Episode: New England Schola (Betrayals by Lili St Crow)

“I just got my Coke and cigarettes from 7eleven and I’m now walking my usual route to work.  Yellow lit side walk lined with trees with occasional falling caterpillars. I hate it when that happens.  Even if it doesn’t land on me, it makes me feel itchy.  Today, a cat walked beside me like it’s strolling to work with me. I suddenly remembered my cat.  I had a black cat with a stubbed tail. I would always creep thru the window while I sleep and sleep on my pillow like she owns it. I’d feel her pawing me when I invade her space.  And when I she thinks I’m just feeling stubborn, my cat does not have a concept of deep human sleep, she’d scratch me.

I reached the graveled parking lot found a spot to sit and started smoking my lungs out.  Damn, I think me and Graves would get along with our vices really well.”

If you said “huh? So where’s the review? Why is she talking about this?” while reading that part, that’s exactly how I felt in a lot of parts of Betrayals.  Dru is very observant and loves reminiscing in length.  It felt like Déjà vu sometimes coz I swear I just read that in book 1. I wasn’t fond of it.  But aside from that, I liked this book. Although, I admit it was an effective way to make me feel the chaos in Dru’s head and her fear each time they got attacked by wympires.

 I was a bit disappointed that she did not get stronger.  There was still a lot of shaking, A LOT! She’s so scared most of the time coz she doesn’t know what’s going on.  She expected to be trained but just got stuck going thru lectures then she meets Anna who tries to make her doubt Christophe’s loyalty to her.  I get it but I was hoping she’d get pissed with herself for being so scared all the time and snap out of it.  Ok, maybe not all the time but its either that or it’s like she has a period.  I’d be like her too if I were in her shoes but by this time, I’ll be fighting back. Pretty sure I’d end up dead and end of series. LOL! I wish she was more like Meghan of Iron Fey.  She’s not a fighter, she’s helpless.  She has powers but can’t use it. She has emotions like normal people, she gets frustrated, scared, pissed but she can convert those into strength or power.

I have a lot of complaints but I really did like this.  The pace was ok and I’m starting to get used to the flashbacks. Action was great too. I just wish I’d see more of Christophe.  He is one of the reasons I’m going to continue this series. I want to know what he knows and I’m still waiting to see what Dru will become. I would also like to know who she’ll end up with.  I love Christophe and I like him better than Graves but I want Dru to end up with Graves. First one’s free.     

2014 Series Challenge

After reading the list of books i plan to read this year, I've decided to join another book challenge, 2014 Series Book challenge hosted by readsleeprepeat.org.

I like reading books in series 'coz I get to know the characters better and there is less "ay bitin" moments. They show us one adventure after another and gets addicting.  I always look for fanfics after reading everything the author has written about it. So hard to let go!

This challenge is challenging 'coz you'd have to read a whole lot of books and you got to finish the series or at least be up to date with the latest release. But what's good about it is it uses a badge system which allows you to join a book raffle.

Read about the challenge here .

I'll be aiming for platinum...good luck! hahaha

Lunar Chronicles fans:Win a Cress Audio Book

hey guys,

Here's a chance to win your own Cress audiobook

just follow the link:
https://twitter.com/mikailamoo/status/425528792505794560

:)

Eposide: Strange Angels (Strange Angels #1)

Everything is a blur. Dru’s dad became a zombie and she kill’s him. Then she meet’s this guy who sits infornt of her in class and turns into a semi warewolf.  He got bitten by a warewolf with highlights. Then she meet’s this djamphir who tries to help them. I kept falling asleep. Thank God I didn’t miss the important parts.

This was supposed to be an easy read but I just can get my head into it.  I kept zoning out and on several occasions have thrown the book to the floor. It’s not a bad book, I liked the last part of it.  I guess it’s coz it started slow and it was kinda confusing. It was too descriptive for me that i’m unable to picture out what was happening. It’s the same thing that happens to me when I’m reading adult fiction books which is probably why I don’t read much of them. It gets me confused.  She also talks to herself too much. I liked it at first coz it’s real.  We don’t always say what we think but it was too much for me. I also was not able to connect with the dad’s death coz the dad being alive part was too short for me to relate.  It was also kinda disappointing. The cover of the book says “Dru Anderson Night hunter, Knife Thrower, Heartbreaker” but in this book you can’t call her a night hunter.  She’s just a regular girl with a night hunter mom and amateur night hunter dad and with an attitude problem.  There was also no heartbreaking.  I don’t remember much knife throwing, it’s more guns than knives.  I guess I expected her to be kick ass.  But that is the reason why I will continue reading this series. I wanna see her improve. Well I hope she does. Hell, I’m sure she will.  I’m just so used to reading about kick ass girls who gets better as the series progresses.  I didn’t expect a sorta clumsy and kinda clueless girl who has too much thought bubble conversations. Atleast there is something fresh or different about this series.

