Book Review: Divergent by Veronica Roth

Author: Veronica Roth
Publisher: Katherine Tegen Books
Publication Date: February 28th 2012
Series: Divergent #1
Pages: 485
Buy on: Amazon
Add on: Goodreads, Leafmarks

Rating 3.5 stars

In Beatrice Prior's dystopian Chicago world, society is divided into five factions, each dedicated to the cultivation of a particular virtue--Candor (the honest), Abnegation (the selfless), Dauntless (the brave), Amity (the peaceful), and Erudite (the intelligent). On an appointed day of every year, all sixteen-year-olds must select the faction to which they will devote the rest of their lives. For Beatrice, the decision is between staying with her family and being who she really is--she can't have both. So she makes a choice that surprises everyone, including herself.

During the highly competitive initiation that follows, Beatrice renames herself Tris and struggles alongside her fellow initiates to live out the choice they have made. Together they must undergo extreme physical tests of endurance and intense psychological simulations, some with devastating consequences. As initiation transforms them all, Tris must determine who her friends really are--and where, exactly, a romance with a sometimes fascinating, sometimes exasperating boy fits into the life she's chosen. But Tris also has a secret, one she's kept hidden from everyone because she's been warned it can mean death. And as she discovers unrest and growing conflict that threaten to unravel her seemingly perfect society, Tris also learns that her secret might help her save the ones she loves . . . or it might destroy her. 

My Thoughts:

I was avoiding this book since it came out in 2012. I was seeing it everywhere, I heard about it everywhere, I even recommended it to customers at the bookstore because everyone was reading it. I was avoiding it mostly because, when a new book is coming out I usually refrain from reading it, and the reason? None at all. Its like a bad reflex.

Despite all the raving reviews for Divergent and the two sequels, I dont particularly think this book is 100% dystopian. I would rather categorize it under Young Adult Fantasy with a lot of futuristic and Hunger Games elements – minus the slaying of teenagers.

Meet Tris, a girl from the fraction of Abnegation who's life changes completely when a test categorises her as something abnormal – Divergent. She decides to leave her fraction for Dauntless. A group of people that mesmerized from a young age, when she realized that she is not selfless enough in order to belong to Abnegation. What struck me while the book progressed, was the fact that Tris became amazingly selfish. It seemed that she cared about her previous fraction but not enough. And that was kind of annoying. I liked that Tris decided to challenge herself and chose Dauntless, something that was completely different from what she was before. Although, selfish, she evolves.

Meet Four, a guy that is very intriguing and quiet but absolutely fit, and Tris's instructor. We get a lot of glimpses of him, until he becomes something more to Tris and although, the romance was not that sizzling, I cared for both of them deeply and I wanted (and want) to read more. I'm sure we will get a lot more of Four in the upcoming books.

The plot was okay, pretty simple in my opinion, and there were some subplots and things for consideration that ended up playing a major role in the progress of the book and the series. I am not crazy about it but I care enough to inhale the next two books in the series AND the book about Four.

At last, what struck me as odd is that people target this book towards teens of 12-17 of age but the violence in it is kind of much and at times shocking. From attacks, to catcalls, to suicide to extreme violence and fights. So I am not so sure if you would like your kid, cousin, niece whatever reading that if they are below 14 (again in my opinion).

So, yeah, dystopian or not this book is really good and it would appeal to the fans of The Hunger Games.

Black Box by Cassie Leo (book review by Efterpi)

Author: Cassie Leo
Publisher: Create Space Independent Publishing
Release Date: May 10th 2014
Pages: 394
Rating: 4 stars
Buy on Amazon
Add on Goodreads\

♥️ Three fateful encounters....
♥️ Two heart-breaking tragedies....
♥️ One last chance to get it right.

From New York Times best selling author Cassia Leo, comes an epic love story about rewriting destiny.

Over the course of five years, Mikki and Crush cross paths on three separate occasions. Their first encounter changes Mikki's life forever, but their second meeting leaves them both buried beneath the emotional wreckage of a violent attack. Mikki is left with more questions and grief than she can handle, while Crush is forced to forget the girl who saved his life.

Now nineteen years old, Mikki Gladstone has decided she's tired of the mind-numbing meds. She books a flight to Los Angeles to end her life far away from her loving, though often distant, family.

When Mikki and Crush cross paths for the third time in Terminal B, neither has any idea who the other person is; until they slowly piece together their history and realize that fate has more in store for them than just another love story.

