Book review: Peace in a Raging Storm

Peace in a Raging Storm by Jenna Thomas

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here.

They were men of different species. Three men Jade Hawthorn found unusual attractions to. And all this time, she thought they were all human here.

Jade knows her family and friends have secrets, but she has questioned little in her life, until now, when her best friend Richard Gale lets something slip.

His life is in danger and he needs her help. Jade agrees, and in doing so finds out that humans are not the superior race, but in fact, last in the ranking.

As her world unravels around her, she turns to her family for stability, but they are as involved in this new reality as Richard.

Jade finds herself drawn between many truths, three men, and different sides of the same war. Would she choose to stand with her family and the humans, or would she give into love and stand against her own?

I'm afraid I can't be unbiased with this review. You see, I know the author. Jenna and I went to school together and she remains one of my good friends. So. This review will be biased. I hope you'll forgive me.

Jade, the main character of the story, is in college -- I forget if we know what year. I like this because there just aren't that many novels that take place in that part of a person's life. I think it's a growing trend, but this is one of the first I've read about someone in college.

Jade's age made a lot of this book easy for me to relate to. Jade's friendships remind me of my friendships, and I loved her relationship with Molly, her bff. And her relationship with her family -- different than when she lived at home, but still, she wants to be close and misses them -- will probably be familiar to anyone who has moved out of the family home.

If I'm going to be completely honest and do my best to be unbiased, I have to say -- you will be able to tell that this is Jenna's first book. But it's a pretty good first.

Peace in a Raging Storm is full of action and mystery. The plot will draw you in and make you think about the story even when you're not reading. And you will be surprised.

Peace in a Raging Storm is available in print and kindle versions on Amazon. :)

Book review: Persephone

Persephone by Kaitlin Bevis

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here, along with other reviews.

There are worse things than death, worse people too

The “talk” was bad enough, but how many teens get told that they’re a goddess? When her mom tells her, Persephone is sure her mother has lost her mind. It isn’t until Boreas, the god of winter, tries to abduct her that she realizes her mother was telling the truth. Hades rescues her, and in order to safely bring Persephone to the Underworld he marks her as his bride. But Boreas will stop at nothing to get Persephone. Despite her growing feelings for Hades, Persephone wants to return to the living realm. Persephone must find a way to defeat Boreas and reclaim her life.

I used to loooove reading books based on mythology, so I was super excited to come across Persephone. A modern retelling of a Greek myth, Persephone is the story of a high school girl who discovers she's actually a goddess.

Persephone was a really fun, quick read. It took a minute to get into the book, but once I did, I loved it and flew through. I read it on the plane last weekend and kept laughing out loud and hoping my neighbors didn't think they were next to the creepy girl who laughs to herself. I actually highlighted a bunch of the passages I thought were funny, but I don't want to spoil it. Okay, here's one.

"Everyone secretly wished they were special. But in all my dreams of discovering I was a superhero, or a witch, or maybe even a princess, I'd never gone as far as goddess. That was too pretentious."

Love it.

Persephone takes some fun turns on traditional Greek mythology. A lot of the gods you've probably heard of are there or mentioned, but there were also many I'd never heard of, and even the ones I had heard of weren't what I was expecting. There's also a really cool world introduced -- but I'll let you discover that on your own!

Persephone is a really fun book -- not the deepest or most high-brow book but a lovely book that you'll love reading!

Have any of you read Persephone? I'd love to hear what you thought!

PS: I received a copy of Persephone for my Kindle in exchange for this review. But! All the opinions expressed here are my own. Promise.

Book review: Between Shades of Gray

Between Shades of Gray by Ruta Sepetys

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews.

Lina is just like any other fifteen-year-old Lithuanian girl in 1941. She paints, she draws, she gets crushes on boys. Until one night when Soviet officers barge into her home, tearing her family from the comfortable life they've known. Separated from her father, forced onto a crowded and dirty train car, Lina, her mother, and her young brother slowly make their way north, crossing the Arctic Circle, to a work camp in the coldest reaches of Siberia. Here they are forced, under Stalin's orders, to dig for beets and fight for their lives under the cruelest of conditions.

Lina finds solace in her art, meticulously--and at great risk--documenting events by drawing, hoping these messages will make their way to her father's prison camp to let him know they are still alive. It is a long and harrowing journey, spanning years and covering 6,500 miles, but it is through incredible strength, love, and hope that Lina ultimately survives.Between Shades of Gray is a novel that will steal your breath and capture your heart.

Between Shades of Gray is the beautifully told story of a Lithuanian girl taken from her home and forced into labor camps with her mother and brother during World War II.

With books that tell the story of survivors of horrendous conditions, the most amazing thing to me is always how they can be anything but the most depressing book you'll ever read. Lina and her family face awful conditions -- they're separated from her father, forced into train cars with too many others, where they must use a hole in the floor boards as a toilet and toss out the folks who die. And that's just the beginning.

Yet, I couldn't get enough of this book. And I think it's that Lina's story was so full of hope. And that you really want to see the characters survive and succeed.

