Book Review: Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia + Movie Trailer!

Hello Everyone! Today I'm going to be doing a book review on Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl which is the 4th and final book in the Caster Chronicles series. (the other books are Beautiful Creatures, Beautiful Darkness, Beautiful Chaos) This is one of my absolute favorites book series of all times and I loved this book a lot and it was a great finale to the series. I have not done a book review for any of the other three books in the series, but this review may contain so spoilers for those who have no read the series but I will try to keep them minimal. I kind of find it difficult to do a review on a book thats part of the series that is not the first book because I don't like to give away too many spoilers and such and since I haven't review the others books I don't exactly know where to start. (I'm such a noob) So for today's review I'm going to try a different approach at this, and I'm going to make a list of things that I did and didn't like about this book, so I won't be doing much explaining about what the book was about and such. Also, there is a movie being made for the first book in the series, Beautiful Creatures, which comes out this February. I am really excited for the movie and I will be sharing the trailer and my thoughts on it at the end!

Summary:


Is death the end . . . or only the beginning?

Ethan Wate always dreamed of leaving the stifling Southern town of Gatlin.

But he never dreamt that finding love with Lena Duchannes would drive him away. Lena is a Caster girl whose supernatural powers unveiled a secretive and cursed side of Gatlin, so powerful it forced him to make a terrible sacrifice.

Now Ethan must find a way to return to Lena - and Gatlin - as she vows to do whatever it takes to get him back. Even if it means trusting old enemies or risking their loved ones' lives.
Can Ethan and Lena rewrite their fate and their spellbinding love story in this stunning finale to the Beautiful Creatures series?

What I liked about the book:
-I really liked that parts of the book was from Lena's POV. Lena is definitely my favorite character in this book and I was so excited to see things from her POV. I think that the series would be so much better if the other 3 books had a little bit from her in them as well.

- I loved the fact that we got to spend some time with Ethan's mom in this book.

-There was a lot of adventure in this book and the story line was perfect for what was happening in this one.

-I  feel like we got a little more personal with all of the characters in this last book, especially one that we didn't before.

-Towards the end when we meet up with Sarafine again I was blown away by everything that she does.

-We get to learn a lot of things that really tie everything together from all of the books.

I know some of these statements do not make sense but I can't explain them without spoilers!!

Things I didn't like:
-For some reason these books always start out really slow.

-There were a few brief mentions of The Book of Stars in this book, which is the spell for for light casters. I've always been really intrigued by The Book of Moons in this book, which is the dark caster book and we've learned about it in previous books. So when they mentioned The Book of Stars I was intrigued by that as well, but it was only mentioned in passing and I was a little disappointed that it wasn't in the book more and that we didn't get to learn about it, or see in in previous books.

-Even though Ethan was brought back to life at the end, I was really sad to see Amma go. I was completely heart broken at the end of the third book when Ethan sacrificed himself but I was really happy that there was a 4th book to this series and he got to come back.

This is all for my likes and dislikes about this book. I know my lists are kind of short, but like I said before I can't give away too many spoilers for this wonderful series that everyone should experience for themselves! :P Now onto the movie trailer for Beautiful Creatures!

Here are my thoughts on this trailer: For one, I am super excited about this movie and from the trailer it looks like it's going to be really good. However, I was a little disappointed in the choice of characters. They weren't how I pictured them at all, particularly Ethan and Lena. I like how Lena looks, but her personality is really off for me. I can't exactly put my finger on why but we all have that idea in our head when we read a book of how everything is suppose to be right? Anyways, that's all I really have to say on the trailer other than I can't wait!

I hope everyone enjoyed this post and the trailer as well! Thank you so much for reading!

Book Review: Damaged by Cathy Glass

Hello everyone! I hope you are all doing well. I am getting back on track with my book reviews yay! So today I am going to be doing review on the last book I read which is Damaged by Cathy Glass. This was another cheap kindle book that I found for only .99 cents and I thought it sounded interesting so I went ahead and read it. Also- in my last post I talked about free/cheap kindle and nook books, and if you are wondering where I get them from, I get a daily email from the site called bookbub.com and they send you kindle and nook deals in your email everyday.

