Matched by Allie Condie book review by Eleni

Author: Ally Condie
Release Date: November 30th 2013
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile
Series: Matched
Pages: 369
Rating: 4 stars
Buy on: Amazon , Barnes and Noble


 Cassia has always trusted the Society to make the right choices for her: what to read, what to watch, what to believe. So when Xander's face appears on-screen at her Matching ceremony, Cassia knows with complete certainty that he is her ideal mate... until she sees Ky Markham's face flash for an instant before the screen fades to black.

The Society tells her it's a glitch, a rare malfunction, and that she should focus on the happy life she's destined to lead with Xander. But Cassia can't stop thinking about Ky, and as they slowly fall in love, Cassia begins to doubt the Society's infallibility and is faced with an impossible choice: between Xander and Ky, between the only life she's known and a path that no one else has dared to follow.

Review:

When this book released back in 2010 i didn;t want to read it because of all the aftermath of the Hunger Games and the infamous controlling society. Well, now that i read it I felt so guilty and stupid that i didn;t earlier. 

The story takes place in the future, in a world where The Society rules everything and in a world where people are being watched and monitored all the time. In a world where there is no knowledge of history and art and any chance of creation. In a society where they choose who to marry and love...and then we meet Cassia. A girl that obeys all the rules and does everything by the book until she sees Ky and reads a poem. Then everything changes.

Being fascinated by the boy she can't have and being intrigued by his otherworldly knowledge of things she never knew Cassia finds herself falling deeper in love. I loved the way the author took his time with the characters. You can actually feel the need to read more and lose yourself in the magical and painful world of Ky and Cassia. 

This book is all about taking control of your life and be who you want to be. Do what you want and get what you want. It;s a book about the power every person hides inside him and how he or she decided to use it. I hated the Society a lot and i actually thought that i could never live in a world like this and that made me feel more about the characters. The characters are well developed and down to earth, to the point where you can actually relate yourself to them.

This book is all about revolution and you can feel it in every single page. I am sure that all the fans on Divergent and The Hunger Games will love love love this book.

Simply Irresistible - Jill Shalvis book review by Eleni

Author: Jill Shalvis
Release Date: October 1st 2010
Publisher: Forever
Series: Lucky Harbor
Pages: 311
Rating: 4 stars
Buy at: Barnes and Noble , Amazon

Maddie Moore's whole life needs a makeover.

In one fell swoop, Maddie loses her boyfriend (her decision) and her job (so not her decision). But rather than drowning her sorrows in bags of potato chips, Maddie leaves L.A. to claim the inheritance left by her free-spirited mother—a ramshackle inn nestled in the little coastal town of Lucky Harbor, Washington.

Starting over won't be easy. Yet Maddie sees the potential for a new home and a new career—if only she can convince her two half-sisters to join her in the adventure. But convincing Tara and Chloe will be difficult because the inn needs a big makeover too.

The contractor Maddie hires is a tall, dark-haired hottie whose eyes—and mouth—are making it hard for her to remember that she's sworn off men. Even harder will be Maddie's struggles to overcome the past, though she's about to discover that there's no better place to call home than Lucky Harbor.

Review:

This book made me laugh, cry, love and do the same stuff all over again. In other words is a love story about finding yourself and taking control of your life.

I don;t have a lot to say about this book because it is just a cliche love story with a lot of humor. The writing was amazing and the characters were more than just developed. I believe that any reader will be able to find himself in one of the characters.

I loved Jax so much. He is hot, sexy, romantic, understanding and so so so so good it hurts. For a second i thought he was the ultimate boyfriend and made me look at mine with a whole another perspective hahah. What I didnl;t like is that the author made him too good to be true and that is kind of stupid, it felt like he was a superhero with no faults at all.

The whole book itself was a nice experience to me. The description was amazing that I thought I was next to Jax and Maddie walking around Lucky Harbor.

I totally totally recommend this book.

