Book Review: The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi

The Star-Touched Queen by Roshani Chokshi (The Star-Touched Queen #1) / ★★★☆☆

Summary: Maya is cursed with a future marriage destined for death and destruction. When her father’s attempt to marry her off turns into something more dastardly, she runs away with with the  trustworthy Amar and soon finds herself the Queen of Akaran- an empty place full of locked doors and a voice that calls to her.

Although I had never envisioned marriage, I had thought of love. Not the furtive love I heard muffled in the corners or rooms of some of the harem wives. What I wanted was a connection, a shared heartbeat that kept rhythm across oceans and worlds. Not some alliance cobbled out of war. I didn’t want the prince from the folktales or some milk-skinned, honey-eyed youth who said his greetings and proclaimed his love in the same breath. I wanted a love thick with time, as inscrutable as if a lathe had carved it from night and as familiar as the marrow in my bones.

Book Review: Renegades by Marissa Meyer

Renegades by Marissa Meyer (Renegades #1) / ★★☆☆☆

Summary: The Renegades protect their society from danger and the villains who once ruled the city- the Anarchists. Nova has a reason to hate the Renegades, and she is on a mission for vengeance. As she gets closer to her target, she meets Adrian, a Renegade boy who believes in justice—and in Nova. But Nova’s allegiance is to a Anarchist who has the power to end them both.

She lifted the stun gun, but…who was she supposed to aim at? Was she a Renegade today, or an Anarchist? Who was she supposed to be protecting? Who was she supposed to stop?

Book Review: The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater

The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater / ★★★★☆

Summary: On the island of Thisby, every November riders compete in the Scorpio Races, a deadly race on man-eating water horses. Sean Kendrick, a man bound to another man’s business and whose own father was killed in the races, is the returning champion. Puck Connolly enters in a desperate attempt to keep her brother from leaving- and volunteers on her land horse.

This time of year, I live and breathe the beach. My cheeks feel raw with the wind throwing sand against them. My thighs sting from the friction of the saddle. My arms ache from holding up two thousand pounds of horse. I have forgotten what it is like to be warm and what a full night’s sleep feels like and what my name sounds like spoken instead of shouted across yards of sand.

Book Review: The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan

The Ship of the Dead by Rick Riordan (Magnus Chase and the Gods of Asgard #3) / ★★★★★

Summary: Magnus, his best friends Samirah and Alex, and the rest of his crew, must sale across the Atlantic to prevent Loki from sailing his own ship and setting the end of the world into motion.

No matter how magical Kvasir’s Mead was, how could it possible help me beat Loki at his own game?

No pressure, of course. If I lost I’d just be reduced to a shadow of myself and imprisoned in Helheim while all my friends died and Ragnorok destroyed the Nine Worlds. 

Book Review: Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows

Before She Ignites by Jodi Meadows (Fallen Isles Trilogy #1)/ ★★★★☆

Summary: Mira Minkoba is the Hopebearer, and the treaty that brings peace to the Fallen Isles, her home, is named after her, and she’s spent her whole life serving it. When Mira discovers a secret that gets her sent to prison by the very people she’s spent her life serving, she’s put to the test by a guard who will do anything to find out what it is she knows.

I was in control of me. No matter how much others insisted, they did not direct my arms and legs. They did not determine what words came out of my mouth. The only reason they’d succeeded for so long was because I’d let them. 

Book Review: The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones

The Hearts We Sold by Emily Lloyd-Jones / ★★★☆☆

Summary: In a world in which body parts are exchanged to demons for wishes, Dee finds herself unable to pay for school and desperate not to return home. When she asks a demon for money, he asks her for her heart – and to take part in a mission.

She had walked willingly into a fairy tale, into a world where she could trade her heart for her freedom. She may as well have donned a red cloak and strode into a darkened forest. 

She had always known there would be wolves. 

Book Review: Timekeeper by Tara Sim

Timekeeper by Tara Sim (Timekeeper #1) / ★★☆☆☆

Summary: 17 year old Danny Hart is the youngest clock mechanic in Victorian London, in a world in which clocks are living entities and control the passage of time. When he falls for the spirit of a clock he’s been assigned to, the mystery of his father – trapped in a town in which time has stopped – begins to unravel.

There comes a moment when time seems to slip faster, running long then short, shadows shrinking as the sun climbs. It’s the moment, he decided, when you’re no longer a child. When the concept of time and the need for more of it come together and make you powerless. Make you yearn for the longer days, the lazy days, before you knew what time passing actually meant.

Book Review: The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon

The Bone Season by Samantha Shannon (The Bone Season #1) / ★1/2☆☆☆

Summary: Paige Mahoney is clairvoyant in 2059 London, where it is illegal to be clairvoyant. When she is kidnapped by unearthly beings and taken to their prison in Oxford, she begins to realize exactly who it is that rules her world, and that she needs to figure out a way to escape.

There was no normal. There never had been. “Normal” and “natural” were the biggest lies we’d ever created.

Book Review: Saving Hamlet by Molly Booth

Saving Hamlet by Molly Booth / ★★★ 1/2

Summary: Sophomore Emma Allen is the assistant stage manager of her high school’s production of Hamlet. When things start to go awry, she stumbles upon a portal to the Globe Theater…in 1600s London, which is also putting on Hamlet, and suddenly Emma finds herself responsible for two plays.

I was starting to get it – Shakespeare saw the scene as one big picture, and each line, each hand gesture, each movement across the stage affecting the composition. In this scene, Hamlet was excited and passionate, but also spinning and shaky. Every person onstage had to contribute to getting Hamlet’s state of mind across to the audience.

I tried not to think about our BHS production and how much it paled in comparison to what was being created in front of me.

Book Review: Prince of Shadows by Rachel Caine

Prince of Shadows by Rachel Caine / ★★★ 1/2

One sentence summary: A Romeo and Juliet retelling in which Benvolio Montague is the Prince of Shadows, thieving by night as his best friend Mercutio hopelessly loves a boy, his cousin Romeo falls helplessly in love with Juliet Capulet, and Benvolio feels the pull of her cousin Rosaline as a dark curse unravels them all.

It was more than infatuation, more than love.

It was something darker than that, and with a darker end.