Review - No One's Angel - By: Kelly Walker

Title: No One's Angel
Author: Kelly Walker
Publisher: All Night Reads
Release Date: September 6th, 2013
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Synopsis via Goodreads

Tess used to spend more hours than she’d care to admit playing her favorite computer game, using the nickname Angel. She could pretend her life was different, and she could pretend Arion was just a friend. But a girl needs more to keep her warm at night than pixels and she traded her virtual heaven for a real life hell. Now she’s on the run from a past she won’t talk about, and the only place she has to go is the doorstep of the friend she’s never actually met.

When Angel disappeared from their nightly games, it nearly destroyed Arion. He threw himself into work and women, but he can’t help knowing the one night stands will never compare to the angel who haunts his dreams. At first, when she shows up soaking wet and scared-shitless on his doorstep, he thinks his prayers have been answered.

But the more Arion tries to keep Angel close, the more her fear drives her away. If they are ever going to have a chance for a future, they’ll first have to deal with the past that hasn’t forgotten her any more than she’s forgotten it, and Arion will have to learn how to let her go.

My rating:

Damn. Fooled by the synopsis again. Be careful, guys. It sounds way better than it actually is. When I requested it, I thought I’d be getting an exciting, original story with complex characters and a heart-swelling romance.

Exciting, it ain’t. Original? Not quite.

Wanna know what sucks the most? I thought it was going to be a 5 star-er. It started off so strong. Kelly Walker pulled me into the story from page one with her fluid, angsty pace. The first chapter opens with Angel (Tess) in the rain, broke and shivering, and looking for a specific place. When she gets there, we learn it was not the place exactly that she was searching for, but a guy named Arion. A guy she’d never met, but had forged an online connection with in a game.

So, yeah, it seemed like it’d be all kinds of unique. Except it fell flat. Really, really flat. The uniqueness wore off in about four chapters when all Angel and Arion did was lay around his home and sleep and have a bunch of meaningless conversation. I kept waiting for something to happen, something to spice up the monotony.

I waited a long time.

I think there was supposed to be a plot, but I didn’t find one. Seriously. This book flipflopped between Arion and Angel doing absolutely nothing with their lives, him trying to get her to open up about why she sought him out in the first damn place, and Angel trying to figure that out for herself.

Angel had been in an emotionally and physically abusive relationship with her boyfriend, Nick. When she decided she’d had enough, she ran to Arion. (It’s not a spoiler; you figure it out pretty quickly.) From Arion’s preconceptions of her, she was supposed to be this feisty, sarcastic, smart girl. I didn’t see that at all. I mean, I get it. She was vulnerable and trying to put herself together after being in such an abusive environment, so I didn’t expect for her to be those things for a while. The thing was…they never showed up. And all the while Arion was thinking ‘Gosh, she’s so strong and beautiful and stunning and awesome and spunky and blah blah blah.’ I got HOW they fell in love. I just couldn’t understand WHY. Maybe I just didn’t see it, but the only character traits I got from her were annoying, indecisive, and unnecessarily stubborn the few times that she stood up for herself.

As for Arion…he was mediocre. That’s all that comes to mind when I think of him. He had a bit more substance than Angel, but not much. The occasional funny line thrown here and there. A few times, he showed traits of being this sexy, charming guy. But the way his internal monologues went on and on and on about how Angel had wrecked him on the inside made him seem less like a tortured hero and more like a desperate, weak man with controlling impulses. For example, when he destroyed his house in a tantrum because he thought (with no proof) that Angel had left after the first night of him ever seeing her in real life. He could’ve handled that so much better. By, say, actually searching for her instead of being immature. Seriously, she ended up being in the next room. You can’t justify that.

Their romance was dead to me. It lacked everything. Trust. Steam. Emotion. Angel was much too concerned with getting away from Arion and then wanting to jump his bones and then running scared again for me to even consider it love. And Arion was too hung up on his mommy issues to ever let Angel be independent like she needed to be in the aftermath of her abusive relationship.

The side characters were actually, surprisingly, well done. There was Chelsea, Arion’s step-sister and Lexi, a girl who worked with his family that stood out the most. Their portrayals actually did ambitious, intelligent women justice. Chelsea came off as this stupid blond bimbo initially, but then we realize that that’s not entirely true. And Lexi was this bright, horse-loving girl with a dream to study Equine Science. They were both equally supportive of each other and Angel. There was none of that petty drama and slut-bashing that you see so prominently nowadays.

The end was unbelievably predictable and awfully anticlimactic, much like the entire book. The bad guy went down, and Arion and Angel lived happily ever after. Congrats to them, but I just could not muster a single crap to give at their HEA.