If you haven’t read this series, you should be ready to let go of some of your paranormal beliefs coz some of them are kinda different.

I’m not happy with this first book and Dru is currently my top 2 irritating female protagonist but I will continue reading it for sure.

Episode: Siberia (Blood Promise:Vampire Academy #4)

Rose leaves to find Dimitri. Why am I not surprised? But what surprised me was that Lissa didn’t come with her. Or at least ask if she can go with Rose.  I know Rose wouldn’t have let her come but I thought she should have atleast asked.

So we go on a trip to Siberia. Rose meets Dimitri’s family, mom, sisters and scary granma Yeva. I love granma Yeva. She has this creepy witch aura about her and she pretended not to speak English the whole time coz she doesn’t wanna be bothered. Haha. She also meets Sydney, the alchemist and a scary Moroi mob boss, Abe, who turns out to be her dad and she finds Dimitri. It’s was kinda like a buffy the vampire slayer arc where Buffy was trying to save Angel but with a lot of make out sessions.  Rose kills Dimitri at the end, or at least she thought.

On the other side, Lissa found a new friend Avery who turns out to be a psycho bitch with spirit powers.  She used her powers to turn Lissa into her crazy party girl best friend and since she’s so psycho, she also tries to kill her to make her a part of her sun-kissed posse. Unlike Lissa, Avery has 2, her brother and her guardian. They say she saved 1 and killed one of them then brought him back from the dead. PSYCHO.  This screws Lissa’s relationship with Christian.  She also tries to make Adrian fall for her which almost worked. Thank god for Rose, who was continents away, to save them. 

This experience made me dislike Lissa even more.  No, don’t blame her with the stuff she did under Avery’s control but she is just so insensitive with Rose.  I was happy Christian broke up with her, though I know this wouldn’t last long, let her suffer some.  I was kinda surprised with Christian though.  I thought he’ll just jump back in after the Avery thing was done but he didn’t.  I was like he blamed her for the things she did though he knew she wasn’t in control much. Maybe that was it.  He expected her to be stronger.  Or maybe jealousy really just got the best of him. 

Dimitri isn’t dead…and he’s after Rose

Episode: within the walls of Vampire Academy (Shadowkiss:Vampire Academy #3 by Richelle Mead)

So a lot of things are happening.  Mason died and now Rose is seeing his ghost as well as others.  In their world, they have vampires but they don’t believe in ghosts, which was kinda funny.  Coz I would have easily believed in ghosts than the existence of vampires. But this is their world.  Lissa and Christian are still together, more make out sessions.  Christian have started teaching some Moroi’s to use their powers to fight.  Adrian Ivashkov has a thing for Rose.  Adrian is older than them, a delinquent and the queen’s favorite nephew.  He’s also a spirit user like Lissa and visits Rose in her dreams.  Rose, on the other hand, thinks he only wants to have sex with her and is still in love with Dimitri.  They have also gone to court for Victor Dashkov’s trial where he was found guilty.  But the most exciting part is when the school got attacked by strigois.    Rose and Christian helped defending the middle school.  Eddie was taken by the strigoi.  Morois and guardians had a retrieval mission for the taken moroi and guardians. And Dimitri turned Strigoi.  How the strigois got thru the protection surrounding the academy, how dimitri became strigoi and why are there ghosts on this story, please read the book. Hehe

As I spend more time in this world, I’m starting to think that Lissa is so damn self centered. She’s just so wrapped up in her own world she doesn’t even know who Rose is interested in, why Rose is acting so bitchy lately and she doesn’t really try to find out.  Rose on the other hand, seems to be having menstrual cramps. I’m not blaming her, the spirit is too much I guess.  But it’s so frustrating that she always pretends that she’s ok when she obviously not.

This book made me wanna finish the whole series.  It might not be the best story in the series but this is the one for me. 

