Linger by Maggie Stiefvater

January 31, 2018 by Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

the longing.

Once Grace and Sam have found each other, they know they must fight to stay together. For Sam, this means a reckoning with his werewolf past. For Grace, it means facing a future that is less and less certain.

the loss.

Into their world comes a new wolf named Cole, whose past is full of hurt and danger. He is wrestling with his own demons, embracing the life of a wolf while denying the ties of being a human.

the linger.

For Grace, Sam, and Cole, life a constant struggle between two forces–wolf and human–with love baring its two sides as well. It is harrowing and euphoric, freeing and entrapping, enticing and alarming. As their world falls apart, love is what lingers. But will it be enough?

Book Overview:

Author: Maggie Stiefvater | Series: The Wolves of Mercy Falls | Format: Audiobook | Narrated by: Dan Bittner, Pierce Cravens, Emma Galvin, & Jenna Lamia | Length: 10 hours, 38 mins | Publish Date: July 13, 2010 | Genre: YA Fantasy/Paranormal Romance | Literary Awards: Goodreads Choice Award Nominee for Goodreads Author, Favorite Heroine, Favorite Book, Young Adult Fantasy (2010) | Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ | Recommend: Maybe

“This is a love story. I never knew there were so many kinds of love or that love could make people do so many different things.
I never knew there were so many different ways to say goodbye.”

Oh my gosh. I am so very frustrated with this book. I feel like giving it 4 stars is generous.

Let me explain.

So I feel like I could have read the first one, and it would have been fine to leave it the way it was. The way that Shiver ended was absolutely perfect. There was a happy ending, true love between a girl and her wolf, and that was that. Nothing else needed to happen, and I wouldn’t have known that things were actually not okay.

But of course, I kept hearing such great things about this series so I had to find out what the next book contained. I still don’t know whether or not it was a good idea, and the reason is Grace and Sam.

Yes, I understand that this series is about their love: Grace, a human girl, and Sam, a boy that becomes a wolf. Somehow, they meet when Sam becomes human during the fall, and their love is one that is supposed to be epic. It’s clear that they love one another, and they proved that they would do pretty much anything to make sure that they would be in each other’s lives.

“I just looked at her, feeling utterly empty. I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to her. My life is in that bed. Please let me stay.”

So now we come to this book, and that love has pretty much consumed their lives. While Grace’s parents have never been good by any means necessary – her father forget her in the car on the hottest day of the year and she almost died as a child – but I don’t think that gives Grace the right to be a brat. She is so disrespectful to her parents, and I understand that she’s hurt that they never thought to be actual parents to her, but that doesn’t excuse her behavior. She constantly defies them and yet she expects to have the luxuries that they have provided her? Like her car, for example. Does she not realize that they could easily take that way from her (not just the keys), and she can’t say anything about it? She was just a lovesick little teenager that believed that she knew everything about life and didn’t need her parents.

Yet what happens when she gets extremely sick? Who has to take her to the hospital? Oh, and does she know who’s paying for her health insurance? Yeah, I bet it’s not her.

My favorite part of this book was having Isabelle’s point of view. She was the only one that was actually thinking straight and even called out Grace and Sam on numerous occasions for when they decide to be stupid. Isabelle lost her own flesh and blood for goodness sake, and yet she can see things in rational ways and is considered the voice of reason. Too bad nobody wants to listen to her.

That’s all I can really say about this book. Yes, Grace and Sam are cute… well they were in the first one. In this one, they are just way too irritating for me to appreciate it.

So I guess I have to read the third one to find out how all of this ends… We’ll see if it ends on a better note.

Check out the Author Spotlight here!

Everless by Sara Holland

January 30, 2018 by Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

In the kingdom of Sempera, time is currency—extracted from blood, bound to iron, and consumed to add time to one’s own lifespan. The rich aristocracy, like the Gerlings, tax the poor to the hilt, extending their own lives by centuries.

No one resents the Gerlings more than Jules Ember. A decade ago, she and her father were servants at Everless, the Gerlings’ palatial estate, until a fateful accident forced them to flee in the dead of night. When Jules discovers that her father is dying, she knows that she must return to Everless to earn more time for him before she loses him forever.

But going back to Everless brings more danger—and temptation—than Jules could have ever imagined. Soon she’s caught in a tangle of violent secrets and finds her heart torn between two people she thought she’d never see again. Her decisions have the power to change her fate—and the fate of time itself.

Book Overview:

Author: Sara Holland | Series: Untitled | Format: Audiobook | Narrated by: Eileen Stevens | Length: 10 hours, 1 min | Publish Date: January 2, 2018 | Rating: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ | Recommend: HECK YES

“Maybe I am a mystery— a secret— that needs unravelling…”

Oh. My. Gosh.

I can’t believe the kind of adventure I took while I read this book. I can’t even believe that I was lucky enough to get this book a little bit after its release date, although I only got to read it just recently. I had heard mixed reviews before I decided to dive into it, from absolutely loving it to thoroughly hating it.

I have to say that I’m on the absolutely loving it team.

So first of all, the concept of someone’s blood being used as currency was weird in and of itself. I had never heard of a book or TV show or anything that has done that before. But that’s not all! Their blood shows how much time they have left in their life. The more blood irons you own, and consume, the longer you will live. How crazy is that? They even had cases where people have lost all of their time because they owe too much of it, bloodletting their life source in order to pay for their taxes and rent and anything else they need to pay for. Of course, the only people that don’t really have to worry about it are the Gerlings, basically considered royalty and almost immortal. The main protagonist Jules and her father used to live in Everless, the home of the Gerlings, until they were banished by one of the Princes of Everless, a jerk named Liam. But when her father is about to lose whatever time he has left, she realizes that the only way to save him is to go back to Everless, and work as a maid to earn enough time to save him.