Why did I give it two stars instead of one, then? Simple. It made me cry.

Angel’s recounts of Nick’s abuse brought tears to my eyes like nothing else. Each snippet was heartbreaking:

“Nick took my innocence, and my hopes for the future, and my chance at college and everything I’d wanted for myself the first time he held me down and told me I could either agree to let him fuck me, or he’d dope me with ecstasy until I did.” 

__________________***___________________

“My fingers absentmindedly trace the scar behind my elbow, one of the few outward ones I have. Most of the time, Nick was careful not to leave visible evidence; he liked to believe people were fooled into thinking he was a good, upstanding guy and a bruised-up girlfriend might complicate that. Maybe they were fooled. I sure was. I don’t remember what I said that made him send me crashing through the glass coffee table, but I’ll never forget the bite of glass as it seared my flesh.”

__________________***___________________

“Last night, I dreamed Nick killed my mom. I found her lying on the cold tile floor of her kitchen, the words ‘come back’ pained into the pool of her blood beside her.”

The bottom line is, while I didn’t like the characters or the plot, the meaning stuck with me. It touched upon some very serious topics, and didn’t make light of them by overshadowing/ignoring the issues with the romance. I can respect that.

“I know I’m no one’s angel, because if I had wings I’d fly away, and I wouldn’t stop until I eventually soared above the pain.”

**ARC received via Netgalley in exchange for an honest review**

Review - Beautiful Disaster - By: Jamie McGuire

Title: Beautiful Disaster
Author: Jamie McGuire
Publisher: Jamie McGuire
Release Date: May 26th, 2011
Series: Beautiful #1
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Synopsis via Goodreads

INTENSE. DANGEROUS. ADDICTIVE.

Abby Abernathy is a good girl. She doesn’t drink or swear, and she has the appropriate number of cardigans in her wardrobe. Abby believes she has enough distance from the darkness of her past, but when she arrives at college with her best friend, her path to a new beginning is quickly challenged by Eastern University’s Walking One-Night Stand.

Travis Maddox, lean, cut, and covered in tattoos, is exactly what Abby wants—and needs—to avoid. He spends his nights winning money in a floating fight ring, and his days as the ultimate college campus charmer. Intrigued by Abby’s resistance to his appeal, Travis tricks her into his daily life with a simple bet. If he loses, he must remain abstinent for a month. If Abby loses, she must live in Travis’s apartment for the same amount of time. Either way, Travis has no idea that he has met his match.

My rating:

Just so you know, this review is really 

long and kind of rant-y so read at your own risk.

I went into Beautiful Disaster thinking I was going to either hate it or love it. Looking at its many reviews, everyone seemed to rate it either 5 stars or 1 star (since zero wasn't an option). That said, from chapter one I was already rolling my eyes and snorting to myself when I thought: "You know what? I'll actually give it a try." So I cleared all of the my initial thoughts and got into the story. Now, let me start by saying that I didn't hate the book...I hated the relationship between the main characters, as well as some most of the decisions they made.

So, we have Abby & Travis aka the Wanna-Be-Good-Girl and the Incredible Hulk sans green skin. Oh, wait. Green stands for jealousy, right? Leave the green skin then, since Abby couldn't have sneezed in another guy's direction without Travis huffing and puffing and threatening to break someone's face.

If you haven't noticed by now, I HATE it when jealousy consumes a relationship. Hate it, I think there's no reason for you to feel like you need to beat anyone down for glancing at your partner. Yeah, we're all human, but guess what? There's this thing called self-control. Maybe they were glancing (and I'm talking to you, Travis) because it's freaking college and Abby's a decent looking girl. You ever think of that? Gawd, I spent the later half of the book wanting to throw my iPod (it was an audiobook) across the room because hey, I'm an impressionable teenager and since it's okay for Travis to wreck nice things, why can't I?

*takes deep breath* But I can't blame this ALL on Travis. It's Abby, too. Abby, as an individual, is pretty damn decent. She's in college, trying to forget her past, carve out a new life for herself and all that jazz. In the beginning, when she meets Travis after his fight, she resists him.

And, let me just say, I liked Travis in the beginning too. Tattoos, nice muscles, and he seemed to have a friendly, charming personality before he turned into a raging psychopath. But back to Abby...I thought she was a complete, unnecessary bitch after her meeting with Travis. She judged him immediately without knowing him as a person. That frustrated me relentlessly & was her first strike for me.

