Stuti's blog for depleting ships

It's just as well that I didn't remember my past mishaps with [a:Stacey Jay|1691206|Stacey Jay|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1241969318p2/1691206.jpg] when I picked up this one. Or perhaps it'd have been better if I had and shunned it. [b:Of Beast and Beauty|16113606|Of Beast and Beauty|Stacey Jay|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1370661183s/16113606.jpg|21930225] certainly isn't a book that I'd recommend you to drop in heat and stay away from; quite the opposite, if you like you retellings with a bit of darkness and lots of imagination, but no real terror, this should be your next read. My failure to enjoy the book rests solely on my heightened, and mayhap misplaced, expectations. With Of Beast and Beauty, [a:Stacey Jay|1691206|Stacey Jay|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1241969318p2/1691206.jpg] has tried to stuff and incorporate lots of variegated elements. At the end of the story, however, not all go along in a complementary fashion. retelling, fantasy world, racial problems and oh, look- a bit of sci-fi! I'm not kidding and also, I'd have loved for that hidden story to be revealed. Whereas, all they drop is that humans destroyed their planet and came to this new world in ships, and as it turns out, one of those ships is right there in Isra's(our MC) city, brought by her very own mother. And do we get anymore? DO WE? Nope, the flying ships will remain constrained to the past.But let's not get ahead of ourselves.There are two races of humans- ones that gave in to evolution and have become the Desert People/Monstrous and ones that his in glass houses called the Smooth Skins. Isra is a blind, captive princess in the domed city of Yuan. Turns out, Yuan is shielded by super-duper, alchemical glass from the lethal UV rays of the sun. Gem's one of the Desert People and somehow or the other, he becomes a captive of the captive princess.But let's already get ahead of ourselves! I'm bored.The writing starts out... a bit tough to digest. At least for the first few chapters. But moving on, it simplifies and toned down to, at times, the simple melodies of traditional fairytales, but mostly gorgeous enough. That said, the epilogue was written fabulously, albeit it diverted more than slightly from the flow of the whole book and possibly the reason I like it so much.The only character I *liked*(using the term lightly) was Isra. She's a passive and innocent queen for quite a while, letting herself be played like a marionette. Eventually, she grows into a somewhat more capable person. But she has a slight case of being too heavily dependent on Gem for changing. All her transformations, and developments, come through Gem's words and mostly because of him, and I'll have you know right here that I didn't like him. I'd have liked to observe her in her own domain. Moreover, for all her talks of proving herself to her people, she never does accomplish that.Gem wasn't to my taste. Too self-righteous and bland. Apart from that, he doesn't grow as a character much, not in my book. The romance between the two characters also felt forced and hasty to me, at least on Gem's part. Where Isra is concerned, I got a feel of genuine warmth and affection. The third character, Bo, had my appreciation for he was truly complex and excellently crafted. On the other hand, his perspective was conducive not to the overall story, but the plot itself and that puts the Gus in a grumpy mood, for the plot... lost......me.........somewhere............along...............the..................long.....................simple, repetitive........................way.It was in the vein of the original tale, with love and a kiss to heal all and not to spoil the book or anything, but it ended in SUCH a Disney movie fashion. There were some other courtly, dangerous things but it all came down to the above.Besides all that, I appreciated the world-building and the social structure, until Valerian and humankind's history of the future* were dropped and that's when I stopped buying it for real. Now for the spoilery(not really) section of things I absolutely didn't like. Please skip if you intend to read the book for I won't be putting it in spoiler tags because despite all its shortcomings, the B&B Disney movie does have some pretty gifs.So does this book do justice to the beloved fairytale? Ehh, I was never really fond of that one, so I can't judge that for you. But I CAN tell you that was so damn good in the beginning with the blindness and the darkness that all I can manage for now is be my monotonous Cogsworth self, waxing on poetically and professionally about potential like a good(just kidding), old mustache-curling, student-failing headmaster/mistress. *I want that book, I want it so bad since I woke up I can't BEAR IT!

