Monday, May 30, 2011

Review - Lost Voices


This is the synopsis from Amazon:

Fourteen-year-old Luce has had a tough life, but she reaches the depths of despair when she is assaulted and left on the cliffs outside of a grim, gray Alaskan fishing village. She expects to die when she tumbles into the icy waves below, but instead undergoes an astonishing transformation and becomes a mermaid. A tribe of mermaids finds Luce and welcomes her in—all of them, like her, lost girls who surrendered their humanity in the darkest moments of their lives. Luce is thrilled with her new life until she discovers the catch: the mermaids feel an uncontrollable desire to drown seafarers, using their enchanted voices to lure ships into the rocks. Luce possesses an extraordinary singing talent, which makes her important to the tribe—she may even have a shot at becoming their queen. However her struggle to retain her humanity puts her at odds with her new friends. Will Luce be pressured into committing mass murder?

The first book in a trilogy, Lost Voices is a captivating and wildly original tale about finding a voice, the healing power of friendship, and the strength it takes to forgive.

My review: 5 stars

Plot: I LOVED this book. Loved it. I was so relieved that this book was a winner for me, because with all of the DNF books I'd been reading recently I thought I might be entering a reading slump. This book was heart-warming and touching and kept my interest the entire time.

Characters: I liked that the author introduced us to the main character, then her tribe, then added new tribe members in small doses. It kept all their personality clashes interesting without overwhelming the reader with too many new details at once.

Setting: I appreciated the fact that Luce had her own private cave separate from the main cave when she wanted to be alone. I am a bubbly person, but I love my solitude and so I could totally relate to her in those times.

Overall: This book inspired to me to get back into my love for fantasy reading, since I've been leaning more towards contemporary lately. This book was spot-on and I will be looking forward to the rest of the trilogy.

Friday, May 27, 2011

Armchair BEA: Day 5

Today is the last day of Armchair BEA. Today's topic is on book blogging.

Honestly I did not feel like blogging today. It's just been a crazy night and I'm not feeling it. Howver, I realized that's the perfect thing to talk about it.

Don't force yourself to blog if you don't have anything of value to say!

Seriously. Don't force yourself to do an IMM just because you got awesome books. Skip a week and do two weeks next week.

Don't do any Follow Fridays if you aren't gonna hop to other blogs. Just don't do. It's not worth it, and you feel crummy about it.

If you have reviews ready, schedule posts in advance. That way you still have good posts going up even if you don't feel like writing.

And lastly, just write what you love to write about! That's all there is to it.

Thursday, May 26, 2011

Armchair BEA: Day 4

For today, we are sharing topics related to nurturing relationships. I'm going to share a bit about my blogger BFF, Hannah :D

Hannah blogs from Project Journal. She's not technically a book blogger, but she does review for a few Christian publishing companies and posts reviews every once in awhile. I don't know how it happened, but I've found my soul mate in this girl! We are so alike, it is crazy. We have nearly identical personalities! Since she lives across the country from me, I haven't had the chance to meet her in person, although we are working on it! We have Skyped before and are constantly texting each other or chatting on Facebook.

She is a true friend! Show her some love, will you? ;)

Who are your blogger BFFs?

(Sorry for such a short post, it's a crazy day.)

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Armchair BEA: Day 3

Welcome back for Day 3! Today many participants are posting interviews or other Armchair bloggers, but I signed up late and didn't get a chance. Instead we are sharing our favorite bookish blogs! I will only post a few, simply because I love WAY too many and could write forever :P


I know, everyone loves Kristi :) But seriously, if I was at BEA this week, she would be at the top of my bloggers to meet list! She's super helpful with everything blog and book related, and just an overall sweetheart. Check her out, if you haven't already!


Melissa is another popular blogger that was one of the first ones I stumbled across. It was nice to find a blogger with similar reading tastes to me right off the bat! She's another super sweet blogger :)

I could add so many more, but I don't want to go on and on forever! Check these girls out, and leave me links to other bloggers if you stop by :)

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Armchair BEA: Day 2

Today for Armchair BEA, we are sharing our favorite books out of the ones we read so far! According to Goodreads I've read 34, and 4 of those made my favorites!


I finally got into this series this year! I loved the first book, so it was disappointing that Catching Fire was just okay and Mockingjay was definitely not my favorite. If you haven't read these yet, DO!!!


If you like romances, especially Christian romances, read this book! It was super sweet! It got off to a slow start but once she began her road trip I couldn't stop reading.


I love reading Amish books, and this one was no different. Her pain was so sad, and some of the twists and turns I didn't even foresee coming! Definitely a good read.


This one was really refreshing after such a hard time with a reading slump. I had never read a book about mermaids and this one was really creative! Another great one.

If you stop by, leave a link for your favorite books! :)

Monday, May 23, 2011

Armchair BEA: Day 1!


Today marks the first day of Armchair BEA! For my new followers and visitors, welcome to The Librarian's Bookshelf! For my current followers, I hope you learn more about me today! For the first post we are supposed to introduce ourselves and give a few facts about ourselves, so here we go!


My name is Ariel and I'm a 20-year-old college student who is attending George Fox University in Newberg, Oregon with plans to become a librarian. I have loved reading all my life and even taught myself to read at a very young age. Before I ventured into the world of book blogging, I typically fantasy and a handful of Christian fiction. Now I have expanded to include contemporary romance and many more fantasy and Christian novels! I am not the typical book blogger, in that I basically pick up whatever grabs my fancy. I try to avoid the "book blogger hype", which is why it took my so long to read The Hunger Games. Once I did, I realized how valuable book blogging is! It introduces us to genres we would normally walk away from.

