Reviews by tersanay

Proceed with caution. Within this book is a wonderfully told story. There just happen to be zombies as well. And not the funny kind either. Those things were scary.

"Greed has poisoned men's souls. Surface Dwellers have destroyed what was once beautiful and turned it into a ghostly illusion of what they call peace. But down here, we have real peace. There will be no fear, or sickness, hunger, hate, or greed. We have created our Utopia. And it is magnificent." - Mother, from Founding Speech

Evelyn Winters has an almost perfect life. Her concerns are few and her privileges many in the beautiful underwater haven known as Elysium. So what if she has problems with her memory? So what if things don't always make sense? One day a Surface Dweller comes and everything changes. Who do you trust when you can't even use your own experiences as a guide?

Renegade was almost perfect. I loved the setting. The underwater city was beautiful and the people just crazy enough to believe. Evelyn is a wonderfully unreliable narrator which led to a thoroughly confusing and fun read. It is told from first person perspective in the present tense which I know some people don't like but it is my personal favorite. The action felt real and the plot made sense without being completely predictable.

Gavin was a breath of fresh air for a romantic interest. He's not dark and brooding and mysterious like so many romantic loves are *cough Edward and Jace cough* but neither is he goofy and awkward either. He is warm and open and while protective he does it in a not controlling manner. He was likeable.

The only real flaw I found I in the book was it's portrayal of sex and the speed at which the characters fell in love. For a people who train their children on the ways of physical love so that their couplings will be successful they seemed very modest. At one point Evelyn even sees Gavin step out of the shower and gives him a once over without ever looking south of the waistline. I'm sure it was to maintain a PG-13 rating but it was unbelievable to me. What made it worse was that the 2 had sex in less than 3 days of knowing each other and were confessing their love shortly after that. I understand that they were in a very stressful situation and that the love was important in the end but it always feels a little rushed to me when that happens. Insta-like is cool. We've all been there. But this felt a little too much like insta-love for my tastes.

Overall excellent book. Recommended for anyone who likes YA dystopia with a little big of gore.

Sequels are hard. Usually they work one of three ways. Either they just serve to get form book one to book three, they elevate the story and amp interest even more or they fall flat. For me, Hallowed fell flat. It was okay but it wasn't anything new. Yet again Clara is torn between 2 boys and trying to figure out her visions. It was slow and a little boring but not bad enough to only get one star.

I've put off reviewing this one because I'm not quite sure what to say. If you read the first one and liked it then you should like this one too. It's more of the same but without the mob element which is nice. It's still quick paced and exciting and the romance element is more in the forefront but it doesn't take over the story. I really liked the first one and if possible I liked this one more. Not really more to say than that.

The main character was soooo annoying. Whiny, bratty, spoiled and stupid. She was a mean girl.
The author was too out of touch to write YA. Teens don't care about Coach purses anymore. Also, don't put your characters in situations where they would cuss and then have them say stupid things instead. Commit or don't do it.
Also, could this book be any more obvious as a cautionary tale against *gasp* teenage sex. If you have sex you are either a slut or stupid. So obnoxious.

When We Wake is a book about the future. But I pray that it's not like any future I ever have to witness. I'm giving it 3.25 stars. I liked it, but the little things drag the rating down.

The good:
The characters were good. I didn't feel like anyone was too cliche and I was invested in their dramas.
The setting in Australia was new for me and I found it interesting.
The conspiracy seemed realistic.
At first the religious nature of the book annoyed me but by the end it seemed totally relevant to everything that happens.

The Bad:
Don't surround your MC with adults who are scientists and then make them seem stupid. Without giving anything away, there was one plotline that seemed really obvious to me but the Doctor that woke Tegan up couldn't even figure it out.
The slang. The author spent way too much time setting up slang that didn't feel likely or relevant to the story. I get it, language changes but it's not that important.

Overall, it was an interesting story. Slightly predictable but a nice effort.

Recommended to people who like dystopias.

Cinder was one of the best books I read last year. I was worried that Scarlet wouldn't live up to it but I was wrong. This book was great. I gave Cinder a 5 because it was innovative and unique and I loved it. I love this one too just I can't seem to bring myself to give it 5 stars. Defiantely 4.5 though. I like how even though these are characters we know from fairy tales they read like totally new stories. I love this series so far.

The story starts by introducing Scarlet, a farmer in France who is looking for her missing grandma. She meets a boy and the two of them search together. Cinder's story comes in later and we find her making the foreshadowed escape from prison and she picks up a new friend on her way out. The new characters were well rounded and I definately got just as invested in Scarlet's storyline as I am in Cinder's. Wolf especially was fantastic. He was everything I like in a romantic interest. I like a broken boy. It's my thing. And Thorne was an excellent addition to the cast of characters. The hardest parts for me to read were the brief moments we spent with Kai. He's broken now but in a way I can't take pleasure n. I can't wait for the eventual reunion I know will happen for him and Cinder. I just need that to be a happy ending.

