The Iron Trial by Cassandra Clare and Holly Black

From NEW YORK TIMES bestselling authors Holly Black and Cassandra Clare comes a riveting new series that defies what you think you know about the world of magic.

From two bestselling superstars, a dazzling and magical middle-grade collaboration centering on the students of the Magisterium, an academy for those with a propensity toward magic. In this first book, a new student comes to the Magisterium against his will — is it because he is destined to be a powerful magician, or is the truth more twisted than that? It’s a journey that will thrill you, surprise you, and make you wonder about the clear-cut distinction usually made between good and evil.

first of all, i would like to note or say that Cassandra Clare’s work is amazing, for that she is one of my favourite authors ever. i just love her writing style and the way all of her books end up as. I am also very interested in Holly Black’s work.

this book is amazing! first of all, the beggining, the way that you don’t know anythin at all about the characters or  the story but the authors just keep on going, telling the story with their powerful words. the prologue is a very good example of this.they way you start discovering things by your own is truly amazing and you can find this in every single book of Cassandra’s. maybe i am just imagining this up but it would be because of what her writing makes me feel. i must say that i haven’t read a lot of Holly Black’s work, except the Spiderwick Chronicles which i loved.

the character development is great, the way Callum starts thinking that the Magisterium is a horrible place and then starts thinking it’s different from what he thought. and the way that tamara seems to be a little bitch and then is much more of a friend.

also, the way the authors wanted to have a different end that what was it was expected, the main character is supposed to be the good one but from the start his destiny is to be the bad one. the plot twist is just toooooo much.

Cassandra Clare and Holly Black with her have suprised me once more with their writing skills. i would read every single book by them blindly.

The Confessions of Jonathan Flite by Matthew J. Beier

Jonathan Flite claims to have memories he can’t explain. Seven layers of them, to be exact, all belonging to a group of teenagers who disappeared from a place called Idle County in 2010—ten years before his birth. Seventeen years of anxiety, violent outbursts, and refusal to admit he is lying have landed him at Crescent Rehabilitation Center, a seaside juvenile center for rich kids, and nobody has ever dared to believe his memories might be real.

Until now. On a blustery November day just three months after a nuclear terrorist attack in Geneva, Switzerland, ex-CIA psychiatrist Thomas Lumen arrives at Crescent to interview Jonathan for a book about Idle County. Fueled by his personal connection to the disappearances three decades earlier, he asks Jonathan to share what he knows—anything and everything.

I think this book is really well written and the basics of this story are great. the characters are really interesting and the way the book is written, by writting in the past, in different perspectives is amazing. I also think that the main plot or the idea is great but i don’t really think all of it together is nicely done. The final copy, -if this is it- is not good. everything-by itself- in it is amazing and the idea of this book, the way the boy had memories of other people is amazing and really good but i don’t think the story, as a whole is interesting, also the way that there were so many characters, it was really difficult to follow the story. I think it would have been much easier if there were less characters as it’s really difficult for readers to understand what is happening if they don’t remember who someone is. I think that was my main problem.

By all of these reasons I wasn’t able to finish this book,I don’t normally leave a book half read but in this case it was so confusing and just so boring because I couldn’t understand what was happening. I am really sorry, but I just was so bored.

Even though I have said all of this I do recommend this book to the type of readers who have a very good memory and would remember all of the characters and who they were as they will find this book very interesting.

Also, even if I didn’t enjoy this book, it doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t enjoy other of the authors books.

A song for Ella Grey by David Almond

“I’m the one who’s left behind. I’m the one to tell the tale. I knew them both…knew how they lived and how they died.”

Claire is Ella Grey’s best friend. She’s there when the whirlwind arrives on the scene: catapulted into a North East landscape of gutted shipyards; of high arched bridges and ancient collapsed mines. She witnesses a love so dramatic it is as if her best friend has been captured and taken from her. But the loss of her friend to the arms of Orpheus is nothing compared to the loss she feels when Ella is taken from the world. This is her story – as she bears witness to a love so complete; so sure, that not even death can prove final.

 The beginning makes me think that the main character is a lesbian or something like that as she keeps kissing Ella in the lips. That could also be a type of way of showing their love, as a friendship.

 I totally love the writing style, the way the author wrote the part where they first meet Orpheus, it seems as if the books was in a way his song. The writing seemed as if it was flowing with the song. The calmness and the repetition makes it look and sound like the song.

 I think he is trying to open people’s mind and in a way show people the way he sees the world. He shows, for example, that we waste time in ordinary things but we don’t realise. Also, he shows that there is beauty and musicality in everything, we just need someone to open our eyes to realise.

 I also think Orpheus is kind of a drug as the way he speaks and his actions kind of look as if he was some type of drug or something. He says he will find them again and when he starts playing everything comes as one, as if everyone was more relaxed. Also Ella said she felt as if she wasn’t controlling her body while she was near him. Claire is also very worried about Ella, the way she is attached to him, as a drug.

 Also, about the lesbian part, later on in the book you realise that Claire wasn’t a lesbian, she just didn’t want to lose her best friend- the most important person in her life. And the way the author chose to show their affection was just perfectly fine; different but fine.