Episode: Ski Resort Frostbite (vampire academy #2) by Richelle Mead

Buzz before the winter ski trip: a royal Moroi family and their guardians were killed by Strigois and it seems that they had help from humans.  Lissa has a boyfriend, Christian, and they’ve become anti-social.  Rose is developing a jealous streak.  She’s thinking of just having Mason as her boyfriend to get over Dimitri.  Dimitri seems to be attracted to a royal, Tasha.  Mia is still a bitch.  Rose’s mom, Janine Hathaway, is in the academy and gave her a black eye.  Rose was inside Lissa’s head when she had sex with Christian.  Rose found out from her mom that Dimitri might leave the academy to be Tasha’s guardian and would probably have a baby with him.

During the ski trip: they found out that another royal Moroi family got killed. Those who were not killed got taken by Strigois, still with help from humans.  Mia’s mom got killed with the family.  Tasha is advocating the use of Moroi powers to protect themselves.  Rose’s hot ‘n cold routine with Mason, got Mason so mad that he, with his friend Eddie and Mia, went out to search and kill Strigois.  Mason dies.  Rose kills 2 strigois and got her first Molnijas. There’s a new royal moroi in the academy, Adrian Ivashkov, who also uses spirit powers like Lissa. Dimitri is not leaving the academy.

I loved this book.  I loved the action.  I liked the feeling of frustration when Rose found out that Mason left to search for Strigoi.  Rose was blaming herself for it but I was more like, that guy’s stupid, he’ll die! And he did. Don’t hate me but I truly felt that it was his time to go.  I felt the helplessness, fear and tension when they got captured. Also the rage while Rose was decapitating the strigois.  I also loved that Christian was a part of the action and not just the boyfriend. I wish his power gets stronger coz I think it’s bad ass.  But what I loved most about this book are the Rose and mom scenes.  I almost cried in the end.  I was able to relate to the feeling when you wanna say pour your guts out to your parent but you can’t coz you don’t have that kind of relationship with them.  You wanna hug or get a pat on the back but you don’t get it coz your family doesn’t do the mushy-touchy-feely stuff.  But your still happy coz they’re there for you. 

Episode: Montana, Vampire Academy (Vampire Academy By Richelle Mead)

The rumors are true.  They are back.  Princess Vasilisa, a Moroi royalty and Rose Hathaway, a dhampir guardian novice are back in the academy after escaping 2 years ago.  Nobody knows why they escaped. Some say it’s because one of them got pregnant and had an abortion…well, welcome to Gossip Girl! I mean Vampire Academy.

Going thru Vampire Academy is like walking through the halls of Vampire Knight. Sort of.  There are academic buildings, dormitories and lots of space. There are also two types of students, the dhamir novices and the Moroi.  The Moroi are non-immortal, capable of child bearing vampires, royalty and non-royalty.  If you’re a part of the 12 ruling vampire families, you’re a royalty Moroi. The Dhampir are half-Moroi and half-human.  They have enhanced strength and senses from vampires and endurance from humans. They, unfortunately, cannot get pregnant by having sex with their own kind.  Unlike Vampire Knight, the non-vampires,dhampirs, do not scream their heads off when they see a Moroi.  They train to be their guardians. They also don’t have night and day classes, they have similar schedules.  They have common classes, like math, and specialized ones, like fighting classes for dhampirs.  But what they do have in common is a threat from a different kind of vampire, the Strigoi.  Strigoi’s are the immortal vampires.  They are either Moroi, dhampir, or human turned vampire.  The structure is where vampire knight ends.  The atmosphere of vampire academy is more like Gossip Girl.  There’s gossip, jealousy, high school revenge, flirting, make out sessions, love triangles, family issues.  They also have the usual cocktail of hot-teacher-you’d-wanna-make-out-with, the witty and dependable guy who’s seriously crushing on you, a famous hot guy who wants to get under inside your pants, he outcast bad boy, the social climber, a Selene and an ass-kicking Blair.  I think of Rose as an ass kicking version of Blair.  Hot, sensual, opinionated…without the cute headbands and more in tune with the rebel-phase Jenny fashion.

