*Dusts Off Blog*

I am so incredibly sorry for neglecting my blog for...pretty much the entire summer and almost the entire fall. Busy Busy Busy.

I will begin reviewing books again next week probably. I'm should be done Beautiful Chaos by next week and then I will be finished it and I will review it...obviously. haha.

Sorry Sorry Sorry, a thousand times sorry.

LAUREN DESTEFANO "WITHER" & "FEVER" GIVEAWAY

http://www.laurendestefano.com/blog/?p=121

;)

It's been awhile since I posted anything personal,

So, here I am. :D

I have a couple books to review, but is it bad that I have no idea how to even describe them to myself? I can't put my thoughts into words. That's how fantastic they were. Especially "Identical" by Ellen Hopkins. It was just WOW. Beautiful, amazing, dsjkkasjksa. I can't even tell you how much I adored that book and I finished it a week ago! I might try to write it later on tonight, but i can't make any promises. I haven't figured out exactly what to say yet.

So, I've been on kind of a reading drought. I had finished Identical, and then I had absolutely nothing to read the whole week. I re-read parts of "Stolen" by Lucy Christopher, (Which I loved!) but that was about it. There are books that I wanted to get that I didn't get a chance to get my hands on yet, like "Recovery Road" by Blake Nelson and "Sing You Home" by Jodi Picoult.

Today I got "Bleeding Violet" by Dia Reeves at the library, I'm excited about that! No more reading drought for me!

In other news, I made a major breakthrough yesterday with getting over a certain someone. There is a life after him, I realized, and I can pick up the pieces of everything I've lost, including myself. Everything will be okay, I firmly believe that now. You're probably lost as to what this is about, but if you need a clue, See the poem "Goodbye", "She Believed" "twelve.ten.ten." "False as Fairy tales and faith,"

"Goodbye"

http://extremelyemilyx.blogspot.com/2010/10/goodbye.html

"She Believed"

http://extremelyemilyx.blogspot.com/2010/12/something-i-wrote-long-time-ago.html

"twelve.ten.ten."

http://extremelyemilyx.blogspot.com/2010/12/twelvetenten.html

"false as fairytales and faith"

http://extremelyemilyx.blogspot.com/2011/01/false-as-fairy-tales-and-faith.html

If you've been with me for awhile now, you've already read these, but if you needed a refresher, they're there. (:

Reviewing again soon. xo.

E.

Willow by Julia Hoban

Willow by Julia Hoban
Read: 3/5/11-3/6/11

Bought, Won, Got from local library, Got as a gift

Amount of hearts i give it: ♥♥♥♥♥ (perfect score)
Synopsis:
Seven months ago, on a rainy March night, sixteen year- old Willow’s parents died in a horrible car accident. Willow was driving. Now her older brother barely speaks to her, her new classmates know her as the killer orphan girl, and Willow is blocking the pain by secretly cutting herself. But when one boy—one sensitive, soulful boy—discovers Willow’s secret, it sparks an intense relationship that turns the “safe” world Willow has created for herself upside down.
Told in an extraordinary fresh voice, Willow is an unforgettable novel about one girl’s struggle to cope with tragedy, and one boy’s refusal to give up on her.
My thoughts:
All I can say about this book is that I am in love. Completely and irrevocably, in love with this book. Willow is damaged beyond repair. She believes that she is responsible for her parent's death because she was the one who was driving. (the parents were drinking and for some reason thought it appropriate for poor Willow to drive, with only a permit, no less!) Now, Willow's only salvation, to her, is cutting. She cuts her arms, her legs, her stomach. She can't get away from the monster, can't get close to anyone, and feels she's lost her brother's love. It seems that no one can save her, and then she meets Guy. So, the first thing I fell in love with, was the narration. It is in third person, present tense. So it reads like "Willow does this" and "Willow wonders if she..." & such. For some reason it really adds to the story and makes you feel like you're inside Willow's head, even though you're really not. No one can get inside her mind, not even the reader! I also fell in love with Willow herself. I wanted to give her a hug and tell her it wasn't her fault. Because I knew it wasn't her fault. I found myself being angry with her parents for most of the story, because these people were supposed to be intelligent professors. How could they allow their sixteen year old to drive them home in the rain? Drunk or not? I wanted to tell Willow that it wasn't her fault, because I believed the root of it was her parents' fault, even though that sounds wrong, after all, you shouldn't speak ill of the (fictional) dead, but STILL. Please tell me I'm not alone!I fell in love with Guy, most of all. He was the perfect, perfect, guy. I had to stop reading a few times in order to swallow the cuteness. I wanted him to be my boyfriend, probably more than anything. I was happy that he never was able to give up on Willow, because it seemed like he was all she had. The only person she couldn't push away. I thought that they're relationship was beautiful and heartwarming. No, not heartwarming - heart MELTING. They seemed like that happily ever after type.I will not tell the ending, but I will say that not much was resolved, but I think that's the most realistic and believeable way it could've been. Things that Willow has to deal with do not get solved over night, sometimes it takes years...a happily ever after end would just take away from the whole story. ">So, i'm pretty sure you need to read this. Now. Okay? Bye.

