My Top Three: Best & Worst of 2014

2014 is almost over and I thought that I should summarize it by listing the best and worst of my reading experience this year. This is not about books released in 2014, but about book that I have read in 2014. My goal for this year, as seen on Goodreads, was to read 50 books. I didn't really believe that I would actually achieve it, but I did and I even surpassed it, with a total of 65 books read in 2014! 

I read stand-alones and series, romances and dystopias, good and bad books. I had favorite heroes and heroines and also least favorite ones. Overall, I am very pleased with my readings of 2014, the books I read I feel like they have enriched me. I laughed and I cried with them, I got happy, angry and sad. My goal for 2015 is to read at least as much as I have this year. I have other objectives and goals as well for the year that follows, and I wish that with time and a little bit of effort I will achieve them, but more details will come next year.

With that being said, I will also let you know that this is the last post that I will write this year. I would like to wish you all Happy Holidays, a new year at least as good as 2014 and if your 2014 sucked, I wish that your 2015 will be far better! For the remaining of the holiday season, may you all be safe and happy beside your loved ones. Happy New Year!

Review: Finale (Hush, Hush # 4)

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

     I'm going to go ahead and just say that Finale was better than its unworthy predecessor also known as Silence. But don't get me wrong, this book was about as good as that meal that you don't like but you're constantly forced to eat by your mother and you do it just to satisfy her. Who was I trying to satisfy while reading this book (or this entire series, while we're at it)? God only knows.

     All is well in Nora's world. Her big, bad daddy is dead - at her hand, mind you! - and she unexpectedly became leader of a big ass army, the Nephilim, responsible of leading them to war against fallen angels and getting them victorious on the either side. Just how convenient is that? And so cool! What could go wrong in putting the fate of hundreds of Nephilim in the hands of a seventeen year old girl who just learned that she's also descending from a bloodline of Nephilim?

     So that's about everything that's going on in this book. During about 3/4 of this book, all you'll get is Nora struggling to accept her Nephilim origin, battling the urge to gulp down on devilcraft, an almighty drink that makes her extremely strong and powerful, and trying to become the leader of this army, because she and her mother will otherwise die, thanks to the oath she swore to her dying (real) father. Doesn't this all sound like a soap opera? On top of it all, everyone in this book is Nephilim. Every single one, with the exception of Nora's mom and maybe the janitor in her high school.

     Moving on, everyone in this book is unbearable. Nora, Vee, Dante, at times even Patch and Scott. Let's not even mention Marcie, because unbearable is her middle name. And, because this is the final book, the conflict must be solved. And it is, in the last few chapters of this book. Literally. It all comes down to burning some feathers and when that fails, going for the most obvious way: slaughter between two supernatural races. Afterwards, all is well once more in Nora's world. And she and Patch may even be together for a little while!

     With all this being said, I am extremely pleased and happy to say that I finally finished this series. I don't know how I made it to the end, but I did and I am so relieved. I was so ready for it to be over. This series was, unfortunately, a major disappointment in my reading experience. As much as I tried to like it, I couldn't. I honestly feel like I've wasted too much time reading it and I think I can safely say this is one of the worst series I've read this year.

Review: Silence (Hush, Hush # 3)

My Rating: ★★☆☆☆

     I don't know how to say this gently, so I'll just say it: this book was awful. I absolutely hated it. I really, really don't want to be mean but I just couldn't bring myself to like this book one bit. It was exasperating! I literally wanted to scratch at my eyes and rip my hairs out every time I read a chapter.

     First of all, the good things about Silence. I have to be honest and solemnly thank the author for making this a fast read, otherwise I don't think I could've been able to finish this book. I'm not kidding. Thank the heavens that the writing style was easy to follow and that the overall action was extremely easy to read.

     Also, let me just point this out: thank God that there wasn't a love triangle! That's about the only good thing about this series, overall. Love triangles are usually cheap, corny and frustrating and this book didn't have it, which I can only praise it for. 