It's friday and turned out to be a holiday yet I still expected to follow the established norm of my days. I got up not early enough to have to feel like compensating for it in the afternoon, nor late enough that my breath turned stale. Deep foreboding clouded my brows when I realized I had to crack open my scribble over physics textbook for the upcoming test but lo! miracles of miracles, mysteries of mysteries, the words were soaked up by my brain easily as if I'd been partaking of that magic bread of Doraemon's(don't judge me!).__________________________________________Doraemon has appetizing gadgets and Nobita can't even appreciate that! I remember this episode. Basically, what happened was that, as is his way, Nobita turns up crying and ugly-pouting to Doraemon and demands a gadget that would help him prepare for his test. How it works: Place it on your notes, the bread will copy it and all you gotta do is snarf it down. What I hated was that Nobita didn't even put in an effort. He could have made a sandwich, hell he could have eaten it with jam or butter! But no, the lazyass only cares about misusing and, ultimately, losing the gadgets. Idiot. ___________________________________________I missed this other omen of things to come. Moving on, I somehow managed to cram it all in just an hour and kicked up my legs, smiling an extremely smug smile at having shown up to imaginary physics god, with hair distinctly reminiscent of Einstein, who purportedly had nothing better to do but whispering sinister nothings of discouragement in my ears. Cutting back on digressions, my hands fell upon The Whole Stupid Way We Are and I fell into Winter, Maine in one clean swoop.The day passed amiably enough, or so it seemed on the outside. Until I was behind fifty pages of the ending and my sister and mother decided to flip a figurative to my father for taking my sis's vehicular transport instead of his own to go to places where only her vehicular transport can take her and yada, yada with the family shenanigans. We went out and it was a clear sky, total unreflecting of my inner turmoil. Then somehow, I was at the last page and it was still a blue with white icing. Then again somehow, my eyes were brimming and my sister was eyeing me uncertainly. And she provoked me. And it literally started raining cats and dogs! And my eyes literally flooded! And my brother swore he won't talk to me if I cried ever again and brought down the rapid dum-dum-dum of rainwater tapping away on the car's roof. And my mother literally went, 'awwwwwwww' and my sister did say she had been waiting the whole day for that as her go-to sign to read the book.And that is the story I have for today that I typed out because I am really very scared to review this book.I have many references for the Whole Stupid Way We Are. About the form of my crying: it wasn't [b:The Piper's Son|7417780|The Piper's Son|Melina Marchetta|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1333662548s/7417780.jpg|9362085] bad/good where I cried throughout, but The Angels Take Manhattan bad/good where my stream started soon after the Amy's afterword, after the episode ended(and still hasn't stopped)and I was alone. So, so alone. About the peculiar kind of hollowness inside me: the way it was with [b:Friday Brown|13643131|Friday Brown|Vikki Wakefield|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1336642584s/13643131.jpg|19258408]. The only reason I'm not wailing still is because I'm in the same room as my siblings.This is the story of two friends, Dinah and Skint. Skint refuses to wear coats and Dinah can't stop feeling the cold, for herself, for him, especially. I love these two within an inch of their lives. Dinah is after Skint who's after everybody else. The poor people are being conned, KT wants to bake with his mum, the donkey doesn't dance to the rhythm, the choir sings horrendously and so many instances comprise this book. The setting is a snowy holiday and sad, glorious, troubled adolescence. It's written in third-person present from mostly Dinah's perspective and the narration is fabulous. I love how every portion/chapter ended on melodious lines. It's a character-driven story and the characters make me weep for them, in a good way. Not really good because of their stipulation, but they are so great- you know what I mean. The story fills me up with vacuousness and breathlessness. It had laughter and blows doled out perfectly. It did not manipulate my emotions, just let me be in my misery and it wasn't gratuitous with the feels and the bad stuff. Seemed like as if the book were itself crying and howling, telling this story, with silent wind whistles and old snow. I love its softness in the most brutal parts, its gentleness and the snow inside and outside. This is youth in its shittiest and friendship at its loveliest and most-trying-est. It's a beautiful, austere story that I just can't talk about more- and yes, I'm crying again(my sister is busy with her studies and my brother's out).

Le confusionThe blurb says it's a standalone, then why is it part of a trilogy?

Hahahaha!!!!!!! I survived! So many times! Except the time I got stuck in an eternal fashion show.

