Book Review: A Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray

A Great and Terrible Beauty

Author: Libba Bray

Genre: YA historical fiction, supernatural

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Publication date: December 9th 2003

A Victorian boarding school story, a Gothic mansion mystery, a gossipy romp about a clique of girlfriends, and a dark other-worldly fantasy--jumble them all together and you have this complicated and unusual first novel.

Sixteen-year-old Gemma has had an unconventional upbringing in India, until the day she foresees her mother's death in a black, swirling vision that turns out to be true. Sent back to England, she is enrolled at Spence, a girls' academy with a mysterious burned-out East Wing. There Gemma is snubbed by powerful Felicity, beautiful Pippa, and even her own dumpy roommate Ann, until she blackmails herself and Ann into the treacherous clique. Gemma is distressed to find that she has been followed from India by Kartik, a beautiful young man who warns her to fight off the visions. Nevertheless, they continue, and one night she is led by a child-spirit to find a diary that reveals the secrets of a mystical Order. The clique soon finds a way to accompany Gemma to the other-world realms of her visions "for a bit of fun" and to taste the power they will never have as Victorian wives, but they discover that the delights of the realms are overwhelmed by a menace they cannot control. Gemma is left with the knowledge that her role as the link between worlds leaves her with a mission to seek out the "others" and rebuild the Order. A Great and Terrible Beauty is an impressive first book in what should prove to be a fascinating trilogy.

My Take:

This is the first time ever I actually enjoy an historical novel. I usually find books that aren't set in our days or in the future dull and unrelatable. I was utterly clueless about the Victorian era before I started reading and that's why I was pretty skeptical about the whole thing...

I am very happy to tell you that this book was the opposite of everything I expected from an historical novel!!! It was truly the most exciting book I've read in 2013. It gripped me so hard that I could barely put it down.

It's been more than a week since I've finished this novel and I can't stop thinking about it.Where shall I start with it?! It was beautiful. Creepy. Hypnotizing. Devastating. Gripping. Deep. Emotional. Scary. Powerful. Edgy. Dark. Mysterious. Lyrical. Exciting. Heartbreaking. Thought-provoking. Suspenseful... There aren't enough words in the dictionary to describe the overall greatness of this book!!!

It's going to be extremely difficult to describe the plot for all its complexity in just a few sentences but I'm going to try my best...
This book tells the story of Jemma, a 16-year-old Indian-British girl living in the 19th century. Unlike most teenage girls those days, Jemma is stubborn and doesn't agree silently to everything she's being told to do. Her quiet life in India completely changes when her mother is being mysteriously murdered on the her 16th birthday. Jemma is being seized with terrible, uncontrollable visions she is just terrified with. Grief-stricken, the family moves to London. She is sent to an all-girls school, where she's being taught how to get the best marriage and how to become the best wife. While trying to blend in, Jemma befriends a group of girls, each one special in her own way. Together they discover a world of magic, which can be fantastic and fascinating, but also dark and dangerous.

Gemma was an incredible main character. I can't believe how strongly I related to her. I knew I was going to like her from the very first page, when I first encountered her witty sarcasm that made her sounds like a real teen girl. She had a very compelling and sincere teenage voice. I was surprised that even though she lived in a different society with a different mentality than nowadays, she thought just like a modern a girl - she never felt herself lesser than a man and always acted like herself, even if it was considered impolite or inappropriate. I love hew she was true to herself and how she believed she was going to have a brighter future than what adults planned for her.

What I liked even more about her was the affection and true understanding she felt towards her friends - Pippa, Ann and Felicity. These three girls were my favorite part of the book. Each one of them was special and different. They didn't exactly belong into this factory of future-wives. They all had strong desires and wishes that they weren't allowed to express in a place where wanting anything just for pleasure was considered unfeminine and unattractive.  Together, as a group, they built each other's self evaluation. They found out that they're not alone in their feelings, that they're not the only girls in the world who want more than they have and that it's totally okay. I loved how they completed and evened each other - for example, the unpredictable, wild Felicity was opposite to the neat, quiet ann. Together they became strong, invincible, inseparable.  This book showed the power of friendship and how it can be the best and worst thing in the world.

This book was amazing, as I said before, but not perfect. Everything was flawed in one way or another - the characters were sometimes too extreme to be believable and the plot was sometimes kind of... cheesy. But the special thing about this book was that its imperfections only made it BETTER. And that's the magic.
I'm going to rate it four stars, not five, but it doesn't mean I didn't love it. I don't really know how to explain this rating... I just can't bring myself to rate it five because I wanted slightly more from it.

Overall, this book had a great impression on me and I don't think I'll be able to forget it anytime soon. I highly recommend you all to read it!! Seriously, this book shouldn't be missed by anyone...

Rating:

Guess Who's Back!?!??!!?

After a few months of deafening silence.. (ok it wasn't that dramatic)

I'm back!!!!