How To Love by Katie Cotugno book review by Eleni

Author: Katie Cotugno
Release Date: October 1st 2013
Publisher: Balzer + Bray
Pages: 389
Rating: 4 stars
Buy at: Amazon, Barnes and Noble

Before: Reena Montero has loved Sawyer LeGrande for as long as she can remember: as natural as breathing, as endless as time. But he’s never seemed to notice that Reena even exists…until one day, impossibly, he does. Reena and Sawyer fall in messy, complicated love. But then Sawyer disappears from their humid Florida town without a word, leaving a devastated—and pregnant—Reena behind.

After: Almost three years have passed, and there’s a new love in Reena’s life: her daughter, Hannah. Reena’s gotten used to being without Sawyer, and she’s finally getting the hang of this strange, unexpected life. But just as swiftly and suddenly as he disappeared, Sawyer turns up again. Reena doesn’t want anything to do with him, though she’d be lying if she said Sawyer’s being back wasn’t stirring something in her. After everything that’s happened, can Reena really let herself love Sawyer LeGrande again?

In this breathtaking debut, Katie Cotugno weaves together the story of one couple falling in love—twice.

Review:

I AM SO CONFUSED AND CONFLICTED OVER THIS BOOK THAT I KEEP THINKING AND THINKING ABOUT IT.
The book tells the story of Sawyer and Reena two completely different individuals who fall in love and do everything wrong or at least wrong in the eyes of a 20-year old that went through this shit and thought it was right. sigh. 
  Reena was in love with Sawyer since she could remember herself and at the age of 15 - socially awkward and by nature quite sees her best friend hooking up with Sawyer - then life goes to hell.
She stops speaking with her friend and spends 7 months alone working after school and trying to cope with life and heartbreak until Sawyer reaches out to her.
The book is divided in before and after chapters making it totally exciting for the reader (no sarcasm there) to want to read more from the Before and more of the After story. Now here comes the conflict. I don;t know if i hate Sawyer from the Before or I love him because he is an 18 year old that messed everything up for himself and Reena due to personal problems and drugs but he is there every time for her because he loved her. 
Now that I think about it i have an explanation for his actions - it was Reena, because she wanted to leave the shitty town , travel the world and leave Sawyer behind to bear with heartbreak. Eventually he is the one that walks out on her leaving her pregnant (he didn't know) and alone to cope with her religious father and a judgmental town.

The After story is two years later when Reena has a baby and suddenly Sawyer returns from the dead. No one knew where he was or what he did and of course they were not sure if he was alive. She turns her life upside down and the old feelings start to resurface again once she spends a little time with him. She makes some hasty decisions right there and then and goes back to his house for ''dinner'' and she totally loses it when they kiss -so she takes 5 steps back. I hated the After story because the only person that actually showed some kind of emotion was Sawyer and at some point i really really threw the book on the wall because Reena was so stupid. 
The writing makes the reading even more interesting and simply you can;'t put the book down no matter how much you want it to. I loved the characters but I would like to see a little more emotion and a little more of Sawyer. Reena was a Snow Queen with absolutely no expression of emotion and that was really frustrating because -lets all admit it - who likes a character like that?
Otherwise the book is an amazing read that I totally related with the characters and the story itself because as a sketchy teenager I was i went through the same shit- sans the pregnancy - and now I am married to the boy that made my life so interesting and crazy.

Entwined with You by Sylvia Day book review by Eleni

Author: Sylvia Day
Release Date: June 4th 2013
Publisher: Berkley
Series: Crossfire
Pages: 356
Rating: 3.5 stars
Buy at: Barnes and Noble , Amazon

From the moment I first met Gideon Cross, I recognized something in him that I needed. Something I couldn’t resist. I saw the dangerous and damaged soul inside–so much like my own. I was drawn to it. I needed him as surely as I needed my heart to beat.

No one knows how much he risked for me. How much I’d been threatened, or just how dark and desperate the shadow of our pasts would become.

Entwined by our secrets, we tried to defy the odds. We made our own rules and surrendered completely to the exquisite power of possession…


Review:

Finally I finished the Crossfire Series (although it's n0t the last book I wont continue with book number 4).

My personal opinion is, now that I read all 3 books, that Day dragged the story a looootttt. Actually there is not anything really new going on in this book except from the suspect for the death of Nathan. 
Sex is the same, obsession is the same the only thing that kind of changes is where everything takes place and how Eva falls harder for Gideon than ever before and agrees to marry him. 

