hippieed perceptions

I honestly do not know how I'm going to survive waiting for the next book in this series. I can't even with this book. It was so beyond what I was expecting. I loved the first one, but this one. God. So good. I want alternately hug and throat punch the author right now.

 I'm assuming that I am not alone in being excited over the sheer joy that is going to abound when we finally get to read all about Tamlin finding out the truth about Feyre and Rhys? I cannot freaking wait.

So good. So, so, so good.

EIT is one of my favorite series of all times. Dex and Perry? Ada? Those wonderful gingers? All of the yes. So, of course when I first found out years ago that we would get Little Fifteen (now Veiled for those not in the know), I was pretty much dying from excitement. Then it got postponed indefinitely. I'll admit that I little part of me died when I found out despite the sound reasoning behind it. I'm not going to fault a writer for not being ready to write. So, needless to say when Veiled first showed up on Wattpad, there was a crazy mix of excitement with a little bit of freaking out. How in the world was this going to compare with something like EIT?

Let me tell you that it does. Is it the same? Of course not. Ada and Jay more than hold their own. It still has all of the creeptacular (hello.. the Nun) scenes that you would expect from this world, but the undercurrent behind it is different. It feels different. It's Little Fifteen and she is all grown up, a force to be reckoned with and you (and Jay) are hung up on her every word as you go along for the ride. And what a ride it is. Every single page keeps you on your toes, wanting to know how everything is going to play out. You are invested from jump, whether you were already a fan or not. To add even more, Karina gives this book that little freaking bow on the top by making sure to really throw in things from past books for her fans...Dex, Perry, the new neighbors (YAY!), and of course learning more about the Jacobs. Insert fangirling noise here.

Anyway. Read this book. Read it. Just do it. If you loved EIT, you should have already read it. If you didn't love EIT, see if this one flips your skirt the way Dex didn't. What are you waiting for?

I'm just a wee bit disappointed with the ending of this series. It was a bit..overwhelming is probably the best word. It was all go go go, it was just at such a rate of go that the depth of the characters and their journey together had been so prominent in the previous books was only touched on and hinted at in this one. Was it a satisfying ending though? Yes and yes. And Yes. Two particular endings especially. You know what I'm talking about if you've read it. You know.

Anyhoo. Read this series. It's worth the ride, even when the ride gets a little overwhelming. Overwhelming can still be all kinds of fun.

PS.  School still sucks every bit of free time in life but I'm on my 2 week break before the summer starts.  Bring on all of the books. 

**Definitely take heed of the warnings on the graphic content of this book. When Karina says dark, she means it with a fiery passion. Triggers abound in almost every chapter, if you generally avoid them this series is not for you.**

This hasn't been my favorite series of Karina's. I know, I know that isn't the best thing to say, but it's the truth. However, this book really brought everything to an amazing (and disturbing) crescendo. My biggest issue with this series as a whole was the speed at which is progressed and because of that the character development never..developed. This book though, it was just SO dark and twisty and every single character was beyond fleshed out. You thought you knew the inner workings of a character before this book? You don't. I promise. I thought I could see things coming, but then it would just be so much more graphic, so much more violent and somehow so much more loving? That's not the right word, but Javier just does something to me. Even when you are like, whoa, what just happened there..the way that Javier and Luisa work with each other (and against each other) is just magnetic. It makes you feel dirty for loving them, especially Javi. But you still do even when you think he is a flipping scary as crap sociopath and Luisa is a crazy woman who needs to be committed, preferably to a convent where she can be completely safe from herself. But hey, if Karina can do that and STILL make you feel for both Javier and Luisa, she is doing something right. Now I'm going to take a shower and cuddle some puppies or something.

I've had this book for a long, long while but never really gathered the will to actually read it. With the movie coming out soon, I figured now was as good as time as any to finally knock this one of the tbr list.

I'm kind of wavering on how many stars to give this one. If I were to rate the book alone, I'd lean more toward the 2.5ish stars, but the sheer audacity of zombifying one of the most beloved romance novels of all times just deserves all of the stars. Not to mention the random sexual innuendoes between our Elizabeth and Mr. Darcy. Hilarious and hilariously bad at the same time. The ridiculousness of it all is just astounding, but yet it is done in a way that you just keep reading to see what else the author is actually going to do with the story. It was just...I don't even know. I enjoyed the occasional humor and heavy sarcasm, but otherwise it was was 200+ pages of eye-rolling madness that literally only kept me turning the pages just to see what else this author could think up to do to this story.