So after getting to know him a bit, they decide to be "friends". And why is friends in quotes, you ask? Because it was a bullshit excuse. Well into the book, when they were getting drunk and dirty dancing and cuddling in the same damn bed, Abby was still crying "we're still friends!" Really? Fucking REALLY? It got worse because after they've SLEPT TOGETHER, she had the gall to still date a different guy and spout the same bullshit line. WE'RE JUST FRIENDS. Were you, Abby? Because I can honestly say I've never done any of those things with any of my friends. The whole time I was just like open your fucking eyes.

That was the only point where I felt Travis's anger was well-deserved. At that point, he'd fallen in love with her and taken her signals as any guy would do only to have her date some other guy, all while telling them both "we're just friends." Shit, I'd probably lose my marbles too if some guy I loved was giving me the run-around (mind the phrase) like that. That was Abby's second strike.

The third and final strike was when she and Travis and her friends America and Shepley (Travis's cousin) go out, and two guys hit on Abby at separate occasions, yet on the same night. Travis goes ballistic, trying to pummel the guys each time, and on the second occurrence, hits the guy and ALMOST HITS ABBY!!!

Oh, hell no! Oh, HELL NO! I actually had to put my iPod down and think about this one. He almost PUNCHED HIS GIRLFRIEND IN THE FUCKING FACE. And all because he couldn't control himself. It was here where I was like "NO, Abby, you need to escape this relationship NOW!" I mean, there'd been SO MANY warning signs leading up to it. Travis telling her she made him psycho/crazy, telling her he'd never let her go, telling her that if she slept with someone else he'd go to jail. But HELL NO. This scene put things into perspective for me. Abby reacted accordingly, I give her props for that. She went off, saying she wouldn't be the first girl he ever hit. And for a moment, I thought their relationship was over. But nope! Eventually, what was an unforgivable almost-punch WAS forgivable after all by Abby's standards.

For that, I'd forsaken both Abby and Travis, leaving them to their not-so-beautiful-actually-abusive-are-you-stupid-oh-wait-of-course-you-are disaster of a relationship. (Yet somehow I still forced myself to read/listen to the whole thing.)

This review is already too long, so I'm just going to wrap it up with a few points. First, I give it three stars because, although the relationship disgusted me, the writing was great and easy to follow. The plot was gritty and realistic, as well as filled with captivating drama. It took me through emotional highs and lows, even though disbelief and anger and incredulity ruled over me as I read/listened.

Second, I actually LIKED the heroine as the story progressed, so her involvement with Travis made me more dissapointed than anything. Abby was likeable enough once I got over her initial judgmental tendencies. She seemed smart and straight-forward with a good head on her shoulders. She recognized her relationship with Travis for the obsession that it was. Except, she crossed out all of her good characteristics by choosing to be with him anyway.

And third, there was nothing "beautiful" about their relationship, its utterly misleading and promotes the idea that its OKAY to be treated this way by your overly aggressive, controlling but OMG-he-has-tattoos-and-is-so-irresistably-HAWT-I-KNOW-I-can-change-him boyfriend. (And that wasn't entirely Abby's P.O.V. after they fell in love, but that's still what I got out of it.) It's not okay.

All right. I'm done. I'm exhausted. And I hope I never have to go through that again because I've never wished for a relationship to end as much as I did with those two dysfunctional people.

Review - Daughter of Smoke & Bone - By: Laini Taylor

Title: Daughter of Smoke & Bone
Author: Laini Taylor
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Release Date: September 27th, 2011
Series: Daughter of Smoke & Bone #1
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Synopsis via Goodreads

Around the world, black handprints are appearing on doorways, scorched there by winged strangers who have crept through a slit in the sky.

In a dark and dusty shop, a devil's supply of human teeth grown dangerously low.

And in the tangled lanes of Prague, a young art student is about to be caught up in a brutal otherwordly war.

Meet Karou. She fills her sketchbooks with monsters that may or may not be real; she's prone to disappearing on mysterious "errands"; she speaks many languages--not all of them human; and her bright blue hair actually grows out of her head that color. Who is she? That is the question that haunts her, and she's about to find out.

When one of the strangers--beautiful, haunted Akiva--fixes his fire-colored eyes on her in an alley in Marrakesh, the result is blood and starlight, secrets unveiled, and a star-crossed love whose roots drink deep of a violent past. But will Karou live to regret learning the truth about herself?

My rating:

WARNING: This review may contain spoilers, so keep reading at your own risk.

It's always a bit strange writing an average review about a book that everyone seems to love, but I just couldn't get into this story as much as I wanted to. The story's pretty prose and protagonist earned it a high rating initially, but its failure to execute all of the potential it had in the beginning lowered my rating down to 3 stars.