     Now, moving on, I must say that I was frustrated during 3/4 of this book. Really, memory wipe? Okay, that's actually pretty cool if you think about it. But, really, Patch would rather let Nora mumble alone in complete darkness - or, silence, if you wish - than fight for their future and fight for her? Granted, Nora is a terrible person but still. Patch swore up and down that he loved Nora and that nothing would keep them apart, and yet, here he was ready to just let go of it all. 

     I'm honestly getting mad just writing this review. Seriously, we're book 3 into this series and I don't know if there were 100 pages combined of Nora and Patch actually being together, without fighting or "letting go" of each other. This is not okay, not at all! I've said it before and I'll say it again - drama is alright. Everybody likes it, everybody wants to read a little of it and maybe even shed a few tears. But this book just went over the top. And don't even get me started on Vee - worst bestfriend of all times.

     On the other hand, I have mixed feelings about the action. The truth is, this book didn't keep me interested too much, which is why my mind kept slipping when reading it. Therefore, I don't really remember much of what happened, except the basics. I know that at times I felt like nothing was really happening. However, things changed a bit towards the ending and it all felt a little more fast-paced. 

     To sum this all up, I'm not going to pretend that this isn't a fit of rage where words start pouring out of me. Yes, I am very mad with this book. Yes, I am also very unimpressed and still wondering how on earth I was able to finish it but mostly, I'm wondering what would make someone want to read the final book after reading this one?

Review: Crescendo (Hush, Hush # 2)

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

     When I read a series, I usually expect the second book to be at least somewhat better than the first one but this wasn't the case with Crescendo. I really tried to like this book - this series, to be honest - but I feel completely on the outside when it comes toHush, Hush. Everyone said it was an amazing series but it really didn't get to me at all.

     So, the initial conflict is gone, everything is well in Nora's life and she and Patch proceed to live a normal life, happily in love like two teenagers. Um, nope, wrong book. That's what you would expect from a book like this, no? And maybe that's exactly the reason why the author chose a different path for this sequel. And I would be okay with that because everyone likes some dramatic twist of events in a romance, except this one was so poorly done that I literally rolled my eyes at least once per chapter.

     Marcie Millar? Seriously? I get it, everyone hated her from the beginning of the story and introducing her even further to the plot will make readers despise her even more, but why should she be involved with the fantastic/paranormal stuff that's going on in this book? It just didn't make sense at all. Of course, the author provided explanation for it but it still felt unnecessary to me.

     On the other hand, the character of Scott brought some interesting conflicts to the book. Even though he was very frustrating or even exasperating at times, I think that without him the book would have been much more dull. Naturally, it was obvious from the beginning that his involvement would be bigger than the author initially let on, thus I suspected from the beginning that he was supernatural. His introduction was interesting but predictable. 

     I was expecting something much more interesting from this book when I first started reading it. The fact that things got more heated towards the ending didn't make up for more than half of the book which was extremely boring. I wanted to see more of Nora and Patch but instead I got more of Nora/Scott and Patch/Marcie, which was not interesting. At best, it was frustrating, and not in the good way.

     Overall, this book was quite boring and frustrating most of the time but it did have some good parts. It wasn't terrible, but it wasn't good either. I guess that if you started reading this series, you could continue and read Crescendo as well but don't get your hopes up - this book won't make you turn page after page in the urge of finding out what happens next.

Review: Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush # 1)

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

     I started reading Hush, Hush at the beginning of this month, having meant to read it for quite a while now. I thought it was going to be amazing, mind-blowing, heartbreaking and whatnot. It wasn't. At least not for me. I don't know why, but for some reason I had really high expectations from this book, and unfortunately, they were not met.

     The first thing that I'm going to say about this book is that it reminded me a lot of Twilight. I read all four books in the Twilight series and I didn't really like them. Okay, maybe I did at first, but that's because I was like 14 back when I read them. Now I realize that they were terrible.