I’m no longer into vampire novels.  After Bram Stocker’s Dracula and Anne Rice’s Vampire Chronicles, I’ve never picked up a vampire novel till Vampire Academy. Why? Coz I like my vampires dark, rough and sensual but not so love sick. And I don’t like them vegan.  I can stand 1 vegan vampire but not more than that. So why this after 12yrs? Vampire academy isn’t rough and dark. It’s far from Anne Rice’s vampires.   I’m a school anime fan so a novel about vampires in one school was inviting.  I also got curious coz of the reviews I read comparing this to Twilight. (I never read that series coz of the sickening hype it got at our office when the books came out here in Manila but I watched the movies. Fine, I pretended to read book one but only got into 2 chapters at the beginning. I crack sometimes under peer pressure.  I also read a few pages in the middle and a couple of chapters in the end. Just in case they quiz me on it.)  I wanted to see why some people would compare them when they seem so different.  So was it worth picking up?  I got the anime-ish school story that I wanted.  It didn’t have tense-action levels that I was expecting but it is a good intro for the series.  It gives familiarity, a people map of the academy.  It’s a quick read. 

Vampire Academy book 1, for me, is a novel about school life not much about vampires in a school.  I sometimes forget that Moroi’s are vampires.  I’m not saying it’s a bad thing tho. I think it even made my reading experience more enjoyable coz I didn’t get stuck with my vampire biases.  I was able to form biases/opinions more the character’s character.  Like Mia should get punched more, like how I don’t get Mason’s flirting, Rose and Dimitri should already do it, Lissa being too nice ( it seems fake to me LOL!).  I’m not crazy about this book but I like it enough to continue reading the series.         

My Top Books and Korean drama 2013

Top Series (based on the series that I’ve read during 2013)

1.     1.   Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Meyer ( Cinder and Scarlet)

I probably shouldn’t include this yet on the list or call it the TOP series since it’s not yet complete but I can’t help it.  I love Cinder and Scarlet.  I’m a huge fan of fairy tales and fairy tale adaptations intrigue me.  What I love about this series is the stories ability to keep the essence of the fairy tale while giving us a totally new experience.  

2.      2.  Divergent by Veronica Roth (Divergent, Insurgent, Allegiant)

It was excitement and an emotional roller coaster all the way.  It’s able to pull you in which makes it hard to put down.  This probably has the best ending among all the complete series I’ve read.  Veronica Roth made us fall in love with the characters then lead us to heartbreak. I still can’t get over that ending.

3.       3. Infernal Devices by Cassandra Claire (Clockwork Angel, Clockwork Prince, Clockwork Princess)

 

Two words, Will Herondale.

Top K-drama (based k-drama’s I watched during 2013) 

1.      The Master’s Sun

Synopsis (from wiki.d-addicts.com)
Joo Joong Won (So Ji Sub) is a cold and ambitious CEO, who measures all human relationships through money. Tae Gong Shil (Gong Hyo Jin) is a sensitive assistant, who suffers from insomnia, due to her ability to see ghosts after an accident. Joong Won will learn to trust Gong Shil and falls in love with her. 

A kilig worthy k-drama with funny ghosts.  This wasn’t mean to be a scary drama after all. Ok, the ghost during the 1st episode scared me but after that they were all just funny.  It’s a rich guy, poor girl love story, not much different from other with that same theme (except for the ghosts) but Gong Hyo Jin and So Ji Sub were so good, you’d want to watch one episode after the other and hate that it has to end. 

2. Chongdamdong Alice  

Synopsis (from wiki.d-addicts.com)

Han Se Kyung (Moon Geun Young) is a talented young designer who lives each day with the motto "Strive for your dream to succeed". Until she met Cha Seung Jo (Park Shi Hoo) a president of a luxury brand shop in Cheongdam-dong who will change her life. 

Another rich guy, poor girl story.  Han Se Kyung tries to marry a rich guy using the book of instructions that her friend gave her.  It’s like a black book to lure guys.  She meets Jean Thierry Cha who pretends to be his assistant.  The sweet girl turns into a social climber,well, she tries, and at the same time Jean Thierry falls in love with the sweet girl. If you like stories where the rich arrogant guy pretends to be a poor guy and find his love, you’ll surely love this one. 

3.       Gu Family book

Synopsis (wiki.d-addicts.com)
 A melodrama epic about the great deal of trouble Choi Kang Chi, born as a half-human-half-mythical-creature (or human werefox half-breed), who goes through in order to become human and a story of Choi Kang Chi's journey of struggling in order to live more like a human than anyone else despite not being able to become human.

