Rating: 4/5

This book was fantastic!
Here is the Goodreads description (which does a much better job explaining the book than I can)

This is a world divided by blood – red or silver.

The Reds are commoners, ruled by a Silver elite in possession of god-like superpowers. And to Mare Barrow, a seventeen-year-old Red girl from the poverty-stricken Stilts, it seems like nothing will ever change.

That is, until she finds herself working in the Silver Palace. Here, surrounded by the people she hates the most, Mare discovers that, despite her red blood, she possesses a deadly power of her own. One that threatens to destroy the balance of power.

Fearful of Mare’s potential, the Silvers hide her in plain view, declaring her a long-lost Silver princess, now engaged to a Silver prince. Despite knowing that one misstep would mean her death, Mare works silently to help the Red Guard, a militant resistance group, and bring down the Silver regime.

But this is a world of betrayal and lies, and Mare has entered a dangerous dance – Reds against Silvers, prince against prince, and Mare against her own heart

This book was fast paced and had me gripped from page 1. It was action packed with loads of people with kick ass abilities (I'm a sucker for superpowers). This book did have plenty of YA troupes, but I wasn't really bothered by it because it was so entertaining.
I would have loved a little more world building, and I was hoping for a little more romance throughout but I am guessing these are both things we can expect from Glass Sword, the sequel. This is book one in what I believe is a four book series.
I liked the character of Mare, she was tough but also had plenty of flaws and was believable.

*WARNING SPOILERS BELOW*

I was a little disappointed with Maven's character, because throughout most of the book I really liked him! Not sure what to expect from Glass Sword but you can bet I am going to get my hands on it as soon as I can.

I’m back! I am officially back from my holiday in S.E. Asia and it was incredible! I will be posting here much more often again.

Rating: 3.5/5

This story breathes new life into a very tired genre: Vampires. In this world, walled cities contain vampires to quarantine, and prevent outbreaks from happening. Humans and vampires mingle in these towns which have been shown in a glamorous light on TV, where there are live streams of the 24 hours parties. There is only once catch: once you enter Coldtown, you can never leave.

At the beginning of this novel Tana, wakes up after a perfectly normal party to find herself surrounded by the corpses of her friends (an extreme case of a party gone wrong). The only survivors of this massacre are her ex-boyfriend, who has been infected and is on the edge of turning and a vampire in chains. Tana does the only thing she thinks they can do: go directly to Coldtown.

Tana isn't the typical kick-ass protagonist. Her actions were filled with self-doubt and fear but she never stopped doing what she felt was right, which was important.

This is an example of a stand-alone novel done right. So often I find stand-alones aren't as satisfying because they don't have as much space to build the world and tell the story. However this story had a very clever use of flashbacks. Normally I'm not the biggest flashback fan, and more often than not find them tedious and unnecessary but these ones added knowledge about the characters and understanding of their nature.

I really loved Holly Black's writing style. The atmosphere she created was fantastic and the characters where vivid and realistic. However I think my main problem with this book was the 3rd person perspective, I think it would have been more engaging if it was 1st person.

This rating might have been higher, because I really did love this book, but for some completely unexplained reason it took me a reeeeaally long time to get through this (we're talking like 6 months) and I just couldn't rate a book any higher than this if it took me this long to get through

I don't approve of destroying books for the sake of home decor, so here are some DIYs that all book lovers will love, where absolutely no books were harmed

1. Rustic pallet backed bookcase

The latest additions to my non-fiction collection

Books I acquired in January

I only have a few books on my TBR this month. Don't get me wrong, I am not just going to read 4 books. However, I am travelling around Vietnam and Cambodia with my boyfriend next month, so most books I read will be on my kindle. I have so many books in my kindle library and I will decide what to read depending on how I feel. But these are the other books I want to read this month.

Illuminae by Amie Kaufman
The year is 2575. In the morning the MC breaks up with her boyfriend, in the afternoon; her planet is invaded. It looks like an amazing Sci-Fi book, that has had amazing reviews. The formatting of this book is the reason I picked it up, not going to lie. The book is told through hacked documents, emails, medical files, military documents etc. I have never read anything like it before so I can't wait!


The Rest of Us Just Live Here by Patrick Ness
This looks super interesting! It's a book that follows character that aren't the 'chosen ones'. Reviews I have read say it makes fun YA tropes and sub-genres such as vampires, demigods, immortals and kids "dying beautifully of cancer"

The Red Queen by Victoria Aveyard
A dystopian novel where the world is separated by blood. Red bloods are commoners and silver bloods have god-like powers. The main character, a red blood, discovers she has a power of her own. I have heard SO many rave reviews on this book and I'm excited to pick it up

Happily Ever After by Kiera Cass
This is a bind up of novellas from characters in the Selection series. There is a novella from Maxon, Aspen, Queen Amberly and Marlee along with an epilogue and a bunch more. I can't wait to read this and read the perspective from lots of other characters.

The spines are beautiful