This is my favorite book in The Raven Cycle (so far). Gansey in his Ganseyness. Adam in his Adamness and Blue in her Blueness but most importantly Ronan in his Ronaness. I love him.
- If you could dream anything and bring it back with you when you awoke, what would it be?
- What really turned Declan and Ronan into enemies? Is it just that Declan is a liar and that he upheld Niall’s will without a fight?
- How long has Declan known about Ronan and Niall?
- Oh Poor Adam. It’s almost painful to read about his abuse and almost harder to read him think that he deserved it.
- I know Adam had to accept his bargain but maybe when he started to see strange things, maybe that’s the time to go to the women who deal with strange things?
- I don’t think I’ll understand the internet stanning for Kavinsky? He’s a terrible human being to put it mildly.
- I’m quite charmed by the courtship of Maura and the Gray Man. To quote Hamilton “So this is what it’s like to match wits”
- Calla is amazing. Her interactions with Ronan are always a delight. They should have more scenes together.
- I wish I knew more about the Gray Man and his brother. I get his brother is a sociopath but I feel like there is more there.
- champagne mistake. the champagne atrocity. I just loved how the Gray man described his rental car.
- Let’s talk about Ronan’s sexuality or how little it’s talked about. I think that’s it’s great that he never out right says his gay. He doesn’t have too. It’s pretty clear that he is. Just as it’s pretty clear that Gansey is straight.
- I wonder if there is more to the break in to Calla’s office at Aglionby.
- Kate pointed this out but I do love how Maggie writes her female characters. They stand up for themselves. They never play the damsel in distress. When Adam loses his cool when arguing with Adam, Blue doesn’t apologize for making him angry or stands and takes it. She just tell Adam that she would be outside and he can join her if he calms down. Take note ladies.
I think I had a few more thoughts but now I can’t remember. Oh well. Onto Blue Lily Lily Blue.
So it turns out that I never did a review of The Raven Boys. I guess that makes sense since it did come out in 2012 and well, Stacks did launch in 2012 but it took us two years to really get things going here. Check out 
Not that long ago, Barnes and Noble was having a sale on teen books, buy 2 for $20, basically you get one for free. I kept seeing To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before pop up on my Tumblr dashboard that I decided to check it out. Contemporary Fiction and Romance are not my usual go to reads but I do dabble in it from time to time and since both it and it’s sequel, P.S. I love You were apart of the sale, I decided to just go on get them both. If they are as good as Tumblr insists then I should read them, right? Tumblr would never steer me wrong. Tumblr did introduce me to Rainbow Rowell after all. It was a wise decision because once I finished the first, I had to read the second. Actually, I read the sequel in one day, it was good. To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and P.S. I Still I Love are both delightful. True they are not really groundbreaking, besides it centers on a Korean American teenage girl but it’s sweet, kind and lovely. Lara Jean is the middle Song sister. Her older sister, Margot is about to go to College in Scotland and her younger sister Kitty is well a firecracker. Their mother died unexpectedly when they were little so it’s just been the girls and their dad. Margot has been their surrogate mother the last couple of years but with her going it’s now Lara Jean turn. Lara Jean is a romantic in true sense of the word. She is sixteen and is about to start her junior year in high school. She’s never had a boyfriend but she’s been in love before. More accurately she’s had crushes, five of them and she wrote all five letters and hid them in her hat box. One day she finds out that her letters that were never meant to be seen were mailed out to the boys she loved before and well this is a problem. One of those goes to Josh, Margot’s boyfriend that she just broke up with and Lara Jean had a crush on before they had started dating and those feelings for him start to return. Another one went to Peter a former friend from Middle School that was her first kiss and her ex-best friend, Genevieve’s recent ex-boyfriend. Lara Jean and Peter decide to fake a relationship to save face with Josh and to make Genevieve jealous. Of course in true Rom-Com fashion they end up falling in love for real and things get messy.
In the sequel, Peter and Lara Jean decide to date for real and well it’s not as simple as it once was. Old insecurities come up and when another recipient of Lara Jean’s letters shows up it complicates things even more. John Ambrose McClaren was also apart of Lara Jean’s middle school group of friends until he moved away. Lara Jean goes from a reserved girl, who lived in her sister shadows to a more confident girl who knows what she wants but a lot happens for her to get there. First she has to get over this idea that she is not worthy. Peter is the golden boy. He’s the boy that every girl in high school wants to be with and Genevieve is the beautiful blonde girl that you would expect to be with the golden boy. Lara Jean is not popular or in the “in crowd”. She constantly compares herself and her relationship to Genevieve to the point her jealously and insecurities take over. It’s something that all of us have dealt with from time to time. This is Lara Jean’s first relationship and she is closer to her sisters then to anyone else, so it’s hard to open up and trust other people.
