Luminosity Blog Tour: Review + Giveaway

Synopsis:

My name is Beatrice. When I was born, I was blessed with the Sight. I was immediately removed from my parents and enrolled in the Institution. At the age of twelve, I had my first true vision, earning my raven’s wings. And when I turned seventeen, one of my visions came true. Things haven’t been the same since.

The Institution depends on me to keep the City safe from our enemy, the Dreamcatchers, but I’m finding it harder to do while keeping a secret from everyone, including my best friend Gabe. It is a secret that could put us all in danger. A secret that could kill me and everyone close to me.

But the enemy has been coming to me in my dreams, and I think I’m falling in love with him. He says they’re coming. He says they’re angry. And I think I’ve already helped them win.

My Review:

       This book definitely goes by an idea that we don't see everyday. By the look of the includtion of dreams and visions, this book could be wrongly judged because I really didn't expect what I found. Honestly, the idea of falling in love with enemy was what kinda - kinda -  sold it out to me but then this book also seemed to me as a semi-dystopian future novel - it sort of has the same layout as the dystopian future novels - which was interesting but it needed more than that.

       In a world that consists of what seems like Citizens, Dreamcatchers and Seers - people with visions - in places no more than the City, the Instituion and Aura ( the home of the Dreamcatchers )..... and that's it, it may seem as enough but it didn't feel like so, it felt a bit shallow. To be quiet honest, I didn't at all like the world-building, it was limited and abysmal. I needed much more than that about the world in which the story takes places.

      The general idea though, I personally thought of it as a unique and good one. But it does need further illusatration and just more of everything about the story that's supposed be fulfilled in the next book. Nonetheless, the ending at first may be thought of it as a cliffhanger but then it just gave the book an unfinished ending rather than a cliffhanger. At some points the incidents of the story were so intense and so the auhor was able to accomplish the factor of excitement in the story. I also really liked the flavour of the dystopian future genre that the story was flavoured with.

      Overall, Luminosity was a book worth reading, I mean, it had it flaws but it was still a good one and I can't wait for the next book which - I know! - is going to be an astonishing one. A well-written book with an enjoyable storyline. However, I do think that this book might not be for everyone.

Title: Luminosity

Author: Stephanie Thomas

Series: Raven Chronicles

Release Date: November 13th 2012 by Entangled Teen
Source: For Review ( From Blog Tour )
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Rating: 4/5

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Author Spotlight:
Stephanie Thomas has been writing ever since she could put letters together to form words. When she was a small child, she would present her mother and father with self-made newspapers filled up with make believe stories and pictures. Her love for writing followed her all throughout her schooling, where she entered and won writing contests of all sorts. Stephanie decided to become an English teacher and completed her B.A. at The Pennsylvania State University. While teaching, she later went on to get her Master’s in writing from The Johns Hopkins University. She completed her very first manuscript during her graduate studies, and by the end of the program, she had completed two more.

Stephanie is quick to tell anyone that she’s a born and raised Philadelphian, and her heart will always belong there. She moved to Baltimore with her husband, and they’ve been living there for the last five years with their doggie, Sailor, and their rabbit, Buns (aka “T Sizzle).

Links:
Twitter | Official Website

GIVEAWAY:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Happy Reading!
xoxo, Mariam

Waiting on Wednesday #11

Waiting on Wednesday is an awesome weekly meme hosted by
Jill from Breaking the Spine.

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Click on the cover for futher info on Goodreads



Renegade (The Elysium Chronicles #1 ) by  J.A. Souders

Synopsis:

Since the age of three, sixteen-year-old Evelyn Winters has been trained to be Daughter of the People in the underwater utopia known as Elysium. Selected from hundreds of children for her ideal genes, all her life she’s thought that everything was perfect; her world. Her people. The Law.

Together with Gavin she plans her escape, only to learn that her own mind is a ticking time bomb... and Mother has one last secret that will destroy them all.

But when Gavin Hunter, a Surface Dweller, accidentally stumbles into their secluded little world, she’s forced to come to a startling realization: everything she knows is a lie. Her memories have been altered. Her mind and body aren’t under her own control. And the person she knows as Mother is a monster.

The cover - first of all - is pretty awesome as well as the synopsis which sounds like a great deal - I hope! - and hey! underwater utopia! Count me in!




Click on the cover for further info on Goodreads



The Archived by Victoria Schwab

Synopsis:Imagine a place where the dead rest on shelves like books.

Each body has a story to tell, a life seen in pictures that only Librarians can read. The dead are called Histories, and the vast realm in which they rest is the Archive.