The past few days, which are months in reader-not-reading time, I'd had real trouble getting into books that I'd normally like. Some were too dramatic, others too romantic. Prose too simple, too florid. And then I happened across this anthology, the cover of which had me seduced me in, the title that exorcised my doubts and the stories, writing that captivate me beyond those pages, and will continue to haunt me.Bender writes in the simplest, non-fussy words that somehow, in their arrangement, turn out most magical and surreal. Bender writes in the prettiest, summer-dress-type proses that hide something far darker underneath. Her stories carry disturbing and sinister undertones that belie the fairy tales shimmering on the surface. That's the only commonality in the stories and it gives cohesion to the anthology; the stories that would have been in discord but for that malice inside.Comfort and fear rose together inside him. Like standing in the middle of a meadow, where no one had his back.No one expects a tree to be symmetrical at all. It opens its arms, in its unevenness, and he, a butterfly, flew inside.Funnily enough, these two lines are from the stories I liked the least, which is still far too much.But it's not just that. She picks out the most honest and trivial truths of our everyday lives, the ones that trouble us all the sucking time and we can't even identify them. The ones we unknowingly shun; the ones that we aren't even aware we have, until someone, say [a:Aimee Bender|5285|Aimee Bender|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1291155858p2/5285.jpg], comes along and points it out to us. The stories have a flair about them, a sadness and a poetry. Appleless: This one is the first story and the shortest of off; it's more of an introduction and/or warning into/about what's to come. It's about obsession and how it morphs, that it can't stay innocuous for long. It terrified me the most and is one of my favorites of the collection. It's appalling but it reads like a... well, you see:I once knew a girl who wouldn't eat apples. She wove her way walking around groves and orchards. She didn't even like to look at them... We sit in the orchard, cross-legged, and when they fall off the tress into our outstretched hands, we bite right in... She's so beautiful on this day, her skin as wide and open as a river. We could swim right down her.The Red Ribbon & Tiger Beding: I have no bloody clue what to say about these two, frankly. The ending of the former was sad and I love those last, parting lines. The latter one was about bitter truth and secrets that you're better off not knowing, or that what I interpreted.Faces: The kid here doesn't see faces, just features. Make of that what you will but it was creepy, creepy all round. On that Saturday Afternoon: Here we are shown in a moment of indulgence that things change and they do so easily. I love how it laid bare the truth and repetition of relationships.The Fake Nazi & A State of Variance: These two stories start with an old man and a woman, respectively but end up being entirely about someone else. Lemonade: It's the story of a teenaged girl, blinded by a fervent need to please. I wasn't too keen on it when I first read it, but since then, it has stood out the most to me, besides Appleless and is one of my favorites.Bad Return: This one is of my least favorite, by which I mean that I didn't enjoy it to the same degree as I did the others and that is not a reflection on its quality at all. The Doctor and The Rabbi & Wordkeepers: To these two, I say:I am a man, man, man, manUp, up in the airAnd I run around, round, round, roundthis down town and act like I don't care.So when you see me flying by the planet's moon,You don't need to explain if everything's changedJust know I'm just like you. Just for the heck of it, really.Origin Lessons: Best science lesson by far, truly.The universe began in a veil. Like a bride. The Color Master: And I fell in love with this story, bit by bit, color by color. It's a prequel to the fable "Donkeyskin". It's about that tailors that help shape the princess's future and her emancipation from her father. I loved it, I loved it, I loved it!!! Americca: So what I said about the previous stories? Yeah, pretty much applies here. I was so fascinated by the childhood, and the sense of fright and miracle that fills those days. And the fact that she let it linger on.The Devourings: Damn, I'm sounding like a broken record but here goes: I really, really, really, really liked it! There are an ogre and a woman, but more than them, it's a story on their bond as a couple and look how it ends:This is the spell of the cake. And the darkness, eating light, and again light, and again light, lifted.Aimee Bender, did anybody ever tell you that I'm in love with you? No? People are assholes.And *ahem* cover, my preciousssssss, come here, my precioussssssssss... Review copy provided by the publishers.

