Days of Blood and Starlight (Daughter of Smoke and Bone #2) by Laini Taylor | Book Review

March 30, 2018March 30, 2018 ~ mybookacademy ~ Leave a comment

Days of Blood and Starlight by Laini Taylor

Page Count: 517
Genre: Fantasy, Young Adult
Publication Date: November 6th, 2012

Synopsis:
(from Goodreads)

Once upon a time, an angel and a devil fell in love and dared to imagine a world free of bloodshed and war.
This is not that world.
Art student and monster’s apprentice Karou finally has the answers she has always sought. She knows who she is—and what she is. But with this knowledge comes another truth she would give anything to undo: She loved the enemy and he betrayed her, and a world suffered for it.
In this stunning sequel to the highly acclaimed Daughter of Smoke & Bone, Karou must decide how far she’ll go to avenge her people. Filled with heartbreak and beauty, secrets and impossible choices, Days of Blood & Starlight finds Karou and Akiva on opposing sides as an age-old war stirs back to life.
While Karou and her allies build a monstrous army in a land of dust and starlight, Akiva wages a different sort of battle: a battle for redemption. For hope.
But can any hope be salvaged from the ashes of their broken dream

–Possible Spoilers! Read at your own risk!–

“A dream dirty and bruised is better than no dream at all.”

This book may have broken me. I sure feel a little broken, a little changed and a little different.

It took me a while to get into it, and honestly for the longest time, I was kind of dreading reading it.

Anyone who’s read the first book will know why. I didn’t want to get hurt. I didn’t want to feel the pain I knew for sure was coming if I flipped those pages.

“It was interesting the way a small hate could grow inside a big hate and take it over.”

But god damn, Laini Taylor is such an amazing writer. Once I actually sat down and made myself read more than a few pages at a time, all just because I was scared of getting hurt, I literally could not stop reading.

I was enamored. I was captivated by the words on the page, by the world that became so much more developed and real, by the characters that were even more filled with life, and whom I just wanted to be okay.

I was hoping despite all the pain that maybe happiness could still spread.

“I am one of billions. I am stardust gathered fleetingly into form. I will be ungathered. The stardust will go on to be other things someday and I will be free.”

Her writing makes me want to believe in magic, in the impossible. I want to drown in the words she writes until I’m filled with magic.

Her world building, her character development, her ability to paint the gruesomeness of war. To fill her readers with the anxiousness of never knowing who you can trust, or who will stab you in the back. Of never knowing if you’re truly safe.

Her writing makes readers feel unbelievable dread and fear. It also makes them feel warm and filled with hope that perhaps maybe happiness is an attainable thing. That maybe love and light can exist in even the darkest of worlds painted in blood and starlight.

“Your heart is not wrong. Your heart is your strength. You don’t have to be ashamed.”

Karou is so strong. Even when she was being submissive to atone for what she believed were her sins, she remains so strong in her convictions and her hopes. She gets lost, but she knows what’s in her heart, and there is just something so beautiful in that.

“You have only to begin, Lir. Mercy breeds mercy as slaughter breeds slaughter. We can’t expect the world to be better than we make it.”

Akiva is my hero. He’s done bad things, but he tries so hard to atone for those bad deeds, and I truly believe that he is so inherently good. He deserves so much better, he deserves love and happiness and the world. He deserves the world. I want him to be freed from his pain and his sadness so he can finally be happy.

“She had said she didn’t feel fear, but it was a lie; this was her fear: being left alone.”

Liraz is a queen. At the start I didn’t really know where her loyalties lay, and now I just feel bad for ever questioning her. She is so loyal to those she loves. One looks at her and all one sees is bravery and undeniable strength. Even in the face of death and fear and hopelessness, Liraz is brave.

Hazael is such a sweetheart, so positive and kind. The Misbegotten are treated like trash, but he is the light that shines so brightly in the darkness. He may be a trained killer, but one cannot but help to see how bright he shines.

“I am a link in a chain, she thought. Their badge had it right—not in bondage but in strength.”

Together the three of them are family, through blood, through pain and death, through trust, and through unconditional love and understanding. It is a type of bond that one can only dream and hope to form.

“I know who you are,” she said in a fierce sweet whisper. “I know. And I’m with you. Ziri, Ziri. I see you.”

Ziri is so pure and wholesome. I love everything about him. He is selfless and such a good friend to Karou. He captured my heart from the beginning, and I wish for him all of the happiness and love.

And I could never forget beautiful Zuzana and Mik, they are so adorable and lovable and supportive. I love how sassy and wonderful Zuzana is. Her relationship with Mik is so pure and innocent and lovely. Their friendship with Karou is deeper than blood, their love and support is magic in and of itself.

I love how morally grey this series is. Like in real like, no one is fully good, nor are they fully bad. The chimaera, the seraphim, they are all somewhere in between.

Reading this book was honestly so emotionally exhausting, especially because of how long it is. But even so, I am so excited to read how this all ends! I just know Laini Taylor will make it oh so bittersweet and wonderful.