On a side note. Are we done with zombies yet?

Karina Halle's The Artist Trilogy is currently on sale for $0.99 each.  That's a steal for these romantic suspense books! If you haven't been introduced to Javier (and Ellie & Camden), here is your chance. 

http://amzn.com/B00CWKL12M  ---- Sins and Needles

http://amzn.com/B00DG8ZY7W ----- Shooting Scars

http://amzn.com/B00DG8ZYA4 ----- Bold Tricks

"Let people feel the weight of who you really are, and let them fucking deal with it."

This is Tarryn's 8th novel and I'd easily rank it as one of her best yet. I spent hours with my heart in my throat savoring all of the words and emotions wafting from the pages. Tarryn styled this book as the rise of the villain, when Helena decided to get her man, anyone else be damned. It's so much more than that though, so much more than Helena and Kit's love story. It's the rise of the villain, Helena becoming herself, everyone else be damned. I think of out of all of Tarryn's other characters, Helena has been my favorite. There is just something about her that made me fall in love with her. On the downside of that though, and the only thing that made me not want to love this book at times is that I fucking fell in love with Helena. I spent so much of the book wondering what in the hell was wrong with Kit. I'm glad that he grew up in the course of the book as well, but did it ever take him long enough. But that is life, sometimes it takes a long fucking time for everything and everyone to fall into place. When it does though, life is so much sweeter because nothing worth having is easy. Not relationships, not yourself. But at the end of the day, this is why I love this book. It's perfect in it's flaws because even when I wanted to scream because I hate that it took so long for Kit and Helena to come together, the fight was beautiful.

Hello, unadulterated entertainment.

This is another one of those books for me that, while it definitely won't be going into my holy crap this is the best book of all time category, it was entertaining as hell. The opening page just set the tone so well, radiating such creepiness that I knew that I was going to like was I was getting into. The thought of aliens transmitting their essence in utero to prepare for some epic takeover of humanity? Yes, please. I can't say that the entire book held to the same level of creepiness (it is a YA book after all) but it still succeeded in making you wonder if just maybe one of your children has a little something extra going on.

And because I can't not complain about something, the one scene that was straight out of Full Metal Jacket had me rolling my eyes with a fury. Yes, yes--aliens learning from about humanity from movies, books, etc but seriously. I was waiting on him to accidentally call him Joker. But whatever, at least he used a good movie as "influence".

Super hot Navy Seal falls instantly for equally super hot even at 6 months pregnant mom with 4 kids all 6 or under?! Oh, how unbelievably sweet.

So, maybe I should have known better from the get go. Sugary sweet is not my thing. I'm generally not a super nice person who falls all over herself when disgustingly adorable kids say disgustingly adorable things. The scene where the chick loses her mind over little chocolate hands all over her $500 white pants? Yep, that's me without the expensive pants. And I have 3 kids. Poor things.

If you are cool with absolutely unbelievable adorableness that makes you feel "wucky" to be reading such cuteness, this is for you. I can't knock the writing or the idea behind the storyline, even though it did drag on for a relationship that went so fast, because it wasn't terrible. This was just strictly my bad for even thinking that I would be okay with the cuteness.  

This book pretty much defines slow burn. You spend chapters just trudging along page after page liking what you are reading but not really loving it. You like Elena. You like Clay. But still, you just continue to trudge along. Somewhere around the midway point, you notice that the pages are turning a little faster, the chapters are ending a little quicker and you are getting a little snippier when you are interrupted for the bazillionth time (Holidays, gotta love them). And then, you are flying through the pages until you get to the end and you wonder what is the crap just happened. You've been reading the first half of this book for DAYS, wondering if you were ever going to finish and then get to the end and you end up very grateful that you married someone who doesn't read on a regular basis or else your kids would have starved to death if it wasn't for him. So, props to the husband for not letting us starve to death and also to Kelley Armstrong for surprising the hell out of me with the latter half of this book. I'll definitely be checking out the subsequent books in the series, but really, really hoping that they don't continue on with quite as much of the slow burn.