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Delirium by Lauren Oliver

Read: 2/13/11-3/2/11

Bought, Won, Got from local library, Got as a gift

Amount of hearts i give it: ♥♥♥1/2

Synopsis:

Before scientists found the cure, people thought love was a good thing. They didn’t understand that once love -- the deliria -- blooms in your blood, there is no escaping its hold. Things are different now. Scientists are able to eradicate love, and the governments demands that all citizens receive the cure upon turning eighteen. Lena Holoway has always looked forward to the day when she’ll be cured. A life without love is a life without pain: safe, measured, predictable, and happy.

But with ninety-five days left until her treatment, Lena does the unthinkable: She falls in love.

My Thoughts:

It took me forever to finish this book and I have no idea why. (if you're like me and you count like two weeks as "taking forever" to read a book. ha!) I think it had something to do with the fact that I started to read "Tricks" by Ellen Hopkins when I was about midway through and then I couldn't tear myself away from that book until it was done. Then I moved back. But FIRST OFF, that COVER! One of my readers told me not to judge a book by it's cover, but I always do anyway. I can't help it. If a book has a lovely cover, i'm gonna jump up and be like MUSTREADTHAT dkjsaklfejsalk. This book has a dazzling cover. If you take the jacket off it reveals a woman's face and it's so shiny and pretty and I adore it.

Anyway, when am I ever gonna get to the actual book?

Now.
Lena, the main character, lives in a world where it is illegal to love. Any kind of love, is outlawed, and love is viewed as a disease: amor deliria nervosa. In Lena's world, if you are eighteen or older, you are required to get surgery to prevent the deliria. Crazy, right? The people who are cured remind me a lot of Stepford wives, they're kind of creepy and dry and just, lifeless. Lena thinks that this is the kind of life that's normal, but when she meets Alex, she knows it's not.

The love story in this book is so gorgeous. I, myself, was in love with Alex! There are a lot of quoteable lines that I underlined for future references and future facebook statuses. *snicker* Absolutely beautiful. While I thought that the love story between Alex and Lena was gorgeous, Lena kind of annoyed me. It was mostly her name that annoyed me. I read a lot of books, A LOT. and a lot of the books I read nowadays have the name Lena in it. It's hard to separate Lena from another Lena I met in a story and another. That was a little frustrating, but I was able to get past it. I thought it was sort of a tragic story...for a lot of reasons. One being, that people who did catch the deliria were forced to give up the ones they love, forced into unwanted surgeries, labeled Sympathizers. It was achingly sad, but the ending of the book was kind of bittersweet, thought I won't tell you that part!

I'm sorry if this review was a little choppy, It's hard to organize my thoughts...I just loved this book, and you will too. Go read it, now! kbye.