The narration of this story is realistic and beautiful. It jumps a bit between the present and the past, giving you a view into the buildup of tension in Lithuania and helping you to know Lina and her family as they were, as they would have been without the war.

Despite the conditions she's in, Lina is still a teenager. She still gets annoyed with her brother and jealous of others. And I think that's so realistic.

But she's also fighting for her life, and her mother and her brother. She's fighting to make contact with her father. She's fighting to hold on to the sliver of hope she still has.

Between Shades of Gray is a great read for anyone who loves historical fiction -- especially if you'd like to see a side of WWII that isn't often told. Also, Lina shares my birthday. :)

Have any of you read Between Shades of Gray? I highly recommend it! What did you think?

Book review: Requiem

Requiem (Delirium #3) by Lauren Oliver

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews. As this is a sequel, my review will by nature include spoilers for the first two books. Check out my review for the first book and the second book. No spoilers for the third book though!

Now an active member of the resistance, Lena has been transformed. The nascent rebellion that was under way in Pandemonium has ignited into an all-out revolution in Requiem, and Lena is at the center of the fight.

After rescuing Julian from a death sentence, Lena and her friends fled to the Wilds. But the Wilds are no longer a safe haven—pockets of rebellion have opened throughout the country, and the government cannot deny the existence of Invalids. Regulators now infiltrate the borderlands to stamp out the rebels, and as Lena navigates the increasingly dangerous terrain, her best friend, Hana, lives a safe, loveless life in Portland as the fiancée of the young mayor.

Requiem is told from both Lena’s and Hana’s points of view. The two girls live side by side in a world that divides them until, at last, their stories converge.

Requiem is the third and final installment in the Delirium series. The second left with a pretty decent cliffhanger: Lena discovered that Alex, her first love who she thought died helping her escape to the wilds, was alive. In fact, he was in front of her and her new romantic interest, Julian.

With that plot twist, I guess I shouldn't have been surprised that much of this book was one big fat love triangle. It was somewhat disappointing that this took up SO MUCH of the book, but then again -- when the story is about a world that has tried to eradicate love, of course you're going to focus on the love story!

For the first time in the series, Requiem lets us see the world from another character's perspective -- Hana, who has now been cured. I really, really liked this. I liked seeing through the eyes of a cured person -- there was less emotion, but definitely not less fear, and I think that really made the evilness of the cure and the awfulness of society that much clearer.

We also get to check in with Lena's family a bit and see what affect her disappearance had on them. I thought that was another great view into the society of the cure.

Requiem has gotten a lot of criticism from fans because it doesn't wrap up cleanly -- we don't know what's going to happen next at all. But I think it's a (mostly) fair ending. 

Have any of you read Requiem? Did you hate the ending? I'd love to hear what you thought! Be careful of spoilers in the comments, please!

Book review: The House of Mirth

The House of Mirth by Edith Wharton

Description from Goodreads (below) can be found here along with other reviews.

First published in 1905, The House of Mirth shocked the New York society it so deftly chronicles, portraying the moral, social, and economic restraints on a woman who dared to claim the privileges of marriage without assuming the responsibilities. Lily Bart, beautiful, witty, and sophisticated, is accepted by "old money" and courted by the growing tribe of nouveaux riches. But as she nears 30, her foothold becomes precarious; a poor girl with expensive tastes, she needs a husband to preserve her social standing and to maintain her life in the luxury she has come to expect. While many have sought her, something—fastidiousness or integrity—prevents her from making a "suitable" match.

To me, this book was a mix of Jane Austen and Mean Girls. Really. Even though each of these three things (Jane Austen's writing, the book's writing, and Mean Girls) happened with a hundred years almost between each.

The House of Mirth reminds me of Austen's book Emma in a couple ways: one, both are about society -- high society of the time, to be specific, and about making appropriate matches, according to status, mostly. Secondly, because I'm not sure the main character is entirely likeable. With Emma, I know that Austen did this on purpose. With Lily, the main character in  The House of Mirth, I'm not sure.

Lily is a girl with expensive taste. She likes to spend time with folks with much more money than she has, she spends money she doesn't have, and she gets herself into sticky situations with other people's husbands. She is also VERY aware of her own attractiveness and is very manipulative of the effect her beauty and charm have on people. Just when I was getting to like her, she'd talk about how beautiful she was again, and there it went.

And then there's the Mean Girls part. Like I said, Lily gets herself into a couple tricky situations with other people's husbands. Through the repercussions of these incidents, we see the many sides of society life: the cheating, the manipulation, and where you go when you fall from grace.

The House of Mirth shows the many sides of society life in the early 20th century -- the good, the bad and the ugly. It was a bit of a slow read, as many society books are (more visiting with other people and descriptions of parties than actual action) but super fascinating -- and it took turns I was not expecting. I gave it four stars on Goodreads! Thank you to Pat's dad for the book!!

Have any of you read The House of Mirth or books like it? I love to read books like this now and then!