“Dead souls dream only of death. Small dreams for small men. It is life that expands to fill worlds. Life is your master, or death is.”

4.5 out of 5 stars

★★★★½/5

–

Buy Days of Blood and Starlight:

Book Depository
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

Start at the beginning! Buy Daughter of Smoke and Bone:

Book Depository
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

–

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The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon | Book Review

March 22, 2018March 29, 2018 ~ mybookacademy ~ Leave a comment

The Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon

Page Count: 348
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult
Publication Date: November 1st, 2016

Synopsis:
(from Goodreads)

Natasha: I’m a girl who believes in science and facts. Not fate. Not destiny. Or dreams that will never come true. I’m definitely not the kind of girl who meets a cute boy on a crowded New York City street and falls in love with him. Not when my family is twelve hours away from being deported to Jamaica. Falling in love with him won’t be my story.
Daniel: I’ve always been the good son, the good student, living up to my parents’ high expectations. Never the poet. Or the dreamer. But when I see her, I forget about all that. Something about Natasha makes me think that fate has something much more extraordinary in store—for both of us.
The Universe: Every moment in our lives has brought us to this single moment. A million futures lie before us. Which one will come true?

–Possible Spoilers! Read at your own risk!–

“The thing about falling is you don’t have any control on your way down.”

Okay wow. When I imagined writing this review I did not expect it to go like this, but I finished the Sun is Also a Star by Nicola Yoon and I actually really enjoyed it.

Now I’m going to be 100% real with you, the romance? It was alright.

I like my romance to be the slowest of slow burns, I want to be tortured by how slow it is, I want to melt by the time it finally happens.

And this book is the opposite of slow burn, but despite that I really liked it anyway.

The underlying story about family and friendship, and racism and the struggles of being an immigrant really connected with me.

“I wonder if she realizes how passionate she is about not being passionate.”

I really liked Natasha’s character, we are so similar in so many ways, realists (*cough* cynics) through and through. I loved how passionate she was about physics.

“Because it doesn’t matter what I say. People take one look at me and believe what they want.”

Daniel’s struggle with his family’s racism and his struggle with identity reminded me so much of myself. That being said, my family isn’t quite as bad as him, no one is forcing my to be a doctor, but the whole section of “you should marry a Asian American girl/boy”. Oh yes. That is my family.

Daniel and I are honestly nothing alike, not like me and Natasha, but when he was talking about his struggle with identifying himself to others my heart went out to him.

“My parents think I’m not Korean enough. Everybody thinks I’m not American enough.”

He is a Korean born in America. You try to be both and you can never be enough of either. You try to be one, but you can never change how others perceive you.

Nicola Yoon captured that feeling, that helplessness so well, for one can never change what others think of you, especially if it has to do with something superficial like your race.

“I don’t believe in love.”
“It’s not a religion,” he says. “It exists whether you believe in it or not.”

Natasha and Daniel really connected with me. Maybe not their relationship and their love, but definitely their characters.

The Sun is Also a Star is a perfect young adult novel for people who want to know what it’s like to be an immigrant in America. To any Asian American you will find a small part of yourself in Daniel.

I loved the “A History” chapters, Irie and Half-Life being my favorites. I loved reading side character point of views, those were really fun.

I do think a much more romantic person than me would have enjoyed this book even more than me, but I am so happy to say I quite liked it.

A whole lot more than Everything, Everything at least.

Her romances aren’t really for me, but I cannot deny that Nicola Yoon’s writing is just so lovely and wonderful.

I think this just goes to show how not liking one book by an author doesn’t mean you can’t like another! I am happy I gave this book a shot because I was really pleasantly surprised, which is nice.

“We are capable of big lives. A big history. Why settle? Why choose the practical thing, the mundane thing? We are born to dream and make the things we dream about.”

Overall, this was a really cute and fun novel that touched on some really tough topics. I loved the diversity, and I still cannot believe most of the book takes place over the course of a day.

If you’re a romantic you’ll definitely enjoy it, and even if you’re not, the story is also one that deals with family, identity, and morality, which I personally really enjoyed.

Also, can I just say I love the title for this book? So fitting and perfect.

“Most poems I’ve seen are about love or sex or the stars. You poets are obsessed with stars. Falling stars. Shooting stars. Dying stars.”
“Stars are important,” I say, laughing.
“Sure, but why not more poems about the sun? The sun is also a star, and it’s our most important one. That alone should be worth a poem or two.”

