April 2013 Wrap Up

Hey Everyone! Is it just me or did April go by really, really fast?? April was a fantastic reading month for me and I ended up reading 7 books. All of which I really enjoyed! May will be a busy month for me, but I hope I can find time to read a lot this month too. I'm getting into my busy season at work now so this month (or last) might be my last big reading month for me. So sad lol :) A lot of the books I read in April were parts of series and I also read a lot of fantasy books. This made me really happy because a while ago 99% of the books I read were fantasy books and series, and then I got into kind of a slump and didn't want to read them anymore and switched to reading more contemporary fiction. It felt really nice to read the kind of books that I use to love (and still do!).

The Secret Circle by L.J Smith (book one- The Initiation and The Captive).  This was the first book that I read last month. The Secret Circle is a series about witchcraft and I really love reading books about witchcraft. I find it so interesting for some reason. These books normally have two books in one so thats why the title of this was so long incase anyone was confused. This is a series that I have been wanting to pick up for a while now because I started watching the TV show when it first came out and I really enjoyed it. I ended up enjoying this book a lot and I went a purchased the rest of the series after reading this first one! You can see my review for this book here.

The Secret Circle by L.J Smith (book 2- The Captive part 2 and The Power). I enjoyed the second book in this series more then the first one. There was a lot more going on, and a lot more exciting action in it!

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare. I can't even explain how much I
loved this book. It was such a perfect ending to the trilogy. I absolutely love this author and the world and characters she creates. Reading this book really made me want to go a re read The Mortal Instruments series because I forgot what happened in them and I just needed to keep reading from this amazing world. I'm really sad that this series came to an end, but this ending was so perfect that it makes it okay.






City of Bones by Cassandra Clare. This is the first book in the Mortal Instruments series, and like I said before I had to re read this series after finishes it's prequel. It was just as great reading it the second time around and it just reminded me how much I loved this series. I can't wait for the movie to come out!!









City of Ashes by Cassandra Clare. (2nd book in MI series) After reading City of Bones, I continued reading the series with City of Ashes.










Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. This was a cute contemporary that I picked up last month. I really loved everything about this story and I read it all in almost one sitting because I couldn't put it down. You can read my review for this book here.








Legend by Marie Lu. I kept hearing really great things about this book and I was in the mood for a Dystopian so I decided to give this one a go. I enjoyed reading it but it was a little hard to get into. Once I got past that point though, I couldn't put it down! I can't wait to read the next book in the series! You can read my review for this book here.








That is all for my April Wrap up post! This month I plan on finishing the rest of the books in the Mortal Instruments series and maybe eventually re read the first two in the Infernal Devices as well. I'm currently reading a book called Lessons from A Dead Girl by Jo Knowles, but I'm not too sure if I will be reviewing it yet or not.

I hope you all enjoyed and Happy Reading!

Book Review: The Secret Circle by L.J. Smith

Today I am going to share my review for the first book in The Secret Circle series by L.J. Smith. This book has two books in one, the first book is called The Initiation and the second is The Captive part 1. This is a book that I have been wanting to pick up for a while now, ever since I started watching the TV show when it came on the CW a year or so ago. I started to watch season one, but I never finished watching it. I really, really liked the TV series so I always wanted to read the books too (and also finish the TV series). But, I was really reluctant to pick up the books because I don't necessarily like this author. I have read the whole Vampire Diaries series, and a few other books by her as well, but I just never really got into her writing style. It's not that she is a bad author by any means, I just didn't personally like it. I did enjoy the VD books okay, but they were just okay to me and nothing too special. So anyways, (lets get this long intro over with) I'm going to get started on my review and talk about things that I liked and disliked and I will get more into the writing style later.

Summary from Goodreads:

Forced to move from sunny California to gloomy New England, Cassie longs for her old life. Even so, she feels a strange kinship to a terrifying group of teens who seem to rule her school. Initiated into the coven of witched that's controlled New Salem for hundreds of years, she's drawn into the Secret Circle, a thrill that's both intoxicating and deadly. But when she falls for the mysterious and intriguing Adam, Cassie must choose whether to resist temptation or risk dark forces to get what she wants - even if it means that one wrong move could ultimately destroy her.

So this book is about a girl named Cassie, who moves to New Salem with her mom because her Grandmother is getting older and her mom wanted to be around her (or something). At first Cassie is mad/sad because she doesn't want to leave her school and friends, etc. And in her new school, she isn't really making friends, and in fact she feels like everyone hates her. That is until she makes friends with Diana, and learns her family is defended from witches. Diana brings her into the Secret Circle which is made up of 11 other witches who's family has also been in New Salem for hundreds of years.

