Search

12/28/2017

The Girl Who Could Fly by Victoria Forester | Book Review #81




The Bookish Island's Book Review for:

The Girl Who Could Fly by




Will there be spoilers?
Only a little.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is one of the books I read after the passing of Hurricane Maria here in Puerto Rico. With no water, electricity or internet I took to reading my books.
I read this one on September 21. 1 days after.



Title - The Girl Who Could Fly 
By -




Genre - Fantasy, Young Adult, Middle Grade, Fiction, Science Fiction, Children's Books


You just can't keep a good girl down . . . unless you use the proper methods.
Piper McCloud can fly. Just like that. Easy as pie.

Sure, she hasn't mastered reverse propulsion and her turns are kind of sloppy, but she's real good at loop-the-loops.

Problem is, the good folk of Lowland County are afraid of Piper. And her ma's at her wit's end. So it seems only fitting that she leave her parents' farm to attend a top-secret, maximum-security school for kids with exceptional abilities.

School is great at first with a bunch of new friends whose skills range from super-strength to super-genius. (Plus all the homemade apple pie she can eat!) But Piper is special, even among the special. And there are consequences.

Consequences too dire to talk about. Too crazy to consider. And too dangerous to ignore.

At turns exhilarating and terrifying, Victoria Forester's debut novel has been praised by Stephenie Meyer, author of the Twilight saga, as "the oddest/sweetest mix of
Little House on the Prairie and X-Men...Prepare to have your heart warmed." The Girl Who Could Fly is an unforgettable story of defiance and courage about an irrepressible heroine who can, who will, who must . . . fly.

The Rating:





My Review:


The Cover:
Although they say never judge a book by it's cover I believe the cover should represent what the book is going to be like or at least some aspect of it.
The cover is beautiful. ❤
With Piper flying in the clouds over the icy mountains on the cover. Helping make a visual of what she looks like as a character. Which is always good. Its also a scene from the book too. Then there's the title which is on a badge type. And it's so cool. 😀
And to be honest it was the whole reason I got it in the first place. 😜


The Story:


Piper McCloud has always been different. From the day she was born she's had an ability to float. Despite her parents telling her not to float or levitate she just cant help it. Its who she is. Till one day she learns to fly and everything changes in her life from there. 



Relationships:

Piper x Conrad
Piper and Conrad have such an interesting relationship in this book.  They each don't know the other and yet Piper wants to be friends with him and Conrad just wants to use her abilities. So you get to see their progress as they get to see the strengths and stubbornness they both have. 

Piper x the McClouds
Their relationship is very much what your expect from a family that grew up on a farm they are hardworking people a that truly cared about each other and it showed. 
But with Piper's powers there was a fear her parents had of what people would think. Which is to be expected since they've never heard of a girl who could fly. But they get better at understanding her and her abilities which is very important because if her parents don't believe in her then she'd be alone. Even if there are others. You know?

Overall:


The characters in this book were insanely good. 
Each great in their own way. Well written and fully their own person. I was impressed by how amazing they all were. All that made me adore Piper even more because it felt like I was cheering for someone real. I wanted her to get her happy ending. 

Then there was the world. 
The world in this story was super. Not only did it smoothly transition from a quaint southern town to secret underground government but it was done in such away that I never questioned what was happening. 

As for the fantasy element in this story. 
It was well done mostly because it wasn't done in such a way that it made you question it. Like does every kid have powers and they just suppressed them or what? No, you quickly learn what the situation is with the powers the children have and what is being done with and about them. 
And as the blurb Stepahanie Meyer wrote for this said. I did get that X-Men vibe from this story as well. 

I truly wish I could talk more about this book but I really don't want to spoil it.

Get a copy at:
Barnes&Noble  | Amazon
Or get it here using my affiliate link. Please:
Book Depository


______________________________________












//postfooter//

 photo postfooter_zpsbjlk2ljo.jpg


12/22/2017

The Body Reader by Anne Frasier | Book Review #80




Book Review:

The Body Reader by Anne Frasier




Spoilers?
A smidge.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------


This is one of the books I read after the passing of Hurricane Maria here in Puerto Rico. With no water, electricity or internet I took to reading my books.

