The Bursting Bookshelf

Hey everyone! Have you read my review of Fated? If not, click here. As you can tell, I liked the book, having read it a while back. To read it was one thing, but to hear part of the audiobook brought a whole new dimension to the story, bringing it alive with the great voice acting, as heard in the clip below. I don't know about you guys, but I think I may have to pick this one up!


Check it out: Amazon USA Amazon Canada



What did you think?

Lately strange things have been happening to Daire Santos. Animals follow her, crows mock her, and glowing people appear out of nowhere. Worried that Daire is having a nervous breakdown, her mother packs her off to stay in the dusty plains of Enchantment, New Mexico with a grandmother she’s never met.

There she crosses paths with Dace, a gorgeous guy with unearthly blue eyes who she’s encountered before...but only in her dreams. And she’ll get to know her grandmother—a woman who recognizes Daire’s bizarre episodes for what they are. A call to her true destiny as a Soul Seeker, one who can navigate between the worlds of the living and the dead. Her grandmother immediately begins teaching her to harness her powers—but it’s an art that must be mastered quickly. Because Dace’s brother is an evil shape-shifter who’s out to steal her powers. Now Daire must embrace her fate as a Soul Seeker and find out if Dace is one guy she’s meant to be with...or if he’s allied with the enemy she’s destined to destroy.

Review:
Alyson Noel is a name most readers can put a book to; the Immortals Series. With such a recognizable name, it was easy to decide to read this book. In the beginning, it was a little bit rough due to characters, but as the story got rolling, it only got better.

Symbolism-wise, the cover was stellar. It modeled both situations Daire was put into, along with some of the emotions she felt. Without going into too much detail, there were scenes featuring large groups of crows, as the cover portrays. The model representing Daire shows emotions like fear, suspicion, and a twinge of bravery; all of these emotions were utilized at some time or other during the story. The cover is also quite a bit different than that of the Immortals Series, while still featuring the simplicity readers have come to expect from the covers of her books.

The characters in the book are where I experience some difficulty; they didn't seem natural. Some of their relationships had very odd dynamics, while some of them were simply too stereotypical. Paloma fell on the stereotypical side; she was too predictable and didn't catch my emotions all that much. Daire came off as bragging to me, and ungrateful. She didn't often see the other side of the story (ie. with her mom), was too melodramatic and was just not that enjoyable to have narrate the story. All of that being said, I also didn't care for how she interacted with other; she fell instantly for a boy and she wasn't very kind towards her mother. As the book progressed, I was able to put my dislikes for the characters to focus on the quickly developing plot.

There are some things I liked about this book's plot, but a few that I did not. My favorite things about the plot were how quickly the action started, there weren't many slow spots throughout the entirety of the story. The speed of the plot was the book's best feature, I couldn't put it down once I had started it. It grabbed me with the promise of unique ideas and kept me whilst delivering on that promise. One of my least favorite aspects of the plot was how quickly Daire fell in love with someone, they had just met and they were already in love. The writing was great; it featured the necessary description of a book of this nature, fueling the imagination with powerful imagery.

With all read and done, I will be returning to the series to see what will happen in Daire's future. I'd recommend this book to people who want a different take on a paranormal theme, along with a quick, light read. I give Fated a 3.5/5.

Hey guys! As you can see above the cover for the final book in the Immortals Series just came out. I don't know about you guys, but I love it! They are closing the series with a fully blossomed flower to perhaps show how their love has grown over the last five books. I also love the colour scheme. I mean, pink-y purple? YES! So what do you guys think?

Title: Night Star
Author: Alyson Noel
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release: November 16, 2010
Rating: 4/5
Pages: 302
Series: The Immortals
Synopsis:
After fighting for centuries to be together, Ever and Damen’s future hinges on one final showdown that will leave readers gasping for breath. Don’t miss this explosive new installment of the #1 bestselling series that’s enchanted millions across the world!

Haven still blames Ever for the death of her boyfriend Roman, no matter how hard Ever’s tried to convince her it was an accident. Now she’s determined to take Ever down…and destroy Damen and Jude along the way. Her first step is to tear Ever and Damen apart—and she has just the ammunition to do it.

Hidden in one of Ever’s past lives is a terrible secret about Damen—a secret that illuminates new facts about her relationship with Jude, but that’s so dark and brutal it might be enough to drive her and Damen apart once and for all. As Ever faces her greatest fears about the guy she wants to spend eternity with, she’s thrust into a deadly clash with Haven that could destroy them all.

Now it’ll take everything she’s got—and bring out powers she never knew she had—to face down her most formidable enemy. But in order to win, she must first ask herself: is her own survival worth dooming Haven to an eternity of darkness in the Shadowland? And will learning the truth about Damen’s past hold the key to their future?

Review:
As always, I've read the rest of the series and I will review them too after I have caught up to myself with all the books I've recently read.

