Huge Summer Book Haul

It may be October now but that's because I procrastinated writing this. In summer it was my 17th birthday (august 2nd) and I received quite a few books (thanks fam!) and because I was in a book reading phase I also bought a lot of books. So I thought I'd show and tell them ;)

 Here's the whole pile, I told you it was huge!

 

Here's the pile of books I purchase myself... oops haha

Hers's the pile I got for my birthday. (Minus the bottom 2, they just snuck in there)

Okay dokey, I split the pictures up into categories of where I got them from. The picture above being the books I got for my birthday (again minus the Saga books 1&2)

I'll go from left to right, Ah hem...

YOUNG ELITES by Marie Lu

This is a fantasy novel where there has been some sort of disease thing which have left some with powers..? I'm not entirely sure but it does sound good, just go online and read the blurb!

RED QUEEN by Victoria Aveyard

This was a gift from my older sister Lucy. I'm not entirely sure what it's about but I think it's quite game of thrones-y and hunger games-y... I could being confusing this with something else. All I know of it is that the world is separated by blood, the red bloods -the common people- and silver bloods -the elites. It's all very fantasy and magic so I know we'll get along.

DAUGHTER OF SMOKE AND BONE by Laini Taylor

Fantasy romance? I have no idea what it's about but I've heard nothing but good reviews.

CINDER by Marissa Meyer

Fairy-tales in space? Or the future? I'm so bad at this aha but again I've heard nothing but raving about this.

THE BLOOD OF OLYMPUS by Rick Riordan

This is a random book from the heroes of Olympus series which I don’t have the first one two, but thanks for trying mum ;) I'm sure I'll get to that series soon and then to that book haha.

I'LL GIVE YOU THE SUN by Jandy Nelson

I've heard this is a good cometary novel and the pages are yellow so it's going to be awesome!

 These ones are books I bought myself from amazon

THE FINAL EMPIRE by Brandon Sanderson

I've wanted to read this for ages because I heard his work is fantasy gold and his plot twists are insane! All I know about this particularly book is that it's the first in the mistborn trilogy and that the magic system is something to do with metal...

THE ISLE OF THE LOST by Melissa De Cruz

I've already read this one so I could watch the movie. It's a prequel to the Disney channel original movie DISNEY DESENDANTS. This book is about a world after the fairy tales where all the villains have been trapped on an island, the isle of the lost, to be forgotten by the world. However four of the Disney villain’s children embark on an adventure to try and lift the seal of the island and return to the world.

THE WRATH AND THE DAWN by Renee Ahdieh

This is based on the story of 1001 and 1 nights which I also know nothing about but its fantasy and romantic and a dystopian and sometimes I'm in the mood for the three mixed in a story.

PERCY JACKSON AND THE LIGHTNING THIEF by Rick Riordan

This is the first book of the Percy Jackson series I'm sure you've heard about and since my mum got me two random books from the series, I thought I'd pick up the first book.

PRIDE AND PREJUDICE by Jane Austen

EMMA by Jane Austen 

These two books I got for my English class. I started reading Emma but -and I don't want to offend you if it's the air your breath- it was quite boring. Pride and Prejudice on the other hand was a little more juicy and I'm sure you know the story (or maybe my family is just old aha)

 These books are books I bought at Tesco or a charity shop

PERCY JACKSON AND THE TITAN'S CURSE by Rick Riordan

PERCY JACKSON AND THE LAST OLYMPIAN by Rick Riordan

These are the books my mum got me from a charity shop and are part of the Percy Jackson series, so thanks mum! 

FINDING AUDERY by Sophie Kinsella

I've already finished reading this and I loved it. It's about a girl named Audrey who suffers with really bad anxiety where she can't even make eye contact with her own family and she meets a boy and stuff.. It’s a story of her finding herself basically. The plots not mind blowing or anything but I love the writing and all the characters, epically the relationship between her brother and their mum! He's so sarcastic and she's just mental, it's LOL worthy, trust me!

SHIVER by Maggie Stiefvater 

I picked this up from a charity shop because it was like 50p and I've heard it's good. I think it's about werewolves... I could be wrong.