I read this one on October 23.
33 days after.



Title - The Body Reader
By - Anne Frasier
Publication - June 21st 2016 by Thomas & Mercer
Copy - Paperback, 302 pages

Genre - Mystery, Thriller, Suspense

For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive.

After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice—and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead. Despite colleagues’ doubts about her mental state, she resumes her role at Homicide. Her new partner, Detective Uriah Ashby, doesn’t trust her sanity, and he has a story of his own he’d rather keep hidden. But a killer is on the loose, murdering young women, so the detectives have no choice: they must work together to catch the madman before he strikes again. And no one knows madmen like Jude Fontaine.


The Rating:









My Review:


The Cover:
Although they say never judge a book by it's cover I believe the cover should represent what the book is going to be like or at least some aspect of it.
I actually really love the cover. The photo of who is supposed to be Jude with a photo of who I think is her partner, Uriah inside. I liked it.


The Story:


Detective Jude Fontaine was held captive for years in an underground cell with no hope of leaving. She could only distract herself by learning her captors every move, expression, and words. Until the day she gets out.



Overall:


I loved it. I knew I would love it, too.

It was such a good book with a good unpredictable twist at the end. Which is why I recommend it so much.


I actually tried to start this book back in April.

April 28, 2017 – page 39 

"I started this the other day, mostly because we were stuck on the side of the highway, just got out of school, cause the car broke down. It was just me and mom. She was super worried and scared it would get dark before we got home. While I was in the back reading this book while we waited for help. It was a weird moment and a made a weird decision to read a thriller mystery in that kind of situation. 😕"



Get a copy at:
Barnes&Noble  | Amazon
Or get it here using my affiliate link. Please:
Book Depository


______________________________________













//postfooter//

 photo postfooter_zpsbjlk2ljo.jpg


12/21/2017

Monthly BookHaul | November 2017







These past few months have been hard. Especially with Hurricane Maria taking the electricity, water, and internet away. Also my bed, our fridge, kitchen table, microwave, stove, my copy of All The Bright Places by Jennifer Naveen, among other stuff. So we were really sad for a long time. Barely even wanted to do anything too.

But mom wanted to cheer me up so she gifted me some books from Book Outlet's Black Friday sale. And I went crazy.





I also did a video. Well, 2 videos of the unboxing of said books.


&




__________________________________________________




Hauled




Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen 


An atmospheric, gritty, and compelling novel of star-crossed lovers, set in the circus world circa 1932, by the bestselling author of Riding Lessons.

When Jacob Jankowski, recently orphaned and suddenly adrift, jumps onto a passing train, he enters a world of freaks, drifters, and misfits, a second-rate circus struggling to survive during the Great Depression, making one-night stands in town after endless town. A veterinary student who almost earned his degree, Jacob is put in charge of caring for the circus menagerie. It is there that he meets Marlena, the beautiful young star of the equestrian act, who is married to August, the charismatic but twisted animal trainer. He also meets Rosie, an elephant who seems untrainable until he discovers a way to reach her.







_______________________________




My Last Kiss by Bethany Neal 


What if your last kiss was with the wrong boy?

Cassidy Haines remembers her first kiss vividly. It was on the old covered bridge the summer before her freshman year with her boyfriend of three years, Ethan Keys. But her last kiss--the one she shared with someone at her seventeenth birthday party the night she died--is a blur. Cassidy is trapped in the living world, not only mourning the loss of her human body, but left with the grim suspicion that her untimely death wasn't a suicide as everyone assumes. She can't remember anything from the weeks leading up to her birthday and she's worried that she may have betrayed her boyfriend.





_______________________________




The Lifeboat Clique by Kathy Parks

Some people might say that Denver had a death wish. Why else would she have dared to sneak into a Malibu beach party where she’d be surrounded by enemies, namely including her ex-BFF Abigail?