     Nora and Patch might just be one of the most exasperating couples in the history of YA books. I hated Nora and I liked Patch, but I still think that their romance was awkward. Everything seemed forced to me and I just couldn't enjoy it. I finished the book pretty quickly because it's an easy, fast read and I continued with the series with the hope that it will progressively get better but it didn't.

     I don't know what it is about Hush, Hush that makes everybody love it, but I seriously didn't. I thought that Nora was at times just horrible, I couldn't stand her for the majority of the book. She was weak, silly and insecure and no matter what she did, she always got in trouble. It was like she lacked a brain. I get it, the hot fallen angel must rescue you because that's romance and so on and so forth. Actually, no, I don't get it. What's with all this damsel in distress business?

     And I thought that things would change throughout the story but they did not. Also, Nora and Patch didn't have much interaction or romance development during all the events, but suddenly, at the end of the book, they were this amazing couple. No, I really don't get it. I think that it's a bit sad because this book had a potentially interesting plot, with the fallen angels and nephilim.

     So I'm going to end my review here because this is quickly turning into a rage session of writing and I didn't mean to be so mean. To summarize, I didn't think the book was awful, but I really didn't think it was good either. The only reason I gave it three stars instead of two is that there are worse books than this one out there that I already rated two stars.

MFB: We Were Liars

“What if we could stop being different colors, different backgrounds, and just be in love?” 

     We Were Liars was literally spectacular. I felt quite a bit overwhelmed while reading it and especially after having finished it. This was no ordinary book, that is for sure. From the beginning, it sort of leaves you hanging and you're probably wondering "what the heck am I reading" most of the times. But, still, this book managed to make me love it. I must admit, when I started it, I wasn't expecting it to be this good and I mostly wanted to read it because it was one of the monthly reads in one of the groups I'm part of.

     However, when I started reading it, things changed. One of the things that I liked most about this book was the way it was written. At times, it can be a bit confusing but it still felt genuine most of the time. The story switches from present to past time and again, but it isn't that difficult to keep up with the pace.

Here is the official description of the book:

"A beautiful and distinguished family.
A private island.
A brilliant, damaged girl; a passionate, political boy.
A group of four friends—the Liars—whose friendship turns destructive.
A revolution. An accident. A secret.
Lies upon lies.
True love.
The truth.
 We Were Liars is a modern, sophisticated suspense novel from National Book Award finalist and Printz Award honoree E. Lockhart.
Read it.
And if anyone asks you how it ends, just LIE."

     Cadence, the main character in this book, is a seventeen year old girl who suffered head trauma after an accident and she doesn't quite remember what happened to her. At times, she gets bits of her memories back but not enough to put the pieces together and uncover the truth. She is the narrator, and through her, the author puts together several stories retelling her past, mostly the summers she spent with her three friends, The Liars.

     There really isn't much that I can say about this book without digging deep to the truth of the story, which you only find out at the end. And, oh, what an ending! I literally got goosebumps when I read those last chapters. I did NOT expect that at all. Really, I think the twist in the end is what makes this book because honestly, I didn't get very attached to the characters. But still, I really liked this book and one of the things I liked most was how realistic it felt, like we all know that what happens in the book could actually happen to anyone out there. I give it five stars and hereby name it one of my favorite books!

Review: Deliverance (Defiance # 3)

My Rating: ★★★☆☆

     Deliverance is the final book in the Defiance trilogy. While I really enjoyed this series, the last book wasn't quite as good as the previous two, at least in my experience. It took me quite a while to finish reading it because I felt like the story kept dragging on at certain points instead of just developing further.

     What I disliked most about this book was Rachel. I get that she was weakened and that she felt awful most of the times, but in every few chapters she would pass out or come too close to giving up. I feel like the only way she got through was with the hope that either Logan or Quinn would come for her. My feelings were that she wasn't the same, strong character that we got in the beginning and we were instead left with a shadow of what used to be Rachel.