PAPER TOWNS by John Green

I'm half way done with this and it's quite good, good to read on a miserable day like today where you want a little excitement in your life and a little john green cosiness, if you know what I mean ;)

QUEEN OF THE TEARLING by Erika Johansen

This one I know is like Game of Thrones (which is my fave TV show of life, if you didn't know)

It's got a strong female protagonist -which sounds like Daenerys- and she’s on a mission to take back her throne, I think :)

These two I also got at a charity shop I just forgot about them

ERAGON by Christopher Paolini

ELDEST by Christopher Paolini

 These about a dragon. That's all I know. 

Number 1 I got for my birthday, 2, 3 and 4 I ordered from amazon

SAGA VOLUME 1-4 by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples

I'm loving this series so far! I'm on number three and I believe volume 5 just came out so I'll have to pick that up in the future. This series is very Romeo and Juliet where they're star crossed lovers (literally in this I guess aha) on the run with a baby, trying not to die. Just a little warning, it's quite adult themed with swearing and naked people... which I discovered the hard way! But the storyline is great so just ignore that bit.

 TAD-AAAAH!

I think I'm set for reading all cosy in these colder months :)

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed ^.^

 Are you currently reading anything? (I'm reading a series of unfortunate events, the bad beginning)

Leave a comment!

 I hope you have a super fantastic day,

BYE!

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Huge Summer Book Haul

Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas: Book Review

(Before I start, can we please appreciate my efforts of photography, I mean.. well I'm proud of myself aha :'D)

I wanted to read this book as soon as I heard about it from a book-tube video on YouTube. Being undeniably obsessed and in love with fantasy this book went straight on my tbr and it being compared to Game of thrones (my fave) AND having a strong female protagonist who just happens to be an assassin sent this book to the very top of that pile.

This story takes place in Erilea, a fantasy land banished of magic and ruled by the ruthless king of Adarlan (oh more or less.. he rules a lot of it). It follows 18 year old Celaena Sardothien, the most notorious Assassin in the land, send to the salt mines of Endovier to pay for her crimes. After a year of torture the crown prince makes her an offer she can't refuse; to compete as his champion in a series of tests to become the king's personal assassin and as a reward one day earn her freedom. Along side her battling to take her 23 competitors down she finds herself lost in the mystery of what other evil is lurking in the castle that is taking the champions down.. one by one. DUN DUN DUH!

Crappy synopsis but I tried :) Here is where you can buy it and read the actual synopsis if you like.

If you haven't read Throne of Glass I suggest you stop reading now because I'm about to go into detail about the plot and characters etc and would hate to spoil it for you. YE BE WARNED! So goodbye non-throne-of-glass readers-who-don't-want-to-get-spoiled AND ENJOY!

Okay so where do we start...

The Writing

I haven't read a book written in third person for a while so it was a nice change. Being written in third person meant there was a lot more detailed descriptions, world/character building and scene setting.. those sort of things. I think Sarah J Maas is a beautiful writer and really brings the world she's created a live and makes her readers fall in love with it and everyone mostly everyone in it. The only part of her writing I struggled with was the language, she uses some terms that before reading this I had no idea they even existed but I think that's just because I haven't read many young adult fantasy novels... or I'm stupid.. haha. This wasn't a huge problem because I just googeled the words I didn't know the meaning to and throughout the book she more or less uses the same "fantasy/medieval"  terms so with in a few chapters or so I could go Google-less ;)

The World

Erilea is a medieval fantasy world filled with knights and nobles and has elements of magic. Despite being a magical made up world I think Erilea is a realistic sounding world, well as realistic as fiction can be. It's not a magical land of froufrou where everyone lives in harmony and skip through meadows together singing, here there are real world problems like slavery and rebellions due to being run by a pants king.. it reminds me and awful lot of Westeros ;) The first book did an excellent job of building a world for the rest of the series can pan out.

The Characters

I think the character were also very realistic and I couldn't help but get attached to most of them. Which is something I sometimes have trouble with in a book and a book is never really great when you don't really care about the characters.