Da first brought Mackenzie Bishop here four years ago, when she was twelve years old, frightened but determined to prove herself. Now Da is dead, and Mac has grown into what he once was, a ruthless Keeper, tasked with stopping often-violent Histories from waking up and getting out. Because of her job, she lies to the people she loves, and she knows fear for what it is: a useful tool for staying alive.

Being a Keeper isn't just dangerous-it's a constant reminder of those Mac has lost. Da's death was hard enough, but now her little brother is gone too. Mac starts to wonder about the boundary between living and dying, sleeping and waking. In the Archive, the dead must never be disturbed. And yet, someone is deliberately altering Histories, erasing essential chapters. Unless Mac can piece together what remains, the Archive itself might crumble and fall.
In this haunting, richly imagined novel, Victoria Schwab reveals the thin lines between past and present, love and pain, trust and deceit, unbearable loss and hard-won redemption.

This one too has an amazing cover and I'm definitely intrigued by the synopsis. Can't wait to read it!

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So what about you? What books are you most anticipating this week? Leave me a comment down below or a link to your post which I'll be sure to check it out ;)

Happy Waiting!
xoxo, Mariam

Book Review: Beautiful Disaster by Jamie McGuire

Goodreads:
The new Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate percentage of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance between her and the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University's Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby needs—and wants—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

My Review:

     OMG! Just purely and amazingly ADDICTING. I enjoyed this story way too much that I read it in one day and I couldn't even start reading another book right away because I was still stuck in this one so it's going to be a hard one to forget, it was just brilliant! But the reason behind me finding this amazing book was Jen from A Reading Daydreamer and I just love her for it, you can go check out her review here :)

     So the story follows the events of Abby Abernathy's life, a girl with a past that she ran away from and wanted to start a clean start. But things went a bit crazy and wild after meeting Travis who she tried not to fall for, for quite a few reasons. However, they both ended up on rocking a very unhealthy - yet sweet - relationship that rocked their world all together.

     It was subtly written and the characters were all just awesome like that, although to be honest, some characters were far too perfect, but here, in this story I feel that perfectness is somewhat acceptable because it beautifies the story in a moderate way and even delivers some common meanings, like true love and true friendship. And I really liked Travis's family and how Abby went along with his brothers, it was so just cute.

    Looking at how much of a mess Travis was at first and some of his very childish acts, still I just LOVED him although he wasn't really my type of guy with all the tattoos and the fighting, and it wasn't essence of the bad boy that I usually liked but he was still a swoon-worthy guy and I just really liked him with Abby, ( They were one of the sweetest couples in my history of YA Contemporaries! ) I enjoyed their relationship and was never tired of it despite it being a bit of a rollar coaster with them fighting and breaking up non-stop. Nonetheless, it was nerve-raking and somewhat agonizing to see them apart. And although there was some cheesiness in the book and some flaws, I didn't think of them as some huge flaws or anything, the book to me was still utterly perfect but I have to say that the ending was a bit epic and hasty.

   Overall, words can't describe how much I enjoyed this book. Yet, I can say that this story isn't for everybody but personally, all I can say is just READ IT! READ IT! A heart-wrenching, poignant story with a smoking-hot romance and an interesting storyline that will keep you glued to the pages until the very end. Highly recommend it! 

Title: Beautiful Disaster
Author: Jamie McGuire
Series: Beautiful
Published: August 14th 2012 by Atria Books
Source: Owned
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Rating: 5/5

PS: I actually wrote this review a long time ago and totally forgot about it :/

Happy Reading!
xoxo, Mariam

Feature and Follow Friday #12

Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by 

Alison Can Read and Parajunkee where they choose a featured blogger every week along with a question for everybody to answer! It's an awesome way to meet new book bloggers and share the follower love :)

 

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Q: What writing device or trick most irritates you when reading a book? For example, if an author employs an omnipotent narrator that is sometimes considered bad form.

 

Third POV'S: God! Reading a book written in a third person state can completely ruin a book for me although in some books, it doesn't really matter and it may sometimes even work but that's very rare.

Pacing: An amazing storyline with a bunch of good characters in it and then BOOM! comes a horrible pacing, slow or sometimes even inconsistent.

Insta-love: It doesn't always work in some books and as the romance in the books plays a great deal in enjoying it. A bad one can be pretty annoying.

Overdone Plots: With some books, fiction or contemporaries, some illogical details or incidents take place, ones that are unrealistic to a provactive level and makes the story cheesy and cliched.