One think I am very bad about is finishing a book before starting a new one :P I currently have a bookmark in three or four physical books, not even including the Kindle book on my loaned iPad or the Adobe Digital Editions ereader. My goal this summer is to get back into one book at a time :)

I hope you enjoyed getting to know me If you stopped by, please leave a link to your post and I'll definitely check it out!

Saturday, May 21, 2011

IMM (first vlog!) and update



Kindle:


Missing:



Mentioned links:

Liz @ The Tealeaf Review (Thank you sooo much!)
Poison by Chris Wooding

Hope you enjoyed my first attempt at a vlog, and that everyone has a good week!

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Update

I have been a terrible blogger. On both of my blogs.

I'm hoping to get a regular schedule on here soon! I will have IMM up on Sunday (three weeks worth!) and plan to keep that up every week. I also hop to start posting review on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but I'm not sure it that will be everyday based on my slow reading speed. I will have one review for sure on Monday, so be looking for that!

I also will have a new layout coming in the near future. I'm on a waiting list with the designer so it'll be a few months, but it will come!

Hope everyone is having a great week!

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Review - Angelfire


This is the synopsis from Amazon:


First there are nightmares.
Every night Ellie is haunted by terrifying dreams of monstrous creatures that are hunting her, killing her.
Then come the memories.
When Ellie meets Will, she feels on the verge of remembering something just beyond her grasp. His attention is intense and romantic, and Ellie feels like her soul has known him for centuries. On her seventeenth birthday, on a dark street at midnight, Will awakens Ellie's power, and she knows that she can fight the creatures that stalk her in the grim darkness. Only Will holds the key to Ellie's memories, whole lifetimes of them, and when she looks at him, she can no longer pretend anything was just a dream.
Now she must hunt.
Ellie has power that no one can match, and her role is to hunt and kill the reapers that prey on human souls. But in order to survive the dangerous and ancient battle of the angels and the Fallen, she must also hunt for the secrets of her past lives and truths that may be too frightening to remember.


My review: Did Not Finish

I did not dislike this book, but I found the background very confusing and hard to grasp. Also I've been gravitating towards contemporary fiction lately, and this was definitely paranormal.

As a side note, this might be a good time to mention that there might be a good amount of reviews coming up that will not be completed books. I cleaned out my closet yesterday and my TBR stack is much larger than I thought, so I decided to give all my books at least 100 pages to interest me before I decide to finish or move on.

Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Review - The Summer Before Boys


This is the synopsis from Amazon:

Julia and Eliza are best friends, spending the summer together. Julia's mother is serving in the National Guard and Julia spends all of her time trying not to think about what could happen. So the girls lose themselves in their summer, hanging out at the resort where Eliza's father works. But when they meet a new boy, neither one of them is prepared for what it does to their friendship.

Nora Raleigh Baskin delivers a poignant look at the way a first crush can come between best friends and the importance of hanging on to the time you have as a kid before rushing into growing up.


My review: Did Not Finish

It took me a long time to get into this book, and I still had to stop a little over half way. I don't know what it was, but I just felt like this book started slowly and took a long time to pick up and get interesting. The boy isn't even introduced until well over a third into the story! Not a bad book, and I feel like those who really love romances would enjoy it, but it was not for me.

Thursday, May 5, 2011

Review - Curran Volume I


This is the synopsis from Amazon:

This isn't a short story or a novella. This is a collection of scenes written by Gordon Andrews as a companion to our Kate Daniels series of books. These scenes illustrate the point of view of Curran, the Beast Lord of Atlanta and are provided in gratitude to our readers for all of their support. This collection isn't meant to stand on its own as an independent work of fiction.

My review: 3 stars

Plot: This novella has four or five short stories, all told at a different time. They were often hard to follow, and I felt the endings of all of them were severe cliffhangers. However, the romantic bickering between the two characters was certainly charming and worth it.

Characters: The two main characters are the typical couple: they fight back and forth denying their attraction for each other. It was the only thing that kept my interest.

Setting: Too much jumping round between the stories to pinpoint one I remember.

Overall: I admit I did not read the Kate Daniel series this set comes off of. I'm sure if you had read that series these stories would make more sense and be more enjoyable.

Wednesday, May 4, 2011

Review - Sixteenth Summer


This is the synopsis from Amazon:

Anna is dreading another tourist-filled summer on Dune Island that follows the same routine: beach, ice cream, friends, repeat. That is, until she locks eyes with Will, the gorgeous and sweet guy visiting from New York. Soon, her summer is filled with flirtatious fun as Anna falls head over heels in love.

But with every perfect afternoon, sweet kiss, and walk on the beach, Anna can’t ignore that the days are quickly growing shorter, and Will has to leave at the end of August. Anna’s never felt anything like this before, but when forever isn’t even a possibility, one summer doesn’t feel worth the promise of her heart breaking….


My review: 4 stars

Plot: I love romances, I really do. However there was parts of this novel where I just wanted to laugh at how ridiculous Anna acted. Of course, she's sixteen. Still, I felt she was very dramatic in certain parts, a bit too much so. I also felt the relationship between her and Will developed much too quickly, especially for a sixteen and seventeen-year-old.

Characters: As I said before, Anna was very dramatic. However, I loved how caring she was for her two best friends and how the double relationship helped them all.

Setting: Oh, beaches. One of the best settings for a romance novel. The descriptions were excellent and made me wish I was there right now!

Overall: As my first official "summer" read of the year, it left me wanting more. I wish there was going to be a sequel on their future or next summer. Still, definitely worth picking up!
 
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