Tag Archives: Simon & Schuster

Lord of Shadows

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“Everyone is afraid of something. We fear things because we value them. We fear losing people because we love them. We fear dying because we value being alive. Don’t wish you didn’t fear anything. All that would mean is that you didn’t feel anything.”

Title: Lord of Shadows

Author: Cassandra Clare

Series: The Dark Artifices # 2

Publication: May 23rd 2017 by Margaret K. McElderry Books

Pages: 701

Source: Purchased

Summary from Goodreads:

A Shadowhunter’s life is bound by duty. Constrained by honor. The word of a Shadowhunter is a solemn pledge, and no vow is more sacred than the vow that binds parabatai, warrior partners—sworn to fight together, die together, but never to fall in love.

Emma Carstairs has learned that the love she shares with her parabatai, Julian Blackthorn, isn’t just forbidden—it could destroy them both. She knows she should run from Julian. But how can she when the Blackthorns are threatened by enemies on all sides?

Their only hope is the Black Volume of the Dead, a spell book of terrible power. Everyone wants it. Only the Blackthorns can find it. Spurred on by a dark bargain with the Seelie Queen, Emma; her best friend, Cristina; and Mark and Julian Blackthorn journey into the Courts of Faerie, where glittering revels hide bloody danger and no promise can be trusted. Meanwhile, rising tension between Shadowhunters and Downworlders has produced the Cohort, an extremist group of Shadowhunters dedicated to registering Downworlders and “unsuitable” Nephilim. They’ll do anything in their power to expose Julian’s secrets and take the Los Angeles Institute for their own.

When Downworlders turn against the Clave, a new threat rises in the form of the Lord of Shadows—the Unseelie King, who sends his greatest warriors to slaughter those with Blackthorn blood and seize the Black Volume. As dangers close in, Julian devises a risky scheme that depends on the cooperation of an unpredictable enemy. But success may come with a price he and Emma cannot even imagine, one that will bring with it a reckoning of blood that could have repercussions for everyone and everything they hold dear.

A Brief Explanation of All the Feels:

“Lex malla, lex nulla,” said Julian with a regretful wave of his hand. It was the Blackthorn family motto: A bad law is no law.

This was me when reading this massive and beautiful mess of pain, suffering, and giggles:

(Just in case)

 

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The Monstrumologist

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“There are times when fear is not our enemy. There are times when fear is our truest, sometimes only, friend.”

Title: The Monstrumologist

Author: Rick Yancey

Series: The Monstrumologist # 1

Publication: September 22nd 2009 by Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Pages: 434

Source: Library

Summary from Goodreads:

These are the secrets I have kept. This is the trust I never betrayed. But he is dead now and has been for more than forty years, the one who gave me his trust, the one for whom I kept these secrets. The one who saved me . . . and the one who cursed me.

So starts the diary of Will Henry, orphaned assistant to Dr. Pellinore Warthorpe, a man with a most unusual specialty: monstrumology, the study of monsters. In his time with the doctor, Will has met many a mysterious late-night visitor, and seen things he never imagined were real. But when a grave robber comes calling in the middle of the night with a gruesome find, he brings with him their most deadly case yet.

A gothic tour de force that explores the darkest heart of man and monster and asks the question: When does man become the very thing he hunts?

A Certain Amount of Feelings:

  • The monsters are actually scary, yay! I didn’t like much else beyond that, but there were honest monsters that wanted to kill you and could potentially bring nightmares if read in the dark.
  • Mad scientist for the win, but not really. He’s pretty chill for a mad scientist, though
  • Narrator is named Will… Victorian London, wait, THE INFERNAL DEVICES. (Alas, I was wrong.)
  • Monstrumology is cool, but that’s about it. I’m starting to lose my cool as I flip pages.
  • Yupp, me no longer likey. It was cool, not it’s trying too hard to bring a moral question about becoming a monster to hunt monsters. Eh?
  • There is also a love of scones. Infernal Devices, again.
  • I never thought I would say this, but for a book, I think this is too much gore. It’s one thing when watching a scary movie, but I really don’t enjoy reading about blood splattered this and dripped off that every other page.
  • Decent book, just not my cup of tea.

Overall:

Feel free to give it a try, you might like it more than I did.

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All American Boys

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“Nobody says the words anymore, but somehow the violence still remains. If I didn’t want the violence to remain, I had to do a hell of a lot more than just say the right things and not say the wrong things.”

Title: All American Boys

Authors: Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely

Series: Standalone

Publication: September 29th 2015 by Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books

Pages: 316

Source: Library

Summary from Goodreads:

Rashad is absent again today.

That’s the sidewalk graffiti that started it all…

Well, no, actually, a lady tripping over Rashad at the store, making him drop a bag of chips, was what started it all. Because it didn’t matter what Rashad said next—that it was an accident, that he wasn’t stealing—the cop just kept pounding him. Over and over, pummeling him into the pavement. So then Rashad, an ROTC kid with mad art skills, was absent again…and again…stuck in a hospital room. Why? Because it looked like he was stealing. And he was a black kid in baggy clothes. So he must have been stealing.

And that’s how it started.

And that’s what Quinn, a white kid, saw. He saw his best friend’s older brother beating the daylights out of a classmate. At first Quinn doesn’t tell a soul…He’s not even sure he understands it. And does it matter? The whole thing was caught on camera, anyway. But when the school—and nation—start to divide on what happens, blame spreads like wildfire fed by ugly words like “racism” and “police brutality.” Quinn realizes he’s got to understand it, because, bystander or not, he’s a part of history. He just has to figure out what side of history that will be.

Rashad and Quinn—one black, one white, both American—face the unspeakable truth that racism and prejudice didn’t die after the civil rights movement. There’s a future at stake, a future where no one else will have to be absent because of police brutality. They just have to risk everything to change the world.

Cuz that’s how it can end.

My Thoughts:

All American Boys is about All-American racism. It is about police brutality, what it means to choose a side, and how not choosing a side makes you part of the problem. All American Boys offers contrasting views of the same incident – both from the victim and from a bystander. This is a story of troubles those with privilege would never likely think twice about. It is a story about choosing to take a stand when everyone around you tells you you’re wrong. It is about honesty, responsibility, and how perceptions can be both subtle and out in the open yet be equally problematic and hurtful.

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Coming Soon: November 2016

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Who else is ready for another round of books?

That’s right, this girl!

Books are amazing, unique packages of magic and every month there is a whole slew of new additions to the fold. Here are some of my most anticipated books coming out this upcoming month.

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Coming Soon: October 2016

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The best part about October is Halloween. Not really (yes really, but still). No, the best part about October is the insane amount of long awaited books now available for the unlimited consumption of book nerds and the like. Get ready to make the first page of that Christmas wishlist!

Everyone We’ve Been by Sarah Everett

Summary from Goodreads:

For fans of Jandy Nelson and Jenny Han comes a new novel that asks, can you possibly know the person you’re becoming if you don’t know the person you’ve been?

Addison Sullivan has been in an accident. In its aftermath, she has memory lapses and starts talking to a boy that no one else can see. It gets so bad that she’s worried she’s going crazy.

Addie takes drastic measures to fill in the blanks and visits a shadowy medical facility that promises to “help with your memory.” But at the clinic, Addie unwittingly discovers it is not her first visit. And when she presses, she finds out that she had certain memories erased. She had a boy erased.

But why? Who was that boy, and what happened that was too devastating to live with? And even if she gets the answers she’s looking for, will she ever be able to feel like a whole person again?

October 4th 2016 by Knopf Books for Young Readers

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