What I didn't like is that in this installment of the series I didn't have the chance to connect with any of the characters of the book and that was more than just a little disappointing. The only one that I continue to have feelings for is Eva's mother - that bitch needs to die. 

Actually I dont' have anything more to say about this book and if you need more well read the reviews of the first two books - it;s pretty much the same. 

Again I wouldn't recommend this book to someone under the age of 17 due to messed up sexual content.

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.

The Shadowhunter's Codex by Cassandra Clare Book Review by Eleni

Author: Cassandra Clare
Release Date: October 29th 2013
Publisher: McElderly Books
Pages: 288
Rating: 2 stars
Buy at: Barnes and Noble, Amazon

Delve into the details of all things Shadowhunter with this illustrated guide to the knowledge and lore of the Shadowhunter world.

Since the thirteenth century, the Shadowhunter’s Codex has been the one and only manual for Shadowhunters looking to brush up on their demon languages, learn proper stele use, and discover just what exactly a pyxis is. Featured in both The Mortal Instruments and The Infernal Devices, this guide is a necessity for any young Nephilim on their journey to becoming a Shadowhunter. Beautifully illustrated, the Codex contains images of the famous Shadowhunter homeland of Idris, as well as depictions of demons and other Downworlders.

Review:

Before you condemn me to the depths of Hell for the 2 stars that I gave to the book please let me tell you that I am a huge fan of the Mortal Instruments and the Infernal Devices. So what went wrong with this one? I will tell you.

I hated hated hated the fact that Clare decided to write this book. First of all, there is nothing new in this book expect the funny scribbles of Jace, Clary and Simon on the margins of the page. That made me laugh hence the two stars. Other than that I think the book was destined to be a merchandising trap for MI fans around the world. Clare spend those pages for things we already know and learned through the series. both ID and IM. 

I thought the book would be written in a more sophisticated way, it would be more stern and give the impression of something serious but it was exactly the opposite. The writing was not as I expected it to be and that was really bad because it ruined the whole experience with the Sacred Book of the Shadowhunters.

It gave me the feeling that it was written in a haste and that the author was two timing it with something else. I hated it and it left me dissapointed because I was looking forward to it.

So my opinion is dont read this book there is nothing new in there or something that you will need for the last book of the Mortal Instrument Series.

Reflected In You by Sylvia Day book review by Eleni

Author: Sylvia Day
Publisher: Berkey
Release Date: October 23rd 2012
Pages: 338
Series: Crossfire
Rating: 4
Buy at: Barnes And Noble , Amazon

Gideon Cross. As beautiful and flawless on the outside as he was damaged and tormented on the inside. He was a bright, scorching flame that singed me with the darkest of pleasures. I couldn't stay away. I didn't want to. He was my addiction... my every desire... mine.

My past was as violent as his, and I was just as broken. We’d never work. It was too hard, too painful... except when it was perfect. Those moments when the driving hunger and desperate love were the most exquisite insanity. 

We were bound by our need. And our passion would take us beyond our limits to the sweetest, sharpest edge of obsession...

Review:

In the second book of the Crossfire trilogy we have the whole cliche plot...the chaos. The first book was amazing in its own way this one broke my heart even further although I couldnt connect to Eva as I connected to Gideon.

I felt Gideons feelings more in this book than in the first and I think it had to do with his absence. The couple fought all the time that Gideon always left and never came back for days. Both of them are stubborn and stupid but I hated Eva with all my heart in this one.

To be honest the second installation of the book isn't anything great because we all have seen this before (Twilight, Evermore, Fifty Shades etc etc etc) but Day has a way with words that keeps you reading and reading and reading until you reach a point where you say more. This book is a lot more intense and heart breaking than the first one and I wonder that the hell will happen on the third one.

I liked the way she connected things although some of them go unsolved or unmentioned and end up being lost in those snakepits where the reader just asks why did this happen? or what happened to this?

Put this aside you have a good book of sex (hm hm porn) with a little twist of romanticism and sadism (Submissive and the Alpha male), I like that a lot and like a said the way the book is written makes you want more.

To wrap it up, in this boo dont expect anything new its just a book of sex with some spices thrown in and a very good writer to move its strings.
On with the Third One.