Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Review: Down with the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn

January 18, 2016January 20, 2016 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

down with the shine -kate karyus quinn There’s a reason they say “be careful what you wish for.” Just ask the girl who wished to be thinner and ended up smaller than Thumbelina, or the boy who asked for “balls of steel” and got them-literally. And never wish for your party to go on forever. Not unless you want your guests to be struck down by debilitating pain if they try to leave.

These are things Lennie only learns when it’s too late-after she brings some of her uncles’ moonshine to a party and toasts to dozens of wishes, including a big wish of her own: to bring back her best friend, Dylan, who was abducted and murdered six months ago.

Lennie didn’t mean to cause so much chaos. She always thought her uncles’ moonshine toast was just a tradition. And when they talked about carrying on their “important family legacy,” she thought they meant good old-fashioned bootlegging.

As it turns out, they meant granting wishes. And Lennie has just granted more in one night than her uncles would grant in a year.

Now she has to find a way to undo the damage. But once granted, a wish can’t be unmade…

3.5 Drink Me Potions

Thank you Edelweiss and HarperCollins for this copy in exchange for an honest review.

**Down with the Shine comes out April 26, 2016**

This story had its dark moments but it never quite felt that way due to the whimsical manner in which it was written.

Or it could just be because wish-granting made it seem less serious since (hopefully!) you could wish the terrible things undone.

Down with the Shine was immediately not what I had originally expected. Lennie was named after her infamous father, a known robber and killer on the FBI’s Top Ten Watch list or something. This made her very unpopular among her peers, and hence, the understandably low self-esteem and “play it safe” look on life.

Oh, and also? Her best friend was murdered and chopped into individual pieces. Continue reading “Review: Down with the Shine by Kate Karyus Quinn” →

Review: Shade Me by Jennifer Brown

January 17, 2016January 20, 2016 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: Nikki Kill #1

shade me -jennifer brown Nikki Kill does not see the world like everyone else. In her eyes, happiness is pink, sadness is a mixture of brown and green, and lies are gray. Thanks to a rare phenomenon called synesthesia, Nikki’s senses overlap, in a way that both comforts and overwhelms her.

Always an outsider, just one ‘D’ shy of flunking out, Nikki’s life is on the fast track to nowhere until the night a mysterious call lights her phone up bright orange—the color of emergencies. It’s the local hospital. They need Nikki to identify a Jane Doe who is barely hanging on to life after a horrible attack.

The victim is Peyton Hollis, a popular girl from Nikki’s school who Nikki hardly knows. One thing is clear: Someone wants Peyton dead. But why? And why was Nikki’s cell the only number in Peyton’s phone?

As she tries to decipher the strange kaleidoscope of clues, Nikki finds herself thrust into the dark, glittering world of the ultra-rich Hollis family, and drawn towards Peyton’s handsome, never-do-well older brother Dru. While Nikki’s colors seem to help her unravel the puzzle, what she can’t see is that she may be falling into a trap. The only truth she can be sure of is that death is a deep, pulsing crimson.

Shade Me is award-winning author Jennifer Brown’s first book in a thrilling suspense series about Nikki Kill.

2.5 Drink Me Potions

Thank you Edelweiss and HarperCollins for this copy in exchange for an honest review

**Shade Me comes out January 19, 2016**

It took me a long time to persuade myself to read Shade Me after seeing the drastic negative ratings from reviewers. Now that I’ve actually read it for myself, I can see why it may not have sat well with everyone.

Here’s the background context of the story.

Nikki Kill (cool last name, right?) is a synesthete who associated colours with numbers and letters. Oh boy, I can only imagine how distracting that would be to do math or chemistry with colours floating in the air around it.

Anyway, she likes to be alone for the most part. She has no real friends. This all stems back from her mother’s murder when she was a kid that was never solved. Add into the equation that not everyone believed she had synesthesia, which I find astounding considering it isn’t some unheard of disorder that affects nearly no one, she’s apt to want to stick to herself. Trust and trusting her heart to someone is a huge issue with her. So getting dragged into a whole mess with a super powerful family, the Hollises, was the very opposite of what her life was normally like. Now people were paying attention to her and spreading rumours when her biggest worry previously was to just be able to graduate high school.