The first thing I want to say about this book before I post my review is that it is a non fiction book. I normally don't read works of non fiction very often but this is still a story and I didn't even know it was non fiction until almost the end, so no worries if you don't like non fiction either. This is also a book that has very mature content in it, and it is also very, very sad, heart wrenching and very disturbing in some parts. so if you cannot handle reading things like that then this book is not for you. Now on to my review!

     Although Jodie is only eight years old, she is violent, aggressive, and has already been through numerous foster families. Her last hope is Cathy Glass. At the Social Services office, Cathy (an experienced foster carer) is pressured into taking Jodie as a new placement. Jodie's challenging behaviour has seen off five carers in four months. Despite her reservations, Cathy decides to accept Jodie to protect her from being placed in an institution. Jodie arrives, and her first act is to soil herself, and then wipe it on her face, grinning wickedly. Jodie meets Cathy's teenage children, and greets them with a sharp kick to the shins. That night, Cathy finds Jodie covered in blood, having cut her own wrist, and smeared the blood over her face. As Jodie begins to trust Cathy her behaviour improves. Over time, with childish honesty, she reveals details of her abuse at the hands of her parents and others. It becomes clear that Jodie's parents were involved in a sickening paedophile ring, with neighbours and Social Services not seeing what should have been obvious signs. Unfortunately Jodie becomes increasingly withdrawn, and it's clear she needs psychiatric therapy. Cathy urges the Social Services to provide funding, but instead they decide to take Jodie away from her, and place her in a residential unit. Although the paedophile ring is investigated and brought to justice, Jodie's future is still up in the air. Cathy promises that she will stand by her no matter what -- her love for the abandoned Jodie is unbreakable.


I decided to read this book because anything that has to due with psychological issues is an interest to me so I'm usually drawn to books about it. As you can see from the description, this book is about a foster mom named Cathy, who takes in a very disturbed child that has very unusual and bad behavior. Jodie is 8 years old but doesn't have the mentality of an 8 year old at all. Her learning and motor skills aren't developed, and she is very violent towards herself and others. This is all due to the physical, sexual and mental abuse that she went though. This book was very interesting but like I said before, there is a lot of mature content in it and it is sad and disturbing. I wasn't expecting this book to be as i depth as it was. The details of the sexual abuse that Jodie went though was almost too much for me to read. It made me sick to my stomach and I thought to myself a few times "I can't read this". I did finish this book despite all of the graphic details because I wanted to know what was going to happen to Jodie. Once we got more into the psychological aspect of the book I enjoyed it a lot more. We get to learn about the split personality disorder that Jodie develops, and also why she acts the way that she does, and why she does the certain things that she does. Also like it says in the description, Jodie is eventually placed into a residential unit for children with psychological problems who have suffered from abuse. I was slightly disappointed in the end because (possible spoiler!) we never really got to know what happened to Jodie down the road and how she turned out when she grew up. Being that this was a true story, I was really interested to find out these details. None the less, this was a great book and I really enjoyed reading it. It's a quick read and I gave it 5/5 stars on good reads. Cathy Glass has written many other books and some of them are based on true stories as well and I look forward to reading them in the future!

Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed my review! I am currently reading Beautiful Redemption by Kami Garcia which is the 4th and final book in the Caster Chronicals series! Expect a review coming on this book soon along with my November Wrap up post!

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Book Review: The MacKinnon Curse series.

