The Darkest Minds Review

When a mysterious disease kills the majority of America's children, it changes the ones who survive. Something that caused Ruby's parents to lock her in the garage and send her to a brutal government rehabilitation camp on the morning of her tenth birthday. The children who survive have strange abilities. There's the blues who are telekinetic, the yellows who control electricity, the greens who are more intelligent than average, and the oranges who can control minds. Now, Ruby is sixteen and finally escapes the camp. She joins a group of other kids who are trying to find East River, a safe haven for kids like them. There's Liam, who quickly falls for her, but she can't allow herself to get close to someone again. When they reach the camp, it is more than originally believed and they aren't safe yet.

The Darkest Minds is a really highly rated book on Goodreads and I'd been meaning to read it for so long and I finally got to it. I really enjoyed this book, I thought it was very well written and I was definitely left wanting the next book. However, I don't think it was incredible. A really common problem I have with books is love interests. I don't know why, but it's usually what holds me back in books. They're usually unconvincing in my mind and I was just never convinced in this book again. I think I have a thing for the darker guys and Liam was too optimistic for me and trying too hard to be the perfect guy in my opinion. I know loads of people who love him though so don't let my feelings turn you away!

While The Darkest Minds was written first, I had read The Young Elites first and so I was strongly reminded of this other book as I was reading. There was a widespread disease and the ones who survived gained powers. I enjoyed The Young Elites more, because of how much darker it was. I absolutely loved that book, so this one just wasn't as great in my opinion.

I found the ending to be fantastic though, and I hope the next books don't make the series too light and have too much of a happy ending. I honestly think the only really happy endings I can handle are ones in realistic fiction. That's when I enjoy the cutesy romance stuff. I'm trying to think about my feelings for Ruby, the main character, and I feel really bad for her. She's gone through a lot and was completely isolated from boys for so long, that I can see her falling for the first cute nice boy she sees. For once I'm kind of hoping for a love triangle in the next books, because I want her to realize there's more to the world than just Liam. A series that did this amazingly was Shatter Me by Tahereh Mafi.

All in all, this book was really good, despite my problems. I gave it 4 out of 5 stars and I will read the sequel, but I hope it will be darker and better.

Ice Like Fire Review

Just a warning! You probably shouldn't read this review if you haven't read Snow Like Ashes! That book was awesome so you should definitely read that!!!!

Sara Raasch's Ice Like Fire is the sequel to Snow Like Ashes. A few months after the Winterians have been freed and back in their kingdom, Cordell has them mining to pay back their debts. This caused the lost chasm of magic, a powerful but dangerous source, to be discovered. Theron wants to use this magic to stand against threats such as Angra. However, Meira sees the immense dangers of it. When the king of Cordell orders Theron and Meira to go on a journey through the kingdoms to learn how to access the chasm, Meira is trying to find ways to get rid of it. During Meira's duties, Mather tries to secure their kingdom's survival as Cordell's oppression grows.

I didn't like this book as much as the first one. It was mostly a filler book in my opinion and I'm more excited for the third one now! I really appreciated the fact that the trauma the Winterians went through of being enslaved for years was not ignored. That definitely was a prevalent issue, which was awesome so the story wasn't like "We're home and now we're all better and happy again!" I thought that was really well done. It also became a lot more about the politics and Meira trying to learn how to politically protect her kingdom when Cordell has them so far into debt and is demanding immediate repayment. That was a really interesting new focus in this book, as the first one was all about freeing the Winterians. This one is saying how not everything can be solved so quickly, they still have problems.

Going off of that, Meira is awesome! I love how she's struggling to find a median (medium?) between her warrior self and being a queen. She's trying to do what is best for her people. I also love how she is considering what would be best for her kingdom with whoever she marries. Both Mather and Theron annoyed me, so Meira's independence was really great in my opinion. She didn't rely on either of them too much. She's the type of strong female character that I love.