Oh yeah. Croix. Denver never thought in a million years he’d ask her out, but who was she to question this miracle of fate? Well, that wasn’t the only surprise fate had in store.

During the party a tsunami hit the coast of California, wiping out everything in its path. Denver and a handful of others escaped death by holding onto the roof of the house and were swept out to sea. Of course, one of her fellow castaways was none other than Abigail, who could barely stand the sight of her.

Now that she’s floating in the ocean, stuck on a small boat with the most popular kids in school and waiting to be rescued, Denver wonders what might kill her first-dehydration, sunstroke, or the girl she used to think of as a sister?




_______________________________




The Inn Between by Marina Cohen 


The Shining meets "Hotel California" in this supremely creepy middle grade novel about the bizarre things that happen to two girls stranded at a desert inn.

Eleven-year-old Quinn has had some bad experiences lately. She was caught cheating in school, and then one day, her little sister Emma disappeared while walking home from school. She never returned

When Quinn's best friend Kara has to move away, she goes on one last trip with Kara and her family. They stop over at the first hotel they see, a Victorian inn that instantly gives Quinn the creeps, and she begins to notice strange things happening around them. When Kara's parents and then brother disappear without a trace, the girls are stranded in a hotel full of strange guests, hallways that twist back in on themselves, and a particularly nasty surprise lurking beneath the floorboards. Will the girls be able to solve the mystery of what happened to Kara's family before it's too late?




_______________________________



Flying by Carrie Jones 


People have always treated seventeen-year-old Mana as someone in need of protection. She's used to being coddled, being an only child, but it's hard to imagine anything could ever happen in her small-town, normal life. As her mother's babying gets more stifling than ever, she's looking forward to cheering at the big game and getting out of the house for a while.

But that night, Mana's life goes haywire.




_______________________________




Devoted by Jennifer Mathieu 


Rachel Walker is devoted to God.

She prays every day, attends Calvary Christian Church with her family, helps care for her five younger siblings, dresses modestly, and prepares herself to be a wife and mother who serves the Lord with joy.

But Rachel is curious about the world her family has turned away from, and increasingly finds that neither the church nor her homeschool education has the answers she craves. Rachel has always found solace in her beliefs, but now she can’t shake the feeling that her devotion might destroy her soul.





_______________________________




Ice Breaker by Lian Tanner 

Twelve-year-old Petrel is an outcast, the lowest of the low on the Oyster, an ancient icebreaker that has been following the same course for three hundred years. In that time, the ship's crew has forgotten its original purpose and broken into three warring tribes. Everyone has a tribe except Petrel, whose parents committed such a terrible crime that they were thrown overboard, and their daughter ostracised.




_______________________________




Killer Instinct by S.E. Green 

Lane is a typical teenager. Loving family. Good grades. After-school job at the local animal hospital. Martial arts enthusiast. But her secret obsession is studying serial killers. She understands them, knows what makes them tick.

Why?
Because she might be one herself.




_______________________________



Deja Who by MaryJanice Davidson

Leah Nazir is an Insighter. Reincarnation is her business. But while her clients' pasts are a mess, Leah's is nothing short of tragedy. She's been murdered. A lot. If left to that bitch, destiny, it'll happen again. Leah wants to know who's been following her through time, and who's been stalking her in the present...

P.I. Archer Drake has been hired by Leah's mother to keep an eye on her. But the more time he spends watching, the more he finds himself infatuated. Before long, he even finds himself agreeing to help find the person who wants her dead. Over and over again.



_______________________________












Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver


For popular high school senior Samantha Kingston, February 12—"Cupid Day"—should be one big party, a day of valentines and roses and the privileges that come with being at the top of the social pyramid. And it is…until she dies in a terrible accident that night.

However, she still wakes up the next morning. In fact, Sam lives the last day of her life seven times, until she realizes that by making even the slightest changes, she may hold more power than she ever imagined.






