International Book Giveaway!

Details: 

- Open from 29th October - 5th November 2014. 

- Prize is a book worth €10 / $13 / £8. 

- Will be using Book Depository or Amazon. 

- Make sure to get PARENTAL PERMISSION before giving out address. 

- Follow me with the links below.

Hope you guys enter, good luck!

The Unbecoming Of Mara Dyer by Michelle Hodkin

Title: The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer
Author: Michelle Hodkin
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Publication Date: September 27th, 2011
Genre(s): Young Adult Paranormal / Romance
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 452

Mara Dyer doesn’t think life can get any stranger. She wakes from a coma in hospital with no memory of how she got there or of the bizarre accident that caused the deaths of her best friends and her boyfriend, yet left her mysteriously unharmed. The doctors suggest that starting over in a new city, a new school, would be good for her and just to let the memories gradually come back on their own.

But Mara’s new start is anything but comforting. She sees the faces of her dead friends everywhere, and when she suddenly begins to see other people’s deaths right before they happen, Mara wonders whether she’s going crazy. And if dealing with all this wasn’t enough, Noah Shaw, the most beautiful boy she has ever seen can’t seem to leave her alone… but as her life unravels around her, Mara can’t help but wonder if Noah has another agenda altogether…

After two days of pondering my feelings on this book, two whole days of not reading might I add, I've decided to go with my initial thoughts, right after reading the last page.

So here's the thing; I liked most of this book, like really liked it, but then in the last fifty or so pages, it sorta almost turned sour?..
Let me explain.

I started the book, and was just as confused as Mara had been waking up in the hospital. Surprisingly, that was something I enjoyed quite a bit. I quickly became immersed in her story, her history, and that moved the story along at quite a nice pace.
Then the real paranormal aspects set in.

It's not to say that I didn't like said aspects, I did! They just didn't make much sense to me, the more they were explained, which is ironic. I didn't understand where the abilities came from. I didn't believe how they could be so specific, what with only certain characters having them. I didn't like how one minute Mara was completely in the dark about everything, and then a couple of pages later, she was an expert on the topic. I just didn't get, and that was the most frustrating thing.

But as I said, that all happened in the last fifty or so pages.
I may have really disliked the end, but I did really like everything else. Well, most of it anyway.

First, I gotta say; Mara's family is up there with the best developed families in YA Literature history. While reading, I felt each character, almost knew them even! Their personalities were so well written, so realistically written too, and unlike most other families in this genre, they actually played a part in the protagonist's life. They were really refreshing.

Mara, on the other hand, didn't really spark anything inside me. She was interesting, and I did sympathise with her a crap-load throughout the book, but other than that, nothing really stood out.
And down again,  on my list of favourite characters, is Noah Shaw. I mean, all right, I didn't hate the guy, but I didn't particularly like him either. The stereotypical 'bad boy' character is so hard to pull off, and to be honest, I didn't think Hodkin was successful with Noah. Sure, he was nice to Mara and everything, but to everyone else he's a complete douche! His love for himself was smothering and really irritating, so when the time came to actually gift him some character development near the end of the book, I just didn't care.

I'll end on the plot.
Again, like I am with almost everything in this book, I liked it and I didn't like it. Long story short, I liked the PTSD part, the hallucinations and such, but everything else? Not so much.
Especially the Jude parts. What happened between Mara and Jude that night was absolutely ridiculous and just pissed me off. As did the ending.

So yeah, before this gets too long, I'll stop here.
I both liked and didn't like this book. I will definitely be reading on in the trilogy though.

Monument 14 by Emmy Laybourne

Title: Monument 14
Author: Emmy Laybourne
Publisher: Feiwel & Friends
Publication Date: June 5th, 2012
Genre(s): Young Adult Dystopian
Format: Paperback
Page Count: 342
Source: Easons

Goodreads | Amazon  | Book Depository

Your mother hollers that you’re going to miss the bus. She can see it coming down the street. You don’t stop and hug her and tell her you love her. You don’t thank her for being a good, kind, patient mother. Of course not—you launch yourself down the stairs and make a run for the corner.

Only, if it’s the last time you’ll ever see your mother, you sort of start to wish you’d stopped and did those things. Maybe even missed the bus.

But the bus was barreling down our street, so I ran.

Fourteen kids. One superstore. A million things that go wrong. 

Oh wow.

Well..

Emm..

Yeah.

That's was one hell of a ride!

'Monument 14'.
A pretty fast-paced YA dystopian about a group of kids, who wind up locked inside a superstore after their school bus is thrown off course by hailstones the size of footballs..
What do you think happens next?

All right, well first of all; Monument 14, albeit a cool and catchy name, why on Earth is that the title? Apart from it being the Town in which the kids lived, what real significance does it have? I mean, come on, I read the word 'Denver' more times than I did 'Monument'. But I guess that's just nit-picking because this book was surprisingly really good!

Probably what I liked most about this book, was how much of a quick read it was! I'll end up saying this a hundred times over during this review but seriously, there are very few books I've read as fast as this one! When you look at the book in depth, there's not a whole lot that happens, not really, but the fast pace made it seem as if the exciting things were coming at every other page! As a Young Adult Dystopian, that's exactly what I was hoping to get from this book, and I got it in bucketfuls!

There are a lot of characters in this book. It doesn't feel like a lot having now finished the book, but there are, like, ten. That's a lot. But surprisingly, Emmy Laybourne manages to give them all the attention they need. The book was told from Dean's point of view, but we saw each of the ten characters develop just as much as he did. Some, even more!
I absolutely loved that. I loved seeing everyone react to the situation in which they found themselves. I loved seeing them adapt. I loved seeing them bond. I loved it.

As for the plot, as I said before, there wasn't a whole lot. You understand that the world is ending, and you're kept entertained by the obstacles they face in the superstore, but ultimately you can feel the sense of an over-arcing plot taking place. At least I did anyway, so I didn't expect to learn too much about what was going on. I just enjoyed what it gave me.
There were points throughout the story, at which I wasn't sure where I stood. For example, there was an incident revolving around a very serious theme nowadays, and it took me a while to figure out how I felt about it, but I decided that it was actually handled pretty well.

Okay, so I loved all that, but there was something I wasn't a huge fan of; The ending.
Don't get me wrong, I didn't hate it, but I didn't love it either. I guess it just happened so fast, and didn't give me a chance to get over the negative feelings I towards it, which doesn't sit well with me. I honestly don't know if that made sense, but I'm trying not to spoil it haha.

So yeah, that's that.
One thing I would say, if you're thinking of picking this up, is that you should expect to be blown away. It's a YA Dystopian, and I mean that in the most respectful way. But it's definitely one of the great ones anyway!