Hello Everyone! I am going to do a review on a book series that I just finished reading called The MacKinnon Curse series by J.A. Templeton. I discovered this series through the first book on my kindle. The First book was a free kindle book that I decided to try. I don't usually read the free books for kindles or nooks because even though I'm sure there are a ton of other great free books out there, I usually have a hard time getting into the free books. I find that sometimes they aren't as well written as regular priced books and that bothers me. Although, this series is a proof that free/cheap books that are great do exist!  Anyways, there are three books in the series and a short novella that is a prequel as well. The first book is The Deepest Cut, the second is The Haunted, followed by the final book called The Departed. As I said before, the first book is free, and the 2nd and 3rd books are $2.99 each. The prequel, called The Beginning: The MacKinnon Curse is also free. So basically these books are very affordable and I encourage anyone with a kindle or nook to check them out. The first book is also on barnes and nobles website in paperback for $8.99. I am going to be doing a short review on each of the book in this post so this might be a long one. I am going to try to keep the spoilers in the reviews to a minimum so that anyone who has not read this can still read my reviews, but I will warn you that there may be a few spoilers anyways. Theses are very quick and short reads and I read all four books within the same week as starting them. I hope you all enjoy this post and sorry for such a long intro! I will post the summary of the first book but I will not for the other three due to some spoilers.

Book one: The Deepest Cut-
Sixteen-year-old Riley Williams has been able to see ghosts since the car crash that took her mother’s life and shattered her family. Guilt-ridden over the belief that she’s somehow responsible for her mom’s death, Riley is desperate to see her mother’s elusive spirit to gain her forgiveness. 

When her father moves the family to Scotland so they can all start over, Riley believes her life couldn’t get worse––that is until the ghost of nineteen-year-old Ian MacKinnon catches her purposely cutting herself. An uneasy truce quickly turns into friendship, and soon Riley’s falling hard for Ian. 
Riley believes her gift could help Ian end the curse that has kept him tied to the land for centuries, but that would mean letting him go forever and she’s not sure she is strong enough to do that. As if her life wasn’t complicated enough, the spirit of the woman who killed Ian returns and she’ll stop at nothing to keep Riley from helping Ian find eternal peace.

So as you can see from the description, this book is about a girl named Riley who can see ghosts. Ever since her mother died in a car crash while Riley was in the car with her she has obtained the ability to see ghosts. After she moves to Scotland with her dad and brother, she meets a ghost named Ian MacKinnon. Ian lived in the castle next to Riley's house 200 years ago and he is cursed to the land. Riley also meets a ghost named Laria and is being haunted by her for being close to Ian. Back in their time, Laria killed Ian because she was in love with him and he was in love with someone else. So as Riley and Ian get closer and start to fall in love, Laria starts threatening Riley and trying to kill her.

This book had a lot of different aspects that I liked. It was well written and the characters had good development. There wasn't a character in this book that I didn't like, even the evil ghost Laria. I think that Riley and Laria both were very well developed characters and through out the series I enjoyed some of the minor characters just as well. I thought that this book was a little creepy/scary and I usually tend to stay away from ghost books because I get scared easily (LOL) but this one was just way too good to stop reading because of the creepiness. Also as you can tell from the description, Riley is really depressed from her mothers death and she also cuts herself (also where the title is from as well). However, even though this is how she meets Ian, I don't really think the aspect of cutting in this book was important or even necessary. It was kind of just thrown into the story randomly with not much purpose. There were only a few times in this book where it was mentioned and I just didn't find it to do anything for the book considering that it is a serious topic in general. Laria uses this again Riley sometimes and eventually her new friends find out, but I just didn't think it was necessary in the book considering how nonchalant it is in the book. This book kept me on edge while reading it and I couldn't put it down because I just kept wanting to know what was going to happen.