2.5

This book is pretty much crap.go read the disreputable history of frankie landau banks instead.muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch betterand be careful

this genre is so not my type, why am i even trying?why?but first things first. somebody get a nail and a hammer, we need to fix a plaque in my brain to remind me everytime that an fbi agent isn't a spy. my brain just doesn't compute that.secondly, this book had the word appellate. i thought i'd died and gone to hell. strangely, the other book i've read of hers, practice makes perfect, seemed to have skipped that one evil, nefarious, soul-sucking-demetorish compilation of letters. now you know why i liked that one much more. of course it had nothing to do with jd. thirdly, this one started out better. but some ways into the book, it started going downhill, with mushiness and lame agents. the characters' narration bored me, especially in the latter half. the subplot with the murder and everything was largely left to its own devices. the only pov i was interested in was the killer's and of course, that one never had proper resolution. fourthly, it's final, now! im going back to ya contemp romance.

dramarama, dramarama, dramarama and i just wanted smexytimes!!!!!so the book was alright and charming, if you're into that sort of thing. i'm not.still, i liked the humor albeit it got banal and repetitive sometimes. tyler was cool and laney should probably stay away from me. this is probably my first adult chick-lit-y novel. i am proabably going to revert back to my own age group and ya genre, even with all the creepiness that passes off as love over there. adult lives are just so booooooooooorrrrring. although i liked the part where they played their clients and oppositions with neat tricks, and the hilarious bum show, i was nodding off sometimes because just the words litigation and whatnot put me to sleep. blame it on my father! i just might check out [b:something about you|6642402|Something About You (FBI / US Attorney, #1)|Julie James|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327933063s/6642402.jpg|6836876] because ummm... spies? except the female lead is also another attorney. i feel i can really start to hate that word.i guess i just want a book where this woman comes out of a battle, soaked in gore. all disgusting and stuff. she wipes off her face at the nearest bar but doesn't bother with the blood on her chainmail-style shirt. then there's this guy, or other woman, she comes across and it's lust at sight. they have a drink, resolve some brawls, stuff a rogue ogre or two and go home to do the nasty. the next day, it's all, i like you. it was a good night, but good bye. there's this murder of salamander-carrions i have to hunt down. maybe i'll stumble into you next time, but probably not. yep, that's my kinda lovestory. anybody got any ideas? nastiness, while preferable, isn't necessary.

Review of 100-pages samplerand each of those blew. Off. The. Roof. Of. My. Mind. I tell you, there really was steam coming out, like on of those trains and my brain, in its shambled state, was speeding and racing and diving and somersaulting, trying to figure out an expedient method to obtain the finished copy of [b:Vicious|7896214|Vicious|Kevin O'Brien|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347523693s/7896214.jpg|11136998]. Surely, the publishers already have it and its in one of its process, whatever the processes involved are? Maybe editing or proof-reading(because this sampler requires some). And I could just swoop/glide in like Voldy-Moldy and put the Imperius Cure on one of the folks over at Tor.I guess it's a little premature to rate it five stars and even shelve it as one of my favorites but. But keeping in mind all the times I have bemoaned not being able to rate a book only for its beginning, I took the plunge. Now come what may, including Bugs Bunny and itty-bitty, dancing circus cats, and take the book to a higher or much lower level(you never know with Looney Tunes), I will have already loved these hundred pages.Sample-[b:Vicious|7896214|Vicious|Kevin O'Brien|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347523693s/7896214.jpg|11136998] is a brilliantly crafted tale of superheroes, supervillains, and creatures of darker shades. Creatures of ambition, envy and a slightly sinister side, hidden beneath their affable smiles. 10 years forward, hell's bells, these creatures have now been twisted beyond acceptance and the only thing in play now is vengeance. I was enthralled from the first page and believe you me, I liked what I saw. o_O Frankly, there's not much I can say beyond this, since I haven't even read 30% of the book. Yet this book's caught mehooklinesinkerSomeone's gonna have HELL to pay if the rest of it doesn't turn out be just as good, if not better. *sigh*I don't particularly like it, Ms Scahwab, but it's all in a day's work, ma'am, all in a day.

