Pushing the Limits by Katie McGarry

Noah Hutchins is bad news. A dark loner with a nasty reputation, a leather jacket and a bad attitude. Exactly the kind of boy Echo knows to stay away from, but could his brutal honesty and lack of respect for authority be exactly what she needs when no one else seems to want to tell her the truth or even help her find out why she doesn't remember the night she some how ended up with scars decorating her arms and a restraining order against her mother?

This book is told from both Noah and Echo's point of view. This alternating between the two main characters really helps you to understand them and their problems better. You really connect to them because you see what they think and feel about things. The other characters too felt like they had personalities and weren't just there to help or hinder Noah and Echo, they were all flawed but in ways that felt real. Never did this book become too typically teenage to the point where you want to roll your eyes, throw it at the floor and walk off because it's given you a headache and made you sick to death of anyone under 20 (which I myself am not so that's irony for you). It felt just right. Yes these characters are hormonal, slightly naive teenagers but they're also smart, determined and they don't always sit around and sulk when there is a problem, they do something about it.

My completed 2012 reading challange

Friday Reads- The Gargoyle by Andrew Davidson

"Accidents ambush the unsuspecting, often violently, just like love."

I am 160 pages into this novel so far and I'm really loving it. It is twisted and beautiful all at once. I am hoping it doesn't go south like some promising books have for me recently.

New Camera

 

I got a new camera! It's the Canon 600D. This means I can take my own photos of the books I'm reviewing and do better video reviews. Here's some pictures where I was just messing around

Review- Glow by Amy Kathleen Ryan

Glow is the story of Waverly. Waverly is the oldest girl in her generation, the first generation of children to be born on board the Empyrean, after a bout of infertility. Their ship and another just like it, the New Horizon, have left Earth for a new planet the believe they can colonize after Earth’s resources start running out and it becomes an unbearable place to live. However something goes wrong.

  

In the heart of a nebula New Horizon, which should be so far ahead of the Empyrean that they can’t see it, has slowed down enough so that they are almost side along with Waverly’s ship. Crew members from the New Horizon board the Empyrean and quickly everything goes down hill. The girls are taken from their homes, most of the adults are killed, the Empyrean is sabotaged and the boys are left to cope by themselves without a clue. Amidst chaos and fear Waverly must learn that power corrupts, everyone has secrets and but most importantly; how to find a way back home

Today I thought I’d write a review for Glow. Both from the cover and the genre of this book I thought it would be painfully like Across the Universe, which I did not like, and so I was incredibly apprehensive about reading this at first. In fact I didn’t even bother to check out the description, so turned off by the idea it might compare to a book that had disappointed me as much as Across the Universe had done.

Review- Throne of Glass by Sarah J. Maas

In the dark, filthy salt mines of Endovier, an eighteen-year-old girl is serving a life sentence. She is a trained assassin, the best of her kind, but she made a fatal mistake: she got caught. Young Captain Westfall offers her a deal: her freedom in return for one huge sacrifice. Celaena must represent the prince in a to-the-death tournament—fighting the most gifted thieves and assassins in the land. Live or die, Celaena will be free. Win or lose, she is about to discover her true destiny. But will her assassin’s heart be melted? - From Goodreads When people talk about this book, and Celaena they mention that she is beautiful, arrogant and girly. Not usually traits I particularly like my female protagonists to have, yet Celaena pulled it off incredibly well. I was terrified that this girl would end up like whatshername from Paranormalcy, girly and arrogant to the point of stupidity, but no. Celaena has her reasons to be arrogant. She's good at what she does and she is deadly beautiful.

Top 100 Books for Teens

This summer NPR hosted a Best-Ever Teen Fiction poll. More than 75000 votes were cast and 235 finalists nominated. Here are the results with all the books I have read in bold

1. Harry Potter (series), by J.K. Rowling

2. The Hunger Games (series), by Suzanne Collins

3. To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee

4. The Fault in Our Stars, by John Green

5. The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien

6. The Catcher in the Rye, by J.D. Salinger

7. The Lord of the Rings (series), by J.R.R. Tolkien

8. Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury

9. Looking for Alaska, by John Green

10. The Book Thief, by Markus Zusak