Month: November 2018

book tag

The ABC Book Challenge ~ C

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

The ABC book challenge features a fun weekly post dedicated to interesting books that have been read or would hopefully be read starting with a specific letter of the alphabet.

While I do not know the original creator for this, I have seen this posted by Sofii (A Book. A Thought) and Tiana (The Book Raven ). Check out their sites ’cause they are amazing!

And this week, we’re onto the letter “C”!

Memorable titles starting with “C”

Caraval by Stephanie Garber: when I first read this debut novel, I didn’t expect to fall so in love with it. Set in a mysterious locale with plenty of masked/unknown figures while our protagonist has to find her lost sister was more than enough to get my heart racing until the very end! I never read any book quite like this.

Carve the Mark by Veronica Roth: after the craziness that was Divergent, the newest series was just as imaginative and delightfully different. I always love a bit of a forbidden love element to my stories, and oh boy, are there additional twists in this one!

Cinder by Marissa Meyer: OMG I just don’t know where to start with this one. There’s nothing I recommend more for fairy tale retellings than Marissa’s series, with this book topping it all. Like, imagining Cinderella as a cyborg mechanic who can handle herself better than any old fashion princess? Yes please!

Control by Lydia Kang: this is the only book that mixes science in a beautiful way. Coming from a heavy science background, I love seeing the scientific bits dropping here and there while being wholly creative with the not-so-scientifically-proven twists. Exciting and intriguing, this book captivated me from start to finish!

Crash into You by Katie McGarry: as contemporaries go, nothing beats out Katie, especially in a book such as this with a really hot guy and a girl protagonist whom I can totally relate to with anxiety problems. I loved the chemistry and the slow-burn buildup in the relationship. Just pure perfection ♥️

Titles I want to read starting with “C”

Catwoman: Soulstealer by Sarah J Maas: Selina Kyle + SJM? Sign me up. There’s really nothing else that needs to be said. Except maybe, why the heck did I not read this book sooner?

Children of Blood and Bone by Toni Adeyemi: I’ve heard many good things about this book, although at first the synopsis didn’t immediately attract my attention. I can’t wait to see what the hype is all about.

Circle of Shadows by Evelyn Skye: Second series by Evelyn and I have this ARC just waiting for me to crack open. I love the sounds of stealthy protagonists and schools for learning how to fight! I can’t wait to see what more she has to bring to the table.

Contagion by Erin Bowman: The description sounds scary and mildly Alien-esque but in the vein of trying to read more different genres, toeing the line between sci-fi thriller and horror sounds like it should be a different kind of fun indeed.

The Cursed Sea by Lauren DeStefano: Book 2 after The Glass Spare, which frankly left me hanging there at the end. I just want some closure to the curse upon the protagonist! Is that too much to ask??

Well, what do you think? Did I crack out a few obscure titles or are these ALSO on your list??

2.5 star, YA

Review: The Cruel Prince by Holly Black

Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: The Folk of the Air #1

the cruel prince -holly blackOf course I want to be like them. They’re beautiful as blades forged in some divine fire. They will live forever.

And Cardan is even more beautiful than the rest. I hate him more than all the others. I hate him so much that sometimes when I look at him, I can hardly breathe.

Jude was seven when her parents were murdered and she and her two sisters were stolen away to live in the treacherous High Court of Faerie. Ten years later, Jude wants nothing more than to belong there, despite her mortality. But many of the fey despise humans. Especially Prince Cardan, the youngest and wickedest son of the High King.

To win a place at the Court, she must defy him–and face the consequences.

As Jude becomes more deeply embroiled in palace intrigues and deceptions, she discovers her own capacity for trickery and bloodshed. But as betrayal threatens to drown the Courts of Faerie in violence, Jude will need to risk her life in a dangerous alliance to save her sisters, and Faerie itself.

2.5 Drink Me Potions

Faerie might be beautiful, but its beauty is like a golden stag’s carcass, crawling with maggots beneath his hide, ready to burst.

Back into the land of the fae. While I’m acquainted with faeries from various authors (see Julie Kagawa, Lesley Livingston, recent Cassandra Clare), this is my first real romp with Holly Black’s version of these mythical creatures.

And it’s definitely the crueler side highlighted.

Twins Jude and Taryn have lived with the faeries since they were young after being kidnapped by their parents’ killer. But they’ve been treated fairly well, to the status of Gentry, which explains the extreme Stockholm syndrome present in these girls.

Yet this land is no place for mortals. Or at least, not if they want to be treated well and with respect.

I struggled with Jude as the main character for most of the book. While the high class faeries mocked them and tormented them, I get wanting to hurt them back and to feel less powerless. But Jude pushed back sometimes too hard and it led to consequences that I don’t think she really thought through. And consequences that fell on other people, namely Taryn.

At the same time, it’s this deep anger and willingness to do anything to gain power and control over her own situation that made Jude real. And over time, she became someone stronger – with maybe less scrupulous morals (in some ways).

And yet none of [land, knighthood, love] seems all that valuable anymore. None of those are true power. True power isn’t granted. True power can’t be taken away.

The romance, likewise, got better with time. Prince Cardan is not nice. In fact, that’s a pure understatement.

I couldn’t get a good read on him and I’m not really sure what his attraction to Jude is based on. It’s definitely a slow burn kinda romance so I appreciate that more than insta-love. But I withhold judgment on how it’ll go from there.

