Review: Sculpt Yourself

Title: Sculpt Yourself

Author: Savy Leiser

Date of Publication: November 2nd, 2018

Pre-order on Amazon!

Goodreads Summary:

Lipamorph is the drug that lets you sculpt yourself. It’s how all the female celebrities in the mid-2010s managed to have such large butts while keeping the rest of their bodies thin. Now, Lipamorph has finally been legalized and released to the masses.
24-year-old Amber Stiles–a loud, passionate feminist stuck working in tech support–thinks it’s disgusting: another company trying to sell women an idealized body as determined by men. Especially now that her younger sister, Judie, has become hopelessly addicted to it.
As more and more women indulge in the drug, both taking control of their own bodies, and raising the standard for “beautiful,” Amber’s dissenting voice seems to matter less and less.
Especially since her new girlfriend, Kelly, is a whole new standard of beauty all on her own.

My Review:

What I really liked about Sculpt Yourself was how unique it was, like it’s sort of a thinking novel in a sense. I feel as each year passes by, our society becomes more and more consumed by beauty. What’s the next step? How can I alter myself  more to reflect the perfect version of myself?

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Whatever happened to being happy with the way your are and accept yourself for your flaws? Makeup is great. I love fun eye shadow, but now, even with makeup, it’s gooped and plopped on with so much foundation. In this Texas heat it would melt right off! Plastic surgery? That’s where things have gone too far, and it’s not hard to believe that something like this could happen one day.

Sculpt Yourself has a great cast of characters. It was character driven and they felt real, like people I could know in real life. They all had their flaws, as we all do. Because no one is perfect and no one can be. Whoever came up with the idea of perfect is a moron. Besides thinking about things, there was a twist along the way that was nice! I kind of wished the book had been written in third person since it had three main POVs, but that’s not a big deal. Overall, this book had great diversity, writing, snarkiness, emotion, and all kinds of things to think about, even after finishing! This is the second book I’ve read by the author that needs to be made into a movie!

 

How do you feel about altering the way you look?

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Review: Valiant

Title: Valiant

Author: Holly Black

Goodreads Summary:

When seventeen-year-old Valerie runs away to New York City, she’s trying to escape a life that has utterly betrayed her. Sporting a new identity, she takes up with a gang of squatters who live in the city’s labyrinthine subway system.

But there’s something eerily beguiling about Val’s new friends. And when one talks Val into tracking down the lair of a mysterious creature with whom they are all involved, Val finds herself torn between her newfound affection for an honorable monster and her fear of what her new friends are becoming.

My Review:

So I didn’t like this one as much as the first book, but I still loved it! I liked that the characters aren’t your typical characters. Like you may not really like them, but you still totally do!

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Also, can I just say the troll love was freaking awesome! I liked that Holly Black made the character fall for a troll and not a “hot” troll either! Although, I’m sure he’s super adorable because his personality was lovely!

I felt for Valerie a lot, and yes she did some stupid things, yet I still wanted to give her a big hug! This world has sucked me in and I can’t wait to start book three right away!!

Have you read this series?

Review: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Title: The Darkest Part of the Forest

Author: Holly Black

Date of Publication: January 13th, 2015

Goodreads Summary:

Children can have a cruel, absolute sense of justice. Children can kill a monster and feel quite proud of themselves. A girl can look at her brother and believe they’re destined to be a knight and a bard who battle evil. She can believe she’s found the thing she’s been made for.

Hazel lives with her brother, Ben, in the strange town of Fairfold where humans and fae exist side by side. The faeries’ seemingly harmless magic attracts tourists, but Hazel knows how dangerous they can be, and she knows how to stop them. Or she did, once.

At the center of it all, there is a glass coffin in the woods. It rests right on the ground and in it sleeps a boy with horns on his head and ears as pointed as knives. Hazel and Ben were both in love with him as children. The boy has slept there for generations, never waking.

Until one day, he does…

As the world turns upside down, Hazel tries to remember her years pretending to be a knight. But swept up in new love, shifting loyalties, and the fresh sting of betrayal, will it be enough?

My Review:

At first it took me a minute to get into this, and I wasn’t sure… But! Once I was in, I was in! Also, can I just say that I totally envisioned the Horned Boy looking like Daniel Radcliffe in Horns!

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Loved Hazel and Ben! Teens acting like teens is always a plus! Can I also just say I want to carry around Jack in my pocket. He was so adorable and I felt for the guy! The book definitely is NOT creepy, but it’s hard for me to find anything dark or creepy in general when you’ve been watching horror stuff since like age 2. However, I appreciated all the lovely atmospheric visualization! I found it more intriguing and beautiful vs haunting!

So far I’ve only read this and The Cruel Prince, and I must say that I liked this one more! I’ll be reading Tithe here soon, so I’ll get to see how that one is. I know I’m behind, but Holly Black is moving up on my fave author list!

Review: Tithe

Title: Tithe

Author: Holly Black

Goodreads Summary:

Welcome to the realm of very scary faeries!