Two quick things on this one, though I'll probably come back later with more opinions

1. Holy effing crap, Colleen Hoover! I've said numerous times that I love the "extras" that she does her books but that the book itself seems to come up lacking in return. Case in point, November 9. No confessions, no music, no painful poetry type stuff taking up entire "chapters". Just straight up novel. And boy does it ever work for this book. Even when I wanted to hate it, I flipping devoured every page. You go, Colleen.

2. And the downside. I despised the ending. Yes, yes, it was happy. But I hated it. Maybe I am too black hearted to find the awwww moment in it, but I think the ending was a cop out. Cop out. Cop out.

Okay, that's it for now as it is late and I need sleep. I'll continue to dwell on my thoughts about this. But as of now, I'm going with a strong 3.5. I have a few more issues with the storyline itself, but even despite those and my disdain for the ending, Colleen wrote the hell out of this book.

So, I've slept on my hate for the ending and lo and behold, I still hate the ending. Perhaps even more than I originally did. It wasn't the plot twist that did it, I saw that twist coming for miles away primarily because it's been done before. No, my hatred solely stems from the fact that Fallon was okay with said plot twist SO QUICKLY. No, Fallon, No. At least give the character a substantial amount of time to come to terms with such a massive development. I'm all for the power of the book because certain books have had the power to change my life, but still No, Fallon. I expected more of her. And on this note, I'm not even going to touch on my opinion of the Jordyn situation. I didn't completely dislike it, because it is a real possibility in that kind of traumatic situation. But it felt more like a way to speed up the plot rather than an authentic character development.

Anyway, I think that is the last of my major thoughts on this book. Honestly, I think this is one of the better written Colleen books in a long time. As much as I've raved about everything that goes into a CoHo book, I think she actually shines when there is only her writing. I love that she branches out and brings so much else to her readers, but it's books like this and Slammed that makes me appreciate when she DOESN'T try to bring so much else to her readers as well.

So, finals are over and I'm on learning hiatus until January.  Praise be.  How do I spend my first days of freedom, you ask?  I finally finish the series that I started in May of 2013.  =X

I apparently stopped after book 4 by delving into one of the spin off books and that bored me enough that I never went back into the series.  Apparently I'm a Bones or nothing kind of girl.  

Today always makes me so sad, 27 years just wasn't enough.    

Say no to drugs, kids.  

Dead Wake wasn't quite as much of an attention grabber as Devil in the White City, but it is still a page turner. Larson's unique ability to interweave stories with stories is definitely a trait of his that will keep me coming back. Not to mention his books being incredibly well researched and put together.

I have more thoughts, but I need to put them together better before I get started. But this is definitely a must read.

Stephenie Meyer to agent--"I want to prove all of those haters wrong who say that Edward was kind of creepy and stalkerish and Bella was a bit of a pushover with no real personality other than her obsessive love for Edward.  How to do it, oh I know, I'm going to switch all of the genders of the characters.  We all know that women can't be super possessive and kind of serial killery and men can't be solely defined by their relationship with a woman."

So, maybe that wasn't the exact conversation but I honestly can't picture what else should could have actually been doing with this "reimagining".  Let's starting with that, reimagining.  When I think of that, I think of, you know, an actual REIMAGINING, not just the literal flip flopping of genders with leaving the same dialogue, unless it doesn't seem "manly" enough.  Was it supposed to be creating gender fluidity by leaving the same traits for each character but just changing the names, except when the author deems something needs to be specifically male to be okay, i.e. the attempted rape is now an attempted assault situation for Beau? Or what about Royal being assaulted in the stead of Rosalie's rape(s)?  Because men can't be raped, only assaulted.  =X   Maybe I'm just overthinking this, but this is a huge no for me.  

For the plus side of this, she did at least something decent by changing the ending. I must say that I quite enjoyed just wiping out the need for the rest of the series.  Not to mention the ability to milk the supposed gender-bending for 3 more books. 

 I'll willingly admit that I actually liked Twilight and the sequels.  It's a mindless entertainment that entertained the hell of out me.  I don't feel the need to profess my undying love to Stephenie Meyer for her amazing work of literary perfection, but I still enjoyed it even when I was making fun of some of the more ridiculous aspects of it.  So, this take on it just made all of those ridiculous aspects glaringly obvious and really, really awkward.  Really awkward.  It added absolutely nothing to the Twilight Saga but anger and frustration over Meyer's opinion on what a gender-bent book should entail.  

So, to sum this up. Just don't do it. Save your masochism for something else.