_______________________________




The Scavengers by Michael Perry


When the world started to fall apart, the government gave everyone two choices: move into the Bubble Cities…or take their chances outside. Maggie's family chose to live in the world that was left behind. Deciding it's time to grow up and grow tough, Maggie rechristens herself "Ford Falcon"—a name inspired by the beat-up car she finds at a nearby junkyard. Ford's family goes to this junkyard to scavenge for things they can use or barter with the other people who live OutBubble. Her family has been able to survive this brave new world by working together. But when Ford comes home one day to discover her home ransacked and her family missing, she must find the strength to rescue her loved ones with the help of some unlikely friends.





_______________________________




Immaculate by Katelyn Detweiler


Mina is seventeen. A virgin. And pregnant.

Mina is top of her class, girlfriend to the most ambitious guy in school, able to reason and study her way through anything. But when she suddenly finds herself pregnant—despite having never had sex—her orderly world collapses. Almost nobody believes Mina’s claims of virginity. Her father assumes that her boyfriend is responsible; her boyfriend believes she must have cheated on him. As news of Mina’s story spreads, there are those who brand her a liar. There are those who brand her a heretic. And there are those who believe that miracles are possible—and that Mina’s unborn child could be the greatest miracle of all.





_______________________________





Unremembered by Jessica Brody

The only thing worse than forgetting her past . . . is remembering it.

When Freedom Airlines flight 121 went down over the Pacific Ocean, no one ever expected to find survivors. Which is why the sixteen-year-old girl discovered floating among the wreckage—alive—is making headlines across the globe.

Even more strange is that her body is miraculously unharmed and she has no memories of boarding the plane. She has no memories of her life before the crash. She has no memories period. No one knows how she survived. No one knows why she wasn’t on the passenger manifest. And no one can explain why her DNA and fingerprints can’t be found in a single database in the world.






_______________________________




Under the Egg by Laura Marx Fitzgerald


When Theodora Tenpenny spills a bottle of rubbing alcohol on her late grandfather’s painting, she discovers what seems to be an old Renaissance masterpiece underneath. That’s great news for Theo, who’s struggling to hang onto her family’s two-hundred-year-old townhouse and support her unstable mother on her grandfather’s legacy of $463. There’s just one problem: Theo’s grandfather was a security guard at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and she worries the painting may be stolen.

With the help of some unusual new friends, Theo’s search for answers takes her all around Manhattan, and introduces her to a side of the city—and her grandfather—that she never knew. To solve the mystery, she’ll have to abandon her hard-won self-reliance and build a community, one serendipitous friendship at a time.






_______________________________




The Stranger on the Train by Abbie Taylor


Your baby has been stolen by a stranger. The police won't listen. What would you do?

Abbie Taylor shows remarkable flair in this involving and intriguing debut novel.

A young mother's nightmare comes true... the tube doors close with her baby still on the train. Struggling as a single mother, Emma sometimes wishes that her thirteen-month-old son Ritchie would just disappear. But when, one quiet Sunday evening, Ritchie is abducted by a stranger on the London Underground, Emma is thrown into a situation worse than she could have ever imagined.

But why don't the police seem to fully believe her story? Why would they think that she would want to hurt her own baby?

If Emma wants Richie back, it looks like she'll have to find him herself. With the help of a stranger called Rafe, the one person who seems to believe her, she goes in search of her son. And she is determined to get him back... no matter what it takes.






_______________________________




Sister Eve, Private Eye by Lynne Hinton


Sister Eve knows God moves in mysterious ways. And Eve adores a good mystery. Especially a murder.

Two decades into her calling at a New Mexico monastery, Sister Evangeline Divine breaks her daily routine when a police officer appears, carrying a message from her father. Sister Eve is no stranger to the law, having grown up with a police captain turned private detective. She's seen her fair share of crime--and knows a thing or two about solving mysteries.

But when Captain Jackson Divine needs her to return home and help him recover from surgery, Sister Eve finds herself taking on his latest case.