 The way Ella died and the way her parents said that they had let her go makes me think that in a way all of her friends, but were actually drugs which she seemed to see as friends. Nearly all of them at least.

 What I think is really funny, because of my experience with this book, is that this book is supposed to be a short read as it even says it at the beginning of the book but it took me about a week to read. Normally, I read very fast; the thing is that this book was very special and made me think a lot about it, what things really meant and so on- that is why it took me so long to read it. I love that in books, when they make you think and try to find hidden meanings in them.

This story is truly wonderful!! It is one of my favourite books. I loved it, also the writing is so beautiful!! I just don’t seem to find errors in it.

Contessa by Lori L. Otto

When she was four, a generous couple welcomed orphan Olivia Sophia into their lives. As she grew up, her parents made good decisions for her, raising “Livvy” to be an intelligent and creative young girl. Now sixteen, three people influence many of her choices: her first love, her second father, and a third man who speaks to her through his artwork.

Livvy’s father is practical and steadfast; even-tempered and quietly observant. She’s an artist who acts on her emotions and thrives on attention. Unhappy with their differences– and misunderstanding her father’s methods– Livvy chooses to focus on the similarities she shares with an enigmatic painter from her mother’s past. Her overactive imagination leads her down an obsessive path– one that only stands to hurt everyone around her.

The distraction of a new boyfriend has the potential to end her search and reunite her family, but his involvement in her life could be just as devastating, taking Livvy away from her father for good.

Contessa is a book about an adopted girl. She is adopted by a rich family, very well known. This book is about how ‘Livvy’- or Olivia- gets through her teenage days, has her first and hopefully- for her- her only boyfriend, and her overprotective father.

I have mixed feelings about this book as I had loads of moments were I just hated Olivia as she was being so unfair and immature. I think this book is very loyal to real teenage life and how parents, most of them, act towards their children.

I think I read this in her father’s perspective. That’s why mostly, I thought she was being a brat.

The things that I hated from her were:

1. She is always angry at her father as she says he is overprotective, but he has reasons. They -as a family- are very well known as they are very rich; being rich could cause a lot of problems outside of her house. Anyone could try and kidnap her, they could get a monstrous amount of money from the rescue. Her friends could also be only with her for the money, expecting some type of reward or something. And there is also paparazzi.
2. She is all the time thinking about Nate. There was a point in which I actually thought Nate would be her father in some way. She is so obsessed about him. I do think it’s a good thing that he is her idol or her inspiration but not so good that she becomes over-obsessed with him.
3. I also think her relationship with Jon is annoying. I do like the way the author shows young love as a very strong love but I don’t like that since she starts dating Jon she stops being closer to her father and even her mother, who have done everything in their hands to protect her. She starts lying to them, too. Also, Jon is trying to make her father trust him just so they could then be left alone to do the things that her father wouldn’t want them to be doing!!!
4. After the break-up with Jon, the way she started to reconnect with her father was the best part but then comes Jon again, starts the relationship again and then she starts to reconsider about having sex which seems like the best way to brake the link she had with her father, all over again.
5. She seems like she will only see affection or show affection when showed towards her in form of money, like her father’s diamond necklace. She only told him that she loved him when he gave her the car or the necklace.

I do think this book is quite good but there are some very important flaws like the main character being so annoying. Maybe the author tried to write the book in order to show teenagers how ruthless and annoying they are. Then she would have done a great job! It does though, show how the relationship between both of them sinks and then starts to sail again. Also, sometimes the book seemed as it would never end, and that was not enjoyable at all. But apart from that the book was interesting and fun to read. I would not at all read the next books in the series as I think this book includes a great end and I don’t want any other end or continuation.

Memoirs of a teenage amnesiac by Gabrielle zevin

This book is about a teenage girl, called Naomie. She is adopted. One day in school, in yearbook she did a coin toss and lost so she had to go collect a camera for yearbook. In her way she tripped over the stairs and dove to save the camera. Because of that she hit her head and that created amnesia.
I don’t know how I feel about this book as I know it was well written and I did like it but I didn’t like it all. I liked the way Naomie tried to overcome her amnesia. I also think all if my decisions in that position would have been the same as hers.
Spoiler alert
I loved her relationship with James because it showed how they helped each other to overcome their flaws and their pasts. I didn’t like how they just forgot about each other and that’s it. Because at the end James will only be another guy that was part of her old
days but nothing more. I didn’t like that it kind of showed that she was going to start dating Will. I thought that was too cliché but at the end it proved me wrong, which I did like. It doesn’t end that way, it doesn’t actually confirm that relationship. I did like the way the author ended the book.
Spoiler alert ended
The way the author chose to end the story was a very good way, it was connecting the start of the book with the ending as if they ended the same way they started but not quite as much, a different way. They learned new things about life and they overcame a school year. The end didn’t end the quite same way as it started as Naomie didn’t fell again over the stairs but she did dove into a new life, end of school in a way.
Out of 5 stars, I would give this book a 4.