Guess when I got this one? That's right! I've had it on pre-order since the last one came out! So I ended up getting it on the day it came out and it took me all of two days to read it. I read it that fast. I liked it that much.

The cover of this book is great. You can't see it above but it has shiny highlights on the bottle and on the back cover on the covers of the other books. I absolutely love the little stars and the shiny thing on the cap of the bottle. They're just really pretty. I also like the orange color and red color scheme. I love those two colors so the book is very visually appealing to me.

The story for this book was great. I found it to be a great improvement to other volumes of this series. I really felt though that the next book will top it all. That this book was almost setting up for the next one that will probably blow all of our socks off. But for now, she left us with a great build up to a finale that I can't wait to read. I just need to know what happens to Ever and Damen and Jude and EVERYONE!

The characters in this book were good. I really like all the guys from the lovable Miles to the hotty Damen to the surfer boy Jude. I like them all but my favorite is Miles. He's funny in even the darkest of times. And he's also adventurous and will never ever (haha never ever, get it? Bad pun...) let Ever down, even if she's an Immortal and kept a ton of secrets from  him, he still wants to be her friend. And then there's Haven. Haven is the ultimate love to hate character. She made the transformation from shy BFF to Ever's arch enemy in such a short span but you still feel like she's still there under it all but you also just love to hate her at the same time. It takes great writing to be able to pull that kind of feelings off in a reader, and I definitely congratulate Alyson for that.

Overall, this book did have some flaws, but it ended up making up for them here and there. I would recommend this book to anyone who has read the rest of The Immortals Series.

The title says it all! Just a little blurb about how Night Star, the newest and second to last book in the Immortals Series by Alyson Noel comes out today! That's really it.

The Bursting Bookshelf

Title: Evermore
Author: Alyson Noel
Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin
Release: February 3, 2009 (paperback)
Rating: 4/5
Pages: 301
Series: Immortals Series
Synopsis:
Since a horrible accident claimed the lives of her family, sixteen-year-old Ever can see auras, hear people’s thoughts, and know a person’s life story by touch. Going out of her way to shield herself from human contact to suppress her abilities has branded her as a freak at her new high school—but everything changes when she meets Damen Auguste...

Ever sees Damen and feels an instant recognition. He is gorgeous, exotic and wealthy, and he holds many secrets. Damen is able to make things appear and disappear, he always seems to know what she’s thinking—and he’s the only one who can silence the noise and the random energy in her head. She doesn’t know who he really is—or what he is. Damen equal parts light and darkness, and he belongs to an enchanted new world where no one ever dies.

Review:
Now there's one thing I don't understand. Why don't some people like this book? It keeps moving and it has some great action scenes in it. The romance is good in it too.

The cover, at first I wasn't crazy about it but then it grew on me. I liked the purple and tulips but the actual picture itself just wasn't my favorite. The text was cool though and I like how it looks like it's kind of glowing. My favorite part of the cover though is the fact it's purple. My favorite color. I also love how the tulips from the book were Incorporated into the cover as slight foreshadowing.
Enough on the cover though. The story. I believe that this was the best book so far of The Immortals series. I loved how unique the premise was, there is nothing else that I am aware of out there like this book. It also had romance that was good because of the factor of the unknown element to Damen. Ever was a good protagonist in this book as she wasn't the 'it' girl, she was the kid whom everyone picks on. I really liked how she wasn't the golden girl and it was a story told from the picked on's perspective. The two characters that were secondary, but still awesome, were Haven and Miles. Miles and Haven were so quirky and lovable in this book. Haven is just like that friend that we've all had, she marches to the beat of her own drum but she'll do her best to always be there for you in the end. Damen, Damen, Damen. He was so dark and mysterious, though there were a few things about him that I did not care for such as when he's flirting with Stacia when he claims it was nothing as he was giving her white tulips which don't mean love, to me that means he was leading another girl on and then went to Ever. Though my favorite character was Riley. She could make you laugh, yell, or cry. She made the ending what it was and made me cry several times over.

All in all this book was a good read. The ending will make you cry, and the story will leave you waiting for the next book. I think the writing was good as well and the story was well planned as the author clearly knows where she wants to take this story and for those reasons, this book gets a 4/5 in my opinion.

PS: Here is the cover to North of Beautiful by Justina Chen Headley. The cover is just the same as Evermore.
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This week I'm on time! I'm very proud of myself right now. Anyways, this week I found out some information on an author that I like a lot...

Alyson Noel!!!

This week Alyson posted on her blog the cover of the Riley Bloom book, Shimmer.

So that's the cover for Shimmer which I like quite a bit. It's cool how you can see Riley in this one more. I have been looking for the cover since I finished Radiance a month ago. Well finally here it is for everyone to enjoy.

That's all for now,
The Bursting Bookshelf