Review

Black box its not your typical love story – in fact its so much different and fresh that any love story out there. Written in a masterful way the author promises heartbreak, gloom and sadness and rejoice in a whole other level.

It all starts with Mikki a girl suffering from bipolar and a past full with unhealed wounds that hunt her everywhere. She feels her past everyday, she sees them, breathes them, she changed completely because of them but she never got over them. That memory never erased no matter how many meeting she had with her phycholgist no matter how many times she tried to kill herself. They are there but under the shadow of her scary past lies a mystery, her savior.

Meet Crush a sexy, sad and rich man who tries to hide from his friend death that happened four years ago,a guy who carries a burden and the worst of guilts on his shoulders a guy who tried to find the only person that made him feel and saved him without her knowledge, a girl that he will never forget no matter what...until he finds her in the most weird place – an airport.

It all started there at the airport a journey of two people that were ''strangers'' until they realised that they know each other and they had met under the most gory and sad circumstances. Their separate tragedies entwine to reveal the utmost purpose of fate. While the days the have together they explore themselves and their limits they also become close. Mikki never had so many first in her entire life but within a few days she managed to find herself and love herself for who she is and for what she wants to be. She embraced life and saw hope in the future for the first time.

The book is written really well but what put me off was the insta love and the too many coincidnces that really made some parts of the book cliché. Other than that the writing was really good, we had a double POV which for me was a huge plus since you get the whole story with no loose ends or gaps.

Its a great read that will make your heart ache from sadness but in the end you will rejoice with utmost excitement.

The Storyteller by Antonia Michaelis (Book Review by Eleni)

Author: Antonia Michaelis
Release Date: January 1st 2012
Publisher: Amulet Books
Pages: 402
Rating: 5 stars
Buy at: Amazon , Barnes and Noble

Anna and Abel couldn’t be more different. They are both seventeen and in their last year of school, but while Anna lives in a nice old town house and comes from a well-to-do family, Abel, the school drug dealer, lives in a big, prisonlike tower block at the edge of town. Anna is afraid of him until she realizes that he is caring for his six-year-old sister on his own. Fascinated, Anna follows the two and listens as Abel tells little Micha the story of a tiny queen assailed by dark forces. It’s a beautiful fairy tale that Anna comes to see has a basis in reality. Abel is in real danger of losing Micha to their abusive father and to his own inability to make ends meet. Anna gradually falls in love with Abel, but when his “enemies” begin to turn up dead, she fears she has fallen for a murderer. Has she?

Review:

I have been staring the screen for half an hour now trying to come up with a review for this beautiful, heart wrecking book. I can't...so i will let everything out.

I had this book sitting lost in my nook library for like months now..I always passed it by without even thinking of reading it until i decided i should on those weird moments every bookworm has...grab a book any book and read. I never read the synopsis of books because i hate it. I just open a book and read and this time I was blown away.

It starts with blood and it finishes with blood...the in between is just a heart breaking story of a well bred girl falling in love with the school drug dealer and his cruel reality. The need to help and the need to be understood and loved goes beyond imagination in this story. Was she staying with him because it was something different and exciting to do or because he pitied him or because he loved him? Did she care about him or felt sorry for him and his little sister?

The answer to all those questions came towards the end of the book where Anna forgives the unforgivable act of Abel - then any reader can realize that if you love someone enough you forgive , you continue to care and put yourself second. The relationship between those two made me re-evaluate some things. Some things that I learned long ago and never actually thought about. 

This is one of the books that emotion swallows you full and you can't do anything but continue reading because you love the perfect made characters. Some readers said that they got annoyed with this book but i dont know what...for me it is a perfect read. A perfect depressing love story that will appeal to all the fans of Forbidden.

I loved how the fairytale can be mixed with reality and mystery in a love story so strong that Romeo and Juliet seem like kids love.  The translation seemed a little stiff but knowing German this is how it is supposed to be. The author did a good job with the usage of words and i guess the translator should get credit for it too. 

The Storyteller is one book I will never forget and probably go back to it at some point in the near future.

My Appetite for Destruction by Steven Adler Review by Eleni

Author: Steven Adler
Release Date: July 27th 2010
Publisher: It Books
Pages: 286
Rating: 2 STARS
Buy At: Amazon , Barnes and Noble

No secret is too dark.
No revelation too sick. But you must have the appetite for it.