Anyway, if you liked the first one you'll like this one too. If you haven't read Cinder then you are missing out for sure. And even more important, I need the third one now.

There are some movies that stick with you even after the credits have run and you've headed back to your everyday life. You'll suddenly find yourself thinking of it on your drive to work or while you make dinner. This movie is like that for me. At first I just loved it. It's a beautiful love story about two broken people who find away to heal through each other. Cooper and Lawrence are perfection both as individuals and as a couple. There are laughs and tears and when it's over you feel like it's time to go out and find the silver lining in your own life.

But now, after the warmth of the ending has faded I find myself dwelling on the sadder parts. The pain of dealing with undiagnosed mental disabilities and I realize that a more relevant movie couldn't be made. After all the violence in America of late alot has been said about people with bipolar disorder. This movie shows that while a bi polar person can be dangerous, with the right mindset and the right meds they can be a healthy member of society. It's not the disease that's the problem. It's our inability to diagnose and deal with these problems before they boil over into dangerous actions.

WORST BOOK EVER! Seriously. Do not read this. At times I drove the people around me crazy with my complaining about how truly awful this book is. So why did I read it? you ask. Because hopefully this review will prevent some poor soul from being tricked into reading it. I've never been this harsh in a review before but I'm not even sorry. If I could give this book .25 stars I would. That way people would still see my review but it wouldn't be lumped in with the other bad books I've read before.

Let's start with the concept. Teenage girl and her evil mother and co-dependent brother move to a new school district. Teenage girl meets boy and falls instantly in love with him. On her way home from school she rescues him from bullies and discovers her super human abilities . She loses her journal which really has no point in the story other than to relate it to vampire diaries. Girl and brother get in fight. Boy asks girl on date. Brother runs away and mother tells girl she isn't her real mother. Girl leaves and goes to opera with boy where she kills the vocalist. Girl goes home for her phone but is ambushed by vampires and police. Vampires capture her and plan to torture her but she magically escapes and is rescued by good vampire. Again she is instantly in love. Good Vampires don't want her so she leaves on her own and is almost captured by police after she uses her phone (where'd that come from) to text first boy. Vampire saves her and they fly off into the sunset together. Seriously, that's the story.

If you didn't pick up on it there let me tell you now that almost every vampire stereotype is in this book. Every time girl meets one she describes the bad ones as evil and dressed and black and the good ones as peaceful and dressed in black. We get it, vampires are goths.

Then there were the errors. I don't just me in spelling and grammar. I mean in sonsistency. There were so many head scratching moments. How does she get her phone at the end for one.

Also, the co-dependent brother was so lame. You can't talk about how you rely on each other to survive then send him away after one fight just so he doesn't get killed in the later scenes. Clearly Rice has never seen Supernatural.

Then there are the evil vampires. Note to authors. DO NOT introduce a character and expect me to take him seriously if you have him say anything about a master plan. It was like the cheesy villain laugh.

The insta love was ridiculous and soooo cheesy. I can handle insta lust. That's a real thing. But there isn't one centuries old vampire that is going to prefess his love for some new thing after just an hour. It's ridiculous. Girl seriously has issues. She latches onto just about any male figure in the book. I'm surprised she didn't hump the leg of the substitute teacher.

But perhaps the most irritating part of the book was girl, also known as Caitlin. She was so annoying. Whiny and selfish, I wanted to kill her the entire time. Then, when she starts becoming vampirelike she will suddenly become cocky and superior and think humans are beneath her to change back into her whiny self a few seconds later. She was all over the place.

It was way too short for it to have any kind of quality at all. Everything was rushed which is probably why it seemed so ridiculous.


Overall, this book was a waste of the $0.00 I spent on it and the 2 hours of my life I'll never get back.

This was a hard one for me to rate. I feel like giving it three stars isn't quite accurate because people percieve 3 stars as average but for me it means exactly what it says. I liked it. I didn't really like it, but it was better than okay. Maybe 3.25 stars.

Anyway, overall the book was good. My main complaint is tat for such a long book, not very much seemed to happen. The romance drug out everything. There was alot of moaning and whining and dreading the future. But then the final sequence took what, 30 pages or so. It was a little anti-climactic. Plus, I've never known a guy who would notice and care about the things Ethan did. I'm a girl and I don't even notice what someone is wearing every time I see them. I get it, they wanted to describe her clothes but they could have done in such better ways.

Anyway, it was good. I liked it. I might read the next one. I will definately see the movie.