 

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So what about you? What usually annoys or irriatates you when reading a book? Leave me a comment down below or a link to your own post which I'll be sure to check out ;)

Happy Friday!
xoxo, Mariam

Cover Reveal: Unresisting by Shane Morgen

Synopsis:

Seventeen year old Natasha Johnson is having a rough year. Her twin brother, Sean, died last summer after a car crash, and her parents decided to pack up and leave the only home she’d known all her life. It's a lot to take in, and Nat has decidedly given up on the world, until moving to Stetson Valley and meeting high school ‘outcast’, Chace Owens.

Chace's dark and mysterious aura is not exactly seen as 'normal', but Nat already knows that not a lot of things are of the norm when it comes to her life. She soon finds herself unable to resist Chace's strange pull on her heart, unleashing a sudden attraction to the unnatural forces that have always been burning within her. But with uncovering her true self brings forth great danger, as Nat learns that her brother's death had a lot more to do with the side she's unable to resist.

Can Natasha calm the blazing flames and withstand the threat of danger, or will this new found power destroy her?

Links:

Official Website | Goodreads

Release Date:

November 27, 2012

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What do you think? I am personally really intrigued by both the cover and the synopsis. Not to forget that this is the work of a fellow blogger, Shane @ItchingforBooks and I'm so very excited for her. Best of luck with your book Shane! 

xoxo, Mariam

Book Review: A Discovery of Witches by Deborah Harkness

Summary:
Deep in the stacks of Oxford's Bodleian Library, young scholar Diana Bishop unwittingly calls up a bewitched alchemical manuscript in the course of her research. Descended from an old and distinguished line of witches, Diana wants nothing to do with sorcery; so after a furtive glance and a few notes, she banishes the book to the stacks. But her discovery sets a fantastical underworld stirring, and a horde of daemons, witches, and vampires soon descends upon the library. Diana has stumbled upon a coveted treasure lost for centuries-and she is the only creature who can break its spell.

Debut novelist Deborah Harkness has crafted a mesmerizing and addictive read, equal parts history and magic, romance and suspense. Diana is a bold heroine who meets her equal in vampire geneticist Matthew Clairmont, and gradually warms up to him as their alliance deepens into an intimacy that violates age-old taboos. This smart, sophisticated story harks back to the novels of Anne Rice, but it is as contemporary and sensual as the Twilight series-with an extra serving of historical realism.

My Review:

       This was such a long and complicated read. Deborah Harkness is just a genius though. The storyline was just right. The plot was organized in the most perfect way that somebody might be capable of, at least to me. And although the book was full of some historical stuff - which was kinda perplexing at some points - I, nonetheless enjoyed the book SO MUCH!

      In a world full of witches, vampires, daemons and humans. Diana Bishop tries to live what she calls a normal life, ignoring the fact that she was a witch, but not only a witch, just a very powerful one. Not until she meets Mathew that her life changes. It was with letting just one vampire into her life, some secrets unravel and some discoveries were happening. And she falls in love.

      The world-building was surprisingly brilliant and so well-laid. Unfortnunately though, the romance was just enveloped in what seemed like a Twilght-ish wrapping yet to me it was a bit more sweeter. Nonetheless, you'd be surprised at the amount of emotions in this book, from every single character. It was just whiskful of emotions blended together - love of all sorts, longing, fear, sadness - and the lenght of the story gave a way for the author to bring all what she had out and it was masterful. The characters were all well-written and seemed authentic to being fictional charaters and Diana herself - regarding how long the book was as I said - went through courses of showing different aspects of her personality and it just deepened my connection to her. 

     However, Deborah's style of writing wasn't the easiest to read, it leaned toward being complex. Despite the fact that I loved her usuage of other languages and especially French but the writing itself was perplexing but it was still well-researched and written too.

     Overall, this book was really good which I kind of didn't expect, there was something enthralling about it. And witches, vampires and history..... it was a good mix. An enjoyable storyline, averagely detailed and easy to imagine, along with a sweet love story that will make you heart flutter. So if you are a fan of Twilight and fantasy novels in general but maybe won't mind much details then I recommend this book for you. Can't wait to start reading the next book!

Title: A Discovery of Witches
Author: Deborah Harkness
Series: All Souls Trilogy
Published: February 8th 2011 by Penguin Books
Source: Owned
Links: Goodreads
Rating: 4/5

Happy Reading!
xoxo, Mariam

Feature and Follow Friday #11

Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by 

Alison Can Read and Parajunkee where they choose a featured blogger every week along with a question for everybody to answer! It's an awesome way to meet new book bloggers and share the follower love :)

 

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Q: When you step out of your USUAL genre what do you like to read? Best books in that genre?