This book had been on my to-read list for months, so when I saw it at my local library I pounced, convinced it would be the greatest book ever, especially after reading the stellar reviews. Like I said, it had all the potential in the world. Laini Taylor's writing style is flawless. Not too flowery, not too plain, but capturing enough to keep you reading. From the first page, I was hooked:

"The falling snow and the early hour conspired to paint Prague ghostly, like a tintype photograph, all silver and haze."

It's hard to come by YA this well-written nowadays, and I loved how effortlessly it flowed. Plus, the setting. Prague. Not some small town that the protagonist is bitter about being sent to, not New York or L.A. or any other large American city. Freaking Prague, a place that I'd never imagine a YA novel taking place, yet loving it all the more for that reason.





I mean, look at that.

Aside from the setting, there's the protagonist, Karou. Can I just take a moment to say how much I love that name? From the first description of her, I knew she'd be unique:

"She held her coffee mug in one hand and clutched her coat closer with the other. An artist's portfolio was slung over her shoulder, and her hair--loose, long, and peacock blue--was gathering a lace of snowflakes."

Coffee, you say? An artist's portfolio? Blue hair? Check, check, and check, and just like that, I was on board. But it's not just that. Karou is the epitome of a relatable, smart, and funny heroine. Well, up until she meets the hero, but I'll get to that later. She's spent her whole life being raised by chimaera (part-human, part-animal creatures) and has no idea who her real parents are. She has no idea who she is or where she came from. All she knows is the chimaera, and running errands for them, yet still she manages to maintain some sense of normality in her life. There's her ex-boyfriend, Kaz, whom I found hilarious for some reason, and her best friend Zuzanna, who was as loyal as they come. Zuzanna accepted Karou's weirdness and random absences (due to Karou's errands) with stride up until Karou is attacked by an angel.

And this is where things start going downhill. Try to stick with me through this.

So, we already know that Karou has ties to the weird, supernatural creatures known as chimaera. Her foster father, Brimstone, is one and he's the specific person that she runs errands for. There's also the rest of her pseudo-family, consisting of Issa, Twiga, and Yasri, all chimaera. As if knowing that these creatures exist & being raised by them & loving them like family isn't enough, both Karou and the reader get introduced to angels, who are the enemies of chimaera. So when Karou is attacked by one, it's a huge deal.

Right around the time Karou is attacked, these burnt black handprints begin to appear on all of the portals from the human world to Elsewhere (as Karou calls it), which is where chimaera live. We find out that this is the work of angels (also known as seraphim) who want to end the long-lasting war between them and the chimaera. By marking the portals with the handprints and destroying them later, they close the bridge between the human world and Elsewhere.

This is where it begins to affect Karou. Without the portals, she loses all contact with her foster family, who are in Elsewhere. Or dead, for all Karou knows. So, when she is attacked and almost killed by the angel, she has nobody to turn to but her best friend Zuzanna. Thus, the quest to know who she is and where she came from is intensified.

This is where things start going from bad to worse.

The angel who attacked Karou's name is Akiva, and he apparently couldn't stop thinking about her after their fight. So he decides to stalk her life for a bit before facing her again. Karou reacts like anyone else would. She's wary, and then decides to fight him before he can try to kill her again. But guess what? Apparently Akiva is sorry for almost murdering her in a heartbeat, and so he surrenders.

And what does Karou do?

She takes him to her home, and questions him because, obviously, knowing who she is and where she came from is more important than finding her family and seeing if they're okay or even alive.

After getting her answers from Akiva, and letting him sleep in her home, the two spend the next day getting to know one another. Her reasoning? She feels a pull towards him, and can't seem to resist it. It's as if the universe rejects them being apart. 'Cause, you know, it's not like he tried to kill her without thinking. Or, it's not like she's aware of the fact that they're enemies. And after a single day of knowing him, Karou is certain she's in love. And, go figure, so is Akiva.

A day, I kid you not.



The rushed romance between them was my least favorite part of this book. Though Laini Taylor's writing made it slightly better, I still couldn't get past it. And when we finally find out who Karou is, and why she feels so connected to Akiva, the romance still fell flat.

By the end, I'd lost every sense of connection I felt for the characters. The lack of urgency from the time that Karou met Akiva made the potential die down. It began to drag, and even the best writing the world can't make up for that. Everything at the end wrapped up so quickly, and while it was a good ending, it didn't overcome the predictability of the middle. All in all, it was decent, but I sincerely hope the next book is better.