I spent a good portion of this book floating somewhere between wanting to punch Gabriel Merrick in the face and wanting to hug him and bake him cookies. Our pyromaniac always has the ability to bring up the most strong feelings due to his personality being so unpredictable. In Storm, I down-right hated him because, let’s be honest, he’s a dick. But somehow in Spark I started feeling differently. Don’t get me wrong, I still don’t love Gabriel, but I don’t hate him anymore either.

Spark reminds me another book I’ve recently that features an anti-hero as its love interest: The Collector. The biggest difference is that Gabriel already has a past for really not being very well-liked in Storm. So he has to overcome a reader’s preconceived notions and I honestly didn’t think I could like this guy, even a little, after his behavior in Storm.

Nameless is a bit like billowing, amazing clouds on a warm sunny day.  It’s nice.  Just really nice, you know?  Sure, it doesn’t move fast and clouds aren’t the most gripping things to look at, but it was just really nice.   God I really liked Nameless and I really like clouds.  They’re so magical.

Unless they’re giving you goatse.  Don’t look that up if you don’t know what it is btw.

Nameless wasn’t a perfect novel, but it was an enjoyable novel. I feel like most of the things it set out to do, it accomplished.

Things like creating, nurturing and building the relationship between Nico and Cami.  Book, candle, Nico *cue heart melt* (you’d get it if you read the book).  There felt like a depth of years to their relationship and that’s a hard thing to manufacture in a few hundred pages.

Nameless was a pretty ambitious story, which worked out for me because I’m a pretty ambitious reader, but it’s not going to float everyone’s boats. 

Occasionally, my husband and I will discuss books that I am reading at the time. It mostly depends on if the cover sparks his curiosity enough to find out what it’s about. In this case, he saw me putting together the Elemental Virgins post a few weeks ago (which may or may not have led to a few awkward questions. “So you’re a virgin, huh?”), so he knew this was one of the books in the series. One day, I was minding my business, cracking up in my little Reading Corner at some witty banter between the Merrick boys, and hubby and I had an interesting exchange:

“So, what’s going on in your book? You liking it?” he said.

“Yeah, it’s pretty funny. I like some parts more than others,” I said.

“That’s good, I guess?” he asked.

“Well, it’s just this one character named Gabriel that’s being a total douche,” I replied.

I can’t believe I survived. Should I laugh? Cry?

Definitely both.

Full disclosure: I went into this book with a suspicion that I might not enjoy it after my bookish twin panned it. But since I requested this book and was sent a paper ARC from the publisher, I thought I’d try to go in with an open mind and try it out.

That was probably not the best decision I’ve ever made in life.

It goes without saying that this review will be long, contain spoilers and quotes that might possibly make your eyes bleed. RUN WHILE YOU STILL CAN.

There are two reasons why I felt I NEEDED to have this book. (1) Just look at that cover! (2) The blurb made it sound like a fun summer read. On both of those counts I was mislead, but especially when it came to the blurb.  If you think this book has romance, guess again.

I’m not sure how to proceed with this review WITHOUT resorting to a shit ton of gifs. I just really feel like some kind of crazy wild action would better represent how I feel than words ever could.

I mean, I could say that The Eternity Cure is one badass tale that left me desperate for more because this story was fucking awesome.  Or I could just do this:

Which is, no joke, my exact facial expression upon finishing this book.  I think it actually stayed like that for a full two minutes.

I could tell you that Allison Sekemoto was such an unmitigated badass that I am prepared to lay my sword down at her badass feet and swear my fealty to her as the god of badass forever.  Or I could just do this:

See how much easier that is?  I can’t write this bloody review because I’m too busy stalking Julie Kagawa and thinking of ways to beg her to hurry up and give me the next book.

Some people are really going to like Prophecy Girl.  People who like a very distinctive protagonist voice littered with pop culture references.  Fans of Vampire Academy, who are looking for something similar, will also probably at least be interested – if not enjoy it.  I don’t think it’s unfair to state that Prophecy Girl is highly derivative of Vampire Academy.  Non Academic, rough and tumble protagonist with an intelligent best friend, falls in love with hot young tutor, crazy shenanigans, magical world – it was all very highly reminiscent.  Derivative doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad, but in this case the comparison doesn’t favor Prophecy Girl.  In a Who Wrote It Better? competition, Mead comes out a clear victor.

The story is heavily focused on the romance between Amelie and Jack, which I felt was a misstep as it rarely managed to run anything but hot (fan yourself, dim the lights, spark some candles hot) and cold (wet, dead, stinky-fish cold).

Okay, let’s start this review off with some straight-up trufax. On my own, it’s possible I may not have chosen this book to read. That’s not because the blurb didn’t sound interesting, it’s just that out of all the other YA sub-genres, Paranormal Romance is the one I have a very inconsistent streak with. Which is unfortunate because when it’s done right, I fall in love with the story. My start with The Collector reminds me of what happened with Obsidian. I kept seeing it all over other’s twitter avatars and hearing about it on a few blogs I follow (you know the drill), but somehow that simply wasn’t enough for me to actually say, “Hell yeah. Sign me up.” But that was a mistake because The Collector had me LOL’ing from beginning to end.

The thing about this book is that you are not going to like Dante at first.

It’s always a sad day when I must say goodbye to a series that I’ve come to love over the years. You feel so invested in the characters that you just don’t want it to be over. But what’s really the nail biter is the concern of the final book ending on a high note. Will it meet your expectations? Will it be just a satisfying conclusion? Will it completely suck? I mean, who wants to remember a series thinking, “Awww, man! This series was great… until the author blew it in the final book. Such a shame really.” Fortunately, I think Boundless was great for most of the novel, but did let me down a bit with the very last chapters. And as you probably guessed, it would be very spoiler-y of me to go into detail of what bothered me and I’m trying very hard to keep this spoiler free.

I propose we begin a foundation.  Survivors of the Everneath Series Anonymous.  Because this book seriously gave me ALL the feels:

I’m going to try to do this without spoiling the last book or this one, kay my friends?

Nikki needs Cole’s help in the Everneath.  She has to make it through three mazes, avoid zombie-like wanderers, the Queen of the Everneath and the Shades or she and Jack are going to die.

And can I just say: GOD THIS BOOK!  WHY?!  WHY!??!!?!  Ashton, do you feed on our tears?  Do you use them in your magic spells?  Do you boil them in your brews?  How could you give us such an ending – AGAIN!?

I read the last page of this book with the colour draining from my face, shaking my head and going, “No!  No!  Noooooo! She got me again!”  I mean, there’s just so mean you can be to your readers before they’re justified in kidnapping you and forcing you to hand over any and all sequels!

If you finish a book and can’t stop wistfully thinking about it, even after you’ve put it down, you know that the author did something right. However, if you find yourself seized by momentary fits of anger, you know that several things went wrong.

If you vacillate between both reactions? Well that’s just confusing.

In the beginning, The Shadow Society seemed like it was designed for me to adore it. It opened in the middle of the action without making me frustrated or disoriented, and then set the narration backwards, introducing characters with some hilarious banter between Darcy and her friends. Needless to say, I was drawn in completely.

I grew concerned with another of the opening scenes, where Darcy first locks eyes with Conn and freaks out about it. ‘Who is this boy? Why did he look at me like that? Am I overreacting? Oh my god who is this boy?’ These musings appear way too often in Paranormal Romance, and are a difficult cliche to look beyond.