I usually don't have a single genre too. You'll mostly find me reading Young Adult novels ( Rarely do I read adult novels ) - historical fiction, contemporaries, urban fantasy, fiction, sci-fi, romance, dystopias - the only genres that you won't find me reading as much are mystery and horror/zombies novels. And a zombie novel that I recently read and enjoyed so much was Something Strange and Deadly by Susan Dennard ;)

 

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So what about you? Leave me a comment down below telling me or a link to your post which I'll be sure to check out :D

Happy Friday!

xoxo, Mariam

Feature and Follow Friday #10

Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by 

Alison Can Read and Parajunkee where they choose a featured blogger every week along with a question for everybody to answer! It's an awesome way to meet new book bloggers and share the follower love :)

 

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Q: What book do you think would make a great Halloween movie? Please explain in graphic detail of goriness...

I don't read that much horror novels so that leaves me to Something Strange and Deady by Suzan Dennard which was awesome ( My review HERE ) and Anna Dressed in Blood by Kendare Blake which I have seen around so much and heard good stuff about it too but haven't read it yet :/ ;)

 

 

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So what about you? Leave me a comment down below or a link to your own post as I could really use some recommendations when it comes to this genre ;)

Happy Friday!
xoxo, Mariam

Previous Post: Book Review: More by TM Franklin

BooK Review: More by T.M. Franklin

Goodreads Summary:
Ava Michaels used to think she was special.

As a child, she fantasized about having magical powers . . . making things happen. But Ava grew up and eventually accepted the fact that her childish dreams were just that, and maybe a normal life wasn't so bad after all.

Now a young college student, Ava meets Caleb Foster, a brilliant and mysterious man who’s supposed to help her pass Physics, but in reality has another mission in mind. What he shows Ava challenges her view of the world, shaking it to its very core.

Because Caleb isn't quite what he seems. In fact, he's not entirely human, and he's not the only one.

Together, the duo faces a threat from an ancient race bound to protect humans, but only after protecting their own secrets—secrets they fear Ava may expose. Fighting to survive, Ava soon learns she's not actually normal . . . she's not even just special. She's a little bit more.

My Review:

      From the beginning of this book, I was kinda put off by the writing style which was written in a third person point of view and it got really perplexing sometimes. Even more was that the story had a really slow-pacing that it took until the ending of the book to actually get to the interesting, paranormal part of the story. You see, this book just seemed as the beginning of a good story/series and that wouldn't be in favor of the the series here because you'd need to read the first book and it wasn't the most entertaining book but it was still good.

      I liked Abby enough to be just an average main character, nothing too cool or unique about her. And Caleb, at first I was really bored with him and the story itself but then when the hard times came around, he kind turned into a kick-ass guy and was obviously falling for Abby. It took the author a very long time to actually get the characters to move, it was when she actually got everything out that I could clearly observe that this story and this world building was more than just average but the author wasn't quite capable of putting it all together perfectly. Through out the story, this book will keep you wondering and asking about a lot of things and get you  all excited at some moments but this ended up making this book, a shallow one for the most part.

      Overall, this was more of an okay read. Personally, I thought of it as a set up for the sequel which I'm really excited about. So if you can be patient as I was and read the whole book, that's when you're gonna see some light, you can see the beginning of a good story in this book and a good romance too but nothing more unfortunately. I won't say anything about the series until I read the sequel but I'm definitely intrigued, enough to make me eagerly await the next one :)

Title: More
Author: T.M. Franklin
Series: More #1
Release Date: October 4th 2012 by TWCS Publishing House

Source: NetGalley ( For Review )
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Rating: 2.5/5

*Thanks to NetGalley and TWCS Publishing House  for providing me with an eARC*

Happy Reading!
xoxo, Mariam

Feature and Follow Friday #10

Feature & Follow Friday is a weekly meme hosted by 

Alison Can Read and Parajunkee where they choose a featured blogger every week along with a question for everybody to answer! It's an awesome way to meet new book bloggers and share the follower love :)

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Q: What do you hope to accomplish with your blog? Is it to one day become an author yourself, just for fun, maybe get some online attention, or maybe something very different?

I definitely started my blog for fun and to share all my thoughts about books and stuff which is a huge passion of mine. But I'd also really hope for some more online attention in the future too. And I'd also love to become an author one day but I cannot see my blog involved in it because they are two separate things so it won't affect it. Other than that is that blogging is awesome like that and this whole book blogging community rocks all the way! Before I started my blog, it was kinda hard to find the right books to read but now I don't even have time. Haha! It also keeps track of what I read and my thoughts about it so that's brilliant too. Now I could keep counting on and maybe finish reading about a thousand books by the time I'm 20 or somethin' and that gives me about 4 and a half years ;P So it just great to able to turn this hobby into something more than  just a hobbyand connects me with all of this so I hope to be able to take this blog into something bigger as the days come by :D

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So what about you? Leave me a comment down below telling me or a link to your post which I'll be sure to check out ;)

Happy Reading!

xoxo, Mariam

PS: Sorry I had to  re-post this because something was wrong with the last one.