Book two: The Haunting
This book picks up right away from where the first book left off. At the end of last book Riley meets a guy named Kade MacKinnon, who now lives in the castle next to her house where Ian grew up. Kade and his family are decedents of Ians family. Kade reminds Riley so much of Ian that she falls hard and fast in love with him which I found kind of annoying. There are a lot more friendships and romance growing in this book than the first one and I really enjoyed that. Laria is still in the book haunting Riley, and we learn so more about the ghosts and there is even some possession going on as well. This book kind of lacked a little bit of action, and I didn't like the ending as much. It just kind of stopped and ended with nothing really happening. I was a little disappointed that Ian wasn't in this book much, since he was such main character in the last. It kind of seemed that Riley forgot about him a little bit since she is with Kade now. There isn't much else to say about this book without giving away anymore spoilers!

Book three: The Departed. 
This is the final book and I thought it was a great conclusion to the series. Riley gets more involved with her friends and her relationship with her bother grows a lot. She seeks help from them, along with Kade about her ghost problems. However, now that her friends and family are involved, thing are going to start to get nasty and complicated. Laria is being more ruthless, and we learn a lot more about her and the witch coven she was apart of. Thus being said, a lot more ghosts are involved in the haunting. This book is definitely the creepiest of the three but that makes it so much better. Still, Ian isn't in this book a lot and Riley calls for help from her mom and other ghosts a lot but not Ian. We finally figure out why Riley is connected to Ian and Kade so much in this book and it is nice to make that discovery. We get to see a more emotional side to all of the characters in this book as well, especially from Riley's brother, Shane, and from Laria as well. I absolutely loved everything about this series and this was a perfect conclusion.

Short Novella: The Beginning- The Mackinnion Curse.
This is a short novella told from Ian's point of view of the time when he was living. I really enjoyed reading this because we get to see what Ian's life was like before and after he died. In this story we learn a lot about Ian and Laria and what their relationship was like while living. Laria was a servant in Ian's household and she was also in love with Ian, but Ian didn't love her back. There was more about Ian's family, and his brother Duncan who plays a bigger role in this book. I really enjoyed seeing how Ian was when he was living and also how Laria was. We also get to see the character Margot who was the girl Ian was suppose to marry. In the pervious books, Margot was in them briefly and we learned a little bit about her but this story really ties it all together. This book shows all of the events leading up to both Ian and Larias death, but I wish there was more story to them being ghosts and what happened afterwards besides Laria cursing him to the land he lived in. It ends when Ian first met Riley which I though was appropriate. I didn't enjoy reading this as much as the other books in the series because a lot of it was stuff we already knew from the previous books but just a little more in depth. Overall it was still a great edition to the series.

This concludes my review on the MicKinnon Curse Series, and I hope you all enjoyed reading it. This was such a long post and I'm sorry if it was a little boring with all of the reviews! I hope you all give this series a try and thank you for reading!

Day and Night book tag!

Today I'm going to do another book tag survey! I usually find this tags somewhere on youtube and I always think they are so fun so today I am going to do the Day and Night book tag. Basically you go through each letter from day and night and it asks you a question about reading! I hope you enjoy this post and happy reading :)

QUESTIONS:
D: Do you read more in the morning or at night? I would say I read mostly in the morning/day time because I get most of my reading done while I'm at work during my down time. After I get home from work at 7pm I am usually doing other things and don't have time to read. Unless I am really close to finishing a book (50pgs or so) I will read before I go to sleep so I can get the book finished and start a new one in the morning. 
A: Are there any books that changed the way you thought about things? Lots of books have changed the way I think about things. I have read many books that have brought different aspect to my attention and blew my mind away. Each and every book I read is important to me and gets me thinking about some thing or another. 
Y: YA or Not? Definitely! I love reading young adult books. 

A: Are there characters that you honestly believe are real? Only Harry Potter. ;)
N: Nobody touches my books or I don't mind loaning my books out? I don't mind loaning my books out. When I read a really great book I love to share it. I'm always thinking 'Who can I let read this book?'
D: Do you ever smell your books? Sometimes. If I have acquired a really old book for instance, I will smell it to see if it has that old book smell. 

