Falling For YA

Waiting on Wednesday: Sleep No More

 

 

*Because I have to ship this prize and International shipping is crazy this will be aUS Only Giveaway! (International followers can still enter my Official Blogiversary Giveaway!)

a Rafflecopter giveaway

a Rafflecopter giveaway

In Which I Reconsider Book Ratings

What better way to celebrate the new layout then with a giveaway!? 

The winner of the giveaway will get a book of their choice!

I am shipping it from Amazon so if you can receive Amazon books or Amazon CG's then you are eligible to enter. Follow the link below to enter! Giveaway goes until 10/31/13

 

http://www.fallingforya.com/2013/10/new-blog-design-giveaway.html

 

The Brokenhearted
Author: Amelia Kahaney
Publisher: HarperTeen
Publication Date: October 8, 2013

I loved Unspoken beyond all reason. My review is nothing but gushing sentences and stress. The cliffhanger at the end was a doozey and I don’t know how I managed to wait over a year to read Untold, but I did, and now I’m tasked with scooping up my feels and sorting them in to a coherent review. 

Untold begins soon after Unspoken ended and Kami and Jared are not speaking, barely tolerating one another and both of them are absolutely miserable. They, along with the rest of the crew, must band together to stop Ash’s father from taking over Sorry-in-the-Vale and reinstituting blood sacrifices. The group spends a lot of time making plans, having planning meetings, training for said plan etc. and that is the reason I was unable to give this book 5 stars. The plot itself is not this books strong suit. There is so much waiting around for a final battle that when the battle does happen I felt rather unimpressed.

What this book does well, and what Sarah does well, is characters. I adore Kami who has taken her fledging journalism career in her own hands and is passing out a school paper that the entire town is reading. I love that she is strong, spunky, and despite not having any magical power she is the one actively trying to save the town, it is Kami that the others are following and looking to for direction. Even if Kami is a jumbled mess over Jared.
Jared disappointed me a little in this book. I won’t lie I’ve never been firmly in Jared’s corner. The brooding bad boy act is a little old, and while I do want him and Kami to be together his actions make it hard for me to like him. Jared and Kami kept having these ‘two ships passing in the night’ moments and after a while I wanted to shake them both. Say what you mean, and mean what you say!

Luckily, Rusty played a much bigger role in this novel and that almost entirely made up for my frustration with Kami and Jared. When I met Sarah at the RT Convention this year she asked me what team I was on and instantly and unabashedly I said “Team Rusty of course!” The guy is a total scene stealer and I liked that he is a little more serious (though still witty and awesome) in this novel. I hope to see even more of him in the next novel.

I almost forgot to mention Angela, Holly, and Ash so to quickly recap. Angela was great. I like her nearly as much as her brother. I’ve never really liked Holly so I didn’t like her in this book either. I could rant on about why I dislike her but honestly I don’t have a very good reason, she is just a character I don’t like. I found myself wondering why Kami is friends with her in the first place and I drew a blank. Then Ash, he reminds me of Amelia Pond in Doctor Who, he is the boy who waited; the one who’s done everything right and just wants to be noticed and loved. I feel so sorry for/sympathetic toward Ash I want him to have a happy ending because the guy is trying so damn hard and no one ever seems to notice or give him credit for that. 

Overall, Untold was a novel I enjoyed. I didn’t like it as much as Unspoken. I felt the plot was a bit repetitive with all the planning and preparations but I was so happy to see the characters again that it was worth the wait. I am now going to suffer through another year of waiting just to read more about these characters and Sorry-in-the-Vale and Rusty, but mostly Rusty. 

Kat Zhang and Savannah Foley had the brilliant idea in October to host a NaNoWriMo Warm up!

If you do not know what NaNoWriMo is it is National Novel Writing Monthand it happens every year in November, participants commit to writing 50,000 words in one month. I have wanted to participate in NaNo but November is just a terrible month for me. I have finals starting at the end of the month, flash cards to make, and just have no time to commit to writing a novel. That is why when I stumbled across NaNo Warm Up on Twitter I was so excited!

During NaNo Warm Up writers agree to write 25,000 words in October,which is only 800 words a day. I am excited to finally be able to write with a community and to expand on a novel I started writing months ago but that I keep pushing to the back burner in favor of school and other commitments.

I decided to share that I was participating in NaNo Warm Up for two reasons.First, I thought maybe you would like to participate, the more the merrier, and 800 words a day is totally realistic to fit in to any schedule! And second, I want to make myself accountable. I don't want to push this writing project to the back of my to do list again. My thought is that if I tell everyone I am participating I really will write every day.

So what am I writing? I am writing a very gritty, young adult (possibly new adult) novel with copious drug use, childhood friendship and death. I already have around 19,000 words written and can't wait to add more! I am also in the market for a critique partner(s), I've never had one before but I'm at that point where I would like to hear other peoples thoughts and really sharpen my writing.

If you are interested in signing up for NaNo Warm Up you can do so here and if you do make sure to tweet me @FallingForYA!

Love this. Great Inspiration for NaNo Warm Up this month!

So, in my real life, I'm a trial lawyer. I prosecute people who rape children and commit murder, and engage that sort of anti-social criminal behavior. Because of that, I'm pretty familiar (actually, extremely familiar) with the rules of evidence.

 

This post is for the purpose of talking about the rule against hearsay. I don't want to get all boring and legalish and stuff, but basically, the rule of hearsay provides that stuff that is said outside of court (i.e., to a witness who wants to repeat it in court) is sufficiently unreliable that it won't be allowed in court in front of the finder of fact (i.e., jury) unless it fits into an exception that gives it something that we call indicia of reliability. For our purposes, I'm just going to talk about regular old hearsay.