Previous Post: Book Review: Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

Book Review: Kill Me Softly by Sarah Cross

Goodreads Summary:
Mirabelle's past is shrouded in secrecy, from her parents' tragic deaths to her guardians' half-truths about why she can't return to her birthplace, Beau Rivage. Desperate to see the town, Mira runs away a week before her sixteenth birthday—and discovers a world she never could have imagined.

In Beau Rivage, nothing is what it seems—the strangely pale girl with a morbid interest in apples, the obnoxious playboy who's a beast to everyone he meets, and the chivalrous guy who has a thing for damsels in distress. Here, fairy tales come to life, curses are awakened, and ancient stories are played out again and again.

But fairy tales aren't pretty things, and they don't always end in happily ever after. Mira has a role to play, a fairy tale destiny to embrace or resist. As she struggles to take control of her fate, Mira is drawn into the lives of two brothers with fairy tale curses of their own . . . brothers who share a dark secret. And she'll find that love, just like fairy tales, can have sharp edges and hidden thorns.

My Review:

      OMG! That was kind of sick! I used to LOVE and devour every fairytale as a kid but this... this book just showed me the rotten side of it in real life. God, I don't know what to think of it. I have to admit that it was amazing but wrong, you know when you feel that something is wrong, like it shouldn't even exist - I know I'm exaggerating here but seriously!

     I started reading this book not expecting this type of fairy tales involved so this isn't your average re-telling of fairy tales, the author added this huge, incredibly brilliant twist on it that I can only admire enough. So basically, in Beau Rivage, fairy tales are people's curses. So from Cinderella  to The Sleeping Beauty to The Beauty & the Beast, those fairy tales of ours became the lives of those people so the coolest thing is that they know their fate before it happens but happy endings are not... as happy in of our modern world, it was their curses as I said. But as Mira arrives in Beau Rivage on a mission, she falls with the relativly wrong kind of people, unpurdosedly indulging herself into in their world and secrets that would appear to be anything but normal. 

     Mira... God! She was naive and some of her actions were just provocative - at least to me - but still I liked her enough. Nonetheless, I really liked the unpredictable plot, the unique storyline and the authenticity of the characters, like if something like this was real, I'd be sure to find them all there, hanging in the Gingerbread coffee shop ;) Blue, who also appeared as a don't-come-near-me-I-can-bite-you type of guy, in heart he was kind and had some reasons behind his actions and I just adored him - just not the blue hair though - and I enjoyed the banter between him and Mira and how everything developed between them . But as the book comes to an end, there was surprisingly a happy/hasty ending that I felt was okay but good ;)

     And I also really wanted to know what was Felix's fate was, I mean if the author ever decided to write a sequel, she'll be sure to find me and many others eagerly waiting for her but that doesn't mean that this wasn't cruel, what would a child do if he knew that a book like this existed :P However, the world-building was subtle and well put together, Sarah Cross knew what she was doing here that she kinda nailed it for a collab of fairy tales but just minus the the third person state that was the book was written in.

     Overall, I didn't really fully enjoy this book but then there was something enthralling about the story and the characters, it was just heart-wrenching, exquisite and purely clever. I mean this book can always be a hit or miss but for me it leaned more toward being a hit! because I liked it but the story was just sad and sad in something that brought me a smile on my face as a kid and until now - fairy tales - so if you love fairy tales, than I BET that you wouldn't wanna miss this one and although you might not necessarily enjoy it as much, you WILL like it, you'll preserve it as something that won't fall into the category of normal, it will have it's own shelf - the I-don't-belong-anywhere-normal shelf, at least that's where it is for me ;) Recommend it! But only if you like fairy tales - I'm warning you ;)

Title: Kill Me Softly
Author: Sarah Cross
Series: Stand-alone
Published: April 10th 2012 by EgmontUSA
Source: Owned
Links: Goodreads | Amazon
Rating: 4/5

PS: I just started a new school last week so it has been insanely crazy for me lately that I don't have enough time to write my reviews - or sleep - so sorry about that but I'm working on it and I have some really awesome books coming on the way ;)

Happy Studying!
xoxo, Mariam