So let me break it simply down into what was likeable and what- well – wasn’t. Continue reading “Review: Shade Me by Jennifer Brown” →

Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff

January 16, 2016January 20, 2016 Andge @ Down the Rabbit Hole

Series: The Illuminae Files #1

illuminae -amie kaufamn and jay kristoff This morning, Kady thought breaking up with Ezra was the hardest thing she’d have to do.

This afternoon, her planet was invaded.

The year is 2575, and two rival megacorporations are at war over a planet that’s little more than an ice-covered speck at the edge of the universe. Too bad nobody thought to warn the people living on it. With enemy fire raining down on them, Kady and Ezra—who are barely even talking to each other—are forced to fight their way onto an evacuating fleet, with an enemy warship in hot pursuit.

But their problems are just getting started. A deadly plague has broken out and is mutating, with terrifying results; the fleet’s AI, which should be protecting them, may actually be their enemy; and nobody in charge will say what’s really going on. As Kady hacks into a tangled web of data to find the truth, it’s clear only one person can help her bring it all to light: the ex-boyfriend she swore she’d never speak to again.

Told through a fascinating dossier of hacked documents—including emails, schematics, military files, IMs, medical reports, interviews, and more—Illuminae is the first book in a heart-stopping, high-octane trilogy about lives interrupted, the price of truth, and the courage of everyday heroes.

5 Drink Me Potions

Kady Grant: He said, “You picked a hell of a day to dump me, Kades.”

I don’t lightly give 5 star ratings, but Illuminae has swept my breath away. It is literally a piece of art, with the unique layout of pages from hacked memos to re-routed secret IMs to black and white pictures of space. But it’s not just an ordinary piece of art. It’s a masterpiece, crafted in such a creative manner like nothing else I’ve ever read before.

It starts off with a storyline that you think you’ve heard before. Girl dumps boy for some reason that is hinted but not revealed yet. Okay, sounds familiar enough. But all hell breaks loose literally hours after, with fire falling from the skies as a rival company drops out of nowhere to attack their tiny planet on the edge of the known universe.

Sweet. So our characters, Kady and Ezra, rush up into spacecrafts fleeing from the enemy. Okay, it still sounds familiar enough. Life on a spaceship hurtling through the universe? Might have seen something like that before.

But it’s WAY bigger than that. Action is ratcheted high within the first several pages. You’re flipping through the pages of documents and transcripted interviews trying to figure out what the heck went down. And as things start making sense, like who attacked them and why this company would do such a thing, there are still so many uncertainties open.

Ezra and Kady get separated on 2 different ships so our two exes ignore each other for a while. Of course, that doesn’t last. As things get worse as they journey for help in the distant universe, Kady with her hacker skills turns to Ezra as he’s the last person in the world she has left. Their IMs were some of my very favourite part of Illuminae. For most of the story, they’re apart and so we really get to see how they interact with other people around them beyond each other. Their personalities become real and tangible. Not just some hero or girl-who-broke-his-heart or however they are with each other. They feel like REAL teenagers that you and I may have bumped into or have known.

But with each other? It’s priceless. It’s clear their chemistry hasn’t died down with the months and distance between them. The love there isn’t just driven by desperation or fear or craving for familiarity in a world that has turned upside down. Amidst all the craziness (and oh boy, is there craziness!), this tale is still a beautiful love story of two people who would do anything for each other.

Still there is no time for sorrow. She knows he is in here somewhere, the one she risked everything for.
The only one she has left. The one she loves true.
“Ezra?”

And goodness. Ezra Mason is one funny and romantic dude.

Mason, E, LT 2nd:Damn, I still remember first day in her class. You were checking me out HARD, Grant.
ByteMe: U. R. DELUSIONAL. u kept asking me stupid questions about hydrogen bonding
Mason, E, LT 2nd: confession: hydrogen was not the kind of bonding on my mind

Continue reading “Review: Illuminae by Amie Kaufman and Jay Kristoff” →