N: Not everyone loves books...is this a positive or a negative? Negative!! Just kidding, liking books is a personal preference. Although, I wish everyone would love to read as much as I do. Talking about books makes for a great conversation. 
I: I keep my books in the best condition or maybe not? Which are you? I try to keep mine is the best condition. I love for my books to look brand new but I do have some that don't and I am fine with that too. I always have a book in my purse and the paperback ones tend to get bent a little. 
G: Gosh I have to many books! True or False? You can never have too many books! No but really, I am a book hoarder. 
H: Have you ever spilled or stained your books before with something, and if so how? Only once! I knocked water over my copy of The Notebook on accident one time. It definitely has some water damage to it and I was really upset at the time but it dried out and is still readable. 
T: Toned or untoned while reading? ..or in other words...Do you read and workout at the same time? LOL no. I have never tried to read while working out, but I might enjoy listening to an audio book while working out. Maybe I will try it. 

What I Read in October

Hello Everyone! I have seriously been slacking on my blog posts, I don't think I have written on here for at least a month, sorry! I had read a lot more books last month in October then in the previous months when I started this blog and I had a lot of reviews planned out. Sometimes life gets in the way and we get side tracked with things, and my heart just wasn't into writing for a little bit. I am back now and I hope to write a lot of posts in the near future.

Anyways, here is my (late) October Wrap up! I read 5 books last month, which were The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead, Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan, Whispers at Moonrise by C.C Hunter, Hold Still by Nina LaCour, and I finally, finally finished reading A Game of Thrones by George R.R. Martin. 

-The Golden Lily by Richelle Mead was the first book that I read last month. I absolutely fell in love with Rchelle Mead's writing and the whole world she has created all over again when I read this. I put off reading this book for so long and when I finally read it I was like why didn't I read this sooner?! You can read my review for this book here.

-Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan was the second book I read this book. I know I say this about every John Green book I read but, this was definitely unlike any other book I have read before. His books keep amazing me with each one that I read. Both him and David Levithan are phenomenal writers and I encourage anyone who has not read any of their books to do so. I didn't enjoy this book as much as the other John Green books that I read, but I still really liked it because of the two different writing styles that were entwined into the book. It made a totally different and interesting aspect to my reading experience that I don't get in a lot of books.

-Whispers at Moonrise by C.C. Hunter was another really great book I read. It is the 4th book in the Shadowfalls series, and I sware with each book in this series the books just keep getting better and better. The next book in the series is going to be the final book and I'm so sad that the series is ending. This is such a great series in the YA fantasy/paranormal genre.

-Hold Still by Nina LaCour was another great contemporary novel that I have added to my collection. I read this one on my kindle, and it was a quick read. There were so many aspects in this book that I loved and it is one that I highly recommend. This was one of the books that I planned of doing a review for, but since that didn't happen I will include a mini review here. It has great character development in it, along with some amazing characters. It is about a girl whose best friend commits suicide and she finds her journal she leaves behind. It's a very emotional heart lifting book about their friendship and we get to see the main character heal and gain strength from her grief.

-Lastly, I finally finished A Game of Thrones by George R.R Martin which is the first book in the series A Song of Ice and Fire. I was so proud of myself for reading and finishing this book because it is so long (809 pages!) plus I own the mass market paperback edition so the writing is super tiny! Also, this book has a lot of detail and it's hard to read and pay attention to everything that is going on, at least for me. I tend to stay away from adult novels like this, but I loved the TV show so much that I wanted to read the book. I tried to read the book first, and I had absolutely no idea what was going on so I'm glad I watched the show first. I can't wait to read the next books in the series but they are a little overwhelming because all of the rest are 1000+ pages. Yikes!

This is all for my October wrap up post. This post was a little bit longer than my usual wrap up videos but I wanted to talked a little bit more about the books I read since I didn't do any reviews for them. This month I started reading both Hidden by P.C Cast (10th house of night book) and The Golden Compass but I wasn't really getting into either book. I am still trying to read Hidden so we will see how that goes! Thank you all for reading and have a great day :)