If you have good eyes, you might have read on the picture above that this book is ''by the bestselling author of It's Kind of a Funny Story''. Why am I making this remark? Because this is exactly why I picked up this book. It's Kind of a Funny Story is one of my favorite stand alone; for me, Ned Vizzini had the same talent as Andrew Smith : his writing was real.

I bought two books yesterday and already started reading one of them : All the Bright Places.
This book... I'm not even halfway and I know it's going to become one of my favorite.

Three men are killed. The only clues are tiny cuts all over their bodies. At the same time, seven students are thrown into an environment that no man had ever dreamed of.

This is Micro.

See this picture? It's beautiful isn't it? You would think a book with such an amazing cover would have an equally amazing story, but no. I made the mistake to judge a book by its cover and I got very disappointed. 


WARNING this review may contain spoilers

This book… I hated it.
There, I said it. And the thing is: I really wanted to love it, but instead I had to refrain myself from throwing this book across the room, through a window and into the ocean (even though I don't live remotely close to the ocean).

My face while reading this book

My previous experience with Becca Fitzpatrick was great. I enjoyed the Hush Hush series very much and I'm still hoping for some kind of adaption. But Black Ice?

I don't kow what happened!

Ok, let's go over everything:

The characters were dumb and not plausible at all. Britt and her friend CLEARLY miss the day when common sense was explained...   

• Britt: I did not like her at all.
  You know, now that I think about it, we don't have enough kick ass female MC in YA literature. Aside form Rose from Vampire Academy, no one else comes to mind. Why am I bringing this up? Because Britt was FAR from kick ass. In fact, she would have to take a plane and fly across the globe to Australia to get close to being kick ass.
  She had her mind set on climbing a mountain and even when there was a freakishly huge storm going on, she decided go on out anyway!
  And seriously, you're trap with two men (keep that in mind, men, not teenage boys) who are criminals capable of killing you and all you worry about is if you got a chance with one of your captor?  Four days are hardly enough to develop stockholm syndrome, and even if it was, Brit did not have it. What she did have were crazy, raging teenage hormones and a serious lack of brain! But hey! Everything's fine because one of the men is really dreamy!

“There was something about almost dying that made me desperate to feel alive - and Jude’s touch was the only thing that made me feel alive right now.”  Really? Ok, keep telling yourself that...

“I tapped my cup to his, grateful to have found Shaun, because for a minute there, I'd thought I was going to have to save myself. Instead, I'd wandered into the protective care of a sexy older man.” What was I saying? FAR from being kick ass.

• Korbie: What a b**ch. 
  My definition of a best friend (taken from Urban dictonnary): Best Friends are very special people in your life. They are the first people you think about when you make plans. They are the first people you go to when you need someone to talk to. You will phone them up just to talk about nothing, or the most important things in your life. When you’re sad they will try their hardest to cheer you up. They give the best hugs in the world! They are the shoulder to cry on, because you know that they truly care about you. In most cases they would take a bullet for you, coz it would be too painful to watch you get hurt. 
  Korbie's definition: The prettiest and most important friend brings the other one down. Also, she only cares for herself and will call dibs first on any attractive guy she meets, because she is clealry better than the other person taking part in this best friend relationship.
  Let's just say I was happy she was left behind because at least, I didn't have to read any more scenes with her in it!

“She was turnig this into a competition, like always. I would never tell Korbie, but last summer, during a sleepover, I had peeked in her diary. [...] Imagine my surprise when I found two side-by-side lists comparing Korbie and me” What a great demonstration of friendship people!

• Jude: He was just there, being all dark and mysterious and all. Alone, he was allright. But the story was so ridiculous that he became ridicoulous too.

Now the plot... The ending was predictable, the situations the characters found themselves in were absurd and it was just bad all around.  I can't even summarize this book for you guys; I blocked everything after I (finally) closed it. What I can tell you is that the synopsis makes the story looks a gazillion time better than it is.

This was more a rant than a review, and disliking a book like this is rare for me. But Black Ice? It brings out the worst in me. Sorry Becca Fitzpatrick, you wrote good books, but this ain't one of them.

Sophie

So I recently finished Waiting for You, by Susane Colasanti. My intention with this book was to enjoy a light summer read, aka chick lit for me. I had just finished reading an intense thriller and I was looking forward to a good easy-read, but I ended up by being disappointed.

I've been wanting to read The Unbecoming of Mara Dyer for a while now, thanks to Little Book Owl's youtube channel, and I finally got around to it!

Before I say anything else, can I just mention the cover? I'm not one to judge a book by its cover, but this one certainly did grab my attention. It is gorgeous! Ok, now moving on.

It's hard to resume this book; there's just a lot going on and I don't want to give any spoilers away by accident so I'll just copy paste the synopsis.