Where she went by Gayle Forman

This review will most certainly contain spoilers about the first book.
This book blew my mind!!! It’s the sequel to If I stay and it narrates the events that follow the book. This time instead of narrating from Mia’s point of view it narrates from Adam’s. It’s about this girl who was left in a coma after a car accident where her parents and her little brother were killed. She had to decide if she wanted to stay alive or die and after Adam asks her to stay telling her that if it’s necessary he will let her go to Juilliard and end the relationship. She does that, she ends it with him and goes to Juilliard and she becomes a famous cello player, while he becomes a famous guitarist in a band called shooting stars. He was left devastated after she left and he left the band. It tells the story of his life after she left.
I have nothing against this book, I totally loved it. This book has made me want to re-read both of the books!!! It was so amazing and seeing Adam’s point of view was so fantastic. The writing was great and the way it ended was awesome too. I just seem to do not have enough adjectives to describe this book.
I also loved the layout of the book, the way that the author chose to start the chapters, writing parts of the lyrics of the collateral damage album and the way it showed his life after Mia had left him. All the things that the author did, added up together resulted in an awesome book, which enters my favourites.

Overall, this book is amazing and I would recommend it to every single person in this world.

A myth to the night by Cora Choi

This book is about a ghost who is trying to liberate an island, Stauros Island, from his enemy, the order of the shrike. he needs to liberate the island. He, Hugh, has to find the heroe that will defeat the shadow of fear.

I didn’t really like the cover of the book but I did like the way it shows the main part of the book, the order of the crane fighting back against the order of the shrike. the whole thing in the book is about that, how the last member of the order of the crane tries to fight against the order of the shrike in order to bring peace to the Stauros Island and the whole world.

I loved the book and the way it is written. hugh has to find the slayer of the shadow of fear. in every part in which this book is divided, he has to do different things but for the same end, to kill the shadow of fear by finding the slayer of the shadow of fear.
I loved the part when he reunites with his lover, when she is already a grown-up and she is part of the order of the shrike. Hugh is part of the order of the crane. It makes them in a way rivals but they are also united by something *spoiler start* their son which is half shrike half crane. *Spoiler end*
I think that the phantoms were very helpful as they helped Hugh whenever they could. The phantoms tried to show him who the slayer of the shadow of fear was but Hugh wouldn’t want to listen. In some moments like those he was very stupid which showed his humanity was still there eventhough he was a phantom.
The scenes in which the shadow of fear attacked people were very vivid and I personally loved the way the autor did it. I made an extra effect as how strong and difficult to defeat he is.
I enjoyed the way that Drev’s roomates acted as if what they had done was something they had done since they were little children. the way the helped Drev and didn’t question him, they just followed his orders; it was amazing and it made you love them. Also the way that Drev dove into the wáter to die with his loved was very emotional.

*Spoiler starts* the end was very sad as Hugh leaves the world to go into the after life.What i think that this book is trying to show is how drev had a second chance from his father. he chose to dive into the wáter for his love; Hugh didn’t, he let his love go. Drev saves the world from the shadow of fear and Hugh couldn’t by himself.

The moral of this story is that you don’t have to fear everything and that you can overcome your fears, you can defeat your shadow of fear.

The FEELS

Why?!?!?! Where she went, right now the feels of that book are so extremeee

What happened in witches wood by Stephen Henning

This book is the sequel to a class apart, which I’ve also done a review of. It’s about the twins and how the try to not be noticed, as they have superpowers. They go withy heir parents to their grandparents house and there their grandfather is supposed to explain to them why they have superpowers. Also a young, beautiful girl ‐L‐ knows about their powers and is kind of stalking them. I liked the start of this book much much better than the first book in the series as it is much more fast‐paced. It makes the book enjoyable and interesting, it makes me want to continue reading. This book, at least that’s what I think, is much more fast‐paced than the first book‐ a class apart. I liked this book and it’s really sad how the things turned out at the end, Katie and that. I also started to understand what Michael wanted to do and in a way he was protecting the kids and he wasn’t going to do them anything a bad.

This book was definitely better tan the first one and it shows lots about the good ones- Sam and James- and the bad ones- Lolly and Sir Michael.

 

If I stay by Gayle Forman

This book is about a girl which has had an accident with her family and she stays in a coma. She has to decide if she wants to die or live. I like the way the author wrote this book; she wrote it by adding memories after writing something involving that memory. By thinking about her old life and her new life, after that she decides. Also, this book makes you feel closer to music, even me who doesn’t particularly like to play instruments. It is great!! It would receive a 4.9 stars out of 5 because it is awesome and amazing but I wouldn’t want to re‐read it in a very long time. I only re-read my very very favourite books, so eventhough I wouldn’t want to re-read it in an amount of time, I still loved the book. The part that I like and at the same time hate is the ending. The ending is not really clear as it doesn’t tell you if she dies or not. But I think that that suspense makes readers even more eager into reading the next book- where she went. I totally loved this book and just when i finished it I started the next one. also, this book is very sentimental and it will surely touch your heart and give you the feels. I would recommend this book for someone who thinks that everything in their life is going horribly as it will surely show you that her life is much much worse!!!