Review - Origin - Jennifer L. Armentrout

Title: Origin
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Publisher: Entangled Publishing
Release Date:August 27th, 2013
Series: Lux #4
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Synopsis via Goodreads

Daemon will do anything to get Katy back.

After the successful but disastrous raid on Mount Weather, he’s facing the impossible. Katy is gone. Taken. Everything becomes about finding her. Taking out anyone who stands in his way? Done. Burning down the whole world to save her? Gladly. Exposing his alien race to the world? With pleasure.

All Katy can do is survive.

Surrounded by enemies, the only way she can come out of this is to adapt. After all, there are sides of Daedalus that don’t seem entirely crazy, but the group’s goals are frightening and the truths they speak even more disturbing. Who are the real bad guys? Daedalus? Mankind? Or the Luxen?

Together, they can face anything.

But the most dangerous foe has been there all along, and when the truths are exposed and the lies come crumbling down, which side will Daemon and Katy be standing on?

And will they even be together?

My rating:

WARNING: Possible spoilers ahead, depending on what you count as spoilers. Also contains multiple, annoying uses of the word “badass” and “badassery”, a bunch of unnecessary totally necessary exclamations, and some angsty gifs.

Jennifer L. Armentrout has reached a whole new level of awesome epicness. I’m 100% sure epicness isn’t even a word, but that’s the only thing that describes this fast-paced, swoony, hilarious, action-freaking-packed installment of the Lux series. She’s outdone herself. No book in the series has ever compared. Origin was good. Foam at the mouth good. Fangirl like there's no tomorrow good.

Everything about it was badass. Katy was badass. In the previous book, Opal, it ended abruptly with her being captured by Daedalus. And I was all “Oh noooooooooo!” But then Origin came out and we see that Katy handled things like a pro. And by “like a pro” I mean, after the initial suckiness of her situation wore off, she was all enraged and determined and righteous. She endured ass-kickings and threats and faced the possibility that she’d never be free of Daedalus’s evil little clutches.

“The words that came out of my mouth were my own. I felt them. I believed them.
        ‘I’m going to kill you one day,’ I promised.”

See? Badassery!

Daemon was, like always, rocking his own kind of constant badassery. Like anyone could guess, he goes after Katy. He turns himself in to Daedalus (Not exactly a spoiler. If you hadn’t inferred what he’d do from the beginning, it lets on pretty quickly.) Mother of alpha males, Daemon’s unrelenting resolve to get Katy back was out of this world! (Hehe, it’s funny ‘cause he’s an alien!) He didn’t care who he had to mow down or steal from or lie to in order to get to her. And he did it all with his usual sarcastic, cocky flair that I just love so much! (Shout out to JLA for doing dual perspectives!)

“Going down on one knee, they leveled a dozen or so semiautomatic rifles on me. Stopping so many bullets would prove tricky.
      People were going to die.
     That sucked, but it wouldn’t stop me.” 

                                                                          ***

“’I’ve been waiting a long time to run tests on someone like you,’ he said to Daemon, voice high-pitched.
      Daemon arched a brow. ‘Another fanboy. I have them everywhere.’”

Swoony batches of badassery!

Also, the romance! Despite Kat & Daemon’s circumstances, their romance was the fiercest it’s ever been! Gah, their love jumped off the page and squeezed my heart to pieces! Plus something very, very big with their relationship happens towards the later half that you would not believe! So if you haven’t read this book yet, do it!

“I caught the tear with a kiss. ‘And I’m not going to let you do this by yourself. You’re my—you’re my everything, Kat.’ At the sound of her soft inhale, I smiled again. ‘Come on, Kitten, did you really expect anything less from me? I love you.” 

And Kat was all like:

  

 Oh, yeah, and there’s a bunch of sexytimes, too!

“Daemon squared his shoulders and cracked the door open. I couldn’t see anything beyond his bare back, which, if I had to be stuck staring at something, at least it was that.”

Like I’ve been coming to expect from any JLA book nowadays, the ending was…was…badass! OMG was it all kinds of badass! There was a huuuuuuuuge awesome, catastrophic, unbelievable, devastating battle of epic proportions that fully displayed the amounts of badassery that Luxen can bring to the table! And not only was it was filled with the Luxen but also the hybrids and some other types of things that I can’t really give away, but the title “Origin” had something to do with it! There’s a ton of new players entering the game now! There are also a few plot twists at the end, some I did see coming and some I didn’t. And holy freaking cow, the one at the end with the conversation between Dawson and Daemon about Beth!! And also the betrayal by someone important!!!! (For once, it isn’t Blake, but there’s a reason for that.)

I can’t! I just can’t anymore! I’m about to explode with the feels that this book has brought. Plus, I feel like if I use the word badass one more time, I’ll have irritated the hell out of everyone, including myself. So just suffice it to say that this book was a big game-changer. The best book in the series yet. And it didn’t end with a gigantic cliffhanger, so I’m good with that.

Anywho, let’s end things with a quote from the book that actually had me laughing out loud at the imagery:

“Man, it was so quiet you could hear a grasshopper karate chop a fly.”

