Review: Charade by Nyrae Dawn

Charade by Nyrae Dawn
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I'm giving this book 5 stars for a number of reasons.

It's real and touching in many ways. There are in fact girls that I know that would do like Cheyenne and hire someone to pretend to be their boyfriend for revenge, although not likely with the same heartbreaking results. Also, the simple fact that love is love and we all yearn for it and these characters show it so freakin' well. Their losses and pasts lead not to weak characters but to rather strong ones, who grow and develop nicely through the book, although at times they act a little phsycik(?).

All of that adds up to making it a four star book, because certainly there are the drawbacks that make it down a bit, like how, even out of desperate situations, there was nothing that really brought the characters together. And personally, I don't rate so much on the romance itself, as to how well it was portrayed.

That final star is gained by two parts of the book at the beginning and end. The first is a quote, the first paragraph of the second chapter where Colt talks about being with his dying mother.

Dying people have a distinct smell to them. Even people who have months to go. It's an almost old smell that clings to their skin. Which is gross as hell, but when it's someone you love, you don't think about how disgusting it is, but how much it fucking sucks.

I have read plenty of books where a character of importance (in some way at least) is dying from some disease slowly and painfully, even though you only often get the last portion of their life, the worst one. And the way these are portrayed very in how well they are. I used to think myself that it was a fact that death sucked so every story that made that true was a good one. That is not fact. There are small things that make the slowly dying characters realistic. Like how the people around them try to keep them going and give up their own wishes for that single person, or how they all ask for something to go with them. Those and many other things are shown very well in this story...

I am a cryer, when I read well written emotional books/scenes. If a book can make me cry for at least 3 pages or I have to stop for a second because there are too many tears to see through, that makes the book an automatic 5 star.

OH THE FEELS!!!!!

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Review: Chasing Nikki by Lacey Weatherford

Chasing Nikki by Lacey Weatherford
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Finding great romance books that aren't practically porn is becoming more and more difficult. It was during my search for good new romance books to read that I came across Chasing Nikki by Lacey Weatherford, a book I read in one sitting.

The story follow Chase Walker, a 17 year old boy who, after his fathers death, becomes mixed up in alchol and such, going from a star athlete to a party boy in a matter of days. When his mother Tori finally became sick of it and moved them to live with his grandparents he met Nikki, someone who saw through his guise to the broken boy underneath... And someone who refused to date football players because the star quarterback messed up.

It's at this point your probably think that this is the typical boy-meets-girl-girl-plays-hard-to-get-and-they-live-happily-ever-after type story, but you'd be wrong!

Sure, Nikki plays hard to get because Chase was a jerk to her at first, but like all good romance's he wore her down until she went on a date with him. Sure, everything was hunky dory for a while. It doesn't mean that in real life it'll stay that way forever though and so it didn't. Even as both Nikki and Chase helped each other overcome their pasts and move on, there was still that dark shadow in the back that whispered it would return to wreak havoc again in their lives.

That was part 1 of the book in a nutshell, and even though it was the biggest part of the book, taking up about two thirds of it, it still held nothing on the second part.

Part 2 of Chasing Nikki is where the worst, most heartwrenching moments of the story come to play. At first it might seem that, of course they'll live happily ever after, they always do. There's one big diffence with this story though. It takes the most predictable plotline ever, the one that you want to see come through, and twists it so fast that you have worse whiplash than Nikki and although the need to quit reading may be strong, the need to see them to the end is stronger.

Told in a way that keeps you reading till the very last moment with eager anticipation, Chasing Nikki is a book that will warm your heart and crush your soul. You will laugh and cry in the best and worst ways possible. A definite must read.

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Review: The Iron King by Julie Kagawa

The Iron King by Julie Kagawa
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

While reading this review, keep in mind that I wrote it for a Journalism class, so it had to be written and formatted in a certain way.
     When new books comes to the stores many people flock to them, often forgetting about the slightly older books that may be better stories. One of the best of these is The Iron King by Julie Kagawa.
     The story follows a girl named Meghan Chase who, in a desperate attempt to save her younger brother who’d been replaced with a changeling, enters the realm of Faerie (the Nevernever) only to find more than she intended. The poisonous iron fey, bred from the technological imaginations of humans and bent on taking over Faerie.
     With the new take on faeries, Kagawa created a story unlike any other using Shakespeare’s King Oberon and Robin “Puck” Goodfellow as well as newer fey such as the half-faerie Meghan Chase. The often used dry humor and romance broke down the book from being merely a story about a girl trying to rescue her brother against hostile fey into a story with great heart and amazing characters.
     Meghan Chase, the half faerie, half human protagonist is first seen in the story as her father just disappeared into a pond, never to be seen again. That initial set up for the mystery aspect of the story gives background to Meghan and pulls the reader in right away.
     Though Meghan may not have the most depth of any character in the series, having one of the shortest lives to develop, but is still very easy to connect with as she acts with care for those around her.
     Ash, the prince of the Unseelie court, with his dark demeanor and cold attitude is possibly the best character of all of them. His part in the story is crafted in such a manner that, after only a couple of brief encounters with him to start off the book, you fall in love with him just as fast as Meghan.
     No good story can go without comic relief in some form, and the form of this comic relief comes in Puck, the right hand of Oberon and the mischief maker, and Grimalkin, the faerie cat. Puck’s snarky banter between the other characters combined with the obvious care he feels for Meghan, having watched over her most of her life, creates a character made to be remembered.
     All to be said on the matter of Grimalkin is that his dry wit and concern mostly for himself or what he wants as he leads Meghan, Ash, and Puck through the Nevernever set a nice change in pace from the deeper goings on of the others.
     All in all, when combining the original plotline with originality of the beautifully written characters, The Iron King comes out to be a great 4.5 star read worth mentioning to other readers.
     The Iron King was published by Harlequin Teen and totals at 363 pages.


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