 

So, hearsay is what happens when some disgruntled author calls someone a troll on an outside website without having any actual evidence to back up that statement. And then, asking other people who haven't seen the evidence and who really don't know anything about what has actually transpired, to rely on their opinion that the person is a troll. Or a bully. Or whatever. That's relying on hearsay to make decisions about someone. It's certainly permissible (after all, life is not a courtroom, and the rules of evidence don't apply in the universe).

 

But.

 

It's unreliable. Think of a game of telephone for a moment. That's what this is. It's one big, long game of telephone, but unlike in the big, long game of telephone, the person who is passing the secret message on to the next person is not a disinterested party. They have an interest in twisting the words and in obscuring the facts.

 

So, think about that game of telephone - there is no chance that the secret will be delivered accurately if you whisper it through a chain of ten people even if all ten people are doing their best to communicate the message accurately. Now, imagine if person number 5 in the message chain has an interest in disrupting the communication between the originator of the message and the ultimate recipient of the message. 

 

That's this.

 

I'm not going to go into all of the ways that the fleeing Goodreaders have been unfairly maligned because that's silly and it's just me defending myself, and others, against a witch hunt. And I will not dignify those charges with a response because they are spurious.

For those of you who are having trouble remembering what went down in The Raven Boys Maggie has (humorously and excellently) re-capped the events here. The end of The Raven Boys left us on a bit of a cliffhanger, the ley line has awakened, Adam is a bit different, and the search for Cabeswater is on.

The Dream Thieves is Ronan’s book. In The Raven Boys I wasn’t entirely sure how I felt about Ronan, he seemed distant and his chapters were my least favorite to read. That completely changed in The Dream Thieves. I looked forward to reading about Ronan and getting to know more about his past and his ability to bring things from dreams in to real life.

While I was intrigued by Ronan and excited to see the whole gang again I thought the novel started off a little slow. It took me a while to remember what exactly happened (I wish I’d found the recap earlier). It wasn’t until Kavinsky drove on to the scene that I really felt connected to the story and couldn’t put it down.

I unabashedly love Kavinsky. I love him the same way you love things that are absolutely terrible for you. He is not a good guy, he does bad things, and he doesn’t give a shit what you think about that. The scenes with Kavinsky and Ronan are my favorite scenes in any of the books I’ve read so far this year. They have this strange sort of relationship. If Ronan didn’t have Gansey I have no doubt he would have embraced Kavinsky and that would have been an amazing, terrible, brilliant alliance.

Because the story focused mostly on Ronan I felt like I didn’t see nearly enough of the other characters. I especially missed Gansey. In the first book he was by far my favorite character, and I loved the insights in to his personality. In this novel Gansey doesn’t play as pivotal a role but he is definitely the leader. Gansey is like the sun, and everything in the plot rotates around him.

This book also introduces the Grey man. He is a hitman and is looking for the greywaren for an employer. The mysterious employer is never seen but for a hitman Mr. Grey is really likable. He is educated, has morals, and I loved the budding relationship between him and Blue’s mom. I actually look forward to seeing more of him in the next book and learning about this mysterious employer. There seem to be a lot of people after this Welsh King!

While I did enjoy The Dream Thieves (thoroughly enjoyed) there were a few reasons I couldn’t give it five stars. One was that the novel started off slowly and it took me a while to become reacquainted with everything, second that I didn’t see enough of the rest of the gang (Kavinsky might have made up for this though, I do so love that guy), and third I wish that there had been more romance. While the romance in the story does take a step in the right direction it was still very much in the background.

Overall, The Dream Thieves was a fun sequel to The Raven Boys. Once I got in to the story I was completely immersed and was sad to see it end. I am now eagerly awaiting the next book, especially after that ending!

When I was in middle school I briefly became obsessed with Amish things. Ok, not all Amish things just quilt’s. My parents took me to this traveling Amish sale and I begged them to buy me a quilt. You could see the hand stitching and I loved the way the fabric felt under my hands, I was instantly smitten. The quilts were expensive though so I had to settle on getting a hand made bracelet. I still have that bracelet and I still really want a quilt. I think this brief Amish obsession may be why I instantly liked the premise of Temptation. A city girl moves to the country after her Mother passes away and instantly falls in love with a boy. The problem is the boy she falls for is Amish.

One of the first things I really liked about Temptation was that it is told in alternating perspectives between Rose and Noah. I think this is why I was so quick to root for them as a couple. The alternating perspective lets you see how each character thinks and there is no second guessing about how much they care about one another. I must say though, I enjoyed reading from Noah’s perspective a little more though.

I think I enjoyed Noah’s perspective more because the Amish culture was completely new to me. It was interesting to learn more about the daily activities of Noah’s family and his community. I am looking forward to reading the sequel, Belonging, because I think it will focus even more on the culture and customs of Amish society.

That brings us to Rose. While Noah gave us the Amish perspective Rose was everything modern and I liked her spunky attitude and occasional gripes about how the Amish culture has skipped over feminism completely. The Amish women are treated very differently then woman are treated in English society. The once problem I did have with Rose is that while she mentions feminism quite a bit she never acts like a feminist. Rose takes on the role of a submissive women in not only her relationship with Noah but the relationship she has with her brother, Sam, and her Father as well. I wanted Rose to stand up and demand to be recognized as an equal but that point never really comes.

Overall, I enjoyed Temptation. It was fun to learn about a culture completely different that is rooted in traditional ideals and see it collide with modern society. I also really enjoyed the relationship between Rose and Noah, their chemistry is undeniable and I am looking forward to reading Belonging to see if these two can beat the odds and find a way to make their relationship work.