Read this book! The karate-chopping grasshopper demands it!

Review - Opal - By: Jennifer L. Armentrout (Lux Series #3)

Title: Opal
Author: Jennifer L. Armentrout
Publisher: Entangled Teen
Release Date: December 11th, 2012
Series: Lux #3
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Synopsis via Goodreads

No one is like Daemon Black.

When he set out to prove his feelings for me, he wasn’t fooling around. Doubting him isn’t something I’ll do again, and now that we’ve made it through the rough patches, well... There’s a lot of spontaneous combustion going on.

But even he can’t protect his family from the danger of trying to free those they love.

After everything, I’m no longer the same Katy. I’m different... And I’m not sure what that will mean in the end. When each step we take in discovering the truth puts us in the path of the secret organization responsible for torturing and testing hybrids, the more I realize there is no end to what I’m capable of. The death of someone close still lingers, help comes from the most unlikely source, and friends will become the deadliest of enemies, but we won’t turn back. Even if the outcome will shatter our worlds forever.

Together we’re stronger... and they know it.

My rating:

All right, I'll admit it. I couldn't control my inner fangirl once I got my hands on this book. Daemon is just so...Daemon. I can't count how many times I did a mental happy dance once he said something funny or just plain naughty.



Moving on...this book tops each previous one in the series. And here I thought it just couldn't get any hotter than Onyx with all of the spontaneous combusting going around, but I'm so glad I was wrong. I enjoyed Opal from page one. It was flawless. Each of my expectations were met and then some. Jennifer L. Armentrout kept didn't pull any emotional punches, either.

What I Especially Liked:

1) The Realism of Dee & Katy's Relationship:
In the aftermath of Adam's death, I didn't expect Armentrout to really focus on how Katy & Dee's relationship would be impacted. I thought she'd mostly stick to the main storyline, and either not address the tension at all or have it be non-essential. But I'm so glad that it was a prominent aspect. I'm glad that I got to see how hurt Dee was, and how authentic her reactions were. I'm glad that she took time away from Katy to collect herself, and didn't rush back into their best-friend-hood. It was all so realistically refreshing, and I'm glad that Katy was understanding about it.


2) The Recurring Characters:
Most of the character that are introduced in Onyx are back with a vengeance in this novel. After the first time it happened, I was shocked.



I didn't expect the person who came back to be back so soon. I was on the edge of my seat wondering how everyone, especially Daemon, would react. After the second time, the character who came back wasn't around for very long...if you know what I mean. So, that character didn't have as much of an impact as the crapstorm they caused did. Still, with each person who came around the action aspect inched up that much more and I loved it all.


3) Katy's Ongoing Frustration w/Daemon:
I think that this was what drew me to the series in the first novel, Obsidian. I liked that Daemon was a cocky asshole and I especially liked that Katy (unlike many heroines in the YA genre nowadays) didn't take any of his crap. In Opal, she still doesn't and I love the consistency. Now that Katy and Daemon are an actual couple, Daemon pulls back the asshole remarks but never stops being his arrogant self. Katy's frustration moves to Daemon's undying need to protect her in this book. I found myself siding with Katy time and time again when her safety was brought up. Daemon's hypocrisy knew no bounds (I still love him, though). There'd be a situation when they were planning something dangerous and Daemon would say something like "I don't want you to go. I just want to protect you." And Katy would argue that if she asked him not to go, he'd refuse. Which was completely true, of course. I felt the same mild annoyance that Katy did, and I think a book it a million times better when I can feel what the character's feeling.


4) The Return of Dawson
Ever since Dawson came back everyone had been on edge waiting for him to go off his rocker and try to rescue Bethany on a suicide mission. And while I did share their fear that Dawson would try to rescue her and end up dead in the process, I also found it endearing. His determination to get to Beth was impressive. His dedication was everlasting. Going through the pain of trying to resist onyx only on the possibility that he'd see her again...Dawson immediately became a character that I liked and will continue to like.

5) The Ending







IT DESTROYED ME. I knew Armentrout would deliver with a fantastic, unbelievable ending. I knew I would remember it and cherish it and obsess over it until the next Lux novel came out. And I will. But....like I said, it destroyed me. It simply broke my heart in two. Shattered it to pieces. I didn't know whether I should start bawling for Katy & Daemon's relationship or rage at the unfairness of it all. I knew something would go horribly awry. Armentrout kept hinting at it. I knew the shit would hit the fan. I just didn't expect it to do so in the way that it did. I'm so distraught right now. I need the next book. Need it.

Favorite Lines:

1) "Maybe I wouldn't have to worry about her [Katy's Mother] and Will. Maybe I needed to worry about her and Daemon. Cougar."

2) " 'But you've broken the rules, Kitten. Several times. You're owed some punishment.'
My heart jumped. 'I am a rule breaker.'
His lips tilted up on one corner. 'You are.' "

3) "To my left, there was a blur of brown racing away from me. Most likely a deer or, knowing my luck, a chupacabra."