To be perfectly honest, I'm not really sure how this book ended, a lot happened super quickly which confused me a bit. This is probably part of why I'm more excited for the third because I want some things clarified for me.

I gave this book 4/5 stars, while it was a really good book it just didn't blow me away like the first one did. I'm excited for the next book because then I'll know if the ending is as good as I hope it will be!

Ice Like Fire comes out October 13th!

Legacy of Kings Review

In Eleanor Herman’s Legacy of Kings the age of the gods is about to end. The book takes place in the time of Alexander the Great, when he’s sixteen. He begins to be drawn to Katerina, a guest in the palace. However, she has a certain mission: to kill the Queen. Her childhood friend, Jacob, though will do anything to win her. He’ll even fight Hephaestion, Alex’s best friend and a murderer, in a contest. Cyn, the prince’s half-sister, is working to weaken the throne. Across the sea, Sofia, a Persian princess and Alex’s fiancée, goes on a journey to change her fate.

This book was good... Nothing spectacular but I found Alexander the Great to be extremely interesting. My sister is obsessed with him but this is definitely not a historical account of him. There's magic and gods. I predicted the twist in the story but I thought it was a good twist, sorry I can't say what it was. There were actually a lot of twists that I enjoyed because I found myself enjoying the story with each one. It would get darker or more mysterious. This also led me to feeling so unsure as to what direction the next book will go. I might have predictions but I know they could also be very wrong. I also found the magic abilities to be really cool and I really wish I could communicate with animals. It would make my onesided conversations with my dog a lot easier.

Kat and Cyn were both really strong female characters while I thought Hephaestion was kind of stupid at times. Literally all he had to do was learn to communicate with Alex! There seemed to be hints at a lot of different relationships which I'm not too sure about for the next book because love triangles have to be done well or else they're way too cliché and annoying. Something that bothered me was that this is taking place in the Middle East in Macedonia and Persia, yet I'm pretty sure somebody was blond and there were some blue eyes going on. That bothered me a lot. The point of view changes a lot with each chapter which got a little annoying, but only because there'd be a cliffhanger with one character and then I'd have to wait multiple chapters to get back to their storyline.

Legacy of Kings comes out August 18th! While I didn't love it, I don't really love a series until I read the next books, I highly recommend it!!

The Martian Review

When a freak accident happens on a mission to Mars occurs, Mark Watney is believed to be dead as the rest of his crew abandons the mission. Instead, he survives. Now he must find a way to survive on a barren wasteland of a planet.

AWESOME BOOK!!!! Loved it so much! It's super sciencey at times and that got confusing. However, the book had a ton of humor in it. One of my favorite parts of the book was the people at NASA after they realize he's alive, "'He's stuck out there. He thinks he's totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man's psychology?' He turned back to Venkat. 'I wonder what he's thinking right now.'" Then it goes to Watney's log: "How come Aquaman can control whales? They're mammals! Makes no sense." There are just awesome jokes throughout the book to make the situation a bit lighter. Because let's be honest a man abandoned on Mars is kind of dark. However, all the characters bring their own humor to the story. I fell in love with all of them because of this.

The story was very extreme and some of what happened just seemed to be a little too much drama at times. However, Watney would also that kind of stuff was inevitable and he would expect something dangerous that he probably shouldn't have survived from and then make jokes about it. This also kept me engrossed in the book, as I would always be kept on the edge a little as to what kind of near death experience he'd have next.

The book is a little more mature, just a warning! It does have the f word a bunch. I'm pretty sure the movie (I'm so excited for it!) is going to be rated R for this reason too. Also, Matt Damon is going to be playing Watney in the movie. More exciting though, in my opinion at least, Sebastian Stan is going to be in it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Definitely one of my top celebrity crushes. He's going to be playing Chris Beck, one of the astronauts originally on the Mars mission. He doesn't have much of a role in the beginning, but he is more important towards the end! Hopefully the movie will be good and the humor will be able to transfer!

This book was an amazing Sci-Fi book, definitely one of my favorites now. I think everybody should read it!