Tricks by Ellen Hopkins

Tricks by Ellen Hopkins
Read: 2/20/11-2/23/11

Bought, Won, Got from local library, Got as a gift

Amount of hearts i give it: ♥♥♥♥♥/5
Synopsis:
Five teenagers from different parts of the country. Three girls. Two guys. Four straight. One gay. Some rich. Some poor. Some from great families. Some with no one at all. All living their lives as best they can, but all searching...for freedom, safety, community, family, love. What they don't expect, though, is all that can happen when those powerful little words "I love you" are said for all the wrong reasons.

Five moving stories remain separate at first, then interweave to tell a larger, powerful story -- a story about making choices, taking leaps of faith, falling down, and growing up. A story about kids figuring out what sex and love are all about, at all costs, while asking themselves, "Can I ever feel okay about myself?"
My thoughts:
Wow, is all that I can say. I picked this book up at the library. It's the second Ellen Hopkins novel I've ever read. I've had the tendency to be careful with Ellen's books because I know that some of the themes tend to be disturbing. While I'm not afraid of disturbing, this kind of disturbing is something that sometimes is off-putting. The reason why I got it from the library was because I didn't want to buy it and then find that I'm not able to finish it for some reason. So, I picked it up, started reading it, and...
I didn't stop. I couldn't stop. I breezed through it in under three days, putting Delirium on hold to finish it, because I couldn't escape the stories of these teenagers. Teenagers just like me, who are forced to walk the streets in order to live. Through the book, I couldn't help but look up, look around my house, look at my mother who loves me and would do anything for me and feel blessed. These kids had no one looking out for them and that's how they turned out the way that they did. I realize that the characters made the choices, but they were forced to make the choices. The only thing that these kids wanted to do was live, at all costs.
It was definitely hard to read, some parts were downright disgusting and I even had to put the book down before bed last night because it began to upset me. But something kept me going.
I had to know what happened. I needed to know if Eden, Seth, Whitney, Ginger & Cody would be okay. If they didn't end up okay, I wouldn't have been surprised, but I just needed to know.
So, all in all, this book was fantastic and I give it 5 hearts, all the way. Ellen - Thank you for your books and for being fearless enough to write these stories. I know that it can't be easy to write sometimes since it's sometimes even hard to read, but thank you for writing the stories because they NEED to be told and they SCREAM to be read!

Burned by Ellen Hopkins (a review to tie you over :] )

*read & reviewed this a long time ago, but i thought i'd post it since i've been so neglectful...



Burned by Ellen Hopkins

Read: 5/27/10-5/28/10

Bought, Won, Got from local library, Got as a gift

Amount of hearts i give it: ♥♥♥♥/5

Synopsis:

Raised in a religious -- yet abusive -- family, Pattyn Von Stratten starts asking questions -- about God, a woman's role, sex, love. She experiences the first stirrings of passion, but when her father catches her in a compromising position, events spiral out of control. Pattyn is sent to live with an aunt in the wilds of Nevada to find salvation and redemption. What she finds instead is love and acceptance -- until she realizes that her old demons will not let her go

My Thoughts:

I read this book in May when I was sick at home. I finished it a day, I tore through it because it was so readable and it was a fantastic story. It made me appreciate the fact that I don't live in an abusive household, but a household where I'm loved and taken care of and where the fact that I have rights is respected. I thought that the love story in this book was beautiful and lyrical and gorgeous & I found myself sobbing at it. This book was powerful, and heavy, everything you expect in an Ellen Hopkins novel. It's written very simply, but it packs a heavy, heavy punch. It goes straight into your heart and it becomes impossible to think of anything but the story for days. In my case, it's been almost a year and I'm still thinking about it from time to time. There was only one thing I didn't like about this book, the ending, but i will NOT go into it. Because end-ruiners are SO SO SO lame! But it was not enough to keep me from loving the book. And I saw that there will be a sequel called "Smoke", so at least there is a reason for the end. Anyway, I'm gonna shut up because you probably don't feel like reading this anymore. The point is, I'm in love with this book. Bye. :D