Beauty Queens - Libba Bray

Goodreads summary:

When a plane crash strands thirteen teen beauty contestants on a mysterious island, they struggle to survive, to get along with one another, to combat the island's other diabolical occupants, and to learn their dance numbers in case they are rescued in time for the competition.Written by Libba Bray, the hilarious, sensational, Printz Award-winning author of A Great and Terrible Beauty and Going Bovine. The result is a novel that will make you laugh, make you think, and make you never see beauty the same way again.


My review:

4/5

It's so much better than it looks! I had been looking at it ever since my library got it, but it didn't seem like something I would read at all, so I only picked it up because I heard good things about it. I'm glad I did, because it was really funny!

The writing style itself is pretty funny. I loved the "A Word From Your Sponsor" chapters, although I was confused by them at first, and the footnotes had so many interesting details that I couldn't stop myself from reading them. I really like the fact that the author created movies, TV shows, celebrities, products and events simply to include them in this book. Some were so incongruous that they made me laugh out loud, especially since I could picture them on some channels. I think this novel really made me realize how stupid our society can be to enjoy watching such things, because even though the movies and TV shows are fictional and improbable, they reflect some that actually exist.

I really enjoyed discovering the girls' personalities. There are a couple of them, but I feel like I got to know most of them pretty well and they're all interesting and different from the others. They all have different reasons to participate in the competition, as well as different pasts and passions, and I liked understanding them better and knowing why they all act like they do. The friendships they created while being on the island are fantastic and their character development made me really happy.

The thing I enjoyed the most about this book is probably how it changes the notion of "damsel in distress". The girls wish for princes to sweep them off their feet at first, but they quickly realize how amazing they can be on their own. They discover talents about themselves and stop depending on men so much. I really liked that aspect, since it's different from most YA novels.

The only reasons why I'm giving this four stars instead of five are that, while I enjoyed reading this book, it's not really my type and that a lot of the footnotes were boring instead of funny like the other ones. I wish they had all been hilarious and crazy, but I guess you can't always get what you want!

I recommend this book, even though it might not look like everyone's type.

A Game of Thrones - George R. R. Martin

Goodreads summary:

Summers span decades. Winter can last a lifetime. And the struggle for the Iron Throne has begun.

As Warden of the north, Lord Eddard Stark counts it a curse when King Robert bestows on him the office of the Hand. His honour weighs him down at court where a true man does what he will, not what he must … and a dead enemy is a thing of beauty.

The old gods have no power in the south, Stark’s family is split and there is treachery at court. Worse, the vengeance-mad heir of the deposed Dragon King has grown to maturity in exile in the Free Cities. He claims the Iron Throne.  


My review:

5/5

This book is huge, but I absolutely loved it. It's totally worth the hours I spent reading it.

From the beginning, I fell in love with the world of this series. It's so complicated, with different houses and particular weather for all parts of the country. I was intrigued by the customs, the religions and the way they rule the country, even though it took me a while to understand everything. Some things about this world made me really want to live in it, while others made me happy I wasn't actually living in it. The author is crazy to have thought of all about this world, and I'm so glad he did.

I really liked the different chapters about someone in particular. The complexity of each family made me want to know more about them, even when it's not positive. I found it hard to believe that Daenerys lived in the same world as the other characters, since her part of the world is so incredibly different from the others, but I really liked seeing other people's opinion of her, no matter how bad it is. It made everything more natural and realistic, which I really liked.

I have to admit it, there are characters I don't remember the names of. Most of them aren't important characters, so it didn't make my reading experience too hard, but you need an impressive memory to remember all the characters in this book, because there are a lot of them. However, I loved the main characters (except for the horrible ones). The Stark are amazing, especially Arya and Jon (yes, I consider him a Stark), some of my favorite characters. I loved their wildness, which was refreshing compared to everyone else's politeness. I might be a nerd, but I also loved seeing how everything was ruled, mostly by the Starks, because I feel like they're the ones who we get to see rule the most. I found the discussions really interesting and the battles stressful, which made me want to read even more of this book. Weird enough, the character I identify to the most is Daenerys, because there are many things in this book that I would've done exactly like her. I do wish I could be Stark, though. I love them (although Sansa was annoying for the biggest part of this book). Tyrion cracked me up many times, which I loved when I was stressed about the events.