Sixteen-year-old Kaye is a modern nomad. Fierce and independent, she travels from city to city with her mother’s rock band until an ominous attack forces Kaye back to her childhood home. There, amid the industrial, blue-collar New Jersey backdrop, Kaye soon finds herself an unwilling pawn in an ancient power struggle between two rival faerie kingdoms – a struggle that could very well mean her death.

My Review:

I’m mad at myself for not reading this book a long time ago! It was so good and reminded me of when I was in high school before cell phones and social media consumed our entire lives!

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I liked Kaye! I felt she was relatable. Yes, she may be a high school drop out, drink, curse and smoke, but not every teen in the world is a perfect angel. And Roiben! Loved, loved, loved him!!!

This world that Holly Black has created is amazing! I love her writing and her descriptions and that everything isn’t perfect but can be! Can’t wait to read the next one!

Have you read this series?

Review: The Darkest Star

Title: The Darkest Star

Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout

Date of Publication: October 30th, 2018

Goodreads Summary:

When seventeen-year-old Evie Dasher is caught up in a raid at a notorious club known as one of the few places where humans and the surviving Luxen can mingle freely, she meets Luc, an unnaturally beautiful guy she initially assumes is a Luxen…but he is in fact something much more powerful. Her growing attraction for Luc will lead her deeper and deeper into a world she’d only heard about, a world where everything she thought she knew will be turned on its head…

My Review:

When I heard one of my favorite side characters ever, Luc, was getting a spinoff series I was so freaking ecstatic. He was just so weirdly awesome in the Lux series.

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As with any Armentrout book, there was incredible angst, swoon, and action. But what I loved here was the story. There were some great twists. One I knew super early on, and I was so excited about it!

Luc is seriously the best character. His shirts are awesome, his attitude is awesome, and his fight for things he loves is awesome! There were moments where I wanted to shake Evie, but I understood a lot of her feelings and why. Also we get to see some characters from the Lux series!!

The ending was perfect. It isn’t a cliffhanger, but there are still questions that I can’t wait to be answered in book 2! I’m seriously fangirling over this one!!

Have you read the Lux series?

Review: Heart of Iron

Title: Heart of Iron

Author: Ashley Poston

Date of Publication: February 27th, 2018

Goodreads Summary:

Seventeen-year-old Ana is a scoundrel by nurture and an outlaw by nature. Found as a child drifting through space with a sentient android called D09, Ana was saved by a fearsome space captain and the grizzled crew she now calls family. But D09—one of the last remaining illegal Metals—has been glitching, and Ana will stop at nothing to find a way to fix him.

Ana’s desperate effort to save D09 leads her on a quest to steal the coordinates to a lost ship that could offer all the answers. But at the last moment, a spoiled Ironblood boy beats Ana to her prize. He has his own reasons for taking the coordinates, and he doesn’t care what he’ll sacrifice to keep them.

When everything goes wrong, she and the Ironblood end up as fugitives on the run. Now their entire kingdom is after them—and the coordinates—and not everyone wants them captured alive.

What they find in a lost corner of the universe will change all their lives—and unearth dangerous secrets. But when a darkness from Ana’s past returns, she must face an impossible choice: does she protect a kingdom that wants her dead or save the Metal boy she loves?

My Review:

I had been putting this one off to read for a while. This, was a big mistake! First, the whole Anastasia retelling thing was pretty awesome. Also, if you liked Cinder, I’m pretty sure you’d like this! If you didn’t like Cinder, I’d still read it!

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There are four main characters, and I loved Di, Jax, and Robb! I didn’t connect with Ana as much as I did with the others, but it didn’t take away from the story one bit! Plus, the romance between both couples was awesome! The friendship and family bond was just on point, too!

There’s plenty of spacey action, me gripping my heart at times, and a lot of fun stuff happening! The book does end on a huge cliffhanger. And I’m patiently tapping my fingers together as I wait for a release date! Also, anything written by Poston is going to be an auto buy from me!

Have you seen Anastasia?

Review: The Lost Sisters

Title: The Lost Sisters

Author: Holly Black

Date of Publication: October 2nd, 2018

Goodreads Summary:

Sometimes the difference between a love story and a horror story is where the ending comes . . . 

While Jude fought for power in the Court of Elfhame against the cruel Prince Cardan, her sister Taryn began to fall in love with the trickster, Locke.

Half-apology and half-explanation, it turns out that Taryn has some secrets of her own to reveal.

My Review:

This was a pretty good read to get into Taryn’s head about things. However, I still don’t like her. But I mean, you don’t really have to to like the book.

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I also was not a fan of the second person POV—it’s always an odd feeling. Like as soon as the word “you” is used, I look down at myself, and point to my chest like “who, me?”

But I will say I seriously love Holly’s writing, and this was a great novella to get a little more of the world in between the books, along with a different character’s POV! Definitely recommend if you love the series!

 

Have you started this series yet?