Mara Dyer believes life can't get any stranger than waking up in a hospital with no memory of how she got there.

It can. 

She believes there must be more to the accident she can't remember that killed her friends and left her strangely unharmed. There is.

She doesn't believe that after everything she's been through, she can fall in love. She's wrong.

I just love Richelle Mead!

I first discovered her with Vampire Academy, which I loved, and then continued reading her with Bloodlines, which I adored even more! Now, I decided to grab her newest adult series, The age of X.

In this first book, we meet Mae Koskinen (does anyone even know how to pronounce it?), a badass praetorian with a mysterious past. After a little... mishap let's say, she's assigned as Justin's bodyguard, an  investigator of religious groups and supernatural claim for the RUNA (Republic of United North America). The crime they are trying to solve soon turns out to be more complicated than they anticipated and everything Mae was thought to believe will be challenged.

When I started reading this book, I went in with an open mind because I knew it was completely different from the other Richelle Mead books I had read in the past. And like the previous two series, I really enjoyed Gameboard of the Gods.

First I need to warn you about the title. Religions and gods are an important part of the book, but don't do as I did and think it's going to be like American Gods or Percy Jackson because it won't.
In the RUNA, religion is something that is strongly discouraged and could even lend you in trouble if you don't respect the rules. It's one of the many differences between our world today and the one in the book, which is completely ok considering it's a bit of a sci-fi. The new rules are easy to understand and I was never completely lost when a new concept was introduce, so A+ for world building!

Now for the plot. It started it off great you know, with a normal initial situation and all. But then I got to the middle and found myself in a bit of a slump. The investigation was going nowhere and the characters did not have any interesting conflicts. Fortunately, this slump didn't last too long and soon, we were back in business! Everything slowly picked up again until the end, where I was left wanting more. We did get answers as the book was getting to an end, which was nice as there was many unanswered questions. Some were left that way, which is fine too.

A lot of those questions were concerning our two main characters : Mae and Justin. I wish I could have liked Mae more than I did. It just didn't feel like she was the MC and I wish she would've had more depth. But Justin... Not gonna lie, I might have a crush on him! Yeah, he falls into the bad boy category, but he was real. His struggles were real, his feelings were real, everything about him was real and relatable, which is something really important for me when it comes to characters. 

And Tessa! Who could not love Tessa?

''I understand bitchiness in any language'' I died!

All in all, it was a really good read and I will be grabbing The Immortal Crown, Age of X book 2.

Sophie

I'll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson is one of my favorite books of all time and I’m here to convince you to read this book because it’s worth it.

First let’s talk about the plot in general. It’s a good enough plot to make you want to continue reading. 

In short, it's the story of two twins, Noah and Jude, who used to be really close. Something happened and now, they barely speak to eachother. 

Without putting my personal feelingsinto it, I can say the the author created her story in such a way that you would want to continue reading. Now putting my personal feelings into it: the plot was flipping AMAZING! Every time a chapter ended, I wanted to skip the next POV to see what happened next. But then I started reading the next POV and I didn’t want to stop. 

This was one of the great element of this novel; the point of views. 

Reading a story told by two person who end up meeting somehow at the end is nice. Reading a story told by two person who are part of each other’s story is really nice. Now add to that the fact that the two person are siblings, even better right? Because you don’t read a lot of stories about siblings. Now for the last straw, add the fact that the story is told in different time frame: one where the siblings are 12 and another one where they are 16 and you get a freakishly great story telling!

Now, let’s talk about the characters. I, for instance, had a preference for Jude. Since I’m 16 - her age in her point of view, and a girl, I could relate to her much more than Noah. BUT! I could also relate to Noah. That’s the magic of Jandy Nelson’s writing. I just got attached to every character. Their passion for art, their teenage struggle, their dreams and their pains… Everything was just so real!

And let’s be honest: anything with a good looking English Guy is destined to be pretty good! And I have to add that while he may be a ''bad boy'', he is not cliché. Trust me when I say that this cliché annoys me to the point where I don’t want to finish a book. But Oscar… I couldn't help but fall in love with him.

As for the story itself, I loved the themes explored by the author: first love, family, homosexuality, art! 

This last one really did get to me. Every book has a focus like that. I mean that every main character has a passion for something and  it is present throughout the book: music, dance, photography, cinematography, art, and the list goes on. In my reading experience, art like the one explored in I’ll Give You the Sun is not often seen in books. In this on, I absolutely adored the way it was included in the story: as part of the plot, the characters, the description… I just loved it. 

Not gonna lie, the way the author uses art to describe things is not for everyone. Some people will hate it. But I loved it.

If after 20 pages you like the book, it probably will become one of you favorite. But if after 20 pages you don’t like it, it’s probably just not for you, and that’s fine too. But give it a try before choosing your category ok?

Sophie