I miss blogging SO MUCH. I miss my blogging friends, I miss sharing my thoughts and I miss reading your amazingly good blogs. <3

It's going to be an EXTREMELY busy year for me, but I promise I'll try my best to keep my blog running because it's a great pleasure of mine. :D

Thank you for reading this and for still following me after so much time.

*About the ARCs - I currently have about 30 unread eARCs. I'm SO SORRY about that, dear publishers!!! I promise not to request anything until I finish reading all of them (which can take practically my whole life but whatever). I'll try to catch up with them ASAP for everyone's sake. ><


Can't wait to hear from everyone again!!!
SAPIR

Book Review: Amy and Roger's Epic Detour by Morgan Matson

Title: Amy and Roger's Epic Detour

Author: Morgan Matson

Genre: YA contemporary romance, road trip

Publication Date: May 14 2010

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Goodreads || Amazon

Amy Curry thinks her life sucks. Her mom decides to move from California to Connecticut to start anew--just in time for Amy's senior year. Her dad recently died in a car accident. So Amy embarks on a road trip to escape from it all, driving cross-country from the home she's always known toward her new life. Joining Amy on the road trip is Roger, the son of Amy's mother's old friend. Amy hasn’t seen him in years, and she is less than thrilled to be driving across the country with a guy she barely knows. So she's surprised to find that she is developing a crush on him. At the same time, she’s coming to terms with her father’s death and how to put her own life back together after the accident. Told in traditional narrative as well as scraps from the road--diner napkins, motel receipts, postcards--this is the story of one girl's journey to find herself.

This book has been on my to-read shelf for a very long time. It looks pretty nice - I really like the cover and the whole road trip idea sounds pretty interesting, but I never really felt like starting it.... It was just there, on my list of to-read-if-you-don't-have-anything-better. The only reason I finally decided to read it was a group read in the Goodreads group I moderate (Teen Critic).

I can't even describe how glad I am that I finally picked it up. This book was perfect. There isn't a better word to describe it. It was exactly what I needed right now.

This book focuses on a road trip Amy takes with Roger - a guy she has just met - from California to Connecticut.  This trip was all planned for them by Amy's mother, and included staying in the most boring places in America. They decide to take a little detour and visit places they find truly interesting. In the way they meet special people and finally get to know the country they live in and also themselves a little better.
The road trip was the best thing about this book, that's for sure. As a non-american girl, everything I've read was new to me and I learned a lot. Until now, the only thing I knew about states like Kentucky and Kansas were their names. Matson described each country they passed in a beautiful way, which gave me a lot of information but didn't feel boring or over-detailed. Matson's writing style was just fantastic. She has a way with words.

My favorite character in the book was definitely Roger. He wasn't the main character, but because Amy got so close to him I really had the chance to understand and feel like I actually know him in real life. He was always good-mannered and caring and always knew to do the right thing to help Amy. He knew when it was best for her to keep things for herself, but on the other hand he let her cry and express all her emotions when she needed. He was very sensitive to other people's feeling and has always managed to keep everyone around him happy, which was admirable. He was the perfect guy to balance Amy and help her built her trust in herself and in the world around her again after that terrible accident that happened in her past.

This book had some insanely great supporting characters. Amy and Roger met one of Roger's friend in almost every state they stopped, and these characters really added to the book. They gave Amy and Roger's a tour of the state they live in the way they see it as young adults, which was very refreshing and interesting. Each one of this characters was surprisingly well-developed, considering the fact that they appeared in the book for just a chapter or two. That means the author really invested a lot of thought in the story she'd written and I really appreciate that. It would've been amazing if she wrote a full-length novel about each one of these characters, they were that interesting.

This book has everything a contemporary novel should have - a great plot, an awesome setting, a handsome and nice love-interest, an addictive writing, a lot of emotions and witty humor. I highly recommend it to anyone who's looking for a fun read that is also deep and emotional. Seriously, you  really should read it if you haven't done it yet. You'll be surprised at how good it is.

Rating:

Sorry, I won't be very active here until September

This is going to be my very last post in this blog.
Blogging's been a lot fun. I met a lot of new people who love books like me. The problem is how addictive and time-consuming it became. I feel like I'm giving up on other more important real-life things for this blog.
Thank you so much for being such great readers, it's been a pleasure to read your comments and talk to you guys <3

Yours for the last time,
Sapir


~EDIT 7/9 ~

I really miss blogging!! It's a very busy time right now for me but I'll try to update a little bit. Maybe post a review here and there.... Thanks for you support and understanding!! I really appreciate that ♥

Netgalley Nockout Challenge Sign-Up :D

When I saw this challenge later today, my first thought was: "this challenge was created for me"!!
I just love getting ARCs. When I get approved for one I feel like the best blogger in the world because a publisher had actually visited my blog and found it worthy enough to feature a book!! That's really flattering. My blog isn't big enough for me to receive physical ARCs and I don't have any intention to request them either because I just LOVE reading on my Kindle.
The problem is that recently I got way too many eARCs. And it's not like I don't have anything else to read!!! I thought I'm the only one in this situation... Well, apparently not. So come on, LET'S KNOCKOUT THOSE REVIEW EBOOKS!!! :D


For more info sign up here

Book Review: Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi

Shatter Me

Author: Tahereh Mafi

Genre: YA dystopian, romance.