     I didn't care much for the characters in this book. Logan and Rachel felt plain boring and dull, there wasn't as much of Willow and Quinn as I would have liked, and the only one keeping things interesting was Ian. Which was why I was sort of annoyed and disappointed that, in the ending, Ian chose the "classic" exit: redeem yourself and tragically sacrifice yourself so that the others remember you as a hero and not for all the atrocities that you've committed. 

     What I also disliked about this book is the fact that Logan kept going on about how all that mattered to him was to save and get Rachel back, but it didn't seem to me like he was busting himself trying to rescue her. In fact, they only found each other towards the ending of the book, and that was also because Rachel managed to escape and try to make a run for it through the Wasteland, hoping that she will find Logan and the rest of their small team.

     One last thing that I'll complain about in this review is that there was a big lack of action AND romantic scenes. Because the author decided to continue the story with the two lead characters separated, the lack of romance was guaranteed from page one. The only thing that saved the story progress was the dual POV, which, granted, was there from the first book. 

     Overall, I was a bit disappointed with how this series was wrapped up. This book was not at all interesting and it felt completely boring and dragged on most of the time, but I rated it three stars because it wasn't, in all honesty, horrifying.

Today In My Mail

Last week, I kept a lookout on many reading & book sites because as you all know, it was the Black Friday period and a lot of sites had good sales on pretty much everything. Because I wanted to buy some new books, I took this opportunity to search for some of the books that I have on my to-read list. I was extremely excited when I found one of the series that I'd been meaning to read for a while go on sale. So I decided to put them in my shopping cart and order them right away (and all for a reasonable price!) Today, they arrived and they're beautiful.

I finally bought the Matched trilogy, which I'd had on my to-read list forever but never got across to buying. I haven't started reading them yet and I won't at least until I finish the series I'm reading currently (Hush, Hush), but I am planning on reading them as soon as possible. I took a few pictures and I will post them below. I really like the covers (and the amazing smell of new books, but who doesn't?) and I really hope I will like the story too. 

MFB: Deception (Defiance # 2)

“Maybe that's what love is. Giving others the power to hurt you and trusting that they'll use it to heal you instead.” 

     Deception is, in my opinion, definitely the best book in this trilogy and now one of my favorite books. I really liked this one a lot, I think it was the most exciting and the fastest read out of all three books. 

     I liked the idea of having a group in this book, as is the case with most dystopian books. I also liked that Logan became the leader of the group, despite the fact that he was so young. If at first, he wasn't exactly the best leader one could have, he did eventually grow as a man, as a leader and, for me, as a lead character. Also, I liked the addition of those new characters because I grew to like some of them, such as Nola, Jodi, Frankie and even Adam.

     And it's extremely important to mention two of the key characters in this trilogy, which are Quinn and Willow, and I think we all grew to love them. I know for a fact that I did. Quinn is my favorite character in this series and I absolutely love him. He was an excellent addition to these books, a very skilled fighter and also a loyal friend. His need to protect Rachel no matter what showed extreme loyalty, even if he barely knew the persons he was willing to die for.

     As for Rachel and Logan, I have mixed feelings. Rachel is definitely one of my favorite heroines of all time, because the thing I like most in dystopias, or novels of all kinds really, is a strong female character who's ready to take matters into her own hands at all times and who isn't constantly relying on other to protect & save her. And while Rachel was constantly protected by Quinn and Logan, she could handle herself and she was strong on her own. 

     I even liked Ian, believe it or not. That's why I was partly upset when he revealed his true nature. Don't get me wrong, I like a good antagonist and whatnot, but the great turn of events wasn't so great after all - if anything, it was extremely predictable. But still, I liked it & I liked Ian. Even when he turned bad, I still liked him.

     Overall, I simply loved this book. It had a lot of action, a lot of intrigue and suspense. It also had a lot of character development, along with happy moments and sad moments. Rachel is definitely one of the strongest characters I have come across in books of this kind and I could relate to her, feel her pain and happiness as if it was my own. So, yes, Deception is one of my favorite books and I rate it five stars!