My first reaction of this book was that I did not like it. I did change my mind later though, but let me explain why. First off, in my opinion, it's really difficult for me to read a book after I've seen a movie or a TV show on it because I already have a picture in my head of how the story is suppose to be. (kind of like when you read a book first and then dislike a movie) And after seeing part of the TV show, it was hard to get into because the book is a lot different. Second, was because of the wiring style. I mentioned this before I know, but I'm saying this again because I did learn to look past the writing in this book. I find the writing style to be a bit 'cheesy' the way the author words things and the way she makes her characters act. Now I had to keep reminding my self that these books were written in the 90s and that is my assumption of why they were written this way. Maybe the way authors wrote was different then than it is now? This is how I looked past the writing in this book, and also because the story line is good, too. I mean these books are about witchcraft. That is one of my favorite fantasy things to read about!!

Now I'm going to talk more about the story and the characters. I thought the beginning of this book was a little confusing. We were introduced to Cassie, and her friend Portia and how Cassie and her mom were visiting. However, it never said where she was 'visiting', or why she was there and away from home. It never explained who Portia was, or how Cassie knew her, etc. So this was confusing and it bothered me a lot. This was before they decided to move to New Salem as well.

Cassie was and okay main character. She was really immature and annoying at some points, and it bugged me how her and Adam didn't even know each other and instantly said they were in love with each other after literally talking to each other once or twice. (This is a great example of what I meant by the story is 'cheesy', and this is exactly what bugged me when reading Vampire Diaries too) All of the other characters were kind of bland and ran together. I don't even really remember the other members of the Secret Circle because there were just so many and no one stood out. Now in the TV show I believe there are only 6 members and that was a lot easier to keep track of everyone.

I really liked the concept of this book though. Like I said before, I love witchcraft books. I loved the different spells that they talked about, the different herbs the use. I loved how there was different gem stones for certain things. And I really, really loved how each family has their own book called their Book of Shadows. I loved this most during the TV show so I'm glad it was in the book too. I found it really intriguing and I was like, Man I wish I had one of those! Lol. The story line gets a lot better once Cassie is initiated into the Circle, and more action starts happening. Things get a lot more suspenseful towards the end of the book, and the ending kind of leaves you hanging a little bit too.

Overall, I did enjoy this book despite some of the issues that I had with it. I immediately went online and purchased the rest of the books that were in the series because I just wanted to continue to read them. I do plan on watching the rest of the TV series after I read all of the books so I might do a TV/book comparison post on them!

Thank you all for reading and I hope you enjoyed my review!

Book Haul #5

Hello Everyone! Today I am going to do a book haul of all the books that I purchased throughout last month in March. I am excluding Crash and Burn by Michael Hassan because I have already done a review on this book (you can read it here)  so I don't feel the need to include it in a haul.

The Promise of Stardust by Priscille Sibley is a book that I randomly saw at Target while looking at books and I thought it sounded really good. I looked up reviews for this book on Goodreads and almost everyone gave this book a 5/5 or 4/5 stars! It's about a man whose wife is left brain dead after a terrible accident, and he knows that she would want to be taken off life suppose instead of living a slow and painful death. Then the doctors find out that she is pregnant and he is stuck with trying to decide to give the baby a chance. Now tell me this book doesn't sound completely amazing. I'm a sucker for sad heart breaking stories. Call me crazy but this book sounds beautiful.

Whats Left of Me by Kat Zhang. This is a YA book that I thought sounded really great as well. In this book, everyone is born with two souls but as they grow up one soul fades away. But for Addie and Eva, neither of them faded away and both of them still remain in one body. Finally Eva was said to be gone, but she's not and only Addie knows she's still there. This book sounds super interesting and amazing.

The Secret Circle by L.J. Smith. Actually this is the book I am currently reading and I will have a review up soon. I have been wanting to pick up this book for a while now because I started to watch the TV series when it came on the CW a while back. I absolutely loved the show, but I never finished watching season 1. I was skeptical about picking this one up though, because I don't exactly like this author. I've read quite a few other books by her before, and I never really enjoyed them but I thought I'd give this ones try because I really love books on witchcraft.

Clockwork Princess by Cassandra Clare. Oh my god. I cannot wait to read this book! I just got it in the mail toady and I will definitely be reading this one first after I finish The Secret Circle. I went to pick this book up at Target last week the day after it was released and it was already sold out! I was so sad so I just ordered it online and had to wait for it to come in the mail. /cry.

Eleanor and Park by Rainbow Rowell. This is another book that has a lot of read ratings and reviews on Goodreads. I think this one is a newer release just in the past month or two (I could be wrong). I've been loving YA contemporary fiction lately and I can't wait to read this one.

The Immortal Rules by Julie Kagawa. This is another one that I have been wanting to pick up for a while. I really love Julie Kagawa's Iron Fey series, so I wanted to give this one a try too. I was also skeptical to pick this one up too because I'm not really into vampire books anymore but I've herd good things about this so why not? Also, I'm kind of sad that they changed the cover for this book. I really liked the old one better.

Hate List by Jennifer Brown. This book sounded really good to me and interesting as well. It's about a girl named Valerie and her boyfriend Nick who both make a hate list for people they dislike but Nick uses this list to pick his targets when he brings a gun to school.

That is all for my book haul. I hope you all enjoyed and Happy Reading! :)