Publisher: HarperCollins

Publication Date: November 15th 2011

Goodreads || Amazon

"You can't touch me," I whisper.

I'm lying, is what I don't tell him.

He can touch me, is what I'll never tell him.

But things happen when people touch me.

Strange things.

Bad things.

No one knows why Juliette's touch is fatal, but The Reestablishment has plans for her. Plans to use her as a weapon.

But Juliette has plans of her own.

After a lifetime without freedom, she's finally discovering a strength to fight back for the very first time—and to find a future with the one boy she thought she'd lost forever.

When I saw this cover and read the synopsis of this book, I was sure this book is going to be like Divergent - something about a strong girl living in the distant future and a lot of brutal fights. I have nothing against this type of books, I actually enjoy them a lot, but recently I got a bit tired of all these action novels.  I'm more of a romance girl. There's nothing I like better than a good, heart-warming love story.

That's why I was pleasantly surprised to find out that this book was actually romantic. The author has managed to write a dytopian novel in which the romance and the emotions between the two main characters are the main subject. That made me think about the whole genre of dystopia.
I wonder who has decided that a dystopian novel has to be action-packed and nothing more than that? Who says it can't be romantic? Tear-jerking? Filled with love and hatred and all kind of flaring emotions? Who says it can't break your heart into pieces and then glue them together?

From these questions you can probably understand what made this book so great. I couldn't put it down from the very first page. I was sucked into Juliette's world - I saw everything through her eyes. I felt her despair, her terrible childhood memories, her pains and mental scars. The writing style of this book was very unusual, with a lot of repeated words and confused thoughts just scattered on the pages, but it was just perfect for this specific story. I love how I could get a glimpse of what was actually going through Juliette's mind, along with her confusion and thoughts she tired repress.

She acted like a real teenage girl when she met Adam. She recognized Adam as a threat at the beginning, but like a real teenage girl near her crush, she slowly fell for him. He, from his side, made her feel comfortable and loved near him until she let him see her real self. With the help of him, Juliette transformed from a closed up, untrusting, afraid-of-her-own-powers girl, to a strong, self-confident women. The character development of her was amazing and that's why she was a great main character.

I would recommend this book to people who enjoy romantic, emotional stories. This is not the action-packed novel you might expect, and it might not be for everyone, but personally I just loved almost everything about it except for some minor plot issues. I am sure the next book will be even better because of the ending that left me dying for more. Tahereh Mafi is an extremely talented author and I can understand all the hype around her books.

Pros:

• Unique, beautiful writing.
• Great character development.
• A different, new kind of dystopian novels.
• A lot of romance and emotions involved.

Cons:

• The plot was a bit dragging at some points, but other then that nothing major.

Rating:

Blog Tour: The Neptune Project (Book Info + Giveaway)

Title: The Neptune Project

Author: Polly Holyoke

Publisher: Disney/Hyperion Publishing

Publication Date: May 21, 2013

With her weak eyes and useless lungs that often leave her gasping for air, Nere feels more at home swimming with the dolphins her mother studies than she does hanging out with her classmates. Nere has never understood why she is so much more comfortable and confident in the water than on land until the day she learns the shocking truth—she is one of a group of kids who have been genetically altered to survive in the ocean.

These products of the “Neptune Project” are supposed to build a better future under the waves, safe from the terrible famines and wars and that rock the surface world.But there are some big challenges ahead of her: no one ever asked Nere if she wanted to be part of a science experiment; the other Neptune kids aren’t exactly the friendliest bunch, and in order to reach the safe haven of the new Neptune colony, Nere and her fellow mutates must swim across hundreds of miles of dangerous ocean, relying on their wits, their loyal dolphins and one another to evade terrifying undersea creatures and a government that will stop at nothing to capture the Neptune kids … dead or alive.

Fierce battle and daring escapes abound as Nere and her friend race to safety in this action-packed marine adventure.

 

 

About the Author:
Polly Holyoke has been imagining stories since she was in fifth grade. When she isn’t writing, Polly loves reading, camping, skiing, scuba diving and hiking in the desert (where she quite stupidly got herself bitten by a rattlesnake). She lives with three rescue dogs, two spoiled cats and a nice husband who is tolerant about the piles of books all over their house. Her debut middle grade novel, THE NEPTUNE PROJECT, is the story of a young girl leading a group of genetically altered teens fighting to survive in the sea. She is thrilled that this novel will be published by Disney/Hyperion and Puffin Books UK summer, 2013. She thinks the best part about being an author is going to work in her sweatpants and getting paid for daydreaming!

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