Choi Kang Chi (Lee Seung Ki) is the son of Gu Wol Ryung (Choi Jin Hyuk), the guardian spirit (werefox) of Jiri Mountain, and Yoon Seo Hwa (Lee Yeon Hee/Yoon Se Ah), his human mother. He was raised by the Park family after having been picked up from the river. Due to customary restrictions of the era he is adopted by manager Choi instead, however Park Moo Sol takes on the role of being Kang Chi's main father figure. Kang Chi is an outspoken character who's full of curiosity. He realizes that he's a half-human-half-beast through a certain incident and starts living his second life.
Dam Yeo Wool (Bae Suzy) is a master of martial arts and archery. Yeo Wool is an upright character who really values the Three Bonds and Five Relationships in Confucianism, and becomes an instructor at a martial arts center at a young age.

I’m a Lee Seung-gi and Suzy fan.  But aside from that, it’s fantasy and has a lot of action scenes. I hope there’s a part 2.

4.       Flower boy next door 

Synopsis (asianwiki.com)

Ko Dok-Mi (Park Shin-Hye) lives peacefully in apartment #402 at Ocean Village. She rarely leaves her apartment. Since last fall, Ko Dok-Mi has peeped out her apartment at her neighbor Tae-Joon (Kim Jung-San), who lives across from her. Peeping at Tae-Joon has become part of Ko Dok-Mi's daily routine. Her comfortable and peaceful life is shattered, when a group of handsome neighbors appear at her door. 

Video game designer Enrique Keum (Yoon Si-Yoon) just came to Korea from Spain. He lives with Tae-Joon. Oh Jin-Rok (Kim Ji-Hoon) lives in apartment #401 with his assistant Dong-Hoon (Ko Gyung-Pyo). Oh Jin-Rok is a web comic writer and begins writing his new comic by observing Ko Dok-Mi. There's also Watanabe (Kouki Mizuta), who moved next to Ko Dok-Mi.
The men has gathered, because Enrique Keum caught Ko Dok-Mi peeping at Tae-Joon.
Yoon Shi Yoon is so cute.  It was kinda weird seeing Park Shin-hye in this role, I thought I’ll just watch this coz of my love for Shi Yoon but since she was a good actress, she was able to pull it off.  It was a cute, fun, quirky love story.    

Episode: Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hr Bookstore by Robin Sloan

A whole in the wall bookstore that’s open 24 hours. Books lined up to the ceiling. Titles i’m not familiar with.  The smell of paper everywhere. The smell of old paper makes me sneeze but I still welcome it. It gives me the feel of magic, and wisdom or an old secret waiting to be discovered. They have a section of books called the “way back list”, a mystery, a puzzle. I can live here. Well, maybe not. But I can stay here for hours and hours. If only there is really one like this.

Mr. Penumbra’s 24 hour bookstore is magic. Why?

1.        It gave me a happy break from YA dystophian novels. No end of the world looming. Just regular people living a life they chose them stumbling upon a great mystery and adventure.  

2.        The book itself is magical. Sort of.  The cover is glow in the dark. Hahaha I woke up one evening with a really bad headache. I’ve had the book for over a month at that time. At first, I thought my head was playing a trick on me, damn headache. But as I got closer, I realized it wasn’t. The cover was glow in the dark.  I had a huge smile on my face like I just met Tinkerbell.  Then there was that horrid rain a few days after I purchased the book. I’m the type who goes to work with everything I need on my pocket.  That day I decided to bring my book to work so I carried it by hand. I wasn’t raining so I didn’t bother to bring a bag to protect it nor bring an umbrella.  Bad decision coz it started to rain a few minutes after I got in the bus. The rain was pouring so hard that the covered walk was useless, I still got soaked.  I had to buy a new shirt coz I was afraid I’d catch pneumonia and covered my self with a blanket the whole shift. I was wet and cold but my book remained dry. I used my arms to cover it while running under the rain, but that would not be enough to keep it dry. It was strange. Maybe the book has magic or it’s water resistant. Hehe

3.        It reminds us how beautiful friendship is.

My ride through this book wasn’t always peachy though.  I had problems with the tech stuff.  I got lost a couple of times, a lot of couple of times. And I kept finding my self staring blankly at google search coz I didn’t know where to start to understand it.  It was kinda interesting and frustrating but the feeling didn’t last long.

People who love books, bookstores, mystery, adventure and puzzles should read this book. It would be worth your time.