There's this line in [b:The Returned|9634|From the Dust Returned|Ray Bradbury|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1374049879s/9634.jpg|1098703] that can describe my mood throughout the book....but mostly the soldier only stood-or sometimes even sat- at the barricade, looking either very detached or very bored, depending on the lightning at that particular moment.Depending on the POV at that particular page, I either dozed or just skimmed through the pages. No, not really. It's weird but I can never skim through anything; I just gotta take it ALL in, no matter how constipated* or uninterested I feel. *Yeah, constipated!I believe the problem here lies with me. I couldn't feel for these characters, I couldn't sympathize, much less empathize with them. With no child, no dear departed, no beloved, I still do have a vivid imagination. Yet, this story barely moved me. More than halfway through the novel, I was literally looking out for the last pages. However, besides the main story of the Hargraves and their Returned son, the main characters of the novel, there were little snippets of other Returned's(as they are called) that got to me. Guess, I'm not so stoic after all.There was this girl whose parents didn't want her even when she was alive; and the senile woman who was simply proud of her son, the Nazi boys who died in one war and woke up to instigate another; the priest in love with a dead girl and the family whose only fault was their murder; also, the artist who came back to find the woman who brought him back long before.And the final one of Jacob's.These stories, and many others, of barely two-three pages, affected me in a way that the main story never did. The short escapes into various lives/un-lives were brimming with raw realism and had a fleeting tender quality that, I felt, was lacking in the main story. The fact that they didn't need useless, endless 'telling' of emotions, that they gave a provided a wider view of the tensions in the world, probably worked in their favor. As it turns out, sticking through the book paid off. As in, negative paid off, but not as adverse a negative as it was before. As in, lessened negative. As in, ah- what the hell! Like, my interest was -15 before and the last few hundred pages made it -4 or something. It's either the seditious baseness of my nature, or maybe the reader in me prefers action and locomotion, but the last few hundred pages pleased me. Not to spoil the book for you or anything but *ahem* Who wouldn't love her? Okay, maybe her grandchildren and the person at the end of that gun.The writing didn't work for me and consequently, Harold and Lucille never reached out to me. It was less of a storytelling and more like a recital of... something- something really boring! It never engaged me, despite the promising premise. Lucille was a flat character from the beginning and with very little personality. On the other hand, Harold had a good start and indicated towards being/developing as a character of depth but the delivery wasn't efficient. His personality and dimensions were lost a few chapters into in the book. As an instance, take Jack and Mabel from [b:The Snow Child|11250053|The Snow Child|Eowyn Ivey|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1327098624s/11250053.jpg|16176521](fabulous book, btw. you haven't read? you make me so sad)- similar circumstances, but the characters were so much more realistic and colorful. These two weren't. Considering that [a:Jason Mott|6219675|Jason Mott|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1363694026p2/6219675.jpg]'s an established poet, I just expected a bit more 'showing' of emotions in the prose, again like [a:Eowyn Ivey|4823432|Eowyn Ivey|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/authors/1327102553p2/4823432.jpg] managed so perfectly. Moreover, the constant shift in POV's in every paragraph was confusing, at best, and disorienting, at worst. The lines tell us about the child and affinity for hiding and how he's looking at the colonel for a few lines, then the next few paragraphs are devoted to describing how the colonel is feeling, before jumping back straight into the boy's head again.Still, I think I just might check out the author's short stories. I certainly hope so. On the whole, I have no clue who I'd recommend this book. I guess, you have patience? Human heart? A bit of something special that I don't? Well, you're in luck! This just might be your book. A review copy was provided by the publishers.Crossposted on Books behind Dam{n}s

Way to fuck with my mind, Ms Moning.Oh damn, WHEN is Burned coming out? WHEN?!!

betty's a bombshell she just got paidcrossing the street on passionate gatesbilly's a looker he's from upstatehe ran into betty and he took her on a dateI love this song.The book is like the song.I do not like the book.It's a conundrum, folks. Conundrum! With a drum! Banging on your head!What I liked:~Caymen, Sayde, the Toad, Tick and Xander. I loved their personalities and especially Caymen's dry humor. ~I’ve just never seen eyes as green as yours. I thought maybe they were colored contacts.This is cheesiness you could BITE into. However, besides these iffy dialogues, the romance was pretty cute.What I didn't:~The writing was just bad, primarily in the first half. It also seems to need another round of editing:I wish I would’ve brought some gloves.~What was up with the strange man whose name I can't remember. It was pretty half-assed, the way things were left hanging.~The rest of the story was anti-climatic and lacked cohesiveness. ~The entrance of le grandparents didn't sit well with me and the ending was way too abrupt.YET, I can't stress enough how much I liked the characters and the cuteness. It's worth it to read the book just for that.Overall rating: 2.5