After forty years, twenty-eight ODs, three botched suicides, two heart attacks, a couple of jail stints, and a debilitating stroke, Steven Adler, the most self-destructive rock star ever, is ready to share the shattering untold truth in My Appetite for Destruction.

When Adler was eleven years old he told his two closest friends he was going to be a rock star in the world's greatest band. Along with four uniquely talented—but very complicated and demanding—musicians, Adler helped form Guns N' Roses. They rose from the streets—primal rockers who obliterated glam rock and its big hair to resurrect rock's truer blues roots.

They were relentless rock stars, onstage and off, taking "sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll" to obscene levels of reckless abandon. By the late 1980s, GNR was the biggest rock band in the world, demanding headlines, awards, and sold-out shows, with one of the greatest rock albums of all time: Appetite for Destruction. But there was a price to pay. For Adler, it was his health and his sanity, culminating in a brutal banishment by his once-beloved musical brothers. Adler digs deep, revealing the last secrets, not only his own but GNR's as well: Slash's betrayal, Axl's unpredictable temper, and Duff's revenge. He bares it all with this shocking fuck-the-fates exposé that charts his meteoric rise and devastating collapse.

Adler was humiliated and disgraced when Axl Rose kicked him out of GNR in front of an MTV audience of millions. Adler plunged into the dark side, spending most of the next twenty years in a drug-fueled hell. But he finally beat his epic addiction to crack and heroin under the care of Dr. Drew Pinsky.

With Adler's newfound clarity comes a fierce determination to tell it all. Revelatory, heartbreaking, hilarious, and ultimately inspirational, you will never read anything more jaw-droppingly honest than My Appetite for Destruction.


REVIEW:

I have a really bad feeling that the synopsis of the book will be longer than my review and I feel bad for that.

I am sure by now that you all know that I am a huge GNR fan and that I read all the three biographies (Slash , It's So Easy and Other Lies). I liked the other ones so much especially Duff's but I am a little disappointed with this one if not completely.

Ok so like every autobiography book Steven starts with his painful childhood but he doesn't really give to the reader the chance to understand how he felt back then when his mother kicked him out of the house repeatedly because of her boyfriend. He doesn't even analyze why his mother chose her boyfriend over her kid. It's crazy.

As the book moves on we can see how Steven came to be a punk of the street and how his love for music begun. And that's where I start to hate the book. Slash said in his autobiography that Steven acted like a 10 year old all the time and that he could never shut up and that;s exactly what i saw in this book. A kid telling us about his mischief's and bragging about himself all the time through the end of the book and seriously that was so so so so so annoying. It would never be over.

Of course that didn;t stop there. He went on giving us disturbing and disgusting descriptions of stuff he did with girls and how he liked to do this and that with them. Ok I take back the thing i said about rock stars describing sex situations, I dont want to read something like that ever again.

I really felt bad for his wife after Adler got kicked out of the band and I really dont believe any of the accusations he has against his ex bandmates. There were all kids at the time and they didn;t know how to control some things especially since they were under pressure from the record company and half of the time lost in their own little world of drugs BUT i can never believe that they were so cold hearted and mean. I just think Steven saw it that way towards the end of his career because most of the time he was paranoid from drugs. 

After the fall he goes on about his hardships and how he dealt with it but what i didnt like is that he was still stuck up with the idea of GNR doing this to him. Well he would have continued with the band and he would get the same results like everyone else did. 

To sum it up real fast Steven Adler wrote a-ok book about his life but he gave me the impression that he is one of those stuck up 80's rockstars that had fame once and don't want to move on and do something else and even if they do it;s similar to what they achieved back then. 

p.s. the review was as long as the synopsis after all.

Slash by Slash and Anthony Bozza Book Review by Eleni

Author: Slash and Anthony Bozza
Release Date: Ocotber 30th 2007
Publisher: It books
Pages: 458
Rating: 5 stars
Buy on: Amazon , Barnes And Noble

From one of the greatest rock guitarists of our era comes a memoir that redefines sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll

Here, for the first time ever, Slash tells the tale that has yet to be told from the inside: how the band came together, how they wrote the music that defined an era, how they survived insane, never-ending tours, how they survived themselves, and, ultimately, how it all fell apart. This is a window onto the world of the notoriously private guitarist and a seat on the roller-coaster ride that was one of history's greatest rock 'n' roll machines, always on the edge of self-destruction, even at the pinnacle of its success. This is a candid recollection and reflection of Slash's friendships past and present, from easygoing Izzy to ever-steady Duff to wild-child Steven and complicated Axl.