Here is the official description of the book:

"Baalboden has been ravaged. The brutal Commander's whereabouts are unknown. And Rachel, grief stricken over her father's death, needs Logan more than ever. With their ragged group of survivors struggling to forge a future, it's up to Logan to become the leader they need—with Rachel by his side. Under constant threat from rival Carrington's army, who is after the device that controls the Cursed One, the group decides to abandon the ruins of their home and take their chances in the Wasteland.


But soon their problems intensify tenfold: someone—possibly inside their ranks—is sabotaging the survivors, picking them off one by one. The chaos and uncertainty of each day puts unbearable strain on Rachel and Logan, and it isn't long before they feel their love splintering. Even worse, as it becomes clear that the Commander will stop at nothing to destroy them, the band of survivors begins to question whether the price of freedom may be too great—and whether, hunted by their enemies and the murderous traitor in their midst, they can make it out of the Wasteland alive. 
In this daring sequel to Defiance, with the world they once loved forever destroyed, Rachel and Logan must decide between a life on the run and standing their ground to fight."

December Books

Here are the books I have read this month:

• Hush, Hush (Hush, Hush #1) by Becca Fitzpatrick; my rating: ★★★☆☆

• Crescendo (Hush, Hush #2) by Becca Fitzpatrick; my rating: ★★★☆☆

• Silence (Hush, Hush #3) by Becca Fitzpatrick; my rating: ★★☆☆☆

• Finale (Hush, Hush #4) by Becca Fitzpatrick; my rating: ★★★☆☆

• Breaking the Rules (Pushing the Limits #1.5) by Katie McGarry; my rating: ★★★★☆

• The Fall by Bethany Griffin; my rating: ★★☆☆☆

Review: Defiance (Defiance # 1)

My Rating: ★★★★☆

     A long time ago, I saw this book on a list here on Goodreads and I really liked the cover, but I forgot its title. Ever since, I've been looking for it and when I finally found it again, I was very happy and wanted to read it right away. So, when I first started reading it, I was expecting something entirely different. I usually prefer science-fiction over fantasy, and this book was more fantasy than science-fiction. Still, I was impressed with it and I liked it a lot more than I thought I would when I realized it was a fantasy book.

     Defiance is a fantastic dystopia, in which the society is under the control of a tyrant with absolute power. The main characters are Rachel, an eighteen year old girl whose father has gone missing, and Logan, one of Rachel's father's most trusted persons and Rachel's old crush. 

     When Jared, Rachel's father, doesn't return from his assignment, he is declared dead. But deep down, Rachel believes that her father is still alive and would do just about anything to prove it. Except that the Commander won't allow her to do so. When Rachel tries to escape, things become more complicated. Logan is assigned her protector, instead of Oliver, the second thing Rachel has to a father. Rachel is outraged, because she still resents Logan for his rejection when she confessed her feelings for him, two years earlier.

     The two of them have an unsteady relationship but will learn to settle their differences aside in order to work towards the same goal. Rachel realizes that she needs Logan and that he is the closest thing he has to a family, now that her father is gone. Logan realizes that he wants to be close to Rachel and is confused when he feels attracted to her, but quickly dismisses his feelings for her.

     When Rachel and Logan strike a deal with the Commander to venture into the Wasteland in search for the package that Jared failed to retrieve, Rachel believes she can finally go in search for her father and escape the Commander's cruelty. But the Commander has different plans and when he throws Logan into his dungeon, Rachel is forced to start her journey with Melkin, one of the Commander's most trusted men. 

     Rachel leaves on a journey of a lifetime, feeling confident that she will find her father alive and also being very sure of herself - what the Commander doesn't know is that Rachel has been trained by her father and knows how to fight, defend herself and survive in the Wasteland. Thus begins an excited story about finding yourself and escaping cruelty, all while trying to set things right.

     I really liked Defiance, and the only reason I gave it 4 stars is because I believe that the next two books will be greater than this one. I can hardly wait to finish this series and I really, really hope that my expectations will be met, because this book became very dear to me and I don't want to be disappointed by it.