A woodland creature walks along a fairly dusty road, when his eyes catch upon a shiny-something-or-the-other. He picks it up, has his elbows and ass blown to pulp and smithereens, end of story. Thank you very much.Disclaimer: I am in no way propagating, or perpetuating, violence, especially against a species of logic-defying, nauseatingly cute, shallow creatures of the woods(hah!) of the magic variety. Any form of aggression shown towards a specimen of the concerned species shall be independent of my jokes and very definitely not instigated and/or disseminated by me.What do you do when you a book to be reviewed, a review that can't be written, a heart in shambles and a woodland creature bugging you from afar? Now, we're done.There were a girl with a spoon and a boy with no face, in a cage in the future; there were a girl with love and a boy with a life, in the normalcy of the past. People ate, shat and occasionally popped out a wee baby. All these things, and a thousand like them, came to pass in and close upon four years around now. Environed by them, those two of the female species, and those other two of the male species, trod with stir enough, and carried out tasks that tried them through time and again. [b:All Our Yesterdays|414467|All Our Yesterdays|Robert B. Parker|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320432665s/414467.jpg|403685] is a book that takes you places, whether you are keen to visit them or not. It'll hold your hand and dip alongside you in cold fire, watch its pages burn and as you breakdown, slap you across the face with urgency, telling you to wallow later. A fist to the heart and the last page later, it'll abandon you but not its memories and the dilemma it cast inside you. Besides being a mesmerizing and brilliant tale of friendship, love and betrayal(jeez, I make it sound like a typical soap opera), it gently probes the darker side of ambition and the will to do good, with the definition of good being subjective.The characters are also so human and intriguing. Terril doesn't do her characterization by plunking down a list of contradictory adjectives to make her characters multidimensional, instead she molds them gently in a landmine of human emotions and circumstances that ensue, and the woe that befalls us all. As the shit shoots across the stars, every step of their journey develops Marina, Finn and James into persons of interest and dimensions. Someone that it hurts to lose, and it hurts to observe. Marina, the shallow but devout girl, slowly but surely sculpts into Em, the one who never got away. It broke me as I watched her try to save her past self, her love for the girl she once was, the girl who would soon face horrors beyond her most terrible nightmares. Reader Random Trivia:Any character whose name starts with the four letters: Finn, is bound to burn you heart and pluck all your feathers of indifference. Cases in point:[b:Finnikin of the Rock|4932435|Finnikin of the Rock (Lumatere Chronicles, #1)|Melina Marchetta|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1346007613s/4932435.jpg|4998084]: Finnikin of the Rock[b:Catching Fire|6148028|Catching Fire (The Hunger Games, #2)|Suzanne Collins|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1358273780s/6148028.jpg|6171458]:Finnick Odair[b:All Our Yesterdays|414467|All Our Yesterdays|Robert B. Parker|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320432665s/414467.jpg|403685]:Finn AbbotAnd James was a creature bound to soar across the galaxies and comets... He was the wildcard, but also his future was definite, his actions were set in stone. Perfect case for a nature vs nurture study. Does the bad always lurk beneath the surface, and no matter the circumstances, it'll come out? Or is the other way around, do the circumstances(and future selves) shape us? Is our potential decided as children, or do we shape it as the world around us sashays its arse around us?However, the question that haunts me, that exacts of me both ruth and regret, is: Is it okay to snuff out the life of a beloved innocent, like a candle flame, to stop the future he'll bring along, or would you be even capable of doing that? Another cookie point(or thousand, you take 'em all) to Ms Terrill is for simply and clearly explaining the conundrums of time travel, and its consequences. The political ramifications and the wars that could ensue, how you could prevent larger calamities by instigating tiny ones and how one could set their past in motion. The book worked on and around the definition of evil given by a very creepy guy: Evil is the bad that believes it good. The parallel between the [b:Steins Gate|15704031|Steins;Gate|Chiyomaru Shikura|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1339596332s/15704031.jpg|21365759] are unmistakable. BUT, for me, being a story about a guy his desperate fervor to save his best friend from his own actions, [b:Steins Gate|15704031|Steins;Gate|Chiyomaru Shikura|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1339596332s/15704031.jpg|21365759] had a wholly different impact on your truly. It was sorta James's story. On the other hand, [b:All Our Yesterdays|414467|All Our Yesterdays|Robert B. Parker|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1320432665s/414467.jpg|403685] is Suzaha Amane's story, except more bittersweet and severe, because Em knows and loves the one she has to kill. In the end, they are both CAPITAL AWESOME and you shouldn't experience one without the other. Or you know what you'll be and you don't wanna be thatMs Terrill managed to terrify, break and remake me, in not that particular order. The book is sure to frequent my daydreams for times to come. And I am dying here for the sequel(if there even is one)! Of character-starvation! Somebody fix me! Or not, I really don't mind it!Side problem with the editing: The first POV's of chapters 15 and 33 have been denoted erroneously.A review copy was provided by the publishers and they didn't even charge my soul or first born(probably because they realized I had neither). Even so, I'd have gladly gotten one(a soul) on the black market for them, had they asked. Crossposted on Books behind Dam{n}s