It is also an intensely personal account of struggle and triumph: as Guns N' Roses journeyed to the top, Slash battled his demons, escaping the overwhelming reality with women, heroin, coke, crack, vodka, and whatever else came along.

He survived it all: lawsuits, rehab, riots, notoriety, debauchery, and destruction, and ultimately found his creative evolution. From Slash's Snakepit to his current band, the massively successful Velvet Revolver,Slash found an even keel by sticking to his guns.

Slash is everything the man, the myth, the legend, inspires: it's funny, honest, inspiring, jaw-dropping . . . and, in a word, excessive.

Review:

I am a huge fan of guns and roses and naturally of Slash. When this books got into my hands I started reading an amazing and hard to believe story of one of the hardest and toughest rock stars on this planet.

Since I am a huge fan I knew some things but I didn't know others. This book took me aback. 
Slash start the book with where he was born and a brief telling of his first years. He then moves on to live in England and how he remembers his parents and of course the big move to L.A. and how that and the fact that he grew up in the seventies changes his life dramatically.

From a very young age drugs, music and excessive alcohol drinking lead his to weird and scary situations. He took those habits with him through the years and he never stopped living on the edge. In comparison to Duff's memoir Slash was tells all about the ugly side of GNR and how each member of the band and what lead them to eventually estrange from each other. It seems that everyone wanted the same thing - to perform and be a great band - but no one stood up when Axl did what he did. I think Axl had a really good ego and took advantage of it when he knew that the alcohol induced band mates wont bat an eye or confront him for his actions. 

From page one of the book you can see that Slash was indeed a very clever man but he didn't always use his brain when he had too part because of the drugs that kept him in a haze...i have to say that in some parts some situations either were the wrong date or he wasnt quite sure about them. Slash himself said that he was using some of his agendas to state a few facts because he wasn't sure if something happened or not.

I would like to know more about the lawsuits for the rights and everything after GNR broke up and a lot more about Axl although Slash tries to do its best to excuse his weird and ego centered behavior by saying that ''I'm sure Axl had his reasons''. Of course as Duff said Axl could be more than a good friend with you if you took him on your good side but overall he was a very unpredictable person.

After the GNR years you can see how difficult it was for Slash to create another band and how everything went to hell after the industry changed in the late 90's. Also you can see that those people were used a lot from the industry because simply they were dollar machines. The book describes the process of the creation of Velvet Revolver and how difficult it was for them to find a singer that fits with the group.

Both Slash and Anthony Bozza did a great job with writing the book and making it ''sound'' like Slash. It was a book of almost 500 big pages and small little letters it drove me crazy to finish it but I loved every bit of it.

I wouldnt recommend this book to a kid under 14 due to strong language and mature situations.

It's So Easy and Other Lies by Duff McKagan book review by Eleni

Author: Duff McKagan
Release Date: October 4th 2011
Publisher: Touichstone
Pages: 366
Rating: 5 stars
Buy At: Barnes and Noble , Amazon.

''A founding member of Guns N’ Roses and Velvet Revolver shares the story of his rise to the pinnacle of fame and fortune, his struggles with alcoholism and drug addiction, his personal crash and burn, and his phoenix-like transformation via a unique path to sobriety.

In 1984, at the age of twenty, Duff McKagan left his native Seattle—partly to pursue music but mainly to get away from a host of heroin overdoses then decimating his closest group of friends in the local punk scene. In L.A. only a few weeks and still living in his car, he answered a want ad for a bass player placed by someone who identified himself only as “Slash.” Soon after, the most dangerous band in the world was born. Guns N’ Roses went on to sell more than 100 million albums worldwide.

In It's So Easy, Duff recounts GN’R’s unlikely trajectory to a string of multiplatinum albums, sold-out stadium concerts, and global acclaim. But that kind of glory can take its toll, and it did—ultimately—on Duff, as well as on the band itself. As GN’R began to splinter, Duff felt that he himself was done, too. But his near death as a direct result of alcoholism proved to be his watershed, the turning point that led to his unique path to sobriety and the unexpected choices he has made for himself since. In a voice that is as honest as it is indelibly his own, Duff—one of rock’s smartest and most articulate personalities—takes readers on his harrowing journey through the dark heart of one of the most notorious bands in rock-and-roll history and out the other side.''