I really liked seeing a different kind of drama, because I really a lot of YA books where drama is all about boys and bad friendships. The drama in this book is about war, murder and bastards (the latter isn't much different to YA though, but I liked it much better), which is refreshing and very complicated, too. I found myself dreading some events, but impatient for others to come, which made me keep on reading for as long as I could whenever I picked this book up.

Seriously, I loved everything about this book, except maybe how long it took me to finish it. I'm incredibly excited to watch the TV show now, which I'll start as soon as possible. I really recommend this book!

A History of Glitter and Blood - Hannah Moskowitz

Goodreads summary

Sixteen-year-old Beckan and her friends are the only fairies brave enough to stay in Ferrum when war breaks out. Now there is tension between the immortal fairies, the subterranean gnomes, and the mysterious tightropers who arrived to liberate the fairies.

But when Beckan's clan is forced to venture into the gnome underworld to survive, they find themselves tentatively forming unlikely friendships and making sacrifices they couldn't have imagined. As danger mounts, Beckan finds herself caught between her loyalty to her friends, her desire for peace, and a love she never expected.

This stunning, lyrical fantasy is a powerful exploration of what makes a family, what justifies a war, and what it means to truly love.


My review:

3/5

It's definitely a weird book, but I still liked it! It wasn't what I was expecting, but that isn't always bad.

I was confused when I started reading because of the narrator. There are parts like "this sucks, to change in the final draft" that took my interest off, because it was out of place and confusing. I realized later that this book is actually an attempt at a novel from a fictional character - I know, confusing - and that those are the fictional narrator's words. While I didn't get it at first, I came to love this part of the novel, because it makes the narrator unreliable and it had me questionning everything that happened when he wasn't there, since it could be complete bullsh*t.

I had trouble understanding the characters, because there is a lack of background for some of them. Also, since they're young, there's a lot of swearing, which I found weird sometimes. It felt out of place, especially when they were out of Beckan's mouth. I think the characters I liked the most were Rig and Tier, because of their relationship issues and how realistic they are, but, for them as well as for the other characters, I hated the fact that the narrator is unreliable, since it made me wonder which part of what's written is true and which one isn't. It was fun to wonder, but when you're trying to get to know characters and everything you read about them might be completely false, it's confusing and irritating.

One part of this book that I liked was understanding the relationships between fairies, tightropers and gnomes. I liked how interesting fairies are and how rare it is for them to be whole, as weird as it sounds, because I found that to be very peculiar. The way they start to accept each other in Ferrum is amazing and I liked how they used each other's abilities. I wish the ending was better for the population in general though, but I gess you can't always get what you want.

I found it really weird how everyone seems obsessed with the idea of love in this book. I know part of it is because of the unreliable narrator, but I felt like the l-word is pronounced a billion times in this book, in platonic or non-platonic ways, although it's almost never clear. I was always confused by who is in love with who because of that. Also, sex is a big part of this book, since Cricket, Beckan and Scrap are prostitutes, which is something I was really not expecting when I picked this book up. There's a lot of mentions about sex, although they're not really explicit.

The story itself is good, but it's a bit slow. I liked how the war changed aspects of their lives and how the main characters reacted to them, but sometimes Josha and Scrap seemed to react too much.
Beckan is strong and she leads her pack very well, which I liked to see. I was suprised by plot twists towards the end of the book, because I was absolutely not expecting them. The story's interesting and it kept me wanting to know what would happen, but I feel like a big part of it is about the past and not much actually happens. I liked the pictures and excerpts included in the pages, but some of them were unnecessary, in my opinion.

I enjoyed reading this book, my only problem with it is that I have a long list of "but" sentences to add to this.

(Thank you NetGalley for providing me with a digital copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.)