The pacing was excruciatingly slow in the beginning. Nothing really got exciting until maybe two-thirds or more into the book. The beginning is basically Jude being angry (instead of having to deal with just being scared) all the time while everyone is cruel to her. I can see why everyone loves this novel overall, yet you really gotta pat yourself on the back for getting to the point where it gets exciting.

With that twisted ending that almost felt like it was left mid-sentence, I do look forward to seeing what’s next in store in this faerie court. The intrigue is afoot!

Overall Recommendation:

The Cruel Prince fell a little flat after all the hype that surrounded it upon release. Slow in its execution and featuring a romance where I couldn’t exactly say I was rooting for the guy for most of the book, the only highlight was the imaginative land of faeries crafted by Holly Black and the twisted ending that I didn’t see coming. Having an irritating but realistic protagonist such as Jude made the journey more interesting, that’s for sure. With book 1 setting the stage in the last 1/3 of the story, I find myself extremely intrigued as to what will come next!

3 star, YA

Review: Spindle by E. K. Johnston

Fives @ Down The Rabbit Hole

Image result for spindle e k johnstonIt has been generations since the Storyteller Queen drove the demon out of her husband and saved her country from fire and blood. Her family has prospered beyond the borders of their village, and two new kingdoms have sprouted on either side of the mountains. There the demons are kept prisoner by bright iron, and by the creatures the Storyteller Queen made to keep them contained.

But the prison is crumbling. Through years of careful manipulation, a demon has regained her power. She has made one kingdom strong and brought the other to its knees, waiting for the perfect moment to strike. When a princess is born, the demon is ready with the final blow: a curse that will cost the princess her very soul, or force her to destroy her own people to save her life.

The threads of magic are tightly spun, binding princess and exiled spinners into a desperate plot to break the curse before the demon can become a queen of men. But the web of power is dangerously tangled – and they may not see the true pattern until it is unspooled.

3 Drink Me Potions

The world is made safe by a woman, yes, but it is a very big world.

Spindle is a dramatic retelling of one of the oldest classics: Sleeping Beauty. However, it is not merely the same characters given different names and guises; a whole new world is created to bring a much different life to the story. Despite its fairytale origins, this book actually has many more mature themes compared to the Disney version, but nevertheless it had all the nostalgic value of the original story.

At first, the story was a little bit hard to follow. The theme is completely different: a cursed baby princess forced spinners in her country to leave due to a plague that attacks spinners specifically. The demons feed off of skill and the making of things, and spinning was chosen as the cursed skill that will ultimately let the demon take over the princess. If you are already confused at what I mean, that is exactly how I felt.

Since the people were cursed to not spin, the King and Queen banned spinning in their whole kingdom, and this led to the massive bonfire of spindles in the city – sound familiar? This is where I finally started to realize that this was the fairytale that I knew and loved (perhaps I should have realized from the title). The final straw was of course this “birthday party” of the Little Rose (the princess – another clue I missed), where magical guardians came bearing gifts, and before the last gift was given, the demon came and cursed the child. The last, and of course the weakest, guardian was left with the task of giving her the princess a small reprieve from the curse. The demon cursed the child to be taken over when she learned to spin, and the guardian gave her the “gift” of sleep if she reached for the spindle. Ding ding ding! Princess Aurora, is that you? Why yes, yes it is.

However, this is not your typical useless princess waiting for her prince to come. As one of the main characters, the Little Rose is a fierce and courageous young lady who embarks on a dangerous journey to break the curse with four new friends – ex-spinners looking to break the curse on their family and country. While Princess Aurora was given the gift of beauty and song, the Little Rose was given much more interesting and dare I say, useful gifts such as the discernment of truth.

The Little Rose was only five years old when her parents ruined my mother and brought ruination to my own life.

Spindle initially follows the journey of a young boy named Yashaa who is the son of an ex-court spinner. With his mother’s position being close to the princess, Yashaa once lived in the castle before the demon came and drove all spinners out of the land. This leads Yashaa to have an inborn hatred for the princess for being the cause of their damnation. Due to the King and Queen banning spinning and exiling all those who practiced to protect their daughter, this left many homeless and bitter. Those who spin in the land are cursed to have a worsening cough until their last breath, such is the demon’s curse.

Yashaa and his friends embark on a journey to save all the spinners and to break the curse on the land. Eventually they meet the princess, who is not at all as they expect. Together they run away and wander through the desert to look for a way to break the curse. All seems hopeless: the Little Rose has the choice of being taken over by a demon or eternal sleep. Romance develops as the journey continues and all the tensions start building as the demon begins to hunt for the lost princess. Will they be able to find a way to break the curse in time, or will eternal sleep be the fate for the Little Rose?

Overall Recommendation:
Sleeping Beauty is one of my favourite fairytales. The elements of magic and a powerful evil villain in Maleficent really enraptured me as a child. As a much older child now, I appreciated the more mature elements of this retelling, especially where the princess is not just some damsel in distress. The whole premise is completely new, and therefore may be hard to catch on. But for me, who loves any fairytale retelling, there was at least that element that I loved. I would say I enjoyed the nostalgia that came with the realization of what the story meant, but it was definitely a little bit more difficult to follow sometimes. Give it a try though, if you enjoyed Sleeping Beauty as much as I did.