I honestly loved the concept of this book, and it made me really think about what I would do if my life was determined by how much time I had left, and what I would spend my “time” on when it was taken out of my body. We all know I love books, but would I even have enough time to spend on books if my time was limited? I don’t know! That’s such a scary thought, isn’t it?

It was so interesting to know that Jules’ life was not what she remembered. It was like her memory of her childhood, spending time with the Gerling boys before she was forced to leave, wasn’t entirely what it seems to be. When she moved up in her station in the castle, from working in the kitchens to being basically a lady in waiting for the future Queen of Everless, she learns about her origin story and has to deal with loss, an identity crisis, and some form of betrayal that may end up breaking her heart.

I can’t wait to read the sequel! Especially since the ending had me completely heartbroken and I wanted to cry. The way it left us hanging was terrible! In a good way, though… except for the fact that now I want to know what the heck is going to happen next!

Author Spotlight

Courtesy of Goodreads

Website: http://sarahollandwrites.com

Twitter: Sara__Holland

Genre: Young Adult, Fantasy, Fiction

Goodreads Member Since: January 2011

Sara Holland grew up in small-town Minnesota among hundreds of books. She graduated from Wesleyan University and worked in a tea shop, a dentist’s office, and a state capitol building before heading to New York to work in publishing. These days, she can be found exploring the city’s bookstores or finding new ways to put caffeine in her bloodstream. EVERLESS is her debut novel.

ttyl by Lauren Myracle

January 29, 2018 by Leelynn @ Sometimes Leelynn Reads ♥ 0 Leave a Comment

Audacious author Lauren Myracle accomplishes something of a literary miracle in her second young-adult novel, ttyl (Internet instant messaging shorthand for “talk to you later”), as she crafts an epistolary novel entirely out of IM transcripts between three high-school girls.

Far from being precious, the format proves perfect for accurately capturing the sweet histrionics and intimate intricacies of teenage girls. Grownups (and even teenage boys) might feel as if they’ve intercepted a raw feed from Girl Secret Headquarters, as the book’s three protagonists–identified by their screen names “SnowAngel,” “zoegirl,” and “mad maddie”–tough their way through a rough-and-tumble time in high school. Conversations range from the predictable (clothes, the delicate high-school popularity ecosystem, boys, boys in French class, boys in Old Navy commercials, etc.) to the jarringly explicit (the girls discuss female ejaculation: “some girls really do, tho. I read it in our bodies, ourselves”) and the unintentionally hilarious (Maddie’s IM reduction of the Christian poem “Footprints”–“oh, no, my son. no, no, no. i was carrying u, don’t u c?”).

But Myracle’s triumph in ttyl comes in leveraging the language-stretching idiom of e-mail, text messaging, and IM. Reaching to express themselves, the girls communicate almost as much through punctuation and syntactical quirks as with words: “SnowAngel: ‘cuz–drumroll, please–ROB TYLER is in my french class!!! *breathes deeply, with hand to throbbing bosom* on friday we have to do “une dialogue” together. i get to ask for a bite of his hot dog.'”

Myracle already proved her command of teenage girl-ness with Kissing Kate, but the self-imposed convention of ttyl allows a subtlety that is even more brilliant. Parents might like reading the book just to quantify how out of touch they are, but teens will love the winning, satisfyingly dramatic tale of this tumultuous trio. (Ages 13 to 17) –Paul Hughes

Book Overview:

mad maddie: zoe, angela is her own worst enemy, you know.
zoegirl: i love her so much, but i do kind of understand what you’re saying. but i don’t know how to tell her that to her face. i don’t even know if i want to say it to her face.

I am so glad I was able to buy the entire series from Barnes & Noble, not to mention that I was able to get the 10th-anniversary edition! Trust me when I say that the story was different from what I remembered all those years ago. The 10th-anniversary edition updated the story to include current shows and trends, like Pinterest and Netflix, all while keeping true to what this journey was basically about.

I loved this book a lot because of its unique format. I remember when I first read this, thinking how it was so cool that the story was told entirely through IMs. I still love that aspect as I read it for the second time in my life. I especially liked that each girl – Zoe, Angela, and Maddie – had their own fonts customized so we could tell the difference between them visually. If you read this book and see the way they message each other, you’d be able to tell who is who easily.

This story takes place during the girls’ sophomore year in high school. It’s a big year for them, as they are getting to the age of being able to drive legally without any parental supervision. They are growing up, learning about love, friendships, betrayals, and everything else that comes with high school. It has been described as a coming of age story, and I can really agree with that statement. They still have some growing up to do, and they do need to learn that their friendship is more important than any arguments or fights they may get into, but I have a feeling these girls will be able to pull through whatever obstacles come their way.

I look forward to rereading the rest of the series, including the newest addition to the story, “yolo”. See? Lauren Myracle really has kept up with the times.

Author SpotlightCourtesy of Goodreads

Born: in Brevard, North Carolina, The United States
May 15, 1969
Website: http://www.laurenmyracle.com/
Twitter: LaurenMyracle
Genre: Children’s Books, Young Adult
Influences: Judy Blume

Lauren Myracle is the author of numerous young adult novels. She was born in 1969 in North Carolina. Lauren Myracle holds an MA in English from Colorado State University and an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College. she has written many novels, including the famous IM books, ttyl, ttfn, and l8r, g8r.

Her first novel, Kissing Kate, was selected as one of ALA’s “Best Books for Young Adults” for the year 2004. It was named by Booklist as one of the “Top Ten Youth Romances” of the year, as well as one of the “Top Ten Books by New Writers.” Her middle-grade novel, Eleven, came out 2004, followed by its YA sequels (Twelve, Thirteen, Thirteen Plus One) .