Reading The Riot Act

Cover Reveal: Glass Sword by Victoria Aveyard

Due to be released February 2016

The second book in the Red Queen series is due out February next year. Now as the title would suggest obviously the cover has just been revealed and I like it. I don't love it. It just seems too similar to the first cover and yet I still think it is beautiful and will look lovely on my bookshelf. "Kneel or Bleed" now that is a bit of excitement. It sounds perfect for this series and really is violent and ahhh.

If there's one thing Mare Barrow knows, it's that she's different.

Mare Barrow's blood is red—the color of common folk—but her Silver ability, the power to control lightning, has turned her into a weapon that the royal court tries to control.

The crown calls her an impossibility, a fake, but as she makes her escape from Maven, the prince—the friend—who betrayed her, Mare uncovers something startling: She is not the only one of her kind.

Pursued by Maven, now a vindictive king, Mare sets out to find and recruit other Red-and-Silver fighters to join in the struggle against her oppressors.

But Mare finds herself on a deadly path, at risk of becoming exactly the kind of monster she is trying to defeat.

Will she shatter under the weight of the lives that are the cost of rebellion? Or have treachery and betrayal hardened her forever?

Fairest by Marissa Meyer

Louise Wilkes 04:40:00 0

Warning: Spoilers! (duh.)

In this stunning bridge book between Cress and Winter in the bestselling Lunar Chronicles, Queen Levana’s story is finally told.

Mirror, mirror on the wall,
Who is the fairest of them all?

Fans of the Lunar Chronicles know Queen Levana as a ruler who uses her “glamour” to gain power. But long before she crossed paths with Cinder, Scarlet, and Cress, Levana lived a very different story – a story that has never been told . . . until now.

I want to start off by addressing this cover, this series always has stunning cover art and I do judge a book by it's cover, not aggressively but there is always a small part of me affected by the cover. This cover is stunning, they all are but this is my favourite, the fire, the veil, it's haunting and dark and yet has a sadness about it. It tells me so much about the book with just images. I love it.

This is the sentiment throughout the book. I loved it, and I know I'm supposed to keep my opinion to the end, but this simply can't wait. Within Cinder, Queen Levana is simply the bad guy - the evil queen, and yet within Fairest we delve into her past. How her beginnings were full of good intentions and cruel treatment. I was surprised Cinder's mother was so vicious, it was a genius and realistic twist. Levana's struggle was so engaging to read and I didn't want it to end. I flew through the book and wished I'd read it slower.

From her hard childhood and bullying from her sister, orphaned and alone Levana falls in love with a guard. Hint: Winter's father. Being the only person in the palace who is kind to her this doesn't surprise me but the way it develops, the way her mind becomes confused and obsessed with what she thinks love is and what it should be. You see a child caught up in something, her immaturity being her greatest downfall. Her insecurities having this huge power over her and yet still trying to do better but repeatedly doing worse. Levana honestly seemed like a victim, this changes only as she becomes more twisted with power after her lover's wife dies. She becomes terrifying, eventually killing the man she loves and becoming the Levana we see within the series. We meet Winter and Cinder as children and see her "death" being plotted.

As it's in first person, we are able to see all of Levana's thinking, the way her mind works. She rationalizes all the sick things she does and you can almost understand her reasoning. Which is messed up and really is a technique so sophisticated, it perfectly shows the relevance of YA fiction. It is smart and new and fresh. It follows the same feel as the previous novels but gives a new insight into the villain, the kind of which I haven't seen since Harry Potter. This novel makes Levana a person, not simply a two dimensional, cardboard villain for our hero to fight. She now has a journey and a background and a heart. I honestly fell a little in love with her and now hope she gets some form of a happy ending in the final book. Yet before this book I couldn't have cared about her at all.

Overall this book is more than just a bridge to keep us going until Winter. This is a solid beautiful asset to the series and has made this more than you're average YA dystopian series. I love it.

Winter is out this November.

Happy Reading!

Only Ever Yours by Louise O'neill

Louise Wilkes 02:33:00 0

Warning: Spoilers! (duh.)

In a world in which baby girls are no longer born naturally, women are bred in schools, trained in the arts of pleasing men until they are ready for the outside world. At graduation, the most highly rated girls become “companions”, permitted to live with their husbands and breed sons until they are no longer useful.

For the girls left behind, the future – as a concubine or a teacher – is grim.

Best friends Freida and Isabel are sure they’ll be chosen as companions – they are among the most highly rated girls in their year.

But as the intensity of final year takes hold, Isabel does the unthinkable and starts to put on weight. ..
And then, into this sealed female environment, the boys arrive, eager to choose a bride.

Freida must fight for her future – even if it means betraying the only friend, the only love, she has ever known. . .

If you are looking for a happy ending, this isn't the book for you. I've put off this review for a while because this is not a regular book, there is a plot but there isn't a plot in the traditional sense. Instead this book is more led and directed by it's ideas. It has a heavy feminist slant with aggressive ideologies about beauty and the way society expects women to look and act. This was more what the novel was about rather than Freida and Isabel themselves. Frieda was more of a vehicle, she was used like a puppet to suggest O'Neill's thoughts.

We follow Freida in this dystopian world in which all women are genetically engineered and grow up in academies, training them to please men. They go through rigorous stages and tasks in order to decide whether they will be Companions, Concubines or Sisters. Basically Wives, Whores or Teachers. Despite being promised a story of friendship between Freida and Isabel, turns out there friendship dies out before the novel begins.

Honestly I can't decide whether I liked this book. It was tedious at times and preachy but it was excellently written and full of big ideas. It felt more like a book you would analyse for a literature class, 't you aren't going to enjoy it too much, but you can appreciate the effort and intelligence behind every word.

Happy Reading