_______________________________




The Hardy Boys: The Tower Treasure by Franklin W. Dixon


Now with a brand-new look, this is an edition that collectors won't want to miss! In The Tower Treasure, the first book in the incredibly popular, long-running series, Frank and Joe Hardy work together to solve a high-stakes jewel heist. A special treat for Hardy Boys fans and any reader who's new to the series!








_______________________________




A Week without Tuesday by Angelica Banks


Something is broken in the land of story. Real and imaginary worlds are colliding—putting everything and everyone in grave peril. Tuesday and Baxterr, at the request of the Librarian, and with the help of Vivienne Small, venture to find the Gardener—the one person who can stop this catastrophe. On their way, they'll meet friends and foes, and discover strengths they didn't know they had. Will they be able to save the land of story?







_______________________________






The Last Boy and Girl in the World by Siobhan Vivian


What if your town was sliding underwater and everyone was ordered to pack up and leave? How would you and your friends spend your last days together?

While the adults plan for the future, box up their possessions, and find new places to live, Keeley Hewitt and her friends decide to go out with a bang. There are parties in abandoned houses. Canoe races down Main Street. The goal is to make the most of every minute they still have together.

And for Keeley, that means taking one last shot at the boy she’s loved forever.






_______________________________




A Week of Mondays by Jessica Brody


Sixteen-year-old Ellison Sparks is having a serious case of the Mondays. She gets a ticket for running a red light, she manages to take the world’s worst school picture, she bombs softball try-outs and her class election speech (note to self: never trust a cheerleader when she swears there are no nuts in her bake-sale banana bread), and to top it all off, Tristan, her gorgeous rocker boyfriend suddenly dumps her. For no good reason!

As far as Mondays go, it doesn’t get much worse than this. And Ellie is positive that if she could just do it all over again, she would get it right. So when she wakes up the next morning to find she’s reliving the exact same day, she knows what she has to do: stop her boyfriend from breaking up with her. But it seems no matter how many do-overs she gets or how hard Ellie tries to repair her relationship, Tristan always seems bent set on ending it. Will Ellie ever figure out how to fix this broken day? Or will she be stuck in this nightmare of a Monday forever?






_______________________________




Trouble by Non Pratt


Told in alternating perspectives between Hannah and Aaron, Trouble is the story of two teenagers helping each other to move forward in the wake of tragedy and devastating choices. In a year marked by loss, regret, and hope, the two will discover a simple truth: Nothing compares to finding your first, true best friend.






_______________________________




The Ghost and the Goth by Stacey Kade


Alona Dare–Senior in high school, co-captain of the cheerleading squad, Homecoming Queen three years in a row, voted most likely to marry a movie star… and newly dead.








_______________________________




#scandal by Sarah Ockler


Lucy’s learned some important lessons from tabloid darling Jayla Heart’s all-too-public blunders: Avoid the spotlight, don’t feed the Internet trolls, and keep your secrets secret. The policy has served Lucy well all through high school, so when her best friend Ellie gets sick before prom and begs her to step in as Cole’s date, she accepts with a smile, silencing about ten different reservations. Like the one where she’d rather stay home shredding online zombies. And the one where she hates playing dress-up. And especially the one where she’s been secretly in love with Cole since the dawn of time.







_______________________________




No Love Allowed by Kate Evangelista


It's all fun and parties until someone falls in love in this modern fairy tale from author Kate Evangelista.

Caleb desperately needs a fake girlfriend. Either he attends a series of parties for his father’s law firm with a pretty girl on his arm, or he gets shipped off to Yale to start a future he’s not ready for and isn’t sure he wants. And sadly, the last unattached girl in his social circle has just made the grievous mistake of falling in love with him. Fortunately, Didi, recently fired waitress and aspiring painter, is open to new experiences. As the summer ticks by in a whirl of lavish parties, there’s only one rule: They must not fall in love!






_______________________________








Blog | Tumblr | Instagram | Twitter | Goodreads


//postfooter//

 photo postfooter_zpsbjlk2ljo.jpg