Pop your demons, burn your cookies and gather round the fire!This is a very strange novel and a hard one to review, because everything I say might come out as a spoiler, now that I've read the ending and I know things for what they are. The book swings between the narratives of Alex, the boy who could see demons, and Anya, the psychiatrist assigned to his case. While the issue at the crux of the novel is demons(or mental illness, if you aren't given to fantasies), from schizophrenia and depression to the absolute suffering it bears down on the loved ones, [a:Carolyn Jess-Cookes] also explores with intricacy and subtlety, with dark jokes and Hamletian themes, the political conflicts in Northern Ireland and the hereditary nature of mental instability caused by the Troubles in the adults who once were children. About families and lost ones, about bad people who smile and help old ladies. About shadow violence that happens just out of the corner of your eye.Alex has a best friend, Ruen, who's a demon and thousands of years old and knows all languages and who makes his mother sad enough to try to kill herself. For the fifth time. Which places him under the care of Anya, a middle-aged woman who suffers still from the death of her schizophrenic child four years ago and her memories. Dispelling the existence of Ruen as a figment of imagination brought down by the instability Alex's experienced all his life, Anya diagnoses him schizophrenic and starts treating him accordingly. Until, suspicions begin to creep in and inexplicable stuff happens and now nobody is sure anymore who or what is Ruen. The thing I like best about the book is that unlike many novel which steep in and out of confusion and rely solely on their endings to blow our minds, [b:The Boy Who Could See Demons|13497675|The Boy Who Could See Demons|Carolyn Jess-Cooke|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1347315541s/13497675.jpg|19042049] maintains an engaging pace and narration throughout the book that makes you feel as though you need a singular more clue and you'll have it all figured out. There is no distinct perplexity, it's simple enough that either there's a demon or there isn't. Until the ending. And then it BLOWS YOUR MIND. It isn't perfect and would piss some people off, I guess, but I felt it was honest for a book that had been lying pretty much the whole time. There are times I feel it was just convenient, but fact is, after going through the novel once again, it makes sense, seeing the hints dropped here and there with truth and fiction mixing in a bit.The story has a decidedly The Sixth Sense-flavor about it and I don't mean it as a spoiler. The whole structure with a cute, unhinged child and an even more unhinged adult who gets obsessed with helping the child recover, finding in that a sort of absolution they couldn't anywhere else, is similar and the haunting quality familiar. The characters are solid and believable, including the side characters. Michael was a likable character with his firm belief in not separating a family, and Alex's mom had her dejected past to contend with. Frankly, I was surprised by how easily I had been immersed in the book and how much I came to like it. It was surprising without having to rely on shock factors. I don't if it'd be your cup of tea or not, actually because I didn't even know it was mine until I read the joke in Karen's review. A review copy was provided by the publishers.Crossposted on Books behind Dam{n}s

I read this series for entertainment value, and only that. So of course I had to go and ruin it all by reading the synopsis of the third book before I'd even started the first one. Which in turn thoroughly spoiled this installment, as I already knew what was going to happen during the climax of the story. Sometimes I wish I could tighten my screws. sighEven so, I liked it. While there are moments when it feel banal, and Will's narration and his revelations seem a bit forced, overall, it's a fun and short book to be read when everything else is in overload. I almost gave it two stars for my personal lack of shock and thus, enjoyment, the last few pages and the beginning still made me smile, giggle and clap.