Review:

I don't know what to say about this book or the author. Duff Fucking McKagan has been a huge inspiration to me since my early teens. Guns N' Roses is my favorite rock band and i love all the members but a little more Duff. I always knew that rock has to do with drugs but that was something else. To be honest i never read anything like that in my entire life. Neon Angel by Cherrie Currie is not even close to the things described in this book.

When i started the book i didn't know what to expect, i just wanted to read about Guns N Roses and the life they led before they become famous and its true that Duff did a great job with describing his early childhood/teen years and how everything shaped around the name of GNR. I was surprised from a lot of things and i needed more and more and more. I loved the way he wrote.

As the book progressed we could see how deep in addiction Duff and his bandmates fell and how fame and money eventually changed everything. How the band mates got estranged from each other and how a certain member suffered from megalomania which resulted in the band to eventually split in 1997. Although the book answered a lot of questions it created new ones and at some points i found myself screaming Why????

I would loved to have read a little more descriptive situations and especially about the fallout between Axl and Slash. For obvious reasons there is no sex scene descriptions in the whole book (im sure no rock star would want their daughters read about their fathers um....experiences (?)).

I was amazed on how Duff got out of the cocaine-alcohol addiction pit and did his best to recover and how to this day he is still suffering from his past. Although i think Duff doesnt realize it he got out from one addiction with another - exercising and i think although this is kind of healthy it can also destroy you if you are not careful. 

The book also focuses on the musical career of Duff before and after GNR and the differences that he saw. How people accepted him back then and how they accept him now - everything is easy when you are a legend.

Duff did a great job with a book and i would totally recommend it to any GNR fan out there and not only. 

Forbidden by Tabitha Suzuma book review

Author: Tabitha Suzuma
Release Date: May 27th 2010
Publisher: Definitions
Pages: 432
Rating: 5 stars
Buy at: Barnes and Noble , Amazon

She is pretty and talented - sweet sixteen and never been kissed. He is seventeen; gorgeous and on the brink of a bright future. And now they have fallen in love. But... they are brother and sister.

Seventeen-year-old Lochan and sixteen-year-old Maya have always felt more like friends than siblings. Together they have stepped in for their alcoholic, wayward mother to take care of their three younger siblings. As defacto parents to the little ones, Lochan and Maya have had to grow up fast. And the stress of their lives—and the way they understand each other so completely—has also also brought them closer than two siblings would ordinarily be. So close, in fact, that they have fallen in love. Their clandestine romance quickly blooms into deep, desperate love. They know their relationship is wrong and cannot possibly continue. And yet, they cannot stop what feels so incredibly right. As the novel careens toward an explosive and shocking finale, only one thing is certain: a love this devastating has no happy ending.

Review:

I didn't even know such book existed...someone recommended it to me and i thank them so much.
The author is british and i have to say that i admire her guts to write and to publish such a book...in the western world.

i have read a lot of manga that have to do with incest or brother - sister love and sex and all of that (Angel Sanctuary,Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru) there are also anime...
what i dpnt understand is why Asians seem to be a little cooler with that issue. i know that is genetically weird to have a physical relationship with your brother or with a cousin but i know that a lot of us have seen a cousin and thought something improper..its just the nature of the human...we love to play with fire and when something is off limits subconsciously we want to make it ours.

Apparently the book wants to teach us not to be so judgemental of people and their likes. through my early childhood to my late adolescence i experienced a lot of judgemental people and i dont really do that. i know a girl that she has a relationship with her brother (not a broken family) and i have no problem with them since they dont do anything to anyone.

of course i am not saying that everyone has to go and have sex with a family member cuz after a generation the earth would be full with hybrids due to genetic anomalies but i want to say is that things happen and instead of judge people we should put our feet in their shoes and think how we would react if we were them.

To the book
i have never ever read something like that in my entire life. the book itself it was provoking and great. i would not recommend a hormone-unstable teen to read this due to descriptive sexual scenes and the theme of incest. it falls under the category of young adult but i would totally put it under the category of adult.

the characters were greatly developed to the point i cried with them, laughed, anguished and *hhmm* wanted them epicly bad to find some time alone. the book itself is good written, i felt like i was in the same room as Maya and Lochie watching them.

To be honest with you i didnt really like the ending but thats just me. i could have turned out completely different and i felt it was not fair for the characters.