He's an Everliving. He's an immortal/Hades/supernatural being or whatever and he wants Nikki to stay with him forever in Everneath. He's also in a band called Dead Elvises which means he's very popular with the ladies but he only has eyes for Nikki. This should pull me in from the start but there's this thing where Cole doesn't actually feel anything. He just steals other people's emotions. He doesn't have his own so I'm not completely on board of Cole x Nikki ship. There's still time for improvement in the sequel which we'll probably see Cole's some human side. Hope I'm not wrong about this. 

Huh. I do love to ramble about love triangles. 

I did start reading this book last year but abandoned it after the first ten pages for some reason. I think I was tired of the hyped YA books back then. However, I did like it this time. In fact, it was unputdownable. Mum was bugging me to help her with some things and I said I have just a few pages left when there were actually 120 pages left. Now she's mad at me but I'll make it up to her somehow. I didn't mind hearing her yell. It was worth it. :) Can't wait to find out what happens next. Now I just need to order Everbound. 

Book Review: Scarlet by Marissa Meyer

Book: Scarlet (#2 Lunar Chronicles)
Author: Marissa Meyer
File Type: Paperback
Release Date: February 5th 2013
Publisher: Feiwel and Friends



Synopsis:

Cinder returns in the second thrilling installment of the New York Times-bestselling Lunar Chronicles. She’s trying to break out of prison—even though if she succeeds, she’ll be the Commonwealth’s most wanted fugitive.

Halfway around the world, Scarlet Benoit’s grandmother is missing. It turns out there are many things Scarlet doesn’t know about her grandmother and the grave danger she has lived in her whole life. When Scarlet encounters Wolf, a street fighter who may have information as to her grandmother’s whereabouts, she has no choice but to trust him, though he clearly has a few dark secrets of his own.

As Scarlet and Wolf work to unravel one mystery, they find another when they cross paths with Cinder. Together, they must stay one step ahead of the vicious Lunar Queen who will do anything to make Prince Kai her husband, her king, her prisoner.



I like you dear book. I like you a lot.

While I've given both Cinder and Scarlet 4 stars as per the goodreads rating system , it's safe to say that I liked Scarlet much more. Scarlet in my eyes was a successful sequel to the previous book. In some ways, it's more edgier , more action packed , more heart breaking (oh yes.) and more badass-er? 

What I liked in this one here was the amount of improvement I got to see since Cinder. I feel that the writing is more concrete and that the story is more engrossing but it still did lack that fine finish. It could be because of the fact that we had two stories playing side by side right before our eyes with two very different protagonists. To be honest I had initially loved the contrast. Cinder and Scarlet are two very different characters. While Scarlet is strong and feisty and determined , Cinder is still trying to process things around her and is the kind of a person who thinks not twice but a million times before taking a step which in her case makes a lot of sense.

Cinder's character is easy to understand. All her life of sixteen years she was exploited and hurt. And then she was handed the biggest bomb of all about her identity.  More than anything else, she always wanted freedom and a chance to be normal. She is in right words , clueless. But she doesn't want to be. And this growth in her character is wonderful!

While , Scarlet's character is quite badass. After her grandmother goes missing, nobody steps in to help her. But Scarlet isn't one of those people who just sit around and wait for things to just happen. No sir.
She decides to rescue her grandmother and finds herself crossing paths with a mysterious man who calls himself Wolf. 

There are a set of new characters that are introduced to us in this installment. We have Captain Thorne--the evergreen comic aspect of the book who meets Cinder in prison and escapes with her to join her in her journey and Wolf--the mysterious man who well you can say, is with Scarlet. Wolf was a fantastic addition. His dark, ruthless ,cold and dangerous persona mixed together with his and Scarlet's chemistry is definitely the icing on the cake. 
Also we have the reappearance of a character who I totally loved and adore and after this one, love even more. You all must be thinking, What happened to the beautiful Emperor Kai?
Earlier above I had mentioned that this book is quite heartbreaking....
So much of pressure. SO MUCH.
The might of a whole nation. The threat from an alien species. The ever growing threat of Plague contamination. His feelings for a girl who he knows could never be his. An alien queen behind his ass. Oh dear, poor guy. His struggle and inner turmoil is heartbreaking and everytime I read about him , I just felt like punching someone hard. I wanted to go inside the book and pull him out and soothe him because his whole life is in a conflict. I love all these characters so much.

And that finally brings me to what this book lacked.
I feel that with so many stories and characters playing along the lines
there was no place for development. They were all put in , taped together but that fine finish was missing. There were places where I wanted more of Cinder and less of Scarlet. I know it's weird but it's true. And this is the kind of thing I don't want. The third book Cress will introduce us to another character and another story plot and I hope with it all these qualms are solved because if not the whole book would be a mess and kind of disastrous.

But then that's just me and my over thinking mind.

Also with that promising end which by the way came with a badass note, I'm sure Cress is on it's way to make me happy.
So do I recommend you to read this book? 

Go ahead. Don't think twice.

Book Review: Broken by A.E. Rought

Title: Broken

Author:  A.E. Rought

File type:  ARC

Release date: December 8^th, 2012

Genre: YA,  gothic, retelling

Imagine a modern spin on Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein where a young couple’s undying love and the grief of a father pushed beyond sanity could spell the destruction of them all.
A string of suspicious deaths near a small Michigan town ends with a fall that claims the life of Emma Gentry's boyfriend, Daniel. Emma is broken, a hollow shell mechanically moving through her days. She and Daniel had been made for each other, complete only when they were together. Now she restlessly wanders the town in the late Fall gloom, haunting the cemetery and its white-marbled tombs, feeling Daniel everywhere, his spectre in the moonlight and the fog.
When she encounters newcomer Alex Franks, only son of a renowned widowed surgeon, she's intrigued despite herself. He's an enigma, melting into shadows, preferring to keep to himself. But he is as drawn to her as she is to him. He is strangely... familiar. From the way he knows how to open her locker when it sticks, to the nickname she shared only with Daniel, even his hazel eyes with brown flecks are just like Daniel's.
The closer they become, though, the more something inside her screams there's something very wrong with Alex Franks. And when Emma stumbles across a grotesque and terrifying menagerie of mangled but living animals within the walls of the Franks' estate, creatures she surely knows must have died from their injuries, she knows.

The first this you need to know about Broken is that it has an interesting plotline, normal (read not annoying main character) and dashing hero. 

The main reason I didn’t give 4 or 5 stars is- this book is meant for younger readers (13-16) even though it has some seriously disturbing scenes. After that awesome start the middle part of the book got a little bit repetitive. I really don’t need to read about every detail in the MC daily routine. Emma is still grieving the death of her beloved boyfriend but she completely ignored her friend’s texts throughout the whole freaking book. She replied maybe 3 or 4 times-tops. Since her friend doesn’t mind it’s all OK. Boys are all over her but she has eyes only for the new hot guy, who is a dream of every other girl in the school. *sigh* If only this book came out 4 years ago. I would adore it…but I’ve seen this pattern already a thousand times and it’s getting pretty old (just like me). I am not sure if the ending was great or over the top. One thing is certain- it was very explosive. 

There is no doubt, the author is very talented and she should continue to write this type of books.