Celaena Sardothien

Probably one of the coolest female protagonists ever! And undoubtedly badass when I comes to assassinations and fighting.  Every time she whoops someone and full blown owns them I find myself with a huge smirk on my face. GIRL POWER! An example of this whooping would be in the duel where she beats Grave and is like "my name is Celaena Sardothien.." .. It was just awesome okay! Aside from being a kickass assassin she's also sassy and witty and all around hilarious, however I found her a little too arrogant for my liking but she tones in down the more it goes on and everyone has their flaws, plus it makes her who she is. Another thing I loved about her was she loved books which is an odd hobby for a killer but non the less a great addition to her character. 

Chaol Westfell

I'll start off with the warning I think I'm in love with him. I'm not sure why either. He's Captain of the guard so he's all kickass and muscly which is something. He hides is emotions but still has them bottled up and he's funny but at the same time always serious and I have a stupid grin of my face every time he talks to Celaena.. I don't even know but I'm in love #TeamChaol

Dorian Havilliard

I was half expecting the crown prince to be like Joffery from GoT but it turns out that's his brother ;) He reminds me SO much of Adrian from Vampire Academy; rich, good looking, womeniser, charming, falls for the girl. I mean I like Dorian and I think he's funny and all .. but he's not Chaol. I feel like he's a bit too feely for me (yeah that's now a word xD) and wears his heart on his sleeve plus I think he fell in love too quickly.. I'm also probably just making excuses because he's not Chaol aha ;)

Nehemia Ytger

I'm going to be honest, I didn't like her at first. I'm still not overly fond of her but she's growing on me. I just found her a little rude at first where she was like "I hate everyone but you, Lillian because you can speak me language so I can slag everyone off to you" and then a little full off of herself when she was like "I'm not gonna lie, I saved your life because I'm super magical and awesome and I've been saving you're ass for weeks, it's been dreadfully exhausting!" .. okay so maybe she didn't say it exactly like that and she's not too bad I suppose.

Cain

Ew. There's no need for an explanation why I hate him and I totally knew I was him all along.. ha this kid ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

The Plot

I loved how their were little sub plots to go along the main plot of the competition. Like the murder mysteries, the romances, the world problems and the magic. I was surprised actually how little it was focused on the competition because although it updated us on what the rankings were and stuff, it only showed us a few of the tests. Like the rest off this book, I loved the plot :)

Annnnnd.. I think that's pretty much it. This is definitely one of my favourite books by far and I'm so so excited for the rest of the series!!

Here's a fanart I did of Celaena and Chaol.. (Inspired by Linneart)

Thank you so much for reading, and I hope you enjoyed ^.^

Don't forget to leave a comment if you've read this and what your thoughts were and if you have any recommendations I might enjoy.

Have a super fantastic day,

CYA! 

- Alice :) xx

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Throne of Glass by Sarah J Maas: Book Review

My 2015 BOOKet List

Here are the top 15 books that I want to read at some point this year, enjoy :)

1. Throne of glass by Sarah J Maas

I've actually already started this book and I'm a few chapters in, so far so good. This book is about an 18 year old assassin who has been recruited by the crown price to be his champion in some assassins games to find the best assassin in the kingdom who will then become the king's personal assassin. It's a fantasy and.... that's pretty much all I know about it.. apart from the main character is badass heroine! This has been at the top of my tbr for the longest time and I'm so excited to be finally reading it!

2. The maze runner by James Dashner

This is a dystopian I believe and is about some boys stuck in some scary place.. with a scary maze.. that people go in and don't come back..? Great description, I know. The film looked amazing so I thought I'd read the books first.

3. The name of the wind by Patrick Rothfuss

Again and like most off these books, I don't know too much about them. This one is very popular in the fantasy genre. I know it's about a wizard.. so I'm obviously interested because you know magic and all! I've also never read from a guy's point of view so that should be interesting.

