The Bursting Bookshelf

Waiting on Wednesday is a weekly event held by Jill over at Breaking The Spine! It's all about those books you just can't wait for and are counting down the days till they come out. This week I chose the Iron Queen as I am reading the Iron King and loving it all the way!

Isn't it purdy? I love all the covers in the series and this one just tops them all off with the vivid pinky color, it is just gorgeous.

The Bursting Bookshelf

PS: If you love the Iron Fey series, click here to see Julie's blog and to get sneak peeks into the Iron Queen and more.

Title: Eyes Like Stars
Author: Lisa Mantchev
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Release: July 7, 2009
Rating: 3/5
Pages: 352
Series: Theatre Illuminata
Synopsis:
All her world’s a stage
Enter Stage Right
Beatrice Shakespeare Smith (Bertie): Our heroine.
Nate: A dashing pirate who will do anything to protect Bertie.
Cobweb, Moth, Mustardseed, and Peaseblossom: Four tiny, mischievous fairies, and Bertie’s loyal sidekicks.
Ariel: A seductive air spirit. Disaster follows in his wake, but Bertie simply cannot resist him.
Welcome to the Théâtre Illuminata, where the characters of every play ever written can be found behind the curtain. The actors are bound to the Théâtre by The Book, an ancient and magical tome of scripts. Bertie is not one of the actors, but they are her family. And she is about to lose them all because The Book has been threatened, and along with it the Théâtre. It’s the only home Bertie has ever known, and she has to find a way to save it. But first, there’s the small problem of two handsome men, both vying for her attention. The course of true love never did run smooth....

Review:
First off look! The colour of my text matches Bertie's hair! OK, so now that that's out of my system, we can continue. Ah, Eyes Like Stars, how you tempted me so. I really enjoyed the summary that I read on the back! It made me fall for it so much! Because, if you haven't noticed, I love books that are different than the regular old staple YA fiction. Don't get me wrong, I love all the big names in YA right now but I like to be able to read and review something that people might not have heard of before or that no one has really reviewed yet. Like this book. I haven't seen many blogs in the YA blogosphere review it and I happened to have read it so...


*SPEECHLESS*


You may wonder why I am so 'speachless'. I. Just. Adore. This. Cover. It's just amazing looking. I mean the artwork is phenomenal and I can say nothing bad about it. I mean it's got cool artwork, the text is fun, and most importantly, it does not have 'A Novel' or 'A Novel By...' on the cover. Yes that is probably my biggest pet peeve of all. I just hate that, but that's another story altogether. But look at the pretty little fairies around Bertie's head, and her hair! Oh her hair! I love her hair and this is just the way I saw her and her hair while I read the book. But the absolutely best of the whole cover is the review down at the bottom of the page.*

"Magical stagecraft, unmanageable fairies, and a humorous cast of classical characters form the back drop for this imaginative coming-of-age."
-Suzanne Collins, author of The Hunger Games and Catching Fire

Suzanne freaking Collins! She's my favorite author but when I first read this book, I had no idea who she was. But then I was showing this book to one of my friends and I noticed Suzanne's name and I just freaked out. I am a huge fan and I have read the whole Hunger Games Trilogy.

The characters were alright in this book. My favorites were the fairies. they were funny and lovable all at the same time. They brought this fun air to all the serious parts and parts where the writing lost me completely. That's my problem with this book, but I'll get to that later. Out of the two guys my favorite was Ariel. He made me so mad but happy at the same time. If that made sense. But for me Nate was just too tame compared to Ariel who was out there, adventurous and dangerous. That for me is just way more appealing in a book than the tame character.

The story was a great idea. At times it made no sense, at times it confused me and at times, and it made me want to give up on this book. Don't get me wrong, I finished and liked more parts towards the middle than I thought I would at the start. The writing is also just a little odd for me. I have never read a book written like this before. Hey if you like plays and stuff, this is the book for you. It just didn't appeal to me in how the writing was also very young feeling. And I mean young as in not the maturity I was hoping for in this one. The writing just screamed middle school book to me when I wanted YA fiction out of it.

That's why I can only bring myself to give this a 3/5 overall. I'm sorry if you like it, but I just didn't like the writing and how confusing it got. In the end I did finish it, but I had to convince myself to. It took a lot of convincing.

* Please note that the review quote at the base of the cover may not be available on all editions. But it's on mine.

Wow, I just found out about a thing called NaNo WriMo. It's a program where tons of writers from around the world take the whole month of November (National Novel Writing Month) and write a 50,000 word novel. That's 30 days to get it done. I could never do that. The website is here. The craziest thing of all is that when I tried to get on the website earlier, it wouldn't let me because too many people were already on it. That's a lot of people trying to get on that site. I might do it but I doubt it. I don't have what it takes but it seems like a lot of people do. That's it. I'm just bored so I decided to post about that. So bye.

Happy Halloween,
The Bursting Bookshelf

AHHH! I just read this on Electrifying Reviews.

From Vampiresite.net

The CW is developing a series based on another book series fromVampire Diaries author L.J. Smith – and TVD consulting producers Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, who also are writing the upcoming “Plan B,” are involved.

The new project, Secret Circle, is about a California teen who moves to her mom’s hometown of New Salem and learns that she is a witch.

Vulture originally released the news about the development. The series, if it happens, will have a pilot script from Andrew Miller, who will also be executive producer.

OMG! This would be amazing! They have done such a good job on Vampire Diaries, even with all the changes, they just made it better! I would definatly tune in for this one. There's nothing really like this on TV right now anyway.

Happy Halloween,
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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