If you have read A Tale of Two Cities then you pretty much know the plot of Tell the Wind and Fire. The title itself is a quote from the Dicken’s classic. Instead of it taking place in London and Paris during the French Revolution, it takes place in New York City that has been split in two. Manhattan is home to the elite, light magicians while Brooklyn (and I assume the other boroughs but it’s not made clear) is home to the lowly Dark magicians. Lucie Manette is a light magician who as born and bred in the dark city but after her mother has gone missing and her father is falsely imprisoned, she stages a stunt that goes viral and gets her father released and them passes to live in the light city. She falls in love with Ethan Stryker (our Charles Darney stand-in) the nephew of the powerful Mark Stryker and head of the light council. One day after a short getaway, Ethan is accused of treason because he has been positively identified as passing information to the Sans Merci, the rebels in the Dark City. He is about to be executed when Carwyn steps out. Carwyn doesn’t just look like Ethan in the way that Sydney Carton does to Charles Darney but he is exact copy of Ethan. He is an doppelganger. In this world, Light magicians can hire a dark magician to make a doppelganger when they are sick and it will save their lives. There are many laws against doing it and even more against doppelgangers themselves. For instance they have to where a hood. Well, Ethan can’t be executed now because what if it was Carwyn who committed the crime? This sets in motion the rest of the story. As I said before, if you know A Tale of Two Cities, you can guess what’s going to happen and more importantly how it’s going to end but that’s not the point. Sarah Rees Brennan creates a world that is both familiar and not. Many landmark will bring up memories but presenting a darker light. On a personal level, Green-Wood Cemetery, which takes the place of the Bastille, is only a few blocks from where I live. I’m not sure I’ll be able to look at the same way again. Lucie, on the surface seems like a timid girl, who wants nothing more then to everything she can to save the people she loves. That in itself takes a bit of bravery. As the story progressives and things start to take shape, she starts to stand up more for herself. Ethan is your typical hero character, the golden boy and Carwyn, the misunderstood bad boy but of course nothing is at seems. I think for fans of Dicken’s will like it and fans of Brennan will like it too.
** Spoilers Ahead**
This is what I know about the Book of Revelations. At one point Jesus will come back to usher those of us worthy enough to get into heaven, leaving the rest of us behind to deal with the Apocalypse which I think will have the 666 Beast and the Four Horsemen. So basically I don’t know much but it is intriguing how the End of Time will play out? Riders is not about the world ending but it does bring together War, Famine, Death and Conquest together to fight against evil. Is that what the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse supposed to do? Gideon wants to be an Army Ranger when he dies in a training accident but instead of moving on he comes back as War. With the help of the Seeker, Daryn, Gideon must find the other three riders to stop the Kindred from finding the key that will open different realms and enslaving mankind in their new kingdom. If that isn’t hard enough, he has to convince the U.S. Government that he’s not crazy and the biggest threat to national security is a gang of demons.
Back in the complicated world of Mare Barrow. **Spoilers** She’s been betrayed by Maven. Her dead brother isn’t dead and also has a super cool power. Cal and Kilorn, two completely different boys who are totally in love with her are now in the same space. Oh, and Mare now has to deal with the grief of killing people while pushing a revolution into high gear. Yep, Mare has some things going on in her life. I’m going to do something different then just a straight review. I’m going to talk about how I felt reading this book. If you’ve read any of my 
I didn’t know much about Captain Marvel besides she is soon to join the Marvel Cinematic Universe. OK, maybe not that soon since she has yet to be cast and her movie keeps getting pushed back. (Thanks a lot Spider-Man!) So, I thought I would give her a shot. If I’m going to start reading comics, I figured I might as well start with a character that I don’t already have a history with and start fresh. Not to mention I wanted to read a story with a female lead.
The sequel to Blackbird was satisfying as the first book. Deadfall picks up right where Blackbird ended. “Sunny” is reunited with Rafe, the boy from the island on the train to New York. Rafe memories have already come back to him and has made contact with other victims of the hunt in New York. Together they try to connect with the others and figure out how to bring them down. Things get even more complicated when Ben is sent in to try to bring her back but instead chooses to side her. The twists and turns go back and forth and we find out deep the game goes and far people will go for the ultimate thrill. The scariest part is how easy it is for people to look at others people as less then human. The hunters don’t see these kids as kids but as targets. To them these are just runaway kids with no futures and no one will miss so it’s totally okay to hunt them for sport. This novel is also written in second person like the first and lends itself to the urgency and the paranoia of our characters. In the end our heroine finds out who she is. Her memories are not fully back but for the first time in a long time she can be herself. For mystery and action fans, this duology is worth checking out.
2 Women, So Many Books 