A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J Mass I Review

Title: A Court of Thorns and Roses

Author: Sarah J Maas

Series: same name

Genre: Fantasy, Fairytale retelling, New Adult

My Star Rating: ★★★★☆

Blurb: Feyre is a huntress. She thinks nothing of slaughtering a wolf to capture it's prey. But like all metals, she fears wha lies mercilessly beyond the forest. And she will learn that taking the life of a magical creature comes at a high price...Imprisoned in an enchanted court in her enemy's kingdom, Feyre is free to roam but forbidden to escape. Her captor's body bears the the scars of fighting, and his face is always masked-but his piercing stare draws her ever closer. As Feyre's feelings for Tamlin begin to burn through every warning she's been told about his kind, an ancient wicked shadow grows. Feyre must find a way to break the spell, or lose her heart forever.

A Court of Thorns and Rose is a fairy tale retelling of Beauty and The Beas. Every retelling has a twist and in this instance the twist is that this book is set n the Faerie world.

One thing I really loved is that there is a guide in the back on pronouncing the difficult names which, as I am sure you all know, can be a big problem. I've even heard people go as far as to say it takes them longer to read a book if they can't pronounce a character's name. Our protagonist is called Feyre (which is a gorgeous name).

In terms of characters there weren't many and I wasn't massively invested with any of them, although I did kind of like Lucien.

This book has been labelled as New Adult, but if you're not into that kind of thing I wouldn't let that put yu off. There are only a couple of sex scenes and they don't go into massive amounts of detail, nor are they very long.

I gave it 3.5 stars which is pretty good. If you're into romance and really quite complex world building you'd probably love it, the missing star and a half was mostly due to thee lack of comic relief and the complicated ending.

I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You by Ally Carter I Review

                                                       

Title: I'd Tell You I Love You, But Then I'd Have to Kill You 

Author: Ally Carter

Series: Gallagher Girls

Genre: Romance

My Star Rating: 

Blurb: 

I'd tried reading this a few years ago but I'd put it down because it seemed stupid and I was convinced the main character's love interest would be her hot new teacher, but I should have given it longer because her teacher remained her teacher and it was a nice story. Normally I stay far away from romance novels as they don't interest me at all but I liked this one because there was more to it than the romance, and honestly the story's romance lost it a star. I loved the setting of a spy school it was nice to have an intelligent protagonist for once.

This book was funny, the narration was not only first person but friendly and written as if the main character had sat down with a pen and paper. Normally I prefer a more distant, third person narration but I think in this kind of book the friendlier approach worked well. 

I liked the characters, especially Cammie's friend Liz and, of course the rest of her entourage. I wasn't a huge fan Cammie's love interest because he was a bit thick and not in a Joey Essex kind of adorable way. Cammie's character development was great, she learned to realise people weren't always as bad as they initially appeared and she also learned some valuable lessons. I loved the "organised St. Trinian's feel" the book had to it.

The romance was nothing special, which was an issue as it was the main theme of the book but despite that it was still enjoyable and earned a solid three stars.

Love Always,
Freya

Percy Jackson's Greek Gods by Rick Riordan I Review

Title: Percy Jackson's Greek Gods
Author: Rick Riordan
Illustrator: John Rocco
Genre: Mythology
My Star Rating: ★★★★☆

Blurb: 
So begins Percy Jackson's Greek Gods, in which the son of Poseidon adds his own magic--and sarcastic asides--to the classics. He explains how the world was created, then gives readers his personal take on a who's who of ancients, from Apollo to Zeus. Percy does not hold back. "If you like horror shows, blood baths, lying, stealing, backstabbing, and cannibalism, then read on, because it definitely was a Golden Age for all that."

The books begins with the ancient Greek beleif of how the Earth was created, then moves onto the titans and how the olympians were born and how they defeated their father, Kronos. Percy then gives the twelve main olympains (and a few extras: Hades, Persephone and Hestia) a chapter each in which Percy tells us about the God's early days then some of their most well known adventures, including those relevent to the happenings of PJO and HOO books. Although, effective this format could be confusing at times as it wasn't in chronological order and it was never clear how far apart these events were occuring, especially with all the different human kings and queens involved.

The stories were all accurate to the mythology, although Percy tells them in the way that makes the most sense to him in some cases he also provides alternative versions of the stories. The mythology is indeed accurate but in order to keep the book interesting Riordan did use poetic licence, adding modern comparisons, jokes etc. to these old timey stories. 

The illustrations were amazing so I'm very glad I spent the extra money on the fancy American addition, as the UK cover was much less impressive and I don't think it had Jon Rocco's pictures.

I liked that Percy (the narrator) showed the bad side of the Gods, that they made rash desisons, were hypocritical and in many cases raped people (which he made very clear, was not okay). There were some refrences to PJO and HOO but I would have liked to see more, I saw plenty of oppurtunites for refrences and at some points I wanted confirmation that the creature/weapon Percy was telling us about was the same one i recignised from his adventures. I suppose Rick Riordan was trying to avoid spoilers.

Love Always, 
Freya