4. The Hobbit by J.R.R Tolkien

I LOVED the films and books are generally better then the films, right? So of course I want to read it! The only thing I'm iffy about is that my favourite character form the films isn't in it, the she-elf (I'm not going even attempt to spell it aha) not only was she super kick-ass and ninja-ish, she also have a beautiful love story with Kili and I SHIPPED IT SO HARD! UGH! ;-; with that said, I'm still excited to explore Middle Earth where it all started, in this book and I also want to read the lord of the rings trilogy :)

5. The Young Elites by Marie Lu

What I understand from the synopsis is that this is a dystopian novel about a place where some kind of disease spread across the land; killing most of the infected and leaving others with strange marks and even powers, the young elites. The story follows three main characters, a girl with powers (I'm guessing she's the mainest character.. is that even a thing? aha), a bad guy who's trying to stop the young elites and a good guy (or so we believe.. DUN DUN DER!) who is trying to stop the bad guy from stopping the good guys? I'm not sure but it seems to be a book about being magical and trying not to die while doing so.. so yeah, sounds good.

6. The Queen of the Tearling by Erika Johansen

Again I don't know a great deal about this books.. but when do I? I knows It follows a strong female lead who I assume is the Queen of the tearling.. It has elements of magic in it, it has been compared to Game of Thrones (bae) and the hunger games AND in the up coming movie, Kelsea, the main character is going to be played by Emma Watson, EMMA WATSON! So it pretty much ticks all the boxes of what I look for in a book :D

7. Harry Potter by J.K. Rowling

I'm kind of embarrassed that I've made it 16 years of life and not read this. I always put it off because I've already seen the movies and I don't like knowing what's going to happen. I even started reading it a few years back but stopped because I'm such a slow reader.. I don't even know why I stopped because it was really good! Anyway, 2015 is hopefully going to be the year I finally start this series!

8. The Lightning thief by Rick Riordan

Just like with Harry Potter, I'm not too sure why I haven't read this yet. I LOVE Greek mythology and ancient Greek history. For my birthday a year or two ago I genuinely asked for an educational book on the topic.. down with the kids, I know. I also loved the movies but I do wish I read the books first but better late then never!

9. The Final empire by Brandon Sanderson

 I Literally know nothing about this book which I kind of like. I've also only heard good things about this series, really good things. Epic fantasy magical action-packed mind blowing adventure? Um yes please!

10. Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell

I guess at some point I may need a break from fantasy and read about "humans" (doubtful) So this is where Fangirl comes in. I tried to read this a while back but at the time I was in a fantasy mood and the idea of reading about regular people bored me (no offence haha). It wasn't bad, I just didn't really get in to it but with the hype that was once around this book, I'm determined to give it another go!

11. Daughter of smoke and bone by Laini Taylor

Umm.. yep, I officially suck at describing books, LITERALLY no idea what it's about but it's such a popular book and it's fantasy.. it can't hurt in trying it :)

12. The raven boys by Maggie Stiefvater

Haha I don't even know what it is never what it's about XD something to do with this girl called Blue and her dead or "soon to be" dead mother and four boys who she should stay away from but going by the title I assume she didn't. I think it may be slightly fantasy? and maybe romantic? honestly I was just intrigued by the synopsis as  I didn't get it and want to aha

13. Prince of thorns by Mark Lawrence

Okay this time it's not my fault because the description on goodreads didn't tell me much. What I've gathered is it's fantasy and magical BUT this book is written from a villain's point of view? well at least he sounds shifty ;)

14. A discovery of witches by Deborah Harkness

This one is about a student who finds some bewitched manuscript whilst doing some research in Oxford's Bodleian Library. She herself is a descendant from a long line of witches but wants nothing to do with it. But this finding leads to all sorts of magical creatures to appear within the library; like vampires and demons etc. So it's fantasy and more supernatural then the others and I think they may be some vampire romance?

15. Amulet, vol. 4: The last council by Kazu kibuishi


This is part four of the amulet graphic novel series which I'm enjoying so far after just finishing the third book. It's about a family who wind up in their lost uncle's secret alternate universe.. thing? The world is really weird with elves and robots and animal-like people.. nevertheless they're really good books with beautiful illustrations!

If you would like to know more about any these book other then my pants descriptions, Here's my Goodreads :)

Okay I'm done,

 Thanks for reading!
hope you enjoyed it ^.^
what's on your BOOKet list?
Have a super fantastic day!
CYA!

-Alice :) xx

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My 2015 BOOKet List