4 out of 5 stars

★★★★/5

–

Buy the Sun is Also a Star:

Book Depository
Amazon
Barnes and Noble

–

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Underneath It All by Patricia Vanasse | Book Review

March 7, 2018March 7, 2018 ~ mybookacademy ~ Leave a comment

Underneath It All by Patricia Vanasse

Page Count: 300
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult
Publication Date: March 6th, 2018

Synopsis:
(from Goodreads)

Gossip Girl meets The Great Gatsby in this competitive prep school drama that tackles issues of class, diversity, peer pressure, addiction, and first love.
Seventeen-year-old London Mendes is the son of a Cuban mother and Seattle-native bookseller, and he knows exactly what he wants: to be the first in his middle class family to reach the Ivy Leagues. Specifically Princeton, alma mater of his favorite author Mia Merkley, a local mystery writer whose national fame and recent suicide have put her in the news again. Luckily for London, his own fiction and high grades put him on the radar of Birmingham Academy, a prep school that offers him a scholarship to leave public school and study with the richest students in the country.
There London meets Aria: the captivating, mysterious daughter of Mia Merkley. Her grief and darkness draw him in further than any of her mother’s novels. But soon, London learns that Aria is off limits—her blueblood boyfriend Dillon Astor is London’s newest friend and the one who decides London’s acceptance into the academy’s elite. When Aria and London become partners in a creative writing class, their friendship grows and an undeniable attraction threatens to blow London off course.
London knows he has to work harder than ever for a shot at Princeton. He knows he should stay away from drugs, parties, and Dillon’s girlfriend. But as Dillon slowly reveals his true nature and Aria’s secrets, London fails to see what is underneath it all. Now London can’t help playing hero, and he’ll have to decide what he loves more: Aria, or his own dreams.

–Possible Spoilers! Read at your own risk!–

Disclaimer: A huge thank you to the author for sending me a free ARC copy of this novel in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own. All quotes could be subject to changes in the final product.

“Dysfunction is the only entertainment when it’s fiction. In reality it would be a whole different story.”

When the first few pages of the book began with a discussion between two book nerds about literature, I already knew that the main character London and I were going to get along just fine.

At it’s heart Underneath It All is a contemporary novel about unexpected friendships that turn into unexpected attraction and relationships.

The story deals with addiction and unhealthy relationships, and about how the choices we make in life for ourselves and those we love can be difficult, especially when school drama and peer pressure is added into the mix.

“I’m not sure a person can simply stop wanting, or thinking about another person, even if it’s for the best.”

I liked London, we did not have much in common besides our mutual love of books. He is much more of a romantic than I am, but even so, London is so sweet and nice and kind, which I think is so undervalued. His character is kind and supportive, and he is such a great friend to Aria.

“One thing was clear—Aria wasn’t the kind of girl who bent rules—she broke them as a matter of principle.”

Aria was a deeply emotionally broken and mysterious character. She is withdrawn and closed off, and often time no one really knows what truly going on in her head, not even her friends.

Her poems at the beginning of most of the chapters gives the reader glimpses of her problems. They were all so heartbreaking and sad, I didn’t love Aria, but I really felt for her.

Her relationship with London was so unbelievably charming. I found myself smiling at their interactions and their antics, and they were just so adorable.

‘“Music is very important because year from now, when you listen to this song, you’ll remember this moment, what you were thinking, what it felt like, everything’”

I guess my main issue with their relationship was I didn’t really get it? I mean, they were adorable together yes, and they clearly got each other in a way that both of them needed.

But she was clearly in a relationship. Did I particularly like Dillon? Not really. Did I like his relationship with Aria? No way.

I just didn’t understand why London was so captivated by her that he would risk everything for her. There were some lines in his narration that made me uncomfortable because it just seemed like London was in love with the mystery of her.

“The more trouble I had figuring her out, the stronger my attraction.”

That may just be a me thing though. I am really not good with understanding romance. He makes so many mistakes, but it’s undeniable that he grows a lot from his experiences.

That being said the story definitely gets darker and more depressing the more London gets entangled into the complex relationship of the Golden Clique.

“They are envied for their mutual devotion, for their bond, for the way they love and protect one another. A friendship written in the stars, forged in fire, bright like gold.”

The friendship between the Golden Clique was so messed up, and yet there is such a strong loyalty there that is slightly unhealthy and toxic.

They were all so real. Did I like them all or always agree with their actions? No, not at all. But they were all so human in the sense of not wanting to admit their mistakes. It was not all happiness and luxury from being wealthy, they all had their problems and their issues.

I really do not know how I feel about them. I cannot say I really liked any of the clique members, they were all pretty mean, and I will never be okay with bullying.

I did enjoyed Jason and Annalisa as secondary characters. I had a lot of fun learning more about them.

There is betrayal and there is heartbreak and mean bullying, there are secrets and there are lies, but the ending, while bittersweet (and made me a tad bit angry) was satisfying to me. I will be okay with how it ended. I am okay.

“I think love is an embellished idea that compels people to turn it into a set of high expectations. No one can live up to that. One way or another, all loves ends in disappointment.”

Overall, Underneath It All was a lovely, emotional, and beautiful book. The author’s writing was poetic and fun to read, I especially enjoyed all of the literature analogies and metaphors. I loved London’s voice, you could practically feel his love for literature.

It is a character driven story with a wonderful cast of flawed characters. Any fellow book lover will find a small piece of themselves in London.