Monthly Archives: November 2014

Everblaze

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Sorry I haven’t posted in a while, but here’s my newest review for Everblaze by Shannon Messenger!

Title: Everblaze (Keeper of the Lost Cities, #3)
Author: Shannon Messenger
Publication Date: November 4, 2014 by Aladdin

Rating: ★★★ 2.5/5

Summary:

Sophie Foster is ready to fight back.

Her talents are getting stronger, and with the elusive Black Swan group ignoring her calls for help, she’s determined to find her kidnappers—before they come after her again.

But a daring mistake leaves her world teetering on the edge of war, and causes many to fear that she has finally gone too far. And the deeper Sophie searches, the farther the conspiracy stretches, proving that her most dangerous enemy might be closer than she realizes.

In this nail-biting third book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series, Sophie must fight the flames of rebellion, before they destroy everyone and everything she loves.

This is the third book in the Keeper of the Lost Cities series. This review may contain spoilers.

Keeper of the Lost Cities (the series) is sort of like a Harry Potter remix where you have this new girl who happens to have all these crazy powers and is expected to save the world. That’s Sophie, our genetically modified, crazy, rule-breaking, (heart breaking) heroine who’s jumped in out of nowhere.

The books are definitely enjoyable. But it brings nothing new to the table, especially in Everblaze. The writing style also gets annoying and a bit too childish after a while (I think it’s because it’s aimed at middle schoolers).

The major problem I had with this book though was the amount of repetition and scenarios where everything works out handy dandy for our protagonist team.

I know that this might sound pessimistic, but I actually wanna see the characters suffer a bit. The book is pretty much candy and rainbows. It’s like if the characters encounter a problem – oh no! let’s introduce this in to help ’em out – BAM, everything’s fine and happy.

The one thing I did like about the book though, was the amount of plot twists (however small and insignificant they may have been). It gave the book an extra level of enjoyment through the rather bland storyline. I just wish Messenger would have expanded on those plot twists instead of making them easily solvable problems.

Oh, and before I leave – there’s a love square in this book. Yes, you heard me right. A love SQUARE, because love triangles were sooooo last week. Minus one star just for this.

tldr: Has lot of potential that was not quite met; an easy read and enjoyable book. Recommended for middle schoolers. 

Talon

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Talon by Julie Kagawa

Rating: ★★★ 2.5/5

Published October 28th 2014 by Harlequin Teen

 

I have mixed feelings about this book. I was so hyped over it because 1) THE PRETTY COVER and 2) It’s Julie Kagawa everybody and 3) HUMAN DRAGONS!

I was a bit disappointed in this book. The story was told beautifully, as expected from Julie Kagawa. She sure knows how to tell a story. It’s the reason why this book is getting 2.5 stars, because it was a really easy read. Everything flowed together.

I really wanted to like the book, but I couldn’t. Here’s why: (read on for possible spoilers)

A) PLOT

I never thought a book about HUMAN DRAGONS could be so horribly boring!

I expected a lot more:

But instead got this:

Man. What a wasted opportunity of an awesome premise. We basically have twin dragon siblings – Dante and Ember – and they’re sent into human civilization by Talon (essentially the Dragon Government) to “fit in”. Dragons have been hunted to near extinction by an organization called The Order of St. George, so they have to be extra careful.

From then on it’s basically a summer romance story involving Ember, Garett (a soldier in St. George), and Riley, a rogue dragon who left Talon.

Booooooooring until the last chapter or so, when things finally start to pick up and BAM – end of book 1! I’ll spare you guys all the fluff in the middle (can be summarized: love triangle).

B) CHARACTERS

The only cool characters, in my opinion, are Dante and Riley. The rest? Throw em in the trash, Julie! You can do better than that!

 

Would I read the next book? Maybe. There’s a decent cliffhanger at the end and I’m honestly curious to see how things turn out. Probably not though.

tldr: A plot that had potential but went wrong, but well written. You can skip this.