Monday, February 2, 2015

Mini-Reviews (2) The Book of Ivy, The Halcyon Bird, Even In Paradise

So ever since June of 2014 I've been failing at writing reviews for the books I read. I know. And because it's been AGES since I read these, I'm just gonna do mini-reviews of them, so as to clear my need-review shelf.

Title/Author: The Book of Ivy (The Book of Ivy #1) by Amy Engel
Publisher/Date published: Entangled: Teen, November 11th 2014
Plot in one sentence: Girl being manipulated by her father to kill the boy she's forced to marry who is the son of the winning family governing the nation, but wait, maybe he's not that bad.

Ok, so this one was just a bit bland to me, a lot of it felt like a whole lot of other dystopians and it didn't stand out to me enough to be special. I mean, I liked the developing relationship between Ivy and Bishop, but Bishop was a little bit too perfect for me and while thing started to get interesting towards the end, I wasn't really invested in this story. Also, I REALLY hated Ivy's father and sister, keeping things from her and just generally being manipulative bastards. And OMG Ivy, please grow a spine in the rest of the series, because holy wow, you could see it wasn't the right thing to do and still you went along with it? UGH.

My rating: 2 stars

Title/Author: The Halcyon Bird (The Demon Catchers of Milan #2) by Kat Beyer
Publisher/Date published: EgmontUSA, November 11th 2014
Plot in one sentence: Sequel to the Demon Catchers of Milan in which Mia and her family battle more demons, namely the one that possessed her.


I liked diving back into this world that has a lot of Italian culture and family and demon catching badasses in it, and I really did love Mia's family because they're awesome. I had just expected a little more of this sequel, cause I remember really enjoying the first book. I was a bit frustrated with Mia's crush on her cousin and was relieved when a new love interest appeared on the horizon, even though she was majorly clueless about this, which was a bit annoying at times. But they were cute together.
Mia's demon majorly creeped me out, but with all the family's badassery, I was wondering why they still hadn't found a way to beat this demon for good. Or at least for the next fifty years or so. I mean, he's been killing other people in the family and just been a general nuisance, so why not destroy/banish/whatever him for good?
Anyway, I did really like this, but it didn't have that spark that the first book had.

My rating: 3,5 stars

Title/Author: Even In Paradise by Chelsey Philpot
Publisher/Date published: HarperCollins, October 14th 2014
Plot in one sentence: Rich family has secrets and MC Charlie gets into a relationship with both siblings from said family.

I really, REALLY liked Even In Paradise. It made me pause and think about friendship and life and lot's of other things. But mostly friendship and how it is so true that sometimes when you are friends with someone, it's sort of like falling in love and then you also fall in love with their family and that is exactly what happens to Charlie, and I could SO relate.
I mean, the Buchanans are beautiful people, they're sparkly and shiny and have all the things that Charlie doesn't have and I can understand her being drawn to them. To Julia and to Sebastian, who might be a bit of a douche at times, but who really grew on me. And how can you not love their younger sister Oops? She was awesome.

From the start you know this isn't going to end well and there's this sense of foreboding overshadowing the whole novel. And I LOVED that! I was wondering how everything was going to go down and the twists and turns were amazing! Chelsey Philpot really knows how to write beautiful words that suck you in. This is a story that will stay with me for a while.

My rating: 4,5 stars

1 comment:

  1. Even in Paradise wasn't a favorite for me, but I can agree with everything that you said especially about Philpot knowing how to write! The whole book is really... Atmospheric right? Even not being my cup of tea I could appreciate the plot and her writing, so it's a win.

    Deyse @ Bound with Words